Sun 27 Sep 2009
Big Road Blues Show 9/27/09: Rambled And Wandered – Big Joe Williams & His Pals 1935-1971
Posted by Jeff under Chicago Blues, Delta Blues, Mississippi Blues, Playlists
[6] Comments
| ARTIST | SONG | ALBUM |
|---|---|---|
| Big Joe Williams | Little Leg Woman | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | My Grey Pony | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | Baby Please Don’t Go | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | Somebody's Been Borrowing That Stuff | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Sonny Boy Williamson | Jackson Blues | The Original Sonny Boy Williamson Vol.1 |
| Sonny Boy Williamson | Until My Love Come Down | The Original Sonny Boy Williamson Vol.1 |
| Sonny Boy Williamson | My Little Cornelius | The Original Sonny Boy Williamson Vol.1 |
| Big Joe Williams | Rootin Ground Hog | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | I'm Getting Wild About Her | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | Someday Baby | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | Throw A Boogie Woogie | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Chasey Colllins | Atlanta Blues | Big Joe Williams Vol. 2 1945-49 |
| Chasey Colllins | Walking Blues | Big Joe Williams Vol. 2 1945-49 |
| Walter Davis | Sweet 16 | Walter Davis Vol. 1 1933-1935 |
| Big Joe Williams | Drop Down Blues | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | King Biscuit Stomp | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | Don’t You Leave Me Here | Big Joe & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues |
| Robert Lee McCoy | Take It Easy Baby | Prowling With The Nighthawk |
| Yank Rachell | Texas Tommy | The Original Sonny Boy Williamson Vol.1 |
| Big Joe Williams | Delta Blues | Delta Blues 1951 |
| Big Joe Williams | Friends And Pals | Delta Blues 1951 |
| Coot Venson | Long Road Blues | Blues Roots: The Mississippi Blues Vol. 1 |
| Arthur Wetson | Someday Baby | Blues Roots: The Mississippi Blues Vol. 1 |
| Big Joe Williams | Shetland Pony Blues | Piney Woods Blues |
| Big Joe Williams | Rambled And Wandered | Stavin' Chain |
| Big Joe Williams | Jiving The Blues | Nine String Guitar Blues |
| Big Joe/Brownie McGhee / Lightnin' Hopkins/Sonny Terry | Ain't Nothin' Like Whiskey | Rediscovered Blues |
| Big Joe/Brownie McGhee / Lightnin' Hopkins/Sonny Terry | Blues For Gamblers | Blues Hoot |
| Big Joe Williams | Brother James | Shake The Boogie |
| Short Stuff Macon | Short Stuff's Corrina | Hell Bound and Heaven Sent |
| Glover Lee Conner | Been In Crawford Too Long | Goin' Back To Crawford |
| Austin Pete | Run Here Jailer With The Key | Goin' Back To Crawford |
Show Notes:
As protégé David “Honeyboy” Edwards described him, Big Joe Williams in his early Delta days was a walking musician who played work camps, jukes, store porches, streets, and alleys from New Orleans to Chicago. He recorded through five decades for Vocalion, Okeh, Paramount, Bluebird, Prestige, Delmark, and many others. Big Joe was born in Crawford, MS and settled in St. Louis by 1925 where he married blues singer Bessie Mae Smith and worked with Walter Davis, Robert Lee McCoy and Henry Townsend. Little is known of his early years although by he apparently began traveling young, supposedly running away from home to join the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Along the way he worked the lumber mills, levee camps, plantations, gambling dens and brothels. By the late 20’s he earned a considerable reputation in Mississippi. Honeyboy recalls his first sight of Big Joe: “…Big Joe Williams was playing at Black Rosie’s dance. Joe wasn’t wasn’t nothing but a hobo then, running down the streets. I went over to Rosie’s and there he was playing. He was in his thirties, had a red handkerchief around his neck, and he was playing a little pearl-necked Stella guitar; he was playing the blues. He played “Highway 49″, and I just stood and looked at him. I hadn’t heard a man play the blues like that! …Nine strings, he always had those nine strings on his guitar. That’s something he invented himself. He bored holes at the top of the neck of the guitar and made himself a nine-string guitar. That’s what he played all the time.” …He was playing “Brother James”, all of them old numbers like that. “Brother James”, “Highway 49″, Stack O’ Dollars.” …’Baby Please Don’t Go”, Milkcow Blues.”
In St. Louis it was Walter Davis who got Big Joe signed to Bluebird as well as Robert Lee McCoy. Bg Joe’s first session for Bluebird, on February 25, 1935, yielded 6 tunes. This initial session finds Joe playing solo except for “Somebody’s Been Borrowing That Stuff” with Henry Townsend on second guitar. Joe wouldn’t be heard solo on record again for some time. As John Miller noted: “Big Joe’s playing on these two sessions is quite amazing. Everything is in Open G tuning, so a certain sameness of tonality and very pared back harmonic content results, but Joe’s rhythmic imagination and ability to execute his ideas in the moment has never been equaled in this genre. His right hand approach combines powerful thumb popping of bass notes and lines with vigorous runs in the treble and an array of strumming and brushing techniques that has to be heard to be believed.” The second session, on October 31, 1935, resulted in four more tunes, and was done with a line-up of Joe joined by Dad Tracy on one-string fiddle and Chasey Collins on washboard. That second session included the first recorded version of “Baby Please Don’t Go.” Big Joe backed Chasey Collins on two numbers at the same date; “Atlanta Town” and “Walking Blues” are superbly sung blues with excellent playing by Joe and makes one wish Collins had recorded more.
Sonny Boy I and Big Joe first recorded together May 5, 1937. This was a marathon recording session. Robert Lee McCoy cut six sides at this session with backing by Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Joe Williams. The May 5th sessions were also Sonny Boy Williamson’s first and Nighthawk and Joe Williams backed him on this legendary session that produced such enduring classics as “Good Morning Little School Girl”, “Blue Bird Blues” and “Sugar Mama”. In addition Big Joe Williams recorded eight sides under his own name with Nighthawk and Sonny Boy backing him and Nighthawk also backed Walter Davis on an eight-song session. Big Joe backed Sonny Boy again for two sessions in March and June 1939 which yielded 18 sides.
In the 1940’s Sonny Boy backed Big Joe on sessions on March and June 1941. Big Joe and Sonny Boy reunited for a four-song session together on July 12, 1945 with Jump Jackson on drums and a twelve-song session on July 22 1947 with Ransom Knowling on bass and Judge Riley on drums. As Tony Russell noted about these sessions: “The half-dozen tracks they cut at a session in 12/41, including definitive interpretations of ‘[Baby] Please Don’t Go’, ”Highway 49′ and ‘Someday Baby’, confirm them as one of the great blues partnerships. They continued recording together until 1947, the delicate architecture of their duets solidly buttressed by bass and drums. It isn’t off said, but it seems likely that driving trio and quartet sides like ‘Drop Down Blues’ (1945) or ‘King Biscuit Stomp’ (1947) were listened to attentively by some of the younger musicians then finding their voice in Chicago’s clubs or on Maxwell Street.”
As Big Joe sailed into the 50′s, recording opportunities weren’t as plentiful probably due to the fact he did nothing to update his sound to the changing musical times. Among the most notable recordings was an eight-song session in 1951 cut for the Jackson, MS based Trumpet label. Joe is in terrific form on numbers like “Delta Blues”, the evocative “Whistling Pines” and “Over Hauling Blues.” In the 50’s he also recorded for Specialty and Vee-Jay. Just prior to the folk-blues boom, Big Joe recorded extensively for Delmark at sessions in 1958 and 1961. Piney Woods Blues and Stavin’ Chain are among his best from this period, both recorded at the beginning of 1958 and feature the excellent J.D. Short who was a cousin of Big Joe.
By the 1960′s Joe was became much in demand as the blues revival picked up steam. He performed at festivals, clubs and coffeehouses through the country as well as playing overseas as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. He recorded prolifically during this period for labels such as Bluesville, Spivey, Storyville, Folkways, Testament, Takoma, Arhoolie, Adelphi among others. Among his best albums from the 1960′s are Tough Times on Arhoolie which has been reissued on CD as Shake Your Boogie which adds some tracks from a 1969 session. He recorded songs like “Mean Stepfather” and “Brother James” before but rarely as powerful as these versions. We play several interesting sides from the 1960′s including a pair from Blues Roots: The Mississippi Blues Vol. 1 on Storyville recorded circa 1964/65. These sides were recorded in St. Louis and Chicago by Pete Welding. Most of these men like Coot Venson and Arthur Weston were musical associates of Big Joe while Bert and Russ Logan were uncles of his.
Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Big Joe Williams were involved in a jam session for World Pacific cut in Los Angles in 1960. This material has been reissued under many titles including Down South Summit Meetin’, First Meetin’, Southern Meetin’ among others. They also recorded together live at the Ash Grove in Hollywood in 1961 which was issued as Blues Hoot. From these sessions we spin “Ain’t Nothin’ Like Whiskey” and “Blues For Gamblers.”
Also from this period we spotlight Big Joe’s pal Shortstuff Macon. The liner notes to his Folkways album had this to say: “Short Stuff has now begun traveling the sparse and fickle concert circuit with Big Joe Wiilliams, who, in a trip back to Mississippi, ‘discovered’ him, liked his ‘deep down’ music, remembered his father and mother, and decided to take him with him. Since then, the two bluesmen have been making do with whatever work they could get—living from day to day, hour to hour, on the whims and generosity (sometimes curiosity) of friends interested in blues, college student aficionados, and the small, folk record companies.” That comes from the notes to Hell Bound And Heaven Sent in 1964 with backing from Big Joe. From that album we spin the excellent “Short Stuff’s Corrina.” The same year they cut sides for the Spivey label which were issued on a album called Mr. Shortstuff. He appears again on the album Goin’ Back to
Crawford from 1971. Goin’ Back to Crawford was produced by Big Joe in his hometown of Crawford, MS in 1971 by gathering talented relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances to hopefully present their songs to the wider world. Big Joe performs on seven of his own tracks and backs several of the artists including Shortstuff Macon who died two years after these recordings.
In the 1970′s Big Joe continued to record for labels like Storyville, Sonet, Bluesway, L+R and others. By 1982 he was back in Mississippi where he passed in December of that year. Joe was buried in a private cemetery outside Crawford near the Lowndes County line. His headstone was primarily paid for by friends and partially funded by a collection taken up among musicians at Clifford Antone’s nightclub in Austin, Texas, organized by California music writer Dan Forte, and erected through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund on October 9, 1994. Joe’s old pal Charlie Musselwhite, delivered the eulogy at the unveiling. Williams’ headstone epitaph proclaims him “King of the 9 String Guitar.”

James was born in Canton, MS on January 27, 1918. He came to music at an early age, learning to play bottleneck on a homemade instrument. By the age of 14, he was already a weekend musician, working the various country suppers and juke joints in the area. He would join up and work with traveling players coming through like Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson. By the late ’30s he had formed his first band and was working with Sonny Boy until WW II broke out, spending three years stationed with the Navy in Guam. When he was discharged, he picked off where he left off, moving for a while to Memphis, working in clubs with Eddie Taylor and his cousin Homesick James. James was first recorded by Lillian McMurray of Trumpet Records in 1951 at the tail end of a Sonny Boy session doing his classic “Dust My Broom.” Legend has it that James didn’t even stay around long enough to hear the playback, much less record a second side. McMurray stuck a local singer (BoBo “Slim” Thomas) on the flip side and the record became the surprise R&B hit of 1951, making the Top Ten. James also backed Trumpet artists Willie Love and Tiny Kennedy the same year.
James “Homesick” 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 1930s, Williamson played local clubs and cut his first sides in 1952-53 for Chance Records. Homesick also worked extensively as a sideman, backing harp great Sonny Boy Williamson and during the 1950s with his cousin, Elmore James. Homesick backs Elmore on sessions for Chief in 1957, Fire in 1959, Chess in 1960 and again for Fire in 1960 and 1961. Homesick’s own recordings included 45s for Colt and USA in 1962, a fine 1964 album for Prestige, and four tracks on a Vanguard anthology in 1965. Homesick was recording and touring up until shortly before his death in 2006.

Living off the beaten path caused Dunbar to develop a highly individual style, while traditional, still far removed form other blues currents. His highly rhythmic guitar style, played in a variety of different tunings, emphasized by his stomping foot, creates a beautiful sound. Dunbar sings, hums, and chants along with the melody, at times singing the lyrics in straightforward fashion, other times wordlessly. It sounds at times if Dunbar may not know the actual lyrics, or perhaps only snatches, yet his wordless vocalizations are very much part of his overall sound. The music comes across as familiar yet wholly spontaneous, a full flowering of individual creativity. Thus familiar songs like “Little Liza Jane”, “Vicksburg Blues” and “That’s Alright, Mama” retain their shape yet sound stunningly fresh as Dunbar interprets them in such an individual way as to utterly transform them, the mark of an artist of the highest caliber. Karl Micheal Wolfe describes Dunbar’s style this way: “He does not know the names of any of the chords he uses because he cannot read music; he tunes the guitar differently for different songs. His playing is strong and loud, and he keeps time with a stomping boot-heel; this is an adaptation to a lifetime of playing not so much to or for as with among riotous, noisy audiences with unamplified instruments and voice. In addition to the vast repertoire of traditional songs Scott grew up with, he has ‘made up’ a score or so, and learned many more ‘off the graftafome’ during the twenties, thirties and forties. Since he cannot read, he has to keep his songs entirely in his head; often the words come out garbled or forgotten entirely. But to his native audiences this does not matter.” It’s this spontaneous, intimate feeling that comes across so wonderfully on From Lake Mary. It’s a feeling and intimacy rarely caught on tape, almost impossible to capture in the studio, that comes across as Dunbar effortlessly reels out numbers like “Easy Rider”, “Who Been Foolin’ You”, the gorgeous, driving “Memphis Mail” with Dunbar’s wordless vocalizing, “Sweet Mama Rollin’ Stone” (Say roll me with your belly/Feed me with your tongue”) that collapses with Dunbar’s infectious laughter as he calls it a “dirty song” and shows off a broader repertoire with versions of “Blue Yodel” and “Goodnight Irene.” Four of the five numbers that appear on this album were recorded by Fredric Ramsey and remain virtually unchanged sixteen years later.
If songs like Blue Yodel” and “Goodnight Irene” hint at a broader repertoire that is true as Dunbar himself said: “I play anything you want, any kind of song, hymns on up.” In his early years he played the juke joints with a band who’s set would not only include blues but also numbers like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Tennessee Waltz.” He gave up the juke joints because they were too dangerous and in later years played primarily for whites. William Ferris wrote in Blues From The Delta that “I recorded thirty-seven songs during my visits with Dunbar and of these, two thirds were sung white style in the key of C. ” The thirteen songs on From Lake Mary are mostly blues, likely selected to appeal to the blues revival market while the vast majority of recordings from this session have not been issued, forty-eight unissued sides in total. At lengthy recording sessions n February, April and August of 1970 Dunbar proves to be a true songster, laying down songs like “Wabash Cannonball”, “Sally Good’n”, “Blue Heaven”, “Tennessee Waltz” and “You Are My Sunshine.” In 1994 Fat Possum reissued From Lake Mary on CD with no additional tracks.
loiterers, the occasional sightseers and the pickpockets – are the beggars, as many as there are to be found in the shadows of the churches in a Southern Italian town, or along the shrouded streets of an “Arab Quarter.” Beggars – but with one striking, exhilarating difference. These are not wheedling seekers after alms with cries of “baksheesh” or “Gawd Bless yer, guv” but proud men, creative artists, singers of the blues who accept the dimes and quarters as tokens of esteem for their paying and singing. If the blues in general has tended to become more sophisticated in recent years Maxwell Street exists as a living storehouse of the folk blues, the blues of the rambling man. And in its few hundred yards is pictured the life story of the blues singer of the streets, from the children who stand wide-eyed to the singers of their to choice to the young men who are trying their luck and their talent on the critical audience of the market; from the tough music and manner of the street singer of many years to the fading abilities to the old men who have played in the street in all weathers for more years then they can count.”
One-Armed harmonica player Big John Wrencher was a recognizable fixture of Maxwell Street. Wrencher was a traveling musician, playing throughout Tennessee and neighboring Arkansas from the late 1940′s to the early 1950′s. In 1958 Wrencher lost his left arm in a car crash in Memphis. By the early 1960′s he had moved North to Chicago and quickly became a regular fixture on Maxwell Street, always working on Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to nearly 3:00 in the afternoon. His first recordings surfaced on a pair of Testament albums from the 1960′s, featuring Big John in a sideman role behind Robert Nighthawk. He cut the excellent Maxwell Street Alley Blues (recorded in 1969 and issued in 1978) for the Barrelhouse label (reissued on CD on the P-Vine label) and cut Big John’s Boogie for the British Big Bear label in 1975. He also cut a 45 and we play “Memphis To Maxwell Street” from that record. Big John Wrencher passed in 1977.

I’ve heard most of these recordings and I think Presenting The Country Blues is among his best although I know a couple of folks who prefer Roosevelt Holts and Friends which features him on electric guitar. Holts is a fine singer, possessing a strong burnished voice and a rhythmic, delicate guitar style as Evans describes: “Roosevelt’s guitar style is one of the most subtle to be found on records, with its delicate touch and rhythmic shifts. He often extends his guitar lines beyond the expected standard patterns to produce greater variety.” Lyrically Holts draws on songs he learned as a younger man as well as the vast storehouse of floating blues verses. Among the covers are Leroy Carr’s 1928 classic “Prison Bound Blues” and Memphis Minnie’s 1930 number “She Put Me Outdoors” although Holts takes it at a much slower tempo. “Prison Bound Blues” was likely picked up from Tommy Johnson who was known to play the number. As for the latter number he may have picked it up through Minnie’s husband Joe McCoy who was active on the Jackson scene before he moved to Memphis. Johnnie Temple was also part of the rich Jackson scene and Holts covers his celebrated “Lead Pencil Blues” which Temple cut at his first session in 1935. Of this song Evans writes “this style of guitar playing with its subtle rhythm shifts between duple and triple patterns, is a splendid example of the type of music then current in Jackson.” Holts picked up a number of songs from Tommy Johnson and on this album turns in superb readings of “Big Road Blues” and “Maggie Campbell Blues.” Holts also recorded Johnson’s “Big Fat Mamma Blues” on a compilation. A couple of Holts’ friend appear on this record including Babe Stovall from Tylertown who was the one who introduced Evans to Holts. His second guitar on “Feelin’ Sad And Blue” adds some extra rhythmic push to the song with the two complementing each other superbly. Harmonica blower L.H. Lane plays on “The Good Book Teach You” as Holts lays down some fine bottleneck. Apparently the two had known each other for some time and he just popped into the studio for this one song before leaving minutes later. Holts is a good bottleneck player as he also demonstrates on the moving gospel number “I’m Going To Build Right On That Shore” and “Another Mule Kickin’ In My Stall.”
Tell On Me”, indicates: “Now get out this here. This is the last one you got now. When you play these blues, you ain’t got to play no more. Let’s get on like you like it. These your own blues you makin’ now. Y’know this is what your wife likes, yeah …You don’t need to hurry now, just take your time and play it right cos you ain’t got to play ‘nother’n after this.”

The following is taken from Honeyboy’s memoir which paints a vivid portrait of his old pal: “It was out in Wildwood plantation when I first met Tommy McClennan. Tommy would come out there and play the guitar a while and bump on the piano. He could play the guitar pretty good, but he sure wasn’t no piano player. He threw the people; he had them dancing and hollering. …He could play that guitar, and he could holler; Tommy had a big mouth. …Tommy played the guitar and gambled, shot dice, played cards. …Tommy was dark and had big eyes like a frog. He was real little, about four and ten, just touched me right along there about the shoulder. Tommy didn’t weigh a bit over 115 pounds. …I and Tommy, we be together all the time. And when he wasn’t with me he was with Robert Petway. …Tommy and Robert was about the same size. They’d come down the street with two guitars, looking like midgets. Now Robert could beat Tommy playing but Tommy could holler more than Robert. …I learned a few licks from Tommy, a few numbers he made. He mad the ‘Bullfrog Blues’ and Petway made ‘The Catfish Blues.’ …Robert and Tommy McClennan and me, we’d be together all the time. On days we wasn’t out playing at the whiskey houses or on the streets; we’d be at Tommy’s house drinking and playing cards, and one of us sitting in the corner practicing some song. …Tommy, he wasn’t really a guitar picker; he was mostly a frailer, and played a few chords in the key of C, running chords with that big loud voice. …Tommy McClennan and me played both sides of town [Greenwood, MS]. We used to serenade in the white neighborhoods. We’d walk down the street amongst all those old houses, strumming our guitars, and we’d see them curtains fly back and they’d chuck nickels and dimes out in the street for us. We’d play ‘Tight Like That’, little jump-up songs for them. Then we’d go back across the river where we come from, raise hell and drink, holler our asses off all night long, singing the ‘Cotton Patch Blues’ in them shotgun houses in our part of town.”
I first encountered the Callicott’s music on Mississippi Delta Blues – “Blow My Blues Away” Vol. 2 and found myself going back to those recordings often. He was a good, if unspectacular guitarist, picking out simple, gently surging melodies in a manner that brings to mind Mississippi John Hurt, but as a singer he was magnificent. There’s a timbre and warmth to his vocals that immediately draw the listener into his world and even in his old age he was still capable of delivering a beautiful falsetto in the manner popularized by Tommy Johnson. Callicott’s music is often compared to medicine show artists from the area as Paul oliver noted in the liners to the original Blue Horizon LP: “Nesbit is only a score of miles south of Memphis in the red earth country of De Soto county. From here and the adjacent Tate and Marshall counties a number of the old-style songsters lived …Among them were the medicine show and jug band musicians like Jim Jackson from Hernando four miles from Nesbit, Frank Stokes, a blacksmith who lived some fifteen miles further south in Senatobia, and Gus Cannon from Red Banks, about the same distance to the east.” David Evans noted that Callicott: “…shows a close musical affinity to his old friend Frank Stokes. Both have a kind of quavering vocal delivery, which combined with clear diction and a good feeling for lyrics can be very effective in putting across the meaning of a song.” Callicott’s recordings for Mitchell are superior to those on Blue Horizon, captured in beautiful form on mostly traditional material like “Laughing To Keep From Crying”, the title drawn from a line drawn from Virginia Liston’s “You Don’ Know my Mind” from 1923, an unusually detailed version of “Frankie And Albert”, “Roll And Tumble” and others. Callicott seems distracted and less focused on the Blue Horizon session possibly due to the presence of Bill Barth (second guitar) and Bukka White (whistling). He does turn in some fine performances including “Hoist Your Window And Let Your Curtain Down”, “Joe’s Troubled Blues”, the ancient “War Time Blues” which probably dates back to World War I (Yack Taylor’s “Those Draftin’ Blues” is lyrically and melodically similar) and a fine version of Akers’ “Dough Roller Blues” which sports the arresting lyric: “I’ll cut your throat woman/Drink your blood like wine.”
Of those early recordings, “Cottonfield Blues Parts 1 & 2″ is a classic Mississippi blues hollered over a the throbbing groove of the amazingly tight twin guitars of Akers and Callicott. Callicott explained the set up: “I kept him chorded up good, trackin’ him…You hear them bases? Well, that’s me. Hear them little strings? Well, that’s him…And when that guy would get to playin’, I’m tellin’ you the truth-we’d sit face to face. And we changed up [i.e., swapped guitar lead]…and you wouldn’t know it.” The duo were swept up by one of those mobile recording unit as Gayle Wardlow explained in his groundbreaking article, Garfield Akers and Mississippi Joe Callicott: From the Hernando Cotton Fields: “In the fall of 1929 Brunswick/Vocalion Records made its initial field trip to Memphis to record talent for its Vocalion 1000 and Brunswick 7000 Race series. The session at the Peabody Hotel was highlighted by the first recorded appearances of Garfield Akers, Mattie Delaney, and Kid Bailey, concomitantly with veterans Memphis Minnie and Tampa Red. Callicott recorded his lone 78, “Fare Thee Well Blues/Traveling Mama Blues”, for Brunswick in 1930 at a second session in Memphis where Akers also recorded again (“Dough Roller Blues/Jumpin’ and Shoutin’”).





