Big Road Blues

In part one I discussed Alexander’s sides with Lonnie Johnson, hands down his finest accompanist. That by no means is meant to take anything away from the rest of Alexander’s output or his musical partners, it’s just to point out the sheer genius of the Johnson sessions. After two sessions with Johnson, Alexander was paired with pianist Eddie Heywood on four numbers cut at back to back dates on August 16th and 17th of 1927. The pairing of the sophisticated Heywood with Alexander’s musical unpredictability worked better than one would think particularly on “Sabine River Blues”, a true masterpiece, a beautiful number with a gorgeous melody, sung with great feeling. Heywood’s playing is sensational throughout. “Mama, I Heard You Brought It Right Back Home” has an equally attractive melody with almost a bit of a pop feel. There’s a loose, light feel to the Heywood sides that are quite attractive and all four numbers are quite strong including “Farm Hand Blues” and “Evil Women Blues.” Lyrically “Mama, I Heard You Brought It Right Back Home” is perhaps the most interesting as Alexander freely mixes traditional lyrics with strikingly original imagery:

If I leave here runnin’, mama, don’t you follow me (2x)
If I leave here walking, you can go with me

Sally went to cookin’, man, but she didn’t know how (2x)
Says, she put cayenne pepper, mama, in my hot bow-wow

Says, I’m goin’ up the country, mama, don’t you want to go? (2x)
Said I need another dozen, right on my right side, sho’

If I’m get lucky, mama, should happen to work (2x)
I’m gonna carry my money right on back home again

I’d rather see my coffin easin’ through the world (2x)
Than to see my woman do me like she does

I’m scared to go down that big road by myself (2x)
‘Fore I go, baby, I’ll carry me someone else

These recordings makes one wish he had recorded more often with a pianist. It should be noted that Alexander seems to have given little thought to his accompanists. As Paul Oliver points out he “seems to have made little effort to vary his approach to blues singing, or to adjust to his accompanists; they had to fall in with him, and accept, both his timing and erratic verse structure.”

In part one we discussed “Work Ox Blues” and “The Risin’ Sun” which featured both Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang. Lang went on to back Alexander on “St. Louis Fair Blues” and “I Am Calling Blues” and plays in a trio with pianist Clarence Williams and New Orleans jazz legend King Oliver on “Tell Me Woman Blues” and “‘Frisco Train Blues.” Lang’s playing is very fine but lacks the imagination and improvisatory feel of Lonnie Johnson although he seems to have no shortage of interesting ideas. King Oliver plays some beautiful, sympathetic cornet fills on both numbers with Lang taking a particularly lovely solo on “Tell Me Woman Blues.”

On June 15th 1929 Alexander cut eight sides with Texas guitarist Little Hat Jones. Jones played in a classic Texas blues style and opens each number in up-tempo fashion before slowing down to accommodate Alexander. The two made a good team with Jones playing consistently interesting, varied runs behind Alexander’s vocals. The best performance was “Ninety-Eight Degree Blues” sung with plenty of gusto and mixing traditional imagery with frank sexuality:

I’m gonna get up in the mornin’, do like Buddy Brown (2x)
I’m gonna eat my breakfast, God, and lay back down
I say I’m gonna eat my breakfast, man, and lay back down

When a man get hairy, y’know he needs a shave (2x)
When a woman get musty, you know she needs to bathe (2x)

I’ve got somethin’ to tell you, make the hair rise on your head (2x)
Got a new way of lovin’ a woman, make the springs screech on her bed
I’ve got a new way of lovin’ a woman, make the springs screech on her bed

“Someday, Baby, Your Troubles is Gonna Be Like Mine” is a lovely number featuring some exceptional playing from Jones while “Johnny Behren’s Blues” is another stand out track. According to Oliver “Behren (or Behrens) was a local singer who had one extended blues on which he told of his skill as a sailor, jockey or other occupation, and how he ‘learned’ the women he knew”. Alexander delivers it thusly:

When I was a sailor, sailin’ on the deep blue sea (2x)
Say, I learned all the women, man, them ocean ways

Says, I learned a way that every woman crave (2x)
Say, it must be a new way that really won’t behave

When I was a jockey, I learned my baby how to ride (2x)
Say, I learned her how to ride, man, from side to side

It’s a reoccurring oddity in Alexander’s songs that often the title not only doesn’t appear in the song but bears no relation to the song itself.

On November 29 1929 Alexander was paired with another Texan guitarist, Carl Davis who fronted the Dallas Jamboree Jug Band which cut five sides in 1935. Davis also appears on eight sides (two others went unissued) with guitarist Willie Reed on a September 1934 session which ran over two days. Reed had cut solo sides in Dallas in 1928 and 1935. Regarding Davis’ style, Oliver noted that he “had an arpeggio style which linked him with Lonnie Johnson and Gene Campbell, which he was flexible enough to fit around Alexander’s notably erratic song structures.” The highlight from this session is “Texas Special” sporting some terrific flat-picked guitar from Davis and wonderful singing including a gorgeous humming coda. The song is a fascinating grab bag of traditional, original and cryptic lyrics:

When the Blues come to Texas, they come ’round through the woods (2x)
Then they stopped by my house, done all the harm they could

When I leave this time, paint your windows green (2x)
Said, if I don’t never die, woman, I’ll be-e-e seldom seen

I’d rather see my coffin rollin’ up to my back door (2x)
Than to hear my woman say she can’t use me no more

I’d rather see my brother come in staggerin’ drunk (2x)
Than to see my woman, Lord, packin’ up her trunk

The “blues come to Texas” image is one drawn from Blind Lemon Jefferson as is the “matchbox” theme at the end of “Johnny Behren’s Blues.” He references Lemon again with the “piney wood” image in “Peaceful Blues”, yet another lyrically interesting number:

Said, mama told me, told me, papa sat and cried (2x)
Say, “You’re too young a man to have that many women your side.” (2x)

Says, I woke up laughin’, went down the road a-flyin’ (2x)
Says, I always had Miss Margie on my mind

I’m gonna climb my woman’s belly like a yoyo do a string (2x)
If I don’t fix her up, I’ll be in a dirty name

I love my woman better than a cow loves to chew her cud (2x)
Lord, that fool, she got mad, moved to the piney wood

Mmmmm, heeeumm,
Hee-ehhh, ummmuhh
Lord, that fool, she got mad and moved to the piney woods

“Perhaps both singers drew on a common source” Oliver conjectures. “We’ll never know, but the evidence of his recordings reveal Texas Alexander to have been among the most individual of singers, and the least subject to the influence of others.”

*Thanks with lyric transcriptions to John M and the members of Weenie Campbell

Sabine River Blues (MP3)

Ninety-Eight Degree Blues (MP3)

Johnny Behren’s Blues (MP3)

Texas Special (MP3)