Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Today’s program is our fifth devoted to topical blues. Previous show have focused on hard times, presidents, war and prison. Today’s show is more of a grab bag, spotlighting songs about natural disasters, the depression, historical figures, social issues, civil rights and more. “The blues, contrary to popular conception, are not always concerned with love, razors, dice, and death,” Richard Wright wrote in 1941.  Wright, argued that the blues was by its nature a protest music, and many other writers concur. Mostly it was veiled in verses like “You don’t know my mind/ When you see me laughing, I’m laughing just to keep from crying.” A smaller percentage of blues deals directly with more overt protest and many more were commentaries about community events. There were numerous songs about natural disasters such as floods, drought, storms and fire; songs about cultural figures like Joe Louis, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King and John Kennedy; songs about politics, war, urban renewal, prostitution and even racism; and of course countless songs about the depression, hard times and welfare. Taken together these songs form an oral history of black America at a time when black Americans had few outlets for self-expression. Although it’s outside of our scope, it should be noted that many of the same themes can be found in gospel records and sermons of the same period.

The 1927 Mississippi River flood was one of the greatest natural disasters in US history. Numerous blues and gospel songs were written about the event. The first record on he market, and the biggest seller, was Bessie Smith’s “Back Water Blues” issued on Columbia. Columbia also enlisted its most popular country blues artist, Barbecue Bob, to record the flood blues “Mississippi Heavy Water Blues” in June. The record was advertised in the Chicago Defender on August 13th and like Bessie’s record was a hit. Other flood songs performed by Columbia artists include Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie’s “When The Levee Breaks” cut at their first session in 1929. Also in 1929, Charley Patton recorded a two-part flood blues, “High Water Everywhere” Part 1 &d 2. Paramount devoted one of its last advertisements to this record, which became a surprise hit at the dawn of the Great Depression. This was the last original blues to be recorded about the 1927 flood:

Well, backwater done rose all around Sumner now,
drove me down the line
Backwater done rose at Sumner,
drove poor Charley down the line
Lord, I’ll tell the world the water,
done crept through this town

Five months after the Mississippi flood, on Sept. 29^th, a cyclone struck St. Louis killing dozens of people and causing millions of dollars in damage. Three blues and one sermon were recorded about this event.  “St. Louis Cyclone Blues” was first recorded by Lonnie Johnson and then covered by Elzadie Robinson.  In addition to being a gifted singer and guitarist he was also an imaginative songwriter as “St. Louis Cyclone Blues” amply demonstrates:

I was sitting in my kitchen, lookin’ ‘way out cross the sky (2x)
I thought the world was ending, I started in to cry.

The wind was howlin’, the buildings beginnin’ to fall (2x)
I seen that mean old twister comin’, just like a cannonball

The world was black as midnight, I never heard such a noise before (2x)
Sound like a million lions, when they turn loose their roar

Oh, people was screamin’, and runnin’ every which away (2x)
[spoken ] Lord have mercy on our poor people!

I fell down on my knees, I started in to pray

The shack where we were living, she reeled and rocked but never fell (2x)
[spoken ] Lord, Have mercy!
How the cyclone spared us, nobody but the Lord can tell

In a similar vein was St. Louis Jimmy’s “Florida Hurricane.” John Lee Hooker recorded the song “Tupelo” several times. While Hooker refers to the disaster as a flood,  the town of Tupelo was actually  struck by a tornado on April 5^th, 1936. This was an outbreak of seventeen tornadoes that struck the Southeastern United States from April 5 to 6th, 1936. Approximately 436 people were killed by these tornadoes. Although the outbreak was centered around Tupelo, Mississippi and Gainesville, Georgia, other destructive tornadoes associated with the outbreak struck Columbia, Tennessee, Anderson, South Carolina and Acworth, Georgia. Severe flash floods from the associated storms also produced millions of dollars in damage across the region.

The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 generated many songs among white and blacks. Soon after the event, songs began to circulate and some were put in print on broadside papers. For many singers, the disaster was a kind of modern “tower of Babel”, God punishing man’s arrogance, especially among black singers who saw in the disaster God’s punishment for the segregationist policies of the boat’s company (Black were not allowed on board) or for man’s hubris for calling the boat unsinkable. Among the most influential was “God Moves On The Water” by Blind Willie Johnson:

Year of nineteen hundred and twelve, April the fourteenth day
Great Titanic struck an iceberg, people had to run and pray
God moves, moves, God moves, ah, and the people had to run and pray

The guards who had been a-watching, asleep ’cause they were tired
When they heard the great excitement, then a gunshot was fired
God moves, moves, God moves, ah, and the people had to run and pray

The Titanic continued to be a popular theme well into the post-war era. Blues artists who sang about the Titanic include Ma Rainey, Hi Henry Brown, Richard “Rabbit” Brown, Leadbelly, Virginia Liston and in the post-war era Mance Lipscomb, Pink Anderson, Bill Jackson among others.

There have been several songs written about historical figures like presidents, particularly Roosevelt and Kennedy,  black leaders, sports figures and even blues singers. There were several blues written about the passing of well known blues artists including a few dealing with the death of the hugely popular Leroy Carr in 1935.  Among those were the poignant “My Old Pal Blues (Dedicated To The Memory Of Leroy Carr)” sung by Carr’s long time partner Scrapper Blackwell:

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.

Bumble Bee Slim and Bill Gaither also recorded tributes to Carr. There were other tributes on the passing of Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Other songs have dealt with the passing of Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Doctor Clayton and Sonny Boy Williamson II. There have been dozens of blues, jazz, ballads and gospel songs written about heavyweight champion Joe Louis. During the era of segregation, Joe Louis was a hero among black Americans. Those who paid tribute to Louis include Memphis Minnie, Joe Pullum, Jack Kelly, Lil Johnson, Bill Gaither, Carl Martin among others. Pullum’s “Joe Louis Is the Man” seems to be the first Louis song, dated Aug. 13, 1935:

Joe Louis, is a battlin’ man
The people think his fame will always last
He’s the Brown Bomber of this land
He’s supposed to whup ‘most any man
He’s got a real left, and a real good right
But when he jabs with either one, that stops the fight
He’s not a bad dresser, and his hair is curled
He’s the champion now of the world
He’s bound to be the next champion of the world

Named after a popular 19th-century minstrel song that stereotyped African Americans, “Jim Crow” came to personify the system of government-sanctioned racial oppression and segregation in the United States. There were several artists who made reference to”Jim Crow” including Leadbelly, Josh White and Rosa Henderson (PDF). In 1924′s “Back Woods Blues” Rosa Henderson sings:

Got the blues so bad for the place that I came from
Wanna see my folks but its way to far, to ride in a dusty old Jim Crow Car
Got the back woods blues for a place way down in Bam
Got the blues but I’m gonna stay right where I am
Gonna lay ‘round here right where I’m at
Where there ain’t no grinnin’ and snatchin’ off my hat

Three years later Cow Cow Davenport cut the explicitly titled “Jim Crow Blues”:

I’m tired of being Jim Crowed, gonna leave this Jim Crow town
Doggone my black soul, I’m sweet Chicago bound
Yes, sir, I’m leaving here, from this old Jim Crow town

Fire was another theme that crops up in several blues songs. Leola Manning sings about a fire that burned down the Arcade building in Knoxville, TN in her “Arcade Building Moan” cut just 15 days after the event. One of the most tragic fires happened in Natchez, Mississippi. On April 23, 1940 the Rhythm Night Club fire killed 209 African-American partygoers, while severely injuring many others. It remains the second deadliest fire at a nightclub in the United States. The disaster has been acknowledged in songs by The Lewis Bronzeville Five, Gene Gilmore, “Baby Doo” Caston, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker and others. Other songs about fires include “Jailhouse Fire Blues” by Buddy Boy Hawkins, “Fire Department Blues” by Sleepy John Estes, “Call The Fire Wagon” by Memphis Minnie and “Stockyard Fire” by Tampa Red and “Fire Detective Blues” by Roosevelt Sykes are a few examples.

Urban renewal is the theme in “Third Street’s Going Down”, one of Peetie Wheatstraw’s finest compositions:

We used to have luck in the valley
But the little girl had to move way out of town
We used to have luck in the valley
But the girl had to move way out of town
Some moved in the alley
Ooo-well-well, because Third Street is going down

Third Street ran through the heart of the East St. Louis district known as the “valley”, a tough area full of brothels, gambling houses and saloons. Wheatstraw also lived in the district and not coincidentally was an area where the blues flourished. Some forty years later Gatemouth Moore returned to his old Memphis stomping grounds which was transformed by urban renewal and recorded the moving “Beale Street Ain’t Beale Street No More.”

When the Wall Street crash occurred at the end of October 1929 there were many stories of lost fortunes, of bankrupt financiers throwing themselves from skyscraper buildings. Those who bore the brunt were the poor, and of those the black population was the worst off. As steel mills ceased to operate and factories were closed down, thousands of workers, many of whom were seasonal employees, were laid off. Few were members of unions, and there was no protection against unemployment. Countless blues and gospel songs were written about the depression. “The Panic Was On” as Hezekiah Jenkins sang in 1931:

What this country is coming to
I sure would like to know
If they don’t do something bye and bye, the rich will live and the poor will die
Doggone, I mean the panic is on

Can’t get no work, can’t draw no pay
Unemployment getting worser every day
Nothing to eat no place to sleep
All night long folks walking the street
Doggone, I mean the panic is on

During the depression casual prostitution was a reality to many poor women. Whether it was a bartering to pay the “rent man”, helping their unemployed men or actually walking the streets, prostitution was a prevalent theme in the blues. Statistics show that a quarter of all prostitutes were black when blacks represented a tenth of the population.  “Tricks Ain’t Walking No More”was a popular song recorded by Lucille Bogan, Memphis Minnie, Bumble Bee Slim, Curley Weaver, Buddy Moss and others. During the depression even prostitution suffered from the economy as Lucille Bogan lamented in “They Ain’t Walkin’ No More”:

Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down, I can’t make my livin’ around this town
‘Cause tricks ain’t walkin’, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more
I said, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more
And I got to make my livin’, don’t care where I go

I need shoes on my feet, clothes on my back,
get tired of walkin’ these streets, all dressed in black
But tricks ain’t walkin’, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more
I said, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more
And I get four or five good tricks standin’ in front of my door

Homelessness was another reality as detailed in songs like Josh White’s “Homeless And Hungry”,  Bessie Smith’s “Homeless Blues”and Sleepy John Estes’ ” Hobo Jungle Blues.” Even after the depression the possibility still loomed as Willie “Long Time” Smith sang about eloquently in his 1947 composition “Homeless Blues”:

On one cold frosty morning, the ground was covered with snow (2x)
Well, I met a million people had no place to go
Well some have children, some just have their suitcase and clothes (2x)
You know those people was steady walkin’,  but they couldn’t find no place to go

Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated in March 1933 and took many measures in his first hundred days to combat the depression. In June he established the Public Works Administration (PWA) for which over $3 billion was appropriated. PWA projects were largely engaged in construction projects like sewage plants, flood control and bridge building. Under the PWA was an alphabet soup of agencies with acronyms like PWA, CCC, CWA, CCC and others. Later came the WPA which replaced direct relief and built over a half million miles of roads, a hundred thousand bridges and even more pubic buildings. Many blues songs deal with “working on the project”  such as Peetie Wheatstraw’s “Working On The Project” and his sequel “The Wrong Woman (Lost My Job On the Project)”, Black Ivory King’s “Working For The PWA”, Jimmy Gordon’s “Don’t Take Away My PWA”  and “Casey Bill Weldon’s “W.P.A. Blues” are a few examples. While the entry in WW II eased the pressure on many who were drafted or employed in the plants, it was largely the white population who benefited. Many were still “On The Killin’ Floor” as Doctor Clayton described in 1942:

Please give me a match to light this short that I found
I know it looks bad for me, picking tobacco off the ground
I was in my prime not so very long ago
But high priced whiskey and woman done put me on the killin’ floor

Truman became President in 1945. Inflation was a major reason Truman’s popularity dropped from 87% after his election to 32% by the time he was up for re-election. In addition, after the war prices began to rise and opportunities lessen. Prices rose 38% between 1946 and 1948. Many blues tackled the subject including Jack McVea’s “Inflation Blues”, Louis Jordan’s song of he same name, Smokey Hogg’s “High Priced Meat”, Ivory Joe Hunter’s “Ivory Joe Hunter “High Cost Low Pay Blue” and Roosevelt Sykes’ “Roosevelt Sykes “High Price Blues”  among others.

After the twin bombings in August 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a slew of songs in all genres took up the atomic theme. In blues songs the word “atomic” came to mean anything of great energy, often used as a sexual metaphor as in songs like “Atomic Love” by Little Caesar or in “Atomic Baby” by Amos Milburn. In “Atomic Bomb Blues” Homer Harris gives an almost eyewitness account of the bombing of Hiroshima. In the gospel world it was used as a metaphor for God’s power as expressed in songs like the Pilgrim Travelers much covered “Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb” and the Swan Silvertone’s “Jesus Is God’s Atom Bomb.”

Overt political commentary was rare in recorded blues and gospel prior to the 1960’s but became increasingly more common afterwords. Several blues and gospel numbers were recorded about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in Alabama. In “Birmingham Blues” John Lee Hooker forcefully sings about the Birmingham campaign which was a strategic effort by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to promote civil rights for black Americans.

I ain’t goin’ down, Birmingham by myself (2x)
If I go, gonna take someone with me
Take an airplane, fly over Birmingham (2x)
Drop me a bomb, keep on flyin’ on
Feel so bad, when I read about Birmingham (2x)
Oh do I know one thing, a man is just a man

Based in Birmingham, Alabama, and aimed at ending the city’s segregated civil and discriminatory economic policies, the campaign lasted for more than two months in the spring of 1963. To provoke the police into filling the city’s jails to overflowing, Martin Luther King, Jr. and black citizens of Birmingham employed nonviolent tactics to flout laws they considered unfair. In 1962′s “Ride On Red, Ride On” Louisiana Red is a civil rights themed blues that is mainly about leaving the racist south and in its subject not far removed from Rosa Henderson’s concerns in her 1924 song quoted above. Red does make a brief mention of the events in Little Rock several years prior:

We rolled into old Little Rock, had made another state
Where it took the whole US army to make one school integrate

In “Alabama Bus” Pts. 1 &2 Brother Will Hairston sings bout the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. King and ignited by Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white man. Several blues singers paid tribute to the death of Martin Luther King including Champion Jack Dupree, Big Joe Williams and Otis Spann.

Show Notes:

Georgia White & Bumble Bee Slim

Another mix show for today. I’ve finally caught up a bit so the next few weeks I’ll be doing some themed shows.  Today’s program sports two short tributes to Les Paul and Robert Johnson.  We open and close the show with tracks by Georgia White featuring a young Les Paul. White was a popular singer of the 30′s and 40′s who cut around a hundred sides for Decca between 1930 and 1941.  In 1936 she cut five sides backed by guitarist Les Paul who just passed away on August 13^th. These are among Paul’s first recordings and it’s clear he’s already an accomplished guitarist. Little is known of White’s post-recording years outside of the fact that she led an all girl band in the late 40′s and was lasted glimpsed appearing in a Chicago club in 1959.

We also pay tribute to Robert Johnson who died on this date seventy-one years ago, Aug 16, 1938 in Greenwood, MS. I have to admit that I haven’t played Johnson much on my show. At this point more ink has been spilled on Robert Johnson than any other blues artist and while there has been plenty of quality research on the elusive bluesman it’s been largely buried in layers of hyperbole, mythology, speculation, romanticism and sheer nonsense. My main problem is that this obsession on every minutiae of Johnson’s life has taken away the focus on his very real talents and perhaps more importantly this lopsided focus on Johnson has obscured the fact that he was very much part of a tradition; his music firmly built on the artists who came before like Lonnie Johnson and Tampa Red who don’t get a shred of the acclaim that Johnson does. Johnson remains one of the blues great artists, his brilliance was in how he borrowed, reshaped, synthesized and added his own voice to the music of those who came before to create a powerfully individual style. It would be nice if this intense spotlight on Johnson spilled over to raise the awareness of other equally worthy early blues artists who I play on a regular basis.

Charley Patton

One of the guys Johnson was inspired by was Charley Patton who was dead two years when Johnson made his debut in 1936.  From Patton’s last session in 1934 we spin his “High Sheriff Blues.” Collectors and serious listeners have long held Patton as he pinnacle of the Delta blues artists. Patton hasn’t accrued the mythological baggage of Johnson and isn’t as accessible as Johnson, with his often garbled singing paired with particularly noisy records.  Patton has always cast a spell over me although I’ve had a hard time articulating exactly why. I recently ran across the following by Tony Russell in the indispensable The Penguin Guide To The Blues that pretty much nails what makes Patton’s music so compelling and is worth quoting in full:

“In the best-known photograph of Charley Patton a youngish man faces posterity with a straight but somewhat apprehensive gaze. Some of what lay ahead he might have predicted: a hard life, early death, obscurity. What was not on the cards was that some 30 years later he would begin to be described as one of the most singular musicians of the 20th century, a voice of the blues like no other, a teller of stories from a time and place that for his new listeners were as unimaginable  as the dark side of the moon. His sometimes strangled utterances, already half choked by the surface noise of old discs, gradually revealed themselves to be passages from an oral history of black Mississippi in the 1910s and ’20s: its dirt roads and rivers, drinking places and jails, the pest ravaged cottonfields of “Mississippi Bo Weavil Blues”, the drought of “Dry Well Blues”, the flooded bottomlands of “High Water Everywhere” and, turning from natural disasters to man-made ones, the layoff of railroad workers in “Mean Black Moan.” These reports, and the many other types of songs he recorded, from blue-ballads like “Frankie And Albert” and rags like “Shake It And Break It” to hymns and transformed popular songs, are delivered in a voice as tough as steel, to guitar melodies as densely springy as ryegrass. It is extraordinary music, not always easy to understand, but so full of incident that it quickly becomes totally absorbing.”

Turning from the guitar we spotlight a number of fine pianists including Charlie Seger, Kid Stormy Weather Frank Tannehill and Champion Jack Dupree.  Pianist Segar cut ten sides at sessions in 1934, 35 and 40 and cut recorded the first version of “Key To The Highway” in February 1940. Big Bill Broonzy claims to have written the song, a song also claimed by Jazz Gillum. Gillum cut his version a few months later in May 1940 and Broonzy cut his version in May 1941. Kid Stormy Weather recorded two songs in 1935, and was a local legend around New Orleans. He was an influence on Professor Longhair. Frank Tannehill was a fine singer/pianist who cut ten sides in the late 30s and early 40s. “Warehouse Blues” is a poignant working man’s blues:

You know why my baby she looks so fine (2x)
I’m working at the warehouse giving her all my time
I don’t care, that the streets is covered with snow (2x)
I got to work at the warehouse, and bring my baby the roll
The old house burned down, got to wait till’ they build again (2x)
I’m cutting grass now but I’m still bringing money in

“Bad Whiskey And Wild Woman” feature superb guitar from Brownie McGhee and comes form the brand new 4-CD set Champion Jack Dupree Early Cuts on the JSP label which collects everything he cut from 1940 through 1953.

Jumping ahead to the 60s and 70s we spin some great records by Barrelhouse artists Blind Joe Hill and Easy Baby and music from Excello artists Jimmy Anderson and Whispering Smith. The Barrelhouse label was a fine Chicago label run by George Paulus during the 70s featuring a roster that included albums by Washboard Willie, Big John Wrencher, Charlie Feathers, Harmonica Frank Floyd, Blind Joe Hill, Joe Carter, Robert Richard, Easy Baby and others.  Easy Baby is an exceptional singer and harmonica blower who cut two superb records 25 years apart. Our selection comes from Sweet Home Chicago Blues a 1977 album featuring a great band that included guitarist Eddie Taylor and drummer Kansas City Red. In 2000 he cut the album If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another for the Wolf label, which is nearly as good. Blind Joe Hill was a one-man-band who recorded two albums under his own name on the Barrelhouse and L+R labels and was part of the 1985 American Folk Blues Festival touring Europe. We spin a few songs form the excellent 2-CD set Blues Hangover a collection of Excello rarities including excellent tracks by Jimmy Anderson who sounds uncannily like Jimmy Reed, the fine Whispering Smith who found his way to the label as Excello was circling the drain and the mysterious Early Dranes. The cuts by Dranes come form an Excello audition tape that surfaced decades after the label folded.

Show Notes:

Bo Carter

Well I was planning to do a themed show today but I’ve fallen hopelessly behind so I’ve slapped together a mix show instead. Anyway, a wide ranging mix for today’s program spanning the 1920′s through the 1950′s.

We kick things off with a trio of tracks revolving around the Mississippi Sheiks. The Mississippi Sheiks were one of the most popular string bands of the late ’20s and early ’30s with a repertoire that drew upon all facets of black and white rural music: blues, pop music, hokum, white country and traditional songs. Their rendition of “Sitting on Top of the World” has become an enduring standard. The group consisted of guitarist Walter Vinson and fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, with frequent appearances by guitarists Bo Carter and Sam Chatmon, who were also busy with their own solo careers. Bo Carter was one of the most popular bluesmen of the ’30′s, cutting over a hundred sides between 1928 and 1940. Vinson rarely worked as a solo act, seemingly much more at home in duets and trios; towards that end, during the 1920s he worked with Charlie McCoy, Rubin Lacy and Son Spand before forming the Mississippi Sheiks. While an active club performer during the early 1940s, by the middle of the decade he had begun a lengthy hiatus from music, which continued through 1960, at which point he returned to both recording and festival appearances. Hardening of the arteries forced Vinson into retirement during the early ’70s; he died in Chicago in 1975.

Our opening track by Walter Vinson features harmonica by Robert Lee McCoy better known as Robert Nighthawk. Nighthawk’s first instrument was harmonica and he played a good deal of it backing other artists on record during the 30s and 40s. As he noted: “When I left home I got right into it and I started blowing harmonica. I learnt that back in 24′. …boy named Johnny Jones, he’s from Louisiana, …say he learn me so I did.” Moving up to 1952 we hear Nighthawk on”You Missed A Good Man” a song Nighthawk likely picked up from Tampa Red who recorded the song in 1935. The basis of the song actually goes back much further being copyrighted by Clarence Williams in 1915 as “You Missed A Good Woman When You Picked All Over Me.” The song was first recorded by Trixie Smith in 1922 and again in 1923 by Eva Taylor the wife of Clarence Williams. Tampa reworked the lyrics but the the tune and chorus are identical.

There’s plenty of blues from the same era today including John Henry Barbee’s “You’ll Work Down to me Someday” from 1938 which is a reworking of a 1934 Mississippi Sheiks song of the same title. Barbee worked for a short time with John Lee Williamson (Sonny Boy Williamson I)  then began playing with Sunnyland Slim. They made appearances across the Mississippi Delta. Barbee later moved to Chicago, where he recorded for Vocalion in 1938. He played with Moody Jones’ group on Maxwell Street in the ’40s, but then left the music business for several years. Barbee recorded for Spivey and Storyville in the mid-’60s, and toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. Back in the US Barbee was involved in an auto accident in 1964, and suffered a heart attack while in jail waiting for the case to come to court. It was a sad end to a fine artist who who still a superb performer as evidenced on the excellent Blues Masters Vol. 3 recorded in 1964 for Storyville.

Lucille Bogan

Form the same period we spotlight four fine blues ladies: Laura Smith, Lottie Kimbrough, Kansas City Kitty and Lucille Bogan. A fine forgotten blues singer of the 20′s, Laura Smith made her debut in 1924 and recorded through 1927. She died in 1932. Our selection “The Mississippi Blues” was the flip of  “Lonesome Refugee”, both songs written about the tragic 1927 flood, one of the greatest natural disasters in US history. Numerous blues and gospel songs were written about the flood. Lottie Kimbrough also made her debut in 1924 but as Tony Russell notes “If her half-dozen 1924 sides on Paramount had been all Lottie Kimbrough recorded, she would probably be considered a singer of the second or third rank…” Lucky for her she met promoter Winston Holmes who got her a contract with Gennett Records. In the past of I’ve played “Rolling Log Blues” and “Goin’ Away Blues”, performances of “haunting beauty” Russell writes. Our track, “Blue World Blues” is from that session, a powerful number featuring an excellent but unknown cornet player. Kansas City Kitty was a pseudonym for Mozelle Alderson who confused researchers for years by recording under other names such as Hannah Mae and Jane Lucas. “How Can You Have The Blues?” is a fine, playful duet with Georgia Tom. Lucille Bogan made her debut in 1923 with some less than memorable sides before coming into her own with her next sessions in 1927. Bogan was simply one of the toughest, roughest woman to record in the 20′s and 30′s and her “Whiskey Sellin’ Woman” is a good example as she opens the song  with the now familar “Ah, I’m gettin’ sloppy drunk today.”

From the 1946 we spotlight thee veteran artists of the 1930′s who were still at it, cutting some up-to-date material: Jimmie Gordon, Lee Brown and Johnnie Temple. These sides are from a rare 1946 session for King that were never released at the time and only issued decades later. Pianist Lee Brown cut 29 sides for Decca between 1937-40.  Jimmie Gordon made his first record in 1934 for Bluebird before moving to Decca where he cut 60 sides through 1941. Originally from Mississippi, Johnnie Temple moved to Jackson, MS where he worked parties and juke joints with Skip James and Charlie McCoy. He moved to Chicago in 1932, making his debut in 1935 for Vocalion and cut 70 sides through 1941. Although he never achieved stardom, Temple’s records, sold consistently throughout the late ’30s and ’40s and his records exerted an influence on numerous other artists. All these sides appear on the Proper Records collection Broke, Black & Blues.

We also spin a batch of great records from the 1950′s including a cut by blues shouter Tommy Brown. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to see the 78 year old Brown in action and sounding great at the Pocono Blues Festival. “Remember Me” comes from a four song 1954 session where he was backed by Walter Horton. From 1952 we hear “Hoodoo Man” from Albert Williams on the Sun label (his only record) going under the name Memphis Al: “My name is Memphis Al and they call me the hoodoo man.” The song is particularly notable for some terrific guitar by the great Joe Willie Wilkins. From the same year we hear the guitarist Calvin Frazier rip it up on T.J. Fowler’s rocking “Back Biter.” Speaking of guitar it’s hard to beat T-Bone Walker who lays down some vicious licks on Roy Hawkins’ “Doin’ All Right” also from 1952.

Show Notes:

Today’s show is a continuing series on forgotten blues heroes; those artists who perhaps don’t have enough sides for a full a feature and lesser-known figures that don’t fit into our other themed shows. Today we spotlight six superb little-recorded artists who cut sides in the 1920′s and 30′s: Willie Newbern, William Harris, Blind Joe Reynolds, King Solomon Hill, Luke Jordan and Geeshie Wiley. All of these artists are cut 78′s that are highly regarded among collectors and not coincidentally these records are exceedingly rare, in some cases only one known copy exists.

Little is known about blues songster Hambone Willie Newbern who waxed half-dozen sides at two sessions on consecutive days for Okeh, among those six is the first-ever rendition of the immortal Delta classic “Roll and Tumble Blues.” According to Sleepy John Estes, who knew him, he was born in 1899 and first began to make a name for himself in the Brownsville, TN area, where he played country dances and fish fries in the company of Yank Rachell and later  Sleepy John Estes . While in Atlanta in 1929, Newbern cut his lone session; in addition to “Roll and Tumble,” which became an oft-covered standard, he recorded songs like “She Could Toodle-Oo” and “Hambone Willie’s Dreamy-Eyed Woman’s Blues,” which suggest an old-fashioned rag influence. By all reports an extremely ill-tempered man, Newbern’s behavior eventually led him to prison, where a brutal beating is said to have brought his life to an end around 1947.

Little has been discovered about William Harris who cut fourteen issued sides at four sessions for Gannet in 1927 and 1928. Two sides were never issued, “No Black Woman Can Sleep In My Cowlot” and “T.B. Blues” while several have yet to be found: “Nothin’ Right Blues (Bearing In Mind)”, “Gonna Get Me A Woman That I Calls My Own”, “I’m A Roamin’ Gambler” and “I Was Born In The Country, Raised In Town.” Harris is thought to be from Glendora, Mississippi. He made his first recordings in Birmingham, Alabama, and may have worked around that city. Accounts suggest that Harris was a performer with F.S. Wolcott’s Rabbit Foot Minstrels and that he may have traveled the medicine show circuit. When gayle Dean Wardlow played some of his records to some older Mississippi musicians they commented that he must have been from Mississippi. “That’s pure Delta blues there”, commented bluesman Booker Miller. Guitarist Hayes McMullen recalls witnessing him at a house party at the Wildwood Plantation in Mississippi in 1927. Wardlow’s research on Harris can be found in the article “‘Big Foot’ William Harris” in 78 Quarterly No. 3, 1988.

Geeshie Wiley is another mysterious figure whose background remains a cipher. 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. Ishman Bracey provides what little we know about her: “She lived ’round there on John Hart Street for a while. Charlie McCoy got her for his old lady. She could play on the guitar as good as on that record [Eagles On A Half, Pm 13074]. She said she was from Natchez; close by Natchez was her home. She didn’t stay here long, couple of months and she done left.” According to Bracey, she hailed from the vicinity of Natchez. In the 1920′s she spent three months in Jackson as a resident of John Hart Street; while there, she played in a medicine show. “She could play a guitar, but she had a guitar player with her,” Bracey recalled. “She’d play a guitar, and a ukulele too.” Wiley 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.”

King Solomon Hill signed to the Paramount label in 1932, soon traveling to Grafton, Wisconsin to record six tracks – two of them alternate takes – which comprise his known discography; songs like the eerie “Gone Dead Train” and “Down On MY Bended Knee” are masterly performances featuring Hill’s eerie falsetto and raw, unorthodox guitar work. In 2002 collector John Tefteller went to Grafton and discovered the long lost Hill 78 “My Buddy Blind Papa Lemon”b/w “Times Has Done Got Hard” in mint condition. Not much is known of Hill – whose real name was Joe Holmes. He was closely connected to Sam Collins and traveled with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Rambling Thomas. He roamed through Louisiana and Texas playing and in 1932 was invited to record for Paramount along with Ben Curry and Marshall Owens. After this lone session, Hill returned to the juke joint circuit, eventually vanishing from sight; reputedly a heavy drinker, he died of a massive brain hemorrhage in Sibley, Louisiana in 1949. Blues detective Gayle Dean Wardlow uncovered probably everything we’re likely to know about him as published in King Solomon Hill (78 Quarterly no. 1 (1967): 5-9) and One Last Walk Up King Solomon Hill (Blues Unlimited no. 148 (Winter 1987): 8-12) both reprinted in the book Chasin’ That Devil Music.

In their grounbreaking article He’s A Devil Of A Joe (Blues Unlimited No. 146, 1984 and reissued in the book Chasin’ That Devil Music) Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow write : “Perhaps the brashest and bawdiest blues singer of the pre-war blues era was the mysterious guitarist known to posterity as Blind Joe Reynolds, composer of the minor rock hit ‘Outside Woman Blues.’ Blind Joe was the rare figure who not only lived up to his church stereotype as a sinner, but flaunted social taboos with positive relish.” In November 1929 at the Paramount Recording Studios in Grafton, Wisconsin, four songs were recorded by a Louisiana street musician named Joe Sheppard who, on the run from the law, used the name Blind Joe Reynolds. Within a year, the four songs were released on two records. Neither record sold well, but almost 40 years later, one of the two attracted the attention of Eric Clapton who heard the song “Outside Woman Blues” on a reissue album. In 1967, Clapton and his Cream bandmates Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce recorded a more modern day version of “Outside Woman Blues” on their classic LP Disraeli Gears. The second record recorded in Wisconsin on that day, “Ninety Nine Blues” b/w “Cold Woman Blues” had been lost since it was first released in October of 1930. No copies in any condition were ever located until just a few years ago. Bruce Smith, a school teacher from Ohio with an appreciation for old blues records, was attending a teachers’ conference in Nashville. With an hour to kill before catching a flight home from a school conference, he wandered into the Nashville Flea Market and found the record in a stack of old 78′s. The other song cut that day was “Nehi Blues.” He was back in the studio a year later cutting four more numbers: “Married Woman Blues”, “Third Street Woman Blues, “Short Dress Blues” and “Goose Hill Woman Blues”, the latter two were never issued.

The blues of Luke Jordan “had a beautiful sweetness and a kind of wry wistfulness that made them unforgettable,” according to Samuel Charters in Sweet as the Showers of Rain. Research by Bruce Bastin tells us that Luke Jordan was an important figure in and around Lynchburg, Virginia, highly regarded for his skillful, cleanly-picked guitar style. Although very few African American blues musicians from this region managed to record, Jordan was discovered by Victor Records around the age of 35. He traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, in August 1927, to record several sides for that label. His records sold well enough that Victor decided to bring him to New York for two further sessions in November of 1929. Two sides were unissued: “Look Up, Look Down” and “That’s A Plenty.” Like the other artists profiled today Jordan’s records are very rare. His “Pick Poor Robin Clean” (Victor 20957) sold only 5,973 copies and there is only one known copy of  “If I Call You Mama” b/w “Tom Brown Sits In His Prison Cell” (Victor 23400) which first surfaced in the 1990′s. Most recently, the James River Blues Society has recognized Luke Jordan as a important figure in Virginia blues by erecting a historical marker in his honor in downtown Lynchburg.