Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

For today’s show we continue with our ongoing series I call Forgotten Blues Heroes. For this installment we spotlight four great bluesmen who didn’t get the opportunity to record until the 1960′s and 1970′s: Scott Dunbar, Bill Williams, Babe Stovall and Frank Hovington. As the blues historian Paul Oliver wrote: “Throughout the Sixties, it seemed there was one ‘discovery’ or ‘rediscovery’ of a blues singer after another; a succession of methodical searches, happy accidents and dramatic events which brought not only a number of legendary figures to life, but also revealed that the wealth of talent in the black traditions had been even greater than might have been supposed.”

All of today’s featured artists were old enough to have been recorded earlier but opportunity passed them by until the blues revival of the 1960′s. In addition to the resurrection of the legendary artists of the past like Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White and Skip James there were a slew of older artists uncovered who got a chance to make some recordings such as Mississippi Fred McDowell, Robert Pete Williams and Mance Lipscomb to name a few. Unlike those who recorded back in the 1920′s and 30′s for the commercial record companies and black consumers, those who recorded in the 1960′s and 70′s were being recorded primarily for a new found white audience, with the records issued usually on tiny specialist labels. The benefit wasn’t in sales of records so much as it was the fact that these recordings would be an entry way into the festival and coffeehouse circuit. Unfortunately many of these small labels never lasted into the CD era and hence many great albums remain long out of print. The bulk of today’s recordings fall into that category.

Scott Dunbar

In the notes to his sole album, From Lake Mary issued on the Ahura Mazda label in 1970, Karl Micheal Wolfe wrote that “Today Scott Dunbar is a fisherman and guide on Lake Mary, father of six, and resident blues singer of Woodville and rural Wilkinson County, Mississippi. There everyone knows old Scott. We hope this record will make him known to a wider audience.” Prior to the recordings in 1970 Dunbar was recorded by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. in 1954 as part of field recordings done under a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Ramsey’s recordings appeared on the ten volume series Music from the South on Folkways with four of Dunbar’s recordings on Music From The South Vol. 5: Song, Play And Dance and one side on Music From The South Vol. 10: Been Here And Gone. Three more issued sides were recorded in 1968, which appeared on the album Blues From The Delta, the companion album to William Ferris’ influential book of the same name.

Dunbar gave up the juke joints because they were too dangerous and in later years played primarily for whites. William Ferris wrote in Blues From The Delta that “I recorded thirty-seven songs during my visits with Dunbar and of these, two thirds were sung white style in the key of C. ” The thirteen songs on From Lake Mary are mostly blues, likely selected to appeal to the blues revival market while the vast majority of recordings from this session have not been issued, forty-eight unissued sides in total.  At lengthy recording sessions n February, April and August of 1970 Dunbar proves to be a true songster, laying down songs like “Wabash Cannonball”, “Sally Good’n”, “Blue Heaven”, “Tennessee Waltz” and  “You Are My Sunshine.” In 1994 Fat Possum reissued From Lake Mary on CD with no additional tracks.Dunbar passed away at the age of 90 in 1994 with his death largely unnoticed outside of a couple of obituaries in blues magazines and a recorded legacy of  nineteen issued sides.

Bill Williams, was a 72-year old bluesman from Greenup, Kentucky, when he made his debut for Blue Goose in the early 1970′s. Stephen Calt wrote that “The previously unrecorded Williams ranks among the most polished and proficient living traditional bluesmen, and has a large repertoire embracing ragtime, hillbilly, and even pop material. He is also the only known living associate of Blind Blake, his own favorite guitarist. …Disbelief is the inevitable reaction to incredible Bill Williams, a former partner of Blind Blake who is without doubt the most technically accomplished living country blues guitarist. …While living in Bristol, Tennessee in the early 1920′s Bill met the peerless Blind Blake who was then living with an elderly woman (perhaps a relative) in a desolate nearby country area. For four months Bill worked as Blake’s regular second guitarist…” Williams cut just two LP’s, both for Blue Goose: Low And Lonesome and The Late Bill Williams ‘Blues, Rags and Ballads plus had one song on the anthology These Blues Is Meant To Be Barrelhoused.

From the notes to The Late Bill Williams ‘Blues, Rags and Ballads, Stephen Calt wrote: “For a guitarist of such uncommon ability Bill Williams enjoyed an all-too brief period of public recognition. Within fifteen minutes of the time he first picked up an instrument in 1908 he was accomplished enough to play a song, but he was still completely unknown beyond his home town of Greenup, Kentucky before Blue Goose recorded him in the fall of 1970 and issued an album (Low and Lonesome) that brought him unqualified acclaim as a 73-year old folk find. A brief series of concert engagements (notably at the Smithsonian Institution and the Mariposa Folk Festival) followed, along with an extended recording session in New York, before a heart ailment brought about his musical retirement. In October of 1973, nearly three years to the day of his recording debut, he was fatally stricken in his sleep. This memorial album and its soon to be released sequel will constitute the remainder of Bill’s musical legacy.”

Jewell “Babe” Stovall was a Mississippi-born songster who was born in 1907 in Tylertown, MS, Babe 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. He moved to Franklinton, LA, in the 1930s, and split his time between there and Tylertown for several years, picking up whatever work he could as a farmhand. In 1964 he moved to New Orleans, where he was “discovered” working as a street singer in the French Quarter, his act featuring crowd-pleasing antics like playing his National Steel guitar behind his head and shouting out his song lyrics in a voice so loud that it carried well down the street. He recorded an LP for Verve in 1964, simply titled Babe Stovall (re-released on CD by Flyright in 1990), and did further sessions in 1966 released on Southern Sound as The Babe Stovall Story and with Bob West in 1968 (which form the basis of The Old Ace: Mississippi Blues & Religious Songs, released on Arcola in 2003), and became active on the folk and blues college circuit, as well as holding down a house gig at the Dream Castle Bar in New Orleans. Stovall died in 1974 in New Orleans.

Bruce Bastin called Frank Hovington or Guitar Frank as he was also known, “one of the finest singers to have been recorded during the 1970′s…steeped in a tradition which is as much part of him as is the countryside about him.” Bastin and Dick Spotswood recorded Frank in 1975, issuing the album Lonesome Road Blues on the Flyright label (reissued in 2000 as Gone With The Wind with several additional tracks). Frank was still in fine form when he reluctantly agreed to perform for Axel Küstner and Siegfried Christmann in 1980. The results were issued as part of their remarkable Living Country Blues series. Hovington started on ukulele and banjo as a child and teamed with Willliam Walker in the late ’30s and ’40s playing at house parties and dances in Frederica, Pennsylvania. Hovington moved to Washington D.C. in the late ’40s, and backed such groups as Stewart Dixon’s Golden Stars and Ernest Ewin’s Jubilee Four. Hovington moved to Delaware in 1967 where he passed in 1982.

In part one we followed Sylvester Weaver’s career up through his April 1927 sessions. Up to that point Weaver had only sang lead on two numbers but in upcoming sessions would sing on several numbers. Weaver sang in a careful, deliberate manner which revealed a fine baritone. What wasn’t evident was his lyric ability which displays a wicked wit and some very imaginative an unusual imagery. I’ll be reprinting many of these lyrics and want to thank John M. and the folks at Weenie Campbell who have done a remarkable job transcribing Weaver’s lyrics.

One of Weaver’s duties for Okeh was apparently as talent scout. On April 27th April, 1927 he received the following Western Union cable from Tom Rockwell, OKeh’s Director of Recording:

Report with Jug-band as soon as possible.

Wire me Chase Hotel when you leave and if quartet and girls is coming.
T.G. Rockwell

It’s clear from this that Weaver was in charge of bringing talent to the OKeh studio in St. Louis for the session on April 29th and 30th. The jug band mentioned in the cable is Whistler and His Jug Band which had recorded for Gennet in 1924. The others taking part in the session were Helen Humes and the Kentucky Jubilee Four. The Kentucky Jubilee Four cut four religious sides on April 29th and Helen Humes made her debut the next day. Although Lonnie Johnson played on Humes’ two issued sides, Weaver may have played on the session too since one of the unissued titles is “Stomping Weaver’s Blues.”

On August 30th Weaver accompanied Sara Martin for the last time in New York on a four song session and the following day cut six solo sides, two of which were unissued. Martin’s sides are particularly strong and Weaver’s playing is as tasteful and inventive as we’ve come to be expect. “Black Hearse Blues” is a commanding performance with dark, unique lyrics:

Old dead wagon, don’t you dare stop at my door (2X)
You took my first three daddies, but you can’t have number four

Smallpox got my first man, booze killed number two (2X)
I wore out the last one but with this one, I ain’t through

Roll on, old black hearse, don’t you dare to stop (2X)
My man ain’t fit to die, he’s a special liquor cop

Low-down bone orchard, call your corpse cart back (2X)
My daddy’s engine still running on my double track

Black hearse, there ain’t no use, you sure can’t have my man
Black hearse, ain’t no use, you sure can’t have my man
I’m just using him up on the old installment plan

“Useless Blues” is sung in a lighter manner but showcases Martin singing from the viewpoint of a saucy, independent woman as she explains to her man:

Oh, hey, what’s that I heard you say?
Hey, what’s that I heard you say?
You are going away and leave me today

If you go away, and leave me today (2x)
Says, you can’t come back, so you had better stay

Uh, here’s a little lesson I want you to learn (2X)
That if you play with fire you are sure to get burned

Now, you know you used to love me just like a sheik (2X)
But now all you can do is to pat my cheek

So if you want to come back, papa, you’ve got to get some monkey glands (2X)
‘Cause I don’t want no cripple man hanging on my hands

The following day Weaver cut four vocal numbers: the instrumentals “Soft Steel Piston” and “Off Center Blues” with the latter two numbers unissued and no copy of “Off Center Blues” found. “Soft Steel Piston” first surfaced in the 1970′s and like “Six String Banjo Piece”, no file information exists on this number. It was first issued on the album Folk Music In America Vol. 14 – Solo And Display Music part of a 15 LP Library of Congress series to celebrate the Bicentennial in 1976. Both numbers were likely provided titles by Dick Spottswood who compiled and wrote the notes for the series. “Soft Steel Piston” is lovely, gentle mid-tempo number featuring Hawaiian style slide with  Weaver accompanied by guitarist Walter Beasley. “Dad’s Blues” is a beautiful twelve-bar blues as is “What Makes A Man Blue” with a musically similar approach.  “Can’t Be Trusted Blues” is languorously sung blues as Weaver delivers menacing lyrics quite at odds with his mellow vocals:

I don’t love nobody, that’s my policy (2X)
I’ll tell the world that nobody can get along with me

I can’t be trusted, can’t be satisfied (2X)
The men all know it and pin their women to their side

I will sure back-bite you, gnaw you to the bone (2X)
I don’t mean maybe, I can’t let women alone

Pull down your windows and lock up all your doors (2X)
Got ways like the devil, papa’s skating on all fours

“Penitentiary Bound Blues” is another mellow number given an exceptional lonesome sounding vocal performance as Weaver really inhabits the persona of a prisoner resigned to his fate:

Thought I was goin’ to the workhouse, my heart was filled with strife (2X)
But I’m goin’ to the penitentiary, judge sentenced me for life

There’ll be rock walls around me, burnin’ sand below
There’ll be rock walls around me, burnin’ land below
There forever, got no other place to go

Goodbye, here’s the jailer with the key (2X)
Farewell to freedom, tain’t no use to pity me

Gonna get my number, four-eleven forty-four (2X)
Soon be an inmate, steel upon my door

Killed my triflin’ woman, folks, I done commit a crime (2X)
Nothin’ will release me but old Father Time

Weaver was back in the studios for two sessions on November 26th and 27th. Walter Beasley appears alongside Weaver on all numbers and Helen Humes recorded eight numbers with the duo. In 1977 Jim O’Neal interviewed Humes (Living Blues No. 52, 1982) and she recalled Weaver and the circumstances behind these recordings:

LIVING BLUES: You made some records with Sylvester Weaver.

HELEN HUMES: Yes, he was the man, he had heard me play with a little band-we had a little Sunday school band and we would go out and play for little dances, you how, and play at the theater and what have you. And Mr. Weaver heard me and he brought Mr. Rockwell out to my house to hear me sing and play. I used to play the piano. So I played and sang for Mr. Rockwell, and he wanted me to come to St. Louis to make this tape. And so 1 went, he tool; my mother with me because I was a little young to travel by myself. So then after I made that, well, he wanted me to call my mother to ask her if I could join a show. And my mother told him no, I’d have to finish school first, and then after I finished school, than whatever I wanted to do, she would go along, you know, if it was something nice.

Was Sylvester Weaver involved with your work very much?

No, no, on that just that particular thing.

Did the producers or the A&R men give those songs to you, or did you have some songs already?

No, they gave ‘em to me. Yeah. There, boy, here I am, a little 14-year-old, singing Do What You Did Last Night, [Laughs] and If Papa Has Outside Lovin’, Mama Has Outside Lovin’ Too. You know I didn’t have that. [Laughs.] Yes

One year before her death Humes wrote writer Guido Van Rijn the following letter in response to an inquiry:

“We were playing a theater called The Palace, at 11th and Walnut and Mr. Weaver heard me, and came to me and introduced himself. I had heard of him, but had never met him before. He got my name, address and phone number, and the next time I saw him he was at my house Mr. Rockwell. He became very good friends with my mother and father, and when I made my second session in New York, my mother let me go with Mr. and Mrs. Weaver. He used to play the T.O.B.A. circuit and traveled the south. He was very well-known down there. …I’ve never heard no one say a bad thing about Mr. Weaver. All his Smoketown friends adored him. He was so nice + friendly and everybody in Ky. adored him.”

The Humes recordings are marked by some terrific backing from Weaver and Beasley who, free from vocal duties, lay down some exciting, dramatic accompaniment . While Humes sounds young, she possesses a strong, bright voice with clear diction and really sings these numbers with conviction. The lyrics to many are quite unusual and I assume it was probably Weaver who wrote the numbers.  Take “Cross-Eyed Blues” for example:

Got one superstition, that’s the one I really prize (2X)
I don’t like nobody who’s got a pair of mean crossed eyes

Had a cross-eyed man, hateful as a man could be (2X)
Slept with his eyes open, always looking ‘cross at me

Gee, but he was ugly, eyed me every way I turn (2X)
I could feel him lookin’, Lordy, how his eyes did burn

Crossed eyes make me shiver, ’cause they’re evil, low and mean (2X)
Hateful as the Devil, queerest eyes I’ve ever seen

Folks who’s got them cross-eyes, says they see in vain
Folks who’s got them cross-eyes, things they see is always wrong
That’s why me and cross-eyes, never gonna get along

If I see a cross-eyed person I was about to meet (2X)
I’d just cross my fingers, then I’d walk across the street

“Alligator Blues” is a similarly strange and intriguing number with a cinematic quality:

Sleepin’ in the swamps last night, down in the Everglades (2X)
Woke and found the alligators ’bout to make a raid

Heard ‘em talkin’ softly, said, “We’re gonna have dark meat.” (2X)
Gee, their mouths did water, thought that they was gonna eat

My flesh commenced to crawlin’, my skin began to itch (2X)
It was time for travelin’, but the swamp was dark as sin

Soon the moon was shinin’ softly through the old cane brake (2X)
Got myself together for a dash I tried to make

The sweat it was a-popping, hair was standing on my head (2X)
I said, “Lord, have mercy, or that woman’s gonna be dead

“Alligator Blues” was advertised in the January 14th, 1928 Chicago Defender as the flipside to “Everybody Does It Now.” “Race Horse Blues” is a another humorous number featuring some exciting interplay between Weaver and Beasley and more marvelous wordplay; the third couplet’s a real gem:

Went down to the race track, with my money in my hand (2X)
Bet on Chocolate Puddin’, but he just an also-ran

On old Fleetfoot Suzy, I done and went and bet the most (2X)
She never did get started, the ponies left her at the post

Never seen a race horse like the one that broke my heart (2X)
Just a rippling has-been, he made my dough from me depart

Darn that lazy jockey, wouldn’t do what he was told (2X)
Now I’m in the barrel, sweet papa’s left in the cold

Bet on old Speeding Meter, sure thing and he couldn’t lose (2X)
Now I’m broke and busted and cryin’ with the race horse blues

Similar lyrical invention can be found in “Nappy Headed Blues” and the hilariously vivid “”Garlic Blues.” Weaver takes the vocals on six numbers including fine narrative blues like “Chitlin’ Rag Blues”, “Railroad Porter Blues”, the latter advertised in the Chicago Defender with its flipside “Polecat Blues”, and more striking lyricism in “Me And My Tapeworm” and “Devil Blues.” Dick Spottswood wrote the following regarding “Me And My Tapeworm:”

“This gourmand’s confession is one of several intriguing and previously undocumented recordings which have emerged from the CBS archives. No information in their extensive files revealed its existence; a sample pressing was made to determine what the music was. Though we are certain about the performers’ identities, the title of the song is taken from song’s words.”

The song first surfaced in the 1970′s along with “Soft Steel Piston” and “Six String Banjo Piece” and, like those numbers appears as part of a 15 LP Library of Congress series to celebrate the Bicentennial in 1976 o the volume titled Folk Music In America Vol. 11 – Songs Of Humor And Hilarity. Why this number wasn’t released is anybody’s guess. The lyrics are truly remarkable and the numbers sports some marvelous bottleneck that really drive the song home:

Gee, I’m always hungry, can’t get enough to eat
Gee, I’m hungry, can’t get enough to eat
I’m just like a savage, I could eat a barrel of meat

Set down to the table, ate up everything I could found
Set down to the table, ate up everything I found
Would have ate the dishes if someone hadn’t been around

Pot of ham and cabbage, ain’t enough to fill mine (2X)
That just makes me peckish, I could eat a dozen fine

Saw my family doctor, said I had a big tapeworm
I saw my family doctor, said I had a big tapeworm
Said I had ate a cow, made me good and firm

Went to the country, broke into a chicken coop
I went to the country, broke into a chicken coop
Stole a dozen chickens, put ‘em in a pot of soup

I’m a greedy glutton, eat fifty times a day (2X)
When I’m around a pigpen, they hide the slop away

Guess me and my tapeworm must go further down the road (2X)
‘Cause we eat so much, won’t nobody give us no board

“Devil’s Blues” is another imaginative and humorous number:

Had a dream while sleeping, found myself way down below, my Lord,
I had a dream while sleeping, found myself way down below
Couldn’t get to Heaven, Hell’s the place I had to go

Devil had me cornered, stuck me with his old pitchfork (2X)
And he put me in an oven, thought he had me for roast pork

Hellhounds start to chasin’ me and I was a runnin’ fool
Hellhounds start to chase me and I was a runnin’ fool
My ankles caught on fire, couldn’t keep my puppies cool

Four thousand devils with big tails and sharp horns, my Lordy,
Saw a thousand devils with tails and sharp horns
Everyone wandered, tried to step on my corns

For miles around I heard men scream and yell, my Lord,
For miles around, heard men scream and yell
Couldn’t see a woman, I said, “Lord, ain’t this Hell?”

This number was surprisingly updated by Lazy Bill Lucas in 1954 for Chance as “I Had A Dream.” The two day session was of a remarkably productive, high caliber with Weaver and Beasley proving an unbeatable team. Nothing is known of Beasley and when asked Humes did not remember him. The duo cut loose on two instrumentals: the breakneck masterpiece “Bottleneck Blues” and a gorgeous, seductive reading of “St. Louis Blues.”

Weaver and Beasley were back in the studio for the final time on November 30th for a five song session. It was Beasley’s turn to shine, taking the vocal on four numbers: “Georgia Skin”, “Southern Man Blues”, “Toad Frog Blues” and “Sore Feet Blues.”  “Georgia Skin” is named for the card game celebrated by Peg Leg Howell, Memphis Minnie and others. Beasley draws out his vocals slowly and surely, revealing a very expressive vocal style. The session features superb integration between bottleneck and the accompanying guitar, particularly on “Toad Frog Blues” and “Sore Feet Blues.” There seems to be a a bit of conjecture as to who’s playing the bottleneck and who’s providing accompaniment. Once again we are treated to some imaginative lyrics as in “Toad Frog Blues” which touches on the surreal:

Tadpole in the river, hatchin’ underneath of a log (2X)
He got too old to be a tadpole, he hatched into a natch’l frog

If a toad frog had wings, he would be flyin’ all around (2X)
He would not have his bottom bumpin’ thumpin’ on the ground

Ever time I see a toad frog, Lord, it makes me cry (2X)
Make me think about my baby, when he (sic) roll her goo-goo eyes

The humorous “Sore Feet Blues” is another gem sporting a very droll delivery from Beasley:

I got two feet, keeps me with the blues (2X)
Got nineteen corns, can’t wear nar’ pair shoes

A peg-legged man, he’s one lucky fool (2X)
Only got one feet to hurt, he kicks that like a mule

I can’t walk, feets hurts me when I stand
I can’t walk around, my feets hurts me when I stand
Got to take a lesson, learn to walk on my hands

‘Black Spider Blues” is a solo number taken at Weaver’s typically relaxed pace with some terrific superstitious imagery:

Saw a big black spider, creepin’ up my bedroom wall (2X)
Finds out he was only goin’ to get his ashes hauled

Say, if that black spider bit you, it would be “Too bad, Jim” (2X)

Give your heart to the devil and your hips would belong to him

I’m gonna get a black spider, put him in the bottom of your shoe (2X)
That’s the only way I can get rid of a jade like you

A rattlesnake is dangerous, a black spider is worser still (2X)
A razor gun, a pistol, will kill you like a black spider will

I been workin’ like a work ox, on Saturday night you got my pay (2X)
While you’re in the black bottom dance hall, black bottomin’ your
time away.

Black spider, black horses, black horses with the curtains down (2X)
Black gal, you and your black bottom be six feet in the ground

Sylvester Weaver’s career came to an abrupt end after these recordings. It’s unknown why he stopped recording as he appears to have still been quite popular. Of his post-recording career we know that Weaver went into the Chauffeur business. As the blues revival was picking up steam, Weaver died of carcinoma of the tongue on April 4th, 1960 at 2001 Old Shepardville Road in Louisville. It was only two years after his death hat blues researcher Paul Garon, at the prompting of Paul Oliver, spoke to Weaver’s widow Dorothy who said she had never heard her husband play. Garon would later open up a Chicago book store named Beasley Books (wonder where he got that name?!) which remains active to this day. Fortunately Weaver’s widow saved some of his old records and his scrapbook which has become a prime source of information about Weaver’s recording activities. In 1992 the Kentucky Blues Society raised enough funds to place a headstone on the grave of Sylvester Weaver, and this same organization presents its Sylvester Weaver Award annually to “those who have dedicated their lives to presenting, preserving, and perpetuating the blues.”

Can’t Be Trusted Blues (MP3)

Penitentiary Blues (MP3)

Soft Steel Piston (MP3)

Me And My Tapeworm (MP3)

Devil Blues (MP3)

Alligator Blues (MP3)

Race Horse Blues (MP3)

Bottleneck Blues (MP3)

St. Louis Blues (MP3)

Toad Frog Blues (MP3)

Sore Feet Blues (MP3)

It’s hard to think of the blues without a guitar but in the years when blues first emerged on record it was the blues queens who dominated the market. When the guitar did appear, after several years, it was treated as quite a novelty. The man who introduced the guitar on record was the remarkable guitarist Sylvester Weaver, a man of many talents who cut a significant body of work at the dawn of the blues recording era but remains little remembered today. Not only does he have the distinction of making the first solo recordings of blues guitar playing in 1923 but he was also the first to provide guitar accompaniment on record, backing the popular Sara Martin. Through the end of 1927, when Weaver decided to retire from music, he recorded a total of 26 sides under his own name, two dozen sides backing Sara Martin and eight sides accompanying a teenaged Helen Humes. Weaver was a consummate guitarist, displaying brilliance and invention on just about every session he was involved with, whether providing tasteful backing to female singers, playing deft slide or showing off his ragtime picking style. He also happened to be a fine banjo player, a mannered but superb blues singer and a lyricist of rare wit and invention.

Sylvester Weaver & Sara Martin

Relatively little is known about Weaver although we are lucky that  he left behind a rare paper trail with several of his records advertised, a number of mentions in the black press of the time and most importantly the discovery of his scrapbook in the 1970′s. Weaver was born on July 25, 1897 in Louisville, Kentucky, a resident of Smoketown, a neighborhood one mile southeast of downtown Louisville.  In fact Weaver lived his entire life in the Louisville area. From his death certificate we know that his father was Walter Weaver, his mother was Mattie who’s maiden name was Emery and that he died of cancer on April 4, 1960 in Louisville. In Louisville blacks lived in separate colored districts: Uptown, Downtown and Smoketown.  Most of the area’s blues artists came from Smoketown which acquired its name from the dirty smoke from the many small industrial plants burning soft coal for power and heat. The area had many saloons which featured blues singers playing guitar or piano in the back rooms. Smoketown has been a historically black neighborhood since the Civil War. With its shotgun houses and narrow streets, the neighborhood was a densely populated area with a population of over 15,000 by 1880. African American property ownership was rare, with most living in properties rented from whites. Weaver immortalized the area in the 1924 recording “Smoketown Strut.” Outside of this biographical sketch little else is known and he was little remembered by his peers. The only artist to have anything to say about Weaver was Lonnie Johnson. Paul Oliver reported that Johnson “was very impressed by Weaver’s guitar playing – in fact he very  seldom spoke about anyone else’s work, but Weaver obviously  (in person anyway) was someone he respected.” In all his years of intrepid blues research, Oliver writes, “Lonnie was the only blues singer I ever met who recalled Weaver.” It was Johnson who gave Oliver the tip that Weaver was from Louisville as Oliver recalled: “Lonnie told me that while he was working in St. Louis, playing both for Charlie Creath’s riverboat band and also at the Booker T. Washington Theatre in 1925, he met Sylvester Weaver who was traveling on tour with Sara Martin.”

Weaver likely got on record through Sara Martin, also a native of Louisville, who was born there in 1884. She probably heard Weaver playing in the area and decided to use him on her recordings. Weaver first recorded in New York in 1923, where on October 23 of that year he accompanied Martin on two numbers, “Longing For Daddy Blues” and “I’ve Got to Go And Leave My Daddy Behind,” for Okeh. Two weeks later, Weaver cut his first pair of solo recordings, “Guitar Blues” and “Guitar Rag” for the same label. The Sara Martin selections represented the first time on records that a popular female singer had been backed up solely by guitar, and were an immediate success. Two more recordings with Martin were recorded at this session, “Roamin’ Blues” b/w “Good-Bye Blues.” Both “Guitar Blues” and “Guitar Rag” are smooth, melodic slide numbers probably played with a knife. It was “Guitar Rag” (Weaver recorded it again in 1927) that would prove influential as Dick Spottswood noted: “In 1936 it was recorded by Bob Wills, featuring his popular guitarist Leon McAuliffle, and called ‘Steel Guitar Rag.’ Without citing Weaver as the source of the melody, McAuliffle’s version became a national hit and gave the amplified steel guitar a permanent place in country music.” The song later returned to the blues canon when it was recorded on three different occasions in 1953 and 1969 by Earl Hooker.

As for the Martin/Weaver sides, the record companies were quick to capitalize on the novelty as this January 5 Chicago Defender ad makes clear:

WHO’S HEARD the man with the talking guitar?

The first blue guitar record out is the “Roamin’ Blues” – a new Okeh. H-m-m-m! Sara Martin chirps, ‘em sweet, and Sylvester Weaver certainly plays ‘em strong on his big mean. blue guitar.

8104, don’t forget that number.

“Longing for Daddy Blues” was actually the first guitar record but that record was not advertised. Early in 1924 Ralph S. Peer of the General Phonograph Corp., Okeh’s parent company, wrote Sara Martin:

“ROAMIN’ BLUES with guitar accompaniment is the biggest seller you have had since SUGAR BLUES. it might be well for you to rearrange your act so that this is your feature number using guitar accompaniment. It seems to me that this would make a wonderful encore number to be used very near the end of your act.”

Another Okeh ad stated the following:

Sara Martin discovered the clever idea of making recordings with a guitar accompaniment, and the first records of this kind pit out have made remarkable impressions in all parts of the country. Sylvester Weaver plays his guitar in a highly original manner, which consists chiefly of sliding a knife up and down the strings while he picks with the other hand. His guitar solos, No. 8109, are having wide sales.

In 1924 Weaver, playing guitar and banjo, accompanied Martin on seven numbers at three sessions, two in Atlanta and one in New York.  One of the best numbers was “Pleading Blues”, given a passionate reading from Martin. The number was advertised in the October 18, 1924 edition of the Chicago Defender (Weaver actually plays guitar not banjo on this number):

“PLEADING BLUES”

This blues spreadin’ mama will sure satisfy your blues cravin’ far, wide and handsome in “Pleading Blues”. It’s a mighty good tastin’ sample of the kind of blues Sara totes. And that ain’t all. ‘Cause Sylvester Weaver rattles off the banjo accompaniment right snappy!

Point your dogs toward the OKeh store quick, for here’s an OKeh Record that sure does leave you feelin’ grand!

The March 21, 1924 session produced  two exceptionally strong blues: “Got To Leave My Home Blues” b/w “Poor Boy Blues” that prominently feature Weaver’s dramatic playing, laying down some fine treble runs on the latter number and an exceptionally long solo on the former. As for Sara Martin, Tony Russell made the following observation: “In her early recordings Martin, like many of her contemporaries, sings blues without quite qualifying as a blues singer: her exaggeratedly correct diction, with its rolled ‘r’s, does little to distinguish her from contemporary white vaudeville artists.” Her records took on a different tone once she began working with Weaver: “What is interesting about these records is not so much Weaver’s deliberate guitar (and banjo) playing as the power it has to draw Martin still further from her vaudeville background and towards the kind of singing recently introduced on records by Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.”

Weaver cut four solo instrumentals in 1924 at two sessions in New York: “Smoketown Strut”, “I’m Busy And You Can’t Come In”, Mixin’ ‘Em Up In C” and “Weaver’s Blues.” “Smoketown Strut” was the lone number cut at a May 28th session and showcased Weaver on a wonderful mid-tempo ragtime number. On June 10th Weaver cut three numbers including the driving “I’m Busy And You Can’t Come In” played in a similar style to “Smoketown Strut” and based on the well known tune “Keep-A-Knocking But You Can’t Come In.” “Mixing Them Up In C” and “Weaver’s Blues” are performed in a similar style but at a slower tempo. Weaver hardly played any fast pieces. This latter pairing was advertised in a 1925 Christmas ad in the Chicago Defender: Sylvester Weaver wants you to hear one of his best Okeh records. At the time of the first LP reissue of Weaver’s sides, Smoketown Strut (Agram, 1983), this record (OK 8207) was still missing. Weaver was also mentioned in a full-page OKeh records ad in the June 19th, 1924 Chicago Defender: World’s greatest Race Artists and they record exclusively for OKeh Race Records. Pictured are Sara Martin, Clarence Williams, Virginia Liston, Sippie Wallace, Ed Andrew and fifteen other artists including Sylvester Weaver “with the talkin’ guitar.” Speaking of Virginia Liston there is a possibility that Weaver plays on her “Jail House Blues” recorded on January 10, 1924.

Weaver would not record for almost a year when he returned for as six-song session in St. Louis on April 24, 1925 with Sara Martin, banjoist Charles Washington and violinist E.L. Coleman. Coleman, Washington and Weaver back Martin up on “Strange Lovin’ Blues” b/w “I Can Always Tell When A Man Is Treatin’ Me Cool.” Weaver backs Martin unaccompanied on the sides except for the instrumental “Steel String Blues” which was issued under the name Instrumental Trio. Like “Strange Lovin’ Blues”, Weaver plays slide, probably with a knife, on this draggy instrumental.

Weaver was absent from the studio in 1926 because of the death of Sara Martin’s brother. 1927, however, would prove to be Weaver’s busiest on record and also his last. The year began with four sessions in April in New York. For the April 6 session he formed a vocal trio with Sara Martin and her future second husband Hayes B. Withers. Four religious titles were recorded with two unissued. “I Am Happy In Jesus” b/w “Where Shall I Be?” features Weaver playing rather sedately on the latter number but more sprightly on the former with just a hint of ragtime flavor. These sides are also the first to present Weaver’s vocals on record, albeit as background with Withers’ in service to Martin’s lead. The following day Weaver accompanied Martin on two superb slow blues “Gonna Ramble Blues” b/w “Teasing Brown Blues.”

Weaver returned to the studio to record five solo songs on April 12th and 13th including his first vocals numbers: “True Love Blues” b/w “Poor Boy Blues.” Both numbers show Weaver’s guitar prowess, soloing at length and with plenty of imagination. Perhaps the length of his solos is due to his lack of confidence as a vocalist but these numbers prove Weaver a fine, if understated vocalist. Weaver delivers his lines in a careful, deliberate manner but possesses a rich, slightly quavering baritone that has an appealingly lonesome quality. The remaining sides feature a terrific update of “Guitar Rag” with a more melodic approach plus Damfino Stump” and “Six String Banjo Piece” which spotlight Weaver on the banjo-guitar. It wasn’t until the 1970′s that it was announced that a copy of “Damfino Stump” had finally surfaced and one who had heard it suggested a mishearing of Damn Fine Stomp! Cor van Sliedregt, who provides guitar analysis on the Agram LP had this to say: “Fifteen progressions, each of only eight ragtime bars with a richness of harmonic and rhythmic variations. …That Weaver knew his fingerboard inside out, this dynamic instrumental proves. …A ‘damn fine’ stomp indeed.” “Six String Banjo Piece” was a previously unknown and unissued number, which also surfaced in the 1970′s. No file information exists on this number and the number was first issued on the album Folk Music In America Vol. 14 – Solo And Display Music part of a 15 LP Library of Congress series to celebrate the Bicentennial in 1976. The title was apparently given by Dick Spottswood who compiled and wrote the notes for the series. This is one of the rare, relatively fast numbers and has the swing and drive of Weaver’s best instrumentals.

Guitar Blues (MP3)

Guitar Rag (MP3)

Pleading Blues (MP3)

Got To Leave My Home Blues (MP3)

Smoketown Strut (MP3)

Gonna Ramble Blues (MP3)

True Love Blues (MP3)

Poor Boy Blues (MP3)

Damfino Stump (MP3)

Guitar Rag (1927) (MP3)

OK, with the recent high profile articles in Vanity Fair I can honestly say that I’ve reached my limit regarding Robert Johnson. If you missed this I’m referring to Frank DiGiacomo’s Searching For Robert Johnson and his follow-up A Disputed Robert Johnson Photo Gets the C.S.I. Treatment which deal with a possible newly found Johnson photo. At this point more ink has been spilled on Robert Johnson than any other blues artist and while there has been plenty of quality research on the elusive bluesman it’s been largely buried in layers of hyperbole, mythology, speculation, romanticism and sheer nonsense.  I have no idea if the new photo is Johnson, nor do I care all that much, and to be fair DiGiacomo’s articles are well written and don’t wallow in the kind of nonsense that usually makes the rounds. That’s no really the point. The point is the relentless scrutiny on Johnson at the expense of so many other worthy blues artists that never get a mention – AKA the Eric Clapton mentality – “he is the most important blues musician who ever lived.” Who appointed Clapton the authority on such matters anyway? By the time the Complete Recordings were issued in 1990 (going gold and selling over a million copies by 1994) “mythology had consumed reality” as Barry Lee Pearson and Bill McCulloch wrote in Robert Johnson: Lost And Found.

Unfortunately this obsession on every minutiae of Johnson’s life has taken away the focus on his very real talents and perhaps more importantly this lopsided focus on Johnson has obscured the fact that he was very much part of a tradition; his music firmly built on the artists who came before like Lonnie Johnson and Tampa Red who don’t get a shred of the acclaim that Johnson does. Johnson remains one of the blues great artists, his brilliance was in how he borrowed, reshaped, synthesized and added his own brilliance to the music of those who came before to create a powerfully individual style. It would be nice if this intense spotlight on Johnson spilled over to raise the awareness of other equally worthy early blues artists but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead this endless focus on unverifiable photos, the exact crossroads he sold his soul to the devil, etc. only trivializes his accomplishments while further obscuring those of his contemporaries and predecessors.

Show Notes:

Today’s show revolves around the recordings made by Peter B. Lowry. In his voluminous research, writing and recording Lowry has become perhaps the most renowned expert on the blues of the Southeast and is credited with coining the term Piedmont Blues. Between 1969 and 1980 he amassed hundreds of photographs, thousands of selections of recordings, music and interviews in his travels through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. He formed the Trix label as an outlet to release his recordings. Lowry set up the Trix Records label in 1972 starting with a series of 45′s with LP’s being released by 1973. It lasted about a decade as an active label dealing mainly with Piedmont blues artists from the Southeastern states with seventeen albums in its catalog at the time of their sale to Joe Fields of Muse Records. Trix issued albums by the following artists: Eddie Kirkland, Peg Leg Sam, Frank Edwards, Henry Johnson, Willie Trice, Guitar Shorty (John Henry Fortescue), Robert Jr. Lockwood, Pernell Charity, Tarheel Slim, Roy Dunn, Homesick James, Big Chief Ellis, Honeyboy Edwards and the anthology Detroit After Hours, a collection of Detroit piano players. “I spent an interesting decade”, Lowry wrote, “burned myself out, and haven’t really been back since 1980. Sales of TRIX LPs were disappointing, but, master of timing, I started up when the second-to-last blues boom was drying up and quit before the most recent one took off! I am proud of each and every release…” In addition to the seventeen issued Trix albums there is sufficient material for another 40 to 50 CD’s. “I engineered all issued LPs save the second Lockwood and the second Kirkland (and Reedus unreleased jazz LP); ED’d, mixed, and balanced all myself ‘at home’. There was NO COMPRESSION. Therefor, and fortuitously/serendipitously, they turned out to be great for CD mastering!!! That’s why such ‘full’ sound.” Many of the artists who had albums released were recorded extensively by Lowry and in most cases there is enough material in the can for follow-up records. In fact Lowry’s unreleased recordings far exceed the released recordings. Today’s program draws mainly from the Trix catalog plus I’ll be playing some unreleased tracks that Lowry was kind of enough to send me. These tracks have not been heard anywhere else. What follows is some background on today’s featured artists with some commentary from Lowry.

Baby Tate spent the bulk of his life as a sideman, playing with musicians like Blind Boy Fuller, Pink Anderson, and Peg Leg Sam. As a teenager he began playing with Blind Boy Fuller. In the early 1950′s, Tate moved to Spartanburg, SC, where he performed both as a solo act and as a duo with Pink Anderson. Tate and Anderson performed as duo into the 1970′s. In 1962, Tate recorded his first album, See What You Done, for Bluesville. Tate was one of Lowry’s closest musician friends. Lowry said, “My plan…was to really record him in depth. He was just an incredible person and a wonderful person to deal with. I can’t say I’m satisfied with what I’ve got on tape because I know he could do three times more and a lot better. But just having been around him and dealt with him and lived with him, there’s a degree of satisfaction. …The first person to be recorded by me in 1970, a wonderful informant, and a very good friend – he came up to New Paltz to perform at a Spring festival in ’72, partly w. Larry Johnson. He also played a coffee house near Albany, NY that same weekend thanks to Kip Lornell. He had a great time – then he died that summer. That made me a man possessed; ‘do as much as you can before they all die off’ took a hold of me! The rest is history.” Lowry recorded him extensively but only issued one 45 which we play to open our show. Tate also appears on the Peg Leg Sam album, Medicine Show Man.

“Recording is an accident, isn’t it?! Had it not been for me, Henry Johnson and Peg Leg Sam would have been unheard…” Lowry notes. Peg Leg Sam was a member of what may have been the last authentic traveling medicine show, a harmonica virtuoso, and an extraordinary entertainer. Born Arthur Jackson, he acquired his nickname after a hoboing accident in 1930. His medicine show career began in 1938, giving his last medicine show performance in 1972 in North Carolina, and was still in fine form when he started making the rounds of folk and blues festivals in his last years. Lowry captured Sam and Chief Thundercloud (the last traveling medicine show) on the Flyright album The Last Medicine Show. There’s also some footage of the medicine show act in the film Born For Hard Luck. Sam delivered comedy routines, bawdy toasts, monologues, performed tricks with his harps (often playing two at once) and served up some great blues (sometimes with a guitar accompanist, but most often by himself). Lowry released one album by Sam, Medicine Show Man, and he recorded only once  more for Blue Labor in 1975 which was originally issued under the title  Joshua and subsequently reissued as Early In The Morning and Peg Leg Sam with Louisiana Red.

The sessions by Henry Johnson, his first recording, was a result of Peg Leg Sam pushing his good friend to record. “I feel Henry Johnson is the finest finger-picking blues artist to come along in a hell of a long time, and this album should demonstrate that with ease” Lowry wrote in the notes to The Union County Flash!, his lone album. “It was Sam who introduced us (Bastin and I) to Henry…His musicianship was surpassed only by his magnificent voice – I have UNC concert tapes where he plays piano, Hawaiian guitar, and harp w. his guitar… he stuck it in his mouth and worked without a rack (like Harmonica Frank)!” Johnson died 19 1974, shortly after the record was released and there is enough material in the can for another release. Lowry wrote” his ‘compleat’ talent will never be heard by those who never saw him in person.”

Roy Dunn was one of the last links to the rich Atlanta pre-war blues scene; he had played with Curley Weaver., Buddy Moss and Blind Willie McTell. Know’d Them All is his only album. “This, his only album”, Lowry wrote, is as complete a representation of the talents of Roy S. Dunn (a/k/a James Clavin Speed) as could be compiled, and his talents deserve another listening.” Dunn passed in 1988.

Willie Trice and his brother Richard became close friends with Blind Boy Fuller and Fuller took them up to New York where they cut six sides together (two unissued) for Decca in 1937. Richard Trice recorded after the war for Savoy in 1946 as Little Boy Fuller as well as a couple of sides in 1948 and 1952/53. Lowry recorded him but those recordings remain unreleased. Unlike many of his fellow musician friends, Willie always had a day job and it wasn’t until the 1970′s that he recorded again. Blue And Rag’d , his sole album,  was released on Trix in 1973. “Willie Trice”, Lowry wrote” was one of those special people – not just in my life, but in the lives of most everyone who chanced to meet him. We had some sort of special, almost mystical connection… I would irregualry just appear unannounced at the door of his mother’s house and he’d be sitting there waiting for me. He would tell me that he had dreamed of me that night and therefore knew that I was going to be there to see him the next day.”

Prior to his Trix album, Done Some Travelin’, Frank Edwards cut one session in 1941 for Okeh resulting in four issued sides and one in 1949 for Regal backed by Curley Weaver. He cut another album for Music Maker before passing in 2002.  “Frank Edwards sounds like nobody else- he may play the harp and guitar together, but he sure as hell doesn’t sound like Jimmy Reed. He is as recognizable today as when he first recorded. …he sounds just lie Frank Edwards; and that’s it!  As for our selection, “Chicken Raid”, he called it “one of the great anti-clerical songs of all time (right up there with “Stealin’ in the Name of the Lord”), by one of the most original ‘blues’ musicians, and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met! He never sounded like anyone but himself, which is not always a good career move.”

“Homesick” James Williamson was playing guitar at age ten and soon ran away from his Tennessee home to play at fish fries and dances. His travels took the guitarist through Mississippi and North Carolina during the 1920s, where he crossed paths with Yank Rachell, Sleepy John Estes, Blind Boy Fuller, and Big Joe Williams.Settling in Chicago during the 1930′s. Homesick made some of his finest sides in 1952-53 for Art Sheridan’s Chance Records (including the classic “Homesick” that gave him his enduring stage name). He also worked extensively as a sideman, backing harp great Sonny Boy Williamson in 1945 at a Chicago joint called the Purple Cat and during the 1950′s with his cousin Elmore James who he also recorded with. Homesick’s own output included 45′s for Colt and USA in 1962, a fine 1964 album for Prestige plus albums for Bluesway, Big Bear, Earwig and Fedora among others. He cut the solo Goin’ Back Home for Trix of which Lowry said “I think that ‘my’ solo album is the best thing he ever did.” I agree!

Born in Alabama, Eddie Kirkland headed to Detroit in 1943. There he hooked up with John Lee Hooker five years later, recording with him for several firms as well as under his own name for RPM in 1952, King in 1953, and Fortune in 1959. In 1961-62 he cut his first album for Tru-Sound Records. Leaving Detroit for Macon, GA, in 1962, Kirkland signed on with Otis Redding as a sideman and show opener not long thereafter. By the dawn of the 1970′s, Kirkland cut two albums for Trix label; Front And Center and The Devil And Other Blues Demons (issued together as The Complete Trix Recordings on the 32 Blues label).

A self-taught player, Big Chief Ellis performed at house parties and dances during the 1920′s. He traveled extensively for several years, working mostly in non-musical jobs. After a three-year army stint from 1939 – 1942, Ellis settled in New York. He started recording for Lenox in 1945, and also did sessions for Sittin’ In and Capitol in the 1940′s and 50′s, playing with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee for Capitol. Though Ellis reduced his performance schedule after moving from New York to Washington D.C., his career got a final boost in the early 1970′s. He recorded for Trix and appeared at several folk and blues festivals until his death in 1977. His self-titled Trix album features John Cephas, Tarheel Slim, and Brownie McGhee. He also backed Tarheel Slim on his Trix album.

While still in North Carolina during the early 1940′s, Tarheel Slim worked with several gospel groups. He broke away with Thurman Ruth and in 1949 formed their own group, the Jubilators. During a single day in New York in 1950, they recorded for four labels under four different names, One of those labels was Apollo, who convinced them to go secular. That’s basically how the Larks, one of the seminal early R&B vocal groups, came to be. He cut two sessions of his own for the firm in 1952 under the name of Allen Bunn. As Alden Bunn, he encored on Bobby Robinson’s Red Robin logo the next year. He also sang with another R&B vocal group, the Wheels and the Lovers. As Tarheel Slim he made his debut in 1958 with his wife, Little Ann, in a duet format for Robinson’s Fire imprint. He cut a pair of rockabilly raveups of his own, “Wilcat Tamer” and “No. 9 Train.” After a few years off the scene, Tarheel Slim made a bit of a comeback during the early 1970′s, with an album for Trix, his last recording. He died in 1977. Lowry wrote that “Tarheel Slim was one of the finest voices to appear appear in the blues and R&B world, as this collection will solidly demonstrate. …Slim was a consummate artist and a great gentleman: this recording gives the world at-large at least a partial glimpse of his talent.”

Boogie Woogie Red was born in Louisiana in 1924, and his family moved to Detroit when he was very young. Under the influence of local musicians Big Maceo and Dr. Clayton, Red taught himself piano. At age 18, he was drawn to the blues scene in Chicago, where he jammed with Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red, and Memphis Slim. In 1946, he returned to Detroit and for the next fourteen years played with John Lee Hooker. In 1971 he did a well-received European tour and began performing regularly in the Detroit area, with occasional tours overseas. He recorded two albums for Blind Pig, both of which are now out of print. He was recorded for Trix as part of after-hours piano session and appeared on the album Detroit After Hours.

Lockwood cut two albums for Trix,  Does 12 and Contrasts, (issued together as The Complete Trix Recordings on the 32 Blues label) which rank among his best recordings. The crack band features the great sax player Maurice Reedus who played with Lockwood for 35 years and passed away just recently. Lowry was planning to issue an album by Reedus but it was never released. As Lowry told me: “Words fail me… I was truly a ‘Fortunate Son’ to have known and worked with this man, a true gentleman and a noble/regal being. All of ‘Contrasts’ was recorded in his living room in Cleveland (band sides) or Roger Brown’s place!”

Pernell Charity spent his whole life around Waverly, VA and was inspired by the records of Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake. The Virginian is his only album. “Pernell is a Kip Lornell discovery, done during his Federal Youth Grant year – I was his mentor and supervisor for that! I did the first tapes for him, then got them back – then did a few sessions on my own later, when I got my NEA Folkarts grant.” Lornell wrote the liner notes and noted that “the phonograph record has had an important effect in shaping the song repertoire of many blues musicians…such is the case with Pernell Charity… It was the records of Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, and Blind Lemon Jefferson that inspired Pernell to take up guitar.”

Lowry called Guitar Shorty (John Henry Fortescue) “One of the most spontaneous musicians around; right up there with Lightnin’ Hopkins, maybe more so.” He cut a pair of unissued sides for Savoy in 1952, the album Carolina Slide Guitar (Flyright, 1971) and his final album for Trix, Alone In His Field,  before passing in 1975.

Seven of today’s performances have never been released. Below is background on these recordings:

Elester Anderson was a South Carolina musician who Lowry recorded fairly extensively in 1972, 1973 and 1979, none of which was issued. Anderson was born in Conetoe, NC in 1925 to a musical family. Anderson’s brother was greatly influenced by Blind Boy Fuller and passed this along to Elester. Bruce Bastin noted that tro recordings of Anderson reflected what “Fuller might himself have sounded had he survived into the postwar period.”

James Putmon was recorded by Lowry in 1979 in North Carolina.

George Higgs was born in 1930 in North Carolina. His father Jesse Higgs taught his young son the harp by playing spirituals and folk songs. During tobacco market Higgs witnessed medicine showman and harpist Peg Leg Sam perform in nearby Rocky Mount and this made a lasting impression on the young musician. As a teenager he picked up guitar. Lowry recorded him extensively in 1973 and 1979 but none of this was issued. He has since cut records for Music Maker.

Mitchell called Cecil Barfield “probably the greatest previously unrecorded bluesman I have had the pleasure of recording during my 15 years of field research.” Using the name William Robertson, in fear of endangering his welfare checks, he cut the LP South Georgia Blues for Southland in the mid-70′s with several other tracks appearing on Flyright’s Georgia Blues Today (reissued by Fat Possum with the same title and liner notes). Mitchell made some recordings of Barfield using Lowry’s equipment and Lowry himself recorded a few unreleased sides by him.

Marvin and Turner  Foddrell were born into a musical family near Stuart in the Virginia Piedmont and for the major parts of their lives played regularly only at community gatherings, never professionally. Discovered in the 1970s’, the Foddrells became a regular fixture at the annual Blue Ridge Folklife Festival at nearby Ferrum College and were also featured at many other festivals including some in Europe. The Foddrell Brothers recorded two albums on Swingmaster, and also appeared alongside more famous traditional musicians on a number of recorded anthologies. Both brothers have since passed away. Lowry recorded them extensively in 1979 but none of these recordings were ever issued.

Lowry was the first to record John Cephas and Phil Wiggins although the results were not released. He recorded the duo extensively in 1980 (his last field recordings) and recorded Cephas in-depth in 1976. Of today’s selection he called “When I Grow Too Old to Dream” “a monster example of taking a tune and ‘ragging’ it.”

Show Notes:

Today’s show is called Maxwell Street Blues in tribute to Mike Shea’s legendary film on Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market, And This Is Free, which at long last has been re-released by Shanachie Records. And This Is Free was filmed over the course of sixteen Sundays on Chicago’s Maxwell Street in 1964. The Maxwell Street open air market was a seven- to ten-block area in Chicago that from the 1920s to the middle 1960′s played host to various blues musicians — both professional and amateur — who performed right on the street for tips from passerbys. Maxwell Street is an east-west street that intersects with Halsted Street just south of Roosevelt Road. Although there were many fine stationary department stores located in it, the area’s most notable feature was its open air market, precursor to the flea market scene in Chicago. One could almost buy anything there, legal and illegal. In need of jobs and quick cash, fledgling entrepreneurs came to Maxwell Street – many say it was the largest open-air market in the country – to earn their livelihood. In 1994, the Maxwell Street Market was moved by the City of Chicago to accommodate expansion of the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was relocated a few blocks east to Canal Street and renamed the New Maxwell Street Market.

Among those who got their start on Maxwell Street were Little Walter, Earl Hooker and Hound Dog Taylor among many others. Those that appear in the film include Robert Nighthawk, Johnny Young, Jim Brewer and Arvella Gray, all of whom were recorded performing live on the street. All the music recorded during the filming was issued domestically in 2000 on the Rooster label on the 3-CD set And This Is Maxwell Street and we will be hearing several of these cuts on today’s program. We will also be playing a number of cuts from the Ora Nelle label which was run by Bernard Abrams from his Maxwell Street Radio and Record shop located at 831 Maxwell Street, tracks by Big John Wrencher, Maxwell Street Jimmy, John Lee Granderson and James Brewer (all long time fixtures on the Street) plus some pre-war sides that reference Maxwell Street. In addition we will be playing excerpts from an interview with Gordon Quinn who was the sound engineer on And This Is Free.

Blind James Brewer and Gospel Group, Maxwell Street, 1964, Photo by Paul Oliver

Ira Berkow, who wrote the book Maxwell Street: Survival In A Bazaar, and contributes to the booklet, described Maxwell Street this way: “It was a carnival, it was a bazaar, it was, as some believed and perhaps with some credibility, a thieves’ den; it was also home to snake charmers, a horse that could count with a clop of his hoof, an ‘Indian chief’ in war bonnet and penny loafers, honest businessmen, the ladies of the night (and morning and afternoon), Gypsies, Jews, Italians, Irish, Bohemians, Poles, Russians, Greeks, Latinos, blacks. As well as the birthplace of a number of prominent Americans. And this, more or less, just for starters.” Hound Dog Taylor, a veteran of Maxwell Street, had this to say: “You used to get out on Maxwell Street on a Sunday Morning and pick you out a good spot, babe. Dammit, we’d make more money than I ever looked at. Put you out a tub, you know, and put a pasteboard in there, like a newspaper. I’m telling you, Jewtown was Jumpin’ like a champ, jumpin’ like mad on Sunday morning.” Jewtown as the area was also known, was so named because, as Lori Grove writes in her excellent essay Historic Maxwell Street, the “Jewish immigrants were the largest and longest-standing ethnic group in the Maxwell Street neighborhood” who “established the old world marketplace and its reputation as a place where bargains could be found.”

Back in 1960 Bjorn Englund and Donad R. Hill documented the blues on Maxwell street by recording some of the street’s stalwarts including Arvella Gray, Daddy Stovepipe, king Davis and James Brewer. The recordings were issued in 1962 on the Heritage album Blues From Maxwell Street. The album is long out of print (i don’t own this record so if anyone knows where I can get a copy let me know!) but the notes by Paul Oliver are worth quoting as they paint an evocative portrait of an era that has long passed. “At 1330 on South Halsted there is a minor intersection. The corners are crowded with people and temporary halls at anytime, but especially on Sunday, for the narrow road that cuts across Halsted is Maxwell and on Sunday morning the Maxwell Street Market is at its busiest. Maxwell Street is at once a sad an exciting place. The walls are blackened and the paint has peeled off the ill-fitting doors; garbage lies thick in the gutters and the narrow side alleys are littered with the refuse of years. To the West, the street loses its identity in the depressing anonymity of the bleak, poverty-struck roads that cross it; to the East it is an almost impassable market of stalls that suddenly give way to a vast, horizonless plain of mud and rubble and debris where an Expressway will sweep Southwards in the undated future. Amongst the rough-clad women who grope through the piles of discarded clothes and the tough, unsmiling men who pick their way through the wires, cables and electrical parts laid out haphazardly on the trestles – amongst the loiterers, the occasional sightseers and the pickpockets – are the beggars, as many as there are to be found in the shadows of the churches in a Southern Italian town, or along the shrouded streets of an “Arab Quarter.” Beggars – but with one striking, exhilarating difference. These are not wheedling seekers after alms with cries of “baksheesh” or “Gawd Bless yer, guv” but proud men, creative artists, singers of the blues who accept the dimes and quarters as tokens of esteem for their paying and singing. If the blues in general has tended to become more sophisticated in recent years Maxwell Street exists as a living storehouse of the folk blues, the blues of the rambling man. And in its few hundred yards is pictured the life story of the blues singer of the streets, from the children who stand wide-eyed to the singers of  their to choice to the young men who are trying their luck and their talent on the critical audience of the market; from the tough music and manner of the street singer of many years to the fading abilities to the old men who have played in the street in all weathers for more years then they can count.”

Today’s program opens with a pair pf pre-war cuts. Papa Charlie Jackson is known to have busked around Chicago in the early 1920′s, playing for tips on Maxwell Street, as well as the city’s Westside clubs beginning in 1924. He cut some 70 sides between 1924-1934, most for the Paramount label. His “Mawell Street Blues” shows he was well aquintated with the seedier side of the street:

Because Maxwell Street’s so crowded on a Sunday, you can hardly passed through
There’s Maxwell Street Market, got Water Street Market too
If you ain’t got no money, the women got nothing for you to do
I got the Maxwell Street blues, mama and it just won’t pay
Because the Maxwell Street women, going to carry me to my grave
I live six twenty-four Maxwell, mama and I’m taking about you

Little is known about his background. Blind Percy was likely Joe Taggart who recorded mainly gospel but sound more worldly as he too sings about those Maxwell Street women on “Fourteenth Street Blues:”

Fourteenth Street women, don’t mean a man no good
Go out and get full of liquor, wake up the whole neighborhood

Today’s show features several tracks from the Ora Nelle label which was founded in 1947 by Bernard Abrams who operated Maxwell Street Radio and Record shop located at 831 Maxwell Street. Two 78′s were released; “I Just Keep Loving Her” (Ora Nelle 711) and “Money Taking Woman” (Ora Nelle 712). The label’s name supposedly came from Walter’s girlfriend. These were Walter’s first recordings. Additional recordings were made by Jimmy Rogers (also his first), Boll Weavil, Sleepy John Estes, Johnnie Temple which were not released at the time. All of the Ora Nelle recordings can be found on the CD Chicago Boogie 1947 on the P-Vine label, a reissue of an album originally issued on George Paulus’ Barrelhouse label in the 1970′s. Boll Weevil (Willie McNeal) cut a pair of acetates for the label circa 1947-48, including “Christmas Time Blues” b/w “Thinkin’ Blues”, and recorded once more in 1956 for another mom and pop label called Club 51.

One-Armed harmonica player Big John Wrencher was a recognizable fixture of Maxwell Street. Wrencher was a traveling musician, playing throughout Tennessee and neighboring Arkansas from the late 1940′s to the early 1950′s. In 1958 Wrencher lost his left arm in a car crash in Memphis. By the early 1960′s he had moved North to Chicago and quickly became a regular fixture on Maxwell Street, always working on Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to nearly 3:00 in the afternoon. His first recordings surfaced on a pair of Testament albums from the 1960′s, featuring Big John in a sideman role behind Robert Nighthawk. He cut the excellent Maxwell Street Alley Blues (recorded in 1969 and issued in 1978) for the Barrelhouse label (reissued on CD on the P-Vine label) and cut Big John’s Boogie for the British Big Bear label in 1975. He also cut a 45 and we play “Memphis To Maxwell Street” from that record. Big John Wrencher passed in 1977.

Nighthawk’s performances form the centerpiece of the recordings made on An This Is Maxwell Street. Nighthawk is present on 22 of the 30 selections. Nighthawk really stretches out on some of his old classics including the stunning medley of his two biggest hits “Anna Lee/Sweet Black Angel” as well as a storming reprise of his “Take it Easy Baby” which he first cut in 1937 for Bluebird. Nighthawk shows off his wide repertoire playing Big Joe Turner’s “Honey Hush”, Dr. Clayton’s “Cheating and Lying Blues” and Percy Mayfield’s “I Need Love So Bad.” In an interview done by Mike Bloomfield, Nighthawk, reflected on what brought him back to Maxwell Street: “Lately I went back to Maxwell St.- I been playing off and on for 24 years now. Most all music more or less starts right off from Maxwell St. and so you wind up going back there. …See it’s more hard to play out in the street than it is in a place of business, but you have more fun in the street, looks like. Well, so many things you can see, so many different things going on, I get a kick out of it, I guess.”

We also play tracks by Maxwell Street stalwarts Arvella Gray, James Brewer, John Lee Granderson and Maxwell Street Jimmy. Arvella Gray made his first recordings in 1960 (released on the Decca and Heritage labels) and in early 1964 he made sides for his own Gray label, selling the 45′s on the street. He was also recorded by a team from Swedish Radio the same year. He was regular performer on Maxwell Street on Sundays. Gray’s only album, 1972′s The Singing Drifter was reissued on the Conjuroo label in 2005. James Brewer aka Blind James Brewer (“My mother didn’t name me ‘Blind’, she named me ‘Jim’”) was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, moved to Chicago in the 1940s spending 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 too was recorded by Swedish Radio, cut sides for the Heritage label, Testament plus cut the full-length albums Jim Brewer for Philo and Tough Luck for Earwig. In addition to the full length Hard Luck John (issued posthumously in 1998), Tennessee bluesman John Lee Granderson cut sides on other Testament compilations with further sides appearing on various anthologies. Among those Granderson played with were Robert Nighthawk, Big Joe Williams and Daddy Stovepipe. Charles Thomas aka Maxwell Street Jimmy, wrote Pete Welding was “one of the finest and most expressive of blues performers who regularly work the street…In his dark, urgent, powerful singing and rhythmically incisive guitar playing are strong, pungent echoes of his youth in the Mississippi delta, that spawning ground of so many great bluesmen.” Jimmy recorded little, his best being his lone album, his long out of print self-titled release for Elektra in 1965. Welding’s liner notes to the album paint a vivid portrait of Maxwell Street in the 1960′s:”Every Sunday morning from late spring to early autumn–whenever, in fact, the weather is warm and clement–the pungent, earthy sound of the traditional blues rings loudly through the streets of Chicago. In the city’s bustling open-air Maxwell Street flea market area, where one can haggle for anything form high-button shoes to a winnowing machine, the cries of the hawkers and vendors mingle sharply with the acrid, pain-filled shouts of the blues singer and the fervent moans of the sidewalk evangelist. Through most of contemporary America, street singing is a fast disappearing folk art. Municipal legislation and the compulsory licensing of peddlers have seen to that in most large US cities, and the days of the itinerant sidewalk minstel seem sadly though inevitably numbered. Except, that is, in Chicago. If anything, the art appears to be thriving here. It’s tied directly, or course, to the continued flourishing of the Maxwell Street market as a vigorous facet of Chicago culture that has refused to give up the ghost in the face of urban renewal, increasing cultural homogeneity and other aspects of modern ‘progress’.”

Jimmy McCracklin, 2008 Pocono Blues Festival

The term blues legend is too loosely thrown around, seemingly applied to any artist who’s had some measure of longevity in the blues world without regard to the actual content of their recordings. Jimmy McCracklin is a blues legend and I’ve been fan ever since I bought a collection of his 1950′s sides over twenty years ago called Blast ‘Em Dead!. The fact that McCracklin was headlining the 17th annual Pocono Blues Festival was all I needed to hear to make the four hour trek to this year’s festival. The Pocono Blues Festival has become one of the country’s premiere blues festivals through it’s diversity of acts and its commitment to blues, not blues-rock or rock bands that play blues which make up the line-up of far too many so called blues festivals.

Over the years I’ve played McCracklin often on my radio program and two years ago I decided to give him a call and he was gracious enough to chat with me about his lengthy career (interview below). In his heyday, from the late 1940′s through the 1960′s, he led one of the toughest, hardest rocking blues bands on the West Coast. He was a prolific and witty composer, a fine singer/pianist and was a real pioneer in defining the soul-blues style made so popular by Little Milton, Bobby Bland and others. With a pair of excellent records in the 1990′s for Bullseye he achieved some wider exposure although during his hit making days he remained something of a neglected figure with a stature that seems to have always been higher in the black community.

McCracklin shared the bill with Sugar Pie DeSanto, warming up the stage for her on a too short set. Now, I would have loved to see McCracklin in his prime but at age 87 he didn’t disappoint. He remains a vigorous singer who still knows how to put across a song and electrify a crowd. Wearing a bright red suit and matching tie McCracklin delivered the goods on classics like “Think” and one of his biggest hits “The Walk.”

Sugar Pie DeSanto, 2008 Pocono Blues Festival

I’ve never been as big a fan of Sugar Pie DeSanto although I recall picking up the LP Down in the Basement: The Chess Years around the same time as I picked up the McCracklin record. In fact I still have the record complete with $3.99 sticker! DeSanto’s music was a saucy blend of blues and soul and she always sounded like a real firecracker. Well at age 72 she’s still a firecracker and delivered the festival’s wildest show hands down. DeSanto was simply mesmerizing and still full of unbridled sexual energy as she was only too happy to display. Among the highlights were a ripping version of her classic “In The Basement” which she originally recorded as a duet with Etta James and a fine version of the bluesy “Hello San Francisco” which is perhaps my favorite number by her. The song was dedicated to her late husband who she recently lost in a fire. The show stopper was when she brought a friend of ours on stage for a little dancing before taking running leap, wrapping her legs around him and riding him around the stage! Thankfully it’s all on video.

Unlike some other blues festivals which have a bit of a slapped together feel, the Pocono Blues Festival always feels well conceived and thought out which is probably the reason I didn’t see one act that wasn’t worthwhile. Among the other highlights were superb sets by Bobby Rush who did an outstanding solo set in the small tent. Rush played harmonica and guitar, told some colorful stories and absolutely captivated the audience with his charm and enthusiasm. Also in the small tent was Byther Smith who delivered two tough sets of Chicago blues backed by a very good backing band who was playing with Smith for the first time. The sets were heavy on covers but delivered with such grit that it didn’t really matter although it was nice to hear his “Runnin’ To New Orleans” from his fine Smitty’s Blues release from a few years back. Smith has a new CD and DVD from Delmark. Also memorable were the acoustic duo of guitarist Michael Roach and Johnny Mars who play almost exclusively in Europe and a high energy set by Lurrie Bell who seems to get better and better each time I see him.

For a more in depth review of this year’s Pocono Blues Festival make sure to read Doc’s Pocono Mountains – Home of The Blues article.

Jimmy McCracklin Feature/Interview (Aired 9/10/06, 1 hr 1 min, RealAudio)

It’s not hard to see why Percy Mayfield has been so frequently covered and so often mentioned with admiration among his fellow blues singers; he was a master of the moody blues ballad, he had flawless timing and phrasing and as a writer his songs had a frank, penetrating insight into the dark, complex side of the human condition. Songs like “River’s Invitation”, “Please Send Me Someone To Love”, “Life Is Suicide”, “My Jug And I” and “Stranger In My Own Home Town’, to name just a few, were adult songs for adult listeners, filled with a darkly hued, poetic sensibility, devilish wit and hipster coolness.

Mayfield’s main hit making period was from 1950-1952 when he scored seven top ten hits for the Specialty label including “Please Send Me Someone To Love”, the biggest hit ever for the label. He stuck with the label through the decade, cutting a few singles for Chess, Cash and Imperial along the way, but never matched his early success. In the 1960′s Mayfield’s song “Hit The Road, Jack”came to the attention of Ray Charles who was also starting his own record label called Tangerine. Charles hired on Mayfield as a writer and also gave him a chance to record for the label. Mayfield was at the height of his abilities penning songs for Charles like “Hide Nor Hair”, “At The Club”, “Danger Zone” and “On The Other Hand, Baby.” Mayfield’s own sides for Tangerine were every bit as good and have been collected on Rhino’s limited addition His Tangerine And Atlantic Sides. After leaving Tangerine Mayfield moved to Brunswick, cutting the exceptional Walking On A Tightrope album.

Much less well known are the trio of superb records he cut for RCA in the 1970′s, all unfortunately out of print: Percy Mayfield Sings Percy Mayfield (1970), Weakness Is A Thing Called Man (1970) and Blues…And Then Some (1971). While I won’t go so far as to say these are better than his earlier records, they’re not, they are quite good and deserve to be better remembered. Mayfield’s writing and voice were in great shape, and he was surrounded by sympathetic studio bands including Eric Gale, Billy Butler, Chuck Rainey, Pretty Purdie, Seldon Powell, Snooky Young, and Richard Tee to name a few as well as full horn sections and female backing vocalists. The music is filled with blues ballads, funky shuffles and a touch of soul. Like similar era recordings from Bobby Bland and Junior Parker, the music has a bit of a period feel but finds a veteran artist still at his peak, making a few changes to still sound fresh and relevant.

The albums are filled with songs dealing with relationships, a preoccupation with the past and meditations on the human condition. Percy Mayfield Sings includes the bouncy “Live Today Like The Day Before” and the moody mumble of “To Live The Past”, two songs that find Mayfield ruminating on the past. In the former song he sings:

Well my past is like a whirlwind, on a summer day
It whirls around inside, and I get carried away
So when I’m reminiscing, it’s no fault of mine
It’s just my past that won’t let go but I’m sure it will in time

On Blues…And Then Some the memories of a past love at times soothe his mind on the lovely ballad “Memories That’s All” and are harsher on the funky “Minden Is A Dry Town” from Weakness Is A Thing Called Man. Minden, Louisiana was Mayfield’s hometown and where he returned for solace after he was involved in a terrible auto accident in 1952 which left his matinee-idol good looks disfigured. Mayfield explored this theme in 1964′s masterful “Stranger in My Own Hometown” a devastating portrait of isolation and alienation and his struggle with alcoholism afterward in “My Jug And I” and “The Bottle Is My Companion.” He likely has Minden on his mind on the smoldering “California Blues” also from Weakness Is A Thing Called Man:

I’m gonna leave here, I’m going back where I’m better known (2x)
Where smart people mind there own business, and the fool will leave your business alone
I was born to be a wise man, look how long I’ve been a fool (2x)
I don’t mind being used by people, but I sure do hate to be misused

California, California, make room ’cause here I come (2x)
‘Cause you see, you’re more like a mother to me [spoken: in more ways than one]
Because that’s where I started from

 Travel is also the theme of one of his best blues from this period, the slinky “The Highway Is Like A Woman”, from Percy Mayfield Sings:

The time has come, and I’ve got to hit the road again (2x)
‘Cause I travel with a passion, and the highway is my lady friend
You see the highway is like a woman, soft shoulders and dangerous curves (2x)

If  “Please Send Me Someone To Love” was a universal prayer for peace, Mayfield is still delivering a message on the troubled state of man on the super funky “Stand Tall”, “Right On Young Americans”, the shuffling “Brotherhood Week” and the brooding “Weakness Is A Thing Called Man.”

Above all Mayfield sings masterly about the complicated state of love on the throbbing blues of “This Time You Suffer Too” punctuated by Eric Gale’s economical, stinging licks and a batch of gorgeous blues ballads like “Lonely For My Baby”, “Hand In Hand With Another Man”, “Getting You Off My Mind”, “Contact Me (When You Find Her)”, “You Lied To Me For The Last Time”, “Don’t Want To Lose My Baby” and the evocative “Black Coffee” as Mayfield expertly charts the state of troubled love:

Well my nerves has gone to pieces, now my hair is turning gray
Well I’m a talking to the shadows from one o’clock to four
Lord how slow the moments go, and all I do is pour, black coffee
Love is a sorry affair, a sorry affair

It’s not all gloom and dark shadows. In fact Mayfield has a wicked sense of humor as he displays most notably on “A Lying Woman” and “The Devil Made Me Do It.” On the former he sings:

You’re not a trustworthy woman, ’cause you just lie all the time (2x)
You and I never will never be successful, just as long as you keep on lying
I remember when I met you, you said your name was Mary Jane (2x)
But when I seen you in the line-up, the heat was calling you by another name

In the latter he sings:

Now a broad in a mini-skirt sitting at the bar, her big legs crossed
And just as I asked her, darling, how much do your mini-skirt cost?
Before she could answer my question, and she seemed so very nice
My old lady wanted to know, just what do you wanna to know the price?
I said the devil made me do it, I’m not guilty baby
Well now you might as well get used to it because the devil got most of me

A couple of years back the Raven label did issue Blues Laureate: The RCA Years which collects twenty-five tracks from Mayfield’s RCA period. Still, I wish these records would be reissued in their entirety. After these albums Mayfield slipped back in obscurity but made a comeback in the early 1980′s resulting in a pair of strong live recordings. He passed in 1984.

The Highway Is Like A Woman (MP3)

A Lying Woman (MP3)

Minden Is A Dry Town (MP3)

Weakness Is A Thing Called Man (MP3)

California Blues (MP3)

The Devil Made Me Do It (MP3)

 I first stumbled upon the music of Tommy McClennan by accident. In my early record buying days one of my favorite haunts was Tower Records at Broadway and West 4th Street in NYC which had a terrific blues section. I think I was looking for a Tommy Johnson record and somehow got him and Tommy McClennan confused. I wound up taking home the LP Cotton Patch Blues 1939 – 1942 on the British Travelin’ Man label which sported an evocative sepia toned cover of cottonfields complete with cotton pickers and and overseer riding a horse. I soon realized my mistake but my disappointment was dispelled when the raw, direct sounds of the first track, “You Can Mistreat Me Here”, hit me and was truly floored when I heard the third number, “Bottle It Up and Go.” I’ve been a fan ever since.

 McClennan is a contradiction; at once wholly individualistic with his powerhouse gravel-throated voice, sprinkled with frequent entertaining spoken asides propelled by an exciting, rudimentary guitar style while on the other hand derivative, with a repertoire mostly drawn from other artists. Despite his limited bag of songs, his limited guitar prowess (despite the boastfully titled “I’m a Guitar King”), McClennan made it work through the sheer force of his outsized personality and his intense commitment to his material. His record label, Bluebird, and the record buying public obviously saw something in McClennan as he cut forty sides (at five eight-song sessions), everyone issued at the time, between 1939 and 1942.

At the time Cotton Patch Blues was released in 1984 writer Alan Balfour noted that “what little is known of Tommy McClennan’s life is based, as is so often the case, on the recollections of others.” McClennan is remembered by bluesmen like Big Joe Williams, Big Bill Broonzy, Jimmy Rogers and most importantly Honeyboy Edwards. Our knowledge of McClennan has been expanded since then with the release of Honeyboy Edwards’ 1997 autobiography, The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing, where he put pen to ink,  recollecting at length about his old friend and partner.

The following is taken from Honeyboy’s memoir which paints a vivid portrait of his old pal: “It was out in Wildwood plantation when I first met Tommy McClennan. Tommy would come out there and play the guitar a while and bump on the piano. He could play the guitar pretty good, but he sure wasn’t no piano player. He threw the people; he had them dancing and hollering. …He could play that guitar, and he could holler; Tommy had a big mouth.  …Tommy played the guitar and gambled, shot dice, played cards. …Tommy was dark and had big eyes like a frog. He was real little, about four and ten, just touched me right along there about the shoulder. Tommy didn’t weigh a bit over 115 pounds. …I and Tommy, we be together all the time. And when he wasn’t with me he was with Robert Petway. …Tommy and Robert was about the same size. They’d come down the street with two guitars, looking like midgets. Now Robert could beat Tommy playing but Tommy could holler more than Robert. …I learned a few licks from Tommy, a few numbers he made. He mad the ‘Bullfrog Blues’ and Petway made ‘The Catfish Blues.’ …Robert and Tommy McClennan and me, we’d be together all the time. On days we wasn’t out playing at the whiskey houses or on the streets; we’d be at Tommy’s house drinking and playing cards, and one of us sitting in the corner practicing some song. …Tommy, he wasn’t really a guitar picker; he was mostly a frailer, and played a few chords in the key of C, running chords with that big loud voice. …Tommy McClennan and me played both sides of town [Greenwood, MS]. We used to serenade in the white neighborhoods. We’d walk down the street amongst all those old houses, strumming our guitars, and we’d see them curtains fly back and they’d chuck nickels and dimes out in the street for us. We’d play ‘Tight Like That’, little jump-up songs for them. Then we’d go back across the river where we come from, raise hell and drink, holler our asses off all night long, singing the ‘Cotton Patch Blues’ in them shotgun houses in our part of town.”

 McClennan arrived in Chicago in 1939 supposedly through the intervention of Big Bill Broonzy who told Bluebird talent scout Lester Melrose he ought to look him up. Again, Honeyboy picks up the tale: “I missed Lester Melrose when he came through Greenwood looking for musicians to record. …He picked up Tommy McClennan then and Tommy recorded ‘Bottle It Up And Go’ for him. He recorded Tommy, Robert Petway, a gang of musicians through the South.” “Bottle It Up And Go” is one of the songs most associated with McClennan although according to Honeyboy he learned the song from Memphis Jug Band member Dewey Corley and in turn taught it to McClennan.  McClennan insisted on playing the song as he learned it in the South, ignoring Northern sensibilities when he sang the controversial lines:

Now the nigger and the white man playin’ seven-up
Nigger beat the white man was scared to pick it up 

Broonzy tells a story of McClennan singing these lines at a house party and being forcibly ejected, forced to leave via the window with parts of his guitar around his neck. McClennan is obviously pleased with this act of defiance, barley able to contain himself as he chuckles throughout the rest of the song. It’s a bravo performance with McClennan hollering out the blues with gusto, using his guitar to finish his verses, offering a running commentary with his spoken asides and finishing up with an energetic bit of trademark scatting. Jimmy Rogers, who met McClennan in Vance, MS commented on his scatting perhaps half-seriously: “Little Richard sneaked around there and stole ‘be-bop-a-lu-bop’ and ‘be-bam-boom’. That was Tommy.”

Bottle It Up And Go (MP3)

Front cover of Father of the Folk Blues Photographer: Dick Waterman

When I was a teenager discovering the blues one of the first albums that really captivated me was Son House’s Death Letter -I still have it – (the UK equivalent of Father of the Folk Blues), his stunning return to the studio after dropping out of sight for nearly twenty-five years. As author Dan Beaumont writes in his yet-to-be published Son House manuscript: “In 1943 Son House left Mississippi, and, for all that is known of his life over the course of the next twenty one years, he may well have fallen off the face of the earth. But this he did not do-instead he did the next best thing. He moved to Rochester, New York.” As a teenager living in the Bronx I too knew nothing of Rochester outside the fact it was in some nether region of New York State – the farthest I had been was the Catskills, one hundred miles upstate. But as I read Dick Waterman’s liner notes, Rochester and the address 61 Greig Street was burned in my memory. That was where Dick Waterman, Phil Spiro and Nick Perls finally tracked Son down on June 23rd, 1964. Waterman became Son’s manager and the following year he was signed to Columbia and played the Newport Folk Festival. Son had several good years on the comeback trail; he toured the US playing folk festivals and the coffeehouse circuit and he did tours of Europe as well. He also performed locally in Rochester playing concerts at the UR, the Black Candle (later called Studio 9) and the Regular Restaurant in the Genesee Co-Op on Monroe Ave.. The Black Candle was run by Armand Schaubroeck who now operates the world famous House of Guitars. Memories of Son’s local performances are vividly burned into the memories of all who had had a chance to witness him in action.

Son’s rediscovery in Rochester was newsworthy, making it into Newsweek, Downbeat and the May 29, 1965 edition of the Rochester afternoon newspaper, The Times-Union, with a story titled “Son House Records Blues Again.” It must have been a bit bewildering to Son who was living a very low-key life in Rochester as Dan Beaumont notes: “There for twenty one years he lived amidst almost total obscurity. Indeed, what is known of his life in that city from 1943 to 1964 is so slight, so slender, that his biographer’s task becomes well nigh impossible. …The reasons for this sorry state of affairs are, I suspect, at least two. The first is the sorts of interviews that were done with House after his rediscovery. The interviews were done mostly by young, white blues fans-not by journalists or academics-and for these interviewers a period in which House all but ceased performing and even playing was of little interest. …The second reason is, in fact, simply surmise. House had an amusing phrase he would use when asked about the blues being played in the 1960s. It was a phrase he used to dismiss much of the blues music of that period. ‘It’s not the blues,’ he would say. ‘It’s just a lot of monkey junk.’ The blues so dominated House’s life-we have now established the price that he had paid for it-that a period in which he all but ceased playing it may well have seemed to him simply so much ‘monkey junk.’”

I came to Rochester in the late 1980′s for college and have been up here ever since. Over the years I met numerous people who fondly recalled Son House and when I started doing my yearly radio birthday tributes to Son, it brought more people out of the woodwork who gladly shared their memories with me. So it’s puzzling that the City has never honored Son in anyway. At least Cab Calloway (born in Rochester in 1907) has a plaque honoring him, albeit tucked away on a nondescript side street in an equally nondescript park. For years myself and others thought someone should rectify this sorry state of affairs; a plaque, a statue or something to honor one of the pivotal figures in blues history, a major influence on both Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters and who’s recordings are among the most powerful in blues history. It would be a shame to let Son’s memory slip back to the years before he was rediscovered in Rochester, but the sad fact is there is nothing tangible in this city that shows he ever made this city his home for a good part of his life.

Hopefully this will be the year when he finally receives some recognition from his adopted city. This year marks a sequel to last year’s successful Hot Blues For The Homeless concert I was involved in, this year billed as Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House. I’m hoping this year’s modest concert will be the start of something big. I’ve also heard an unconfirmed rumor that the city plans to honor Son with a plaque which would be welcome news. If you live in Rochester, live close by are just visiting on June 8th make sure to help us celebrate the memory of Son House. As Dick Waterman reflected: “If in his prime he had been recorded as much as Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson or Robert Johnson, he would be considered the pre-eminent artist of his time. …If the blues were an ocean distilled…into a pond…and, ultimately into a drop..this drop on the end of your finger is Son House. It’s the essence, the concentrated elixir.”

“Looking for the Blues”
The cover of Newsweek, July 13, 1964 and the article about the ‘rediscovery of Son House. The lead story in the magazine was about disappearance of three civil rights workers in Mississippi and the violence there.

“Finding ‘Son’ House”
The article that Dick Waterman wrote in The National Observer in July 1964 about how he and Nick Perls and Phil Spiro found Son House in Rochester, NY.

“I Can Make My Own Songs”
An interview with Son House, in his own words, by Julius Lester from Sing Out!, July 1965.

Son House Ontario Place 1964 (Link)
An early rediscovery concert at Washington’s Ontario Place by John Meid

Son House Discography (Link)