Big Road Blues

By the time he succumbed to a heart attack in 1971 Curtis Jones was a sad, embittered man who - rightly I would say - viewed himself as the forgotten man of the blues, watching from the sidelines while others from his era were greeted with far more enthusiasm and fame. His passing was greeted with little fanfare and in a final indignity his grave was unceremoniously sold eight years later because no one had paid for its upkeep.

The intervening years have done nothing to raise to Jones’ profile; his records have not been well represented on the reissue market and mention of his music to fellow blues fans is often greeted with indifference. To put it frankly his records are considered “boring” by most blues fans. The very qualities which made him popular among the black record buying public of the 1930’s and 1940’s were not exactly the qualities white enthusiasts prized. His talents were perhaps too subtle for the new white audience: his deep, unfussy piano playing was very much in the service of the song and decidedly unshowy, he was an expressive singer with a high, tight tenor with a way of putting across a song that really connected with the audience and he was an exceptional, imaginative lyricist. As Tony Russell wrote, somewhat uncharitably, in the Penguin Guide To Blues: “…Over the next four years [1937-1941] Jones turned out dozens of blues-and-trouble compositions, sung in the bleak Texas manner of men like Black Boy Shine to tidy, unexciting piano accompaniments.”Closer to the mark was Paul Oliver who in the notes to In London wrote: “He is the bluesman’s blues singer. All that he plays and sings is blues, but it cannot be lightly asserted that he represents the blues of Texas, where he was born, or of the West where he worked for some years. His is not merely ‘Chicago blues’, though he lived there for a quarter of a century. And how does one type a blues singer who has made Paris, France, his home?”

Courtesy American Folk Music Occasional, 1970

Our story picks up in Europe where Jones settled in the early 1960’s after almost twenty years without stepping into a studio, outside of a couple of 1953 sides for Parrot. Before packing his bags for Europe he waxed a pair of fine stateside comeback records; Trouble Blues (Bluesville, 1960) and Lonesome Bedroom Blues (Delmark, 1962) which found his talents undimmed by the passage of time. Over in Europe he would record two more superb albums; In London (Decca, 1963) and Now Resident In Europe (Blue Horizon, 1968) reissued, remastered and rounded out with unissued sides as Curtis Jones: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions. It was Mike Vernon who we have to thank for both sessions as he writes in the excellent liner notes: “To be totally honest, Curtis Jones represented a bygone era and his particular style and sound was not at one with the current trends and developments in the blues world at the time. …It should be remembered that I, in particular, had been the only producer who had the courage to record him - not once, but twice. Most others might well have not taken the risk, if the truth were to be told.”

I, for one, am glad he took the chance as it paid off handsomely. The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions consists of the original ten songs plus brief interview, a batch of alternate takes and the previously unissued “Blues On The Scene.” Backed by a strong rhythm section of Brian Brocklehurst on upright bass and Dougie Wright on drums, Jones is in superb form stretching out with some gorgeous piano solos and singing marvelously on this well recorded date that features songs he hadn’t recorded before. Jones sounds particularly extroverted on a number of selections including the shuffling “You Don’t Have To Go” stretching out with some sparkling piano work, the insistent drive of “Cherie”, positively cooks on the bouncy, declamatory “Gee, Pretty Baby” and delivers the spirited, inventive instrumental “Dryburgh Drive” (named after the street the studio resided on). Jones is at his plaintive best on the lovely ballad “I Want To Be Your Slave” and displays his skills as a guitarist on several sparse numbers. Guitar was his first instrument and he first revealed his talent on the instrument on his Decca album. His picking is basic but effective on on solo numbers such as “Morocco Blues”, “Jane”, “Blues On The Scene” and the heartfelt, beautifully sung “Soul Brother Blues.” As on all of the Blue Horizon reissues, packaging is excellent with lengthy notes, nice photos and pristine sound.

Listening to The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions prompted me to reacquaint myself with In London which I hadn’t listened to in ages. I’ve been informed that this has made it on to CD on the Deram label which may itself be out of print although copies look to be still available. Despite extremely lean times, Jones sailed into his 1960’s comeback as an artist at the height of his powers as he ably demonstrates on In London backed by sympathetic band featuring bassist Jack Fallon, drummer Eddie Taylor and Alexis Korner on guitar on a few numbers. The program is a mix of old classics like “Lonesome Bedroom Blues”, Alleybound Blues”, “You Got Good Business” plus items he had been playing for his European audiences, numbers like Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Someone To Love”, the rollicking instrumental, “Young Generation Boogie”, based on the Ray Charles instrumental “Rockhouse” and the charming “Syl-Vous Play Blues.” Jones revives classic piano pieces including an elegant version of “The Honeydripper”, “Curtis Jones Boogie”, his version of the timeless “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” and the rocking “Shake It Baby.” Of the guitar pieces, “Skid Row” is the standout, the kind of seedy life blues tale Jones so excelled at conjuring up. Paul Oliver provides a fine set of notes for the original LP which have been reprinted in Blues Off The Record.

Both of these records come recommended and one hopes that the reissue of The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions will spark some renewed interest in Curtis Jones although that may be, admittedly, wishful thinking. I’ll be spotlighting the music of Jones in an upcoming radio program so keep an eye out. For a well written piece on Jones I make available, with the author’s permission, an article written in Jefferson magazine no. 124, 2000: Curtis Jones: The Lonesome Bedroom Blues (PDF)

You Don’t Have To Go [Blue Horizon Sessions] (MP3)

Soul Brother Blues [Blue Horizon Sessions] (MP3)

Shake It Baby [In London] (MP3)

Syl-Vous Play Blues [In London] (MP3)

Show Notes:

In my continuing attempt to raise the profile of piano blues here’s a show devoted to some of the best barrelhouse and boogie-woogie piano of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Last year I did several piano based shows including a spotlight on the remarkable group of Texas piano men who who made records 1920’s and 30’s. This show, which takes it’s title from a line in Romeo Nelson’s “Head Rag Hop”, is a much broader look at early piano blues featuring some of the best piano records of the era.

I remember exactly when I became enthralled with the early piano blues. I was was in Tower Records in NYC (still in in high school) browsing through blues records when I stumbled across the LP The Piano Blues Volume Twenty: Barrelhouse Years 1928-1933. I soon realized that this was the tail end of a groundbreaking piano series on Magpie Records. The Magpie series was the first attempt to present the the full breadth of piano blues in a systematic fashion. Each volume was built around a particular theme, featured excellent notes and terrific sound quality with records culled from the vast collection of producer Francis Smith (sadly I’ve heard that Smith is in the end stage of a terminal illness). The series concluded in 1984 after twenty-one volumes and has yet to be surpassed. A number of years ago Yazoo Records launched their own piano blues series also using 78’s from Smith’s collection. As far as I can tell the series has stopped but they issued a number of excellent collections all of which are featured on today’s show. A list of their piano compilations can be found here and they’ve also issued single artist collections: Dreaming the Blues: The Best of Charlie Spand and The Way I Feel which spotlights Lee Green and Roosevelt Sykes.

While the piano blues is something of a declining art form it flourished on record in the 1920’s-30’s and with the boogie-woogie craze of the 1940’s. To quote Peter J. Silvester’s A Left Hand Like God: A History of Boogie-Woogie Piano: “Originating in barrelhouses and entertainment spots that served the black labor force who worked in the lumber and railroad industries throughout the deep south, it could be heard later at rent parties in Chicago, buffet flats in St. Louis and other black urban centers like Birmingham, Al and several towns in Texas among others. When the music evolved into boogie-woogie entering New York nightclubs like Café Society, pianists such as Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons became stars. In the 1940’s the boogie-woogie craze hit big but faded by the 1950’s.”

Today’s show stops just short of the boogie-woogie craze, spanning 1928 to 1939. This was an era before mass media and many of today’s recordings bear a distinct regional style. As Bob Hall wrote: “At the start of the recording era blues piano consisted of a variety of distinctive regional styles, particularly in Southern states such as Texas and Mississippi, and there were ’schools’ of pianists in many of the major cities having significant migrant black populations, for example Birmingham, St. Louis, Detroit and Chicago.” St. Louis, for example, was an extremely fertile piano town boasting piano men like Roosevelt Sykes, Peetie Wheatstraw, Henry Brown, Aaron Sparks, Walter Davis, Stump Johnson, Eddie Miller among many others. It’s not surprising that Chicago had a lively scene including Pinetop Smith, Jimmy Yancey, Romeo Nelson, Cripple Clarence Lofton and others. Birmingham and Detroit were another prime piano towns with Jabbo Williams, Walter Roland and Cow Cow Davenport from the former and Charlie Spand, Will Ezell from the latter. In future shows I plan to do several piano programs with a narrower, regional focus.

Show Notes:

More piano-based and jazz-influenced than anything else, West Coast Blues is really California blues even if most of the main practitioners actually hailed from Texas. There was no pre-war blues activity in California but the the post-war blues era was booming. With the shipyards and aircraft factories desperate for labor during the war years, blacks flocked to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and small towns like Richmond, Fresno, Stockton and Modesto. The non-white population exploded from 80, 000 in 1930 to 462,000 by 1950. Numerous small independent labels popped up in the 40’s to cater to this new market including Aladdin, Swingtime, Modern, Speciality and many smaller outfits who specialized in R&B and blues and would take more chances than the more established labels.

In this week’s feature we spotlight the West Coast piano tradition which was kick started by the inimitable Charles Brown. As Tony Russell wrote: “In the late summer of 1945 Charles Brown recorded “Driftin’ Blues”, a moonlight sonata of rootlessness and uncertainty. It was perhaps the first blues hit of the postwar blues period, and it expanded the language of the blues as dramatically as Leroy Carr’s “How Long - How Long Blues” 17 years earlier.” Brown’s influence was profound, setting the stage for fellow pianists like Amos Milburn, Floyd Dixon, Little Willie Littlefield, Roy Hawkins, Ivory Joe Hunter and Cecil Gant.

Amos Milburn signed with Aladdin in 1946 and had the first of19 Top Ten R&B smashes with 1948′ storming “Chicken Shack Boogie.” In addition to rocking boogies he he could croon in the best Charles Brown manner. In the same mold was Little Willie Littlefield who made his debut in 1948 racking up major R&B hits with “It’s Midnight” and “Farewell.” Floyd Dixon also debuted in 1948 earning many comparisons to his mentor Charles Brown although eventually developing a grittier, more soulful sound than Brown. Dixon hit locally with 1949’s “Dallas Blues.” Aladdin Records acquired Dixon’s contract with Modern in late 1950, immediately pairing him with Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers for “Telephone Blues,” his first nationwide hit. Roy Hawkins too made his debut in 1948 although less well remembered than his contemporaries. Hawkins had two major R&B hits: 1950’s “Why Do Things Happen to Me” and “The Thrill Is Gone” the following year.

Due to time constraints we don’t have time to do proper justice to two other fine pianists, Ivory Joe Hunter and Cecil Gant. Gant’s 1944 debut ,”I Wonder,” topped the R&B charts and its flip “Cecil’s Boogie,” was a hit in its own right. Further hits followed and he stayed at the label until switching over to Bullet in 1948. Hunter started his own label, Ivory Records, to press up his “Blues at Sunrise” (with Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers backing him), and it became a national hit when leased to Exclusive in 1945. He followed with hit sides for King where he cut his immortal “I Almost Lost My Mind” (another R&B chart-topper in 1950), Atlantic, Vee-Jay, Smash and Capitol.

Whistlin’ Alex Moore certainly knew intimately about this area as he related to Oliver: “Oh they were tough joints…I’d play them all, from North Dallas to the East Side…Froggy Bottom…Central Tracks…well they had just about everything up and down there from beer joints to saloons.” Moore was a resident of Dallas all his eighty years and had spent most of his working life as a cart driver, and later, hotel porter. Moore had a long career, punctuated by large recording gaps, cutting ten sides in 1929, sessions in 1947, 1951, sessions for Arhoolie and cut an album for Rounder the year before he died in 1988. Oliver describes Moore as a “folk blues poet par excellence” and “one of the most poetic blues singers on record, Alex Moore had developed as a remarkable pianist in the purest boogie and blues tradition with an eccentric inventive flair both in his vocals and his playing.” Moore’s poetic flair is on display on “Heart Wrecked Blues” and particularly his “West Dallas Woman” [MP3]: “Met a woman in West Texas, she had been left out there all alone/Out by the “Hooking Cow” crossing, where I wasn’t even known/She fell for me, a raggedy stranger, standing in the drizzling rain/She said “Daddy I’ll follow you, tho’ I don’t know your name”/We snuggled closely together, muddy water round our feet/No place to call home, wet, hungry and no place to eat/The wolves howl till midnight, wild ox moan till day/The Man in the Moon looked down on us—but had nothing to say.” He displays a sly sense of humour on “They May Not Be My Toes” and “Blue Bloomer Blues” [MP3]: “While standing at the car line, reckon’ what that old girl done/I said she hugged and kissed me and bit me on my tongue/I asked her to give me what mama did, when I was three months old/She said I’ll make you a sugar tit daddy, I can’t stand that to save my soul/She pulled off them bloom bloomers, begin to whine and frown.” Even tough tales like “Ice Pick Mama” and “Bull Con Blues” are laced with plenty of amusing wit.

Moore was perhaps the last of the early Texas piano although a couple of others survived long enough to make some latter day recording. Edwin ‘Buster’ Pickens and Robert Shaw ran around with the pianists who worked the Santa Fe railroad townships. Both Robert Shaw and Buster Pickens didn’t record under their own name until the 1960’s. Pickens did some session work, most notably behind Lightnin’ Hopkins and cut one full-length record in the 1960’s for the Heritage label. Oliver describes him in the 60’s, as “virtually the last of the barrelhouse and saw-mill pianists, for his contemporaries are nearly all dead …Pickens, born in 1915, was younger then many of them though he shared the work, and small, compact and tough, he is still playing. His world has been one of railroad routes and this is reflected in many of his blues.” A prime example is his “Santa Fe Train [MP3].” As Pickens himself noted: “I travelled by freight trains. I rode freight trains practically all over the country. …These other piano players-son Becky, Consih Burks, Black Boy Shine, Andy Boy, and all these men-they went out different routes-hardly ever paired up. Each lookin’ for his own bread.” Robert Shaw cut one 1963 album for Almanac which was reissued on the Arhoolie label, plus some additional sides in the 1970’s. All these sides are collected on the CD “The Ma Grinder” issued by Arhoolie. Like Pickens, Shaw was a member of the Santa Fe pianists and on his 60’s recordings plays dazzling dance tunes, in a relaxed boogie style, with touches of ragtime mixed in, and tough lowdown blues. As Shaw said: “When you listen to what I’m playing you got to see in your mind all them gals out there swinging their butts and getting the mens excited. otherwise you ain’t got the music rightly understood. I could sit there and throw my hands down and make them gals do anything. I told them when to shake it, and when to hold back. That’s what this music is for.” His remarkable technique is in full display on the Texas piano staple, “The Ma Grinder[MP3].”

After World War II the early Texas piano tradition virtually evaporated. Oliver wrote that after “…the War, the juke boxes, and the law had combined to bring an end to both the barrelhouse circuit and the Texas piano player who, in Son Becky’s words had “spread some joy” on the Santa network. …The group dispersed: Andy Boy made his way to Kansas City where he was last heard of in the 1950’s, while Joe Pullum migrated to California. Rob Cooper disappeared after woman trouble, and Cowboy Washington was forgotten. Down on Houston’s McKinney Street they don’t stomp The Cows or The Ma Grinder any more.”

Sources:

-Dixon, Robert M.W., John Godrich, Howard W. Rye. Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943. 4th edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997.

-McCormick, Mack. Notes accompanying The Ma Grinder, 1993, Arhoolie.

-Oliver, Paul and Smith, Francis. Notes accompanying The Piano Blues Vol. 15: Dallas 1927-1929, 1980, Magpie.

-Oliver, Paul. Conversation With The Blues. Horizon Press, New York, 1965.

Show Notes:

Piano blues seems to have gotten overshadowed by the emphasis on the guitar. Today the piano blues tradition is in steep decline. This week’s show harks back to the glory days of barrelhouse piano, in particular a remarkable group of piano men who where based in Texas during the 1920’s and 30’s. As Paul Oliver observed: “Texas was as rich in piano blues as Mississippi was in guitar blues …A cursory glance through the discographies will emphasize the fact that a remarkable number of blues pianists came from Texas.”

All the background for this week’s show can be found in a multi-part article I posted on the Texas piano tradition:

Texas Piano Blues - 1920’s & 1930’s Part 1

Texas Piano Blues - 1920’s & 1930’s Part 2

Texas Piano Blues - 1920’s & 1930’s Part 3

Texas Piano Blues - 1920’s & 1930’s Part 4

After discussing the early Texas piano players and the Santa Fe group we turn to Dallas which was the home of a number of distinctive piano players and singers they accompanied. Among them were Texas Bill Day, Neal Roberts, Willie Tyson, Whistlin’ Alex Moore and singer Billiken Johnson. Oliver notes that “as far as is known, they were more or less contemporaries, being born at the turn of the century (Alex Moore, specifically, in 1899).” He goes on to describe Dallas during this period: “Then there were 9000 blacks in Dallas, a quarter of the population. By 1930 they totalled just short of 50,000 and made up a significant part of the whole population. The hub of the black community was an area known as Central Tracks, where honky-tonks ’saloons, beer-parlours and brothels were wedged between warehouses, furniture stores and places of entertainment like Ella B. Moore’s Park Theatre, or Hattie Burleson’s dance hall. Urban expansion in Dallas was largely due to its importance as a railhead, and many railroads whose names are familiar to blues collectors had termini there. Among them were the “Katy”, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas line; the Fort Worth and Denver; the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe; the Rock Island; and the Texas a Pacific, along whose line Central Tracks was situated.”

Despite the brash and nosey environment the “Dallas blues piano style of Dallas is slow or medium-paced and contemplative in its nature …Blues in the Dallas school is about Dallas; in fact no other blues schools, with the exception perhaps, of Chicago, gives us quite such a picture of the urban life which inspired it. ..These are blues that are intended to be listened to, with words that have a strange folk lyricism about them. Here the piano is used as a complementary poetic instrument, setting off the words and the mood of the blues instead of challenging it with pyrotechnic displays.”

It’s not surprising that the railroad figure prominently in the blues of Dallas. Singer Billiken Johnson was obviously well acquainted with the rail lines as they figure in number of his blues. Johnson is a key figure though he did not play piano. His speciality was vocal effects, and he was considered rather a clown by his blues musician friends. On “Frisco Blues” [MP3] (a reference to the St. Louis—San Francisco line) Johnson provides the train sounds over the gently rolling piano of Neal Roberts who also sings. Johnson provides the same role on “Sun Beam Blues” (also known as the “Sunshine Special” that ran on the Missouri— Pacific line to St. Louis) evocatively imitating the lonesome train whistle as the unknown Fred Adams takes the vocals. Johnson also vocalizes on “Interurban Blues” which refers to the short haul trains which brought country people into the city. On these tracks Willie Tyson plays piano. Johnson’s vocal effects are also on display on “Billiken’s Weary Blues” with steady piano support from Texas Bill Day who plays in a similar style as the aforementioned Neal Roberts. Johnson surfaces again on Day’s lustily sung “Elm Street Blues” [MP3] where the pianist sings: “Ellum Street’s paved in brass, Main Street’s paved in gold/I’ve got a good girl lives on East Commerce, I wouldn’t mistreat her to save nobody’s soul/These Ellum Street Women, Billiken, do not mean you no good/If you want to make a good woman, have to get on Haskell Avenue.” The song, as Oliver says, refers “…to the respective success of the black sector of “Deep Ellum”, or Elm Street, which ran by Central Tracks, and the downtown business sector of Main.”

Sources:

-Dixon, Robert M.W., John Godrich, Howard W. Rye. Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943. 4th edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997.

-Oliver, Paul and Smith, Francis. Notes accompanying The Piano Blues Vol. 15: Dallas 1927-1929, 1980, Magpie.

-Oliver, Paul. Conversation With The Blues. Horizon Press, New York, 1965.

Harold Holiday, known as Black Boy Shine, was one of the acknowledged leaders among the Santa Fe group of pianists. He recorded more prolifically then the rest; cutting 18 issued sides in 1936 and 1937 as well as leaving a batch of unissued sides in the can. As Oliver relates: “He played in a mellow style, with a subtler release than the sharp snap favoured by several of the piano men, and he sang in a slightly world-weary voice of the days when the “Chophouse” operated on West Dallas Street. It was a haven for pianists down on their luck, where the proprietor would prepare soup and sandwiches for them, and cook any rabbits they’d managed to club on the waste lots that still dotted the black wards of the city.” He describes this vividly in one of his best numbers, “Dog House Blues”: “Well I’m going to the Dog House/Down On West Dallas Street/When I get broke and hungry/I know I can get a feed.” “When times were better”, Oliver wrote, “and the barrelhouses were open again, Shine was to be found at Sugarland, near the sugar refineries and the State Farm Unit, or way out at Richmond. The latter is a run-down, predominately black township still, an unlovely place of old buildings fronting on the railroad tracks close to the Brazos River. Behind the tracks the roads fall back steeply for a couple of blocks to the old haunt of hustlers and whores, Mud Alley. There on Mud Alley was the Brown House, Shine’s base when he wasn’t travelling…” Both places feature in Shine’s songs; In “Sugarland Blues” he sings “I dump sugar all day/Clean until broad daylight/I done everything for that woman/Still she don’t treat me right” and in “Brown House Blues” he sings “Woke up this morning with the muddy alley blues/ I lost all my money and my alley shoes/I was playing boogie-woogie and having my fun” and then goes on describe a raid in detail, obviously a common occurrence in these kind of joints. In general his lyrics vividly reflect the harsher side of black life such as songs like “Hobo Blues” and “Ice Pick and Pistol Woman Blues.”

Both Pinetop Burks and Leon Calhoun known as Son Becky, at least on record, were more boisterous players then Shine. Both shared a single session in October 1937, each cutting six sides apiece. Oliver notes that “Black Boy Shine closely resembled Conish “Pinetop” Burks both in appearance and in piano style, at least in the recollections of their contemporaries. On record “Connie” Burks used more boogie bass figures than Shine and employed more varied approaches to his blues, a matter of some surprise to those who knew them, who considered Shine the better pianist. Burks was born and raised close by Richmond and heard all the good piano men as they passed through” Becky “…had been raised by a relative near Wharton and was known by her surname, as “Son” Becky. Becky played for country suppers and followed the barrelhouse circuit east to the Piney Woods. Here traditions met, with the Louisiana and E Texas pianists running into their Houston and Santa Fe contemporary Dave Alexander, who was known as Black Ivory King, was one of eastern group who worked the ‘Flying Crow’ line between his home to of Shreveport and Port Arthur on the Gulf Coast, where Ivory Joe Hunter knew him.” Burks lays down strong, propulsive boogie piano, displaying his skill on several fine extended solos and has a deep, expressive voice. His boogie piano is heard to good effect on “Fannie Mae Blues” a song addressed too his wife and the rollicking “Shake the Shack” which owes a strong debt to “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie.” His “Mountain Jack Blues” features a thumping bass, ragtime flavour and is a variation of the Texas staple “”The Cows” while his “Jack of All Trades” was a re-working of Bernice Edwards’ blues of the same name. Becky was accompanied by a guitarist and a washboard player on some of his tracks, and the trio make an enjoyable ruckus on the driving “Midnight Trouble Blues” and “Mistreated Washboard Blues.” The more contemplative “Cryin’ Shame Blues” is a fine mid-tempo number featuring some strong rolling piano. King cut four sides in 1937 and had a simpler, less aggressive style than Burks and Becky. He was a fine rough voiced singer, using his limited range to fine effect particularly on the sublime “The Flying Crow” where he enhances the song with moans and piano flourishes that emulate the sound of the train. Trains also figure in “Match Box Blues” and “Gingham Dress (Alexander Blues)” while “Working For The PWA” is a fine topical number.

Santa Fe Tracks

The Santa Fe group acquired their name not only because they rode the Santa Fe from job to job, but also because, according to the Houston Pianist Robert Shaw, “anyone enquiring the name of a selection was invariably told, “that’s the ‘Santa Fe’.” The style was rooted in the wide-open towns of Richmond, Houston and Galveston. As Oliver notes, “here were to be heard the hard-hitting boogie and blues pianists like Conish Burks and Son Becky, Rob Cooper and Black Boy Shine, Andy Boy, Robert ‘Fud’ Shaw and Edwin ‘Buster’ Pickens, and the singers Joe Pullum and Walter ‘Cowboy’ Washington. …There is a broad stylistic and thematic similarity in the music of the pianists who followed the Santa Fe through the barrelhouses of Ford Bend, Houston and Galveston counties, and down in the Brazos Bottoms. …Immediately recognisable with its rolling basses, its often ragtimey blues accompaniments, its anticipatory beat—this is the Santa Fe group.” This group travelled the branches of the Santa Fe line to the lumber camps, oil fields and towns. In the cities “they were to be heard in the red light district of Galveston’s Post Office Street or Church Street, on Houston’s West Dallas Street or in Richmond’s Mud Alley.”

Among the best of the Santa Fe group were Rob Cooper of Houston, and Andy Boy of Galveston. Both men show the influence of Hersal Thomas and both men’s style share strong ragtime elements. Stylistically, Oliver notes, “Andy Boy (Boy was his surname) and Rob Cooper were a few years older than Hersal Thomas” and “careful listening to the playing of Andy Boy reveals hints of the connection between them; in spite of the themes that he sang and played with their somewhat more modern sound, Galveston born Andy Boy was a pianist whose formative years were spent in the company of Hersal and his fellow pianists.”

Andy Boy cut only eight sides under his own name as well as backing both Joe Pullum and Walter ‘Cowboy’ Washington. Andy Boy had a rough, expressive voice offset with his sprightly blues piano laced with ragtime flourishes. Andy Boy’s songs are filled with vivid imagery, humour, clever wordplay and a times a deep pathos. One of his most memorable numbers was the rollicking “House Raid Blues” (MP3) (a close cousin to Little Hat Jones’ “Kentucky Blues”) as Andy Boy wittily describes a police break-in at Charlie Shiro’s Galveston club: “Then out the widow I did hop/Followed closely by a cop/Then around the corner I did run/I heard the shot from some law’s gun/Said it ain’t no use in shooting ‘cause I ain’t gonna be here long/…Then I was long gone, from Kentucky, long gone/Got away lucky and left so keen/I left like a submarine.” The vigorously sung “Church Street Blues” (MP3) was perhaps his finest number where he evocatively sang: “Going down to the Gulf/Watch the waves come in . . .” and “I was born and raised in that good old seaport town/Where we all had fun and stomped The Grinder down.” In the sombre “Evil Blues” he sang: “I got the evil blues, prejudicy on my mind” and was in quite a different frame of mind on the bouncy “Jive Blues” where he sings “Now the good book says thou shall not break the ten commandment law/I’m gonna break the ten commandments on you’re jaw.”

Both Andy Boy and Rob Cooper play on the records of Joe Pullum, one of the era’s most distinctive and imaginative vocalists. As Tony Russell describes, “Pullum’s voice was pitched very high and clear, yet it always sounded relaxed, and his timing was impeccable. The effect-plaintive, appealing, penetrating-was like that of a muted trumpet solo, piercing it’s way through the blues, occasionally soaring in sudden leaps. …The piano-playing behind Pullum is always satisfying stuff, whether the work of Andy Boy (who was on the third and longest session) or that of Robert Cooper (on the other three).” Cooper’s lively, ragtimey piano can be heard to good effect on the Texas staple “Cows, See That Train Comin’” (MP3) and the mostly instrumental “Blues With Class” while Andy Boy’s accompaniment displays more invention then own his own records. Cooper’s solo output under his own includes only two numbers; two marvellous versions of “West Dallas Drag”, a stomping, good time ragtime number that makes one wish he had recorded more solo sides. Any Boy also backed the tough voiced Walter ‘Cowboy’ Washington on all four of his numbers, providing wonderful backing to evocative tales like “Ice Pick Mama” (MP3) and “West Dallas Woman” (a reference to the main stem of Houston’s Fourth Ward).

Sources:

-Dixon, Robert M.W., John Godrich, Howard W. Rye. Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943. 4th edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997.

-Oliver, Paul. The Story of the Blues. 4th edition. Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1997.

-Silvester, Peter J.. A Left Hand Like Boogie: A History of Boogie-Woogie Piano. DA Capo, Ne York, 1988.

-Oliver, Paul and Smith, Francis. Notes accompanying The Piano Blues Vol. 8: Texas Seaport 1934-1937, 1978, Magpie.

-Oliver, Paul and Smith, Francis. Notes accompanying The Piano Blues Vol. 11: Texas Santa Fe 1934-1937, 1979, Magpie.

-Russell, Tony. Talking Blues 2 - Joe Pullum, Jazz Monthly, No 191 (1971), p. 23-24.

Show Notes:

This week’s show was inspired by Nellie Lutcher who passed away June 8th. Lutcher’s music is not easy to classify as she herself stated: “I’m a little bit of jazz, a little rhythm and blues. I do pop things and I like ballads,” she told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1993. “But I don’t consider myself anything of rock. Whatever I did I made sure it was something I could restyle, because my whole thing was to give everything a creative, individual touch.” The six sides that kick things off come from the 4-CD Bear Family box Nellie Lutcher and Her Rhythm. On a side note I got a chance to see Lutcher at the 1993 New Orleans Jazz Festival which happened to be the first time she ever played the festival.

Playing the Lutcher sides got me thinking about other piano playing ladies. In fact there’s was something of a trend circa the mid to late 40’s of boogie woogie blues ladies, most based around the Los Angles area. Lutcher was born in Lake Charles, LA but made a name for herself playing piano at the Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue in Los Angles. We spotlight a bunch of L.A. based piano ladies including Camille Howard and Betty Hall Jones, who both worked with bandleader Roy Milton, Hadda Brooks, Effie Smith and Vivianne Green. Julie Lee and Cleo Brown hailed from the midwest while Christine Chatman and Paula Watson were based in New York. Martha Davis (YouTube Video) was a tremendous piano pounder who recorded three Top Ten hits in 1948. Performing in a duo, Martha Davis & Spouse, which she shared with her bass player and husband, Calvin Ponder, she continued to tour through the 1950s but failed to repeat her early success.

Central Avenue from downtown Los Angeles to Watts was a thriving cultural center much like Harlem was to New York and Beale Street was in Memphis. Due to segregation and land use restrictions, African Americans moving to California to find work wound up on Central Avenue where it became the social and cultural center of their community. “During the 40’s the South Central Ave. area of Los Angles was home to a dense cluster of nightclubs, after-hours “breakfast clubs”, bars and theaters that were supported by the influx of African American workers who found employment in the southern California war industries.”* This segment will give you a small taste of some of the music played in these kinds of joints and we will be featuring much more West Coast blues in upcoming features.

*(Central Avenue Blues: The making of Los Angles Rhythm and Blues, 1942-1947)

I’ve always been a huge fan of barrelhouse piano, which doesn’t seem to garner as much enthusiasm among blues fans as do the guitar players. In the 1920’s and 1930’s many of these itinerant piano players were captured on record. Along with St. Louis one of the more distinctive piano blues traditions arose in Texas. The Texas pianists were thankfully fairly well recorded and they left behind some marvelous music. On the 7/29 show I’m devoting an entire show to them and thought I would provide a bit of background on this fascinating tradition.

The Texas piano tradition flowered in the 1920’s and was at its peak during the 1930’s when a number of the tradition’s best players were recorded. Today, seventy years down the line, much has changed; blues is no longer a music performed and listened to strictly by African-Americans, the piano blues tradition has virtually evaporated and regional styles have effectively disappeared. The Texas piano tradition was a rich and vibrant one and luckily fairly well documented on record. As Francis Smith notes: “With the two major recording centers of New York and Chicago a thousand miles to the North, it was extremely fortunate that so many pianists of this important close knit Texas group were recorded—all three record companies of the time being involved.” The three companies were Columbia, Victor and Vocalion in addition to Bluebird and Okeh. These companies, either singularly or in various combinations, made field trips to Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio in 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941.

As Paul Oliver observed: “Texas was as rich in piano blues as Mississippi was in guitar blues, which is not to say that there were no great blues guitarists in Texas, or piano men in Mississippi. A cursory glance through the discographies will emphasize the fact that a remarkable number of blues pianists came from Texas. They can be grouped into “schools”, characterized by certain similarities of style and approach, that were partly a reflection of the environments in which they worked, of their friendships and associations with other pianists, and by the isolation of Texas from other states.” One school was the so-called “Santa Fe group” who were based in the southwestern part of the state where the cities of Galveston, Houston and Richmond lie. Here was where the music thrived and pianists could be found like Pinetop Burks, Son Becky, Rob Cooper, Black Boy Shine, Andy Boy, Big Boy Knox, Robert Shaw, Buster Pickens and the singers who worked with them like Walter “Cowboy” Washington and Joe Pullum. The other important school was a cluster of pianists and singers based in Dallas such as Alex Moore, Texas Bill Day, Neal Roberts Willie Tyson, and singer Billiken Johnson. 

While the above artists were recorded in Texas there was an earlier Texas piano tradition that was recorded out of state. This early tradition was based around the remarkable Thomas family who made the bulk of their recordings between 1923 and 1928. The music sounds quite different as Paul Oliver notes: “It is this distance in time that seems to place the Thomas circle quite apart from the pianists and singers of Houston and Galveston seaports… Their records were made a decade later, between 1934 and 1937, and in our perspective of blues history they seem to belong to quite a different age.” As David Evans states: “It is likely that no family has contributed more personalities to blues history than the Thomas family of Houston, Texas, whose famous members included George W. Thomas, his sister Beulah “Sippie” Wallace, their brother Hersal Thomas, George’s daughter Hociel Thomas, and Moanin’ Bernice Edwards who was raised up in the family.”

 Before discussing the individual piano players it’s worth providing a bit of context into how the piano tradition arose in Texas and surrounding areas. It was the lumber industry which was the incubator of the piano tradition in these regions. By the 1830′ s large scale lumber operations were in full swing but mainly concentrated in the east. By the 1850’s inroads had been made into the Southern Forest. As Peter J. Silvester notes “It is this Southern Forest, parts of which are referred to as the Piney Woods… …which acted as host to the beginnings of the musical style which was to become know as boogie woogie. It was the black labor force working throughout the length and breadth of this entire region which… …ensured it’s survival by providing sympathetic audiences and venues for the music. …It was mainly the brawn and muscle of black laborers which swung the axe or pushed and pulled on the crosscut saw to fell the trees of the Piney Woods.” One of the by products of the lumber industry was turpentine (made from resin from the pine trees) and side-by-side of the lumber camps were the turpentine camps as well as sawmill camps. Silvester describes the conditions: “The logging camp could consist of a half-dozen boxcar like shacks of weathered wood, two or three bunkhouses to accommodate from seventy-five to 150 men… …All are set along a spur of the logging railway that runs back through old cuttings to the mills. These boxcar-like shacks would in fact be converted railroad boxcars, or could be boxlike structures built on railroad flatcars. …One of these shacks functioned as combination dancehall, crap-game dive and whorehouse. This was known as the barrelhouse, the honky tonk, or the juke. Furnished by the lumber company with drink and piano, it was a rough, tough place.” Black musicians, particularly piano, players followed the tracks to find work in these camps. “Barrelhouse circuits” developed, one of which was the southwest corner of Texas around the towns of Galveston, Houston and Richmond which the “Santa Fe group” used as their base. The Santa Fe railroad, with a main line running north from Galveston and Houston through Texas and Oklahoma served eight-eight Texas counties. “From playing in the back streets of Galveston, Houston and Richmond, the Santa Fe group of pianists would travel via the numerous lines of the Santa Fe railroad-around the barrelhouse circuits to play in the various camps and towns.”

The Texas piano tradition was first documented on record by the Thomas family. George Washington Thomas, Jr., the oldest of twelve children was born in Little Rock, AK in 1883 but had moved to Houston by 1900. As David Evans states “it was the ragtime and blues of this city and the surrounding region of southeast Texas served by the Santa Fe railroad that would shape the piano styles of various family members.” George move to New Orleans and then Chicago where he published and composed close to a hundred pieces, mostly blues with many sung on the vaudeville stages by his sister Sippie Wallace and his daughter Hociel Thomas. He recorded three piano rolls in 1924 and is though to be the man behind the pseudonym Clay Custer who recorded “The Rocks” [MP3] (a song composed by Thomas) in 1923 and two other numbers.

George’s brother, Hersal, is described by Francis Smith: “That Hersal, the child prodigy, was a highly influential pianist among his peers there is no doubt; even though he left Houston in his very early ‘teens he had established a reputation there which remains still in the folk memory.” In the early 1920’s he followed his brother to Chicago where he recorded extensively behind his sister Sippie Wallace and her niece Hociel Thomas. His appearance in Chicago, Paul Oliver notes, “created a sensation and profoundly influenced the piano players who heard his grumbling basses and highly poetic melodic inventions.” Under his own name he cut a piano roll in 1924 plus “Suitcase Blues” and “Hersal Blues” in 1925. He died a year later due to a case of food poisoning. Bernice Edwards is most obscure of the group and it’s not clear how closely tied she was to the Thomas family. She cut sixteen sides between 1928 and 1935 and as Evans states “her piano playing displays a fully developed “Santa Fe” style…” Her last session was recorded in Fort Worth with backing from Texas musicians J.T. “Howlin Smith and pianist Black Boy Shine.

Sources:
-Dixon, Robert M.W., John Godrich, Howard W. Rye. Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943. 4th edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997.