Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Unlike blues artists like Big Bill or Memphis Minnie who recorded extensively over three or four decades, Blind Boy Fuller recorded his substantial body of work over a short, six-year span. Nevertheless, he was one of the most recorded artists of his time and by far the most popular and influential Piedmont blues player of all time. Fuller could play in multiple styles: slide, ragtime, pop, and blues were all enhanced by his National steel guitar. Fuller worked with some fine sidemen, including Gary Davis, Floyd Council, Sonny Jones, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and washboard player Bull City Red. Initially discovered and promoted by Carolina entrepreneur H. B. Long, Fuller recorded for ARC and Decca. He also served as a conduit to recording sessions, steering fellow blues musicians to the studio.

What follows is a sketch of Fuller and some background on today’s featured artists. For an in-depth look at Fuller and the Piedmont blues I recommend Bruce Bastin’s exhaustive study Red River Blues. Bastin was assisted greatly by the efforts of Pete Lowry who was featured on the program recently.

Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina to Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, and traditional songs and blues popular in poor, rural areas. He married Cora Allen young and worked as a laborer, but began to lose his eyesight in his mid-teens. By 1928 he was completely blind, and turned to whatever employment he could find as a singer and entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the records of blues players like Blind Blake and the “live” playing of Gary Davis, he became a formidable guitarist, and played on street corners and at house parties in Winston-Salem, Danville, and then Durham, North Carolina. In Durham, playing around the tobacco warehouses, he developed a local following which included guitarists Floyd Council and Richard Trice, as well as harmonica player Sonny Terry and washboard player/guitarist George Washington.  In 1935, Burlington record store manager and talent scout James Baxter Long secured him a recording session with the American Recording Company (ARC). Allen, Davis and Washington recorded several tracks in New York City, including the traditional “Rag, Mama, Rag”. To promote the material, Long decided to rename Allen as “Blind Boy Fuller”, and also named Washington “Bull City Red.” Over the next five years Fuller made over 120 sides. In April 1936, Fuller recorded ten solo performances, and also recorded with guitarist Floyd Council. The following year, having auditioning for J. Mayo Williams, he recorded for the Decca label, but then reverted to ARC. Later in 1937, he made his first recordings with Sonny Terry. In 1938 Fuller was imprisoned for shooting a pistol at his wife, wounding her in the leg, causing him to miss out on John Hammond’s “Spirituals to Swing” concert in NYC that year. While Fuller was eventually released, it was Sonny Terry who went in his stead, the beginning of a long “folk music” career.Fuller was criticized by some as a derivative musician, but his ability to fuse together elements of other traditional and contemporary songs and reformulate them into his own performances, attracted a broad audience. He was an expressive vocalist and a masterful guitar player; best remembered for his up-tempo ragtime hits including “Step It Up and Go.” At the same time he was capable of deeper material. Fuller died in 1941 at the age of 33, of blood poisoning that resulted in kidney failure, popularly ascribed to his heavy drinking.

Floyd Council was born on the 2nd of September 1911 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and began his career playing in the streets of Chapel Hill in the mid-‘20s with musical brothers Leo and Thomas Strowd. Floyd occasionally worked with Blind Boy Fuller in the ‘30s, which may have led to his first recording sessions. In late January 1937 ACR Records scout John Baxter Long heard him, playing alone on a street in Chapel Hill. It was Long who had first brought Fuller to NYC to record in July 1935. Long invited Floyd to join Fuller on his third trip to New York. Floyd agreed, and a week later the three traveled to the city. During his second visit to New York in December, Floyd was used as a second guitar only. His solo tracks were later issued under the name ‘Blind Boy Fuller’s buddy’. In all he cut six sides under his own name and seven backing Fuller. Floyd performed around Chapel Hill through the ‘40s and ‘50s, both with Thomas Strowd and on his own. In the late ‘60s, a stroke partially paralyzed his throat muscles and slowed his motor skills. Floyd moved to Sanford, North Carolina, where he died in June 1976. His final recordings, made in August 1970, did not, apparently, merit release.

Rev. gary Davis

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. Richard Trice was later recorded by Pete Lowry but those recordings remain unreleased. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Willie Trice recorded again. Blue And Rag’d , his sole album, was released on Lowry’s Trix label in 1973.

Gary Davis was a major influence on Blind Boy Fuller. In the late 1920′s he was one of the most renowned practitioners of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar. He backed Fuller on second guitar at a 1935 session. Davis moved to Durham in the mid-’20s, by which time he was a full-time street musician. Davis went into the recording studio for the first time in the 1930′s with the backing of a local businessman. Davis cut a mixture of blues and spirituals for the American Record Company label, but there was never an agreement about payment for the recordings, and following these sessions, it was 19 years before he entered the studio again.

Sonny Terry was born Saunders Terrell on October 24, 1911, in Greensboro, NC. He began traveling to nearby Raleigh and Durham, performing on street corners for tips. In 1934, he befriended the popular guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller convinced Terry to move to Durham, where the two immediately gained a strong local following. By 1937, they were offered an opportunity to go to New York and record for the Vocalion label. Between 1937 and 1940 he backed Fuller on over two-dozen sides. A year later, Terry would be back in New York taking part in John Hammond’s legendary Spirituals to Swing concert. Upon returning to Durham, Terry continued playing regularly with Fuller and also met his future partner, guitarist Brownie McGhee, who would accompany Terry off and on for the next two decades. McGhee was initially sent to look after Terry by Blind Boy’s manager, J.B. Long. Long figured McGhee might get a chance to play some of the same shows as Terry. A friendship developed between the two men and following Fuller’s death in 1941, Terry and McGhee moved to New York.

Sonny Terry

In the late 1940 McGhee came into contact with washboard player Bull City Red who in turn introduced McGhee to talent scout J.B. Long. Long got him a recording contract with OKeh/Columbia in 1940; his debut session in Chicago produced a dozen tracks over two days. Long’s principal blues artist, Blind Boy Fuller, died in 1941, precipitating Okeh to issue some of McGhee’s early efforts under the alias of Blind Boy Fuller No. 2. McGhee cut a moving tribute song, “Death of Blind Boy Fuller,” shortly after the passing. McGhee’s third marathon session for OKeh in 1941 paired him for the first time with Sonny Terry. McGhee claimed to have never recorded with Fuller but in later years when someone played him “Precious Lord” he recalled that it was him singing with Fuller on guitar.

Bull City Red, whose real name was George Washington, is best known as a sometimes sideman on washboard to the likes of Blind Boy Fuller, Sonny Terry, and Blind Gary Davis. Red led an otherwise blind group that included Fuller, Sonny Terry and, for a time, Blind Gary Davis as well, and with help from their manager, department store owner J.B. Long, landed a contract with Vocalion. At one point in their history, Red, Fuller, Terry, and guitarist Sonny Jones performed together as “Brother George and His Sanctified Singers,” and made several recordings of gospel-themed material. Red was later responsible for hooking Terry up with Brownie McGhee, whom he met while on a trip to Burlington. McGhee was partnered with a blues harpist and one-man band named Jordan Webb at the time, and Red introduced the two to Fuller and Terry as well as their manager. Red cut more than a dozen sides showing off his skills as a singer and guitarist as well as on the washboard, between 1935 and 1939.

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.”

Pete Lowry & Tarheel Slim 1970′s, photos by Valerie Wilmer

I suppose it sounds rather romantic spending your time roaming around the south with a tape recorder recording blues but for all the rewards and exciting discoveries it’s a stressful enterprise, not to mention a precarious way to make a living. These days hardly anyone one does it anymore and the sad fact is that blues has largely disappeared as integral part of African-American rural communities; most of the old timers have passed on and few of the younger generation are interested in blues, particularly traditional blues. Much has been written about John and Alan Lomax who scoured the south and beyond making landmark recordings for the Library of Congress from the 1930′s through the 1960′s. Less well known are those that followed in the Lomax’s footsteps; there was folklorists and researchers such as David Evans, Sam Charters, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Art Rosenbaum, Bruce Bastin, Bengt Olsson, Dick Spottswood, Kip Lornell, Glenn Hinson, Tim Duffy, Siegfried A. Christmann and Axel Küstner. Some were hunting for the famous names who made records in the 1920’s and 1930’s, others were seeking to fill in biographical blanks regarding some of the older musicians coveted by collectors and then there were those who were seeking to document the blues tradition as it still existed in rural communities, men like George Mitchell and Peter B. Lowry. This was a very different undertaking than 1960′s blues revival which sought out and put back on the circuit such legendary artists of the past as Son House, Skip James, Bukka White and Mississippi John Hurt. As Lowry told me “the ‘collector’s mentality’ is behind so much of the research done on various forms of ‘roots’ music, even jazz to an extent. …It was those who made the rarest recordings who got the attention.” And as Mitchell lamented, “Too many people went to Mississippi.”

Belying the fact that he was born on April Fool’s Day and signs off his e-mails with “may the farce be with you”, Peter B. Lowry is an extremely fastidious, dedicated blues scholar. Lowry did not go to Mississippi, did not discover long lost bluesmen from the 1920′s but in his voluminous research, writing and recording has charted his own path, becoming 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. It would take more time and space than I have to relate all of Lowry’s research and writing – the man’s Curriculum Vita is twenty-six pages! – instead focusing on the primary outlet for his recordings, his Trix label.

As for the nature of field recording itself it’s worthwhile to quote Bruce Bastin, author of the classic Red River Blues and running mate of Lowry’s,  on some of his experiences: “Armchair research can never replace the infectious pleasure of personal contact, or indeed the streetwise experiences of fieldwork at the very edges of existence. …Talk to Bengt Olsson about his times in Tennessee and Alabama. Talk to Pete Lowry about his (sadly unsuccessful) endeavors to record Buddy Moss… Talk also to us about our meeting with rednecks in Edgecomb County, North Carolina…or with Newton County, Georgia, police for ‘consorting with blacks’… ” On the other hand were plenty of positive experiences: “How do you replace memories of hearing Guitar Shorty perform at Chapel Hill’s Endangered Species bar, packed with professors and ‘kitty money’… Or watching a genuinely excited Buddy Moss play a stunning ‘Chesterfield’ on his battered guitar one hot August afternoon at his home? Or seeing Henry Johnson play slide guitar flat across his lap, Hawaiian style, at home and some time later stroll into Chapel Hill’s TV station with a petrified Elester Anderson, casually watch a quartet finish playing Mozart and pack up, then settle down to back Elester (whom he’d never met before) on ‘Red River Blues’… Or of tracing Floyd Council via the local cab company’s switchboard? Or meeting the truly larger-than-life character Peg Leg Sam?”

Peg Leg Sam, from the film Born For Hard Luck

It’s useful to provide some background on Lowry’s activities just prior to setting up Trix. Most of what follows is extracted from my correspondence with Lowry in response to questions I posed and by its nature is highly condensed. “I had not attempted field recording prior to 1970… Bastin and I hooked up in 1969 to look for 78′s using my car as our transport in the SE (successfully)…and went back the next year. I figured that I should do more than just drive the car, so I purchased a tape recorder (Uher 4200, 1/2 track stereo, 5″ reels). A series of pieces for Blues Unlimited came out of the ’69 trip. …Bruce and I were focused in 1970 on collecting material for a book, as he had been asked to do one in the Studio Vista series off of our BU series of articles, resulting in Crying for the Carolines [the basis for Red River Blues]. We WORKED for a solid month, doing library research (city directories were helpful, especially when there were back issues – in the old days, there was (c) after a name for ‘colored’, so that helped eliminate similar names. Then, vital statistics also were not so closed to non-family members – folks who helped us in the early years had to stop [legally] later on). Next-of-kin were often still findable. Those research tools were suggested by Gayle Dean Wardlow. We started with a copy of Godrich & Dixon and known names, likely ‘home’ locations of those who had made recordings pre-war, and worked from there. …There was NOBODY ‘working’ the SE when we attacked it, for Mitchell had wandered off to the sainted MS stuff, where the little work being done was being done. We broke ‘new’ ground, if you will, in part encouraged by BU editor Simon Napier. …Most of the info Bruce used for his books came from my/our work…”

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…” 1978 was the last year Trix releases were assembled; Lowry didn’t go out in the field in 1978 although he did capture quite a number of recordings in 1979 and one lengthy session in 1980. Lowry wrote that “there have been no more recording sessions since this date. This single session was done during my final southeastern trip during the summer of 1980.”

Baby Tate, photo by Pete Lowry

I’ve written extensively (as well as devoting a show with interview) to the recordings of George Mitchell who started recording several years prior to Lowry and ending roughly around the same time. On Oct. 12th I will be devoting an entire show to the Trix catalog and, like Mitchell, there will certainly be a sequel as two hours is not enough time to do justice to Lowry’s recordings. Mitchell has written, and related to me, that by around 1976 he noted a sharp decline in blues in rural communities. This is somewhat at odds with the fact that Lowry recorded fairly extensively during this period. Also in 1980 two Germans, Siegfried A. Christmann and Axel Küstner, came to the States to embark on a recording trip through the south which resulted in fourteen LP’s under the title Living Country Blues (just issued on CD and distilled into a domestic 3-CD set back in 1999 on the Evidence label). While it may be impossible to quantify, the fact is there was quite a bit of quality blues players to be found and quite a number of them in the Southeast region as Lowry optimistically stated in a 1973 article written by Valerie Wilmer: “‘I never really believed all that stuff about the blues being dead,’” he said, ‘As with other celebrities who said ‘my death has been greatly exaggerated’, so the blues. I think it’s been submerged beneath the overlay of modern black pop music, but hell-you go down through Georgia and the Carolinas and there’s still country-suppers. Peg Leg Sam still goes around busking in the streets, blowing his harp and collecting quarters and dollars.’” In addition to the seventeen issued Trix albums there is sufficient material for another 40 to 50 CD’s. Some of Lowry’s recordings have appeared on the Flyright label including tracks on Another Man Done Gone and The Last Medicine Show which includes spoken monologue and musical performances of Peg Leg Sam working the last active medicine show with Chief Thundercloud. There’s also a wonderful film called Born For Hard Luck which features some fine performances of Sam including some footage working the same medicine show.  In March 1973 Lowry recorded the entire three day Fine Arts Festival, University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill which resulted in the Flyright albums Carolina Country Blues and Blues Come To Chapel Hill (the concert featured Guitar Shorty, Willy Trice, Henry Johnson, Elester Anderson, Eddie Kirkland, Tarheel Slim amongst others).

The same Valerie Wilmer article also goes on to explain how Lowry operated in the field: “Lowry will be back from his third field trip in 12 months at the end of the year. He does all his traveling by Volkswagen bus, accompanied by a faithful hound and no less than eight guitars. One such trip lasted five months and netted enough material for 20 albums, all of which he will be processing himself. ‘I said, ‘Christ, I’ve got an awful lot of stuff here-there’s no sense in farting around with other people, I’ll do it myself.’ The guitars are needed because often the people he encounters have not played for a while or else their existing instrument may be in bad shape, rattling or buzzing. ‘I’ve always tried to keep a clean sound on my recordings unlike most of the so-called field work’… I’m not just an out-and-out field recorder, nor do I use a studio as such. I usually say that the best sound-quality stuff I do is sort of in a Holiday Inn recording studio in whatever town I happen to be staying. You know, if it’s not too cool where they’re living or something, we go back to the hotel room.’”

Tarheel Slim, photo by Pete Lowry

A portion of the Trix catalog are recordings in the Piedmont style as Lowry explains in the same article: “This slightly ragtime-based kind of guitar is what a lot of white people are playing and listening to,” he explained. “I’m trying to hook on to that because it is the essence of the Piedmont style.” Still, there’s a fair bit of diversity to be found including some piano blues (Lowry didn’t find many piano players or female performers for that matter) including a self titled Big Chief Ellis album and Detroit After Hours – Vol. 1 (the result of extensive taping he did at an after-hours piano joint in Detroit), the Mississippi-by-way-of-Chicago blues of Honeyboy Edwards, the sophisticated jazzy blues of Robert Jr. Lockwood (Does 12 and Contrasts remain probably his best recordings) and a pair of fine records by Eddie Kirkland with his mix of John Lee Hooker styled blues and a more contemporary approach. The other Trix albums are a mix of great discoveries like Roy Dunn, Guitar Shorty (the album Carolina Slide Guitar came out in 1971, two years before he recorded for Trix), Henry Johnson, Peg Leg Sam, Pernell Charity all whom had never recorded before and those that had made commercial records like Tarheel Slim, Frank Edwards, Willie Trice and Homesick James. 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. Lowry was gracious enough to send me his master recording list, a year by year breakdown of his recording activities. Among those whose recordings went unreleased are artists who should be familiar to collectors such as Richard Trice, Pink Anderson, John Cephas, Phil Wiggins, Cecil Barfield, Marvin and Turner Foddrell, John Snipes, Dink Roberts. Other names include Elester Anderson, Charlie Rambo, Earnest Scott, Clifford Lee “Sam” Swanson and George Higgs (who has since made recordings for Music Maker) among many others. Among Lowry’s regrets “is that I never got my one jazz album out before Maurice Reedus died…” Reedus was Robert Jr. Lockwood’s great, long time sax player heard to good effect on Lockwood’s two Trix records. Reedus’ record was mixed and mastered and titled Get Outta Town, Man (Trix 3318). Baby Tate was another artist close to Lowry’s heart who he recorded extensively but only issued one 45. Again from the Valerie Wilmer article: “Baby Tate was one of his closest musician friends and his untimely death last year grieved Lowry considerably. ‘My plan last Summer was to really record him in depth,’ he explained. ‘ 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.’”

As Lowry stated in the same article: “…I know I’m not going to get rich. I’ll be lucky if I break even, but I’ve met an awful lot of good people, a lot of good musicians, and dammit-they should be heard. It’s that simple.” The Trix label is a testament to these amazing musicians and to one man’s passion and dedication to get this music out to the wider world. Fortunately the entire Trix catalog has been issued on CD which include the original liner notes plus some follow-up information about the artists. Sadly the majority of the artists have since passed on. As for the vast amount of unreleased recordings, Lowry says that “to date, nobody has evidenced any interest in my stuff – I’m not surprised.” On our Trix program on October 12th, in addition to the released material, I’ll also be featuring some of these unreleased recordings which Lowry was gracious enough to send me.

Peg Leg Sam – Who’s That Left Here ‘ While Ago (MP3)

Big Chief Ellis – Prison Bound (MP3)

Tarheel Slim – Some Cold Rainy Day (MP3)

Frank Edwards – Chicken Raid (MP3)

Pernell Charity – War Blues (MP3)

Robert Jr. Lockwood – Selfish Ways (MP3)

Roy Dunn – Move To Kansas City (MP3)

Willie Trice – My Baby’s Ways (MP3)

Guitar Shorty – Working Hard (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.

In the immediate post-war era the music was rapidly changing, R&B was on the rise and and older blues styles were falling out of fashion. Yet for awhile at least, there was still a market for rural down home blues as evidenced by the popularity of artists like Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Smokey Hogg. Between 1944 and 1964, more than 600 record companies tried their hands at recording blues. Many failed or had limited success while others grew and became major players. This was “the last grand hurrah of local blues recorded for, and often by, local entrepreneurs, neither folkloric nor college oriented, but music for the culture from which it grew.” This is the music the Boulevard Vintage label has been tapping into for the last few years with a series of well conceived multi-CD sets each based on a specific geographic region.

Down Home Blues Classics – New York & The East Coast 1948-1954, as the notes state, “emphasizes the contribution to post-war blues made by singers from the Southeast and the Mid Atlantic states where many gravitated to New York. These performers tended to prefer a lighter and more melodic style than those from the Mississippi Delta who subsequently brought the blues to Chicago and Detroit.” The bulk of these recordings, in fact, were recorded in New York.

Many of the names here will be familiar to collectors including pre-war heavyweights like Blind Willie McTell, Curley Weaver and Brownie McGhee. McTell is still magnificent on these 1949 sides for Regal and Atlantic revisiting one of his finest numbers,”Love Changing Blues”, plus the ragtime flavored “Kill It Kid” and “Talkin’ To You Mama.” McTell’s long time partner Curley Weaver also transitioned into the post-war era in fine form as he demonstrates on a remake of the lovely “Some Rainy Day” and displays some deft ragtime guitar on “Trixie.” We’re also treated to a half dozen well chosen sides by Brownie McGhee with partner Sonny Terry sounding more spontaneous and livley then some of their later recordings which were geared to the white folk crowd. Indeed it’s important again note that the music here was recorded before the folk blues boom; it was music created by and for African-Americans.

One of the pleasures of this series has been the spotlight on lesser known artists and this collection is chock full of fine long forgotten performers who are little known outside of the serious blues collector. We get generous helpings by artists such as Ralph Willis, Leroy Dallas, Carolina Slim, Gabriel Brown, Alex Seward, Dan Pickett among many others. Husky voiced Leroy Dallas cut only eight sides, four of which are included, and sounds exuberant in a jumping small band combo with Brownie McGhee and pianist Wilbert “Big Chief” Ellis on “Jump Little Children” and “I’m Goin Away.” Ellis is one of the few piano players included and sounds marvelous on “Dices Dices” sporting his pounding barrelhouse piano. Ellis waxed seven sides between 1945-1947 and it’s a shame none of his other numbers are included. He did cut a fine self titled record for Trix in 1977 that’s well worth tracking down.

As Paul Garon notes, the influence of the popular Blind Boy Fuller looms large on many of these recordings. There’s many raggy, Fuller influenced guitar players such as the wonderful Julius King who’s entire four song output is here including the jaunty “I Want A Slice Of Your Pudding” replete with kazoo. The mysterious Boy Green cut only two sides in 1944, both included, and bears a strong Fuller influence particularly on the infectious rag “Play My Juke Box.” Carolina Slim seems to draw influence from Fuller and Lightnin’ Hopkins while rough voiced singer Robert Lee Westmoreland plays a National Resonator like Fuller on his two recorded sides, covering Hopkins on a slide driven version of “Hello Central, Give Me 209.” Other fine guitar players include the shadowy Dennis McMillon who’s deft finger picking on “Paper Wooden Daddy” is a standout and the remarkable Dan Pickett, a long time favorite of collectors, who synthesized a number of early guitar styles to create his own, and had an exciting, rapid fire vocal delivery showcased on an update of Buddy Moss’ “Ride To A Funeral In A V-8.”

As usual with Boulevard Vintage sound is quite good and the notes very informative. It should also be noted that last year JSP issued the 4-CD box Shake That Thing!: East Coast Blues 1935-1953, which can be seen as a companion set, and has the complete recordings of Gabriel Brown, Dan Pickett and Ralph Willis. Boulevard Vintage also has 4-CD sets of Chicago and Texas blues and most recently 2-CD sets focusing on Memphis & The South and California & The West Coast that are equally good.

Julius King – I Want A Slice of Your Pudding (MP3)

Dennis McMillon – Paper Wooden Daddy (MP3)

Show Notes:

I recently finished Michael Gray’s excellent “Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes – In Search of Blind Willie McTell” which is the inspiration for today’s show. In addition to focusing on Blind Willie we play the music of his fellow Atlanta bluesmen, just about all who were inspired by McTell and several who played with him. 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.

McTell was born in Thomson, Georgia, near Augusta, and raised near Statesboro. He played a standard six-string acoustic until the mid-’20s, and never entirely abandoned the instrument, but from the beginning of his recording career, he used a 12-string acoustic in the studio almost exclusively. He was A major figure with a local following in Atlanta from the 1920s onward, he recorded dozens of sides throughout the 1930s under a multitude of names — all the better to juggle “exclusive” relationships with many different record labels at once — including Blind Willie, Blind Sammie, Hot Shot Willie, and Georgia Bill, as a backup musician to Ruth Mary Willis. Willie’s recording career began in late 1927 with two sessions for Victor records, eight sides including “Statesboro Blues.”

He recorded prolifically through the 1930′s a did a session for the Library of Congress in 1940 under the supervision of John Lomax. The newly founded Atlantic Records — which was more noted for its recordings of jazz and R&B — took an interest in Willie and cut 15 songs with him in Atlanta during 1949. The one single released from these sessions, however, didn’t sell, and most of those recordings remained unheard for more than 20 years after they were made. McTell cut his final sides for record store owner Ed Rhodes in 1956, who had begun taping local bluesmen at his shop in Atlanta in the hope of releasing some of it. These turned out to be the only tapes he saved, out of all he’d recorded.

A younger contemporary of Blind Willie McTell and Curley Weaver, Eugene “Buddy” Moss was part of a near-legendary coterie of Atlanta bluesmen, and one of the few of his era lucky enough to work into the blues revival of the 1960s and ’70s. By the time he arrived in Atlanta, he was good enough to be noticed by Curley Weaver and Robert “Barbecue Bob” Hicks, who began working with the younger Moss. It was Weaver and Bob that got him his first recording date, at the age of 16, as a member of their group the Georgia Cotton Pickers, on December 7, 1930. In January of 1933, however, he made his debut as a recording artist in his own right for the American Record Company. He frequently played with Barbecue Bob, and after Bob died of pneumonia on October 21, 1931, he found a new partner and associate in Blind Willie McTell, performing with the Atlanta blues legend as local parties in the Atlanta area. A jail term curtailed his career from 1935-1941. Moss made some further recordings before WW II interfered. Moss continued performing in the area around Richmond, Virginia and Durham, North Carolina during the mid-’40s, and with Curley Weaver in Atlanta during the early 1950s, but music was no longer his profession or his living.

One of the first recorded products of the Atlanta blues community of the pre-war era, Peg Leg Howell bridged the gap between the early country-blues sound and the 12-bar stylings to follow. He signed to Columbia in 1926. Howell recorded prolifically up until 1929; he recorded solo and with his street group, the Gang (guitarist Henry Williams and fiddler Eddie Anthony). Williams was imprisoned not long after, and following Anthony’s 1934 death, Howell gradually disappeared from the area blues circuit. He spent the next several decades clouded in obscurity, with diabetes claiming his other leg in 1952. Howell was 75 when the Testament label sought him out in 1963 to record his first new material in over 40 years; he died in Atlanta on August 11, 1966.

Eddie Anthony and Henry Williams cut one 78 in 1930. In addition Anthony recorded as Macon Ed with the mysterious Tampa Joe. They cut eight sides in 1930.

Little is known about Fred McMullen. He cut 8 issued sides in 1933 for ARC label. Was part of the group called the Georgia Browns with Buddy Moss and Curley Weaver who cut 10 sides in 1933.

Barbecue Bob was the name given by Columbia Records talent scout Don Hornsby to Atlanta blues singer Robert Hicks. Hicks is widely credited as being the singer who more than any helped to popularize Atlanta blues in its formative period. Born to a family of sharecroppers in Walnut Grove, GA, Robert Hicks and his brother, Charley “Lincoln” Hicks relocated with them to Newton County. There the Hicks brothers came in contact with Savannah “Dip” Weaver and her son, Curley Weaver. With the Weavers, the Hicks boys learned to play guitar and sing. Robert Hicks was the first of this group to “break out”; Hicks’ first Columbia record, “Barbecue Blues,” recorded in Atlanta on March 25, 1927 and was a big hit. Over the next three years he made 62 sides for Columbia. Hicks died in 1931 of pneumonia. He was only 29.

It’s hard to keep up with glut of blues reissues mostly pumped out by European labels taking full advantage of the fifty year copyright law. One label that deserves attention is Boulevard Vintage who for the past few years have been putting out intelligent, well conceived multi CD sets of post-war down home blues. The label has zeroed in on a very specific, rich vein of blues history, roughly 1945-1955 when a whole slew of enterprising small labels were catering to an audience that still craved down home blues. As Paul Vernon writes: “The migratory patterns from south to north to west added an essential ingredient to the new market for blues recording. Urbanization created tastes for a music that fit the new times and locations , contributing to the birth of what we now recognize as Rhythm & Blues. In Chicago, the southern rural styles, as we now all surely know, were connected directly to 110-volt wall sockets and booted through fuzzy amplifiers to create the sound that would eventually go around the world. Yet there was still an audience for the rough, exciting music of southern juke joints and street corners, of local radio broadcasts and house parties. Who was going to service that market?” The answer can be found on the 110 songs spread across Boulevard Vintage’s two latest 2-CD sets.

Down Home Blues Classics – Memphis & The South 1949-1954 collects music recorded in locales like Jackson, MS, Memphis, TN, New Orleans, LA, Crowley, LA for labels dear to record collectors hearts such as Sun, Trumpet, Bullet, Excello, Imperial and several others. Many of the artists will be familiar to collectors and we get multiple cuts by artists like Joe Hill Louis, Arthur Crudup (moonlighting under Percy Crudup!) Lightning Slim, Papa Lightfoot, Big Joe Williams, Jerry McCain among others. What’s nice about this series is that compilers tend to pull out the less anthologized, obscurer sides by these artists. So while we get the well known, and simply amazing, “Wine, Whiskey & Women” by Papa Lightfoot we also get his pounding harmonica wailer “P. L. Blues”, likewise for Willie Nix’s celebrated “Truckin’ Little Woman”which is on board but so is the much less known flip side, the unbelievably raw, “Just One Mistake.”

It’s the rarer stuff, less anthologized that makes these sets so valuable. While Boogie Bill Webb is not exactly an unknown his sides are not readily available. His two cuts here are particularly welcome especially the throbbing John Lee Hooker boogie of “Bad Dog.” It’s too bad his two other Imperial sides weren’t included. We get a batch of fine down home sides by obscure artists like Country Jim Bledsoe, the marvelous Louis Campbell (these two never before issued numbers are not even listed in the blues discography), Tommy Lee (one of only 5 known copies of this rarity) and three of the four excellent tracks the by the mysterious Little Sam Davis cut for Rockin’ in 1953 featuring some of the earliest guitar by Earl Hooker.

Down Home Blues Classics – California & The West Coast 1948-1954 delves into the fascinating records made in the immediate post-war era, mainly in California, mostly by those migrating from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. As Mike Rowe writes: “Unlike New York and Chicago there had been no blues or any kind of recording industry pre-war …The music as well as the industry was starting from scratch. …It was very often of Do-It yourself triumphing over the most adverse conditions.”

While the above collection had it’s fair share of well known artists that’s not the case here. This collection, to quote the blurb, “presents probably the rarest recordings and the least-researched artists of the post-war era …there were many experiments to delight and intrigue us along the way; eschewing the bigger names we document those attempts rather than the final result.” In fact the only big name to speak of is K.C. Douglas who’s four sides include his first recordings notably his celebrated “Mercury Boogie.” Douglas’ harmonica player, Sidney Maiden, may also be somewhat known chiefly due to an album he cut for Bluesville. Maiden takes the vocals on the wonderfully doomy “Eclipse of the Sun” and pair of strong sides from 1955.

Only hardcore collectors are likely to know obscure artists such as Black Diamond, Slim Green, Willie B Huff, Sonny Boy Johnson, Little Son Willis, Jerry Perkins among others. The preponderance of lesser names has no bearing on the music which is uniformly strong. Take Willie B Huff, a magnificent down home singer who typified the emerging slow, doomy west coast sound. All four of Huff’s sides are here including superb renditions of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Hello Central” as “Operator 209″ and “Short Haired Woman” as “Beggar Man Blues.” Other highlights include Sonny Boy Holmes, a fine Hopkins imitator whose sole four sides are on board, Slim Green’s version of Curtis Jones’ Tin Pan Alley as “Alla Blues” (a song that would evolve into the West Coast blues standard “Tin Pan Alley”), all eight Swing Time sides by the wonderful pianist/vocalist Little Son Willis who sounds like Doctor Clayton – his “Harlem Blues” a cover of Clayton’s “Angels In Harlem” and the mysterious Black Diamond who’s two fine solo guitar numbers are his only sides.

Both of these sets come highly recommended boasting very good sound (a definite upgrade from prior reissues) and very informative notes. Boulevard Vintage also has 4-CD sets of Chicago and Texas blues that are equally good and I can’t wait to see what they put out next.

Boogie Bill Webb – Bad Dog (MP3)

Louis Campbell – Don’t Want Anyone Hangin’ Around (MP3)

Little Son Willis – Nothing But The Blues (MP3)

Willie B Huff – Operator 209 (MP3)

Record collector John Tefteller has just issued what is apparently the only known copy of Blind Willie McTell & Mary Willis’ “Talkin To You Wimmen’ About The Blues.” The track and it’s flip side, “Merciful Blues”, was issued on the CD that accompanies Tefteller’s most recent blues artwork calendar. To quote Tefteller: “the record you see in the center of this page [Talkin' To You Wimmen About The Blues] apparently has not been heard by anyone since its release back in the late fall of 1931. I have had this record in my collection for almost ten years. I had no idea that it was potentially a one-of-a-kind record! …Late last year, legendary Blues reissue producer Larry Cohn called me about his upcoming Blind Willie McTell box set. He told me he would like to borrow certain records from my collection …I sent him a list of what I had. To my amazement , he called immediately with the comment, “I’ve never heard the Mary Willis record!” Apparently, there is no master in the Columbia vaults. Cohn is aware of no other copy of the record anywhere. Finding this hard to believe, I started calling “all the usual suspects” and sure enough, none of them had the record or had ever heard it.”

Simply put this is a terrific performance with superb sound. McTell’s distinctive guitar work opens the tracks as he sings a few verses before giving it over to Willis as he makes some amusing spoken asides. Willis is a marvelous singer possessing a strong, clear voice and sings this one with plenty of conviction. Essentially the song is is a string of floating blues verses: “Whatta ya going to do when they send your man to war/You gonna drink muddy water, sleep in a hollow log” and “Gotta shine my light, like some headlight on some train/My mind is stealing, my heart leaks away in pain/It’s a hateful fireman and a mean old engineer/Took my good man away and left me standing here.” The flip, “Merciful Blues”, is also good with Willis singing solo but not quite as memorable as the other number. McTell lays down some fine bottleneck throughout this latter number.

“Talkin To You Wimmen’ About The Blues” (MP3)