Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

We feature a whole batch of great barrelhouse piano players on today’s program.  We kick off with a batch of St. Louis piano men including Henry Brown, Aaron Sparks, Stump Johnson and Peetie Wheatstraw. St. Louis had an abundance of talented piano players and I’llll be doing a whole show devoted to them in a few weeks. Peetie Wheatstraw began recording with sessions in 1930 and 1931. He returned in 1934 recording steadily through 1941, becoming one of the most popular blues artists of the 30’s. Wheatstraw recorded in every year of the 1930’s save 1933, waxing 175 sides in all. He also sat in on records made by artists such as Kokomo Arnold, Bumble Bee Slim, Alice Moore, JD Short among others. His “A Man Ain’t Nothin’ But A Fool” features Lonnie Johnson on guitar, one of about two dozen sides they cut together. Henry Brown learned to play the piano from the “professors” of the notorious Deep Morgan section of St. Louis. One of them went by the name of “Blackmouth,” another was named Joe (or Tom) Cross. As Brown remembered him, “he was a real old time blues player and he’d stomp ‘em down to the bricks.” “Deep Morgan Blues” was one of his signature pieces. Brown worked clubs such as the Blue Flame Club, the 9-0-5 Club, Jim’s Place and Katy Red’s, from the twenties into the 30’s. He recorded for Brunswick with Ike Rogers and Mary Johnson in 1929, for Paramount in ‘29 and ‘30. He served in the army in the early 40’s, then formed his own quartet to work occasional local gigs in St. Louis area from the ’50s, and worked the Becky Thatcher riverboat in 1965. In addition to his pre-war recordings, he was recorded by Paul Oliver in 1960, by Sam Charters with Edith Johnson in 1961 and by Adelphi in 1969. Stump Johnson told Paul Oliver in 1960: “I had learned to play the blues by just hangin’ roun’ the pool room where they have an ole piano, just pickin’ it up for myself.” Arthur Satherly, a talent scout for QRS, discovered Stump playing at his brother Jesse’s music store on Market St. In 1929. “The Duck’s Yas Yas” on QRS became a hit, James recorded three more versions of it, and it was covered in ‘29 by Tampa Red, and several others. His last pre-war recordings were made in Chicago in  1933 for Bluebird, in the company of Dorathea Trowbridge, J.D. Short and Aaron Sparks. From that session we hear “Steady Grindin’”, a dirty blues if there ever was one:

Steady grindin’ and you can’t come in (3x)
I got your man and you can’t come in
You can’t come in and you can’t come out (3x)
Because you don’t really know what it’s all about

Raise your left leg my baby, and give me your tongue (3x)
That’s the way to make me do the beadle-e-bum
Bring me a towel baby and make it wet (3x)
I been grindin’ all night babe, and ain’t done nothin’ yet

Ain’t but one thing that makes me sore (3x)
When you grind me one time and just won’t do it no more

 Other fine piano numbers on deck today include James “Boodle It” Wiggins with the marvelous piano of Charlie Spand on “Gotta Shave ‘Em Dry.” According to Paul Oliver in Screening The Blues the term has “layers of meaning; at one level it refers to mean and aggressive action but as a sexual theme it refers to intercourse without preliminary lovemaking. Big Bill Broonzy put it succinctly: ’shave ‘em dry is what you call makin’ it with a woman; you ain’t doin’ nothin’, just makin’ it.’” Among those who sang versions of the song were Ma Rainey, Lucille Bogan, Lil Johnson, Papa Charlie Jackson among others. We also hear some terrific piano playing from Turner Parrish on the “Trenches”, Romeo Nelson’s “1129 Blues (The Midnight Special)” and Freddie ”Redd” Nicholson’s “Dirty No Gooder” featuring this interesting couplet that somehow slipped past the censor:

 I give you my money, to buy your shoes and clothes
You buy cocaine, sniff it up your nose

I had a couple of listeners ask for some harmonica features  and I have a few lined up in upcoming weeks. In the meantime we hear fine harmonica cuts by Alfred “Blues King” Harris and Forrest City Joe. Forest City Joe was heavily influenced by John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. He was raised in the area around Hughes and West Memphis, AR, and as a boy played the local juke joints in the area. He hoboed his way through the state working roadhouses and juke joints during the 1940’s. Beginning in 1947, he also began working the Chicago area, and a year later had his one and only session for the Chess brothers’ Aristocrat label. He also appeared with Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy “Rice Miller” Williamson on radio shows in the West Memphis area. When he returned to Chicago in 1949, he began working with the Otis Spann, appearing at the Tick Tock Lounge and other clubs in the city until the mid-’50s. He returned to Arkansas and gave up music, except for occasional weekend shows with Willie Cobbs, playing in poolrooms and on street corners. He recorded for Atlantic Records in 1959, and was still performing until his death in 1960.

We bounce around quite a bit geographically, hearing some West Coast blues like Gene Phillips and Mel Walker (with the Johnny Otis band), tough Detroit artists like Bobo Jenkins and James Walton and drop down to New Orleans to hear Snooks Eaglin and Sugar Boy Crawford.  Phillips was a West Coast session stalwart who appeared on a myriad of jump blues waxings during the late 40’s and early 50’s, but faded from view before the dawn of rock & roll. Phillips recorded extensively for the Modern label from 1947 through 1950. After a 78 of his own for Imperial in 1951 Phillips cut one last record in 1954. The bulk of his recordings have been reissued on the Ace CD’s Swinging The Blues and Drinkin’ & Stinkin’. He was certainly a pioneer on the electric guitar although he doesn’t step out on the instrument nearly enough. James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, recorded the original version of “Jock-A-Mo” in 1953 but rarely performs these days, leaving the legacy in the hands of his grandson Davell Crawford. Between 1953-1963 he cut singles for Checker, Chess, Imperial and Ace among other labels.

Throughout today’s show we play a number of latter day country blues artists include Fred McDowell, Roosevelt Holts, Butch Cage and Willie Thomas, Henry Johnson and John Dudley. Both the McDowell and John Dudley tracks were recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959. This is McDowell’s first recordings, taped as he played on his front porch while Dudley was an inmate of Parchman Farm, cutting a legacy of only three exceptional songs.  Also in 1959, folklorist Harry Oster “discovered” Butch Cage (fiddle and vocals) and Willie B. Thomas (vocals and guitar) in Zachary, Louisiana where they had been supplying the dance music at house parties and dances as well at church services for their neighbors. The duo was a huge hit at the 1960 Newport Folk Festival. Roosevelt Holts was born in 1905 near Tylertown, Mississippi, and he took up the guitar when he was in his mid-twenties. He started to get serious about music in the late 1930’s, when he and Tommy Johnson used to run together, playing in and around Jackson, MS. During this period he also played with Ishmon Bracey, Johnnie Temple, Bubba Brown, and One Legged Sam Norwood. He cut two very good records that remain out of print; Roosevelt Holts And Friends (Arhoolie) and Presenting The Country Blues (Blue Horizon).