Big Road Blues

In part one I discussed Alexander’s sides with Lonnie Johnson, hands down his finest accompanist. That by no means is meant to take anything away from the rest of Alexander’s output or his musical partners, it’s just to point out the sheer genius of the Johnson sessions. After two sessions with Johnson, Alexander was paired with pianist Eddie Heywood on four numbers cut at back to back dates on August 16th and 17th of 1927. The pairing of the sophisticated Heywood with Alexander’s musical unpredictability worked better than one would think particularly on “Sabine River Blues”, a true masterpiece, a beautiful number with a gorgeous melody, sung with great feeling. Heywood’s playing is sensational throughout. “Mama, I Heard You Brought It Right Back Home” has an equally attractive melody with almost a bit of a pop feel. There’s a loose, light feel to the Heywood sides that are quite attractive and all four numbers are quite strong including “Farm Hand Blues” and “Evil Women Blues.” Lyrically “Mama, I Heard You Brought It Right Back Home” is perhaps the most interesting as Alexander freely mixes traditional lyrics with strikingly original imagery:

If I leave here runnin’, mama, don’t you follow me (2x)
If I leave here walking, you can go with me

Sally went to cookin’, man, but she didn’t know how (2x)
Says, she put cayenne pepper, mama, in my hot bow-wow

Says, I’m goin’ up the country, mama, don’t you want to go? (2x)
Said I need another dozen, right on my right side, sho’

If I’m get lucky, mama, should happen to work (2x)
I’m gonna carry my money right on back home again

I’d rather see my coffin easin’ through the world (2x)
Than to see my woman do me like she does

I’m scared to go down that big road by myself (2x)
‘Fore I go, baby, I’ll carry me someone else

These recordings makes one wish he had recorded more often with a pianist. It should be noted that Alexander seems to have given little thought to his accompanists. As Paul Oliver points out he “seems to have made little effort to vary his approach to blues singing, or to adjust to his accompanists; they had to fall in with him, and accept, both his timing and erratic verse structure.”

In part one we discussed “Work Ox Blues” and “The Risin’ Sun” which featured both Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang. Lang went on to back Alexander on “St. Louis Fair Blues” and “I Am Calling Blues” and plays in a trio with pianist Clarence Williams and New Orleans jazz legend King Oliver on “Tell Me Woman Blues” and “‘Frisco Train Blues.” Lang’s playing is very fine but lacks the imagination and improvisatory feel of Lonnie Johnson although he seems to have no shortage of interesting ideas. King Oliver plays some beautiful, sympathetic cornet fills on both numbers with Lang taking a particularly lovely solo on “Tell Me Woman Blues.”

On June 15th 1929 Alexander cut eight sides with Texas guitarist Little Hat Jones. Jones played in a classic Texas blues style and opens each number in up-tempo fashion before slowing down to accommodate Alexander. The two made a good team with Jones playing consistently interesting, varied runs behind Alexander’s vocals. The best performance was “Ninety-Eight Degree Blues” sung with plenty of gusto and mixing traditional imagery with frank sexuality:

I’m gonna get up in the mornin’, do like Buddy Brown (2x)
I’m gonna eat my breakfast, God, and lay back down
I say I’m gonna eat my breakfast, man, and lay back down

When a man get hairy, y’know he needs a shave (2x)
When a woman get musty, you know she needs to bathe (2x)

I’ve got somethin’ to tell you, make the hair rise on your head (2x)
Got a new way of lovin’ a woman, make the springs screech on her bed
I’ve got a new way of lovin’ a woman, make the springs screech on her bed

“Someday, Baby, Your Troubles is Gonna Be Like Mine” is a lovely number featuring some exceptional playing from Jones while “Johnny Behren’s Blues” is another stand out track. According to Oliver “Behren (or Behrens) was a local singer who had one extended blues on which he told of his skill as a sailor, jockey or other occupation, and how he ‘learned’ the women he knew”. Alexander delivers it thusly:

When I was a sailor, sailin’ on the deep blue sea (2x)
Say, I learned all the women, man, them ocean ways

Says, I learned a way that every woman crave (2x)
Say, it must be a new way that really won’t behave

When I was a jockey, I learned my baby how to ride (2x)
Say, I learned her how to ride, man, from side to side

It’s a reoccurring oddity in Alexander’s songs that often the title not only doesn’t appear in the song but bears no relation to the song itself.

On November 29 1929 Alexander was paired with another Texan guitarist, Carl Davis who fronted the Dallas Jamboree Jug Band which cut five sides in 1935. Davis also appears on eight sides (two others went unissued) with guitarist Willie Reed on a September 1934 session which ran over two days. Reed had cut solo sides in Dallas in 1928 and 1935. Regarding Davis’ style, Oliver noted that he “had an arpeggio style which linked him with Lonnie Johnson and Gene Campbell, which he was flexible enough to fit around Alexander’s notably erratic song structures.” The highlight from this session is “Texas Special” sporting some terrific flat-picked guitar from Davis and wonderful singing including a gorgeous humming coda. The song is a fascinating grab bag of traditional, original and cryptic lyrics:

When the Blues come to Texas, they come ’round through the woods (2x)
Then they stopped by my house, done all the harm they could

When I leave this time, paint your windows green (2x)
Said, if I don’t never die, woman, I’ll be-e-e seldom seen

I’d rather see my coffin rollin’ up to my back door (2x)
Than to hear my woman say she can’t use me no more

I’d rather see my brother come in staggerin’ drunk (2x)
Than to see my woman, Lord, packin’ up her trunk

The “blues come to Texas” image is one drawn from Blind Lemon Jefferson as is the “matchbox” theme at the end of “Johnny Behren’s Blues.” He references Lemon again with the “piney wood” image in “Peaceful Blues”, yet another lyrically interesting number:

Said, mama told me, told me, papa sat and cried (2x)
Say, “You’re too young a man to have that many women your side.” (2x)

Says, I woke up laughin’, went down the road a-flyin’ (2x)
Says, I always had Miss Margie on my mind

I’m gonna climb my woman’s belly like a yoyo do a string (2x)
If I don’t fix her up, I’ll be in a dirty name

I love my woman better than a cow loves to chew her cud (2x)
Lord, that fool, she got mad, moved to the piney wood

Mmmmm, heeeumm,
Hee-ehhh, ummmuhh
Lord, that fool, she got mad and moved to the piney woods

“Perhaps both singers drew on a common source” Oliver conjectures. “We’ll never know, but the evidence of his recordings reveal Texas Alexander to have been among the most individual of singers, and the least subject to the influence of others.”

*Thanks with lyric transcriptions to John M and the members of Weenie Campbell

Sabine River Blues (MP3)

Ninety-Eight Degree Blues (MP3)

Johnny Behren’s Blues (MP3)

Texas Special (MP3)

Listening to the music of Texas Alexander, like fellow Texan Henry Thomas, transports the listener back to a time before the blues, a time when the unaccompanied sounds of the field holler and work song rang out all over the south. Alexander’s style was described by Paul Oliver as “a personal, tweed-textured holler which did not employ falsettos but moaned in long, sad cadences.” While Paul Garon astutely noted that “Alexander’s style, so often consisting of lengthy moans and hums, often drawn out over unevenly spaced measures, sounds very close to the field holler. Indeed, combining a field holler with the shouts of the section gang caller-where Alexander once worked-and tailoring it into a recordable blues song would produce a sound very similar to Alexander’s.”

Alexander was a Texan through and through, born in Jewett, Texas in 1900, passing in 1954 in Richards some seventy miles south (both towns lie about halfway between Dallas and Houston) and who was vividly remembered by fellow Texas bluesmen such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Lowell Fulson, Buster Pickens and Frankie Lee Sims. Alexander didn’t play an instrument, although he did carry a guitar around in case their was a guitarist around who could accompany him when he sang on city streets or bars. Alexander’s songs had a distinctly rural, southern viewpoint as evidenced in song titles such as “Corn-Bread Blues”, “Levee Camp Moan Blues”, “Farm Hand Blues”, “Bantam Rooster Blues”, “Bell Cow Blues”, “Work Ox Blues”, “Rolling Mill Blues” and “Prairie Dog Hole Blues” among others. “To the renters and ‘croppers”, Oliver wrote, “who had left the farms and bottom land plantations for the city, the voices of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Rambling Thomas or Texas Alexander were singing for them, sharing their own experiences and predicament. Crowds would cluster round them on Central Tracks and the coins would clatter-nickels and dimes-in their hats and tin cups.” Alexander’s lyrics are consistently interesting, often drawing on traditional motifs but stamped forcefully with his own personality, many of which finding their way into common blues parlance. Throughout his songs there is a frankness about sexuality that goes beyond the stock double entendre as well as strong anti-religious streak.

Alexander was popular and prolific, cutting sixty-four issued sides between 1927 and 1934, first for Okeh and then for Vocalion. He had he good fortune to work with superb accompanists such as guitarists Little Hat Jones, Lonnie Johnson, Eddie Lang, Carl Davis, Willie Reed to the string band blues of the Mississippi Sheiks and the jazz bands of King Oliver and the mysterious His Sax Black Tams. Alexander didn’t fare well in the post-war era; he was supposedly passed over by an Aladdin talent scout in favor of his then partner Lightnin’ Hopkins (a demo tape was purportedly made) and made one final, rather unsatisfactory record for the Freedom label in 1950 before passing in 1954.

Alexander made his greatest records in the company of Lonnie Johnson at six sessions cut for Okeh between August 1927 and November 1928 at recording dates in San Antonio and New York City. Alexander’s erratic sense of timing made him a challenge to work with as Lonnie Johnson related to Paul Oliver: “He was a very difficult singer to accompany; he was liable to jump a bar, or five bars, or anything. You just had to be a fast thinker to play for Texas Alexander. When you been out there with him you done nine days work in one! Believe me, brother, he was hard to play for. He would jump–jump keys, anything. You just have to watch him, that’s all.” Johnson’s approach is a thing of beauty; he plays almost no chords, just melodic, single string lines achieving a gorgeous tone, answering and underscoring Alexander’s magnificent vocals, his moans and hums with a subtle delicacy and empathy. In the notes to the Matchbox series, which collect Alexander’s entire output, Oliver writes: “Johnson alone is completely at ease, anticipating and elaborating with astonishing fluency; this was the period of his most remarkable guitar solos and he seems to be at the peak of his abilities.” The very first song they recorded, “Range In My Kitchen Blues”, sets the template, a beautiful number with Johnson’s opening and closing the number in elegant fashion. Songs from these sessions find Alexander at his most primal; “Levee Camp Moan Blues”, ‘Section Gang Blues” and “Penitentiary Blues” show, as many have written, that Alexander likely had intimate knowledge of the Texas penal system. In “Levee Camp Moan Blues” he sings:

Mmmm,mmmm,mmm
Lord, they accused me of murder, murder, murder, I haven’t harmed a man
Lord, they accused me of murder, I haven’t harmed a man
Oh, they have accused me of murder and I haven’t harmed a man.

Mmmm, they have ‘cused me of forgery and uhh I can’t write my name
Lord, they have accused me of forgery and I can’t write my name.

“Section Gang Blues” is something of a companion piece and like the above song harks back to the era of the unaccompanied work song and field holler:

I’m been workin’ on the Section, Section 32
I’ll get a dollar and a quarter, I won’t have to work hard as you
Lord, I’ll get a dollar and a quarter, I won’t have to work hard as you

Oh, nigger licks molasses, and the white man licks ‘em, too
I wonder what in the world is the Mexicans gonna do?
Lord, the nigger licks molasses, the white man licks ‘em too

Waterboy, waterboy, bring your water ’round
If you ain’t got no water, set your bucket down
Waterboy, waterboy, bring your bucket ’round

“Oh, Captain, Captain, what time of day?”
Oh, he looked at me and he walked away

“Penitentiary Blues” is a particularly vivid prison number with Alexander making reference to Bud Russell who brought convicts to the Texas prisons:

Spoken: If I had-a listened, Mama, when you was tellin’ me these things, I wouldn’t have to worry with these old rusted chains

I wonder what’s the matter with poor Annie Lee?
Lord, the Captain whupped here and she ain’t been seen
Mmmmm, mmmmmmm
Lord, the Captain whupped her and she ain’t been seen

Oh, if it hadn’t've been for the red mule’s head
Lord, the Captain’d killed ol’ Annie dead
Mmmmmm, mmmmmmmm
Lord, the Captain killed ol’ Annie dead

If you get buggy want to see Red River red
Lord, Bud Russell will take you and you won’t be dead
Mmmmm, mmmmmm
Lord, Bud Russell will take you and you won’t be dead

As Oliver notes “the ominous words refer to washing in river water after being beaten with the ‘Black Betty’ leather strap used by Russell.”

As mentioned earlier Alexander’s took a particularly frank view of sex in his songs. A wonderful example is “Boe Hog Blues” a song full of surprising imagery and a remarkably poignant conclusion:

Oh, tell me, mama, how you want your rollin’ done. (2x)
Set your face to the ground and your noodle up to the sun

She got little bitty legs, gee, but them noble thighs (2x)
She’s got somethin’ under yonder, works like a boe hog’s eye

Wanta be your doctor, and I’ll pay your doctor bill
I’ll be your doctor, pay your doctor bill
Says, if the doctor don’t cure you, I’ve got somethin’ will

Mmmm, Mmmm, Lawdy, Lawdy, Lawd
I say if the doctor don’t cure you, I’ve got somethin’ will

Says, I looked up at the Good Lord in the sky
Says, I looked up at the Good Lord’s in the sky
Says, I heard a keen voice, says, “Papa, please don’t die.”

Particularly rich are “Work Ox Blues” and “The Risin’ Sun” cut on November 15, 1928. featuring the addition of the brilliant white guitarist Eddie Lang. The rapport between him and Johnson is extraordinary as they weave a rich tapestry around Alexander’s strong vocals. It’s a shame they didn’t back Alexander on more numbers. Six months later Lang and Johnson would record the first pair of a series of landmark duet instrumentals.

*Thanks with lyric transcriptions to John M and the members of  Weenie Campbell

Levee Camp Moan Blues (MP3)

Bell Cow Blues (MP3)

Penitentiary Blues (MP3)

Work Ox Blues (MP3)

Show Notes:

Ever since I picked up the 7-CD George Mitchell Collection Vols. 1-45 (collects all 45 of the 7″ records Fat Possum issued plus bonus material) I’ve been featuring the music often on the program and today we finally get around to devoting an entire show to these remarkable recordings. I was also fortunate to interview a very gracious George Mitchell who took some time to recall his field recording days. This show will kick off what will eventually be a series of shows devoted to field recording spotlighting the contributions of John and Alan Lomax, David Evans, Art Rosenbaum and others. I’ve written quite about Mitchell’s recordings so what follows is some brief background plus some links to more in depth articles I’ve written.

From the early 1960′s to the early 1980′s Mitchell roamed all over the south recording blues in small rural communities where the music still thrived. Mitchell wasn’t the only one roaming the south in the 1960’s in search of blues; there was folklorists and researchers such as David Evans, Sam Charters, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Art Rosenbaum and others. Some were hunting for the famous names who made records in the 1920’s and 1930’s, others were seeking to fill in biographical blanks regarding some of the older musicians coveted by collectors and then there were those, like Mitchell, who were seeking to record whoever they could find. These men, in turn, where following in the pioneering field work of John and Alan Lomax.

Napoleaon Strickland, Como Mississippi, 1967 (Photo by George Mitchell)

Mitchell did record some of the famous artists of the past like Buddy Moss, Furry Lewis, Will Shade, Sleepy Johns Estes and was the first to record artists who would achieve later fame such as R.L. Burnside, Jesse Mae Hemphill, Othar Turner and Precious Bryant. While the blues revival was picking up steam with newly discovered artists like Son House, Bukka White and Mississippi John Hurt hitting the circuit, Mitchell’s recordings were a sort of a parallel undercurrent to the more famous artists. What Mitchell recorded in the rural communities of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi in the 1960’s was a still thriving, if largely undocumented, blues culture. Mitchell had the passion and drive to seek out these folks, and unlike some folklorists didn’t use the music to reinforce his own theories, he simply let the musicians speak for themselves and judging by the recordings they clearly responded to Mitchell’s sincerity (being a southerner probably didn’t hurt as well).

A Look At The George Mitchell Collection – Part 1

A Look At The George Mitchell Collection – Part 2

Joe Callicott: Laughing To Keep From Crying

Houston Stackhouse & Robert Nighthawk

Excerpts from George Mitchell interview:

Part 1 – Getting Started

Part 2 – Memphis

Part 3 – Blues In Decline

Part 4 – R.L. Burnside

Part 5 – Fred McDowell & Johnny Woods

Part 6 – Joe Callicott

Part 7 – Robert Nighthawk

Part 8 – Lower Chattahoochee

Show Notes:

We cover lots of territory today with recordings spanning from 1926 to 1978. Today’s show features five tracks by John Lee Ziegler, a fine Georgia bluesman who just passed after battling a long illness. I received the following note from Rev. Gary Lucas: “I wish to inform you that one of the great Georgia Blues artists John Lee Ziegler recently passed (May 2008) in Kathleen, Georgia after declining health issues. I performed his Eulogy among family and friends. Truly he was unique with his God given musical talents.” Most have never heard of Ziegler who’s legacy rests on just a handful of recordings made by George Mitchell in the late 1970′s (several other recordings remain unreleased) and some sides made in the 1990′s for the Music Maker organization. Part of John Lee Ziegler’s unorthodox style comes from the fact that he was a left-handed guitarist who played a right-handed guitar upside-down, with the bass strings at the bottom. George Mitchell said: “He was a nice, gentle guy, but he was hard to deal with – he thought I was ripping him off, and wanted to get lawyers involved and all this shit – and the record never happened. But he was something else.”

Well before Mitchell was recording blues in the field, there was John and Alan Lomax who recorded extensively throughout the south and beyond from the 1930′s through the 1950′s. I featured several of their prison recordings on the last program. Today we play tracks from Deep River of Song: Big Brazos -Texas Prison Recordings 1933 & 1934 and Document’s Texas Field Recordings (1934/1939). The latter CD presents recordings made by John Lomax on two collecting trips he made, the first with his son Alan in 1934, and the second with his wife, Ruby, in 1939. The music was being collected for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. Tricky Sam cut 3 sides at Huntsville State Penitentiary, Texas. We also play two cuts from Southern Journey, Vol. 3: 61 Highway Mississippi which collects 24 tracks Alan Lomax recorded in Mississippi in 1959. The big star was Fred McDowell, these were his first recordings, but the two cuts by John Dudley show him to be an exceptional talent. All three of his numbers were recorded at Parchman Farm where the Lomax’s had been recording since the 1930′s. We also play a track by the excellent singer Roosevelt Charles who was recorded extensively by folklorist Henry Oster in 1959-1960 in Angola Penitentiary. This cut is from the marvelous Angola Prisoners’ Blues which also features fine cuts from Robert Pete Williams. Charles has sides on various anthologies plus one out-of-print LP on Vanguard, Blues, Prayer, Work & Trouble Songs.

Today’s show features quite a number of down-home post-war blues including a fine batch from the 1950′s; artists like Lightnin’ Slim, Doctor Ross, Papa Lightfoot, Boyd Gilmore and the raucous one-man-band sound of Joe Hill Louis show that there was obviously still a market for down-home blues, a market ably filled by labels like Sun, Modern, Excello and others. Speaking of one-man-bands we jump to to 1968 to hear the great Juke Boy Bonner on the uncompromising “Struggle Here In Houston:”

Struggle in Houston, man just to stay alive (2x)
I don’t mean you die of starvation
I mean you got to watch out for bullets, bottles and knives
There’s some streets in Houston, I stay clear of after dark (2x)
‘Cause there’s some cats that’ll bump you off, just to hear his pistol bark

Weldon Bonner took up the guitar in his teens and 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 and then Goldband. He cut his best work during the late ’60s for Arhoolie Records singing tales of his rough life in Houston. A few European tours ensued, but they didn’t really lead too 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.

As always, plenty of old time blues today including heavyweights like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mississippi John Hurt, Little Brother Montgomery and Leroy Carr. I never get tired of listening to Blind Lemon Jefferson and his “Sunshine Special” is one of my favorites. The Sunshine Special was a locomotive engine pulling the Texas & Pacific “Red Eye” passenger train. These business friendly trains were scheduled to arrive in the Dallas/Ft Worth area at about 9AM from both East and West. Leroy Carr’s “Hustler’s Blues” is one of his best featuring great guitar from longtime partner Scrapper Blackwell as well as Josh White:

Whiskey is my habit, good women is all I crave (2x)
Now I don’t believe them two things will carry me to my grave

When I was a hustler, and in my prime (2x)
I would drink good whiskey and gamble all the time

Unfortunately all that whiskey put him in an early grave, dying of an alcohol-related illness shortly after his 30th birthday. Less well remembered is the once popular Papa Charlie Jackson. Jackson was one of the first male blues artists to record, beginning in 1924 with the Paramount label, playing a hybrid banjo-guitar and ukulele. Jackson spent his teen years as a singer/performer in minstrel and medicine shows. He is known to have busked around Chicago in the early ’20s, playing for tips on Maxwell Street, as well as the city’s Westside clubs beginning in 1924. Little is known about his life. Between 1924-1934 he cut around 70 sides. Alice Moore was another once popular artists little remembered today. She was a very fine St. Louis singer who collaborated with the likes of Kokomo Arnold, Peetie Wheatstraw and Lonnie Johnson. She had two main periods of recording activity: the first in the late ’20s, followed by resurgence in 1934 that lasted through 1937. “Doggin’ Man Blues” is a fine vehicle for her clear, nasal tinged vocals featuring steady rolling piano from Wheatstraw.

I received the following note from Rev. Gary Lucas: “I wish to inform you that one of the great Georgia Blues artists John Lee Ziegler recently passed (May 2008) in Kathleen, Georgia after declining health issues. I performed his Eulogy among family and friends. Truly he was unique with his God given musical talents.”

I suspect most have never heard of Ziegler who’s legacy rests on just a handful of recordings made by George Mitchell in the late 1970′s and some sides made in the 1990′s for the Music Maker organization. The recordings, those by Mitchell in particular, present a musician of singular and immense talent, a musician who fashioned the simple rural blues into something totally unique and utterly moving. Zielgler developed a gorgeous, fluid slide technique balanced by his delicate high falsetto, a style that is completely captivating. Ziegler’s recordings appear on the following collections: Georgia Blues Today (issued by Flyright in 1981 and reissued by Fat Possum), John Lee Ziegler: The George Mitchell Collection Vol. 6 (the same tracks appear on The George Mitchell Collection 7-CD box set) plus Expressin’ The Blues, Blues Sweet Blues, Georgia Blues Today and Cames So Far all on the Music Maker label.

There’s not much information available on Ziegler so I’ve extracted the following section from The George Mitchell Collection 7-CD box set with notes written by Sam Sweet and an addendum by George Mitchell:

Part of John Lee Ziegler’s unorthodox style comes from the fact that he was a left-handed guitarist who played a right-handed guitar upside-down, with the bass strings at the bottom. Born in 1929 in Houston County, Ziegler started playing guitar at age 15 as a fluke: when his parents couldn’t find him the bicycle he requested as a gift, they returned from Macon with a guitar instead. It didn’t take Ziegler long to get good enough to play local clubs and house parties; he even spent some time in New York playing with a band. He also told Mitchell he’d spent some time with John Lee Hooker in Hawkinsville, Georgia. When Mitchell came across him in the late 1970s, Ziegler was still residing in Houston County, working as a plumber and playing at his house for any neighbors interested in stopping by to hear. He had one of the most diverse repertories of any Chattahoochee performer Mitchell encountered, playing John Lee Hooker songs, Sam Cooke’s pop hits, and traditional Chattahoochee songs like “If I Lose Let Me Lose” all in his distinctive style. Ziegler could sing some gospel, but while a lot of the musicians Mitchell recorded had given up blues for the church, Ziegler was content in his choice to stick with secular music.

George Mitchell: John Lee had a spoons player named Rufus and people would gather out in the front yard and listen to them play as we’d be recording. And kids would be dancin’ all over the yard. We recorded a version of John Lee doing “John Henry” where he shouts in the middle, “Look at that little kid dancin’, there!” It was some scene. John Lee wanted his own record, which was fine by me, but I told him, “John Lee you got to come up with some more songs of your own. You can’t just come record all this Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker shit.” And be did eventually come up with a bunch of new songs. He was a nice, gentle guy, but he was hard to deal with – he thought I was ripping him off, and wanted to get lawyers involved and all this shit – and the record never happened. But he was something else.

There’s also an excellent piece on Ziegler written by Peter Watrous titled Time, Loss and the Blues.

Who’s Gonna Be Your Man (MP3)

If I Lose Let Me Lose (MP3)

Poor Boy (MP3)

Used to Be Mine, But Look Who Got Her Now (MP3)

Having A Party (MP3)

If You Ever Change Your Mind (MP3)

4 Women In My Life (MP3)

2 Trains Running (MP3)

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.

Front cover of Father of the Folk Blues Photographer: Dick Waterman

When I was a teenager discovering the blues one of the first albums that really captivated me was Son House’s Death Letter -I still have it – (the UK equivalent of Father of the Folk Blues), his stunning return to the studio after dropping out of sight for nearly twenty-five years. As author Dan Beaumont writes in his yet-to-be published Son House manuscript: “In 1943 Son House left Mississippi, and, for all that is known of his life over the course of the next twenty one years, he may well have fallen off the face of the earth. But this he did not do-instead he did the next best thing. He moved to Rochester, New York.” As a teenager living in the Bronx I too knew nothing of Rochester outside the fact it was in some nether region of New York State – the farthest I had been was the Catskills, one hundred miles upstate. But as I read Dick Waterman’s liner notes, Rochester and the address 61 Greig Street was burned in my memory. That was where Dick Waterman, Phil Spiro and Nick Perls finally tracked Son down on June 23rd, 1964. 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 playing concerts at the UR, the Black Candle (later called Studio 9) and the Regular Restaurant in the Genesee Co-Op on Monroe Ave.. The Black Candle was run by Armand Schaubroeck who now operates the world famous House of Guitars. Memories of Son’s local performances are vividly burned into the memories of all who had had a chance to witness him in action.

Son’s rediscovery in Rochester was newsworthy, making it into Newsweek, Downbeat and the May 29, 1965 edition of the Rochester afternoon newspaper, The Times-Union, with a story titled “Son House Records Blues Again.” It must have been a bit bewildering to Son who was living a very low-key life in Rochester as Dan Beaumont notes: “There for twenty one years he lived amidst almost total obscurity. Indeed, what is known of his life in that city from 1943 to 1964 is so slight, so slender, that his biographer’s task becomes well nigh impossible. …The reasons for this sorry state of affairs are, I suspect, at least two. The first is the sorts of interviews that were done with House after his rediscovery. The interviews were done mostly by young, white blues fans-not by journalists or academics-and for these interviewers a period in which House all but ceased performing and even playing was of little interest. …The second reason is, in fact, simply surmise. House had an amusing phrase he would use when asked about the blues being played in the 1960s. 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.’”

I came to Rochester in the late 1980′s for college and have been up here ever since. Over the years I met numerous people who fondly recalled Son House and when I started doing my yearly radio birthday tributes to Son, it brought 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. At least Cab Calloway (born in Rochester in 1907) has a plaque honoring him, albeit tucked away on a nondescript side street in an equally nondescript park. 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, a major influence on both Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters and who’s recordings are among the most powerful in blues history. It would be a shame to let Son’s memory slip back to the years before he was rediscovered in Rochester, but the sad fact is there is nothing tangible in this city that shows he ever made this city his home for a good part of his life.

Hopefully this will be the year when he finally receives some recognition from his adopted city. This year marks a sequel to last year’s successful Hot Blues For The Homeless concert I was involved in, this year billed as Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House. I’m hoping this year’s modest concert will be the start of something big. I’ve also heard an unconfirmed rumor that the city plans to honor Son with a plaque which would be welcome news. If you live in Rochester, live close by are just visiting on June 8th make sure to help us celebrate the memory of Son House. As Dick Waterman reflected: “If in his prime he had been recorded as much as Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson or Robert Johnson, he would be considered the pre-eminent artist of his time. …If the blues were an ocean distilled…into a pond…and, ultimately into a drop..this drop on the end of your finger is Son House. It’s the essence, the concentrated elixir.”

“Looking for the Blues”
The cover of Newsweek, July 13, 1964 and the article about the ‘rediscovery of Son House. The lead story in the magazine was about disappearance of three civil rights workers in Mississippi and the violence there.

“Finding ‘Son’ House”
The article that Dick Waterman wrote in The National Observer in July 1964 about how he and Nick Perls and Phil Spiro found Son House in Rochester, NY.

“I Can Make My Own Songs”
An interview with Son House, in his own words, by Julius Lester from Sing Out!, July 1965.

Son House Ontario Place 1964 (Link)
An early rediscovery concert at Washington’s Ontario Place by John Meid

Son House Discography (Link)

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.

In the 1920′s and 1930′s all the major labels were deeply invested in the blues, sending mobile recording units all over the south in search of talent. In the late 1950′s and early 1960′s the major labels were no longer recording blues, although that would change as the blues revival kicked into gear. Instead of mobile recordings units there was a committed group of collectors roaming the south in search of the old time bluesmen that appeared on their cherished 78′s; men like Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Bukka White, Furry Lewis and Son House. They most certainly weren’t looking for a minor figure like Joe Callicott, who waxed a lone 78 in Memphis in 1930, the year before played second guitar on Garfield Akers’ “Cottonfield Blues Parts 1 & 2.” It was the indefatigable field recorder George Mitchell who found him in Nesbit, Mississippi off Highway 51 not far from Hernando and short distance from Brights were Akers was supposedly born. It appears Mitchell was looking for Callicott although it’s unclear if he was tipped off about his whereabouts or if it was his own initiative: “On that Saturday in Hernando, we pulled up in front of a cluster of Black men shooting the bull in front of the courthouse and spitting tobacco juice on the sidewalk. …I asked if anyone had ever heard of Joe Callicott.” He was directed to Nesbit, seven miles south where he was greeted by a smiling, friendly man: “How y’all doing? Have a seat. I’m Joe.”

Callicott’s “comeback” was about as short as his first recording career, lasting from the summer of 1967 through the summer of 1968; he recorded nineteen sides for Mitchell either late August or early September (split between Revival’s Deal Gone Down and Arhoolie’s Mississippi Delta Blues – “Blow My Blues Away” Vol. 2) four sides at the 1968 Memphis Country Blues Festival (split between The 1968 Memphis Country Blues Festival and Stars Of The 1969-1970 Memphis Country Blues Festival) and seventeen sides for Blue Horizon in 1968 which have all been issued in 2007 as Furry Lewis & Mississippi Joe Callicott: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions. For a complete listing of his recordings visit the Joe Callicott discography.

I first encountered the Callicott’s music on Mississippi Delta Blues – “Blow My Blues Away” Vol. 2 and found myself going back to those recordings often. He was a good, if unspectacular guitarist, picking out simple, gently surging melodies in a manner that brings to mind Mississippi John Hurt, but as a singer he was magnificent. There’s a timbre and warmth to his vocals that immediately draw the listener into his world and even in his old age he was still capable of delivering a beautiful falsetto in the manner popularized by Tommy Johnson. Callicott’s music is often compared to medicine show artists from the area as Paul oliver noted in the liners to the original Blue Horizon LP: “Nesbit is only a score of miles south of Memphis in the red earth country of De Soto county. From here and the adjacent Tate and Marshall counties a number of the old-style songsters lived …Among them were the medicine show and jug band musicians like Jim Jackson from Hernando four miles from Nesbit, Frank Stokes, a blacksmith who lived some fifteen miles further south in Senatobia, and Gus Cannon from Red Banks, about the same distance to the east.” David Evans noted that Callicott: “…shows a close musical affinity to his old friend Frank Stokes. Both have a kind of quavering vocal delivery, which combined with clear diction and a good feeling for lyrics can be very effective in putting across the meaning of a song.” Callicott’s recordings for Mitchell are superior to those on Blue Horizon, captured in beautiful form on mostly traditional material like “Laughing To Keep From Crying”, the title drawn from a line drawn from Virginia Liston’s “You Don’ Know my Mind” from 1923, an unusually detailed version of “Frankie And Albert”, “Roll And Tumble” and others. Callicott seems distracted and less focused on the Blue Horizon session possibly due to the presence of Bill Barth (second guitar) and Bukka White (whistling). He does turn in some fine performances including “Hoist Your Window And Let Your Curtain Down”, “Joe’s Troubled Blues”, the ancient “War Time Blues” which probably dates back to World War I (Yack Taylor’s “Those Draftin’ Blues” is lyrically and melodically similar) and a fine version of Akers’ “Dough Roller Blues” which sports the arresting lyric: “I’ll cut your throat woman/Drink your blood like wine.”

Of those early recordings, “Cottonfield Blues Parts 1 & 2″ is a classic Mississippi blues hollered over a the throbbing groove of the amazingly tight twin guitars of Akers and Callicott. Callicott explained the set up: “I kept him chorded up good, trackin’ him…You hear them bases? Well, that’s me. Hear them little strings? Well, that’s him…And when that guy would get to playin’, I’m tellin’ you the truth-we’d sit face to face. And we changed up [i.e., swapped guitar lead]…and you wouldn’t know it.” The duo were swept up by one of those mobile recording unit as Gayle Wardlow explained in his groundbreaking article, Garfield Akers and Mississippi Joe Callicott: From the Hernando Cotton Fields: “In the fall of 1929 Brunswick/Vocalion Records made its initial field trip to Memphis to record talent for its Vocalion 1000 and Brunswick 7000 Race series. The session at the Peabody Hotel was highlighted by the first recorded appearances of Garfield Akers, Mattie Delaney, and Kid Bailey, concomitantly with veterans Memphis Minnie and Tampa Red. Callicott recorded his lone 78, “Fare Thee Well Blues/Traveling Mama Blues”, for Brunswick in 1930 at a second session in Memphis where Akers also recorded again (“Dough Roller Blues/Jumpin’ and Shoutin’”).

It’s worth quoting Oliver again from the concluding paragraph of his liner notes: “A wider recognition came almost too late but Joe appeared at the 1968 Memphis Blues Festival and was looking forward to a European trip. Back at his home, with the birds whistling and witnessed by his wife and their bellcow, he recorded his last testament; he died early in 1969 and with him went the last echoes of Mississippi country music of the earliest phase of the blues.”

Fare Thee Well Blues [1930](MP3)

Traveling Mama Blues [1930] (MP3)

Garfield Akers – Cottonfield Blues (Pt. 1) [1929] (MP3)

Garfield Akers – Cottonfield Blues (Pt. 2) [1929] (MP3)

Laughing To Keep From Crying [1967] (MP3)

Goodbye Baby Blues [1967] (MP3)

Dough Roller Blues [1968] (MP3)

Joe’s Troubled Blues [1968] (MP3)