Big Road Blues

New Jelly Roll Blues (MP3)

Beaver Slide Rag (MP3)

In our weekly survey of the blues ads that appeared in the Chicago Defender newspaper we turn our attention to Atlanta and two records cut by Columbia a couple of weeks apart in 1927. “New Jelly Roll Blues” b/w “Beaver Slide Rag” was recorded by  Peg Leg Howell And His Gang on  April 8, 1927 and “Barbecue Blues” b/w “Cloudy Sky Blues” was recorded by Barbecue Bob on March 25th. Howell was advertised in the Chicago Defender eight times between 1927 and 1929 while Barbecue Bob was advertised in 1927 and again in 1930 with his brother Charlie Hicks.

Like Memphis, Atlanta was a staging post for musicians on their way to all points. It’s not surprising then that the first country blues musician, Ed Andrews, was recorded there in 1924. The company that recorded him, Okeh, was one of many to send their engineers to Southern cities to record local talent. Companies like Victor, Columbia, Vocalion and Brunswick made at least yearly visits until the depression. Among the bluesmen to record in Atalanta in the 1920’s, the first to arrive in the city was Joshua Barnes Powell, known as Peg Leg because of a shooting accident in 1916. “I got shot by my brother-in-law”, he told George Mitchell, “he got mad at me and shot me.” Howell was born in 1888 and his music gives us a window into what the blues sounded like before it was formally called blues. He arrived in the city in 1923 and was recorded by Columbia in November 1926. His first session featured Howell solo and are certainly appealing but it’s the rough, exciting stringband music he recorded with His Gang that really grabs attention. The gang consisted of Henry Williams on guitar and the infectious alley fiddle of Eddie Anthony. Unfortunately the trio only made a handful of recordings as Williams apparently died in jail in January 1930 while serving time for vagrancy and Anthony passed in 1934, after which Howell gave up music. Howell lost his other leg to diabetes in 1952 and in 1963 was located in Atlanta by  by blues enthusiasts Jack Boozer, Roger Brown and George Mitchell. He recorded an album on April 11, 1963 and died shortly after. I haven’t heard the recording but I’ve been reliably told that it’s rather difficult listening which is the reason, I’m sure, it has never been reissued.

Better to remember Howell in his prime as he and his pals deliver the infectious “New Jelly Roll Blues” with the driving violin of Anthony who also provides the second vocal. As if one couldn’t guess what Howell and the boys were singing about the accompanying ad makes things explicitly clear! The flip, “Beaver Slide Rag”, is a showcase for Anthony’s wailing gutbucket violin. Williams and Anthony recorded together without Howell on “Georgia Crawl” b/w “Lonesome Blues” on April 19, 1928. In addition Anthony recorded as Macon Ed with the mysterious Tampa Joe. They cut eight sides in 1930.

Barbecue Blues (MP3)

Cloudy Sky Blues (MP3)

Within a year or so of Howell’s arrival in Atlanta, Robert Hicks came to the city. He learned guitar, as did his older brother Charlie, and their friend Curley Weaver from the latter’s mother Savannah Weaver.  Hicks earned his sobriquet from his day job as the chef of a barbecue restaurant and Columbia photographed him for their publicity material in his work apron.  As Barbecue Bob he became the most heavily recorded Atlanta bluesman of the 1920’s with his records selling steadily for Columbia until his untimely death in 1931. He recorded over fifty issued sides between 1927 and 1930, hitting big at his second session with “Mississippi Heavy Water blues.” The song was so well known it was even mentioned by the preacher at his funeral. After the song’s success, Hicks was recorded every time Columbia came through Atlanta with a mobile unit, resulting in two sessions every year plus a few others on the side. Tony Russell describes what made Hicks’ style so unique and appealing: “The big sound of the 12-string guitar made its full impact only on electrical recordings and if Barbecue Bob was not the first player to profit from that innovation he was certainly the first to do so on a national… The thunder of his bass notes and strummed lower strings was pierced by darts of lightning as he touched the high strings, often with slide. Accurate recording also brought out the warmth and friendliness of his singing, which suggests a man of sunny self-confidence…”

According to Robert M.W. Dixon John Godrich in their book Recording The Blues, 10, 850 copies of “Barbecue Blues” b/w “Cloudy Sky Blues” were pressed. ” Intial sales were so good that Hicks was called to New York in the middle of June to record 8 more numbers, and when Columbia returned to Atlanta in November they not only recorded a further 8 selections by Barbecue Bob, but also 6 by his brother Charley Lincoln, who sang the same sort of songs in very much the same style.” The Chicago Defender ad uses the barbecue theme in the text and illustration which, like many of these ads, is not exactly politically correct.