Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Today’s program is the first in a series of harmonica shows I have in the pipeline. A couple of listeners have wondered why I haven’t done any harmonica features. As I looked backed I realized they were right although it certainly wasn’t intentional. Today’s program is a loosely themed tribute to a batch of great downhome harmonica blowers from the late 1940’s through the 1960’s. On deck today we spin rocking and raw sides by Papa Lightfoot, Coy “Hot Shot” Love, George “Harmonica” Smith,  Forest City Joe, Jerry McCain, Schoolboy Cleve, Lazy Lester, Kid Thomas and several others.

Thanks to a handful of terrific 1950’s sides, the name of Papa Lightfoot was revered by 1960’s blues enthusiasts. Producer Steve LaVere tracked him down in Natchez, MS cutting an album for Vault in 1969. His comeback was short-lived and he died in 1971. He cut sessions for Peacock in 1949 (unissued), Sultan in 1950, and Aladdin in 1952 preceded an amazing 1954 date for Imperial in New Orleans that produced Lightfoot’s “Mean Old Train,” “Wine Women Whiskey” and a wild “When the Saints Go Marching In.”  His final pre-rediscovery sides were cut for Savoy in 1955. We also play a cut by Ole Sonny Boy who was once though to be a pseudonym for Papa Lightfoot but is now thought to be J.D. Horton who cut two sides under that name in 1952 for Bullet and two sides as Ole Sonny Boy for Excello in 1956.

Schoolboy Cleve passed away earlier this year and this set is a belated tribute to him. Cleve cut a handful of sides between 1954-1963 for a series of small labels, backed Lightnin’ Slim on some mid-50’s sides, issued some 45’s on his own Cherrie label and in 2006 released the full length CD South to West: Iron and Gold.

Coy “Hot Shot” Love lived on Gayoso Street in Memphis, an itinerant musician and sometime sign-painter who got his one moment of glory in the recording studio on January 8, 1954, when he entered Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios to record “Wolf Call Boogie” b/w “Harmonica Jam,” backed by Mose Vinson at the piano, Pat Hare on guitar, Kenneth Banks on bass, and Houston Stokes on the drums. Love survived for decades after his one claim to recorded music legend, and died in a car accident in Interstate 55.

In his early teens, George Smith started hoboing around the the South and later joined Early Woods, a country band and also worked with a gospel group in Mississippi called the Jackson Jubilee Singers. He was supposedly one of the first to amplify his harp. He played in a number of bands including one with a young Otis Rush and later went on the road with the Muddy Waters Band. In 1954, he was offered a permanent job at the Orchid Room in Kansas City where, early in 1955, Joe Bihari of Modern Records (on a scouting trip), heard Smith, and signed him to Modern. These recording sessions were released under the name Little George Smith, and included “Telephone Blues” and “Blues in the Dark.” In the late ’50s he recorded for J&M, Lapel, Melker, and Caddy under the names Harmonica King or Little Walter Junior. He also worked with Big Mama Thornton on many shows. In 1960, Smith met producer Nat McCoy who owned the Sotoplay and Carolyn labels, with whom he recorded ten singles under the name of George Allen. In 1966, while Muddy Waters was on West Coast, he asked Smith to join him and they worked together for a while, recording for Spivey Records. Smith’s first album on World Pacific was A Tribute to Little Walter released in 1968. In 1969 he an album for Bluesway, and later made use of Smith as a sideman for his Blues Times label, including sets with T-Bone Walker, and Harmonica Slim. Smith met Rod Piazza and they formed the Southside Blues Band, later known as Bacon Fat. In 1969, Smith signed with U.K. producer Mike Vernon and did the “No Time for Jive album.” Smith was less active in the 1970’s appearing with Eddie Taylor and Big Mama Thornton. Around 1977, Smith became friends with William Clarke and they began working together. Their working relationship and friendship continued until Smith died on October 2, 1983.

George “Harmonica” Smith

William Clarke, Smith’s protege, writes “He had a technique on the chromatic harp where he would play two notes at once, but one octave apart. He would get an organ-type sound by doing this. George really knew how to make his notes count by not playing too much and taking his time by letting the music unfold easily. He could also swing like crazy and was a first-class entertainer. I have heard from a friend that they had seen George Smith in the 1950s playing a club in Chicago, tap dancing around everybody’s drinks on top of the bar while playing his harp.He played a huge role in advancing blues harmonica and should never be forgotten. You can hear the influence of George Smith in most everyone playing blues harmonica today, whether directly or indirectly.”

As a youngster, Little Walter was Jerry McCain’s main man on harp, an instrument McCain began playing at age five. In 1953 McCain made his debut for the Trumpet label in Jackson, MS, with “East of the Sun” b/w “Wine-O-Wine.” McCain’s 1954 Trumpet encore was “Stay Out of Automobiles” b/w “Love to Make Up.” McCain signed with Excello in 1955 cutting some terrific sides through 1957. One of his best-known records is his two-sided 1960 gem for Rex Records, “She’s Tough” b/w “Steady.” The Fabulous Thunderbirds later covered the A-side. McCain waxed three 45’s for OKeh in Nashville in 1962 and a series of sides between 1965-1968 for Stan Lewis’ Shreveport-based Jewel label. After too many years spent in obscurity, McCain rejuvenated his fortunes in 1989 by signing with Ichiban Records. More recently he has cut several records for the Music Maker label.

Kid Thomas was born in 1934, in Sturgis, Mississippi and moved to Chicago at a young age and by the late ’40s and early ’50s he was blowing harp at Cadillac Baby’s and a dozen other clubs. According to all accounts, he appears to have sat in with everybody at one time or another during the early to mid-’50s; Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and Bo Diddley among others. He made his debut for Federal in 1957. Two years later he move to L.A. where he cut for several small labels with little success. In 1970 he was shot by a man whose son he had killed in a car accident.

Forest City Joe was heavily influenced by John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. He was born in Hughes, AR, on July 10, 1926 and played the local juke joints in the area as a youngster. He hoboed his way through the state working road houses and juke joints during the 1940s, and late in the decade hooked up with Big Joe Williams, playing with him around St. Louis, MO. 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 II on radio shows in the West Memphis area. When he returned to Chicago in 1949, he began working with the Otis Spann Combo, 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, in a truck accident while returning home from a dance.