Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

It ain’t but the one thing I done wrong
I stayed in Mississippi just a day too long
(Mississippi Prison Song)

Todays show deals with blues songs about prison, both commercial recordings and field recordings by actual prisoners. In the segregation era down south it wasn’t hard for African-Americans to find themselves going to prison over a host of offenses. They were often treated harshly and unfairly by the legal system. Unfortunately even today the prison system has a disproportionate number of African-Americans and tales of being unfairly targeted by the criminal system all too common.

As for blues singers, their very profession was a dangerous one. The criminal element in the south gravitated to the black sectors of cities like New Orleans, Memphis or Atlanta, sectors that were treated as “wide open” and virtually beyond the law. It was the rough and tumble world of gambling joints, saloon, brothels and juke joints that employed the blues singer and there was always the possibility of trouble with the law. Memphis in the 1920’s, for example, was known as the “Murder Capital of America”, with over hundred homicides a year, 90 percent of the victims were black. Many blues singers were victims and many were perpetrators; men like Bukka White, Texas Alexander, J.T. Smith, Son House, Pat Hare and Lightnin’ Hopkins all did stints in prison.

Folklorists like John and Alan Lomax, Harry Oster, Lawrence Gellert and Bruce Jackson went to southern prisons like Parchman Farm, Angola, Huntsville, Sugar Land, Ramsey Prison Farm and others to record blues and work songs. On the surface the songs described incidents and experiences of the singers but on the other hand I think they can be viewed as a subtle form of protest against an unjust system. African-Americans had little or no outlet to voice their opinions and concerns prior to the civil rights era outside of recorded music. In The Land Where The Blues Began, Lomax had this to say regarding prison songs: “They tell us the story of the slave gang, the sharecropper system, the lawless work camp, the chain gang, the pen.” Bruce Jackson, who recorded in southern prisons in the 1960’s and 70’s, explained: “Southern agricultural penitentiaries were in many respects replicas of nineteenth-century plantations, where groups of slaves did arduous work by hand, supervised by white men with guns and constant threat of awful physical punishment . . .. It is hardly surprising that the music of plantation culture — the work songs — went to the prisons as well.” A New York Post reporter wrote as late as 1957: “The state penitentiary system at Parchman is simply a cotton plantation using convicts as labor. The warden is not a penologist, but an experienced plantation manager.”

In 1932 John Lomax was retained by the Library of Congress to make recordings. Lomax and his son Alan hit the road with 500 pounds of recording equipment and covered sixteen thousand miles over six months. As Lomax explained: “Our best field was the southern penitentiaries…we went to all eleven of them…”
It was on that trip that they ran across Leadbelly and secured his early parole. “We agreed to make a record of his petition on the other side of one of his favorite ballads, ‘Goodnight Irene’. I took the record to Governor Allen on July 1. On August 1 Leadbelly got his pardon. On September 1 I was sitting in a hotel in Texas when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and there was Leadbelly with his guitar, his knife, and a sugar bag packed with all his earthly belongings. He said, ‘Boss, you got me out of jail and now I’ve come to be your man’” This tale by Lomax, while colorful, has been in dispute as are many of his other recollections. On today’s program we play “Midnight Special” a song that’s become closely associated with Leadbelly. This version with the Golden Quartet is probably my favorite of this oft recorded song.

Bukka White

The Lomax’s continued to visit and record in prisons in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Alan Lomax returned to Parchman Farm in 1947-48 and made some remarkable recordings, armed with state-of-the-art technology, a cassette machine. These sides were originally issued as the LP Negro Prison Songs and reissued on CD as Prison Songs Vol. 1: Murderous Home by Rounder. Lomax gathered the prisons best lead signers for these recordings, all simply known by their nicknames: men like Bama, 22, Alex, Bull, Dobie Red, and Tangle Eye. During this period Lomax interviewed and recorded Joe Savage and said of him “he was by far the youngest and most damaged.” Jumping to 1980 we hear Savage recount his prison experience and sing on his harrowing “Joe’s Prison Camp Holler.”

Bukka White was recorded by Lomax in Parchman Farm in 1939. He was Convicted of murder and sentenced to life in 1937. He was still under contract for Vocalion (”Shake ‘em On Down” was a big hit from the session). Lomax recorded him doing two numbers: “Sic ‘Em Dogs On” and ” Po’ Boy.” He was released two years later probably through the actions of his music agent Lester Melrose. His recordings from 1940 show the prison experience was still on his mind on songs like “Where Can I Change My Clothes” (prison clothes), “District Attorney Blues” and his famous “Parchman Farm Blues:”

Judge give me life this mornin’ down on Parchman Farm (2x)
I wouldn’t hate it so bad, but I left my wife in mourn

Oh listen you men, I don’t mean no harm (2x)
If you wanna do good, you better stay off old Parchman Farm

We got to work in the mornin’, just at dawn of day (2x)
Just at the settin’ of the sun, that’s when the work is done

Recorded just a few days apart were a group of fine female singers. Woman in Mississippi were rarely sent to the state penitentiary but Parchman did open a woman’s camp in 1915. They canned vegetables, ran the prison laundry and worked dawn-to-dusk shifts in a sewing room making clothes, bedding and mattresses for the entire farm. Lomax recorded some of these woman in the Woman’s Sewing Room in 1939, including the remarkable Mattie May Thomas. We feature her singing unaccompanied on “No Mo’ Freedom” and “Dangerous Blues” where she describes a violent life:

You keep talking about the dangerous blues
If I had my pistol I’d be dangerous too
You may be a bully, but I don’t know
But I’ll fix you so you won’t gimmie no trouble, in the world I know

Less well known than the Lomax’s was Bruce Jackson who recorded extensively in the 1960’s and 70’s: “I started recording in Texas prisons in July 1964. I think Texas had about 12,000 prisoners in 14 prisons back then (they’ve got more than 150,000 prisoners in 105 state-run and private prisons now). My primary interest in Texas was the black convict worksongs…” Pete Seeger and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 which resulted in the film and book, Wake Up Dead Man. Another remarkable recording Jackson made was an LP by J.B. Smith titled Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown issued on Takoma, of which we play “I Got Too Much Time For The Crime I Done.” The centerpiece is the title track, a 24-minute opus drawing on imagery and lyrics from a wide variety of traditional sources.

One of the most well known images of the old justice system is the chain gang. The chain gangs originated as a way to create extensive quality roads. Convict labor in road work was more economically efficient than using compulsory free labor as they could be worked harder, for longer hours, and over a more sustained period of time. Georgia was the first state to begin to use the chain gang system to work male felony convicts outside of the prison walls. The chains were wrapped around the prisoners’ ankles, shackling five prisoners together while they worked, ate, and slept. Chain gangs became very economically and politically popular among most southern politicians as they witnessed convicts working from sunup to sundown in Georgia. We spin chain gang tales today by Kokomo Arnold, Ma Rainey and Fred McMullen’s harrowing “De Kalb Chain Gang” (De Kalb County, Georgia):

Ahh liquor and a gun, cause me ache and pain (2x)
And they give me six to twenty years, on the De Kalb county gang
And I tell all you people that ain’t no place to go (2x)
Well they treat you cruel, dog you from morning til’ night

There were also female chain gangs and Ma Rainey tells their tale on her “Chain Gang Blues” from 1925:

The judge found me guilty, the clerk he wrote it down (2x)
Just a poor gal in trouble, I know I’m county road bound

Many days of sorrow, many nights of woe (2x)
And a ball and chain everywhere I go

Chains on my feet, padlock on my hand (2x)
It’s all on account of stealing a woman’s man

Several of the blues artists featured today knew first hand about the prison experience. Among them were Texas Alexander who served at least two prison terms including a stint in Paris, Texas, for allegedly killing his wife. Alexander’s songs reflected prison life in songs like “Levee Camp Moan Blues” and “Penitentiary Blues.” Alexander’s one time running partner, Lightnin’ Hopkins, did a mid-1930’s stint in Houston’s County Prison Farm. Son House’s career was interrupted when he shot a man dead at a house party in Lyons, MS in 1928 and was quickly sentenced to imprisonment at Parchman Farm. He ended up only serving two years of his sentence and was released in 1929 or early 1930. His “County Farm Blues” is a vivid description of southern justice:

Down South, when you do anything, that’s wrong (3x)
They’ll sure put you down on the county farm

Put you down under a man call “Captain Jack” (2x)
He sure write his name up and down your back

Put you down in a ditch with a great long spade (3x)
Wish to God that you hadn’t never been made

On a Sunday the boys be lookin’ sad (3x)
Just wonderin’ about how much time they had

J.T. “Funny Papa” Smith ’s career purportedly came to an abrupt end during the mid-’30s, when he was arrested for murdering a man over a gambling dispute; Smith was found guilty and imprisoned, and is believed to have died in his cell circa 1940. He describes the prison life in our selection “County Jail Blues” plus “Hard Luck Man Blues” and the unissued “Life In Prison Blues.” Pat Hare, who wrote and recorded “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby” in May 1954, then took the song’s message a step further and killed his girlfriend and a police officer in mysterious circumstances eight years later. He received a life sentence in 1964 for this double murder and spent the last sixteen years of his life in a Minneapolis jail, dying of cancer in 1980.

Discovered in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Robert Pete Williams became one of the great blues discoveries during the folk boom of the early ’60s. In 1956, he shot and killed a man in a local club. Williams claimed the act was in self-defense, but he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was sent to Angola prison, where he served for two years before being discovered by folklorist Dr. Harry Oster and Richard Allen. The pair recorded Williams performing several of his own songs, which were all about life in prison. Our selection today, “Prisoner’s Talking Blues”, is one of his more memorable prison songs. Impressed with the guitarist’s talents, Oster and Allen pleaded for a pardon for Williams. The pardon was granted in 1959, after he had served a total of three and a half years. For the first five years after he left prison, Williams could only perform in Louisiana, but his recordings,which appeared on Folklyric, Arhoolie, and Prestige, among other labels , were popular and he received positive word of mouth reviews. In 1964 he played the Newport Folk Festival. Williams made many other recordings circa 1959-160 in Louisiana’s notorious Angola Prison. In addition to several Williams CD’s available, Oster’s prison recordings can be found on collection like Angola Prisoner’s Blues, Prison Worksongs and Angola Prison Spirituals all reissued on Arhoolie.

One of our final numbers is Calvin Leavy’s “Cummins Prison.” Leavy is currently serving life plus 20 years in Cummins Prison for drug dealing. Ironically Leavy made this record twenty years before he was busted. He cut a follow-up called “Free from Cummins Prison.” He even wore a fake prison uniform in one of his publicity photos long before he was arrested. I heard Leavy was up for parole but haven’t heard anything since.

In the past few weeks I’ve been listening quite a bit to the field recordings by George Michell that Fat Possum has been reissuing and it prompted me to investigate some of the other field recordings in my collection. Today’s program spotlights several amazing prison songs recorded by the tireless Alan Lomax. “Levee Camp Holler” by Bama is a stunning acapella blues from the collection Prison Songs, Vol. 1: Murderous Home (originally issued as Negro Prison Songs in 1957). This is an incredible collection recorded at Parchman Farm in 1947-1948. As Lomax wrote, these songs “…tell us the story of the slave gang, the sharecropper system, the lawless work camp, the chain gang, the pen.” We also play a couple of remarkable selections Lomax recorded at the women’s wing of of Parchman Farm back in 1939 which come from Document’s Field Recordings, Vol. 8: Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi (1934-1947). Beatrice Perry’s “I Got a Man on the Wheeler (Levee Camp Blues)” is a haunting number about the men in her life sung acapella while Lucille Walker sings an acapella version of “Shake ‘em On Down.” A week prior to these recordings Lomax recorded two numbers by Bukka White at Parchman and from that session we play Bukka’s tour-de-force version of “Po’ Boy.” We jump ahead to hear some field recordings made in 1980 by music researcher Axel Kuestner and recording engineer Siegfried A. Christmann. With their station wagon and portable recording equipment they hit the road spending 2-1/2 months documenting blues, gospel, field hollers and work songs throughout the South. Hundreds of hours of tape was used and the resulting project came out as 14 LP’s on the German L&R label. The tracks by Son Thomas, Guitar Frank and Archie Edwards come from the 3-CD Living Country Blues on Evidence, culled from the original LP’s. The entire series has just been issued on CD.

As usual there’s a fair bit of blues from the 1920’s and 30’s including the opening set featuring music from Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr. The pair were perhaps the greatest and most popular of the piano/guitar duos and cut many sides together between 1928 up until Carr died in 1935. Scrapper’s “My Old Pal Blues (Dedicated to the Memory of Leroy Carr)” was cut just a few months after Carr passed and is a heartfelt tribute to his long-time partner:

I woke up this morning, couldn’t hardly get out of my bed (2x)
When I got the news, that Leroy Carr was dead

I run to the window, and I throwed up the blinds (2x)
I stood there wondering, and just couldn’t keep from crying

The day of his funeral, I hated to see Leroy’s face (2x)
Because I know there’s no one, could ever take his place

Then off to the funeral, then to the burying ground (2x)
My heart was breaking, as they lowered him down

He’s done singing, he’s done playing, you’ll never hear his voice no more (2x)
He was a real good pal, and I’ll miss him everywhere I go.

Scrapper’s “Bad Liquor Blues” is from the same session while the duet with Carr on “Memphis Town” is atypical of their sound which has something of a vaudeville sound.

Lots more country blues including a cut by King Solomon Hill and his occasional partner Sam Collins. Collins cut some dozen-and-a-half issued sides between 1927-1931 and many others that were never issued. He was a good bottleneck guitarist with a marvelous voice. I first heard “My Road Is Rough And Rocky” (unissued at the time) on the Yazoo LP Lonesome Road Blues where Stephen Calt wrote: “His magnificent singing, however, offsets his musical ineptitude” which I think is a bit harsh! Another fascinating cut is “Voice Throwin’ Blues” by the mysterious Walter “Buddy Boy” Hawkins. Little is known about Hawkins who cut a dozen sides for Paramount between 1927-1929. This cut feature his voice throwing abilities as he sings the “Hesitation Blues” between his two voices, marking this as one of the strangest songs in the annals of blues. Luke Jordan’s “If I Call You Mama” is an exceedingly rare record that only surfaced in the 1990’s. Jordan recorded 12 tracks for Victor Records at two sessions in 1927 and 1929, ten of which have survived on 78’s, including his classic versions of “Church Bell Blues,” “Pick Poor Robin Clean,” and “Cocaine Blues.

I always like to play some piano blues and today’s show features a set of rare piano numbers by the obscure Blind Leroy Garnett with the wonderful James “Boodle It” Wiggins on vocal, Rudy Foster who cut only one 78 and a track by one of my favorites, Jimmy Yancey. We also play two later piano masters from New Orleans, Professor Longhair and James Booker. Longhair’s rollicking “Between Midnight And Day”is from his second session in 1949 while “Classified” is the title track from one of Booker’s best studio records.

Lil Green

We spotlight a bunch of great female singers today including Esther Phillips, Big Maybelle, Lil Green and Ella Johnson. I’ve been playing Esther Phillips for years and think she ranks as one of the great woman blues singers although I’m not sure I’ve convinced many people. The problem may be that she was too versatile for her own
good, tackling not only blues but pop, soul, country and yes, even disco. The gospel tinged “Scarred Knees” is one of my favorites off her From A Whisper To A Scream album which is probably best known for her harrowing version of “Home Is Where the Hatred Is.” Lil Green is from an earlier era yet vocally she reminds me of Esther. Green first learned her craft in the church and country jukes down in Mississippi. After moving to Chicago in the 1930s, she teamed up with Big Bill Broonzy and they worked the club circuit together. Her composition “Romance in the Dark” was a 1940 Bluebird hit and in 1941 she followed it with the best selling “Why Don’t You Do Right?” She moved east and for the next ten years she enjoyed a successful career touring theaters and clubs and recording for RCA, Aladdin and Atlantic. She died in Chicago in 1954 at the age of thirty-five. Most blues fans of have heard of Big Maybelle and we play one of her earliest numbers from 1947, “Dirty Deal Blues”, featuring veteran Lonnie Johnson on guitar.

Show Notes:

Today’s show spotlights Pete Welding’s Testament label. Welding had a fascinating career; not only was he a writer of note, he was an A&R man for Epic, Playboy, and for many years at Capitol’s special products division. In 1994, the Hightone label bought the Testament label and reissued all of the blues albums that were available plus some unissued sessions. From Pete welding: “I started Testament Records in 1963 to issue some of the recordings of blues and black folksong I had been making over the previous four or five years. During that time I had recorded, first in my hometown of Philadelphia and then in Chicago where I moved at the beginning of 1962, a fair number of artists whose music, I felt, deserved to be heard. Having a good-paying job at the time, I didn’t have to worry overmuch about the records paying for themselves, so I put out what I thought was interesting and worthwhile. Come to that, Testament never had any commercial pressures behind its releases, so these were as irregular as they were unusual and, I hope, valuable in documenting a number of the music’s overlooked genres and performers. some unreleased sessions. ” You can find out more about Welding and Testament by visiting the Pete Welding pages. Testament issued quite a number of records and below I discuss some of the more interesting ones featured on today’s program.

Welding clearly thought highly of Robert Nighthawk and Johnny Young: “Another artist who served as talent scout was Johnny Young, a fine, vastly underrated singer-guitarist-mandolinist who, like Big Joe, I recorded fairly extensively over the years both as featured performer and as accompanist to others. I issued the first of the many Young recordings I made on the compilation album Modern Chicago Blues… Johnny Young and Friends…presents this fine traditional blues artist in the entirety of his multi-faceted talent, as singer, guitarist and mandolinist in settings that range from solo performances to small-amplified ensembles. It’s one of the albums I’m proudest of doing, and one that still gives me great listening pleasure… I was unable to record a whole album’s worth of performances by the peripatetic Nighthawk but I did manage to do most of one in a session that resonates in my mind as perhaps the single finest one I was ever privileged to do. The combination of Robert’s lightly amplified guitar and controlled intensity, Young’s acoustic rhythm guitar and Wrencher’s quietly probing unamplified harmonica is breathtaking, almost chamber music-like in the perfection of its interlocking parts. This is my favorite Testament session. I’m Gettin’ Tired, from the album Robert Nighthawk/Houston Stackhouse, is a good example of why I still feel so.” Young pops up on quite a number of Testament recordings including the excellent The Chicago String Band an ad hoc group consisting of Carl Martin, John Lee Granderson and Big John Wrencher. The aforementioned Johnny Young and Friends is good but he cut better records for Arhoolie and Bluesway. Better is Robert Nighthawk/Houston Stackhouse which is a classic and there are also several other fine Nighthawk sides scattered on other Testament compilations.

Like Nighthawk and Young, John Lee Granderson and Big John Wrencher could be heard most Sunday mornings during the warm weather months performing on Chicago’s Maxwell Street open-air market area. In addition to the full length Hard Luck John, he cut sides on other Testament compilations with further sides appearing on various anthologies. Hard Luck John is a real gem featuring him in solo performances, duets, trios, and small electric combos with sterling backup from musicians like Johnny Young, Jimmy Walker, Bill Foster, Carl Martin, and others. He was a wonderful singer, tackling a mix of originals and cover of Arthur Crudup and Sonny Boy Williamson. It’s too bad Welding didn’t get around to recordings an album by Wrencher who would have to wait until the 70’s for albums under his own name.

It’s Johnny Young we owe thanks again for the “rediscovery” of Carl Martin. In 1966, Pete Welding with the help of Johnny Young, recorded Martin resulting in the terrific Crow Jane with Young playing accompaniment. Martin plays guitar and mandolin, tackling with gusto traditional material like “Corrina, Corrina”, “John Henry”, “Liza Jane” and then there’s two takes of the remarkable “State Street Pimp.”

Among other artists Welding recorded more extensively were Johnny Shines and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Welding cut Johnny Shines: Masters of Modern Blues Vol. 1 in 1966, Standing At The Crossroads in 1971 and Johnny Shines with Big Walter in 1969. All are fine records but the standout is Standing At The Crossroads with Shines performing solo and ranks among his finest efforts. “I was excited to find Johnny. He was one of the people that I was looking for all the time I was in Chicago. …I thought he was a marvelous player and just a wonderful, soft-spoken, scholarly man. I had the luxury of recording him over a long period of time. He came up with some pieces that he hadn’t played in a long time. I would interview him and during the course of the interview, he would start remembering all those old songs he had played. He’d start reconstructing them, and when we got together, he would record them.” Welding record two albums by Fred McDowell in 1964: My Home Is In The Delta and the stunning Amazing Grace. “While most of Fred’s many recordings over the years were of traditional Mississippi blues, he was equally, convincingly adept at religious song. This is well illustrated here by the stunning “Jesus Is On The Main Line” on which he was joined by the Hunter’s Chapel Singers of Como, Miss with whom he performed on Sunday mornings when at home in Como. It’s one of the highpoints of the album of Mississippi Delta spirituals Amazing Grace I recorded with the group in February of 1966.”

Welding issued a nice mix of modern Chicago blues as well as some very fine traditional material. Among the traditional albums were fine one by Bill Jackson, Blind Connie Williams and Jack Owens. “I started off with an album by Maryland singer and 12-string guitarist Bill Jackson who I had first met almost a decade earlier and had recorded fairly extensively. …Bill was one of the foremost discoveries I made during these years… Long Steel Rail, the album from which it has been drawn, was the first sampling of the black folksong traditions of rural Maryland and, three decades after its release, remains one of the albums I am proudest of having produced.” Jack Owens was recorded by David Evans, who ran into him in Bentonia, Mississippi in 1966 resulting in the superb It Must Have Been The Devil with partner Bud Spires. Owens was a contemporary of Skip James and played in a similar style. “Blind streetsinger Connie Williams, originally from Florida where he attended the same school for the blind that Ray Charles did a few years later, is another Philadelphia find…he was a superlative guitarist in the highly musical East Coast style.” Welding recorded him in 1961 resulting in the album Philadelphia Street Singer.

There were several interesting compilations issued on the label including Modern Chicago Blues, Can’t Keep From Crying, The Sound of the Delta, Mandolin Blues, San Diego Blues Jam plus a few unissued collections issued later by Hightone such as Down Home Slide, Down Home Harp and Bottleneck Blues. Modern Chicago Blues is among the strongest with excellent sides by Nighthawk, Young, Maxwell Street Jimmy while Mandolin Blues features fine tracks by older generation artists like Willie Hatcher, Carl Martin, Ted Bogan and Can’t Keep From Crying is a moving collection of 13 topical songs on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy cut in the weeks following his death.

Today’s show is just a small sampling of the great music Welding cut for his Testament label over the course of roughly a decade. Thankfully all the label’s records are available on CD thanks to the Hightone label. The only record that seems to be omitted is The Legendary Peg Leg Howell the comeback record of 75 year old Peg Leg Howell which was recorded in 1963.

Show Notes:

As usual a wide variety of blues on tap today spanning from 1929 to the early 1980’s. The mix shows reflect things I’ve been listening to lately from my own collection as well as new things that I’ve picked up (just about every week!). Today’s show features three tracks from the fantastic, eclectic 3-CD set How Low Can You Go? : Anthology of the String Bass (1925-1941) from the Dust-to-Digital label. Dust-to-Digital is one of those great reissue labels like Revenant, Old Hat and Bear Family that puts out wonderful, lavish roots music collections that are clearly a labor of love. How Low Can You Go? is a survey into the early history of the string bass. Blues is only a small part of this collection and of the tunes we play today two include Frankie “Half-Pint” Jaxon and Georgia Tom: “Get The “L” On Down The Road” and “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone” the latter sporting the marvelous slide of Tampa Red. Up through 1931 Tampa and Georgia Tom made an unbeatable team, churning out dozens and dozens of sides with a number featuring the always entertaining vocals of Frankie Jaxon. Jaxon also pops up offering spoken encouragement on Bertha “Chippie” Hill’s marvelous “Pratt City Blues” with a great group including Georgia Tom, Ikey Robinson on banjo and Bill Johnson slapping the upright bass. I’ve played Hill before on the show and I’ve always felt she was an underrated singer. Another recent CD played today is Van Hunt: Field Recordings from Memphis, Tennessee (1976-1982) - Blues at Home Vol. 1 the Mbirafon label. Although the artist credit is to Mrs. Van Hunt, it also contains four songs recorded by her daughter Sweet Charlene Peeples and pianist Mose Vinson. Hunt spent the 1920’s in minstrel shows and was involved in the early Memphis blues scene. She cut “Selling The Jelly” in 1930 with the Noah Lewis Jug Band which we also feature today. The Van Hunt recordings were made by Lucio Maniscalchi and Giambattista Marcucci who previously had several volumes of field recordings issued on the Italian Albatross label . I’m not sure what the Mbirafon label’s plans are but I hope they reissue some of the field recordings issued on Albatross as the original LP’s have been hard to find.

Lucille Bogan

We also play a selection of country blues both old and new. I have to admit I’ve never been a huge fan of Buddy Boy Hawkins, a shadowy figure who recorded a dozen sides for Paramount between 1927 and 1929. I’ve sort of come around to him lately and today’s featured track, “Snatch It And Grab It”, is a superb ragtime flavored piece. We also spotlight a trio of fine blues ladies in Vera Hall, Lucille Bogan and Memphis Minnie. John Lomax met Vera Hall in the 1930’s and recorded her extensively for the Library of Congress between 1937-1940. Lomax wrote that she “had the loveliest voice [he] had ever recorded” and her haunting “Another Man Done Gone” certainly bears that out. Bessie Jackson was a pseudonym of Lucille Bogan, a classic female blues artist from the 20’s and 30’s. She hooked up with pianist Walter Roland in the 1930’s and the pair made more than 100 records together before Bogan stopped recording in 1935. Bogan almost exclusively focused on explicit sexual themes, like prostitution, adultery and lesbianism, and social ills such as alcoholism, drug addiction and abusive relationships. “Coffee Grindin’ Blues”, with Tampa on slide, is a fine example:

Ain’t nobody, it ain’t nobody in town can grind their coffee like mine
I drink so much coffee til’ I grind it in my sleep
And when it get like that you know it can’t be beat
It’s so doggone good and it made me bite my tongue

There’s not much that hasn’t been said about the incomparable Memphis Minnie. Her “Down By The Riverside” from 1941 is one of my favorite numbers by her.

I’ve written about the George Mitchell recordings recently and we play a set of those recordings today in anticipation of a full length feature in the coming weeks. George Mitchell made some remarkable field recordings throughout the South over a twenty-year period beginning in the early 1960’s. Many of these recordings have appeared on specialist labels like Southland, Revival, Flyright, Arhoolie and Rounder but are long out of print now. Several years ago the Fat Possum label acquired the Mitchell archive and began reissuing the recordings. J.W. Warren was the last artist Mitchell recorded in the field and his “The Escape Of Corinna” maybe his masterpiece. More of his fine recordings can be found on Fat Possum’s “Life Ain’t Worth Livin’.” From the 1960’s we spotlight two fine, under recorded figures, Houston Stackhouse and Maxwell Jimmy Davis. Never a prolific recording artist, Maxwell Jimmy had sides appear on Takoma, Sonet in the UK and the UK’s Bruce Bastin released some live material on his Flyright label. Jimmy’s last major outing was for Austria’s Wolf label, Chicago Blues Session Volume 11 issued in 1989. This track is from his only full-length record, Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis, cut for Elektra in 1965 and unfortunately out of print . Stackhouse was a pivotal figure on the southern blues scene from the 1920’s through the 196o’s; he taught his cousin Robert Nighthawk guitar, was a friend of Tommy Johnson, played behind Sonny Boy Williamson on the King Biscuit show and knew just about every important figure you could name. Unfortunately he didn’t record under his own name until the late 1960’s. He first recorded for George Mitchell in August 1967 and six days later for David Evans. He cut scattered sides through the 1970’s until his passing in 1980. For more on Stackhouse I recommend reading his interview in The Voice of The Blues an illuminating insight into the southern blues scene form somebody who seemingly knew everybody.

We play a number of blues from the 1950’s through the early 1970’s including a cut off the Johnny “Guitar” Watson collection Untouchable!: The Classic 1959-1966 Recordings on Ace. His “In The Evenin’” is a sizzling after hours blues. From the Vee-Jay label we spin a pair from the label’s big hit makers, Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker; “I Know It’s A Sin” and “Canal Street Blues” are a pair of great moody blues. From 1957 we clock in with Buddy And Ella Johnson’s “You’ll Get Them Blues.” With his sister Ella serving for decades as his primary vocalist, pianist Buddy Johnson led a large jump blues band that enjoyed tremendous success during the 1940s and ’50s. In addition to their frequent jaunts on the R&B charts, the Johnson band barnstormed the country to sellout crowds throughout the ’40s. This cut from the four discs (104 tracks in all) 1953-1964 on Bear Family overs the sides they cut for Mercury, Roulette, and Old Town. Unfortunately this set appears to be out of print. We also spin some jump, horn driven blues from Gatemouth Brown and Wynonie Harris. We close things out with a pair of funky numbers in Freddie King’s infectious “Surf Monkey” instrumental and the timely “I Don’t Want To Be President” by the ever philosophical Percy Mayfield:

Now just suppose I had a girlfriend and called her, and she lived way across the lake
Why Congress would know the whole conversation because, you see, they’d have it on tape
Then they put me on the television to tell the whole world my private life
Hell I wouldn’t mind if people knowing but what about my wife

Show Notes:

Lonnie Johnson’s talents have been justly praised, he’s by no means obscure, yet he seems to be overlooked by blues fans and collectors. When the early collectors were investigating the old blues singers they seemed to have singled out Mississippi, the Delta in particular, as the incubator for the real blues. They seemed to have favored the more obscure, down home artists in lieu of more popular, sophisticated artists like Lonnie. More urban, popular artists like Lonnie and Tampa Red seem to have their very popularity held against them in favor of artists deemed more authentic like Son House, Skip James and of course Robert Johnson. Lonnie’s guitar skills have been duly praised but less is said about just what made him so popular among black audiences, namely his bittersweet vocals, both confident and confiding, and his insightful songs into the human condition. Here then, is my tribute to Lonnie which due to time constraints focuses on his recordings from the 1920’s through the early 1950’s omitting his fine 60’s output. The below piece was something I wrote on Lonnie a few years back.

Lonnie Johnson was a true musical innovator who’s remarkable recording career spanned from the 1920’s through the 1960’s. During that time his musical diversity was amazing: he played piano, guitar, violin, he recorded solo, he accompanied down home country blues singers like Texas Alexander, he played with Louis Armtrong’s Hot Fives, recorded with Duke Ellington, duetted with Victoria Spivey and cut a series of instrumental duets with the white jazzman Eddie Lang that set a standard of musicianship that remains unsurpassed by blues guitarists. In Johnson’s single-string style lie the basic precedents of such jazz greats as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian, while being a prime influence on bluesman as diverse as Robert Johnson, Tampa Red and B.B. King. Thus Johnson enjoys the rare distinction of having influenced musicians in both the jazz and blues fields. While his guitar skills have been justly celebrated less has been said about his bittersweet vocals, tinged with a world weary sadness and capable of a rare subtly and nuance. It was a perfect match for his well crafted and imaginative songs filled with dark imagery, longing and an unflinchingly misogynist view of woman and love. In an interview with valerie Wilmer he described his approach this way: “I sing city blues. My blues is built on human beings on land, see how they live, see their heartaches and the shifts they go through with love affairs and things like that— that’s what I write about and that’s the way I make my living. …My style …comes from my soul within. The heart-aches and the things that have happened to me in my life—that’s what makes a good blues singer. …I have my own original style, all my life I sang this way. I have also made quite a progress in singing ballads ’cause I sing blues, ballads, swing—anything.” Despite his amazing versatility and the longevity of his career, he remains a somewhat under appreciated figure particularly among blues scholars and collectors.

He was born Alonzo Johnson in New Orleans and his year of birth has been variously listed as 1889, 1894 and 1900. He was one of thirteen children, all of whom were groomed to play in their father’s string ensemble. “When I was fourteen years old I was playing with my family. They had a band that played for weddings—it was schottisches and waltzes and things, there wasn’t no blues in those days, people didn’t think about the blues.” Johnson began his career in earnest and bought his first guitar. In 1917 Lonnie sailed to London with a musical revue but few details have surfaced regarding this event. When he returned to New Orleans he was greeted with the news that virtually his entire family had been wiped out by the widespread influenza epidemic of 1918. Johnson moved north to St. Louis around this period with his surviving brothers. By this time he already had a successful career as a blues violinist, working steadily not only in New Orleans, but in a jazz band led by coronet player Charlie Creath. After a falling-out with Creath, Johnson discarded the violin and formed a trio with his brother James (Steady Roll), who played violin, and pianist DeLoise Searcy. Big Bill Broonzy, who played in St. Louis (but not with Johnson) recalled that “Lonnie was playing the violin, guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, and all the things you could make music on. . .”

In 1925 Johnson won a Blues contest held at the Booker T. Washington Theatre in St. Louis (for 18 weeks in a row, he said), sponsored by the Okeh record company. Part of the prize was a recording deal with the company. “I had done some singing by then”, he recalled, “but I still didn’t take it as seriously my guitar playing, and I guess I would have done anything to get recorded - it just happened to be a blues contest, so I sang the blues.” His first session in 1925 found him as the featured vocalist with Creath’s band and they cut “Won’t Do Blues” in November of 1925. By January 1926 Johnson’s first 78, “Mr. Johnson’s Blues”/”Falling Rain Blues” was on he market. Johnson proved an immediate success and he commenced to recording at an astonishing pace, cutting over 130 sides between 1925 and 1932, more than any make blues singer of the period. In addition to his own records he he appeared prominently on the records of other Okeh artist such as Clara Smith, Victoria Spivey, Texas Alexander and others. He became a respected name to jazz collectors because of his solos on records by Louis Armstrong such as “I’m Not Rough,” “Mahogany Hall” and and on Duke Ellington records like “Hot And Bothered” and “The Mooche.” He was also celebrated for a series of remarkable duets with white guitarist Eddie Lang (masquerading as Blind Willie Dunn) in 1928-29 that were utterly groundbreaking in their ceaseless invention.

Although Johnson’s earlier works continued to be issued until 1935, his live recording prospects in the mid-thirties were largely foreclosed by a dispute with Lester Melrose, the music publisher who largely ruled local recording. Apparently Melrose refused to record him unless he changed his too-familiar guitar style. Johnson refused to do so. The result was he enjoyed no sessions between 1932 and 1937. In person, he appeared in Chicago with the drummer Baby Dodds, and with such popular musicians as Roosevelt Sykes and John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson. Eventually he was forced to work outside of music when the Depression was in full swing. Johnson recalled: “I worked for a firm makin’ railroad ties in Galesburg, Illinois …I went to Peoria Illinois …and I work’ in a steel foundry there. Play the blues at nights…”

Johnson came back to recording life with a contract from Decca in 1937 with the first session recorded on 8th November of that year. During 1938 another session was done for a total of 16 titles. In 1939 he signed a contract with Bluebird. Johnson picked up right where he left off, selling quite a few copies of “He’s a Jelly Roll Baker” and cutting wealth of fine material that helped Johnson regain his former popularity. He recorded for Bluebird until 1944. Johnson next cut a half dozen records for the New York based Disc label in 1946 and then made his first amplified performances on record in June 1947 for Aladdin Records. Later that year he started a fruitful association with an emerging independent company in Cincinnati, King Records.

On December 11, 1947 Johnson entered the King Records studio at 1540 Brewster Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio and recorded what was probably the most successful record of his long career, King 4201 - “Tomorrow Night” - often subtitled on the King label as “Lonnie Johnson’s Theme Song.” By 1950 “Tomorrow Night” had sold a million copies. The December 1947 King session marked the beginning of Johnson’s six-year stay in Cincinnati spent recording for King Records, playing local clubs and touring occasionally. Johnson recorded prolifically scoring chart sucess with “Pleasing You”, “So Tired” and “Confused.” In 1952 Johnson made an 11 month tour of England. When he returned to the States his career took a downward turn when he contract with King Records ended in 1952.

The rest of the 50’s were a down time for Johnson who spent much of the decade outside of music working construction or toiling as a janitor. In 1959 Samuel Charters’ groundbreaking book “The Country Blues” was published which described Johnson’s situation in rather morbid terms: “He is not a young man, and the opportunities for an older singer to break into the teenage rock and roll craze that dominates the industry are very slight. For Lonnie it has been a long road, without much of an end.” In actuality things took an upswing when a year prior Johnson was rediscovered by jazz enthusiast Chris Albertson which rekindled a major comeback. As Albertson wrote in the liner notes to Johnson’s Bluesville debut: “I was interviewing Elmer Snowden on my radio show when I played an old record by Lonnie which I followed up with the remark: ‘I wonder whatever happened to Lonnie Johnson?’ Elmer replied: ‘I saw him in the Supermarket the other day’. A listener then called up and said that he worked with Lonnie at the hotel so I finally contacted him, brought him to my apartment and had him play for me. Having recorded his playing and singing and realizing that he was as good as ever I took the tapes to Prestige and Lonnie was on his way again.” Between 1960 and 1962 he cut five albums for the label, three of which were produced by Albertson, and showed that Johnson had lost little despite several years outside of music. He spent the early 1960’s working a busy schedule that eventually took him back to Europe for the 1963 American Folk Blues Festival. He also made records in England, Denmark and Germany. As he said to Valerie Wilmer in 1963: “I have enough work now back in the States to do me for the next fifteen years.”

As the 1960’s rolled on it seemed that the blues revival was passing Johnson by. As singer Barbara Dane noted: “This was largely true, because he was a very sophisticated player in a moment when the world was looking for the rough and earthy Delta players. …Lonnie had a strong attraction for the romantic pop songs like “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” etc. which he played when the audiences were looking for the gritty blues. People during the early ’60s searching for blues roots wanted to hear ‘funky and back-alley’ and Lonnie played clean and uptown. Lonnie craved respect for what he created, like any other musician. The (white) public at that time was mostly looking for someone who could personally introduce them to their fantasy of black culture. In other words, he was out of tune with the times.” In 1964 Johnson went to Toronto for a club appearance, found an ardent group of admirers and remained there until his passing. In 1969 he was hit by a car in Toronto where he was hospitalized for several months. He died the following year on June 16, 1970 from the effects of the accident.

Show Notes:

Today’s show inaugurates a running series that I call Forgotten Blues Heroes. The idea is to provide shows devoted to lesser known blues greats who don’t have enough recordings to build a whole show around. Most shows will spotlight a few different performers who usually have some connection to one another. Our series kicks off with a batch of great unheralded Chicago artists who’s heyday was the 1950’s and 1960’s. Today’s featured artists cut very few numbers under their own name, in a few cases many sides were unissued for decades, and all did varying amounts of session work. Today’s show spotlights piano players Lazy Bill Lucas and Little Johnnie Jones, guitarist Big Boy Spires and multi-instrumentalist Baby Face Leroy Foster.

Arthur “Big Boy” Spires

Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Spires cut a handful of brilliant down home sides for Checker and Chance in the 1950’s and unissued sides in the 1960’s for Testament before arthritis cut his career short. Spires had only four released sides all of which we will play are featured today: “One of These Days”, “Murmur Low”, “Which One Do I Love” and “About To Lose My Mind.” Spires was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi in 1912 and was inspired by local musicians. Lightnin’ Hopkins would come through Yazoo City and Spires would play second guitar. Spires moved to Chicago in 1943 and in the late 1940’s began playing the Southside clubs with Eddie El and Little Earl Dranes. The trio made some demo recordings and Spires was picked up by Chess Records. He first pairing was “Murmur Low b/w One of These Days” which was issued on Checker in 1952. In 1953 he cut a session for Chance resulting in one issued record: “About To Lose My Mind b/w Which One Do I Love.” He cut four other Chance sides that were not issued at the time but released decades later on various collections. Around this time he formed his own band called the Rocket Four playing various clubs around town until giving up music around 1959. In December 1954, Al Smith used his basement at 5313 South Drexel (which he normally employed as a rehearsal space) for two casual recording sessions. One was by Spires and pianist Willie “Long Time” Smith. Everyone on the date but Long Time Smith and the bassist was a member of Spires’ working group. Although Leonard Allen of the United label was interested in this session the the tapes went into the United vaults and he never released anything from it. This session first appeared on a Pearl LP, Morris Pejoe / Arthur “Big Boy” Spires: Wrapped in My Baby, in 1989. Delmark reissued it on CD in 1998. In 1965 Spires and Johnny Young cut a batch of sides for Testament that went unissued except for “21 Below Zero” which came out on a compilation on the Storyville label. After the Testament session he worked mainly outside music and passed away in 1990.

Piano player and vocalist, Lazy Bill Lucas, was born May 29, 1918, in Wynne, Arkansas, and came to Chicago in 1941 where he met Big Joe Williams and toured with John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson in the 40’s. Lazy Bill also played piano on records by Homesick James, Little Willie Foster, Little Hudson, Snooky Pryor and Jo Jo Williams. He cut “She Got Me Walkin b/w I had A Dream” for Chance in 1953. Two other songs from the same session, “My Baby’s Gone b/w I Can’t Eat, I Can’t Sleep”, were not issued until decades later. In 1955 he cut two sides for Excello with the group the Blue Rockers: “Calling All Cows b/w Johnny Mae” with Lazy Bill taking the vocals on the latter. He moved to Minneapolis in 1962 where he was active for close to two decades. He was the first host of the Lazy Bill Lucas Show on KFAI and cut three LP’s during this period: Lazy Bill (Wild, 1969), Lazy Bill Lucas & His Friends (Wild, 1970) and Lazy Bill Lucas (Philo, 1974). He remained active right up to his death on December 11, 1982.

Johnny Jones may never have made it past his 40th birthday but in that time he established himself as one of the finest piano players in Chicago. Best know for his rock steady accompaniment in Elmore James’ band he also backed just about everyone else worth mentioning on the Chicago scene. The handful of times he stepped in front as leader produced a number of excellent sides and more than a few classics.

Johnnie & Letha Jones

Jones blew into the windy city from Mississippi in 1946 and was first influenced by Big Maceo and followed him into Tampa Red’s group in 1947 after Maceo was stricken by a stroke. He even helped play right hand for the elder man on a few tunes. Jones quickly hooked up with Tampa playing piano behind him for RCA Victor between 1949-1953. During this period Jones also played piano behind Muddy Waters on a 1949 Aristocrat (soon to become Chess) session resulting in the tracks: “Screamin’ and Cryin”, “Where’s My Woman Been” and “Last Time I Fool Around With You.” At the tail end of this session Jones cut his lone 78 for the label “Shelby County Blues b/w Big Town Playboy” with Muddy Waters, Baby Face Leroy and Jimmy Rogers backing him up on both sides. His most famous association began in 1952 when he became the pianist for Elmore James and His Broomdusters. He remained with James through 1956 playing on classic recordings for the Bihari brothers’ Meteor, Flair and Modern labels as well as dates for Checker, Chief and Fire. The Broomdusters (with saxist J.T. Brown and drummer Odie Payne) held court on the West Side playing at Sylvio’s for five years. It was this association with James that resulted in his second stint as leader recording in 1953 for Flair. “I May Be Wrong” and “Sweet Little Woman” were issued as Johnny Jones and the Chicago Hound Dogs with backing from Elmore James and J.T. Brown. Jones last official stint as leader came in 1953 when Atlantic Records came through Chicago and teamed Elmore and the Broomdusters behind Big Joe Turner resulting in the classic “TV Mama.” Once again he recorded a couple of sides at the tail end of a session resulting in four songs: “Chicago Blues”, ‘Hoy Hoy’, “Wait Baby” and “Doin’ the Best I Can (Up the line).” Jones was backed by the full Broomdusters plus Ransom Knowling on bass.Jones wasn’t caught on tape again until 1963 where he was working with Billy Boy Arnold in a Chicago folk club called the Fickle Pickle run by Michael Bloomfield. Norman Dayron recorded Johnny on portable equipment which has been released on the Alligator record titled Johnny Jones with Billy Boy Arnold. Jones last session was recorded in 1964 and is something of a mystery. Possibly backed by Boyd Atkins on sax and Lee Jackson guitar he cut three songs: “Prison Bound Blues”, “Don’t You Lie to Me” and “I Get Evil” the last being unissued. “Prison Bound Blues b/w Don’t You Lie to Me” was subsequently issued on Rooster as a 45.

Johnny Jones died from lung cancer in 1964 leaving a huge space on the Chicago scene. Mike Leadbitter wrote at the time of Jones death, “In a Chicago full of guitarists and with comparatively few top-rate pianists, the death of Little Johnny Jones is a great loss, as it is to us, who were never really given a chance to appreciate him.”

Between 1948 and 1952 Baby Face Leroy Foster waxed a handful absolutely terrific sides under his own name for a number fledgling Chicago labels aided by some of the windy city’s best blues musicians. In addition his vocals, drumming, and guitar playing can be found backing some of the greatest Chicago blues records of the era. His death in 1958, at the age of 38, robbed the blues world of a singular, memorable talent and likely did much to hasten his unwarranted obscurity.

Foster was first cousin to Little Johnny Jones and Little Willie Foster and came up to Chicago in 1945 in the company of Jones and Little Walter. He worked for tips on Maxwell Street before graduating to the clubs playing with the likes of Sunnyland Slim, Sonny Boy Williamson and Lee Brown. Around 1947 he became one of the founding members of the fabled “Headhunters”, a group who included Muddy Waters and Jimmy Rogers and got their name for cutting the heads of any musicians foolish enough to cross their path. Foster first appeared on record backing Lee Brown in 1946 and during this period also backed James (Beale Street Clark), Little Johnny Jones,Floyd Jones, Muddy Waters, Snooky Pryor and Sunnyland Slim.Foster made his debut for Aristocrat at the end of 1948 with “Locked Out Boogie b/w Shady Grove Blues” with the record billed as Leroy Foster and Muddy Waters. Foster’s next entry was a lone outing in 1949 record for J.O.B., “My Head Can’t Rest Anymore b/w Take A Little Walk With Me” backed by Snooky Pryor on harmonica and Alfred Elkins on bass. In 1950 Foster cut eight remarkable sides for the small Parkway label. The Baby Face Leroy Trio (featuring vocals by Leroy Foster) and Little Walter sides were recorded in one 8-tune session. Perhaps the most outstanding record was ”Rollin’ And Tumblin’ - Part 1 & 2″ issued as Parkway 501. The record was as primal and raw as anything waxed up North resembling more of a southern field recording than a commercial Chicago blues record. Leroy Foster returned to JOB after Parkway failed in the middle of 1950 (he had quit Muddy Waters’ band after recording for Parkway, in the mistaken belief that his Parkway releases would establish him as a bandleader). Backed by Sunnyland Slim and Robert Jr. Lockwood, Foster cut “Pet Rabbit b/w Louella” in 1951 and “Late Hours At Midnight b/w Blues Is Killin’ Me” in 1952. All of Leroy Foster’s sides under his own name, plus the four Little Walter Parkway sides, can be found on Leroy Foster 1948-1952 on the Classics label.