Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

We have a wide ranging mix on today’s program spanning the years 1925 to 1978. We feature many artists from the 1920’s and 30’s including several artists like Lonnie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Eugene Powell, Victoria Spivey and Robert Wilkins who bridge both the pre-war and post-war eras. We spotlight three from Lonnie Johnson. Unlike many blues artists who recorded in the 1920’s and were later rediscovered, Lonnie was only out of the music business for a relatively short spell; he was not musically active and made no recordings between 1954 and 1959. He came back strong in the 1960’s through the assistance of Chris Albertson who got Lonnie signed to Bluesville, resulting in a number of strong recordings and an active touring schedule. Featured today are “I’m Not Rough” one of six sides Lonnie recorded with Louis Armstrong in 1927 and 1929. From the 1961 Bluesville album, Another Night To Cry, we spin “Fine Booze and Heavy Dues” and from 1963 “Lonnie’s Traveling Light” from the LP Spivey Blues Parade. The latter record is a grab bag of previously unreleased numbers recorded for the Spivey label and put together as a blues revue. Other artists include Sippie Wallace, Sonny Boy Williamson and Walter Horton among others.

Among the other artists who recorded in both the pre-war and post-war eras we spin tracks by  Son House and Mississippi John Hurt. We hear Son on the magnificent “Pearline” which like “Empire State Express” and “Louise McGhee” are newer songs. Hurt’s wonderful “Richland Woman Blues” is from a 1965 Oberlin College concert which has been issued in various configurations and sequences by several labels under different titles and with different cover art over.

Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann and Samuel Lawhorn

Victoria Spivey made her last pre-war blues in 1937 and reemerged in the early 1960’s. Shortly before she formed her own Spivey label in 1961, Spivey made a fine duo album, Woman Blues!, with  Lonnie Johnson whom she had last recorded with back in 1929. Today’s two tracks come from her Spivey LP’s; “Diving Mama” finds her teamed up with Otis Spann and comes from the album The Muddy Waters Blues Band: They Done It Again! Vol. 2 while “Inter-Mission State” finds her partnered with Walter Horton and comes from the album Spivey’s Blues Parade.

Less well known than the above artists is Eugene Powell who also recorded in the pre-war and post-war eras. In 1936, Eugene Powell, along with Mississippi Matilda, Willie Harris and some of the Chatmon family traveled to New Orleans to record for the Bluebird label. Setting up at the St. Charles Hotel, Powell cut six sides during these sessions under the moniker Sonny Boy Nelson. From that session we spin “Pony Blues.” In the 1970’s Powell began playing festivals and recording again. He died in 1998.

Among the other fine early blues performances are some excellent piano blues. Charlie McFadden was an expressive  St. Louis singer who made some superb sides between 1929 and 1937 backed by St. Louis pianists like Roosevelt Sykes (heard on our selection, “Gambler’s Blues”), Eddie Miller and “Pine Top” Sparks.
The exciting barrelhouse pianist Louise Johnson cut four songs for Paramount at the legendary 1930 session that also included sides by Charlie Patton, Willie Brown and Son House. You can hear Patton, Son House and Willie Brown shouting encouragement in the background. Turner Parrish cut eight sides between 1929 and 1933 including the the rollicking instrumental “The Fives”, a song also recorded by Hersal Thomas, Cripple Clarence Lofton and Jimmy Yancey.

Also worth mentioning is the mysterious Kid Cole of whom we play his “Niagra Fall Blues” which coincidentally makes no reference at all to the famous landmark. Kid Cole was a Cincinnati blues artist who cut four sides for Vocalion in 1928. According to Steven C. Tracy’s Going To Cincinnati, Cole most likely also recorded as Bob Coleman, cutting three sides under that name in 1929 and two sides with the Cincinnati Jug Band the same year. It’s also been suggested that he recorded under the moniker Sweet Papa Tadpole for a six song 1930 session with Tampa Red and the same year as Walter Cole for Gennett.

Also on tap are some fine Chicago blues including sides by Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Eddie Boyd and Sunnyland Slim. Muddy’s “Forty Days And Forty Nights”comes from the new release, Authorized Bootleg: Live at the Fillmore Auditorium - San Francisco Nov 04-06 1966. This excelelnt set features the great George “Harmonica” Smith who played with Muddy for only a short stint. From the out-of-print LP Blues Southside Chicago we spin Eddie Boyd’s “Where You Belong” a session supervised by Willie Dixon. Mike Leadbitter discusses the aim of the record in his liner notes: “This album was recorded In Chicago’s Southside by Willie Dixon with one aim in mind-to provide the English enthusiast with blues played as they are played in the clubs, without gimmicks and without interfering A & R men. This album is not intended to be commercial in any way and by using top artists and top session men an LP has been produced that doesn’t sound as cold as studio recordings usually do.”

Show Notes:

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

The first year we spotlighted was 1927 which was the beginning of a blues boom that would last until 1930; there were just 500 blues and gospel records issued in 1927 and increase of fifty percent from 1926 a trend that would continue until the depression. The average blues or gospel record had sales in the region of 10,000. In 1928 the figure was 1,000 or so lower which was still a thriving market. Paramount, the market leader at the time, brought talent up to their northern studios. To feed the demand other record companies conducted exhaustive searches for new talent, which included making trips down south with field recording units. Between 1927-1930 Atlanta was visited seventeen times, Memphis eleven times, Dallas eight times, New Orleans seven times and so on. The record companies advertised their record in black newspapers, mainly in the Chicago Defender, which was the nation’s most influential black weekly newspaper.

During the peak years there were five major companies issuing records for the race market: Okeh, Columbia, Paramount, Brunswick-Balke-Collender (encompassing Brunswick and Vocalion (a division of Gennett). Victor was the only label  to systematically exploit the the blues talent around Memphis. Their second visit there, in January and February 1928, yielded three times as much material as their initial 1927 visit. Among those recorded were Blind Willie McTell, Jim Jackson, Memphis Jug Band, Frank Stokes, Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey, Furry Lewis, Cannon’s Jug Stompers among many others. In August alone the label cut some 180 sides, mostly by black artists.

Jim Jackson’s “Kansas City Blues” was the massive hit of 1927 and in 1928 that honor went to “How Long How Long Blues” by Leroy Carr and “It’ Tight like That” by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, both records issued by Vocalion. The highly suggestive “It’ Tight like That” was cut in September of 1928 which was just a few months after Vocalion dropped their tag “Better and Cleaner Race Records.” Vocalion also cut several sides by Leroy Carr’s guitarist, Scrapper Blackwell in 1928. In 1928 Brunswick recorded Bo Carter, Fannie Mae Goosby and Hattie Burleson among others.

In 1926 Columbia and OKeh merged but the labels were run by separate management for three years after the merger and did not compete for the same artists. Since 1927 OKeh had been issuing a new record every six weeks by Lonnie Johnson and issued some two-dozen sides by him in 1927 and about half that number in 1928. After the takeover by Columbia, OKeh made no field recordings until 1928 when they visited Memphis where they recorded blues singers such as Tom Dickson and the now legendary recordings by Mississippi John Hurt. They also recorded Sloppy Henry and Uncle Bud Walker in Atlanta a few months afterwards. Lonnie Johnson went with the unit, himself recording in both Memphis and san Antonio. In San Antonio he backed Texas Alexander who OKeh had initially recorded in New York the previous August. Columbia also made field recordings in Atlanta and Dallas where they recorded blues singers such as Barbecue Bob and his brother Charley Lincoln, Pink Anderson with Simmie Dooley, Peg Leg Howell, Curley Weaver, Lillian Glinn among many others.

The only race company that made no field trips was Paramount. Despite this Paramount remained the market leader in records released and singers recorded. Paramount issued records by the many of the blues biggest stars.

Show Notes:

Newspaper photo of Son House, and a July 14 Rochester Times-Union article about his comeback.

“I’m talking about the blues now, I ain’t talkin’ about no monkey junk”

Today’s title come from a term Son House used often as his biographer Dan Beaumont explains: “House had an amusing phrase he would use when asked about the blues being played in the 1960’s. It was a phrase he used to dismiss much of the blues music of that period. ‘It’s not the blues,’ he would say. ‘It’s just a lot of monkey junk.’ The blues so dominated House’s life-we have now established the price that he had paid for it-that a period in which he all but ceased playing it may well have seemed to him simply so much ‘monkey junk.’” As anyone who’s listened to Son House knows, there was nothing frivolous or gimmicky about Son’s blues. In his hands the blues were a gripping, all consuming feeling:

You know, the blues ain’t nothin’ but a low-down shakin’, low-down shakin’, achin’ chill
I say the blues is a low-down, old, achin’ chill
Well, if you ain’t had ‘em, honey, I hope you never will

Well, the blues, the blues is a worried heart, is a worried heart, heart disease
Oh, the blues is a worried old heart disease

(The Jinx Blues Part 1, 1942)

Today’s show is our annual tribute to Son House who created some of the most visceral and gripping blues of the 1930’s and 40’s and who emerged after two decades to find himself bewilderingly hailed as a blues hero to young white audiences around the world. It’s with a matter of pride that Son’s comeback came in my adopted hometown of Rochester, NY. Over the years I met numerous people who fondly recalled Son House here in Rochester and when I started doing my yearly radio birthday tributes it brought even more people out of the woodwork who gladly shared their memories with me. So it’s puzzling that the city has never honored Son in anyway. For years myself and others thought someone should rectify this sorry state of affairs; a plaque, a statue or something to honor one of the pivotal figures in blues history. The sad fact is there is nothing tangible in this city that shows Son ever made this city his home for a good part of his life (1943-1976). It’s worth noting that Son does have a plaque in Tunica, MS as part of the Mississippi Commission’s Blues Trail.

2009 Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House Poster

Next week marks the third Hot Blues For The Homeless concert I put on with several other dedicated folks.  Now billed as Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House,  we had a fantastic turn out last year, raised a good deal of money for the Rochester homeless and hopefully raised some awareness about Son House. If you live in Rochester, live close by are just visiting on June 7th make sure to help us celebrate the memory of Son House.

On today’s program we start out by playing the bulk of Son’s legendary Paramount recordings. In 1930, Arthur Laibley who had produced Charlie Patton’s last session for Paramount, stopped in Lula to arrange another session with Patton. Patton was famous throughout the Delta and had already recorded close to forty sides for the label. Patton told Laibley about House and about two other musicians Willie Brown and Louise Johnson, setting the stage for one of the blues most legendary recording sessions. The group headed to the Paramount studios in Grafton, WI, where House recorded six songs at the session, three of which were long enough to fill both sides of a 78: “Dry Spell Blues,” “Preachin’ The Blues,” and “My Black Mama.” Two songs, “Clarksdale Moan” and “Mississippi County Farm Blues” were issued as a 78, with a lone copy surfacing just recently. In September 2005, a collector announced he had obtained the lost “Clarksdale Moan” 78 in reasonably decent condition. The details of this discovery are not known to the public as the collector has chosen to remain anonymous. On April 4, 2006, both “Clarksdale Moan” and “Mississippi County Farm Blues” were released on the collection The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of from Yazoo Records. While “Clarksdale Moan” is a previously unknown song, “Mississippi County Farm Blues” is an earlier (and faster) version of a song Son House later recorded at his Library of Congress recording session in 1941. The unissued test of “Walking Blues” we spin was not found until 1985.

Rochester Times-Union article about Son House from July 6, 1964. This is the first article written about Son’s rediscovery.

Despite the disappointing sales of his records, for House the Grafton experience marked the beginning of a long musical friendship with Willie Brown. For much of the 30’s House reverted to his former pattern of preaching and then going back to the blues, usually at the prompting of Brown. He and Brown played all over the Delta as well as Arkansas and Tennessee for the rest of the 1930’s. In August of 1941 the folklorist Alan Lomax found House working as a tractor driver on a plantation near Robinsonville. House took Lomax a few miles north to Lake Cormorant where Willie Brown lived. They rounded up two other musicians, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin and Leroy Williams. Behind Clack’s general store, House recorded five songs for Lomax. The next summer in July, House recorded, unaccompanied, ten more songs for Lomax.

A year after the Library of Congress sides House vanished, or did the next best thing which was to move to Rochester, NY. More than two decades would pass before he would resurface. On June 23rd of 1964, Dick Waterman, Phil Spiro and Nick Perls found House living on 61 Grieg Street in Rochester, NY. Waterman became Son’s manager and the following year he was signed to Columbia and played the Newport Folk Festival. Son had several good years on the comeback trail; he toured the US playing folk festivals and the coffeehouse circuit and he did tours of Europe as well. He also performed locally in Rochester. From these later years we spin several tracks for his superb comeback album Father Of The Delta Blues plus several live cuts.

Also on today’s program is my good friend Dan Beaumont. University of Rochester professor Dan Beaumont discusses  his forthcoming book, Preachin’ the Blues: The Life And Music Of Son House. This is the first full-length biography of Son House and will be published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Dan will also be reading excerpts from the book at the workshop component of the Hot Blues event. in addition we also play a couple of clips of Dick Waterman talking about Son from an interview I conducted with Dick several years ago and who was a guest at last year’s event.

Show Notes:

During the 1960’s Nick Perls amassed a vast collection of blues records from the 1920’s and 1930’s. In 1968 he began transferring some of these onto LP, initially naming his label Belzoni (after a town in Mississippi) but after five releases changed the name to Yazoo, also a town in Mississippi. Perls set up the Blue Goose Records label in the early 1970’s. While on Blue Goose’ sister label Yazoo Records Perls compiled rare 78 rpm recordings made in the 1920’s by such singers and guitarists as Charlie Patton, Blind Willie McTell, the Memphis Jug Band, Blind Blake and Blind Lemon Jefferson, on Blue Goose Records he recorded only living artists. He cut albums by blues artists like Sam Chatmon, Son House, Yank Rachell, Shirley Griffith, Thomas Shaw and Bill Williams and Larry Johnson plus younger white blues performers like Jo Ann Kelly, Woody Mann, Graham Hine, John Lewis, Roger Hubbard, Roy Book Binder, R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders and Rory Block. Unfortunately most of the Blue Goose catalog remains out of print. Since Big Road Blues focuses on traditional black blues performers I have omited the fine white blues singers the label recorded. I’m sure some folks may have a problem with this but hey it’s my show so I can be as finicky as I want!

Among the postwar generation of country blues artists, Larry Johnson ranks as one of the best. He was born on May 5, 1938, in Fulton County, GA. His father was a preacher and his son would often travel with him from town to town. In this environment, Johnson was exposed to early blues records and he especially loved those of Blind Boy Fuller. It was Fuller’s records that made Johnson pick up a guitar. After a stint in the Navy from 1955 to 1959, Johnson moved to New York and befriended Brownie and Sticks McGhee and began playing on records by Big Joe Williams, Harry Atkins, and Alec Seward (aka Guitar Slim). It was Seward who introduced Johnson to his future mentor, Rev. Gary Davis. He released his first single, “Catfish Blues”/”So Sweet,” in 1962 and appeared on numerous live dates with Davis. By 1970, Johnson began releasing albums on small labels, including Fast & Funky on Blue Goose. After years of living from gig to gig, Johnson retreated from the grind of the road. He did, however, manage to release two albums, Johnson! Where Did You Get That Sound? in 1983 and Basin Free with Nat Riddles in 1984. By the ’90s, Johnson began receiving better offers for live performances, especially in Europe. While abroad, he recorded Railroad Man released in 1990 on JSP and Blues for Harlem in 1999 on the Armadillo label. Two years later, Johnson collaborated with National slide guitar extraordinaire Brian Kramer and his band the Couch Lizards, resulting in Two Gun Green on Armadillo.

Bill Williams was a 72-year old bluesman from Greenup, Kentucky, when he made his debut for Blue Goose in the early 1970’s. Stephen Calt wrote that “The previously unrecorded Williams ranks among the most polished and proficient living traditional bluesmen, and has a large repertoire embracing ragtime, hillbilly, and even pop material. He is also the only known living associate of Blind Blake, his own favorite guitarist. …While living in Bristol, Tennessee in the early 1920’s Bill met the peerless Blind Blake who was then living with an elderly woman (perhaps a relative) in a desolate nearby country area. For four months Bill worked as Blake’s regular second guitarist…” Williams cut just two LP’s, both for Blue Goose: Low And Lonesome and The Late Bill Williams ‘Blues, Rags and Ballads plus had one song on the anthology These Blues Is Meant To Be Barrelhoused. From the notes to The Late Bill Williams ‘Blues, Rags and Ballads, Stephen Calt wrote: “For a guitarist of such uncommon ability Bill Williams enjoyed an all-too brief period of public recognition. Within fifteen minutes of the time he first picked up an instrument in 1908 he was accomplished enough to play a song, but he was still completely unknown beyond his home town of Greenup, Kentucky before Blue Goose recorded him in the fall of 1970 and issued an album (Low and Lonesome) that brought him unqualified acclaim as a 73-year old folk find. A brief series of concert engagements (notably at the Smithsonian Institution and the Mariposa Folk Festival) followed, along with an extended recording session in New York, before a heart ailment brought about his musical retirement. In October of 1973, nearly three years to the day of his recording debut, he was fatally stricken in his sleep.”

A product of the Chatmon family that included not only Lonnie of the famous Mississippi Sheiks but also the prolific Bo Carter and several other blues-playing brothers, Sam Chatmon survived to began performing and recording again in the ’60s. Chatmon began playing music as a child, occasionally with his family’s string band, as well as the Mississippi Sheiks. Sam launched his own solo career in the early ’30s. While he performed and recorded as a solo act, he would still record with the Mississippi Sheiks and with his brother Lonnie. Throughout the ’30s, Sam traveled throughout the south, playing with a variety of minstrel and medicine shows. He stopped traveling in the early ’40s, making himself a home in Hollandale, Mississippi, where he worked on plantations. For the next two decades, Sam Chatmon was essentially retired from music and only worked on the plantations. When the blues revival arrived in the late ’50s, he managed to capitalize on the genre’s resurgent popularity. In 1960, he signed a contract with Arhoolie and he recorded a number of songs for the label. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, he recorded for a variety of labels, as well as playing clubs and blues and folk festivals across America. Chatmon was an active performer and recording artist until his death in 1983.

Tom Shaw spent about five years on the Texas house party circuit in the 1920’s and early 1930’s before moving to San Diego in 1934. Shaw met many great Texas bluesmen including Smokey Hogg, T-Bone Walker, Mance Lipscomb, Blind Willie Johnson, Ramblin’ Thoms, JT “Funny Papa” Smith and Blind Lemon Jefferson who he was clearly a disciple of.  He met Jefferson in Waco, Texas in 1926 or 27. JT “Funny Papa” Smith offered to let Shaw play on one of his records in 1931 but Smith was sent to jail on a murder charge. In the 1960’s and 70s he recorded for the Advent, Blue Goose and Blues Beacon labels before passing in 1977.

James “Yank” Rachell was the primary exponent of blues mandolin, although he also played guitar, violin, harp and sang as well. Born on a farm outside Brownsville, Tennessee, Yank Rachell picked up the mandolin at the age of eight. Rachell began to work dances with singer and guitarist Sleepy John Estes in the early ’20s. In early 1929, he co-formed the Three J’s Jug Band with Estes and pianist Jab Jones. The group recorded 14 sides credited jointly to Estes and Rachell for Victor for 1929 and 1930. After the record business was flattened by the depression, the Three J’s broke up. Estes and harmonica player Hammie Nixon went on to Chicago to seek their fortune in the nightclubs, but Yank Rachell decided to try his hand at farming and also worked for the L&N Railroad. Ironically, it was Rachell who was next to record — during a stopover in New York Rachell teamed up with guitarist Dan Smith and laid down 25 titles for ARC in just three days, though only six of them were issued. Shortly before the ARC date, Yank Rachell had discovered a kid harmonica player that he believed had real talent, John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. They worked together at the Blue Flame Club in Jackson, Tennessee starting in 1933. In 1934 Williamson went north to Chicago. With the success of Williamson’s first Bluebird dates of 1937, Rachell decided to join Sonny Boy in Chicago for sessions in March and June of 1938. Yank Rachell also contributed four sides of his own to each session, and then 16 more in 1941 with Sonny Boy backing him up. Rachell kept his day job and did not lead “the life,” at least not the same one that claimed his friend Sonny Boy Williamson on June 1, 1948. After Williamson’s murder, Rachell drifted away from music and relied solely on straight jobs to make his living, settling permanently in Indianapolis in 1958. His wife passed away in 1961, and afterward he began to resume performing. In 1962, Rachell was re-united with Nixon and Estes, and the three of them began tearing up the college and coffeehouse circuit, recording for Delmark as Yank Rachell’s Tennessee Jug Busters. Estes died in 1977, and from that time Rachell worked mainly as a solo act. Yank Rachell was a long-time regular at the Slippery Noodle in Indianapolis, and recorded only sporadically in his last years. Nonetheless, he was working on a new album when he died at age 87.

Born in 1907 near Brandon, Mississippi Shirley Griffith was certainly old enough to have made records in the 1920’s and 30’s and in fact had at least two opportunities to do so. In 1928 his friend and mentor, Tommy Johnson, offered to help him get started but, by his own account, he was too “wild and reckless” in those days. In 1928 he moved to Indianapolis where he became friendly with Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr. In 1935 Carr offered to take Griffith to New York for a recording session but Carr died suddenly and the trip was never made. It was Art Rosenbaum who was responsible for getting Griffith on record and who also precipitated the comeback of Scrapper Blackwell. Rosenbaum produced Griffith’s Bluesville albums. Griffith missed his opportunity to record as a young man but recorded three superb albums: Indiana Ave. Blues (Bluesville, 1964, with partner J.T. Adams), Saturday Blues (Bluesville, 1965) and Mississippi Blues (Blue Goose, 1973). In addition some field recordings from the early 1960’s were issued on the Flyright album Indianapolis Jumps. The fact that all these albums are out of print goes a ways in understanding why Griffith remains so little known. He also didn’t benefit all that much from the renewed blues interest of the 1960’s; he never achieving the acclaim of late discovered artists like Mississippi Fred McDowell, the critical appreciation of a Robert Pete Williams or the excitement surrounding rediscovered legends like Son House, Skip James or Mississippi John Hurt. He did achieve modest notice touring clubs with Yank Rachell in 1968, performed at the first Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969 and appeared at the Notre Dame Blues Festival in South Bend, Indiana in 1971. Griffith passed away in 1974

Son House: The Real Delta Blues was issued in 1974 on Blues Goose. This album was a collection of early sixties private tapes released to provide Son House some additional revenue in his later years. Reviewer Chris Smith wrote that “all the greatness of Son House is here - the total involvement, the powerful, yet fundamentally introspective vocals, the lyrical creativeness, the rich dialogue between voice and guitar. …No country blues fan can be without this collection.”

Show Notes:

Original Spivey LP 1968	P-Vine Reissue 2009

We cut a wide swath on today’s program with selections spanning from 1926 through 1970 with several twin spins along the way. Among those double shots are a pair of terrific sides by the incomparable Otis Spann. These lesser know numbers, “Wonder Why” and “She’s My Baby”, come from the 1967/68 LP Muddy Waters Blues Band: They Done It Again! Vol. 2 on the Spivey label. The Spivey label is a fascinating label that was apparently the  brainchild of  Len Kunstadt. In the mid 1950’s, Len Kunstadt and Victoria Spivey became companions and together they created Spivey Records in 1961. After Spivey’s death in 1976, Kunstadt carried on the label, mixing newly discovered artists with classic bluesmen until his death in 1996. Due to Spivey’s fame and musical connections she attracted some great musicians to the label including old associates like Lonnie Johnson, Lucille Hegemin, Hannah Sylvester plus a wide spectrum of artists such as Sunnyland Slim, Willie Dixon, Big Joe Williams, Koko Taylor, Roosevelt Sykes and numerous others. The label was very much a homemade affair with record sleeves that have a charming slapped together look and recording quality that varies widely. All in all there were some marvelous recordings and unfortunately the catalog has until recently never made it to the digital era. several years ago a website went up promising the remastered releases of the catalog on CD but nothing has been released yet. However, I just found out through Stefan Wirz’s meticulous Spivey discography that the Japanese P-Vine label has issued both volumes of the Muddy Waters Blues Band records on CD with bonus tracks. As soon as I figure out where to buy these you can bet I will! I do have both of these on LP, both are good with the nod going to the first volume. Spann is in excellent form on the latter LP as he does a fine duet with his wife Lucille on “Wonder Why”, goes it alone on on the rippling “She’s My Baby” bolstered by some stinging guitar from Sammy Lawhorn and does a pair of charming duets with Spivey on “Mother And Son” and “Diving Mama.” Spann also cut an entire album for Spivey in 1969, The Everlasting Blues vs. Otis Spann, which suffers from poor fidelity. Stay tuned soon for a show devoted to the Spivey label!

Other twin spins include cuts by Otis Rush, Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, Robert Wilkins and Sonny Boy Nelson AKA Eugene Powell. Otis Rush made his reputation with his incredible recordings for the small Cobra label between 1956 and 1958. After Cobra closed up shop, Rush’s recording fortunes mostly floundered. He followed Willie Dixon over to Chess before moving on to Duke where he cut the lone single, “Homework”, and then cut records for Vanguard, and Cotillion. For Vangaurd he was involved in the three record set, Chicago The Blues Today! produced by blues historian Samuel Charters in 1966. “It’s A Mean Old World” comes from that latter session as we contrast it with the very different sounding “Homework.”

In the mid 1930’s the Moore brothers, Johnny and Oscar, relocated to Los Angeles, where Oscar joined the King Cole Trio and Johnny hooked up with Eddie Williams and Charles Brown to form The Three Blazers. Eventually Oscar would join the Blazers. The group made their debut in 1945 for Atlas before jumping to Exclusive plus cutting some sides for Modern and Aladdin. The group charted regularly through 1949 with the biggest hit being “Drifting Blues” a #2 Billboard R&B hit in 1946. All these songs were sung and often written by Charles Brown who inevitably left the group in 1948. Today’s sides were cut after Brown left.

Of the blues artists who were rediscovered and recorded anew in the 1960’s, Robert Wilkins was probably the least prolific. Born in Mississippi, Wilkins moved to Memphis as a teenager. He cut 17 sides for the Victor, Brunswick, and Vocalion labels between 1928 and 1935 that rank among the greatest blues of the era.In 1964 Wilkins was contacted and was soon in the studio recordings the album Memphis Gospel Singer for Peidmont, a wonderful record yet to be issued on CD. Here’s a little background on how the Piedmont recording came about supplied to Blues Unlimited by Richard Spottswood and published in Blues Unlimited 13, July 1964 (p.5): “The process of locating Rev. Wilkins was so simple that one might wonder why it hadn’t been done before. Early in 1964 Bill Givens of the Origin Jazz Library mentioned that it was rumored that Wilkins was living in Memphis and corresponding with a British collector. Since Dick Spottswood was too ill to travel at the time, his wife Louisa stopped at the telephone company to check the Memphis listings. She found an address, a letter was sent, and it was quickly answered. Arrangements were made for Rev. Wilkins to come to Washington to make recordings for Piedmont Records; this was done on the 13th and 16th of February 1964. Wilkins told Spottswood that actually he had never corresponded with any collector, though he was aware that a number of the old Memphis bluesmen had been recorded again. How strange that one of the best of them had been overlooked! And were it not for Bill Givens’ “false” tip he would not have been found at all. For this valuable bit of misinformation folk music collectors will be eternally in Mr. Givens’ debt.”

In 1936, Eugene Powell, along with Mississippi Matilda, Willie Harris and  some of the Chatmon family traveled to New Orleans to record for the Bluebird label.  Setting up at the St. Charles Hotel, Powell cut six sides during these sessions under the moniker Sonny Boy Nelson. From that session we spin “Pony Blues” and Matilda’s “Hard Working Woman” with guitar from Powell. In the 1970’s Powell began playing festivals and recording again. He died in 1998.

Also on tap today are some other fine country blues both past and present. Jesse Thomas moved to Dallas in 1929, when Blind Lemon Jefferson was still active but it’s unclear if he actually met Lemon. He made his debut for Victor in 1929 with a four-song session but wouldn’t record again until 1948. He waxed his greatest sides between 1948 and 1958, cutting over two-dozen sides for nine different West Coast labels. On the song “Double Due Love You” Thomas references Blind Lemon’s “Long Lonesome Blues”, which we played previously, in the song’s title and lyrics. Moving up to the 1980’s we play  performances by Lonnie Pitchford and John Jackson who were part of the The National Downhome Blues Festival, a one- time event held in 1984 in Atlanta, GA. Stretching over five days, the festival featured traditional blues artists in a small venue setting, and the shows were recorded, eventually released on four LPs in 1984. Southland has reissued this material on CD. The festival was produced by George Mitchell, famous for the blues field recordings he made he made in the 1960’s and 70’s. Mitchell also recorded the set’s opening track by Alabama bluesman Jimmy Lee Harris.

Show Notes:

For today’s show we continue with our ongoing series I call Forgotten Blues Heroes. For this installment we spotlight four great bluesmen who didn’t get the opportunity to record until the 1960’s and 1970’s: Scott Dunbar, Bill Williams, Babe Stovall and Frank Hovington. As the blues historian Paul Oliver wrote: “Throughout the Sixties, it seemed there was one ‘discovery’ or ‘rediscovery’ of a blues singer after another; a succession of methodical searches, happy accidents and dramatic events which brought not only a number of legendary figures to life, but also revealed that the wealth of talent in the black traditions had been even greater than might have been supposed.”

All of today’s featured artists were old enough to have been recorded earlier but opportunity passed them by until the blues revival of the 1960’s. In addition to the resurrection of the legendary artists of the past like Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White and Skip James there were a slew of older artists uncovered who got a chance to make some recordings such as Mississippi Fred McDowell, Robert Pete Williams and Mance Lipscomb to name a few. Unlike those who recorded back in the 1920’s and 30’s for the commercial record companies and black consumers, those who recorded in the 1960’s and 70’s were being recorded primarily for a new found white audience, with the records issued usually on tiny specialist labels. The benefit wasn’t in sales of records so much as it was the fact that these recordings would be an entry way into the festival and coffeehouse circuit. Unfortunately many of these small labels never lasted into the CD era and hence many great albums remain long out of print. The bulk of today’s recordings fall into that category.

Scott Dunbar

In the notes to his sole album, From Lake Mary issued on the Ahura Mazda label in 1970, Karl Micheal Wolfe wrote that “Today Scott Dunbar is a fisherman and guide on Lake Mary, father of six, and resident blues singer of Woodville and rural Wilkinson County, Mississippi. There everyone knows old Scott. We hope this record will make him known to a wider audience.” Prior to the recordings in 1970 Dunbar was recorded by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. in 1954 as part of field recordings done under a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Ramsey’s recordings appeared on the ten volume series Music from the South on Folkways with four of Dunbar’s recordings on Music From The South Vol. 5: Song, Play And Dance and one side on Music From The South Vol. 10: Been Here And Gone. Three more issued sides were recorded in 1968, which appeared on the album Blues From The Delta, the companion album to William Ferris’ influential book of the same name.

Dunbar gave up the juke joints because they were too dangerous and in later years played primarily for whites. William Ferris wrote in Blues From The Delta that “I recorded thirty-seven songs during my visits with Dunbar and of these, two thirds were sung white style in the key of C. ” The thirteen songs on From Lake Mary are mostly blues, likely selected to appeal to the blues revival market while the vast majority of recordings from this session have not been issued, forty-eight unissued sides in total.  At lengthy recording sessions n February, April and August of 1970 Dunbar proves to be a true songster, laying down songs like “Wabash Cannonball”, “Sally Good’n”, “Blue Heaven”, “Tennessee Waltz” and  “You Are My Sunshine.” In 1994 Fat Possum reissued From Lake Mary on CD with no additional tracks.Dunbar passed away at the age of 90 in 1994 with his death largely unnoticed outside of a couple of obituaries in blues magazines and a recorded legacy of  nineteen issued sides.

Bill Williams, was a 72-year old bluesman from Greenup, Kentucky, when he made his debut for Blue Goose in the early 1970’s. Stephen Calt wrote that “The previously unrecorded Williams ranks among the most polished and proficient living traditional bluesmen, and has a large repertoire embracing ragtime, hillbilly, and even pop material. He is also the only known living associate of Blind Blake, his own favorite guitarist. …Disbelief is the inevitable reaction to incredible Bill Williams, a former partner of Blind Blake who is without doubt the most technically accomplished living country blues guitarist. …While living in Bristol, Tennessee in the early 1920’s Bill met the peerless Blind Blake who was then living with an elderly woman (perhaps a relative) in a desolate nearby country area. For four months Bill worked as Blake’s regular second guitarist…” Williams cut just two LP’s, both for Blue Goose: Low And Lonesome and The Late Bill Williams ‘Blues, Rags and Ballads plus had one song on the anthology These Blues Is Meant To Be Barrelhoused.

From the notes to The Late Bill Williams ‘Blues, Rags and Ballads, Stephen Calt wrote: “For a guitarist of such uncommon ability Bill Williams enjoyed an all-too brief period of public recognition. Within fifteen minutes of the time he first picked up an instrument in 1908 he was accomplished enough to play a song, but he was still completely unknown beyond his home town of Greenup, Kentucky before Blue Goose recorded him in the fall of 1970 and issued an album (Low and Lonesome) that brought him unqualified acclaim as a 73-year old folk find. A brief series of concert engagements (notably at the Smithsonian Institution and the Mariposa Folk Festival) followed, along with an extended recording session in New York, before a heart ailment brought about his musical retirement. In October of 1973, nearly three years to the day of his recording debut, he was fatally stricken in his sleep. This memorial album and its soon to be released sequel will constitute the remainder of Bill’s musical legacy.”

Jewell “Babe” Stovall was a Mississippi-born songster who was born in 1907 in Tylertown, MS, Babe was the youngest of 11 children, most of them musicians. Stovall learned guitar when he was around eight years old, and was soon playing breakdowns, frolics, and parties in the area, even meeting and learning “Big Road Blues” from Tommy Johnson. He moved to Franklinton, LA, in the 1930s, and split his time between there and Tylertown for several years, picking up whatever work he could as a farmhand. In 1964 he moved to New Orleans, where he was “discovered” working as a street singer in the French Quarter, his act featuring crowd-pleasing antics like playing his National Steel guitar behind his head and shouting out his song lyrics in a voice so loud that it carried well down the street. He recorded an LP for Verve in 1964, simply titled Babe Stovall (re-released on CD by Flyright in 1990), and did further sessions in 1966 released on Southern Sound as The Babe Stovall Story and with Bob West in 1968 (which form the basis of The Old Ace: Mississippi Blues & Religious Songs, released on Arcola in 2003), and became active on the folk and blues college circuit, as well as holding down a house gig at the Dream Castle Bar in New Orleans. Stovall died in 1974 in New Orleans.

Bruce Bastin called Frank Hovington or Guitar Frank as he was also known, “one of the finest singers to have been recorded during the 1970’s…steeped in a tradition which is as much part of him as is the countryside about him.” Bastin and Dick Spotswood recorded Frank in 1975, issuing the album Lonesome Road Blues on the Flyright label (reissued in 2000 as Gone With The Wind with several additional tracks). Frank was still in fine form when he reluctantly agreed to perform for Axel Küstner and Siegfried Christmann in 1980. The results were issued as part of their remarkable Living Country Blues series. Hovington started on ukulele and banjo as a child and teamed with Willliam Walker in the late ’30s and ’40s playing at house parties and dances in Frederica, Pennsylvania. Hovington moved to Washington D.C. in the late ’40s, and backed such groups as Stewart Dixon’s Golden Stars and Ernest Ewin’s Jubilee Four. Hovington moved to Delaware in 1967 where he passed in 1982.

Show Notes:

In Houston, African Americans settled mostly in three segregated wards: the Third, Fourth, and Fifth. It was in the Third Ward where guitarist Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins accompanied his cousin Texas Alexander in the late 1920’s, and where Hopkins returned by himself in the 1940’s to play on Dowling Street. In Houston there were fewer opportunities for recording than in Dallas until after World War II, when several independent labels were started. The earliest to record blues was Gold Star, founded by Bill Quinn in 1946 as a hillbilly label to record Harry Choates. In 1947 Quinn decided to enter the “race” market by recording Lightnin’ Hopkins. By the early 1950’s, competition among independent record labels in Houston was intense. Macy’s, Freedom, and Peacock (as well as Bob Shad’s New York-based Sittin-In-With label) were all involved in recording local and regional blues musicians such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Gatemouth Brown, Goree Carter, Lester Williams, Peppermint Harris and Big Walter Price. Of the Houston-based independent labels, Peacock emerged as the most prominent. Houston businessman Don Robey founded Peacock Records in 1949. Robey expanded his recording interests by acquiring the Memphis label Duke Records. Through this acquisition Robey secured the rights to the stable of musicians who were then under contract to Duke. During the 1950s, Robey’s Duke-Peacock sound rose to national prominence, but by the mid-1960s, his business started to wane. Concurrent with the growth of Peacock Records, a new generation of Houston-bred rhythm-and-blues musicians began their careers, but were not recorded by Don Robey. These musicians included Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, Joe Hughes, Clarence Green and Pete Mayes. Playing at the Club Matinee, Shady’s Playhouse, the Eldorado Ballroom, and other nightspots around Houston, these musicians emulated the music of T-Bone Walker and eventually developed their own distinctive performance styles.

Today’s show covers much ground and naturally two hours isn’t long enough to devote to the vibrant Houston blues scene of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Future shows will take a more in-depth look at Houston labels like Duke-Peacock, Freedom, Macy’s, Sittin’ In With and Gold Star.

Hopkins cut some 50 sides for the Gold Star label between 1947 and 1950. Producer Bill Quinn opened Gold Star Studios in October 1941 in Houston. Originally, Quinn had called it Quinn Recording and focused primarily on country music artists, but, by 1950, he had rechristened it Gold Star Studios. In 1948, Melvin Jackson, better known as “Lil’ Son” Jackson, became one of many blues singers to record for Gold Star. In addition to L.C. Williams, Wilson “Thunder” Smith, Leroy Ervin, and Perry Cain, the most famous of which was Lightnin’ Hopkins. Hopkisn also cut around two dozen sides for the Sittin’ In With label and its Jax subsidary in 1951.

By the time he was in his early twenties, Peppermint Harris then known as Harrison Nelson, Jr. was lucky enough to have found a mentor and friend on the Houston blues front in the form of Lightnin’ Hopkins. When Harris was deemed ready, Lightnin’ accompanied him to Houston’s Gold Star Records. Nothing came of that trip, but Harris eventually recorded his debut 78 for the company in 1948 (as Peppermint Nelson).B ob Shad’s Sittin’ in With label was the vehicle that supplied Harris’ early work to the masses, including his first major hit, “Raining in My Heart,” in 1950. Sittin’ in With was founded in 1948 by Bob Shad and was operated in NYC. The label recorded a number of Houston bluesmen in addition to Harris including Lightnin’ Hopkins, Goree Carter and Elmore Nixon. Jade and Jax were subsidiaries of the label and also issued blues and R&B.

Among T-Bone’s legion of disciples was Houston’s Goree Carter, whose big break came when he signed to Houston’s Freedom Records circa 1949. For his his first couple of side he was billed as “Little T-Bone.” Freedom issued plenty of Carter records over the next few years, and he later recorded for Imperial/Bayou, Sittin’ in With, Coral, Jade, and Modern without denting the national charts. Eventually, he left music behind altogether. Eddie’s and Freedom were two intertwined labels; Eddie’s was founded in 1947 in Houston while Freedom was founded the next year and distributed Eddie’s releases. Artists on the labels included Little Willie Littlefield, L.C. Williams, Goree Carter, Big Joe Turner, Joe Houston among others.

Texas Johnny Brown began his professional career as an original member of the great Amos Milburn band known as the Aladdin Chickenshackers. Brown’s picking is killer on early Aladdin recordings by both Milburn as well as Ruth Brown’s first Atlantic sides. Atlantic allowed Brown to make a few recordings of his own in 1949. He didn’t cut his first full-length record until 1998.

Lester Williams grew up infatuated with the sound of T-Bone Walker, whose style he emulated; after serving in World War II, he formed his own combo, and in 1949 signed on with the Houston-based Macy’s Records. Macy’s was founded by Macy and Charles Henry and was active from 1949 through 195, releasing records by Lester Williams, Smokey Hogg, Hubert Robinson, Clarence Garlow and others. Williams’ debut single “Winter Time Blues” became a regional hit, although subsequent efforts were less successful. Williams moved to Specialty records and scored his biggest hit in 1952 with “I Can’t Lose with the Stuff I Use.” Williams’ follow-ups failed to catch on, however, and by 1954 he was regularly performing on Houston station KLVL and touring throughout the South. He later recorded on Duke before one final date for Imperial in 1956. In the years to follow he remained a staple of the Houston club circuit, touring Europe prior to his death on November 13, 1990.

Clarence Garlow is best known for his 1950 hit “Bon Ton Roula” (French for “Let the Good Times Roll”), a rhythm & blues-laced zydeco song that helped introduce the Lousiana music form to a national audience. Garlow was born in Louisiana but raised in nearby Beaumont, Texas. In 1949 he put together a band, began playing jukes and dances in the Houston area, and signed a recording contract with Macy’s Records. After Macy’s demise, Garlow moved from one label to the next but never could repeat his former success.

Elmore Nixon was a Houston pianist was acted as a sideman for labels like Gold Star, Peacock, Mercury, Savoy and Imperial between 1949-1955. In the 1960’s he backed Lightnin’ Hopkins and Clifton Chenier on record. He cut close to two-dozen sides under his own name for labels like Sittin’ In With, Peacock, Mercury, Imperial and Savoy.

In 1947, Gatemouth Brown’s impromptu fill-in for an ailing T-Bone Walker at Houston entrepreneur Don Robey’s Bronze Peacock nightclub convinced Robey to assume control of Brown’s career. After two singles for Aladdin stiffed, Robey inaugurated his own Peacock label in 1949 to showcase Gatemouth on record. Gate stayed with Peacock through 1960. Assisted by business partner Evelyn Johnson, Peacock’s roster grew with both blues and gospel artists. By the end of 1952 they had released singles by over fifty different artists. It was this year that Robey acquired Duke Records.

James ‘Wide Mouth’ Brown was Gatemouth Brown older brother. He cut his only record, “A Weary Silent Night” b/w “Boogie Woogie Nighthawk”, in 1952 issued on the Jax label.

Big Walter Price was born in Gonzales, Texas in 1914, pianist Big Walter started he music career in 1954, recording for labels like T-N-T, Peacock, Goldband and others.

Slide guitar blues with an Elmore James flavor played on an eight-string table (non-pedal) steel guitar was the trademarked sound of Houston blues legend Hop Wilson. Strictly a local phenomenon, Wilson recorded fitfully and hated touring. After his discharge from the Army, he decided to pursue a serious career as a blues musician, performing with Ivory Semien’s group in the late ’50s. Wilson and Semien recorded a number of sides for Goldband Records in 1957. Hop Wilson didn’t lead his own sessions until 1960, when he signed with the Ivory record label. Wilson only recorded for the label for two years — his final sessions were in 1961. After 1961, Wilson concentrated on playing local Houston clubs and bars. He continued to perform in Houston until his death in 1975.

Teddy Reynolds, blues pianist, songwriter, and singer, was born in Houston on July 12, 1931. He debuted in 1950 for the Sittin’ In With label and cut sides for Mercury in 1958. Reynolds’s did his most prolific and enduring studio work as a regular session player at Duke and Peacock Records. Starting in 1958 and lasting into the mid-1960s, he played piano or organ on classic sides by Bobby Bland and Junior Parker, with whom he toured constantly in a popular twin-bill revue for almost three years.

Clarence Green was a versatile guitarist and a stalwart of the Houston scene who fronted a number of popular bands, the most famous being the Rhythmaires, between the early 1950s and his death.He started out around 1951 or 1952 in a group that called itself Blues For Two. Throughout the next decade the band’s personnel changed often; some of the more well-known members, at various times, included fellow guitarists Johnny Copeland and Joe Hughes.Green also did regular session work as a guitarist at various studios, the most notable being Duke Records, where he backed artists such as Bobby Bland, Joe Hinton, and Junior Parker. he cut his own sides for labels such as C & P, All Boy, Aquarius, Bright Star, Lynn, Pope, and Golden Eagle.

Houston was homebase to a remarkable cadre of blues guitarists during the 1950’s among whom was Joe Hughes. He crossed paths with johnny Copeland’s circa 1953 when the two shared vocal and guitar duties in a combo called the Dukes of Rhythm. Hughes served as bandleader at a local blues joint known as Shady’s Playhouse from 1958 through 1963, cutting a few scattered singles of his own in his spare time. In 1963, Hughes hit the road with the Upsetters, switching to the employ of Bobby “Blue” Bland in 1965. He also recorded behind the Bland for Duke and Al “TNT” Braggs from 1967 to 1969.

Albert Collins started out taking keyboard lessons but by the time he was 18 years old, he switched to guitar, and hung out and heard his heroes, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, T-Bone Walker and Lightnin’ Hopkins in Houston-area nightclubs. Collins began soon began performing in these same clubs. He led a ten-piece band, the Rhythm Rockers, and cut his first single in 1958 for the Houston-based Kangaroo label, “The Freeze.” The single was followed by a slew of other instrumental singles. All of these singles brought Collins a regional following. After recording “De-Frost” b/w “Albert’s Alley” for Hall-Way Records of Beaumont, TX, he hit it big in 1962 with “Frosty,” a million-selling single. He recorded for other small Texas labels in the 1960’s, including Great Scott, Brylen and TFC.

Johnny Copeland’s first gig was with his friend Joe “Guitar” Hughes. Soon after, Hughes “took sick” for a week and the young Copeland discovered he could be a front man and deliver vocals as well as anyone else around Houston at that time. Copeland and Hughes fell under the spell of T-Bone Walker, whom Copeland first saw perform when he was 13 years old. As a teenager he played at locales such as Shady’s Playhouse — Houston’s leading blues club, host to most of the city’s best bluesmen during the 1950s — and the Eldorado Ballroom. Copeland and Hughes subsequently formed The Dukes of Rhythm, which became the house band at the Shady’s Playhouse. After that, he spent time playing on tour with Albert Collins during the 1950’s. He began recording in 1958 for Mercury, and moved between various labels during the 1960s, including All Boy and Golden Eagle in Houston, where he had regional successes with “Please Let Me Know” and “Down on Bending Knees,” and later for Wand and Atlantic in New York.

Pete Mayes played guitar with greats like Junior Parker and Bill Doggett.  He has fronted his own band, the Houserockers, for 40 years. Mayes owned and maintained the historic Double Bayou Dancehall, which once served as a regular venue for Amos Milburn, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Big Joe Turner, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and scores of others.  It was there that Mayes, then just 16 years old, first heard T-Bone Walker who became a major influence. During the next 20 years, he often worked with Walker and made the acquaintance of many other bluesmen who would later come to fame, most prominently Joe Hughes.  Mayes’ discography is slim with just three full-length albums and cut just a handful of singles in the 1960’s.

Juke Boy Bonner caught a break in 1947 in Houston, winning a talent contest that led to a spot on a local radio outlet. He journeyed to Oakland in 1956, cutting his debut single for Bob Geddins’s Irma imprint before jumping to Goldband Recordsin 1960. He cut his best work during the late ’60s for Arhoolie Records, accompanying himself on both guitar and racked harmonica as he weaved extremely personal tales of his rough life in Houston. A few European tours ensued, but they didn’t really lead to much. Toward the end of his life, he toiled in a chicken processing plant to make ends meet. Bonner died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1978.

Show Notes:

Excello Records was started by Ernie Young owner of The Record Mart, in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1952. It was a subsidiary label of Nashboro records and was originally set to offer a catalog of Black Gospel music. Initially viewed as another outlet for his Gospel acts, Young soon realized the potential of the local R&B scene, and began recording regional artists like Kid King and ‘Little Maxie’ Bailey. An important factor in the Excello Records story is the radio station that helped spread R & B through the Eastern half of the country - WLAC. The fifty thousand watt clear channel beacon of the rhythm & blues express electrified many a listener far from the city of Nashville. Another major component of Excello’s success can be attributed to 1956 when record producer J. D. Miller began working with the label and developed the sound known as “swamp blues”, exemplified by Excello stars like Lightnin’ Slim, Lazy Lester, Slim Harpo, Lonesome Sundown and Silas Hogan.

Miller operated a small studio and record label (Feature) out in the rice country of Crowley, Louisiana. He had been recording some regional Cajun and Country music in the early fifties with moderate success, when he first heard Lightnin’ Slim at WXOK in Baton Rouge. Miller has said that Lightnin’s music “did something to me”, and, with the help of disc jockey Diggy-Doo, he recorded Lightnin’s “Bad Luck” in the Spring of 1954. He pressed a few copies on Feature and sent them out to both Ernie’s Record Mart and Randy’s Record Shop to sell. When they started spinning the record on WLAC, the phones lit up, and before he knew it, they were ordering 500 copies at a time. There was no way J.D. could keep up with the demand, and he decided to travel to Nashville for a record convention in 1955. Miller met with Ernie Young and worked out a deal that would lease the material he was recording back in Crowley to Excello for release and distribution. Lightnin’ Slim’ first few Excello singles sold very well in the South, and Miller’s studio soon became ground zero for ‘the sound known as “swamp-blues.” As noted music historian John BrovenIn wrote: “J.D. ‘Jay’ Miller, is the Crowley, Louisiana record man who single-handedly put swamp-blues music on the map.” Miller scored his big R&B hit on Excello with Guitar Gable’s infectious instrumental “Congo Mombo” in 1956, followed closely by the swamp-pop standard “Irene”, sung by Gable’s vocalist King Karl. For the next three years Guitar Gable and King Karl had regular singles on the Excello label, culminating in “This Should Go On Forever” which provided a US Top 20 hit for swamp-popper Rod Bernard. Not only this but Gable’s band was used as Miller’s session group, recording everything from swamp-blues to rock’n'roll. Of his unique sound, Miller said: “It wasn’t technical as far as audio but I had a sense of something. Maybe that was the best thing that could have happened. I didn’t know too much about it, I didn’t go by the book, because I went by these two things - my ears!!! I’ve had so many compliments about the sound I got.”

In addition to Lightnin’ Slim, Guitar Gable, Lazy Lester, and Lonesome Sundown would all appear on Excello by the end of 1956. Prior to the artists who defined “swamp blues”, Excello recorded a variety of jump blues, R&B, vocal group, gospel material and even rockabilly; artists such as The Leap Frogs, ‘Little Maxie’ Bailey, Kid King’s Combo, The Dixie Doodlers, Louis Brooks, Jack Toombs, The Peacheroos, The Marigolds, Larry Birdsong, Rudy Green and many other long forgotten names. J

Excello had its share of hits; their first was Arthur Gunter’s “Baby Let’s Play House”, a # 12 R&B early in 1955. That tune, of course, was one of those that inspired a young Elvis Presley. Later that summer Louis Brooks & His Hi-Toppers got all the way to # 2 R&B with “It’s Love Baby (24 Hours A Day)” with Earl Gaines doing the vocal, while The Marigolds went national with “Rollin’ Stone”, reaching # 8 R&B. From 1957 are two huge hits for the label, “Little Darlin’” by The Gladiolas peaked at a modest # 11 R&B in May, and also became their first Pop cross. Two months later they had their second Pop crossover with “Miss You So” by Lillian Offitt got to # 8 R&B and # 66 Top 100. Lightnin’ Slim’s “Rooster Blues” was a # 23 R&B hit in December 1959. Their most consistent artists in terms of national hits, however, was Slim Harpo whose “Rainin’ In My Heart” was a # 17 R&B/# 34 Billboard Pop Hot 100 in June 1963, while “Baby, Scratch My Back” made it to # 1 R&B (2 weeks at that spot) and # 16 Hot 100 in February 1966. He would also have two more hits for Excello (”Tip On In Part 1″ - # 37 R&B/# 127 Hot 100 “bubble under” in July 1967, and “Te-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu” - # 36 R&B in April 1968).

Lightnin’ Slim recorded for 12 years as an Excello artist, from 1954 to 1965, starting out originally on J.D. Miller’s Feature label. As the late ’60s found Lightnin’ Slim working and living in Detroit, a second career blossomed as European blues audiences brought him over to tour, and he also started working the American festival and hippie ballroom circuit with Slim Harpo as a double act. When Harpo died unexpectedly in 1970, Lightnin’ went on alone, recording sporadically, while performing as part of the American Blues Legends tour until his death in 1974. While riding on a bus sometime in the mid-’50s, Lazy Lester met guitarist Lightnin’ Slim, who was searching for his AWOL harpist. The two’s styles meshed seamlessly, and Lester became Slim’s harpist of choice. In 1956 debuted for Excello, recording prolifically for the label through 1965.

Clifton Chenier hired Lonesome Sundown, whose’ real name was Cornelius Green, as one of his two guitarists (Phillip Walker being the other) in 1955. A demo tape was eventually sent to producer J.D. Miller who  began producing him in 1956, leasing the records to Excello. Over the next eight years, Sundown’s lowdown Excello output included “My Home Is a Prison,” “I’m a Mojo Man,” “I Stood By,” “I’m a Samplin’ Man,” and a host of memorable swamp classics. In 1965 he retired from the blues business to devote his life to the church. It was 1977 before Sundown could be coaxed back into a studio to cut the excellent blues LP  Been Gone Too Long. Sundown passed in 1994.

Arthur Gunter scored Excello’s first national hit with “Baby, Let’s Play House.” Born in Nashville, Gunter was a regular at the record shop owned by Excello chief Ernie Young and the association led to his short-lived recording career. In fact, possibly the most interesting thing about Gunter’s recorded output is that Elvis Presley cut a version of “Baby, Let’s Play House” early in his career.

In the large stable of blues talent that Crowley, LA, producer Jay Miller recorded for Excello, no one enjoyed more mainstream success than Slim Harpo. It was fellow bluesman Lightnin’ Slim who first steered him to local record man J.D. Miller. Harpo’s first record, “I’m A King Bee”, became a double-sided R&B hit. Even bigger was “Rainin’ in My Heart,” which made the Billboard Top 40 pop charts in the summer of 1961. In the wake of the Rolling Stones covering “I’m a King Bee” on their first album, Slim had the biggest hit of his career in 1966 with “Baby, Scratch My Back” which made Billboard’s Top 20 pop charts. Follow-ups “Tip on In” and “Tee-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu,” were both R&B charters. Around this time Harpo contacted Lightnin’ Slim, who was now residing outside of Detroit, MI. The two reunited and formed a band, touring together as a sort of blues mini-package to appreciative white rock audiences until the end of the decade. The New Year beckoned with a tour of Europe (his first ever) all firmed up, and a recording session scheduled when he arrived in London. Unexplainably he died suddenly of a heart attack on January 31, 1970.

In 1962, at the ripe old age of 51, Silas Hogan was introduced by Slim Harpo to producer Jay Miller and his recording career finally began in earnest. Hogan recorded for Excello from 1962 to early 1965, seeing the last of his single releases issued late that year.

By the end of 1966, Ernie Young had sold his labels to a corporation and left town. The new owners built a new studio and offices on Woodlawn Avenue in Nashville, losing most of that ‘funky charm’ forever. They also had no use for J.D. Miller, and began producing their biggest star themselves at the new plant. Although”Tip On In” and “Te-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu” sold fairly well in ‘67 and ‘68, the new records failed to capture that southwest Louisiana market. Harpist Whispering Smith made it in on the tail end of the swamp blues movement that swept the Baton Rouge region, working with Lightnin’ Slim and Silas Hogan before making his own fine singles producer J.D. Miller.

The Excello label changed with the times putting out quality soul music and having a few minor hits. More soul oriented artists of this period included Little Sonny, Kip Anderson, Marva Whitney, Bobby Powell and Tiny Watkins among others The Kelly Brothers, The final blow to Excello was the changing to a Top 40 format by WLAC that strongly impacted sales. Excello issued its final release in 1975.

The Excello material has been reissued several times within the past decades. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Rhino Records put out several compilations from the Excello masters. In the early 1990’s, the masters were sold to AVI entertainment. AVI’s Rob Santos retained Tom Moulton to remaster and upgrade virtually the entire Excello catalog, with the result being many CD reissues from 1993 to 1996 in quite excellent sound. Many of today’s tracks come from those ecellent reissues which unfortunatley are now out of print. By 1997, AVI itself was bought by Hip-O, a label associated with MCA, which has issued some Excello material including the four volume series The Excello Story and the 2-CD set Slim Harpo: The Excello Singles Anthology. Throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s Ace Records extensivley reissued the Excello catalog, issuing a batch of terrific compilations and single artist collections. While there is unavoidably much overlap with the AVI reissues, there’s a number of interesting tracks scattered throughout that do not appear on the AVI sets.

Related Reading:

Slim Harpo: The King Bee - A Tribute By Mike Vernon (Melody Maker, Feb. 28, 1970) [Word Doc]

Show Notes:

Today’s wide ranging mix show spans the years 1927 through 1977. We have a whole slew of fine pre-war recordings on tap today including a set of fine female singers and a set of excellent piano players. We get things rolling today with “Going To Germany” sung in a wonderful, lazy, dreamy style by Noah Lewis. Gus Cannon was the best known of all the jugband musicians and a seminal figure on the Memphis blues scene. Cannon led his Jug Stompers on banjo and jug in a historic series of dates for the Victor label in 1928-1930. The ensemble usually included a second banjoist or guitarist, one of whom often doubled on kazoo, and the legendary Noah Lewis on harmonica. Lewis was one of the finest early harp blowers, cutting over a dozen titles with Cannon’s Jug Stompers as well eight sides under his own name.

Compared to Lewis, Blind Blake was one of the biggest blues stars of the 1920’s. His “Georgia Bound” was recorded on 17th August 1929 in Richmond in Illinois. It has a very similar melody line to the subsequent “Four Until Late” by Robert Johnson and was clearly an influence on him.

The Mississippi Moaner was another fine, if obscure,  vocalist who’s real name was Isaiah Nettles. He recorded four sides for Vocalion Records in Jackson, MS, on October 20, 1935. Only one 78 from the session was ever officially released, “Mississippi Moan” b/w “It’s Cold in China Blues” with “Chicago Blues” b/w “Good Doin’ Papa” tantalizingly unreleased.

Another mysterious and highly revered figure featured today is Geeshie Wiley, represnted by “Pick Poor Robin Clean.” Don Kent wrote in the notes to Mississippi Masters: Early American Blues Classics 1927-35 that “If Geeshie Wiley did not exist, she could not be invented: her scope and creativity dwarfs most blues artists. She seems to represent the moment when black secular music was coalescing into blues.” Wiley recorded just two 78’s in 1930 and 1931, both highly sought after and worth a fortune to 78 record collectors. There are no known photographs and little is known about her. She recorded “Last Kind Word Blues” and “Skinny Leg Blues” in Grafton, Wisconsin for Paramount Records in March of 1930, with Elvie Thomas backing her on second guitar. Thomas also recorded two songs for Paramount at the session, “Motherless Child Blues” and “Over to My House,” Wiley, providing second guitar and vocal harmonies. In 1931 Wiley and Thomas returned to Grafton to record two more sides for Paramount, “Pick Poor Robin Clean” and “Eagles on a Half.”

There are several fine female performers featured today including Bessie Smith, arguably the greatest woman blues singers of her era, Lottie Kimbrough, Bertha “Chippie” Hill and the obscure Johnnie Strauss. From Bessie’s last session in 1933 we spin her sensational “Gimmie A Pigfoot” featuring a crack band that included Frankie Newton, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman and Chu Berry. Lottie Kimbrough was a Kansas City blues woman whose brief recording career spanned the years 1924 to 1929. Kimbrough was a famously large woman, nicknamed “the Kansas City Butter-ball.” Her “Rollin’ Log Blues” is a tune of haunting beauty propelled by the driving guitar of Mile Pruitt. Backed by Richard Jones Jazz Wizards, “Chippie” Hill turns in a powerful performance on her “Do Dirty Blues.” Compared to the others, Johnnie Strauss is a mere footnote, waxing just four sides for Decca in 1934 backed by Roosevelt Sykes. Her hoarse, yet powerhouse vocals, backed by a fine unknown violinist make for a compelling performance on her “St. Louis Johnnie Blues.”

We spotlight a quartet of excellent piano performances from the 1930’s by Little Brother Montgomery, Judson Brown, Pinetop Burks and Jesse James. Montgomery cut some of the greatest piano blues records if the 1930’s including a remarkable eighteen song session recorded on October 16, 1936 at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans. Less well known and far less prolific are Judson Brown who cut just one side for Brunswick in 1930 (he also backed singers such as Marry Johnson, Jenny Pope, Mozelle Alderson and others), Jesse James who cut one four soong session in 1936 (two sides were unissued) and Pinetop Burks who cut six fine sides in San Antonio in 1937.

We feature is a trio of tracks from the LP BluesScene USA Vol. 2 - The Louisiana Blues on Storyville. The LP  collect sides cut for the Goldband label in the 1950’s and 60’s including several sides never issued. Goldband was based in Lake Charles, LA and formed by Eddie Shuler in 1945. From that album we hear excellnet sides by lesser known artists such as Big Chenier, Jay Stutes and Ashton Savoy.

In anticipation of our feature on Excello Records next week, we spin a pair of tracks by Lonesome Sundown. Cornelius Green AKA Lonesome Sundown was hired as one of Clifton Chenier’s guitarists in 1955 (Phillip Walker was the other). A demo tape was sent to producer Jay Miller who began producing him in 1956, leasing his “Leave My Money Alone” to Excello. Over the next eight years, Sundown’s Excello output included a host of memorable swamp classics before his 1965 retirement from the blues business to devote his life to the church. It was 1977 before Sundown could be coaxed back into a studio to cut Been Gone Too Long, an excellent comeback. He did some scattered live dates before passing in 1995.

We wrap up our program with two tracks by Rev. Gary Davis off the just released 3-CD set Live At Gerde’s Folk City 1962.  These sides were recorded by Stefan Grossman at Gerde’s Folk City in New York City with a two track Tandberg tape machine. Davis was Grossman’s guitar teacher at the time. These are the first time these sides have seen the light of day and sound quality is excellent.

Show Notes:

John Lomax

In June 1932, they arrived at the offices of the Macmillan publishing company in New York. Here Lomax proposed his idea for an anthology of American ballads and folksongs, with a special emphasis on the contributions of African Americans. It was accepted. In preparation he traveled to Washington to review the holdings in the Archive of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress. Lomax found the recorded holdings of the Archive woefully inadequate for his purposes. He therefore made an arrangement with the Library whereby it would provide recording equipment, obtained for it by Lomax through private grants, in exchange for which he would travel the country making field recordings to be deposited in the Archive. John Lomax was paid a salary of one dollar per year for this work (which included fund raising for the Library) and was expected to support himself entirely through writing books and giving lectures.Thus began a ten-year relationship with the Library of Congress that would involve not only John but the entire Lomax family, including his second wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, whom he married in 1934.

In July they acquired a state-of-the-art, 315-pound acetate phonograph disk recorder. Installing it in the trunk of his Ford sedan, Lomax soon used it to record, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a twelve-string guitar player by the name of Huddie Ledbetter, better known as “Lead Belly,” whom they considered one of their most significant finds. During the next year and a half, father and son continued to make disc recordings of musicians throughout the South.

Prison Compound No. 1, Angola, LA. Leadbelly in foreground.jpg

Through a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, Lomax was able to set out in June 1933 on the first recording expedition under the Library’s auspices, with Alan Lomax (then eighteen years old) in tow. In their successful grant application they wrote, that prisoners, “Thrown on their own resources for entertainment . . . still sing, especially the long-term prisoners who have been confined for years and who have not yet been influenced by jazz and the radio, the distinctive old-time Negro melodies.” They toured Texas prison farms recording work songs, reels, ballads, and blues from prisoners. They also recorded music from many others not in prison.

From 1936 to 1942 Alan Lomax was Assistant in Charge of the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress to which he and his father and numerous collaborators contributed more than ten thousand field recordings. During his lifetime, he collected folk music from the United States, Haiti, the Caribbean, Ireland, Great Britain, Spain, and Italy, assembling a treasure trove of American and international culture. Lomax was the first to record such legendary musicians as Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, McKinley “Muddy Waters” Morganfield, and David “Honeyboy” Edwards, as well as an enormous number of other significant traditional musicians. He also recorded eight hours of music and spoken recollection with Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton in 1938, and four hours of the same format with Woody Guthrie in 1940.

Although John Lomax would partially retire in 1940, he continued to collect folk music for the remainder of his life and published his autobiography, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, in 1947. By the time of his death in 1948, Lomax had aided in the collection of over 10,000 folk songs for the Library of Congress.

Blind Willie McTell, Georgia Hotel Room, 1940

From the time he left his position as head of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress in 1942 through the end of his long and productive career as an internationally known folklorist, author, radio broadcaster, filmmaker, concert and record producer, and television host, Alan Lomax amassed one of the most important collections of ethnographic material in the world. After he left the Library of Congress, Alan Lomax continued his work to document, analyze, and present traditional music, dance, and narrative through projects of various kinds throughout the world. With his father and on his own he published many books, including American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934) and Our Singing Country (1941). He received many honors and awards, including the National Medal of the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle award for his book The Land Where the Blues Began, and a “Living Legend” award from the Library of Congress. According to folklorist Roger Abrahams, he is “the person most responsible for the great explosion of interest in American folksong throughout the mid-twentieth century.”

Lomax traveled through Stovall’s Plantation in August of 1941 when he came acrass McKinley Morganfield, Latter to be know as Muddy Waters. Lomax recorded some two-dozen sides by Morganfield including a rendition of “I Be’s Troubled,” which became his first big seller when he recut it a few years later for the Chess brothers’ Aristocrat logo as “I Can’t Be Satisfied.” Lomax returned the next summer to record him again. Lomax knocked on Son House’s door in 1941 to record him for the Library of Congress on a tip from Muddy Waters. House rounded up Willie Brown, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin and Leroy Williams for the session. They cut six numbers that day and next summer in July, House recorded, unaccompanied, ten more songs for Lomax.

Alan Lomax

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.

In 1959 and 1960, Alan Lomax revisited the American South to record traditional music in newly developed stereo sound. He recorded Delta blues, fife-and-drum ensembles, Sacred Harp singers, Ozark and Appalachian ballad singers, and prison work gangs. English folksinger Shirley Collins assisted Alan Lomax on the 1959 trip, and his daughter, Anna, accompanied him on the 1960 trip. The endeavor resulted in a seven-album series issued on Altantic Records in 1960, reissued on CD as Sounds of the South, and in a twelve-volume series on Prestige International, reissued in 1997 on Rounder Records as the Southern Journey series of the Alan Lomax Collection.

The advent of new technologies opened up new worlds for Lomax, and in the 1970s and 1980s he made a series of journeys back to the South to videotape traditional musical performances for the PBS series American Patchwork, completed and broadcast in 1990. Throughout the 90s and into the twenty-first century, Rounder records steadily worked toward reissuing a 100-CD series showcasing Lomax’ most legendary field recordings. Alan Lomax continued his work lecturing, writing, and working with the Association for Cultural Equity until his death at the age of 87 on the morning of July 19, 2002.