Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Today’s show is the first installment of an ongoing series of programs built around a particular year. The bulk of the information for today’s show notes comes from the books Recording The Blues (reprinted along with two other titles in Yonder Come The Blues) by Robert M.W. Dixon and John Godrich and Blues & Gospel Records, 1890-1943 by Robert M.W. Dixon, John Godrich and Howard Rye.

The year 1927 was the beginning of a blues boom that would last until 1930; there were just 500 blues and gospel records issued in 1927 and increase of fifty percent from 1926 a trend that would continue until the depression. Paramount, the market leader at the time, brought talent up to their northern studios. To feed the demand other record companies conducted exhaustive searches for new talent, which included making trips down south with field recording units. Between 1927-1930 Atlanta was visited seventeen times, Memphis eleven times, Dallas eight times, New Orleans seven times and so on. The record companies advertised their record in black newspapers, mainly in the Chicago Defender, which was the nation’s most influential black weekly newspaper.

After neglecting the race market, Victor decided to jump in the field in 1926 with negligible results. Victor’s fortunes turned around when they hired Ralph Peer who had been responsible for building up the race and hilliby catalogs for OKeh. In February 1927 Peer ventured out with the Victor filed unit to Atlanta, Memphis and finally New Orleans. Among the artists recorded in Memphis were the Memphis Jug Band, Furry Lewis and Frank Stokes. In Atlanta recordings were made by Julius Daniels, Blind Willie McTell and others. In New Orleans the major find was songster Richard “Rabbit” Brown who recorded six sides.

Early in 1927 Mayo Williams, who had built up the Paramount catalog, formed his Black Patti label. The recordings were made by Gennett, with half the material issued on Gennett’s own labels. Black Patti Records debuted with advertisements in May of 1927, with some two dozen discs said to already be available. The repertory included jazz, blues, sermons, spirituals, and vaudeville skits, most (but not quite all) by African American entertainers. A total of 55 different discs were manufactured. Williams found running his own label not as lucrative and easy as he had hoped, and closed up operations before the end of 1927. Among the notable blues artists recorded were Papa Harvey Hull, Sam Collins, Clara Smith, Jaybird Collins among others.

When Black Patti folded in August 1927, Vocalion quickly hired him as a talent scout. Williams hit pay dirt with Jim Jackson’s “Jim Jackson’s Kansas City Blues” which was released in December 1927 and was an immediate hit.

Gennett began recording blues in 1923 but was the only major label not to have a separate race series. Gennett recorded most of their recordings at their Richmond, Indiana and New York studios. They made one group of recordings in the South in Birmingham Alabama in 1927. Among those recorded during this trip were Jay Bird Coleman, Daddy Stovepipe,, William Harris and Joe Evans.Other artists to appear on the label included Sam Collins and Cow Cow Davenport.

Columbia’s race records  were primarily issued on the 1400-D series which ran from December 1923 through April 1933. The first country blues singer to appear on the series was Peg Leg Howell who was recorded in Atalanta in November 1926 and the following year in April.  Also recorded in April 1927 were Robert Hicks aka Barbecue Bob. 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. Initial 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. In December 1927 the Columbia field unti went to Dallas and Memphis.  Notable artists recorded in Dallas inluded Blind Willie Johnson, the Dallas String Band, Lillian Glinn while Memphis yielded important recordings by Reubin Lacy and Pearl Dickson.

In 1926 Columbia and OKeh merged but the labels were run by separate management for three years after the merger and did not compete for the same artists. Since 1927 OKeh had been issuing a new record every six weeks by Lonnie Johnson and issued some two-dozen sides by him in 1927. Johnson also backed other OKeh artists that year including Texas Alexander and Victoria Spivey. OKeh also recorded two sessions by Blind Lemon Jefferson, exclusively a Paramount artist, but these were never issued. Today’s show features tracks by all these artists as well as the duo of Butterbeans & Susie who cut close to 70 sides for the label between 1924 and 1930.

The only race company that made no field trips was Paramount. Despite this Paramount remained the market leader in records released and singers recorded. Paramount issued records by the many of the blues biggest stars. In 1927 the label issued records by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake both of whom were extensivley advertised in the Chicago Defender. Other big names were Ma Rainey, Lucille Bogan Ida Cox, and Papa Charlie Jackson.

Will The Coffin Be Your Santa Claus? (MP3)

As we creep closer to Christmas we turn our attention to a pair of uplifting Christmas sermons advertised in the December 17th, 1927 edition of the Chicago Defender: Rev. J.M. Gates’ “Will The Coffin Be Your Santa Claus?” and Rev. A.W. Nix’s “Death May Be Your Christmas Present.” The idea of Christmas themed blues and gospel numbers stretches back to the very dawn of the recorded genres. “Hooray for Christmas” exclaims Bessie Smith to kick off her soon to be classic “At The Christmas Ball”, which inaugurated the Christmas blues tradition when it was recorded in November 1925 for Columbia. A year later, circa December 1926, the gospel Christmas tradition was launched when the Elkins-Payne Jubilee Singers recorded “Silent Night, Holy Night” for Paramount Records. After these recordings it was off to the races with numerous Christmas blues numbers recorded by singers of all stripes, a pace that continued as blues evolved into R&B and then rock and roll. For some reason there’s far fewer gospel Christmas songs although there were plenty of Christmas sermons in the 1920’s and 1930’s when recorded sermons rivaled blues in popularity among black audiences. Going hand in hand with Christmas is quite a number of New Year’s songs, a good vehicle for juxtaposing the problems of the past year with the glimmer of hope that that the upcoming year will bring better fortune. In fact the other side of Rev. Nix’s selection is “Mind Your Own Business (A New year’s Sermon).” Whether these artists sung these numbers as part of their regular repertoire is unclear but it’s almost certainly the case that many of these songs were recorded at the prompting of the record companies. Like any business they were always looking for a new angle or gimmick to sell records and advertised these boldly, often with full-page ads, in black newspapers like the Chicago Defender. Just about every November and December the Chicago Defender had advertisements either for specific blues and gospel Christmas records or more general ads from record companies wishing buyers holiday greetings. For example Paramount placed large sized ads wishing Christmas greetings which featured pictures of the label’s stars like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Papa Charlie Jackson and Blind Blake among others. In Paramount’s 1928 late fall Dealers’ Supplement the label advertised scores of “CHRISTMAS, SPIRITUAL AND SERMON RECORDS THAT ARE DEPENDABLE SALES PRODUCERS” and warned that they “SHOULD BE IN YOUR STOCKS NOW.” As for Rev. Gates he was advertised in the Chicago Defender twenty-seven times between 1926 and 1930 while Rev. A.W. Nix was advertised on ten different occasions between 1927 and 1928.

The popularity of recorded sermons is explained in the book Recording The Blues: “The great gospel boom had been in late 1926; Rev. J.C. Burnett’s first record on Columbia - “Downfall Of Nebuchadnezzar” and “I’ve Even Heard Of Thee”, exactly the same titles as on his earlier Meritt release - sold 80,000 copies soon after its release in November 1926; this was four times as many as the normal sale of a Bessie Smith record, and Bessie was still outselling just about every other blues singer. …In 1927 one third of the 500 releases were gospel items; the figure dropped to about a quarter in 1928 and remained at this level for the next two years.”

Recorded sermons were among the most popular and best selling of the “race records” in the 1920’s and 1930’s. These records provided a fascinating look into the views and concerns of black America at a time when very few outlets existed for black expression. Rev. J.M. Gates was the most popular and prolific of them all, waxing some two hundred titles between 1926 and 1941, which accounted for a staggering quarter of all sermons recorded during this period. His sermons appeared on a variety of labels (Victor, Bluebird, Okeh, Gennett), though Gates often re-recorded his most popular sermons such as “Death’s Black Train Is Coming,” “Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting,” “Goin’ to Die with the Staff in My Hands” for multiple labels. Born in 1885, Gates ministered at Atlanta’s Calvary Church. A testament to his popularity was the fact that he was given the biggest African-American funeral Atlanta had seen until Martin Luther King’s. Gates was first recorded by a Columbia field unit that went to Atlanta in 1926. Four sermons were recorded including “Death’s Black Train Is Coming” and when the record was released it was an instant success. These were the first sermons recorded with singing. The advance pressing order for the record was 3,675 copies and when the remaining two sides from Gates’ Atlanta session were issued the advance order was 34,025. According to Recording The Blues: “As soon as he saw how well Gates’ first disc was selling, Polk Brockman - the Atlanta talent scout who had engineered the first OKeh field trip three year earlier - visited the preacher at his home and signed an exclusive contract with him (Columbia had neglected to do so). …Brockman took Gates and some members of his congregation up to New York about the beginning of September and had him record for no less than five different record companies - OKeh, Victor, BBC’s Vocalion, Pathe and Banner. Gates recorded forty-two sides within the space of two or three weeks… In a nine month period - from September 1926 to June 1927 - sixty records of sermons were put pout by the various companies, and no less than forty of them were by Rev. J.M. Gates!”

it’s not surprising that Gates cut more Christmas sermons than anyone including: “You May Be Alive Or You May Be Dead, Christmas Day” (1927), “Where Will you Be Christmas Day” (1927), “Did You Spend Christmas Day In Jail?” (1929), “Will Hell Be Your Santa Claus” (1939) and “Gettin’ Ready For Christmas Day” (1941) which was his last recorded sermon.

Death May Be Your Christmas Present (MP3)

Rev. A.W. Nix was one of the great singing preachers whose fiery, earthshaking sermons are enough to send any sinner running for salvation. Nix made his mark with his first coupling, the incredibly intense “Black Diamond Express to Hell Pts. I & II” in 1927. This was one of the best known and popular sermons with Parts 3 and 4 issued in 1929 and parts 5 and 6 in 1930. He cut fifty sermons for Vocalion through 1931, railing against sinners in sermons with provocative titles like “Goin’ To Hell And Who Cares”, “The Fat Life Will Bring You Down”, “Jack The Ripper” and “Hot Shot Mamas And Teasing Browns.” He had a special affinity for the holidays as evidenced in recordings like “Death Might Be Your Christmas Gift”, “That Little Thing May Kill You Yet (Christmas Sermon)”, “Begin A New Life On Christmas Day - Part 1 & 2″ and “How Will You Spend Christmas?”

Everybody’s Blues (MP3)

Rock Island Blues (MP3)

Hey baby, tell me what’s the matter now (2x)
Lord you tryin’ to quit me, baby and you don’t know how

I ain’t got no good girl, ain’t got no lady friend (2x)
I ain’t go nobody to say, “Furry, where you been?”

If you don’t want me, won’t you tell me so (2x)
Then you won’t be bothered with me round your house no more

Hey-ey baby, you don’t treat me right (2x)
Ah the way you treat me, take my appetite

I’d rather see my coffin come rollin’ from my door (2x)
Lord than to hear my good girl says “I don’t want you no more”

Ba-aby, what you goin’ do with me? (2x)
Way you doin’ me baby, I declare I sure can’t be

(Everybody’s Blues, 1927)

After a brief hiatus we resume our continuing exploration of the blues advertisements that appeared in the Chicago Defender and turn our attention to the legendary Furry Lewis. Lewis was promoted in the Chicago Defender on five occasions; in July and August 1927 and April and June of 1928. Lewis’ first advertisement was for “Everybody’s Blues”, a rather small ad dwarfed by a large Paramount ad for Papa Charlie Jackson’s “Skoodle Um Skoo.” Perhaps because of the sales of that record he was granted larger ad space for “Sweet Papa Moan” and “Jellyroll” also cut at this first session. The year Lewis made his debut was the beginning of a blues boom that would last until 1930; there were just 500 blues and gospel records issued in 1927 and increase of fifty percent from 1926 a trend that would continue until the depression. To feed the demand record companies conducted exhaustive searches for new talent which included making southern excursions with field recording units. Memphis was a prime destination with record companies visiting the city eleven times during this period.

Lewis was actually born in Greenwood, MS and moved with his mother and two sisters to Brinley Avenue in Memphis when he was a youngster. Before he was ten he had fashioned a guitar from a cigar box and screen wire. His first guitar was supposedly given to him by W.C. Handy, a Martin that he used for decades, “until I just absolutely wore it out completely” as he recalled.” Lewis played around Beale Street in speakeasies, taverns, dance halls and house parties and worked the countryside at suppers, frolics and fish fries. In 1925 he got together with Will Shade, Dewey Thomas and Hambone Lewis to form an early version of the Memphis Jug Band and like Jim Jackson took to traveling with medicine shows. Vocalion talent scouts saw both men in 1927 but it was Lewis who went to Chicago first in April where he cut six sides with “The Panic’s On” remaining unissued. He and Jackson went up together in October the same year where Jackson cut his famous “Kansas City Blues” with Lewis cutting seven numbers including the unissued “Casey Jones.” Asked in later years if Jim Jackson was still alive in 1959, the year Lewis was rediscovered, Lewis quipped “he been dead so long he near about ready to come back.” Just under a year later Victor recorded eight more titles by Lewis in Memphis and Vocalion brought him in the studio one last time in 1929, cutting four songs at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

Jellyroll (MP3)

Mr Furry’s Blues (MP3)

While playing the blues at nights and occasional recordings, Lewis kept a day job at the city’s Sanitation Department which he secured in 1923 and kept until he retired in 1968. “When I first started there, the city didn’t have trucks, I drove a mule and a car for the city. I was a street cleaner, I hauled garbage, I worked on the city dump and I worked washing streets.”

Thirty year would pass before Sam Charters came knocking in 1959 subsequently recordings him for Folkways that same year with two more albums following for Prestige in 1961. There was nothing rusty about his playing as he had never stopped performing for neighbors and friends. Lewis was recorded often through the 1960’s, with a slew of informal recordings issued posthumously. Bob Groom wrote in his book The Blues Revival that his “return has been one of the most satisfying of the [blues] revival.” He played regularly at festivals around Memphis, appeared with Burt Reynolds in the movie W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings, sang “Furry’s Blues” on Johnny Carson and was the subject of a Joni Mitchell song (he didn’t like it). During this period Lewis’ apartment became a pilgrimage for many visitors to Memphis, from blues fans, musicians to celebrities.  Lewis died in 1981 at the City of Memphis Hospital. In the liner notes to Shake ‘Em On Down, Pete Welding wrote that Lewis’ music, “engagingly direct and sincere, typifies the best that the Memphis blues has to offer. If any single performer can be said to stand as the living embodiment of the Memphis blues, a perfomer in whose music can be found the full span of that urban-rural polarity, that man is surley Furry Lewis.”

Back-Water Blues (MP3)

The 1927 flood inundated 27,000 square miles along the lower reaches of the Mississippi River populated by more than 900,000 people. For a period of months in the spring and summer of 1927, water covered the whole vast flood plain of the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries. It swallowed up nearly all of cotton country, making a lake of the tens of thousands of square miles of the Mississippi Delta. Some 700,000 people were driven from the land, the great majority of them black sharecroppers and tenant farmers. 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. The four record companies-Columbia, OKeh, Paramount and Victor engaged in a sweepstakes of sorts to see which one could come up with the biggest original “race record” song hit dealing with this 1927 flood. Columbia took the lead from the start. According to David Evans: “Their most popular blues artist, and probably the most popular of any label, Bessie Smith, had already recorded ‘Back-Water Blues’ and ‘Muddy Water,’ and Columbia had these two records on the market by the time the levees broke in the South in April.” In fact “Back-Water Blues” was recorded on February 17, 1927, some two months before the levees actually broke. Through some impressive detective work Evans determined that Bessie was actually singing about flooding in Nashville in December 1926, the effects of which she witnessed first hand. This flood contributed to the rising waters of the Mississippi River that reached flood stage four months later. Nonetheless “Back-Water Blues” was the biggest hit of the flood related songs and has become a blues standard. Again from Evans: “On June 18, 1927, the Baltimore Afro-American reported that ‘Back-Water Blues’ and ‘Muddy Water (a Mississippi moan)’ are probably in the fore of best sellers of the past week. Both are by Bessie Smith. Some owners of the record shops attribute the present popularity of these records to the publicity given to the Mississippi river floods which are laying waste to many former haunts of record buyers.” It also didn’t hurt that the record was advertised extensively in the black press including the above advertisement from the Chicago Defender. It’s not hard to see why Bessie’s account resonated with the public, providing a personal feel to the disaster:

When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night (2x)
Then trouble’s takin’ place in the lowlands at night

I woke up this mornin’, can’t even get out of my door (2x)
There’s been enough trouble to make a poor girl wonder where she want to go

Then they rowed a little boat about five miles ‘cross the pond (2x)
I packed all my clothes, throwed them in and they rowed me along

When it thunders and lightnin’ and when the wind begins to blow (2x)
There’s thousands of people ain’t got no place to go

Then I went and stood upon some high old lonesome hill (2x)
Then looked down on the house were I used to live

Backwater1 blues done call me to pack my things and go (2x)
‘Cause my house fell down and I can’t live there no more

Mmm, I can’t move no more (2x)
There ain’t no place for a poor old girl to go

High Water Blues (MP3)

OKeh Records first entry in the flood sweepstakes was “South Bound Water” recorded on April 25 by their biggest blues star Lonnie Johnson only four days after the levee broke at Greenville. As Evans notes: “The bursting of the levee above Greenville, Mississippi, on April 21 was the defining event of the 1927 flood, and the great rush to record flood songs began only after this catastrophe.” On May 3 Johnson cut “Back-Water Blues” a cover of the Bessie Smith hit which was issued as the flip side of “South Bound Water”, another flood song. The record was advertised in the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender. Johnson returned to the flood theme several times including “Low Land Moan”, “The New Fallin’ Rain Blues” and “Broken Levee Blues”, one of the few flood songs with a streak of protest.  OKeh also recorded and advertised “High Water Blues” in  by Blue Belle featuring Lonnie Johnson on guitar and advertised in the Chicago Defender on August 13, 1927. Bessie Mae Smith recorded variously as St. Louis Bessie, Blue Belle and Streamline Mae. Her 18 sides recorded between 1927-1930 showcase a strong singer who used some striking imagery in her songs.

Several other flood songs were advertised in the Chicago Defender including Barbecue Bob’s “Mississippi Heavy Water Blues”, Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Rising High Water Blues” and Charlie Patton’s two-part “High Water Everywhere” of which Paramount devoted one of it’s last advertisements to this record which became a surprise hit at the dawn of the Great Depression. I’ll be reproducing these ads in a future installment of our ongoing exploration of the Chicago Defender blues ads.

Back Water Blues (MP3)

Teasing Brown Blues (MP3)

Gonna Ramble Blues (MP3)

In our continuing exploration of the blues advertisements that appeared in the Chicago Defender we turn our attention to versatile guitarist Sylvester Weaver, known as “the Man with the Talking Guitar”,  who has the distinction of making the first solo recordings of blues guitar playing. Weaver first recorded in New York in 1923, where in October of that year he accompanied vaudeville blues singer Sara 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 record that a popular female singer had been backed up solely by guitar, and were an immediate success. Weaver’s guitar was mentioned in Martin’s ads; one was advertised as “the first blue guitar record” while another made note of his “big, mean, blue guitar.” In a January 8, 1924 Chicago Defender ad the depiction shows a headshot of Martin alongside a drawing of a little black girl listening to an old black man with a guitar in front of a run down wooden shack. Elijah Wald conjectures that “a possible explanation is that they [Okeh] had been having some success  with white ‘hillbilly’ records and were testing the waters to see if there was a similar market for rural styles in the black community. …By 1924, the basic style of the blues queens was thoroughly established, and the record companies were hunting around for novelties that might set their products apart.” Weaver’s own records were advertised in the Chicago Defender three times in 1927 (one alongside Sara Martin) and twice in 1928.

Weaver was born in 1897 in Louisville, Kentucky, a resident of “Smoketown”, a neighborhood one mile southeast of downtown Louisville. “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.” His 1923 recording of “Guitar Rag” was later re-invented by Bob Wills into “Steel Guitar Rag” and became a country standard. In fact Weaver’s work lies stylistically between blues and country music, having considerable impact on both musical genres. Through the end of 1927 Weaver recorded a total of 26 solo sides, and on some of the later ones he was joined by guitarist Walter Beasley in who’s company he recorded his greatest blues instrumentals, “St. Louis Blues” and “Bottleneck Blues.” Weaver cut over two dozen selections accompanying Sara Martin through 1927 and also backed singer Helen Humes on eight sides in 1927. In addition Weaver cut a record with E.L. Coleman and one with Virginia Liston. Weaver retired from music after 1927, working as a chauffeur in Louisville. He was almost totally forgotten by the time he died in 1960. An interesting footnote is the discovery of a scrapbook Weaver kept of his musical activities. Some of the contents were published in Living Blues Magazine in 1982.

Penitentiary Blues (MP3)

Can’t Be Trusted Blues (MP3)

“Gonna Ramble Blues” b/w “Teasing Brown Blues” was recorded on April 7, 1927 under the name Sally Roberts, a pseudonym for Sara Martin while “Can’t Be Trusted Blues” b/w “Penitentiary Bound Blues” was cut on August 31 of the same year. The first pairing are exceptional mid-tempo blues sung with power and feeling by Martin. Martin came out of the stage show and vaudeville tradition and it took some time for her to get her bearings singing blues.  Of her first collaboration with Weaver, Tony Russell notes that 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.” The latter pairing spotlights Weaver playing solo and show off his rich baritone and deliberate diction on two slow tempo blues, a tempo he stuck almost exclusively with his entire career. Weaver was an interesting, novel lyricist as he demonstrates on “Can’t Be Trusted Blues:”

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

and “Penitentiary Bound Blues:”

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 (2x)
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, 4-11-44 (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

The number 4-11-44 was a popular combination for playing policy (laying bets on combinations of numbers) and it’s odd that Weaver uses it in such a context.  Several blues songs mention this combination including Papa Charlie Jackson’s “Four-Eleven-Forty-Four” recorded in 1926. A few months later Weaver would cut another fine prison number,”Rock Pile Blues.”

Dry Bone Shuffle (MP3)

As we continue our mission to reprint the blues advertisements that appeared in the Chicago Defender we turn our attention to Blind Blake, one of the most popular bluesmen of the 1920’s. His only rival in popularity was Blind Lemon Jefferson, also a Paramount artist, who had a whopping forty-four ads in the Chicago Defender between 1926 and 1930. Blake too was advertised heavily with twenty-four ads in the Chicago Defender during the same time span. Today we spotlight “Dry Bone Shuffle” recorded April 1927 and “Wabash Rag” from November 1927.

Before we discuss Blake it’s worth giving some background on how Paramount advertised their records. Record collector John Tefteller provides some context: “In the mid-1920’s, Paramount began advertising in the now legendary Chicago Defender, carefully promoting each new blues release with clever artwork and appropriate hype. The artwork and advertisements were produced in Wisconsin [Paramount's headquarters] and then sent to Chicago for publication. Apparently, all the printing was done by the local newspaper in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin. As the Great Depression took its toll, Paramount stopped advertising in the Defender (though they continued to produce artwork and promotional materials they sent directly to record stores) and eventually folded in 1933.”

So who was Blind Blake? Despite his popularity and much investigation, he remains a shadowy figure; What was his real name? Where was he from? And perhaps most mysteriously, how did he simply disappear after a final session circa June 1932? As to his name,  Bruce Bastin notes that “on occasion he is named Arthur Phelps, but copyright submissions on behalf of Chicago Music for his Paramount recordings give his name as Arthur Blake. They state his name in a variety of manners: Blind Blake (”Blake’s Worried Blues”), Arthur (Blind) Blake (”Bootleg Whiskey” and “Goodbye Mama Moan”), Blind Arthur Blake (”Cold Hearted Mama Blues”), and simply Arthur Blake (”Detroit Bound”).” During the recording “Papa Charlie And Blind Blake Talk About It,” Papa Charlie Jackson asks him, “What is your right name?” Blake responds, “My name is Arthur Blake.”

As for biographical details there is the following from his first Defender advertisement: “Early Morning Blues” is the first record of this new exclusive Paramount artist, Blind Blake. Blake, who hails from Jacksonville, Florida, is known up and down the coast as a wizard at picking his piano-sounding guitar. His ‘talking guitar’ they call it, and when you hear him sing and play you’ll know why Blind Blake is going to be one of the most talked about Blues artist in music.” The Paramount Book of the Blues (issued in 1924 and 1927 with photographs and short bios to promote Paramount recording artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Ma Rainey) had the following bio: “We have all heard expressions of people ’singing in the rain’ or ‘laughing in the face of adversity,’ but we never saw such a good example of it, until we came upon the history of Blind Blake. Born in Jacksonville, in sunny Florida, he seemed to absorb some of the sunny atmosphere–disregarding the fact that nature had cruelly denied him a vision of outer things. He could not see the things that others saw–but he had a better gift. A gift of an inner vision, that allowed him to see things more beautiful. The pictures that he alone could see made him long to express them in some way–so he turned to music. He studied long and earnestly–listening to talented pianists and guitar players, and began to gradually draw out harmonious tunes to fit every mood. Now that he is recording exclusively for Paramount, the public has the benefit of his talent, and agrees, as one body, that he has an unexplainable gift of making one laugh or cry as he feels, and sweet chords and tones that come from his talking guitar express a feeling of his mood.”

Blake’s disappearance only adds to the aura of mystery and legend. “I figure he went back to Jacksonville when his recording contract was over,” says researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow. “No one’s ever found out what happened to him. Gary Davis said that Blake was hit by a streetcar, and that’s the only rumor of his death that I know of. Maybe he got robbed and killed, ’cause he was blind.” Josh White never saw him after 1930 and believed he was murdered in the streets of Chicago, Big Bill Broonzy thought he died in Joliet prison in 1932 while Blind John Davis suggested Blake had died in the 1930’s in St. Louis, although he had been told this by Tampa Red.

Whatever his background there’s no doubt regarding his guitar skills. Paramount boldly promoted his skills: “He accompanies himself with that snappy guitar playing, like only Blind Blake can do,” read copy for “Bad Feeling Blues.” The company claimed that “Blind Blake and his trusty guitar do themselves proud” on “Rumblin’ & Ramblin’ Boa Constrictor Blues,” while “Wabash Rag” was “aided by his happy guitar.” Woody Mann stated, that “playing with a terrific flair for improvisation…he is at once subtle and ornate.” Gary Davis, never generous with praise, stated “I ain’t heard anybody on record yet beat Blind Blake on the guitar. I like Blake because he plays right sporty.” And as Tony Russell sums up: “Blind Blake’s most remarkable achievement as a recording artist was that in a career lasting almost six years, in which he made about 80 sides, he was never reduced, whether by slipping skill, waning inspiration or the single-mindedness of record company executives, from a multifaceted musician to a formulaic blues player.”

Blake cut quite a number of rags, even if they had “blues” in the title; “rags in blues clothing,” Russell calls them. “Dry Bone Shuffle” and “Wabash Rag” fall in the rag category. Blake was backed by an unknown rattlebones percussionist (”the accompaniment of rattling bones makes it an exciting number” the ad states) for “Dry Bone Shuffle” b/w “One Time Blues” and performs solo on “Wabash Rag” b/w “You Gonna Quit Me Blues.” Both of the flip sides feature a straight blues. The prominent bones player does a good job keeping pace with Blake as Blake offers running spoken encouragement:

Let’s go boys
That’s the way to play them bones, boy
Whup them bones into grace!

Wabash Rag (MP3)

“Wabash Rag” is another lively rag taken at a slightly slower pace. Recorded in Chicago, it’s a reference to Wabash Ave. (”lively as Wabash Ave. itself” the ad proclaims) located in the historic Bronzeville section on Chicago’s South Side. Bronzeville was known as the “Black Metropolis” and between 1910 and 1920, during the peak of the “Great Migration,” the population of the area increased dramatically when thousands of African-Americans fled the south and emigrated to Chicago in search of better opportunities.

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.