Big Road Blues

In this digital age with instant access to just about any song in crystal clear sound it’s hard to convey to the uninitiated the lure of old, crackly 78’s or the attraction to ancient record ephemera. For those of us fascinated with anything related to the vintage blues of the 1920’s and 1930’s, for those of us who think the blues industry went into decline after the 1930’s, we owe debt to record collector John Tefteller. Every year around this time Tefteller, through his Blues Images imprint, publishes his Classic Blues Artwork Calendar with a companion CD that matches the artwork with the songs. The CD’s have also been one of the main places that newly discovered blues 78’s turn up. Several years ago Tefteller uncovered a huge cache of Paramount promotional material. Paramount marketed their “race records”, as they were called, to African-Americans, most notably in the pages of the Chicago Defender, the weekly African-American newspaper, and sent promotional material to record stores and distributors. Tefteller bought a huge cache of this artwork from a pair of journalists who rescued them from the rubbish heap some twenty years previously. The depression essentially killed off Paramount’s advertising budget so many of these images were never sent out and hence have not been seen by anyone since they were first produced. Tefteller’s annual calendars have been the main vehicle for reprinting these gorgeous ads. As in previous years the 2009 version and accompanying CD will be a revelation for fans of old time blues.

As writer Elijah Wald summarizes: “For roughly ten years, from the dawn of the blues recording boom in 1920 until the Depression temporarily destroyed the ‘race record’ industry, blues was the most popular music in black America, and the Chicago Defender was the principle venue for record advertisements aimed at African American consumers.” Where the earlier reproductions of these ads were taken from adverts in the Chicago Defender newspaper, Tefteller’s are copied from distribution posters. They are large reproductions and they have been beautifully reproduced with stunning clarity with each month featuring a large sized ad. The ads are lurid, sensational, politically incorrect and often bear a striking disconnect to the actual subject of the record. This year we are treated to the following full page reproductions: Blind Blake (”Night & Day Blues”), Kokomo Arnold (”Milk Cow Blues”), Charley Patton (”Shake It And Break It”) [Patton's named is spelled Charley, the way he would have spelled it. According to Tefteller: "Final proof of this occurred in 2008 when Bernard MacMahon found Patton's original handwritten military draft papers for World War I where Mr. Patton clearly signs his name 'Charley'."], Skip James (”Jesus Is A Mighty Good Leader”), Paramount All Stars (”Home Town Skiffle”), Buddy Boy Hawkins (”Jailhouse Fire Blues”), Blind Lemon Jefferson (”Worried Blues”) [this is listed in the discographies as "Lemon's Worried Blues"], Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie (”Cherry Ball Blues”), Ida Cox (”Graveyard Dream Blues”), Elgar’s Creole Orchestra (”Nightmare”) [the cover illustration and Robert Crumb's favorite record related graphic], Rev. Emmett Dickenson (”The Death Of Blind Lemon”) and Rev. A.W. Nix (”Death May Be Your Christmas Present”). Many of the illustrations include an actual photo of the artist. In addition we get some smaller ads included on each calendar page that, despite the small size, are just as crisp and readable as the larger images. The usual anniversary dates for Christmas, Easter are listed plus anniversaries for blues singers like Son House and other luminaries such as Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass. Brief artist biographies are included and there is an informative introduction from Tefteller where he gives the providence of the newly discovered records.

The calendar includes an eighteen track CD, the first twelve songs matching the artwork on each page of the calendar. As we’ve come to expect, the CD delivers several long lost records though to be gone forever. Earlier this year word made the rounds that one of two missing Blind Blake 78’s (Paramount 13123) had been discovered. “Night And Day Blues” b/w “Sun To Sun” was discovered in 2007 when it was retrieved from an old steamer trunk in a trailer park in Raleigh, NC, and acquired by Old Hat Records. Both records are included, which stem from Blake’s second to last session in 1932. Many have commented that Blake’s skills deteriorated after 1930 but certainly “Night And Day Blues” belies that perceived wisdom. It’s a marvelous slow-tempo number with nice vocal punctuated with a few fast paced, sprightly solos. “Sun To Sun” is a mournful number not nearly as notable as the flip side. In addition to the Blind Blake are two newly discovered sides by Ben Curry (Paramount 13122, the record Paramount released right before the Blake). “Hot Dog” b/w “The Laffing Rag” was uncovered in February 2008 in a small stack of beat-up 78’s in Missouri. I’ve never been a huge fan of Curry who’s music seems to harks back to the minstrel era, except for the hilarious “Adam And Eve In The Garden.” Proving that not every lost record is a classic, Curry’s pairing are raucous and primitive as he flails away on banjo and toots away on harmonica. If anything they did bring a smile to my face - or was that a grimace!? Also previously unreleased are two test pressings of “Home Town Skiffle” a super group of Paramount’s biggest selling artists including Charley Spand, Will Ezell, The Hokum Boys, Papa Charlie Jackson and Blind Blake. According to Tefteller: “Paramount, however, told a lie on this one - claiming on both the record label and the ad that Blind Lemon Jefferson appears on this record. Not true! Collectors long suspected that Blind Blake simply imitates Jefferson’s guitar licks and they are correct! Newly discovered test pressings of other takes of the song reveal this. We include one of those complete tests on this year’s CD so you can clearly hear for yourself that Jefferson was not in the room for these sessions.” Considering the rarity of these recordings, Richard Nevis of Yazoo fame has done and an excellent job remastering these ancient sides.

All in all a beautiful, unique and thoughtfully produced collectable that will bring pleasure to blues collectors year round. Tefteller noted a couple of years back that he was “knee-deep in production of what will be the ultimate book of original Blues advertising material” which apparently is still in the works as Tefteller notes: “Blues Images is indeed going to publish a book with all existing artwork which Mr. Crumb is going to assist with. We are simply waiting for him to finish his current project. Stay tuned!!!”

Blind Blake - Night & Day Blues (MP3)

Paramount All Stars - Home Town Skiffle - Test (MP3)

New Jelly Roll Blues (MP3)

Beaver Slide Rag (MP3)

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

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

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

Barbecue Blues (MP3)

Cloudy Sky Blues (MP3)

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

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

Rambler Blues (MP3)

As we continue to reprint the blues ads that appeared in the Chicago Defender we turn to Blind Lemon Jefferson, one of the biggest male blues artists of the 1920’s. He was also the most heavily advertised blues artist, just behind Lonnie Johnson and Bessie Smith, with forty-four ads appearing in the Chicago Defender between 1926 and 1930. Today we spotlight “Rambler Blues” recorded September 1927 and “Hot Dogs” from June 1927.

In 1925 Jefferson was discovered by a Paramount recording scout and taken to Chicago to make his first records either in December 1925 or January 1926. Though he was not the first country blues singer/guitarist, or the first to make commercial recordings, Jefferson was the first to attain a national audience. His extremely successful recording career continued until 1929 when he died under mysterious circumstances. He recorded 110 sides including alternate takes. Jefferson’s first session produced “I Want To Be Like Jesus In My Heart” b/w “All I Want Is That Pure Religion” using the name Deacon L.J. Bates. It was the second session, however, that made Jefferson a star. “Got The Blues” b/w “Long Lonesome Blues” hadn’t been on sale long in the spring of 1926 when Paramount asked him to record it again because of the huge demand for the record. This was unheard of for a male blues artist. Prior to Jefferson the blues had been recorded primarily by women backed by piano or bands. This was reflected in the ads in the Chicago Defender which featured women almost exclusively, women such as Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, Lucille Hegamin, Clara Smith and Bessie Smith among others. Tony Russell describes Jefferson’s impact: “Jefferson offered instead blues sung by a man playing guitar - playing it, moreover, with a busyness and variety that showed up many of those pianists and bands as turgid and ordinary. The discovery that there was an audience for Jefferson’s type of blues revolutionized the music business: within a few years female singers were out of favor and virtually all the trading in the ‘race’ market (jazz aside) was in men with guitars.”

Hot Dogs (MP3)

By all accounts a good portion of Jefferson’s large repertoire consisted of reels or dance songs. “Hot Dogs” is a buck-dance tune as Jefferson plays some formidable ragtime flavored guitar over mostly spoken patter with a few snatches of singing. And yes, that’s Jefferson tap dancing during the song a fact that’s prominently mentioned in the accompanying ad. The style is strongly similar to the style of his fellow Paramount star Blind Blake. “Rambler Blues” is a straight blues and one of my favorites by Jefferson with its seamless marriage between vocal and guitar:

Well, it’s train time now, and the track’s all out of line (2x)
And I come here soon, I wanna catch that Number Nine

I am worried and bothered, don’t know what to do (2x)
Reason I’m worried and bothered, it’s all on the ‘count of you

When I left my home, I left my baby cryin’ (2x)
She keeps me worried and bothered in the mind

Now, don’t your house look lonesome, when your baby pack up and leave (2x)
You may drink your moonshine, but, baby, your heart ain’t free

If you take my rider, I can’t get mad with you (2x)
Just like you’re takin’ mine, I’ll take someone else’s too

I got a girl in Texas, I’ve got a brown in Tennessee (2x)
Lord, but that brown in Chicago have put that jinx bug on me

Mama Blues (MP3)	Out Of Doors Blues (MP3)
Train Imitations & The Fox Chase (MP3)	Central Tracks Blues (MP3)

In our ongoing series of reprinting old Chicago Defender blues ads we turn to an obscure but excellent early harmonica player by the name of William McCoy. His records were advertised in the Defender on May 12, 1928, February 23, 1929 and September 21, 1929. Virtually nothing is known about McCoy other than he was probably from Texas. He recorded six sides for Columbia at three sessions; on December 6, 1927 he cut the solos “Mama Blues” b/w “Train Imitations And The Fox Chase”, cut “Just It” b/w “How Long Baby” possibly backed by guitarist Sam Harris on December 7, 1928 and “Out Of Doors Blues” b/w “Central Tracks Blues” backed possibly by Sam Harris and Jesse Harris on clarinet on December 8, 1928. All of these sides can be found on Texas Black Country Dance Music 1927-1935 on the Document label.

According to harmonica researcher Pat Missin, McCoy was the first blues player to record in fifth position when he cut “Central Tracks Blues” which is in the key of C#. He’s transcribed this piece on this page. The song refers the predominantly black Deep Ellum section of Dallas which, because of the proximity of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad tracks, was also called Central Track. By the 1920’s it was known for it’s gambling joints, pawnshops, prostitution and nightclubs. Many blues musicians worked the area including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

Although the harmonica was present in many pre-war recordings, it became a dominant force in the 1950’s, when it was amplified by the likes of Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, and Snooky Pryor. As such many players and fans seem to think that blues harmonica began with Little Walter and are unaware of the rich early tradition of harmonica recordings. In the early days harmonica soloists were common who played now forgotten pieces like train imitations and set pieces like “Lost John”, “Fox Chase”, “Mama Blues” and other call-and-response pieces that featured the harmonica over the voice, if the voice was used at all. William McCoy falls into that category while others include DeFord Bailey, George “Bullet” Williams, Alfred Lewis and Sonny Terry. Other notable early harmonica players include Jaybird Coleman, Daddy Stovepipe, Robert Cooksey, Noah Lewis and Jed Davenport. My August 17th show will be devoted to early harmonica blues, mostly from the 1920’s and 1930’s, and will spotlight all of these artists.

St. Louis Cyclone Blues (MP3)

In our ongoing look at the blues ads that appeared in the Chicago Defender we examine two topical numbers about the St. Louis Cyclone of 1927. The St. Louis Cyclone hit five months after the flooding of the Mississippi river. The 1927 flood provoked an outpouring of songs by both whites and African-Americans. Many blues songs were written directly about the flood itself while others dealt with related matters like levee work, refugee camps and other natural disasters. Among those who wrote flood themed songs was Lonnie Johnson who recorded “South Bound Water” four days after the disaster, a cover of Bessie Smith’s “Back Water Blues” and “Broken Levee Blues.” Johnson’s “St. Louis Cyclone Blues” was recorded in New York City just four days after the catastrophe. On September 29 a cyclone struck St. Louis, killing 84 people in five minutes and causing one million dollars in damage. The impact of this disaster was minimal in relation to the Mississippi flood and this is reflected in the fact that only four songs were released about the subject. In addition to Johnson there was a sermon by Rev. J.M. Gates titled “God’s Wrath In The St. Louis Cyclone”, Elzadie Robinson’s “St. Louis Cyclone Blues” (a shorter version of Johnson’s song) and “Tornado Groan” by Luella Miller.

Johnson was at the height of his popularity during this period, cutting some 130 sides between 1925 and 1932. Accordingly his recordings were advertised regularly in the Chicago Defender with some forty ads appearing in the paper between 1926 and 1931. In addition to being a gifted singer and guitarist he was also an imaginative songwriter as “St. Louis Cyclone Blues” amply demonstrates:

I was sitting in my kitchen, lookin’ ‘way out cross the sky (2x)
I thought the world was ending, I started in to cry.

The wind was howlin’, the buildings beginnin’ to fall (2x)
I seen that mean old twister comin’, just like a cannonball

The world was black as midnight, I never heard such a noise before (2x)
Sound like a million lions, when they turn loose their roar

Oh, people was screamin’, and runnin’ every which away (2x)
[spoken ] Lord have mercy on our poor people!
I fell down on my knees, I started in to pray

The shack where we were living, she reeled and rocked but never fell (2x)
[spoken ] Lord, Have mercy!
How the cyclone spared us, nobody but the Lord can tell

God’s Wrath In The St. Louis Cyclone (MP3)

Recorded sermons were among the most popular and best selling of the race records in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Rev. J.M. Gates waxed some two hundred titles between 1926 and 1941, which accounted for a staggering quarter of all sermons recorded during this period. These records provide a fascinating look into the views and concerns of black America at a time when very few outlets existed for black expression. Gates’ sermons were advertised in the Chicago Defender close to thirty times between 1926 and 1930. Gates tackled a wide variety of topical concerns exemplified in titles like “The California Kidnapping”, “The Flood Of Alabama”,  “President Roosevelt Is Everybody’s Friend”, “Joe Louis’ Wrist And Hist Fist”, “Hitler And Hell” among others. “God’s Wrath In The St. Louis Cyclone” was recorded a week after the disaster and actually relates a litany of natural disasters, the St. Louis Cyclone being just one of them. Just as many songs viewed the sinking of the titanic as divine intervention so too did gospel singers and preachers view natural disasters as God’s retribution.

New Two Sixteen Blues (MP3) Two String Blues (MP3)

In our ongoing series of Chicago Defender blues ads we feature a pair by Texas guitarist George “Little Hat Jones.” Okeh placed four ads in the newspaper on the following dates: September 7th 1929, June 21st 1930, June 28th 1930 and October 18th 1930. Jones was brought in for three sessions in San Antonio between 1929 and 1930 resulting in ten songs. At his first session he also backed Texas Alexander on eight sides. Jones was a fine guitarist who’s playing is distinguished by fast rhythms and boogie runs. He was also an expressive, confident singer with a declamatory style that bears more than a passing likeness to Blind Lemon Jefferson.

What we know about Jones stems from the 1960’s when Thomas Craig  interviewed Jones in 1962 and subsequently wrote a short article about him for the Texas Monitor for whom he worked as a reporter. Craig interviewed Jones later that year with the tape eventually ending up in the possession of Roy Book Binder. The contents of which were never transcribed or published. Knowledge of its existence came to light during a conversation between Robert Tilling and Book Binder in the 1970’s. In 1998 Tilling wrote an article about Jones titled Long Gone And Got Away Lucky in the British Blues & Rhythm magazine.

The following is gleaned from Tilling’s article. Little Hat was born in Bowie County, Texas in 1899. He earned his nickname while working construction in Garland, Texas. He states that he had a hat that he wore to work that had about half the brim cut off and the boss man started calling him “Little Hat”, even making out his pay checks to “Little Hat” Jones. In addition to his documented sessions Jones also claims Okeh Records called him to New York, but there is no record of further recordings. During the interview, he states that he played with T. Texas Tyler and with Jimmie Rodgers. On the interview tape Jones plays a version of Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train.” He also stated that he played in New Orleans, Galveston, Austin, and on one occasion went down to Mexico to play. By 1937 Jones was settled in Naples, married to Janie Traylor, his second wife. Of his work, he stated “I farmed a little bit, worked in the State Department some, railroads, sawmills, big chicken ranch, from that to janitor, working at old folks homes.” His obituary states that he worked for many years at Red River Army Depot. Jones died in March 1981 at the Linden Municipal Hospital, and is buried in the Morning Star cemetery in Naples.

John Henry (MP3)	Cottonfield Blues (MP3)

I’ve always been intrigued by the old blues advertisements and have been collecting them for some time. The bulk of these appeared in the Chicago Defender and I’m fortunate to have access to all the old back issues through a university library.  Other ads stem from promotional material sent by the record companies to record stores and distributors. Outside of scanning ads from the Chicago Defender I’ve grabbed additional ads from books, periodicals and the web. It should also be mention that record collector John Tefteller uncovered a huge cache of Paramount promotional material a few years back. Tefteller bought a huge cache of this artwork from a pair of journalists who rescued them from the rubbish heap some twenty years previously. The depression essentially killed off Paramount’s advertising budget so many of these images were never sent out and hence have not been seen by anyone since they were first produced. Tefteller has been making these evocative ads available in his Classic Blues Artwork Calendars since 2004 with a book of these advertisements planned for the future.

As writer Elijah Wald summarizes: “For roughly ten years, from the dawn of the blues recording boom in 1920 until the Depression temporarily destroyed the ‘race record’ industry, blues was the most popular music in black America, and the Chicago Defender was the principle venue for record advertisements aimed at African American consumers.” Wald has compiled a handy index of Chicago Defender ads on his website.

Mamie Smith Ad, 1922

The following background is taken from the Chicago Defender website: “On May 5, 1905, Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the Chicago Defender in a small kitchen in his landlord’s apartment, with an initial investment of 25 cents and a press run of 300 copies. The Chicago Defender’s first issues were in the form of four-page, six-column handbills, filled with local news items gathered by Abbott and clippings from other newspapers. Five years later, the Chicago Defender began to attract a national audience. By the start of World War I, the Chicago Defender was the nation’s most influential Black weekly newspaper, with more than two thirds of its readership base located outside of Chicago.” The paper began publishing on a daily basis in 1956.

Once a week I will be presenting an ad or two with some background as well as audio clips. I don’t plan on putting these up in any particular order and will omit the large number of early ads mainly devoted to the classic female singers like Ethel Waters, Ida Cox, Sara Marin, Alberta Hunter, Lucille Hegamin and the like.  Since I’m doing a show on early Texas blues today I thought I’d reproduce the ads for Henry Thomas’ magnificent two-part 78 debut, “John Henry” b/w “Cottonfield Blues” cut on July 1, 1927. Vocalion seem to have had faith in this new artist issuing separate ads for both sides. In 1928 Thomas issued six sides with Vocalion placing four ads in the Chicago Defender.

Henry Thomas, nicknamed “Ragtime Texas”, was born in 1874 in Big Sandy, Texas by most accounts, a town which lies roughly between Dallas and Shreveport. The 1874 date marks him as one of the eldest-born blues performers on record. The honor for oldest goes to Johnny “Daddy Stovepipe” Watson born in Alabama in 1867 and who first recorded in 1924. “Flailing his guitar”, Tony Russell writes, “in now forgotten country dance rhythms, whistling delicate melodies on his panpies, gruffly chanting rag songs and blues, Thomas is a figure of almost legend.” The portrait Thomas presents on his twenty-three recordings cut for Vocalion between 1927 to 1929 provides, Russell notes, “a wholly absorbing picture of black-country music before it was submerged beneath the tidal wave of the blues.” Thomas embodied the term songster, cutting blues, rags, country stomps, refashioned coon songs and square dance numbers. Thomas was the archetypal rambling musician who went wherever the railroads would take him. According to Mack McCormick, as told to him from a former railroad conductor, “Ragtime Texas was a big fellow that used to come aboard at Gladewater or Mineola or somewhere in there. I’d always carry him, except when he was too dirty. He was  a regular hobo, but I’d carry him most of the time. That guitar was his ticket.” Speaking of his famous “Railroadin’ Some”, William Barlow calls it the most “vivid and intense recollection of railroading” in all the early blues recorded in the 1920’s. As for his guitar, Stephen Calt ranked his work “with the finest dance blues ever recorded…its intricate simultaneous treble picking and drone bass would have posed a challenge to any blues guitarist of any era.” The pan pipes also linked him to an earlier era and are most evocative in perhaps his best-known composition, “Bull Doze Blues”, a song reworked by Canned Heat as “Going Up The Country”, some 40 years after the original. After making his final recordings in Chicago in 1929, Henry Thomas disappeared completely from sight. Befitting his near-mythic stature some reports claim to have seen him perform as late as the mid-1950’s on Texas street comers. It is believed that he most likely passed away sometime during this period. All of Thomas’ recordings can be found on Texas Worried Blues on Yazoo and Henry Thomas (’Ragtime Texas’) 1927-1929 on Document with little difference in sound quality although the Yazoo features detailed notes by Stephen Calt.