Big Road Blues

Show Notes

***Shortened show due to Rochester Jazz Festival live broadcast***

Plenty of pre-war and country blues on today’s program. The show opens with a trio of excellent piano numbers by James ‘Boodle It’ Wiggins, Montana Taylor and Cow Cow Davenport. I know absolutely nothing about James ‘Boodle It’ Wiggins (I have no idea what that nickname means but I like the way it sounds!) but he was a wonderfully expressive, heavy voiced singer who cut eight issued sides for Paramount in 1928 and 1929. He’s backed by an excellent unlisted piano player, who if I had to guess is likely Bob Call who plays on Wiggins’ two tracks from his first Paramount session. Montana Taylor’s “Whoop And Holler Stomp” is a rollicking barrelhouse number featuring the exuberant vocals of the Jazoo Boys. Taylor only cut two 78’s in 1929 for Vocalion, all excellent, and made a comeback in 1946 cutting some fine sides for the Circle label. Cow Cow Davenport is best remembered for his famous “Cow Cow Blues”, one of the earliest recorded examples of Boogie-Woogie. He was a dazzling piano player as he proves on the relentless “Slum Gullion Stomp.”

We play a couple of twin spins today by Leadbelly and Big Joe Williams. Leadbelly’s “When A Man’s A Long Way From Home” is a stomping boogie guitar number that opens with the following monologue: “Now I’m gonna sing you the blues when a man is a long ways from home and a stranger in a town. And that brings the boogie-woogie about, which what the boogie-woogie come from right now, I’m gonna show you where it come from and I’ve been playing it for 35 years.” From a few year earlier is a wonderful rendition of “Alabama Bound” backed by the Golden Gate Quartet. You wouldn’t think this pairing would work but there was some real magic in the studio and this number is a stunner. The two Big Joe numbers come from the excellent 5-CD set, Big Joe Williams & the Stars of Mississippi Blues, on JSP which collects everything Big Joe cut between 1935-1951 plus the complete period sides by Tommy McClennan, Robert Petway and Honeyboy Edwards. The shuffling “Wanita” features drummer Jump Jackson and the wailing harp of Sonny Boy Williamson I while “Overhauling Blues” is a fine solo number cut for Trumpet in 1951.

There’s plenty of other early country blues including “Cross Cut Saw” by the above mentioned Tommy McClennan. McClennan was part of the last wave of down-home blues guitarists to record for the major labels in Chicago, recording prolifically for Bluebird between 1939-1942. He left a powerful legacy that included “Bottle It up and Go,” “Cross Cut Saw Blues,” “Deep Blue Sea Blues” (aka “Catfish Blues”), songs covered by numerous artists. Other interesting tracks include numbers by Mississippi Sarah & Daddy Stovepipe and J.T. “Funny Papa” Smith. Johnny Watson, alias Daddy Stovepipe, was born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1867 and died in Chicago, in 1963. A veteran of the turn of the century medicine shows, he was in his late fifties when he became one of the first blues harp players to appear on record in 1924. He later recorded with his wife, Mississippi Sarah, in the 1930s and spent his last years as a regular performer on Chicago’s famous Maxwell Street, where he made his last recordings. There is very little information about the background of J.T. “Funny Papa” Smith. He was born in Texas, between 1880 and 1890, an itinerant bluesman who played the parties, fish fries and juke joints, often in the company of Texas Alexander and Dennis “Little Hat” Jones. He made nearly twenty recordings in a two-year period between 1930-1931. Amongst these was his trademark song “Howling Wolf Blues” (in a letter to dealers from Brunswick, the record, they said, was “the biggest selling record on the market today”) , and occasionally he was billed as The Howling Wolf. Shortly after his last recording session in 1931 he was purportedly involved in a fight at a gambling joint and killed a man. He was sent to the Texas Penitentiary and his blues career was effectively over. He died some years later, possibly in 1940 or thereabouts. He was a deft guitar picker, expressive singer and a talented, imaginative lyricist who deserves wider recognition.

Also on deck are some fine latter day country blues performers. I recently wrote a post about Joe Callicott who’s long been a favorite. “Joe’s Troubled Blues” comes from his final session in 1968 for Blue Horizon. All these sides plus eight unissued sides can be found on the CD Furry Lewis & Mississippi Joe Callicott: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions. Another fine Mississippi bluesman was James “Son” Thomas. Thomas grew up on a farm in Mississippi and played in juke joints and barrelhouses before he began recording in the late ’60s. Thomas made festival appearances in the ’70s and ’80s and recorded for a slew of small labels. Unfortunately many of his records are out of print. He died in 1993. We also play a cut by Boogie Bill Webb who was influenced first hand by Tommy Johnson. Moving from Mississippi, he settled in New Orleans in 1952, where longtime friend Dave Bartholomew helped Webb land a deal with Imperial Records. In 1968 he recorded several songs for folklorist David Evans later issued on the Arhoolie LP Roosevelt Holts and His Friends which is where today’s cut, “Drinkin’ And Stinkin’”, comes from. In 1989, thanks to funding from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, he also issued his first full-length LP, the Flying Fish release Drinkin’ and Stinkin’, but he died on August 22, 1990, at the age of 66.

On the post-war front we feature some distinctive singers like Dinah Washington, Big Joe Turner and Percy Mayfield. Well regarded in jazz circles, Washington was certainly a fine blues singer as she proved on albums like Back To The Blues, Sings The Blues and the excellent Dinah Washington Sings Bessie Smith. Big Joe Turner needs no introduction and is in peak form on 1948’s “Mardi Gras Boogie” sporting some fabulous boogie piano from the peerless Pete Johnson. Percy Mayfield was a much admired blues singer/song writer but the fine records he waxed for RCA in the 70’s have been overlooked. The albums Mayfield cut for the label in 1970 and 1971 (Percy Mayfield Sings, Percy Mayfield, Weakness Is a Thing Called Man, and Blues and Then Some) were excellent. Mayfield’s writing and voice remained in fine shape, and he was surrounded by terrific bands featuring musicians such as Eric Gale, Chuck Rainey, Pretty Purdie, Snooky Young, and Richard Tee to name a few plus full horn sections and female backing vocalists. A couple of years back the Raven label finally issued some of these sides on the 25 track Blues Laureate: The RCA Years.

The show also includes two gospel numbers by artists who’s music had a close affinity to blues; Rev.Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson. Davis did occasionally play blues but Johnson did not. It’s not unusual for blues artists to dabble in blues. Among those who crossed the line were Charlie Patton, Bukka White, Blind Willie McTell, Mississippi John Hurt, Sam Collins and others. Many other quit the blues life for the religious life such as Robert Wilkins, Georgia Tom (Thomas Dorsey), Ishman Bracey among others.