Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Today’s program spotlights the New York based Sittin’ In With label which, despite its short life, issued some terrific blues recordings. The label was founded by Morty and Bob Shad in New York City in 1948. The label specialized in Southern blues and R&B, which was a departure from most Eastern labels up to that time. In fact a quite a number of the label’s artists were based out of Houston. Competition among independent record labels in Houston was intense with local labels like  Macy’s, Freedom, and Peacock all vying for talent. As for Shad’s connection to Houston, author Roger Wood related the following to me: “As for Bob Shad, all I know (mainly from the late Teddy Reynolds) is that he came to Houston and recorded a bunch of folks over the course of about a year or so, then disappeared.  Teddy said that he rented an old house in one of the wards and used it to audition (and sometimes recorded there) the talent he discovered.”

More information on Shad’s activities can be gleaned in an interview he did with author Arnold Shaw in his seminal Honkers And Shouters: “Started my own label after I left National; it was called Sittin’ In With. And I did all the early Charlie Venturas, Stan Getz, Wardell Gray. It was strictly jazz at the beginning-Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Stewart, Benny Green. But ther was no money in jazz. Used to sell seven to eight thousand. That’s when the blues thing hit me and I bought a Magnecord, which was probably the first portable tape recorder. Went down South and did a lot of recording with Peppermint Harris, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Smokey Hogg. Recorded in Texas, mostly Houston. But I did some up in Tyler; also Shreveport, Louisiana. The big problem with on-location recording was finding a piano that was in tune. I would go to the black quarter of town and ask the disk jockeys. I would tie up one musician and find a blue singer. One bluesman would tell you about another-it’s a whole family-everybody sings blues. I did Curley Weaver, Big bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, Mel Walker with the Johnny Otis Band, Little Esther.”

Bob Shad was an outstanding jazz producer, but also supervised several major blues, pop, rock and R&B dates. Shad started his production career with Savoy in the ’40s, producing jazz sessions for Charlie Parker and blues and R&B albums for National. The labels earliest recordings were primarily jazz, featuring artists such as Chu Berry, Charlie Ventura and Stan Getz before cutting a blues recording by Brownie McGhee. After that release the label’s catalog mixed blues, vocal group  and jazz before blues became the label’s dominant sound. Soon Shad was issuing records by Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Smokey Hogg, Peppermint Harris, Bob Gaddy,  Curley Weaver, Elmore Nixon, Teddy Reynolds, James Wayne and Arbee Stidham among others. In 1951 Shad sold the label to Mercury although it appears releases on Sittin’ In With were released through 1953. Jade and Jax were subsidiary labels operated by Shad during the course of  Sittin’ In With. After Sittin’ In folded, Morty Shad continued the Jax label and later formed the Harlem label in 1953. Bob Shad went to Mercury Records in 1951 and in the spring of 1953 joined Decca. When Shad left Mercury in the 1960’s he founded Mainstream Records which, in addition to new material, recycled some of the Sittin’ In With recordings. Today’s program runs roughly chronologically and below you’ll find some background on today’s featured artists.

Leroy Dallas was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1920 and moved to Memphis in 1924. Along his travels he played washboard behind Brownie McGhee and formed a band with James McMillan playing the streets and juke joints of Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee. McMillan taught Dallas guitar and the two went on to tour the southern states working with  Frank Edwards who made recordings in1949 and Georgia Slim  who made records in 1937. By 1943 Dallas settled in Brooklyn New York. He made his first records for Sittin’ In With in 1949 consisting of six songs. He was accompanied by Brownie McGhee who was instrumental in setting up the session. Dallas was rediscovered by blues researcher Pete Welding and made a few recordings in the 60’s. Dallas gives a moving performance on “I’m Down Now But I Won’t Be Down Always” an picks up the pace on the rocking boogie “I’m Going Away.”

The two songs by Lil’ Son Jackson, “Gambling Blues b/w Homeless Blues”,  were issued on Sittin’ In With but originally came out on Houston’s Gold Star label. In 1948 Jackson became one of many blues singers to record for Gold Star. In 1946, Jackson shipped off a demo to Bill Quinn, who owned Houston based Gold Star Records. Jackson scored a national R&B hit, “Freedom Train Blues,” in 1948. It would prove Jackson’s only national hit, although his 1950-1954 output for Imperial Records must have sold consistently, judging from how many sides the L.A. firm issued.

Smokey Hogg was a down-home bluesman who scored a pair of major R&B hits in 1948 and 1950 (“Long Tall Mama” and “Little School Girl”) and cut prolifically for a slew of labels including Exclusive, Modern, Bullet, Macy’s, Sittin’ in With, Imperial, Mercury, Specialty, Fidelity, Combo, Federal, and Showtime). Smokey’s cousin John Hogg also played the blues, waxing six sides in 1951.

According to David Evans: “Around the end of 1949, or more likely early in 1950, Curley Weaver recorded four songs for the Sittin’ In With label. It’s not certain whether there were one or two sessions and whether the recordings were made in Atlanta or New York. Two tracks were not released until 1952 and may actually have been recorded that year.”  Weaver and McTell also cut a batch of records made in Atlanta for Regal Records in May 1950.

After first moving to Houston in 1943, Peppermint Harris started to play blues professionally in 1947, at such venues as the Eldorado Ballroom. It was his friend Lightnin’ Hopkins who go him the opportunity to record for Gold Star circa 1947/48. A subsequent session in 1949 or 1950 for the Sittin’ In With label produced his, and the label’s, first hit record, the song “Rainin’ in My Heart” which is one of two numbers featured today. He cut some two-dozen sides for the label. He went on to record for over a dozen labels through the 60′s including Aladdin, Money, Dart, Duke, and Jewel.

Teddy Reynolds, blues pianist, songwriter, and singer, was born in Houston on July 12, 1931. Reynolds recorded numerous tracks but is most famous among blues aficionados for his studio work and touring with some of the top Texas-based artists of his generation, including Bobby Bland, Texas Johnny Brown, Johnny Copeland, Grady Gaines, Clarence Green, Peppermint Harris, Joe “Guitar” Hughes, B. B. King, and Phillip Walker. In 1950 he cut ten tracks for the Sittin’ In With label including our selection, the moody “Right Will Always Win.”

Among T-Bone’s legion of disciples was Houston’s Goree Carter, whose big break came when he signed to Houston’s Freedom Records circa 1949. For his first couple of side he was billed as “Little T-Bone.” Freedom issued plenty of Carter records over the next few years, and he later recorded for Imperial/Bayou, Sittin’ in With, Coral, Jade, and Modern without denting the national charts. From his handful of cuts for Sittin’ in With we spin the atmospheric instrumental  “Bull Corn Blues.”

Sittin’ recorded several Houston based artists but in one way or the other they all revolved around Lightnin’ Hopkins who cut a staggering number of sides for numerous labels as well as encouraging many artists, including several featured today. Hopkins cut some tw0-dozen sides for Sittin’ In With, and related labels Harlem and Jax, in 1951 with about half the sessions cut in New York and the others in Houston. Today’s featured Hopkins tracks include the poignant “You Caused My Heart To Weep” and one of Hopkins’ patented boogies, “New York Boogie” which gives our show its title. Shad had this say about Hopkins: “When we picked him up and talked a recording date, he wouldn’t sign a contract. He wouldn’t accept a royalty deal. He had to be paid in cash. Not only that, he had to be paid after each cut. …He didn’t know the lyrics from one song to another, but made them up as he went along …Whatever hit his mind, he sang and recorded.”

L.C. Williams was a singer/tap dancer who also occasionally drummed behind Hopkins. He arrived in Houston in 1945 and was one of the many characters who hung around in Lightning’s orbit, sitting on stoops drinking beer and wine, shooting the breeze with passers-by. He made his first record in 1947 with Hopkins on piano and guitar. Hopkins plays guitar on a four-song session for Gold Star in 1948 with Williams making some sides for Eddie’s and Freedom between 1948-1950 and four songs for Sittin’ In in 1951 featuring Hopkins on guitar. He died in Houston of TB in 1960. Williams and Hopkins deliver gripping, intense performances on “The Lazy J” and “Fannie Mae.”

James Waynes was credited with that name on his earliest recordings. Later it became James Wayne and from 1955 onwards, Wee Willie Wayne. He was discovered in Texas by Sittin’ In With boss Bob Shad. It was for this label that Wayne made his first recording (in Houston) and his only hit: “Tend To Your Business”, which reached # 2 on the Billboard R&B charts in 1951. Shad next recorded Waynes at the WGST studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Among the five songs recorded there was the all-time classic “Junco Partner”, which became a local hit and one of the two numbers we spotlight today. He was then signed by Imperial, who recorded him in New Orleans and the cut sides for Aladdin and Old Town and returned to Imperial in 1955 and recorded “Travelin’ Mood” and others in 1955. Both “Junco Partner” and “Travelin’ Mood” became standards in the repertoire of many New Orleans musicians, like Dr. John, Professor Longhair, James Booker and Snooks Eaglin. Further records appeared on the Peacock and Angletone labels, before he was signed by Imperial for a third time in 1961.

Elmore Nixon was a Houston pianist who was a sideman on labels such as Gold Star, Peacock, Mercury, Savoy and Imperial between 1949 and 1955. In the 1960’s he backed Lightnin’ Hopkins and Clifton Chenier on sessions. He also cut over two-dozen sides under his own name between 1949 and 1952 for labels like Sittin’ In With, Peacock, Mercury Savoy and Imperial.

Brownie McGhee & His Jook Block Busters featured Sonny Terry and Bob Gaddy, with the group cutting a dozen sides for the Jax label in 1952. As the Jook House Rockers (sans Sonny Terry) the group cut for Morty Shad’s Harlem label in 1954. Sonny Terry and His Buckshot 5, featuring Bob Gaddy and Brownie McGee, cut one 78 for the Harlem label in 1954. Brownie McGhee’s combo cut some potent R&B and we spin two sets worth of tunes including the good natured “A Letter To Lightnin’ Hopkins”, tough blues like “Pawnshop Blues”, a majestic “Key To The Highway” and the romping “Meet You In The Morning.” Sonny Terry’s “Dangerous Woman (with a .45 in her hand)” is every bit as tough as the title suggests.

There were quite a number of artists who cut just one or a handful of sides for the label. The most famous is Ray Charles who cut a couple of sides for Sittin’ In With in 1951 and would go on to much greater success a few years later with Atlantic. Then there was James “Widemouth” Brown, Gatemouth Brown’s brother, who cut one 78 for the Jax label 1952. Our cut, “Boogie Woogie Nighthawk”, is a swinging big band blues showing  Gate’s brother to be a fine singer and impressive guitarist. He died in 1971. Clarence Jolly was a fine blues shouter in the vain of Roy Brown who cut four sides for Sittin’ In With in 1951 and two for Cobra in 1957. Several artists cut just a lone 78 for the label including several superb down home bluesmen like Johnny Beck who cut one 78 in 1949 in Houston, Jesse James who cut one 78 for the label in1950 and one for Down Town in 1948, The Sugarman who cut one 78 for the label in 1951 and Sam “Suitcase” Johnson cut a lone 78 for the label, the bouncy “Sam’s Boogie” , in 1951.

Show Notes:

Blues & Rhythm Magazine Cover Number 34

I received the sad news of the passing of Larry Dale who died on May 19th. Outside of die hard collectors, who hold Dale’s recordings in high esteem, he never broke out to a large audience despite cutting some potent blues and R&B sides under his own name and some knockout session guitar backing artists like Mickey Baker, Champion Jack Dupree, Bob Gaddy, Paul Williams and Cootie Williams. I became an immediate fan of Dale’s after grabbing a copy Still Groove Jumping! from my favorite record store, Finyl Vinyl on New York’s Second Ave., an anthology of sides cut for the Groove label including a trio of gritty blues by Dale. It was also about this time that I was a regular reader of  the British Juke Blues magazine when they published an article entitled Larry Dale: The New York Houserocker (Juke Blues # 9, 1987 – read below). To my surprise I found out that Dale and I both lived in the Bronx but unfortunately I never got a chance to see him perform. Over the years I’ve picked up just about all of Dale’s recordings and today we pay tribute to Dale and his New York friends who’s records he played on.

New York City has never had a big reputation as a blues town, compared to Chicago and L.A. It did however have a very lively postwar R&B scene. The R&B scene had its peak between 1945 and 1960 and has always been closely associated with the local jazz scene. There were nationally important clubs like the Apollo and Savoy and numerous other spots for live entertainment.  The recording scene was dominated by a group of small but enterprising independent companies like: Apollo, DeLuxe, Fire/Fury, Herald, Baton, Joe Davis, Old Town and in particular, Atlantic and Savoy. There was also out of town companies that recorded local talent like Federal and RCA’s Groove and Vik subsidiaries. Literally hundreds and hundreds of R&B recordings were made, aimed at the black market with occasional cross over success

Born in Texas, Dale had moved to New York City in 1949 and quickly fell into the local blues scene as he explained: ”It’s kinda funny how I learned to play the guitar. Brownie McGhee would let me come up on his bandstand and sit in the back and playing all kind of bad notes until I learned where the changes were. And then I got so where I could play pretty good. And I could always sing good, If I could sing and leave the guitar alone I was good, but if I tried to play the guitar …Bobby Schiffman told me ‘You just sing, leave the guitar alone. you’11 make it’. But he didn’t know I was determined to learn the guitar. So I bought B.B King records, people that played guitars; and I learned how to play. Then Mickey Baker he taught me a lot. …Well before then Mickey taught me a lot about guitar. And then it’s a funny thing, after Mickey taught me then I had to teach him how to play the blues!”

Larry Dale’s House Rockers: Matt Gray, sax; Larry Dale, guitar; Bob Gaddy, piano; poss Gene Brooks, drums.

Dale made his start with Paul “Hucklebuck” Williams’ band in the early 50’s and plays on one four song session cut in 1952 for Jax, taking the vocals on  ”Shame, Shame, Shame” and “The Woman I Love Is Dying.” These records can be found on Blue Moon’s Paul Williams Vol. 3 1952-1956.  Saxophonist and bandleader Paul Williams scored one of the first big hits of the R&B era in 1949 with “The Hucklebuck which topped the R&B charts for 14 weeks and was one of three Top 10 and five other Top 20 R&B instrumental hits that Williams scored for Savoy in 1948 and 1949. He was later part of Atlantic Records’ house band in the ’60s and directed the Lloyd Price and James Brown orchestras until 1964.

Both as a session man and featured recording artist, pianist Bob Gaddy made his presence known on the New York blues scene during the 1950′s. Dale had high praise for Gaddy: “Bob Gaddy as a musician? Well, he kept me in the business I would say, he was that good …Bob was one of the best nightclub entertainers I ever worked with.” Gaddy was drafted in 1943, and that’s when he began to take the piano seriously. He picked up a little performing experience in California clubs while stationed on the West Coast before arriving in New York in 1946. Gaddy gigged with Brownie McGhee and guitarist Larry Dale around town, McGhee often playing on Gaddy’s waxings for Jackson (his 1952 debut, “Bicycle Boogie”), Jax, Dot, Harlem, and from 1955 on, Hy Weiss’ Old Town label. There Gaddy stayed the longest, waxing the fine “I Love My Baby,” “Paper Lady,” “Rip and Run,” and quite a few more into 1960. Both Gaddy and Dale remained active on the New York scene for decades after. Dale is featured on many Gaddy recordings including four sides for Jax and Harlem in 1952, for Dot in 1954, for Harlem in 1955 and for Old Town between 1956 and 1958. Dale’s Old Town sides can be found on several Ace collections including Bob Gaddy: Harlem Blues Operator, Old Town Blues Vol. 2 – The Uptown Sides and Harlem Hit Parade: Old Town Blues Vol. 2.

Dale is also the vocalist on the rousing “I’m Tired” b/w ”Where Is My Honey” by Big Red McHouston (alias Mickey Baker) on Groove. In 1954 he had the first release under his own name. A session for RCA’s Groove subsidiary on June 21, 1954, produced four tracks, including the menacing  ”You Better Heed My Warning”, which came out on Groove b/w “Please Tell Me”. The two other songs from this fruitful session, “Down To the Bottom” and “Midnight Hours”, were originally unissued. Also from this session is “I’m Tired” and “Stranger Blues” also featuring Baker. These tracks can be found on the Bear Family CD Mickey Baker: Rock With A Sock. In the early and mid-’50s, Baker did countless sessions for Atlantic, King, RCA, Decca, and OKeh, playing on such classics as the Drifters’ “Money Honey” and “Such a Night,” Joe Turner’s “Shake Rattle & Roll,” Ruth Brown’s “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean,” and Big Maybelle’s “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On.” He also released a few singles under his own name. Baker was also recorded as half of the duo Mickey & Sylvia.

His next vocal session was for Herald in 1955, yielding one single release, again backed by Baker. The next year rock ‘n’ roll exploded on the music scene and inevitably, Dale tried his hand at the genre, with “Rock ‘n’ Roll Baby” b/w “Hoppin’ and Skippin’for Ember. For the next four years, Dale worked the New York club circuit with his lifelong friend, pianist Bob Gaddy and was much in demand as a session player. Particularly impressive is his playing on Champion Jack Dupree’s recordings from this period, especially the Atlantic LP Blues From the Gutter. Blues From The Gutter, cut for Atlantic in 1958 (in stereo), is Dupree’s finest album of his  prolific career and Dale’s playing is brilliant. His playing on that album supposedly inspired Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Dale also backed Dupree on over a dozen excellent sides in 1956 and 1957 for the Vik and Groove labels. These sides have been collected on the excellent album Shake Baby Shake.

Also in 1957 Dale also did several sessions with Cootie Williams for RCA, where he was given an occasional chance to sing. As Dale recalled: “One night we were playing at the Sportsman’s Lounge and Cootie Williams came in and he was in the audience, I didn’t know he was there. So Cootie dug what we was doing. The next day he called me, ‘I was up to listen to you last night’. I said, ‘Oh yeah, who is this’. He said, ‘Cootie Williams. I wonder if you want to  come with my band?’. l said, ‘No I don’t think so, l got my own band, my name’s up top’ (laughs) but started to think about it,  Cootie’s big. Maybe we can get some recordings. Maybe I can get a name out there. …So. I stayed with Cootie about three years. 1956, ’57 and early ’58.” As a member of the Cootie Williams Orchestra he traveled all over the U.S. and Europe. Cootie Williams was one of the finest trumpeters of the 1930′s. He played for a short time with the orchestras of Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson before joining Duke Ellington in February 1929, staying until 1940. He would rejoin Ellington from 1962 through 1974, but led his own bands prior to that.

In 1960, Dale did another vocal session, for the Old Town subsidiary Glover in New York City, resulting in two fine singles, “Big Muddy” and “Let the Door Bell Ring” which hit the R&B charts. The next year he was signed by Atlantic, but of the five tracks recorded in November 1961, only “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” b/w “Keep Getting Up” was issued. Singles on Ram (1968) and Fire (1969) rounded out Dale’s recording career as a vocalist. None of his recordings charted nationally, but Dale continued to perform for several decades and garnered a strong fan base in Europe, performing at Blues Estafette in 1987 .Dale’s final recordings included a 45 issued by the Juke Blues magazine in 1987 and a few live sides backed by the European blues combo,the Mojo Blues Band, recorded in 1993.

“Larry Dale: The New York Houserocker“ (Juke Blues # 9, 1987 by John Broven) (zip)

Show Notes:

An varied set of blues on today’s program including some notable female singers,  several fine piano players and some fascinating field recordings. We spin two today tracks by the great Sippie Wallace that were cut almost forty years apart. From 1929 we play Sippie’s magnificent, swaggering “I’m A Mighty Tight Woman” featuring Johnny Dodds on clarinet which outshines her original version cut three years prior.  We jump ahead to 1966 for “Woman Be Wise” from the album of the same name. These recordings are recorded on tour in Denmark with Little Brother Montgomery and if anything Sippie sounds stronger than she does on her earlier recordings. Wallace was born and raised in Houston and as a child  sang and played piano in church. Before she was in her teens, she began performing with her pianist brother Hersal Thomas. By the time she was in her mid-teens, she had left Houston to pursue a musical career. In 1923, Sippie, Hersal, and their older brother George moved to Chicago. By the end of the year, she had secured a contract with OKeh Records. Her first two songs for the label, “Shorty George” and “Up the Country Blues,” were hits and Sippie soon became a star. Sippie’s recordings featured jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Eddie Heywood, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams; both Hersal and George Thomas performed on Sippie’s records as well. Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded over 40 songs for OKeh. She stopped performing in the 30’s and outside of a couple of sides in 1945 didn’t return to performing until the 60’s. She continued to perform and record until shortly before her death in 1986.

Among the featured piano blues today is a terrific solo version of  “Up the Country Blues” by Little Brother Montgomery. This recording comes from the album The Piano Blues – Unissued Recordings Vol. 1 on Magpie, a collection of recordings made in 1960 in England. Other pianists spotlighted include Leroy Carr, Peetie Wheatstraw, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Detroit Count, Cleo Brown and Dan Burley. Carr’s “I Ain’t Got No Money Now” cut in 1934 is a beautifully sung depression era gem set to the template of “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out.” Peetie Wheatstraw is exuberant on the rocking “Shack Bully Stomp”  from 1938 backed by Lonnie Johnson. Sung by red Nelson, “Crying Mother Blues”, is a moving, poetic number underpinned by the rolling boogie piano of Cripple Clarence Lofton:

Dear mother’s dead and gone to glory, my old dad gone straight away (2x)
Only way to meet my mother, I will have to change my lowdown ways

Tombstones my pillow, graveyard gonna be my bed (2x)
Blue skies gonna be my blanket and the pale moon gonna be my spread

We jump ahead to the late 1940′s for tracks by the Detroit Count, Cleo Brown and Dan Burley. African-Americans began arriving in droves in Detroit by the 1920’s, most settling in an area called Black Bottom, later named Paradise Valley. Some of the earliest blues took place in the bars, brothels and house parties in Paradise Valley. One who played in those joints was the Detroit Count,the stage name of pianist Bob White who arrived in Detroit in 1938. He made his name with his 1948 song “Hastings Street Opera” a humorous description of the people and places of the famous street. He cut a total of six songs in 1948 plus a pair of unissued sides for King. our selection, “Detroit Boogie”, is a storming update of the classic “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie.” Dan Burley was a strong pianist who cut his teeth in the Chicago rent parties and barrelhouses, a sound reflected in 1946′s ” Fishtail Blues” back by Brownie and Sticks McGhee. Cleo Brown, made recordings in the ’30s and ’40s, then entered the studios once again in the late ’80s after being rediscovered living in Colorado. Following the family move to Chicago in 1919, she began formal studies music on piano. By the early ’20s, she was working professionally in clubs and tent shows as well as broadcasting live with her own regular radio show. By the early ’30s, she was well-established and for the next two decades she worked almost non-stop, performing in cities across the United States and holding forth regularly in clubs such as New York’s Three Deuces. She recorded prolifically in 1935-36 for Decca and made further sessions in 1949, 50 and 51.

Among the field recordings played on today’s program are a trio of marvelous recordings made by Lawrence Gellert of unnamed/documented singers. According to Gellert’s notes some of these recordings were recorded in Greenville, South Carolina in 1924. It seems likely that these recordings are actually from the 30′s although according to eyewitnesses Gellert was indeed recording in South Carolina in 1924. Other recordings hail from Atlanta, Georgia and date from 1928 through 1932. As one reviewer noted: “The most interesting thing about these two albums was the outspokenness of the songs against authority.” Gellert was accepted as an insider in the African American communities in which he worked and was able to record protest songs that eluded other collectors of the time.” “Boogie Lovin’” is the first of eight pieces apparently played by the same guitarist.  As Bruce Harrah-Conforth wrote in the notes to a collection of these recordings: “Through his collection we get a chance to examine blues as they were performed within the Black community, as influenced by, and as influence to the ‘race record’ industry. In all probability the people Gellert recorded never went on to become anything more than what they were, members of their community. As such, the music they made is really the folk blues: blues without the intervention of commercial urbanity.” There are many more recordings by Gellert that have yet to be issued. Some of these recordings appear on the Document collection Field Recordings, Vol. 9: Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky (1924-1939) (this includes all the recordings on the album Nobody Knows My Name issued on the Heritage label in 1984). Gellert’s initial release of these recordings was originally prepared for release on the Timely label titled Negro Songs of Protest but jackets were never printed and the only copies of the record which left Gellert’s apartment went to friends or to others who had heard about it by word of mouth; the total was about 40 discs. This material was issued on LP by Rounder in the 70′s with a follow-up album in the 80′s titled Cap’n You’re So Mean.

Other field recordings include some wonderful stringband music from Butch Cage and Willie B. Thomas recorded by Henry Oster in 1959, Blind Willie McTell performing “Delia” for Alan Lomax in 1940 in an Atlanta hotel room for John Lomax and Furry Lewis in fine form on “East St. Louis Blues” in 1968 from the album At Home In Memphis. We also hear the lone recording by Hayes McMullen who was interviewed and recorded by blues researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow. McMullen knew several of the early delta bluesman such as William Harris, Charlie Patton, Willie Brown and Ishman Bracey. We also hear from Lum Guffin who was first recorded in the 1970’s by Swedish researcher Bengt Olsson when he was 70 and again in 1980 by Axel Kunster for the Living Country Blues series. The LP Walking Victrola was his sole record, released on the Flyright label in 1973. Some of these recordings appear on the CD On The Road Again.

From the 1950′s we spin tracks by Larry Darnell and Wee Willie Wayne who both recorded in New Orleans. We spin Wayne’s wailing “Tend To Your Business”, his only hit which reached # 2 on the Billboard R&B charts in 1951.  In the mid-40′s Darnell settled in New Orleans, working in the Dew Drop Inn. One night in 1949 Darnell’s act was caught by Fred Mendelsohn, co-founder and A&R director for the Regal record label who was in town scouting for new talent. He later recalled: “Darnell was doing a song called ‘I’ll Get Along Somehow’ originally popularized by Andy Kirk. He added a recitation that sent the dames screaming and hollering.” Darnell was hired on the spot where three titles were cut in early September 1949. Presented in two parts, “I’ll Get Along Somehow” made it to number two on the Billboard R&B chart not long after “For You My Love” hit number one and scored a few other hits along the way. After Regal folded he bounced through labels like Okeh, Savoy, Deluxe Argo and others. He passed in 1984. Our selection, “Sundown”, is a great showcase for his powerful pipes featuring some excellent backing vocals. Also from the 1950′s are great tracks by Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker,  Helen Humes and B.B. King among others.

Also worth mention are recordings featuring Stovepipe No. 1.  Stovepipe No. 1 was Sam Jones who played harmonica, guitar and stovepipe. Possibly born in the 1880’s he  spent his life in Cincinnati. He cut a dozen sides in 1924, with several unissued, plus a few sides in 1927. He recorded as a one man band, with guitarist David Crockett and with the jug bands; King David’s Jug Band cut six sides in 1930 and most likely the Cincinnati Jug Band.

Show Notes:

Today’s show is a mix show, which includes a sort of sequel to last week’s program. Last week we featured classic albums with Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee which featured music and spoken commentary. For the first hour we play more interesting tracks from Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. Among those are Amsterdam Live Concerts 1953 a remarkable 2-CD set of Broonzy recordings that just surfaced a couple of years ago, selections from Blues In The Mississippi Night which feature music and candid commentary with Big Bill, Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson I plus live recordings of Sonny & Brownie playing with Lightnin’ Hopkins. The second hour of the show is a our standard mix show that we do on a regular basis.

There’s no shortage of live and studio recordings from Big Bill Broonzy’s European appearances during the 1950′s. The Amsterdam Live Concerts 1953 set is a dazzling addition to Broonzy’s discography, on technical as well as musical grounds. It not only captures him on two excellent nights of performance, but also, thanks to the technical expertise of Louis Van Gasteren, the sound engineer (and later a movie producer) who made the tapes, in amazing fidelity, equal to the best work of any record label. Broonzy toured Europe in 19521, 1955 and 1957. Broonzy had led the way to Europe for a generation of elder statesmen of the blues, and his performances were so well received that they paved the way for American bluesmen to follow his path across the Atlantic, to bigger, more enthusiastic audiences and better paying gigs than they’d ever known in their native United States. In what had to be his first taste of respect as a musician from a white audience, by most accounts Broonzy seemed to revel in the reception that he got, and the relatively free and open societies (compared with what existed in the United States at the time) that he encountered in Europe. He never lived long enough to play in any of the big folk festivals of the early 1960′s, so what we have to go on comes from these European performances. This concert was recorded across two nights and includes over 110 minutes of music and stories.

We also hear Broonzy in a very different setting six years earlier. Blues In The Mississippi Night is the story of the blues from the mouths of three legendary bluesmen – Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson I. Alan Lomax had visited the three bluesmen in Chicago and asked them to come perform in New York at Town Hall as part of his Midnight Special concert series. The day following that concert, March 2, 1947, he took them to Decca Studios, asked them to play a few songs and to discuss the blues. Lomax encouraged them to speak frankly about the racial climate. The result was so candid that Big Bill, Sonny Boy, and Memphis were given assumed names in the original liner notes to protect themselves and their families. The album was so controversial that its release was delayed 13 years, finally released by United Artists in 1959.

During the summer of 1960 Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee Big Joe Williams and Lightnin’ Hopkins all happened to be in L.A. World Pacific Records took advantage of this rare convergence and recorded them together, both in the studio and in performance at the Ash Grove. An album was duly issued; other tracks, reportedly from the same sessions, appeared on other labels. This material has been issued confusingly on several albums with different names. The best reissue of this material is the album Lightnin’ Hopkins & The Blues Summit that has been reissued on the Fuel 2000 label and we feature three tracks from that album.

In the second hour we play a wide mix of blues spanning 1928 to 1976.  We spin some fine Chicago blues from Little Johnny Jones, Muddy Waters and Joe Carter. Jones was a terrific piano player who worked extensively with Tampa Red, Elmore James and just about everyone else on the Chicago scene including Muddy Waters. Unfortunately he recorded little under his own name, never making it past his 40th birthday. Luckily Jones was caught on tape in 1963 working with Billy Boy Arnold in a Chicago folk club called the Fickle Pickle run by Michael Bloomfield. Norman Dayron recorded Johnny on portable equipment which has been released on the Alligator record titled Johnny Jones with Billy Boy Arnold. A couple of additional tracks from this recording appear on Chicago Blues – Live At The Fickle Pickle, a long out of print LP on the Flyright label. From that records we hear “Johnny’s Boogie.” Our Muddy Waters selection, “Little Brown Bird”, is one of four songs (“Black Angel” was not issued) from two 1962 sessions that features the great Earl Hooker.  Apparently the tracks were laid down and Waters vocal was dubbed later. We also play Hooker’s “Guitar Rag.”

We also spotlight some fine country blues including Texas artists Henry Thomas and the two from the obscure Gene Campbell. Not much is known about Texas songster Henry Thomas. Evidence suggests he was a musical hobo who rode the rails across Texas. Most agree he was the oldest African-American folk artist to produce a significant body of recordings having been born in 1874 .His music gives us a window into what the black music sounded like before it was actually labeled blues. The 23 songs he cut for Vocalion between 1927 and 1929 include a spiritual, ballads, reels, dance songs, and eight selections titled blues. He played on guitar and also played the quills or panpipes, a common but seldom-recorded African-American instrument. Campbell was an obscure artist, probably from Texas, who cut 24 sides for Brunswick at sessions in 1929, 1930 and 1931. Nothing else is know about him.

Other country blues on tap include fine field recordings of Willie Brown and  Cat Iron. Willie Brown was recorded by John and Alan Lomax at Sadie Beck’s Plantation in Arkansas. Lomax wrote the following in his book The Land Where The Blues Began: “Well, I ain’t got no voice, but I’ll give you the words of an old Memphis song.” William Brown began to sing in his sweet true country voice, poking in delicate passages at every pause, like the guitar was a second voice commenting with feeling on the ironic words of the blues….This was the real blues…. The blues in print give you the skeleton only. If you’ve never heard the blues, get yourself a record and listen and then come back and join us…. William Brown’s song can last until the morning….” In 1958, folklorist Frederic Ramsey, Jr. recorded someone named Cat-Iron in Buckner’s Alley in Natchez, Mississippi. Ramsey wrote a detailed poetic description of his discovery of Cat-Iron for The Saturday Review which offered no background on the artist. Cat-Iron’s sole testament is the album Cat-Iron Sings Blues and Hymns for the Folkways label.

Show Notes:

By now you’ve probably heard about the passing of oral historian, radio host and writer Studs Terkel just over a month ago. It’s a shame he didn’t hang on long enough to see Barack Obama win the presidency. Studs was a champion of the underdog, the “non-celebrated” and had plenty to say on racial issues. I don’t claim to be an expert on Studs and in fact feel a bit guilty that I didn’t read more by him. What I did know about Studs was his connection with the blues; in particular the two wonderful albums of interviews and music that were issued on the Folkways label: Big Bill Broonzy: His Story (1956) and Blues With Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee (1958). These were from Studs’ radio program, which he began In 1953 on WFMT, Chicago and ran until 1998. There was also another album with Pete Seeger, which I don’t own, called Studs Terkel’s Weekly Almanac: Radio Programme, No. 4: Folk Music and Blues. Oh, and like myself, Studs was born in the Bronx which is always a plus in my book. I won’t rehash Studs’ background as the internet is loaded with obituaries but I thought I would share the above-mentioned Folkways albums in their entirety.

Broonzy spent a good part of the early ’40s barnstorming the South with Lil Green’s road show or back in Chicago with Memphis Slim.He continued alternating stints in Chicago and New York with coast-to-coast road work until 1951. In 1951, Broonzy took his first tour of Europe, where he was met with enthusiasm and appreciation. His appearances in Europe introduced the blues to European audiences and were especially influential in London’s emerging skiffle and rock blues scene. Broonzy’s success also set the stage for later blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II and Muddy Waters to play European venues. Broonzy toured Europe again in 1955 and 1957. Back in the States he recorded for Chess, Columbia and Folkways, working with a spectrum of artists from Blind John Davis to Pete Seeger. In 1955, Big Bill Blues, his life as told to Danish writer Yannick Bruynoghe, was published. In 1957, after one more British tour, the pace began to catch up with Broonzy. He spent the last year of his life in and out of hospitals and succumbed to cancer in 1958.

Show Notes:

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. Fuller could play in multiple styles: slide, ragtime, pop, and blues were all enhanced by his National steel guitar. Fuller worked with some fine sidemen, including Gary Davis, Floyd Council, Sonny Jones, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and washboard player Bull City Red. Initially discovered and promoted by Carolina entrepreneur H. B. Long, Fuller recorded for ARC and Decca. He also served as a conduit to recording sessions, steering fellow blues musicians to the studio.

What follows is a sketch of Fuller and some background on today’s featured artists. For an in-depth look at Fuller and the Piedmont blues I recommend Bruce Bastin’s exhaustive study Red River Blues. Bastin was assisted greatly by the efforts of Pete Lowry who was featured on the program recently.

Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina to Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, and traditional songs and blues popular in poor, rural areas. He married Cora Allen young and worked as a laborer, but began to lose his eyesight in his mid-teens. By 1928 he was completely blind, and turned to whatever employment he could find as a singer and entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the records of blues players like Blind Blake and the “live” playing of Gary Davis, he became a formidable guitarist, and played on street corners and at house parties in Winston-Salem, Danville, and then Durham, North Carolina. In Durham, playing around the tobacco warehouses, he developed a local following which included guitarists Floyd Council and Richard Trice, as well as harmonica player Sonny Terry and washboard player/guitarist George Washington.  In 1935, Burlington record store manager and talent scout James Baxter Long secured him a recording session with the American Recording Company (ARC). Allen, Davis and Washington recorded several tracks in New York City, including the traditional “Rag, Mama, Rag”. To promote the material, Long decided to rename Allen as “Blind Boy Fuller”, and also named Washington “Bull City Red.” Over the next five years Fuller made over 120 sides. In April 1936, Fuller recorded ten solo performances, and also recorded with guitarist Floyd Council. The following year, having auditioning for J. Mayo Williams, he recorded for the Decca label, but then reverted to ARC. Later in 1937, he made his first recordings with Sonny Terry. In 1938 Fuller was imprisoned for shooting a pistol at his wife, wounding her in the leg, causing him to miss out on John Hammond’s “Spirituals to Swing” concert in NYC that year. While Fuller was eventually released, it was Sonny Terry who went in his stead, the beginning of a long “folk music” career.Fuller was criticized by some as a derivative musician, but his ability to fuse together elements of other traditional and contemporary songs and reformulate them into his own performances, attracted a broad audience. He was an expressive vocalist and a masterful guitar player; best remembered for his up-tempo ragtime hits including “Step It Up and Go.” At the same time he was capable of deeper material. Fuller died in 1941 at the age of 33, of blood poisoning that resulted in kidney failure, popularly ascribed to his heavy drinking.

Floyd Council was born on the 2nd of September 1911 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and began his career playing in the streets of Chapel Hill in the mid-‘20s with musical brothers Leo and Thomas Strowd. Floyd occasionally worked with Blind Boy Fuller in the ‘30s, which may have led to his first recording sessions. In late January 1937 ACR Records scout John Baxter Long heard him, playing alone on a street in Chapel Hill. It was Long who had first brought Fuller to NYC to record in July 1935. Long invited Floyd to join Fuller on his third trip to New York. Floyd agreed, and a week later the three traveled to the city. During his second visit to New York in December, Floyd was used as a second guitar only. His solo tracks were later issued under the name ‘Blind Boy Fuller’s buddy’. In all he cut six sides under his own name and seven backing Fuller. Floyd performed around Chapel Hill through the ‘40s and ‘50s, both with Thomas Strowd and on his own. In the late ‘60s, a stroke partially paralyzed his throat muscles and slowed his motor skills. Floyd moved to Sanford, North Carolina, where he died in June 1976. His final recordings, made in August 1970, did not, apparently, merit release.

Rev. gary Davis

Willie Trice and his brother Richard became close friends with Blind Boy Fuller and Fuller took them up to New York where they cut six sides together (two unissued) for Decca in 1937. Richard Trice recorded after the war for Savoy in 1946 as Little Boy Fuller as well as a couple of sides in 1948 and 1952/53. Richard Trice was later recorded by Pete Lowry but those recordings remain unreleased. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Willie Trice recorded again. Blue And Rag’d , his sole album, was released on Lowry’s Trix label in 1973.

Gary Davis was a major influence on Blind Boy Fuller. In the late 1920′s he was one of the most renowned practitioners of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar. He backed Fuller on second guitar at a 1935 session. Davis moved to Durham in the mid-’20s, by which time he was a full-time street musician. Davis went into the recording studio for the first time in the 1930′s with the backing of a local businessman. Davis cut a mixture of blues and spirituals for the American Record Company label, but there was never an agreement about payment for the recordings, and following these sessions, it was 19 years before he entered the studio again.

Sonny Terry was born Saunders Terrell on October 24, 1911, in Greensboro, NC. He began traveling to nearby Raleigh and Durham, performing on street corners for tips. In 1934, he befriended the popular guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller convinced Terry to move to Durham, where the two immediately gained a strong local following. By 1937, they were offered an opportunity to go to New York and record for the Vocalion label. Between 1937 and 1940 he backed Fuller on over two-dozen sides. A year later, Terry would be back in New York taking part in John Hammond’s legendary Spirituals to Swing concert. Upon returning to Durham, Terry continued playing regularly with Fuller and also met his future partner, guitarist Brownie McGhee, who would accompany Terry off and on for the next two decades. McGhee was initially sent to look after Terry by Blind Boy’s manager, J.B. Long. Long figured McGhee might get a chance to play some of the same shows as Terry. A friendship developed between the two men and following Fuller’s death in 1941, Terry and McGhee moved to New York.

Sonny Terry

In the late 1940 McGhee came into contact with washboard player Bull City Red who in turn introduced McGhee to talent scout J.B. Long. Long got him a recording contract with OKeh/Columbia in 1940; his debut session in Chicago produced a dozen tracks over two days. Long’s principal blues artist, Blind Boy Fuller, died in 1941, precipitating Okeh to issue some of McGhee’s early efforts under the alias of Blind Boy Fuller No. 2. McGhee cut a moving tribute song, “Death of Blind Boy Fuller,” shortly after the passing. McGhee’s third marathon session for OKeh in 1941 paired him for the first time with Sonny Terry. McGhee claimed to have never recorded with Fuller but in later years when someone played him “Precious Lord” he recalled that it was him singing with Fuller on guitar.

Bull City Red, whose real name was George Washington, is best known as a sometimes sideman on washboard to the likes of Blind Boy Fuller, Sonny Terry, and Blind Gary Davis. Red led an otherwise blind group that included Fuller, Sonny Terry and, for a time, Blind Gary Davis as well, and with help from their manager, department store owner J.B. Long, landed a contract with Vocalion. At one point in their history, Red, Fuller, Terry, and guitarist Sonny Jones performed together as “Brother George and His Sanctified Singers,” and made several recordings of gospel-themed material. Red was later responsible for hooking Terry up with Brownie McGhee, whom he met while on a trip to Burlington. McGhee was partnered with a blues harpist and one-man band named Jordan Webb at the time, and Red introduced the two to Fuller and Terry as well as their manager. Red cut more than a dozen sides showing off his skills as a singer and guitarist as well as on the washboard, between 1935 and 1939.

Show Notes:

I’ve been trying to get a handle on my record collection in the last couple of weeks which seems to have escaped from my record room to take over the house. I still haven’t tamed my collection but did stumble upon some interesting records that are featured on today’s program. Among those are the following LP’s which are not available on CD: A Basket Of Blues (Spivey), James Brewer (Philo) and Indianapolis Jump (Flyright). A Basket of Blues is the the first album to be issued on Victoria Spivey’s Spivey record label and features sides by Lucille Hegamin, Hannah Sylvester, Victoria Spivey backed by a fine band featuring sax man Buddy Tate. A classic blues singer from the 1920′s, Lucille Hegamin survived long enough to be recorded again in the 1960′s. After performing in Seattle for a long period, Hegamin became one of the first blues singers to record in Nov. 1920, shortly after moving to New York. In addition to performing at clubs, Hegamin appeared in several Broadway shows in the 1920′s. She eventually left music, becoming a nurse in 1938. In the 1960′s she emerged, appearing at a few charity benefits before retiring from music again. In all, Lucille Hegamin recorded 68 selections between1920-26, two songs in 1932 and appeared on part of the1961 Bluesville album Songs We Taught Your Mother. She died in 1970. James Brewer was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, moved to Chicago in the 1940′s where he spent the latter part of his life busking and performing both blues and religious songs at blues and folk festivals, on Chicago’s Maxwell Street and other venues. He was recorded by Swedish Radio in 1964, cut sides for the Heritage label and Testament plus cut the full-length albums Jim Brewer for Philo and Tough Luck for Earwig. Shirley Griffith learned first hand from Tommy Johnson as a teenager in Mississippi. Griffith missed his opportunity to record as a young man but recorded three superb albums: Indiana Ave. Blues (1964, with partner J.T. Adams), Saturday Blues (1965) and Mississippi Blues (1973), all of which are out of print.

Also while trying to organize my collection I stumbled upon a pile of CD’s on the Classics label which I evidently had plans to listen to at some point before they got buried. The Classics label is a French label that specializes in jazz and blues. Their Classics R&B series focuses on chronological resissues of post-war blues – essentially a post-war version of what the Document label does for pre-war blues. At this point the label probably has a couple of hundred releases out. The label provides a valuable service to collectors by resurrecting the output of many forgotten blues artists. Some are forgotten for a reason, others deserve a better fate but over all most don’t benefit from the chronological approach. To be fair these records were never intended to be listened to in this way, instead listeners back in the day bought the records one 78 at a time.

From the Classics catalog we spin records today by J.T. Brown, Andrew Tibbs, Tom Archia, King Perry and Jo Jo Adams. Andrew Tibbs got his start singing in church choirs. When he surreptitiously began singing blues in clubs, he used his middle name and his mother’s maiden name, becoming “Andrew Tibbs.” He was singing at Jimmy’s Palm Garden when Sammy Goldberg saw him at the club and signed him to Aristocrat; Leonard Chess saw commercial potential in recording Tibbs, and decided to invest in the company. Tibbs’ debut session has always been said to be the first one that Leonard Chess attended. After Aristocrat he cut sides for a variety of labels up until 1963. Sax man Tom Archia performed mostly in jazz and swing bands. He cut some R&B sides for Aristcrat in 1947-48 as well as backing blues singers Andrew Tibbs and Jo Jo Adams. Jo Jo Adams was among the most flamboyant singers of Chicago’s South Side who sang an urbane style of blues that prevailed in the 1940′s. He also danced, told dirty jokes, and showed off his wardrobe of loudly colored formal wear with extra-long coattails. More often than not he doubled as MC at the clubs he played. Between 1946 and 1953 he cut sides for Hy-Tone, Aristocrat, Aladdin, Chance and Parrot. Mississippi-born John T. Brown was a member of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels down south before arriving in the Chicago. By 1945, Brown was recording behind pianist Roosevelt Sykes and singer St. Louis Jimmy Oden, later backing Eddie Boyd and Washboard Sam for RCA Victor. He debuted on wax as a bandleader in 1950 on the Harlem label, subsequently cutting sessions in 1951 and 1952 for Chicago’s United logo as well as JOB. Brown also backed artists like Elmore James and pianist Little Johnny He issued sides on Meteor and a final 1956 date for United that laid unissued at the time. In January of 1969, he was part of Fleetwood Mac’s Blues Jam at Chess album, even singing a tune for the project, but he died before the close of that year.  King Perry played violin as a child, but switched to alto sax when he wished to join a local band. In 1945 he went to Los Angles, appearing in a show with Dorothy Donegan and Nat King Cole; while there he made his first recordings as a leader. He led a band called the Pied Pipers through the middle of the 1950′s, making many records and touring across the United States multiple times. He recorded for Melodisc, United Artists, Excelsior, De Luxe, Specialty, Dot, RPM, Lucky, Unique, Look, and Hollywood during this period. After 1954 Perry went into a hiatus from music, but returned to play after moving to Bakersfield in 1967. In the 1970s he played as a one-man band with organ, saxophone, and percussion. Around this time he also released a number of comedy albums for his own label, Octive.

Lots of piano blues on deck including sides by Sammy Brown, Roosevelt Sykes, Dr. Hepcat, Little Brother Montgomery, Cow Cow Davenport and Sunnyland Slim. Sammy Brown cut two issued sides for Gennett in 1927 possibly backed by pianist Cripple Clarence Lofton or his own piano. Charlie McFadden waxed two-dozen sides for a variety of labels between 1929-1937 backed by pianist Roosevelt Sykes on most. Lavada Durst Known as more colorfully as Dr. Hepcat was the first black disc jockey in Texas on Austin‘s KVET. He published The Jives of Dr.Hepcat based on his outlandish radio patter. As a piano player he was influenced by Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, and locally by Robert Shaw. He cut early records on Peacock, Uptown and later recordings on Documentary Arts. Cow Cow Davenport is remembered most for his famous song “Cow Cow Blues” which is one of the earliest recorded examples of the Boogie-Woogie. Davenport’s early career revolved around carnivals and vaudeville. He toured TOBA with an act called Davenport and Company with Blues singer Dora Carr and they recorded together in 1925 and 1926. Davenport briefly teamed up with Blues singer Ivy Smith in 1928 and worked as a talent scout for Brunswick and Vocalion records in the late 1920′s and played rent parties in Chicago. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1930 and toured the vaudeville circuit and recorded with Sam Price. In 1938 he suffered a stroke that left his right hand somewhat paralyzed and affected his piano playing for the rest of his life, but he remained active as a vocalist until he regained enough strength in his hand to play again. He died in 1955. Hound head Henry was a singer who cut eight issued sides in 1928 all backed by pianist Cow Cow Davenport and proves himself an expressive singer on “My Sweet Silver Dollar Mama.”

As usual a good dose of pre-war blues including sides by Tom Bell, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie, JT Funny Papa Smith and Clifford Gibson. Gibson cut ten sides (four have either never been found or were never issued) in June 1929, four sides in November 1929, eight sides in December 1929 and two sides in 1931. In addition he did some session work and lasted long enough to wax a few scattered post-war sides in the 1950′s and 60′s. Funny Papa Smith who cut twenty issued sides between 1930 and 1931. He was a superb singer/guitarist and a marvelous lyricist. Tom Bell recorded eight sides for John Lomax and the Library of Congress in 1937 and 1940. Speaking of Lomax we jump to 1959 and a recording made of Boy Blue by Alan Lomax. Blue’s real name was Roland Hayes. “Joe Lee’s Rock” and a reading of John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” are part of a treasure trove of recordings he made in the deep South in 1959. “By nine o’clock the stereo machine was sitting on the bar,” Lomax recalled. “Forrest City Joe and his two-piece orchestra, Boy Blue and his two accompanists, along with their girlfriends and other connoisseurs of the blues, were lapping up the liquor and the music. No New York technician would have approved of the acoustics. Between takes the place was a bedlam. …The crowd danced during all the playbacks.”

Babe Stovall

Also worth mentioning are sides by two very different artists; Blu Lu Barker and Babe Stovall. Singer Blue Lu Barker was born, raised, and buried in New Orleans. In both the 1930′s and 40′s she was one of the more popular blues performers, often appearing alongside artists such as Cab Calloway and Jelly Roll Morton. Barker’s most famous recordings were done in 1938. The early Barker material features her husband Danny on banjo and guitar and the couple would continue performing together until his death. Her career continued after that, all the way up to a last recording taped live in 1998 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Born in 1907 in Tylertown, MS, Babe Stovall was the youngest of 11 children, most of them musicians. Stovall learned guitar when he was around eight years old, and was soon playing breakdowns, frolics, and parties in the area, even meeting and learning “Big Road Blues” from Tommy Johnson. In 1964 he moved to New Orleans, where he was “discovered” working as a street singer in the French Quarter. He recorded an LP for Verve in 1964, simply titled Babe Stovall, and did further sessions in 1966 and with Bob West in 1968 (which form the basis of The Old Ace, (released on Arcola in 2003 and the only collection currently available on CD), and became active on the folk and blues college circuit. He died in 1974.

Related Articles: (Word Docs)

-The Jives of Dr. Hepcat by Mike Rowe (Blues Unlimited no. 129, 1978)

-The Piano Blues of Dr Hepcat by Alan Govenar (Liner Notes, 1994)

-Lucille Hegamin – Blues & Views by Derrick Stewart-Baxter (Jazz Journal, 1970)

By now you’ve probably heard about the passing of oral historian, radio host and writer Studs Terkel. It’s a shame he didn’t hang on long enough to see Barack Obama win the presidency. Studs was a champion of the underdog, the “non-celebrated” and had plenty to say on racial issues. I don’t claim to be an expert on Studs and in fact feel a bit guilty that I didn’t read more by him. As I write this I glance over to my book shelf to see Studs’ Hard Times looking back at me guiltily and unread. What I did know about Studs was his connection with the blues; in particular the two wonderful albums of interviews and music that were issued on the Folkways label: Big Bill Broonzy: His Story (1956) and Blues With Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee (1958). These were from Studs’ radio program which he began In 1953 on WFMT, Chicago and ran until 1998. There was also another album with Pete Seeger, which I don’t own, called Studs Terkel’s Weekly Almanac: Radio Programme, No. 4: Folk Music and Blues. Oh, and like myself, Studs was born in the Bronx which is always a plus in my book.

I won’t rehash Studs’ background as the internet is loaded with obituaries but I thought I would share the above mentioned Folkways albums. I should mention that these albums can be purchased at the Smithsonian Global Sound website. The tracks from Blues With Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee come from my own LP  that I digitized while the tracks from Big Bill Broonzy: His Story I downloaded from the Smithsonian website because my LP is too battered.

Key To The Highway (MP3)

What Are The Blues (MP3)

Blood River Blues (Brownie’s Blues) (MP3)

Crow Jane Blues (MP3)

Willie May (MP3)

Daisy (MP3)

Louise / Shuffle Rag (medley) (MP3)

The Blues (MP3)

Talk on the Blues (MP3)

Talk on the Spirituals (MP3)

Oh, What a Beautiful City (MP3)

I’m Going To Tell God How You Treat Me (MP3)

Hush, Somebody Is Calling Me (MP3)

When the Saints Go Marching In (MP3)

Early Days: Plough Hand Blues / C.C. Rider (MP3)

Blues: Bill Bailey (MP3)

Willie Mae Blues (MP3)

Experiences: This Train / Mule Ridin’ / Talking Blues (MP3)

Travelling: Keys to the Highway / Black, Brown and White (MP3)

Joe Turner Blues No. 1 (MP3)