Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

A typical mix show lined up for today, which means another wide ranging set of blues spanning the 1920's on up. Today we spin some Piedmont styled blues by several fine bluesmen, spotlight some out-of-print LP's plus play some twin spins of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Memphis Slim, Crying Sam Collins and a trio of tracks revolving around Baby Doo Caston.

Unlike blues artists like Big Bill or Memphis Minnie who recorded extensively over three or four decades, Blind Boy Fuller recorded his substantial body of work over a short, six-year span. Nevertheless, he was one of the most recorded artists of his time and by far the most popular and influential Piedmont blues player of all time.  In 1935 a new manager, J. B. Long, was brought in to run the United Dollar Store on Durham's West Club Boulevard.  One day, hoping to attract farmers from the tobacco warehouses to his store, he heard a blind bluesman Fulton Allen (Blind Boy fuller), playing the guitar. During Long's summer vacation an improbable sextet headed for New York to record: Long, his wife and daughter, Blind Boy Fuller, Gary Davis, and George Washington (Bull City Red). Davis recorded three sessions over three days for ARC; only the first session was blues and the other gospel. Today we spin tracks by several in Fuller's orbit including Gary Davis, Sonny Terry and Baby Tate. Our opening number, "Evening Sun Goes Down", comes from the excellent album Pure Religion & Bad Company cut for the Folkways label. Baby Tate met and played with Blind Boy Fuller’s in the 30’s. Tate's track, " f I Could Holler Like a Mountain Jack," comes from the soundtrack album Blues – Music from the Documentary Film By Sam Charters shot by Charters in 1962 and featuring Baby Tate, J.D. Short, Pink Anderson, Sleepy John Estes, Gus Cannon and Memphis Willie B. From Sonny Terry we hear "Sonny's Story" the title track from his wonderful 1960 Bluesville album. Terry is largely playing solo acoustic, with J.C. Burris joining in for harmonica duets every so often; Sticks McGhee and drummer Belton Evans also play on a few cuts.

We play a cut by an associate of Terry's, Alec Seward who was born in  Charles City, VA. When he turned 18, he packed up and moved to New York with the intention of professionally playing music. Along the way, Seward struck up a friendship with Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. He also came in contact with Louis Hayes. The two began performing as the Blues Servant Boys, Guitar Slim & Jelly Belly, and the Backporch Boys. Over the next two decades, Seward played and recorded with Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. He also released an album on Blueville, Creepin' Blues in 1965 and today we spin the title track. The remainder of the '60s found Seward playing live whenever possible and working the folk/blues festivals that had become popular in that decade. He passed in 1972.

Among the twin spins are a pair of Mississippi Fred McDowell's debut recordings. McDowell was brought to wider public attention when he was discovered and recorded in 1959 by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins. Many fine albums ensued by in many ways these initial recordings are his best. We also spin a couple by Memphis Slim including his majestic 1961 reading of Leroy Carr's "In The Evenin'" as he opens by saying "The one an only Leroy Carr, one of the greatest tunes he ever made." This comes from the superb album Bad Luck & Trouble waxed for Candid in 1961. From the previous year we hear the rollicking "I left That Town – Harlem Bound" from the out-of-print LP Memphis Slim and the Honky-Tonk Sound, one of several fine records Slim cut for the Folkways label.

Traveling back to the pre-war era we spotlight a pair of cuts by Crying Sam Collins. One of the earliest generation of blues performers, Collins developed his style in South Mississippi. His recording debut single ("The Jail House Blues," 1927) predated those of legendary Mississippians such as Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson and was advertised by Black Patti as "Crying Sam Collins and his Git-Fiddle." Collins did not become a major name in blues — in fact his later records appeared under several different pseudonyms — but his bottleneck guitar pieces were among the first to be compiled on LP when the country-blues reissue era was just beginning. Sam Charters wrote in The Bluesmen: "Although Collins was not one of the stylistic innovators within the Mississippi blues idiom, he was enough part of it that, in blues like 'Signifying Blues' and 'Slow Mama Slow,' he had some of the intensity of the Mississippi music at its most creative level." In addition to playing the above mentioned "Slow Mama Slow" we also play "Lonesome Road Blues" (a version of "In The Pines"), a haunting number that ranks as one of Collins' masterpieces. The only other track that even approaches this is Collins' "My Road Is Rough And Rocky (How Long, How Long?)" (his version of "Long Gone") which I've played on previous programs. I first heard these numbers on Yazoo's Lonesome Road Blues and they remain among my favorite pre-war blues sides.

I've been listening lately to the music of Baby Doo Caston, who will probably always remain in the shadow of his more famous friend and collaborator, Willie Dixon. A few back a played a great tune by the Big Three Trio, which featured both men, and recently I dug out of my collection of couple of nice LP's Caston cut just prior to his passing. Caston was born in Sumrall, Mississippi and raised in Meadville, Mississippi from age eight. He lived in Chicago from 1934 to 1936 but then moved back to Mississippi after his family relocated to Natchez. In 1938 he returned to Chicago, where he met with Mayo Williams, a producer for Decca Records. Williams recorded him in a trio with Gene Gilmore and Arthur Dixon; Dixon introduced him to his brother, Willie Dixon. Willie and Caston then formed the Five Breezes who cut eight sides for Bluebird in 1940.Among the better tracks the by group was "My Buddy Blues" a fine lowdown war themed number which we spin today:

I have signed my name
It won't be long before I go
I woke up this morning
The mailman had my numbers at my door

If you're twenty-one, buddy
I advise you not to hide
Because when that wagon roll 'round
I declare you've got to ride

Uncle Sam he's callin' fer you
And you know you got to go
He's callin' for all you jitterbugs
Like he never called before

The charity s been taken care of you
For a very long, long time
Now, Uncle Sam is calling you
And you know what's on his mind

Also in 1940 Caston recorded his first solo record for Decca, the tough delta styled "I'm Gonna Walk Your Log" backed by the topical "The Death Of Walter Barnes", both featuring Robert Nighthawk on harmonica. The latter number memorialized one of the deadliest fires in American history which took the lives of over 200 people, including bandleader Walter Barnes and nine members of his dance orchestra, at the Rhythm Club in Natchez, MS on April 23, 1940. News of the tragedy reverberated throughout the country, especially among the African American community, and blues performers have recorded memorial songs such as "The Natchez Fire", "The Natchez Burning" and "The Mighty Fire" ever since. The Five Breezes disbanded in 1941, and Caston began playing in the Rhythm Rascals. After the war, he recorded under his own name as well as for Roosevelt Sykes and Walter Davis, and did myriad studio sessions. He also recorded again with Dixon as the Four Jumps of Jive and the Big Three Trio, playing in both groups. The Big Three Trio recorded for Columbia Records and Okeh Records. The group also backed singer Rosetta Howard at two 1947 sessions.  From the second session we play "Too Many Drivers." The Big Three Trio's last sides were recorded in 1952, but the group didn't officially break up until 1956. Caston continued performing for decades afterwords, returning to perform with Dixon in 1984. He also released the albums, Baby Doo's House Party and The Truth About The Blues, shortly before his death in 1987.  From the latter record we feature the title track.

We feature a set of songs about hard times, which seems as topical as ever; from the depression we hear Lane Hardin's "Hard Time Blues" (1935) and Skip James, who sang for many on his  "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues" (1931) :

Hard times is here
An everywhere you go
Times are harder
Than ever been before

You know that people
They are driftin' from door to door
But they can't find no heaven
I don't care where they go

Lonnie Pitchford, Photo by Axel Kunster

As for Lane Hardin he cut one pre-war record,  “Hard Time Blues b/w California Desert Blues” in 1935. In around 1950 a group of artists sent in a batch of unlabeled acetates that were discovered at Modern in 1970. These recordings have remained a focal point for intense discussion ever since. When these sides were first issued on the Blues From The Deep South LP (reissued on the Ace CD Modern Downhome Blues Sessions Vol. 5), the name Arkansas Johnny Todd and Leroy Simpson were invented for two sides released, as the artists identities were unknown. After some detective work it turns out that Arkansas Johnny Todd is actually Lane Hardin. We move up to 1967 for our final hard times number as Do Boy Diamond sings "Hard Time Blues #2." Diamond was living on his "boss man's" farm, outside of Canton, Mississippi, north of Jackson, when George Mitchell recorded him in 1967.

We also play a set featuring Lonnie Pitchford and Robert Lockwood. Pitchford was an obscure Delta blues player until he was "discovered" by ethnomusicologist Worth Long. He began to attract crowds playing the music of Robert Johnson, on his one-stringed didley bow. Pitchford began playing Johnson's tunes after meeting guitarist Robert Jr. Lockwood at the World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. Lockwood showed Pitchford some basic Johnson chord changes and arrangements, and for several years after that, Pitchford was accompanied by the late Alabama bluesman Johnny Shines, as well as Lockwood. Pitchford was also an accomplished six-string guitarist and piano player. He cut one full-length album All Around Man, for Rooster Blues, as well as several compilations including some excellent tracks on the Living Country Blues series.. Pitchford was voted as one of Living Blues magazine's "top 40 under 40" new blues players to watch. Unfortunately, his life was cut short in 1998 at the age of 43.