Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

I suppose it sounds rather romantic spending your time roaming around the south with a tape recorder recording blues but for all the rewards and exciting discoveries it’s a stressful enterprise, not to mention a precarious way to make a living. These days hardly anyone one does it anymore and the sad fact is that blues has largely disappeared as integral part of African-American rural communities; most of the old timers have passed on and few of the younger generation are interested in blues, particularly traditional blues. Much has been written about John and Alan Lomax who scoured the south and beyond making landmark recordings for the Library of Congress from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. Less well known are those that followed in the Lomax’s footsteps; there was folklorists and researchers such as David Evans, Sam Charters, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Frederic Ramsey, Art Rosenbaum, Pete Welding, Chris Strachwitz , Bruce Bastin, Bengt Olsson, Dick Spottswood, Kip Lornell, Glenn Hinson, Tim Duffy, Siegfried A. Christmann and Axel Küstner. 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 who were seeking to document the blues tradition as it still existed in rural communities, men like George Mitchell and Peter B. Lowry. This was a very different undertaking than 1960’s blues revival which sought out and put back on the circuit such legendary artists of the past as Son House, Skip James, Bukka White and Mississippi John Hurt. The field recordings made during this era were a sort of a parallel undercurrent to the more famous artists. What they recorded in the rural communities of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi in the 1960’s was a still thriving, if largely undocumented, blues culture. The bulk of theses recordings were issued on small specialist labels and many have yet to be reissued on CD. Today’s program is the first of a multi-part series on some of these remarkable recordings.

The earliest tracks come from 1960 and were made by Paul Oliver and Chris Strachwitz and come from the albums Conversations With The Blues, a companion to Oliver’s landmark book, and I Have To Paint My Face which was issued on Strachwitz’s Arhoolie label. The recordings on I Have To Paint My Face were made by Chris Strachwitz in the Summer of 1960, the same year he formed his now legendary Arhoolie record label. That summer Strachwitz and blues scholar Paul Oliver and his wife made a trip through Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas to interview and record older blues artists for a series of programs sponsored by the BBC. Among those recorded were Sam Chatmon, K.C. Douglas, Big Joe Williams, Butch Cage & Willie Thomas, Robert Curtis Smith and others. Conversations With The Blues is a series of interviews, in the artists own words, compiled from interviews with over sixty blues singers. The interviews stem from a trip Oliver made to the United States between June and September 1960.

Today’s program features a number of recordings made by David Evans. It was Evans’ investigation into Tommy Johnson in the late 1960’s that we owe a good deal of what we know about Johnson and it was through Evans’ field recordings that Johnson’s influence comes into sharper focus. Evans recorded many men who learned directly from Johnson including Roosevelt Holts, Boogie Bill Webb, Arzo Youngblood, Isaac Youngblood, Bubba Brown, Babe Stovall, Houston Stackhouse and Tommy’s brother Mager Johnson. Long out of print are several important collections of Evans’ field recordings that gather artists influenced by Johnson. Most importantly is The Legacy of Tommy Johnson (1972), the companion LP to Evans’ Tommy Johnson biography featuring all songs that were in Johnson’s repertoire and all of which were learned by the artists from Johnson himself. Today’s show spotlights selections from South Mississippi Blues and Goin’ Up The Country. David Evans began making field recordings in 1965 when he spent about five weeks taping blues artists in Mississippi and Louisiana. The collection Goin’ Up The Country released on Decca in 1968 collects some of the best performances he recorded. The album was reissued in 1976 on Rounder and Rounder also released South Mississippi Blues in 1973, another collection of field recordings from the same period. in addition we play a cut by Houston Stackhouse with his partner Carey Mason that stem from recordings Evans made in Crystal Springs, MS in 1967.

Bengt Olsson first came to the United States in 1964, first to Chicago and then to Memphis were he made some recordings. Olsson was back in 1971, where he made recordings in Memphis and Alabama. Olsson recorded several talented artists including Lum Guffin (his album Walking Victrola was issued on Flyright), Lattie Murrell and Perry Tillis among others. Some of Olsson’s recordings appear on the CD On The Road – Country Blues 1969-1974.

Pete Welding was one of the premiere documentarians of the 1960’s blues revival. Welding began recording and interviewing artists in the late 50’s and he began writing a column in Downbeat Magazine in 1959 called “Blues And Folk.” He moved to Chicago in 1962 where he formed his Testament Records label as an outlet for his fieldwork . Other of his recordings appeared on Storyville, Prestige, Blue Note and Milestone. We spotlight some of Weldings’ recordings from the album Blues Roots: The Mississippi Blues Vol. 1 recorded by circa 1964/1965.

Between 1969 and 1980 Pete Lowery amassed hundreds of photographs, thousands of selections of recordings, music and interviews in his travels through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. He formed the Trix label as an outlet to release his recordings. Lowry set up the Trix Records label in 1972 starting with a series of 45’s with LP’s being released by 1973. It lasted about a decade as an active label dealing mainly with Piedmont blues artists from the Southeastern states. In addition to the seventeen issued Trix albums there is sufficient material for another 40 to 50 CD’s. Many of the artists who had albums released were recorded extensively by Lowry and in most cases there is enough material in the can for follow-up records. In fact Lowry’s unreleased recordings far exceed the released recordings. Today’s program features some unreleased tracks that Lowry was kind of enough to send me.

In 1980 two young German blues enthusiasts, Axel Küstner and Siegfried Christmann, came to America with the idea to document the remaining country blues tradition. With their station wagon and portable recording equipment they hit the dusty road spending a couple of months documenting blues, gospel, field hollers and work songs throughout the South. As the notes proclaim: “Traveling 10,000 miles by car in 2 1/2 months, they used 180,000 feet of tape and took hundreds of photographs to document various aspects of Country Blues, as well as work songs, fife and drum band music, field hollers and rural Gospel music, performed by 35 artists, some of whom appear on record for the first time.” From October 1st through November 30th the duo rolled through Washington, DC, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, New Orleans and of course Mississippi. These remarkable recordings were first issued across 12 LP’s titled Living Country Blues USA plus one double set on the German L+R label between 1980 and 1981. They have since been reissued on CD.

From the early 1960’s to the early 1980’s George Mitchell roamed all over the south recording blues in small rural communities where the music still thrived. Many of these recordings have appeared on specialist labels like Southland, Revival, Flyright, Arhoolie and Rounder but are long out of print now. Several years ago the Fat Possum label acquired the Mitchell archive and has been reissuing the recordings.

Art Rosenbaum is a painter, muralist, and illustrator, as well as a collector and performer of traditional American folk music. His field recordings have been collected on two 4-CD box sets on the Dust-To-Digital label called the Art Of Field Recording. Rosenbaum was also involved in producing several albums for Bluesville in the early 60’s including records by Indianapolis artists Scrapper Blackwell, Pete Franklin, Shirley Griffith, J.T.Adams and Brooks Berry. I’ll be spotlighting Rosenbaum’s blues recordings as well as interviewing him at the end of January.

The Blue Ridge Institute for Appalachian Studies at Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia, released a series of eight LPs in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the group title Virginia Traditions. Each album featured an aspect of traditional Virginia folk music, setting old 78s and field recordings alongside more recent field material. From that series we spotlight three tracks for the album Western Peidmont Blues.

We close the show with Johnny Johnson & Group perfroming “I’m In The Bottom” from the album Wake Up Dead Man. “Making it in hell”,  Bruce Jackson says, is the spirit behind the songs that comprise the album and book  Wake Up Dead Man is a collection of prison worksongs taped by Bruce Jackson in 1965 and 1966 in Texas prisons. Research was done at three primary institutions; the Ramsey unit (Camps 1 and 2), Ellis, and Wynne. Allowed complete freedom in these facilities, Bruce Jackson talked with, interviewed, and recorded inmates over time to collect information for this book.

Show Notes:

Today’s show focuses on the Living Country Blues USA series, which has finally been issued on CD. These remarkable recordings were first issued across 12 LP’s plus one double set on the German L+R label between 1980 and 1981.In 1980 two young German blues enthusiasts, Axel Küstner and Siegfried Christmann, came to America with the idea to document the remaining country blues tradition. With their station wagon and portable recording equipment they hit the dusty road spending a couple of months documenting blues, gospel, field hollers and work songs throughout the South. As the notes proclaim: “Traveling 10,000 miles by car in 2 1/2 months, they used 180,000 feet of tape and took hundreds of photographs to document various aspects of Country Blues, as well as work songs, fife and drum band music, field hollers and rural Gospel music, performed by 35 artists, some of whom appear on record for the first time.” From October 1st through November 30th the duo rolled through Washington, DC, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, New Orleans and of course Mississippi. Below is some brief background on today’s performers plus links to the two-part article I wrote about these recordings.

Guitar Slim hailed from Greensboro, North Carolina. He recorded the album Greensboro Rounder for Flyright in the 1970’s which is difficult to come by these days. He was accomplished on six and twelve string and a fine piano player as well.

These were Archie Edwards first recordings and he recorded a couple of other albums after this before passing in 1986. In 1959, he bought his barbershop on Bunker Hill Road in Northeast DC. The shop became a regular hangout for many local down-home musicians, including his musical hero and friend, Mississippi John Hurt.

Writer Bruce Bastin called Guitar Frank “one of the finest singers to have been recorded during the 1970’s…steeped in a tradition which is as much part of him as is the countryside about him.” Bastin and Dick Spotswood recorded Frank in 1975, issuing the album Lonesome Road Blues on the Flyright label (reissued in 2000 as Gone With The Wind with several additional tracks). Frank was still in fine form when he reluctantly agreed to perform on these recordings even though he was afraid of losing his social security checks.

Lottie Murrell and Girlfriend

Joe Savage and Walter Brown bring alive the era of the field and levee camp hollers. John Lomax interviewed and recorded Joe Savage in Parchman in the 1940’s and said of him “he was by far the youngest and most damaged.” Küstner noted “recording Walter Brown was one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. …I had the feeling he was just waiting for somebody to come around so that he could express himself and let his music come out.” Brown led a tough life including spending time in the notorious Parchman Farm Prison.

Boogie Bill Webb was influenced first hand by Tommy Johnson. Moving from Mississippi, he settled in New Orleans in 1952, where longtime friend Dave Bartholomew helped Webb land a deal with Imperial Records. In 1968 he recorded several songs for folklorist David Evans later issued on the Arhoolie LP Roosevelt Holts and His Friends. In 1989 issued his first full-length LP, the Flying Fish release Drinkin’ and Stinkin’, passing the following year at age 66.

A member of the Chatmon family that included not only Lonnie of the famous Mississippi Sheiks but also the prolific Bo Carter and several other blues-playing brothers, Sam Chatmon survived to be hailed as a modern-day blues guru when he began performing and recording again in the 1960’s. Chatmon began playing music as a child, occasionally with his family’s string band, as well as the Mississippi Sheiks. Sam launched his own solo career in the early ’30s. While he performed and recorded as a solo act, he would still record with the Mississippi Sheiks and with his brother Lonnie. Throughout the ’30s, Sam traveled throughout the south, playing with a variety of minstrel and medicine shows. When the blues revival arrived in the late ’50s, he managed to capitalize on the music’s popularity. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, he recorded for a variety of labels, as well as playing clubs and blues and folk festivals across America. Chatmon was an active performer and recording artist until his death in 1983.

These were Cedell Davis’ first recordings. He went on to cut a few fine albums in the 1990’s for Fat Possom. Back in the 1950’s he worked in Arkansas with Robert Nighthawk and Dr. Ross among others.

Boyd Rivers

Lonnie Pitchford was notable in that he was one of only a handful of young African American musicians from Mississippi who had learned and was continuing the Delta blues and country blues traditions of the older generations. In addition to the acoustic and electric guitar, Pitchford was also skilled at the one-string guitar and diddley bow, a one-string instrument of African origin, as well as the double bass, piano and harmonica. He was a protege of Robert Lockwood, Jr., from whom he learned the style of Robert Johnson. These were his first recordings and he appeared on several anthologies and cut his lone album All Around Man for Rooster in 1994. In November 1998, Pitchford died at his home in Lexington, from AIDS. A diddley bow is featured on his headstone which was paid for by John Fogerty and Rooster Blues Records through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund.

Among the finest bluesman they came across in Mississippi was James “Son” Thomas “discovered” in 1968 by William Ferris who wrote about him in his influential book Blues From The Delta. By 1980 Thomas was a regular on the festival circuit but had recorded little, just a handful of sides scattered on obscure anthologies. After 1980 he toured Europe, recorded prolifically, including several very strong albums but never did he sound better then the recordings he made here. He died in 1993.

Sam “Stretch” Shields’ harmonica style harks back to the pre-amplified era when harmonica soloists played now forgotten pieces like train imitations and set pieces like Lost John, Fox Chase, Mama Blues and other call-and-response pieces. Küstner recalled, “With Sam, it was like going back in time. When you went into his living room, he had pictures of Franklin D Roosevelt up there. It was like the 1930s.”

Although he never recorded commercially, Arzo Youngblood was recorded by field researchers David Evans with tracks on several now out-of-print LP’s. He was one of a number of musicians directly influenced by the legendary Tommy Johnson.

Living Country Blues USA Revisited – Part 1

Living Country Blues USA Revisited – Part 2

In part one we discussed the some of the superb East Coast musicians Axel Küstner and Siegfried Christmann recorded while this time out we travel with the duo down to Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. It was Mississippi that occupied most of their time and form a good chunk of the recordings. Mississippi, particularly the Delta has been subjected to immense scrutiny among researchers and with good reason; in the 1920’s and 30’s men like Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Skip James and Son House recorded some of the greatest blues records ever made and it was the breeding ground for those who became famous up North like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James and countless others. Yet some have said that the region has attracted too much attention among researchers, leaving other areas like the East Coast too sparsely documented. While this is certainly true there’s no denying that Mississippi was an immensely fertile region for the blues and remained so when Küstner and Christmann set up shop in 1980 over the course of eleven days.

Son Thomas

Among the finest bluesman they came across in Mississippi was James “Son” Thomas “discovered” in 1968 by William Ferris who wrote about him in his influential book Blues From The Delta. By 1980 Thomas was a regular on the festival circuit but had recorded little, just a handful of sides scattered on obscure anthologies. After 1980 he toured Europe, recorded prolifically, including several very strong albums but never did he sound better then the recordings he made for Küstner and Christmann. Thomas plays brooding, darkly hued delta blues with a tightly wound, controlled intensity. Thomas’ fourteen tracks, scattered over several volumes, are all traditional but he gives them a thoroughly invigorating, individual reading; thus he shakes the dust off material like “Bull Cow Blues”, “Rock Me Mama”, “Big Fat Mama”, “61 Highway Blues” laying these numbers down with a throbbing intensity, underpinned by his steady guitar rhythm and dramatic vocal delivery that often dips into a riveting falsetto. By far his most memorable performance is the six minute plus “Catfish Blues”, a hypnotic and downright dirty version of this delta standard. Also fascinating are several numbers Thomas performs with his running buddy Cleveland “Brooman” Jones who would pull a few handfuls of dirt out of his pocket, flip over the broom handle and scrape the floor to produce a bass sound that somehow perfectly meshed with Thomas’ music.

A true anomaly was 25 year old Lonnie Pitchford, the youngest musician recorded who played the most ancient of instruments, the one string diddley bow which he amplified and picked like a guitar. These were Pitchford’s first recordings and he truly sounds like no one else; the music is mesmerizing and hypnotic as he transforms chestnuts like “Boogie Chillen”, “My Babe” and a slashing “Shake Your Money Maker.” Pitchford was still evolving as an artist when AIDS claimed him at the age of 43. Thankfully due to the exposure from this series he was recorded extensively on anthologies and issued a lone album, the terrific All Around Man, for Rooster in 1994.

Lonnie Pitchford

The fact is that the bulk of these artists were older, the remaining holdouts of a fading tradition and the music often sounds like it was trapped in amber, virtually unchanged from the blues of fifty years ago. Certainly that’s the case with musicians such as Walter Brown, Joe Savage and Boyd Rivers. Brown and Savage bring alive the era of the field and levee camp hollers that could once be heard ringing all over the south and in later years primarily survived in prisons as documented by the Lomax’s, Harry Oster and Bruce Jackson. Both Brown and Savage lived hard lives and both men spent time in the notorious Parchman Farm. In fact John Lomax interviewed and recorded Joe Savage in Parchman in the 1940’s 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 the harrowing “Joe’s Prison Camp Holler.” Küstner noted that “recording Walter Brown was one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. …I had the feeling he was just waiting for somebody to come around so that he could express himself and let his music come out.” His “Mississippi Moan” is a bone chilling account of what it’s like to be black in Mississippi where “The place, the town where time done come to civilization and they still call you a nigger.” His “Levee Camp Holler”, sung from experience, is equally arresting as is Savage’s unique spin on “Mean Ol’ Frisco.” The blues is so often romanticized but there’s nothing romantic about the lives of men like Brown, Savage and many of the others on this collection who have led unbearably tough lives under crushing poverty and persistent racism. “I actually thought he was the best and gave the most powerful performances of any that were recorded” Küstner said of Boyd Rivers. A one time bluesman, Rivers plays with unbridled passion, singing in a powerful, raspy voice coupled with hard edged Mississippi guitar attack. His nine selections are startling in there intensity which were his first and unfortunately only recordings.

Among the other notable musicians recorded in Mississippi the most famous was Sam Chatmon who was 81 at the time of these recordings and still in fine form. There are several fine performers one wishes had been recorded more including the excellent Stonewall Mays who’s two song are his sole legacy and Joe Cooper who was Son Thomas’ Uncle and very fine performer in his own right.

Sam “Stretch” Shields

The recordings made in Tennessee and Arkansas are less consistent although there are some very rewarding performances, chiefly from CeDell Davis and Sam “Stretch” Shields. “CeDell “Big G” Davis”,  Küstner wrote, “is probably the most amazing musician I have ever met. At the age of 10 he contracted polio and the disease left him without the full use of his hands. His fingers are crippled, but however, he manages to strum the guitar with his left hand, and chords and slides across the strings with an ordinary table knife that he put in his right hand. The resulting sound, coupled with his roaring voice, makes him a highly individual Blues artist.” Davis’ rough juke joint blues is perfectly encapsulated on numbers like “I Don’t Know Why” and a cover of Tampa Red’s “Let Me Play With Your Poodle.” Sam “Stretch” Shields’ harmonica style harks back to the pre-amplified era when harmonica soloists played now forgotten pieces like train imitations and set pieces like Lost John, Fox Chase, Mama Blues and other call-and-response pieces. Küstner recalled “With Sam, it was like going back in time. When you went into his living room, he had pictures of Franklin D Roosevelt up there. It was like the 1930s.” His unaccompanied renditions of “Bluebird Blues”, “Mellow Peaches” and the “The Hounds” are enthralling. Of the other performers from the region it sounds like Hammie Nixon has seen better days, pianist Memphis Piano Red is in good form although his piano is badly out of tune while Lottie Murrell delivers some powerful slashing slide guitar but is fairly well inebriated.  I would have liked to hear more from the superb Charlie Sangster who’s two numbers reveal a bluesman of very high order, very much in the classic Brownsville, Tennessee tradition of Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon.

Fans and collectors of early country and traditional blues will find hours of rewarding listening within the fourteen volumes that comprise Living Country Blues USA. Through the 1970’s country blues was still going strong in rural southern communities even if interest was low commercially. Thankfully a handful intrepid researchers stepped into the breach to record a music and culture that was virtually vanishing before their eyes.  As for complaints, well I do wish that some unreleased material was included which seems to me like a real missed opportunity. In addition while the original liner notes are included it would be nice to have some follow-up information regarding what became of these the artists after these recordings.

Son Thomas – Catfish Blues (MP3)

Boyd Rivers – You Got To Move (MP3)

Lonnie Pitchford – My Babe (MP3)

Walter Brown – Levee Camp Holler (MP3)

Joe Savage – Mean Ol’ Frisco (MP3)

Stonewall Mays – Jazz Boogie Woogie (MP3)

CeDell Davis – I Don’t Know Why (MP3)

Lottie Murrell – Spoonful (MP3)

Joe Cooper – She Run Me Out On The Road (MP3)

Charlie Sangster & Hammie Nixon – Moanin The Blues (MP3)

I’ve written quite a bit about blues field recordings and play them often on my radio program so it’s an understatement to say that I was excited to hear that the Living Country Blues USA series was being issued on CD in its entirety (unfortunately there are no additional tracks). These remarkable recordings were issued across 12 LP’s (one double set) on the German L+R label between 1980 and 1981. Considering the title it’s ironic that these recordings weren’t issued domestically until 1999 when the Evidence Records distilled the project down to a 3-CD “greatest hits” package, simply titled Living Country Blues – An Anthology. At the time of this release I have to admit I was only vaguely aware of the original series – in my defense I was only 12 at the time the L+R albums came out, a precocious 12 year old but certainly not listening to country blues! – but what I heard on the Evidence set floored me. In classic collector mentality I set out to track down the original L+R records which wasn’t that easy and turned out to be an expensive proposition. I never did get all the albums but thankfully now that they have been reissued on CD I was finally able  to complete the set. On November 9th I’ll be devoting the entire show to these recordings with a sequel undoubtedly in the future.

In 1980 two young German blues enthusiasts, Axel Küstner and Siegfried Christmann, came to America with the idea to document the remaining country blues tradition. With their station wagon and portable recording equipment they hit the dusty road spending a couple of months documenting blues, gospel, field hollers and work songs throughout the South. As the notes proclaim: “Traveling 10,000 miles by car in 2 1/2 months, they used 180,000 feet of tape and took hundreds of photographs to document various aspects of Country Blues, as well as work songs, fife and drum band music, field hollers and rural Gospel music, performed by 35 artists, some of whom appear on record for the first time.” The prep work for the project was done in 1978 when Küstner came over alone for a six month survey of the blues scene and made some final arrangements in June 1980 before hooking up with Christmann three months later. If this project reminds you of the recording trips of John and Alan Lomax, that’s exactly what the duo had in mind. Where the Lomax’s had the Library of Congress to back them, Küstner and Christmann had the backing of Horst Lippman who had just started the L+R label with Fritz Rau (the same duo who were responsible for the American Folk Blues Festivals). The project was called Living Country Blues as Alligator had just issued their acclaimed Living Chicago Blues series. As for the sound quality, don’t let the field recording aspect scare you, the sound is exceptional, recorded with a ten-channel mixer and reel-to reel tape.

If you think about it,  it was a bold undertaking to embark on a trip like this in 1980 when one would imagine the country blues had largely died out as a vibrant part of rural black communities. After all George Mitchell and Pete Lowry, two of the most active field recorders, had called it quits by 1980, while others like David Evans, Kip Lornell, Gianni Marcucci and Enzo Castello, Bengt Olsson and Bruce Bastin had largely stopped going in the field after the 1970’s. To be sure there were plenty of fine unheralded country blues players who were still active. Among the great finds of the late 1960’s and 70’s, and subsequently recorded, were men like Mance Lipscomb, Robert Pete Williams, Fred McDowell, Roosevelt Holts, Jack Owens, R.L. Burnside, James “Son” Thomas, Lum Guffin, Frank Hovington, Cecil Barfield, Marvin and Turner Foddrell, Peg Leg Sam, Henry Johnson, not to mention those still active who had recorded in the 1920’s and 30’s like Sam Chatmon, Buddy Moss, Joe Callicott, Furry Lewis, Bukka White, Hammie Nixon and others. George Mitchell wrote that “As late as 1969 a country bluesman who at least occasionally played could be located in most small towns of Georgia. In 1976, there are very few active blues musicians left in the state! In the short span of seven years, one of the worlds most vital and influential forms of music as it was originally performed has all but died out in Georgia, and probably in the rest of the South as well. Most bluesmen have either died or fallen into ill health accompanying old age, and the younger generation of rural blacks long ago turned their backs on the blues.”  It was also, he noted, the Church who claimed many bluesmen as well as the lack of financial incentive to play the blues that was the musics’ death knell. Still Mitchell, Lowry and Lornell were recording many talented artists through the end of the 1970’s and into the early 1980’s. Seen from an historical perspective, Küstner and Christman’s trip was one of the last great large-scale recording trips to survey southern blues and gospel, and the sad fact is that most of these performers have since passed on. Recordings of this type have been spotty and uneven since the 1980’s; some mostly lackluster recordings issued on the the three volume Wolf series Giants of Country Blues (spanning 1967 through 1991), some good records on Fat Possum by R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Robert Belfour, Asie Payton and Cedell Davis in the 1990’s, the surprisingly prolific, if uneven, Music Maker label and most recently some strong records on the Broke and Hungry label. As for another large-scale survey of southern blues, I’m afraid those days have long passed which makes Living Country Blues all the more valuable.

Guitar Slim

From October 1st through November 30th the duo rolled through Washington, DC, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, New Orleans and of course Mississippi. While they recorded some extraordinary music in Mississippi a good chunk of the performances spotlight the rich East Coast tradition or Piedmont style, explored in-depth in the 70’s by Lowry, Bastin and Lornell. Among the most striking in this vein are Guitar Frank (Frank Hovington), Guitar Slim (James Stephens) and Archie Edwards. Bastin called Guitar Frank “one of the finest singers to have been recorded during the 1970’s…steeped in a tradition which is as much part of him as is the countryside about him.” Bastin and Dick Spotswood recorded Frank in 1975, issuing the album Lonesome Road Blues on the Flyright label (reissued in 2000 as Gone With The Wind with several additional tracks). Frank was still in fine form when he reluctantly agreed to perform (he was afraid of losing his social security checks), putting his stamp on traditional material like “Railroad Bill”, “Key To The Highway”, fine instrumentals like the gently rolling “90 Goin’ North”, “Chimney Hill Breakdown” and a magnificent version of “Lonesome Road Blues” feature a gorgeous vocal. Guitar Slim hailed from Greensboro, North Carolina but his music falls stylistically between the East Coast style and and the more intense Mississippi approach. He recorded Greensboro Rounder for Flyright in the 1970’s but good luck finding a copy. He was accomplished on six and twelve string and a fine piano player to boot. His loose barrelhouse piano is heard to fine effect on “Lovin’ Blues” and “Lula’s Back In Town” while his lovely singing is heard best on introspective numbers like “Won’t You Spread Some Flowers On My Grave” and an achingly seductive cover of Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen.” Sadly he never recorded again. More strongly rooted in the East Coast tradition is Archie Edwards who made his debut with these recordings. Volume six in the series, The Road Is Rough and Rocky, is entirely devoted to this this talented guitarist with a wide repertoire. “Bear Cat Mama Blues”, one of his best numbers, is on the 2-CD introduction, a cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Balky Mule Blues.” His original, the raggy, fast paced “The Road Is Rough And Rocky”, is in classic Piedmont style as is the beautiful “Do Lord Remember Me”, apparently the last song Edwards listened to before he passed in 1998.

Archie Edwards

Edwards was based in Washington, D.C. which boasted a number of exceptional players including John Cephas, Phil Wiggins and Flora Molton. The first volume of the series is devoted to the music of Cephas and Wiggins and were the first commercial recordings of the duo (Cephas had appeared on records by Henry Johnson and Big Chief Ellis and both men were recorded extensively by Pete Lowry but those recordings were never issued). The duo has made dozens of records and currently signed to Alligator records but they rarely sounded better then they do here rolling through classic East Coast material like “Goin Down The Road Feelin Bad”, “Chicken Don’t Roost Too High For Me” and “Richmond Blues.” The seamlessly meshed playing of Cephas’ complex, ragtime guitar and Wiggins’ harp are strongly in the tradition of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. Flora Molton has played her “Spiritual and Truth Music”, as she called it, on the streets of Washington since the 1940’s eventually benefiting from the blues revival with a steady stream of festival and coffeehouse gigs. Molton gave up the blues after she got sanctified but there’s strong blues component to her music which follows in the tradition of guitar evangelists such as Edward Clayborn, Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Gary Davis. Molton plays serviceable slide as she delivers her declamatory vocals backed by a variety of musicians called The Truth Band.  Volume three focuses entirely on her talents with two numbers on the introductory set including the magnificent “The Titanic”, variations of which have long been a gospel staple as a testimony to man’s hubris. The music is utterly captivating as Molten sings with with the unflagging devotion of a true believer. Outside of a self-produced 45 these are her first recordings.

Guitar Frank – Lonesome Road Blues (MP3)

Guitar Frank – Railroad Bill (MP3)

Guitar Slim – Come On In My Kitchen (MP3)

Guitar Slim – Lulu’s Back In Town (MP3)

Archie Edwards – Bear Cat Mama Blues (MP3)

Archie Edwards – My Road Is Rough And Rocky (MP3)

Cephas & Wiggins – I Ain’t Got No Lovin Baby Now (MP3)

Cephas & Wiggins – Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad (MP3)

Flora Molton – The Titanic (MP3)

Flora Molton – Vacation In Heaven (MP3)