Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

I’ve been trying to get a handle on my record collection in the last couple of weeks which seems to have escaped from my record room to take over the house. I still haven’t tamed my collection but did stumble upon some interesting records that are featured on today’s program. Among those are the following LP’s which are not available on CD: A Basket Of Blues (Spivey), James Brewer (Philo) and Indianapolis Jump (Flyright). A Basket of Blues is the the first album to be issued on Victoria Spivey’s Spivey record label and features sides by Lucille Hegamin, Hannah Sylvester, Victoria Spivey backed by a fine band featuring sax man Buddy Tate. A classic blues singer from the 1920’s, Lucille Hegamin survived long enough to be recorded again in the 1960’s. After performing in Seattle for a long period, Hegamin became one of the first blues singers to record in Nov. 1920, shortly after moving to New York. In addition to performing at clubs, Hegamin appeared in several Broadway shows in the 1920’s. She eventually left music, becoming a nurse in 1938. In the 1960’s she emerged, appearing at a few charity benefits before retiring from music again. In all, Lucille Hegamin recorded 68 selections between1920-26, two songs in 1932 and appeared on part of the1961 Bluesville album Songs We Taught Your Mother. She died in 1970. James Brewer was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, moved to Chicago in the 1940’s where he spent the latter part of his life busking and performing both blues and religious songs at blues and folk festivals, on Chicago’s Maxwell Street and other venues. He was recorded by Swedish Radio in 1964, cut sides for the Heritage label and Testament plus cut the full-length albums Jim Brewer for Philo and Tough Luck for Earwig. Shirley Griffith learned first hand from Tommy Johnson as a teenager in Mississippi. Griffith missed his opportunity to record as a young man but recorded three superb albums: Indiana Ave. Blues (1964, with partner J.T. Adams), Saturday Blues (1965) and Mississippi Blues (1973), all of which are out of print.

Also while trying to organize my collection I stumbled upon a pile of CD’s on the Classics label which I evidently had plans to listen to at some point before they got buried. The Classics label is a French label that specializes in jazz and blues. Their Classics R&B series focuses on chronological resissues of post-war blues - essentially a post-war version of what the Document label does for pre-war blues. At this point the label probably has a couple of hundred releases out. The label provides a valuable service to collectors by resurrecting the output of many forgotten blues artists. Some are forgotten for a reason, others deserve a better fate but over all most don’t benefit from the chronological approach. To be fair these records were never intended to be listened to in this way, instead listeners back in the day bought the records one 78 at a time.

From the Classics catalog we spin records today by J.T. Brown, Andrew Tibbs, Tom Archia, King Perry and Jo Jo Adams. Andrew Tibbs got his start singing in church choirs. When he surreptitiously began singing blues in clubs, he used his middle name and his mother’s maiden name, becoming “Andrew Tibbs.” He was singing at Jimmy’s Palm Garden when Sammy Goldberg saw him at the club and signed him to Aristocrat; Leonard Chess saw commercial potential in recording Tibbs, and decided to invest in the company. Tibbs’ debut session has always been said to be the first one that Leonard Chess attended. After Aristocrat he cut sides for a variety of labels up until 1963. Sax man Tom Archia performed mostly in jazz and swing bands. He cut some R&B sides for Aristcrat in 1947-48 as well as backing blues singers Andrew Tibbs and Jo Jo Adams. Jo Jo Adams was among the most flamboyant singers of Chicago’s South Side who sang an urbane style of blues that prevailed in the 1940’s. He also danced, told dirty jokes, and showed off his wardrobe of loudly colored formal wear with extra-long coattails. More often than not he doubled as MC at the clubs he played. Between 1946 and 1953 he cut sides for Hy-Tone, Aristocrat, Aladdin, Chance and Parrot. Mississippi-born John T. Brown was a member of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels down south before arriving in the Chicago. By 1945, Brown was recording behind pianist Roosevelt Sykes and singer St. Louis Jimmy Oden, later backing Eddie Boyd and Washboard Sam for RCA Victor. He debuted on wax as a bandleader in 1950 on the Harlem label, subsequently cutting sessions in 1951 and 1952 for Chicago’s United logo as well as JOB. Brown also backed artists like Elmore James and pianist Little Johnny He issued sides on Meteor and a final 1956 date for United that laid unissued at the time. In January of 1969, he was part of Fleetwood Mac’s Blues Jam at Chess album, even singing a tune for the project, but he died before the close of that year.  King Perry played violin as a child, but switched to alto sax when he wished to join a local band. In 1945 he went to Los Angles, appearing in a show with Dorothy Donegan and Nat King Cole; while there he made his first recordings as a leader. He led a band called the Pied Pipers through the middle of the 1950’s, making many records and touring across the United States multiple times. He recorded for Melodisc, United Artists, Excelsior, De Luxe, Specialty, Dot, RPM, Lucky, Unique, Look, and Hollywood during this period. After 1954 Perry went into a hiatus from music, but returned to play after moving to Bakersfield in 1967. In the 1970s he played as a one-man band with organ, saxophone, and percussion. Around this time he also released a number of comedy albums for his own label, Octive.

Lots of piano blues on deck including sides by Sammy Brown, Roosevelt Sykes, Dr. Hepcat, Little Brother Montgomery, Cow Cow Davenport and Sunnyland Slim. Sammy Brown cut two issued sides for Gennett in 1927 possibly backed by pianist Cripple Clarence Lofton or his own piano. Charlie McFadden waxed two-dozen sides for a variety of labels between 1929-1937 backed by pianist Roosevelt Sykes on most. Lavada Durst Known as more colorfully as Dr. Hepcat was the first black disc jockey in Texas on Austin‘s KVET. He published The Jives of Dr.Hepcat based on his outlandish radio patter. As a piano player he was influenced by Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, and locally by Robert Shaw. He cut early records on Peacock, Uptown and later recordings on Documentary Arts. Cow Cow Davenport is remembered most for his famous song “Cow Cow Blues” which is one of the earliest recorded examples of the Boogie-Woogie. Davenport’s early career revolved around carnivals and vaudeville. He toured TOBA with an act called Davenport and Company with Blues singer Dora Carr and they recorded together in 1925 and 1926. Davenport briefly teamed up with Blues singer Ivy Smith in 1928 and worked as a talent scout for Brunswick and Vocalion records in the late 1920’s and played rent parties in Chicago. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1930 and toured the vaudeville circuit and recorded with Sam Price. In 1938 he suffered a stroke that left his right hand somewhat paralyzed and affected his piano playing for the rest of his life, but he remained active as a vocalist until he regained enough strength in his hand to play again. He died in 1955. Hound head Henry was a singer who cut eight issued sides in 1928 all backed by pianist Cow Cow Davenport and proves himself an expressive singer on “My Sweet Silver Dollar Mama.”

As usual a good dose of pre-war blues including sides by Tom Bell, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie, JT Funny Papa Smith and Clifford Gibson. Gibson cut ten sides (four have either never been found or were never issued) in June 1929, four sides in November 1929, eight sides in December 1929 and two sides in 1931. In addition he did some session work and lasted long enough to wax a few scattered post-war sides in the 1950’s and 60’s. Funny Papa Smith who cut twenty issued sides between 1930 and 1931. He was a superb singer/guitarist and a marvelous lyricist. Tom Bell recorded eight sides for John Lomax and the Library of Congress in 1937 and 1940. Speaking of Lomax we jump to 1959 and a recording made of Boy Blue by Alan Lomax. Blue’s real name was Roland Hayes. “Joe Lee’s Rock” and a reading of John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” are part of a treasure trove of recordings he made in the deep South in 1959. “By nine o’clock the stereo machine was sitting on the bar,” Lomax recalled. “Forrest City Joe and his two-piece orchestra, Boy Blue and his two accompanists, along with their girlfriends and other connoisseurs of the blues, were lapping up the liquor and the music. No New York technician would have approved of the acoustics. Between takes the place was a bedlam. …The crowd danced during all the playbacks.”

Babe Stovall

Also worth mentioning are sides by two very different artists; Blu Lu Barker and Babe Stovall. Singer Blue Lu Barker was born, raised, and buried in New Orleans. In both the 1930’s and 40’s she was one of the more popular blues performers, often appearing alongside artists such as Cab Calloway and Jelly Roll Morton. Barker’s most famous recordings were done in 1938. The early Barker material features her husband Danny on banjo and guitar and the couple would continue performing together until his death. Her career continued after that, all the way up to a last recording taped live in 1998 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Born in 1907 in Tylertown, MS, Babe Stovall was the youngest of 11 children, most of them musicians. Stovall learned guitar when he was around eight years old, and was soon playing breakdowns, frolics, and parties in the area, even meeting and learning “Big Road Blues” from Tommy Johnson. In 1964 he moved to New Orleans, where he was “discovered” working as a street singer in the French Quarter. He recorded an LP for Verve in 1964, simply titled Babe Stovall, and did further sessions in 1966 and with Bob West in 1968 (which form the basis of The Old Ace, (released on Arcola in 2003 and the only collection currently available on CD), and became active on the folk and blues college circuit. He died in 1974.

Related Articles: (Word Docs)

-The Jives of Dr. Hepcat by Mike Rowe (Blues Unlimited no. 129, 1978)

-The Piano Blues of Dr Hepcat by Alan Govenar (Liner Notes, 1994)

-Lucille Hegamin - Blues & Views by Derrick Stewart-Baxter (Jazz Journal, 1970)