Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

The Mississippi Sheiks were the most commercially successful black string band of the pre-war era and made close to one hundred records between 1930 and 1935. Their repertoire drew upon all facets of black and white rural music: hard-edged blues, pop music, hokum, white country and traditional songs. At the group’s core was fiddler Lonnie Chatmon and singer/guitarist Walter Vinson and often joined on their recording dates by Lonnie’s brothers Bo Chatmon (who recorded solo as Bo Carter) and Sam Chatmon. Along with Charlie McCoy, this group of musicians also recorded in a few different instrumental combinations and under several different names including the Mississippi Blacksnakes, the Mississippi Mud Steppers, Chatmon’s Mississippi Hot Footers, the Jackson Blues Boys among others names. They also backed other artists like Texas Alexander, Alec Johnson  and backed Bo Carter on a few of his recording dates.

The Mississippi Sheiks grew out of a string band formed by members of the highly musical Chatmon family, who resided on the Gaddis and McLaurin plantation just outside the small town of Bolton, Mississippi. The father of the family was Henderson Chatmon, a sharecropper of mixed racial origins who had been a fiddler since the days of slavery. With his wife Eliza, he reportedly had thirteen children, eleven of which were sons who all played musical instruments. From around 1910 until 1928, seven of them formed a string band known as the Chatmon Brothers, and they performed at country dances, parties and picnics. As Sam Chatmon related to Paul Oliver in 1960: “We started out from our parents-it’s just a gift that we had in the family.  …I played bass violin for them, and Lonnie, he played lead violin and Harry he played second violin. And my brother Larry, he beat the drums. And my brother Harry, he played the piano you see. And my brother Bo he played the guitar too and he even used to play tenor banjo. And I played guitar. We just pick up and play any instrument and play one to another. We came from Bolton, Mississippi, we were raised up there; and so, many of us played some numbers and some played others, so we named ourselves the Mississippi Sheiks.”

It’s been stated that the Chatmon clan also included two half-brothers; one named Ferdinand and the other Charlie Patton. It’s claimed in an interview with Sam Chatmon that he claimed Ferdinand recorded under the name Alec Johnson. Johnson recorded six sides for Columbia in 1928 backed by Bo Carter, Charlie McCoy and Joe McCoy. As for Patton the source is again Sam Chatmon and this is discussed at length in the biography King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton. There’s no question that Patton knew the family well; Sam claimed that his father, Henderson, had had an affair with Annie Patton and so was also Charlie’s father. The Patton family members interviewed said no, and the book advances the theory that one of Patton’s brothers was more likely an illegitimate Chatmon than Charlie was. The authors  seem to think that Sam Chatmon was just trying to boost himself with the Patton story. Sam Chatmon also mention a brother named Edgar who he said recorded under the name Leroy Carter. A Leroy Carter did cut two sides in 1935 (six sides went unissued) and its always been assumed that this was a pseudonym for Walter Vinson.

The central figure of the group was Lonnie, an accomplished fiddler who played a variety of musical styles. By the time of World War I, he had learned to read music and was purchasing sheet music in nearby Jackson and teaching popular tunes to his brothers. The Chatmon Brothers gained wide popularity among both black and white audiences. Around 1921, Lonnie recruited the Chatmon’s neighbor, Walter Vinson, to play with the group. By 1928 the seven-piece Chatmon Brothers had dissolved and Lonnie and Walter began performing regularly as a duo.

In February 1930 the OKeh field unit called at Shreveport, Louisiana, to do some recording at  the request of a local radio station. While there, they recorded  a small black group (Bo Carter was with the duo at the time ) who called themselves the Mississippi Sheiks. The group cut their two biggest hits at this session: “Sitting On Top Of The World” which spawned many cover versions and “Stop And Listen” derived from Tommy Johnson’s “Big Road Blues.” Showing their versatility, two numbers, “The Sheik Waltz” and “The Jazz Fiddler” were listed in Okeh’s hillbilly catalog and marketed to white listeners. Their records went down so well that OKeh recorded 14 more numbers in San Antonio in August. In December 1930, they were in Jackson ,Mississippi, near to home, when the Okeh field unit came by and recorded a further 16 selections. The Sheiks remade their two hits, “Sitting On Top Of The World” and “Stop And Listen” and the depression themed  ”Times Done Got Hard.” Chris Smith suggests that “Honey Babe Let The Deal Go Down” may have been prompted by a record company request for a version of  “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down Blues”, the Charlie Poole song widely known in the Southeastern states by both blacks and whites from Poole’s 1925 recording.

In October 1931, the Sheiks and Bo Carter were on the road again, traveling to Atlanta for a session which Bo remembered as one of the rare occasions on which he got drunk along with the others. In October 1931, over the course of two days in Atlanta, the Sheiks waxed 14 sides including several we feature today: the bleak “The World Is Going Wrong”,  the bouncy hokum of  “She’s A Bad Girl” plus other notable songs including the dark and powerful  “Livin’ In A Strain” which was unissued at the time and the gorgeous popular styled “Lazy Lazy River” sporting some tremendous fiddle from Lonnie.

The Mississippi Sheiks wrapped up their two days in Atlanta with four titles which show off Walter Vinson’s guitar playing to particular advantage, as well as including some clever lyrics like “Bed Spring Poker” and “I’ve Got Blood In My Eyes For You” which was one of four titles from these sessions issued on Columbia, the parent company of Okeh, which by 1932 was releasing material by popular Okeh artists like the Sheiks and Lonnie Johnson in an attempt to stave off the catastrophic fall in sales induced by the Depression. The gambit failed and Columbia’s race series ended in October 1932. As Chris Smith notes: “Around the time Columbia 14660-D was released, in June 1932, the Sheiks were recording for Paramount, which was in turn to terminate its 12/13000 race series towards the end of that year. The last two discs issued were both by the Missjssippi Sheiks; all through the Depression they had been favourites with black record buyers, and it’s not surprising that they were Paramount’s last throw of the dice.” Most of the material the group cut for Paramount were remakes and rewrites. There were some notable exceptions including the piano/guitar duet “I’ll Be Gone, Long Gone”, some flat out  terrific playing by Walter and Lonnie on “She’s Crazy About Her Lovin’” and “He Calls That Religion”, a stinging attack on the clergy:

Well, the preacher used to preach
To try to stay atoned
But now he’s preachin’ just to buy jellyroll

Well, he calls that religion
Yes, he calls that religion
Well, he calls that religion
But I know he’s goin’ to hell when he dies

Even in the depths of the depression in 1933 the popular Sheiks cut an 8 song session for Columbia but only two numbers were issued including the excellent “Show Me What You Got.” The Sheiks wrapped up their recording career with two sessions in San Antonio in March of 1934 that yielded 14 sides and a final 8 sides in New Orleans in January 1935 with all of these tracks seeing release.  While the Sheiks sales were declining they were still cutting superb music including “It’s Done Got Wet” a joyful celebration noting the end of prohibition, Walter Vinson singing convincingly on the dark  “I Am The Devil”, and  the topical numbers “Sales Tax” and “I Can’t Go Wrong.”

On April 9th 1934 Texas Alexander was backed by the Mississippi Sheiks on eight numbers. The lineup featured Bo on violin, Sam Chatman and Walter Vinson on guitars. Lonnie seems to be absent from this session. Highlights include “Seen Better Days”, “Texas Troublesome Blues”, “Last Stage Blues” and “Frost Texas Tornado Blues”, a topical blues dealing with a  tornado which destroyed the tiny town of Frost, Texas on May 6, 1930 leaving 41 dead.

Bo Carter made his recording debut in 1928, backing Alec Johnson. Carter soon was recording as a solo artist and became one of the dominant blues recording acts of the 1930′s, recording over 100 sides. He also played with and managed the family group, the Mississippi Sheiks, and several other acts in the area. Bo Carter specialized in double entendre songs, recording dozens of risqué songs like “Banana in Your Fruit Basket,” “Pin in Your Cushion”, “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough for Me”, “The Ins And Outs Of My Girl” and “Ram Rod Daddy” among many others.

As John Miller made clear, Carter was a also a superb guitarist: “He played with absolute facility in a variety of tunings and keys and his harmonic sense was unique in the Country Blues. …Whatever you may think of the “single entendre” aspect of some of his lyrics, when you really listen to what Bo Carter was doing, it become perfectly obvious that he was one of the great masters of Country Blues, and a player of unusual versatility, subtlety and imagination. As with other players of his generation, the origins of Bo’s music are shrouded in mystery, and it is very unlikely we’ll ever find an explanation for the harmonic richness of his music, so different from other musicians of his region. Bo’s right hand approach was different, too, picking with all fingers and moving fluidly between alternation, thumping and runs with his thumb.” Miller teaches the songs of Carter on the DVD’s the Guitar of Bo Carter and wrote some of the liner notes to the three  Bo Carter anthologies issued on Yazoo in the late 60′s and early 7o’s.  These albums, I imagine, played a major role in enhancing Carter’s reputation.

While several of Bo’s double entendre songs are featured today, we also spin a number of his other songs including “Corinne Corrina”, the first recording of this standard, and “East Jackson Blues” both featuring Bo on violin backed by Charlie McCoy and Walter Vinson. Bo had a knack for penning incredibly catchy, melodic numbers including featured tracks like “I Want You To Know”,  “Twist It, Baby”, “The Law Gonna Step On You”, “Who’s Been Here”  and “Tellin’ You ’bout It” backed by Lonnie’s wailing fiddle.

On his landmark trip to the United States in 1960, Paul Oliver came across Bo Carter and recounted the following in Conversation With The Blues: “Sharing a corner in the bare, shot-gun building on South 4th Street where Will Shade lived, was an ailing, blind, light-skinned man whom the occupants knew only as Old Man. By a lucky hunch I guessed he might be Bo Carter and the sick man brightened to hear his name. At first he could hardly hold down the strings of his heavy steel guitar with its worn fingerboard. But he slowly mastered it and in a broken voice, that mocked the clear and lively singing on his scores of recordings under his own name and with the Mississippi Sheiks, he recalled incidents from his varied life and some of the songs that had made him one of the most famous of blues singers. Baby When You Marry he had recorded nearly thirty years before (OK 8888) in 1931 and in the years since he had worked on medicine shows, farmed and begged.”

As Carter related: “Well, we called us the Mississippi Sheiks, all of us Chatmons, cause my name’s Bo Chatman only they called me Bo Carter. We toured with the band right through the country; through the Delta, through Louisiana down to New Orleans… …Tell ya, we was the Mississippi sheiks and when we went to make the records in Jackson, Mississippi, the feller wanted to show us how to stop and start the records. Try to tell us when we got to begin and how we got to end. And you know, I started not to make ‘em! I started not to make ‘em ’cause he wasn’t no muscianer, so how could he tell me to stop and start the song? We was the Sheiks, Mississippi Sheiks and you know we was famous.”

Bo Carter, 1960, Photo By Paul Oliver

Sam Chatmon survived to begin performing and recording again in the1960′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  on his own, 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. He stopped traveling in the early ’40s, making himself a home in Hollandale, Mississippi, where he worked on plantations. For the next two decades, Chatmon was essentially retired from music and only worked on the plantations. When the blues revival arrived in the late ’50s, he managed to capitalize on the genre’s resurgent popularity. In 1960, he signed a contract with Arhoolie and he recorded a number of songs for the label. The earliest of these were recorded in 1960 and issued on the album I Have To Paint My Face. As Mack McCormick wrote in the liner notes: “With Bo (who is credited with composing Corrine Corrina) ailing and feeble in Memphis, and the other brothers dead or scattered, Sam Chatman lives in a shotgun house across the tracks in Hollendale, Mississippi, working variously as a yard man, day laborer and truck driver. Adding the scarce but vital element of the near-forgotten minstrel songs to this collection, these are Chatman’s only recordings in the past 25 years.”

Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, he recorded for a variety of labels, as well as playing clubs and blues and folk festivals across America.In 1972 he cut the album The New Mississippi Sheiks, reuniting with Walter Vinson, cut the excellent The Mississippi Sheik for Blue Goose in the early 70′s as well as albums for Rounder, Albatros and Flying Fish among others. Chatmon passed in 1983.

Walter Vinson rarely worked as a solo act, seemingly much more at home in duets and trios; towards that end, during the 1920′s he worked with Charlie McCoy, Rubin Lacy and Son Spand before forming the Mississippi Sheiks. While Vinson, by his own testimony this is the correct spelling, variations on his records include Walter Jacobs, Walter Vincent and Walter Vincson. In 1929 he recorded with Bo Carter and Charlie McCoy as Chatman’s Mississippi Hot Footers with the most interesting number being the solo “Overtime Blues” displaying his prodigious guitar talents. A 1930 session was listed under Walter Jacobs And The Carter Brothers backed by Bo and Lonnie while a two 1936 sessions found him in the company of pianist Harry Chatman on a four song session and possibly backed by Little Brother Montgomery on two sides including “Rats Been On My Cheese”, certainly a novel metaphor for adultery. Vinson concluded his pre-war work with a four-song 1941 session for Bluebird backed by Robert Lee McCoy (Nighthawk) on harmonica which is notable for the lovely, beautifully sung  “Gulf Coast Bay.”

While an active club performer during the early 1940′s, by the middle of the decade he had begun a lengthy hiatus from music, which continued through 1960, at which point he returned to both recording and festival appearances. He made some recordings for the Riverside label in 1961 and a decade later teamed up with Sam Chatman plus Carl Martin and Ted Bogan to record an album called The New Mississippi Sheiks issued on Rounder in 1972. Hardening of the arteries forced Vinson into retirement during the early ’70s; he died in Chicago in 1975.

Sam Chatmon, The Mississippi Sheik, Blue Goose Records

As mentioned earlier, members of the Sheiks recorded under several different names between 1928 and 1931 including the Mississippi Blacksnakes, the Mississippi Mud Steppers, the Jackson Blues Boys and backed artists Sam Hill and Alec Johnson. The bulk of these sides can be found on the Document collection Mississippi String Bands & Associates. Between 1928-1931 Charlie McCoy played on a variety of sides, many string band related, in the company of Walter Vinson and Bo Carter. In November 1928 Carter, McCoy and an unknown pianist backed singer Alec Johnson on four of six sides. In November of the same year Carter, Vinson and McCoy backed singer Mary Butler on four numbers. Butler may in fact be Rosie Mae Moore who McCoy backed in February of the same year. With Walter Vinson they cut sides as the Mississippi Mud Steppers, with the addition of guitarist Sam Hill (plus Bo Carter and Sam Chatmon on one track) as the Mississippi Blacksnakes and with Carter and Vinson as the Jackson Blue Boys. With the Mississippi Blacksnakes McCoy’s robust mandolin is heard on the bawdy “Grind So Fine” and the country tinged “Blue Sky Blues” both boasting terrific vocals from Vinson. Two days after the first Blacksnakes session the group recorded again with Bo Carter as the vocalist and either McCoy or Sam Hill on guitar. This is a bluesier session with McCoy again on mandolin/banjo with his mandolin heard in fine form on “It Still Ain’t No Good (New It Ain’t No Good)” and “Easy Going Woman Blues.” One more song by the group, “Bye Bye Baby Blues”, was cut the following day featuring fine slide from McCoy. The two tracks cut as the Jackson Blue Boys are interesting for featuring singing from Carter, Vinson and McCoy in unison and taking solo turns with McCoy playing mandolin.

In 1935 Pianist Harry Chatman cut ten songs across three sessions, two in New Orleans and a final one in Jackson, Mississippi. Bo Carter appears on the two song first session while Walter Vinson backs Harry on the four song second session. The final session was done solo. His second session was his strongest, turning in solid numbers like “Hoo Doo Blues” and “Deep Blue Ocean Blues “, a fine rendition of  “Nobody’s Business.” Harry also backed Leroy Carter on two sides in 1935 (six sides went unissued), a likely  a pseudonym for Walter Vinson.

Show Notes:

It was Lonnie Johnson who gave the title to today’s program when exclaimed, “Violin, sing the blues for me!” during a recording session for Okeh Records in 1928, released under the name the Johnson Boys. The title was also used for a collection of violin blues on the Old Hat label which we feature extensively on today’s show. We also feature a number of tracks from Old Hat’s companion CD, Folks, He Sure Do Pull Some Bow! The violin once played a significant role in the early history of recorded blues. As collector Marshall Wyatt points out, “the violin once held center stage in the rich pageant of vernacular music that evolved in the American South… and the fiddle held sway as the dominant folk instrument of both races until the dawn of the 20th century.” Today, outside of a few exceptions, African-American music has mostly abandoned the violin to white country fiddlers. Many black musicians active during the 1920s and ’30s came from a string-band tradition rooted in the 19th century, an era predating the blues when fiddles and banjos were the predominant instruments, and guitars a rarity. Black fiddlers and string bands were still common in the South throughout the 1920s, were not entirely ignored by the record industry, but were they were certainly under-represented. Some black string bands incorporated blues into their repertoires in order to keep abreast of trends. As the record business began to rebound in the mid-1930s, musical trends became rapidly modernized due to the spreading influence of mass media, and black fiddlers found even fewer recording opportunities. Below you will find some background on some of today’s featured artists.

Bo Carter, who played guitar and violin, was one of the most popular bluesmen of the ’30’s, cutting over a hundred sides between 1928 and 1940. He also worked with his brothers, Lonnie and Sam Chatmon, in the popular Mississippi Sheiks band. The Mississippi Sheiks were one of the most popular string bands of the late ’20s and early ’30s with a repertoire that drew upon all facets of black and white rural music: blues, pop music, hokum, white country and traditional songs. Their rendition of “Sitting on Top of the World” has become an enduring standard. The group consisted of guitarist Walter Vinson and fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, with frequent appearances by guitarists Bo Carter and Sam Chatmon, who were also busy with their own solo careers.In addition to featuring several tracks by Bo Carter and Mississippi Sheiks, we also hear the Sheiks backing Texas Alexander on the topical “Frost Texas Tornado Blues.” On April 9th 1934 the group backed Alexander on eight numbers.

Beginning in 1926, Peg Leg Howell performed a number of guitar blues for Columbia Records in Atlanta, but he also joined with his “Gang” to record rollicking stomps and rags, led by Eddie Anthony’s wailing fiddle. Our selection, both sides of a 78, “New Jelly Roll Blues” b/w “Beaver Slide Rag” were recorded on April 8, 1927 and advertised in the Chicago Defender. He arrived in the city in 1923 and was recorded by Columbia in November 1926. Howell’s first session featured him solo and are certainly appealing but it’s the rough, exciting stringband music he recorded with His Gang that really grabs attention. The gang consisted of Henry Williams on guitar and the infectious alley fiddle of Eddie Anthony. The duo backed Howell on two dozen sides. Williams apparently died in jail in January 1930 while serving time for vagrancy and Anthony passed in 1934, after which Howell gave up music. Henry Williams & Eddie Anthony cut one 78 together in 1928, the stupendous “Lonesome Blues” b/w/ “Georgia Crawl.” Singer Sloppy Henry cut sixteen sides between 1924 and 1929. At a 1928 session he was backed by Peg Leg Howell and Eddie Anthony, heard to good effect on the colorfully titled “Long Tall, Disconnected Mama” in which Anthony exclaims “I got good chicken and this vio-leen.” Eddie Anthony also recorded as Macon Ed with the mysterious Tampa Joe, cutting eight sides in 1930.

Will Batts was a fine fiddler based in Memphis who worked with Frank Stokes and Jack Kelly. Frank Stokes and partner Dan Sane recorded as The Beale Street Shieks, a Memphis answer to the musical Chatmon family string band, the Mississippi Shieks. Stokes was already playing the streets of Memphis by the turn of the century, about the same time the blues began to flourish. A medicine show and house party favorite, Stokes was remembered as a consummate entertainer who drew on songs from the 19th and 20th centuries. Solo or with Sane and sometimes fiddler Will Batts, Stokes recorded 38 sides for Paramount and Victor. Jack Kelly is believed to be from North Mississippi but spent most of his life in Memphis where he sang on the streets and worked with musicians like Frank Stokes, Dan Sane, Will Batts and later Little Buddy Doyle and Walter Horton. In 1933 he cut 14 sides by the South Memphis Jug Band which included Will Batts on violin, Dan Sane on guitar and D.M. Higgs on jug. He cut ten more sides in 1939 with Batts, and Little Son Joe. Kelly’s last known sides were made in 1952 with Walter Horton for the Sun.

Both Lonnie Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy are best remembered for their guitar playing but both also played violin and luckily recorded with the instrument. By the time Lonnie Johnson recorded his “Violin Blues”, he was already one of the most prolific and influential musicians in blues. Johnson himself led a long and illustrious career as a guitarist, and is primarily remembered for his dazzling guitar work. But it was the violin that first captured his imagination, and his early career in New Orleans was spent honing his skills as a fiddler, first in his father’s string band, then as a young professional performing on excursion boats along the Mississippi. Johnson signed with Okeh in 1925, and played violin on nearly two-dozen early recordings. The State Street Boys were a studio group who cut eight sides in 1935. The group consisted of Big Bill Broonzy (who plays violin on our selection “Rustlin’ Man” plus four others), Jazz Gillum, Carl Martin and others. Martin was also a member of the The Tennessee Chocolate Drops, a group consisting of Howard Armstrong, Ted Bogan and Carl Martin.

Charlie McCoy ranked among the great blues accompanists of his era and his accomplished mandolin and guitar work can be heard on numerous recordings in a wide variety of settings from the late 1920’s through the early 40’s. His brother Joe McCoy was well known for his association with his wife Memphis Minnie where he played the part of Kansas Joe. Between 1929 and 1934 (they divorced in early 1935) they cut around one hundred sides together. After Joe and Minnie separated Joe occupied himself in small bands, singing with the Harlem Hamfats, working as a songwriter and working with his brother Charlie. Charlie McCoy’s “Your Valves Need Grinding” features the violin of Bo Carter while Joe McCoy’s “Look Who’s Coming Down The Road”, a version of Tommy Johnson’s “Maggie Campbell”, features a rousing unknown violinist.

Andrew & Jim Baxter

We play several fine, little known, rural string bands on today’s program. The fiddle-guitar duo known as the Alabama Sheiks cut two records for Victor, which were released in 1931, a time when industry sales were crippled by the Great Depression. Another duo was the father and son team Andrew and Jim Baxter, of Calhoun, Georgia. The duo cut sides for Victor between 1927-29, and even waxed one tune with a white string band, The Georgia Yellow Hammers. Rural string band the Mobile Strugglers got started just as the major record companies began to lose interest in string bands. The group featured two fiddlers, Charles Jones and James Fields, and included guitarist Paul Johnson, banjo picker Lee Warren and Wesley Williams on double bass. The Mobile Strugglers recorded seven songs for the American Music label in 1949. Wilson Jones, who wnet by the moniker Stavin’ Chain, led a fine stingband judging by the group’s six recordings. The group was recorded in Louisiana by John Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1934.

You don’t expect to hear the violin in the context of Delta blues but there are some recorded example. At his second recording session on Oct. 31, 1935 Big Joe Williams was backed by fiddle player Chasey Collins. Collins in turn was backed by Williams on two numbers. Delta bluesman Henry “Son” Sims is best known as the fiddler who played with Charley Patton. Although he led a rural string band called the Mississippi Corn Shuckers for several years, the first recording that Sims did was with Patton, who asked him to come along to Wisconsin for a 1929 Paramount session. Sims also recorded under his own name on two separate occasions; during the Patton session when he cut four songs, including our selection “Tell Me Man Blues,” and several years later with guitarist and singer McKinley Morganfield, (who later became known as Muddy Waters).

Our survey of blues violin players end about mid-century when that kind of music on commercial records became virtually extinct. Eventually, a few black fiddle players returned to the studio, most often for small specialist labels. Among those include Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown who first recorded on fiddle in 1959 for the Peacock label in Houston, Butch Cage of Mississippi who worked with Willie Thomas and recorded extensively by folklorist Harry Oster, L.C. Robinson who made records for Bluesway and Arhoolie in the 1970′s and Howard Armstrong who renewed his career in the 1970s playing mandolin and fiddle with old pals Carl Martin and Ted Bogan on albums for Rounder and Flying Fish.

Show Notes:

Charlie McCoy ranked among the great blues accompanists of his era and his deft mandolin/guitar work can be heard on numerous recordings from the late 1920′s through the early 1940′s. His younger brother Joe McCoy was another great sideman whose slide style was most notably preserved on the landmark recordings he cut with his wife Memphis Minnie between 1929 and 1934. Charlie McCoy was recording regularly by the late 1920′s, often alongside Walter Vincson and sat in with many other Delta bluesmen that passed through the Jackson area in the years to follow, appearing on guitar and mandolin. He made notable recordings on mandolin backing  Ishman Bracey, Tommy Johnson, his sister-in-law Memphis Minnie, Big Bill Broonzy, Curtis Jones, Monkey Joe, Mary Butler and others. Between 1936 and 1939 he also cut a number of sessions with the groups Papa Charlie’s Boys and the Harlem Hamfats, the latter featuring Joe McCoy as lead vocalist on most sides. Charlie McCoy also cut scattered sides under his own name between 1929 and 1935, some with his brother, but made no more recordings after 1942, passing in 1950, at the age of 44. Joe McCoy died of heart disease in Chicago, only a few months before his brother Charlie. They are both buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. Today’s program spans the years 1928 through 1942, finding the brothers playing in a wide variety of settings and styles.

Jackson, Mississippi in the 1920’s was a city with a vibrant blues scene, teeming with artists such as Tommy Johnson, Walter Vincson, Ishman Bracey, Johnnie Temple, the Chatmon Brothers (Bo, Lonnie and Sam were the most prominent) Skip James and Rube Lacey. Lacey recalled McCoy being among the best of this talented group: “But I really believe Charlie got to be a better musician than I was. He was young, but he got to be about the best musician there was in our band, Charlie McCoy. He was wonderful. He could play anything pretty well you sing. …He was good as I ever want to see.”

Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy

The years 1927-31 saw the first commercial recordings of many of the Jackson musicians. Most extensively recorded were the Chatmons, Walter Vincson and Joe and Charlie McCoy. McCoy first recorded in 1928, strictly as an accompanist, backing singer Rosie Mae Moore, Tommy Johnson and Ishman Bracey, all of whom are featured in our opening set. Moore was a powerful, rough voiced singer who receives excellent guitar support from McCoy stretches out quite a bit on “School Girl Blues”, “Staggering Blues”and who’s playing owes a strong debt to Rube Lacey. Better yet were the four magnificent songs he backed Tommy Johnson on over a two day period: “Cool Drink of Water Blues” “Big Road Blues”, “Bye, Bye Blues” and “Maggie Campbell Blues.” McCoy’s second guitar is superb, not only duplicating Johnson’s guitar part but as, David Evans notes, uses “a flat pick and often strums the strings like a mandolin on his bass part, occasionally doing the same on the treble strings as a beautiful contrast.” McCoy also backed Bracey in very similar fashion on his two numbers, “Saturday Blues” and “Left Alone Blues.” Johnson, Bracey and McCoy returned on Friday, August 31, 1928 for another session for Victor. For whatever reason McCoy didn’t back Johnson but did play mandolin on Bracey’s “Trouble Hearted Blues” and “Brown Mama Blues.” McCoy’s playing is subdued on the beautiful, somber “Trouble Hearted Blues” but his bold, rippling mandolin is heard loud and clear on the equally fine “Brown Mama Blues.”

Between 1928-1931 Charlie played on a variety of sides, many string band related, in the company of Walter Vincson and Bo Carter. In November 1928 Carter, McCoy and an unknown pianist backed singer Alec Johnson on four of six sides. Johnson’s music harks back to an earlier pre-blues era. As Tony Russell notes they “form a lively and expressive pit orchestra to accompany a set of antique minstrel songs and a couple of blues.” McCoy’s playing is superb on the blues”Miss Meal Cramp Blues” and older sounding material like “Sister Maud Mule”, and he rather discomforting “Mysterious Coon.” Also in November of the same year Carter, Vincson and McCoy backed singer Mary Butler on four numbers. Butler may in fact be Rosie Mae Moore who McCoy backed in February of the same year. McCoy plays mandolin on three of the four tracks including the tough minded “Electrocuted Blues (Electric Chair Blues)”, “Bungalow Blues” and “Mary Blues.” The session isn’t quite as strong as the earlier session.

With Walter Vincson he cut sides as the Mississippi Mud Steppers, with the addition of guitarist Sam Hill (plus Bo Carter and Sam Chatmon on one track) as the Mississippi Blacksnakes and with Carter and Vincson as the Jackson Blue Boys. With the Mississippi Mud Steppers he cut the remarkable instrumental “Jackson Stomp”, based on the seminal “Cow Cow Blues”, (the song was modified as “The Lonesome Train That Took My Baby Away” at a Charlie McCoy session with Bo Carter on guitar). The song is a dazzling, virtuoso mandolin performance. McCoy further showcases his versatility on a trio of waltzes, playing mandolin on “Alma Waltz (Ruby Waltz)” and plays banjo on two numbers. With the Mississippi Blacksnakes his robust mandolin is heard on the bawdy “Grind So Fine” and the country tinged “Blue Sky Blues” both boasting terrific vocals from Vincson. Two days after the first Blacksnakes session the group recorded again with Bo Carter as the vocalist and either McCoy or Sam Hill on guitar. This is a bluesier session with McCoy again on mandolin/banjo with his mandolin heard in fine form on “It Still Ain’t No Good (New It Ain’t No Good)” and “Easy Going Woman Blues.” One more song by the group, “Bye Bye Baby Blues”, was cut the following day featuring fine slide from McCoy. The two tracks cut as the Jackson Blue Boys are interesting for featuring singing from Carter, Vincson and McCoy in unison and taking solo turns with McCoy playing mandolin.

Between 1929-1936 Charlie cut scattered sides under his own name or as lead in various bands. By the early 1930′s many of the Jackson musicians began to disperse, either heading to the delta or like Johnnie Temple and Charlie McCoy to Chicago. By 1932 all of McCoy’s recordings were waxed up North. He did cut several sessions between 1929-1930 in Memphis and Jackson. The bulk of the recordings again feature McCoy’s pals Walter Vincson and Bo Carter on material that ranges from hokum, blues and string band. Billed as Charlie McCoy with Chatman’s Mississippi Hot Footers they cut hokum sides in the vein of the immensely popular “It’s Tight Like That” such as “It Ain’t No Good – Part 1 & II” and “It Is So Good – Part 1 & II” the latter sporting prominent mandolin from McCoy. When not sharing the vocals with his partners, McCoy proves himself a fine reedy singer on straight blues numbers such as “You Gonna Need Me” and the superb “Last Time Blues” where he lays down some watery slide playing. With Carter on violin McCoy delivers “Your Valves Need Grinding”managing to sound wistful and racy at the same time, the string band blues of “Blue Heaven Blues” and takes it solo on the low down “Gland Hand Blues” framed by some imaginative guitar figures. The highlight from a December 15, 1930 session is “That Lonesome Train Took My Baby Away” a rippling mandolin showcase based on the theme of “Cow Cow Blues” and wonderfully sung by McCoy. Four days later, on a duet with Bo Carter, he cut a pair of interesting topical numbers: “The Northern Starvers Are Returning Home” and “Mississippi I’m Longing For You” both with a strong country feel.

By the early 1930′s Charlie was in Chicago where he settled in as a much in demand session musician although he managed a few sides under his own name. In February 1930, As Papa Charlie McCoy, he cut the excellent “Times Ain’t What They Used To Be” playing terrific banjo with guitar from either his brother Joe or Tampa Red. The following day, with Georgia Tom on piano, he cut “Too Long” an insinuating, bluesy pop song that proved to be a sizable hit. In 1934 under the pseudonym Mississippi Mudder he waxed the bouncy “Candy Man Blues”, the wonderful hard time blues of “Charity Blues” featuring some strong piano from Chuck Segar, “Baltimore Blues” a variation on the “Sweet Old Kokomo/Sweet Home Chicago” theme with brother Joe on guitar and the moody slide driven “Motherless & Fatherless Blues.” In 1936 he led a group listed as Papa Charlie’s Boys (Papa Charlie); McCoy is in superb form on vocal and jazzy mandolin on a sparkling remake of “Too Long”, “Let My Peaches Be” and “You Can’t Play Me Cheap” laying down some acrobatic mandolin solos, and the heartfelt “Gypsy Woman Blues.”

Joe McCoy was well known for his association with his wife Memphis Minnie where he played the part of Kansas Joe. During the late 1920′s Minnie began playing guitar with a variety of ad hoc jug bands during the jug band craze. Minnie also began a common law marriage with Kansas Joe McCoy. Their very first session yielded the hit song “Bumble Bee” (later recorded by Muddy Waters as “Honey Bee”), and McCoy would be her musical partner for the next six years. Between 1929 and 1934 (they divorced in early 1935) they cut around one hundred sides together. Joe McCoy never recorded under his own name, instead performing under various pseudonyms; Georgia Pine Boy, Hallelujah Joe, Big Joe McCoy and His Washboard Band, and The Mississippi Mudder. Other names he used from time to time included Hillbilly Plowboy, Mud Dauber Joe and Hamfoot Ham.

After Joe and Minnie separated Joe occupied himself in small bands, singing with the Harlem Hamfats, working as a songwriter and working with his brother Charlie. The Harlem Hamfats were based in Chicago, and were put together by record producer and entrepreneur J. Mayo Williams simply for the purpose of making studio recordings. The band usually consisted of: Joe McCoy (guitar, vocals), Charlie McCoy (guitar, mandolin), Herb Morand (trumpet, vocals), John Lindsay (bass), Odell Rand (clarinet), Horace Malcolm (piano), Freddie Flynn and Pearlis Williams (drums). The band’s sound blended blues, dixieland and swing jazz. Led by Morand and Joe McCoy, the main songwriters, the group initially provided instrumental backing to artists including Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon, Rosetta Howard, and Johnny Temple. Their first major hits were “Oh! Red”, recorded in April 1936, and “Let’s Get Drunk And Truck” (originally recorded by Tampa Red), recorded in August of the same year. “Oh! Red” was popular enough to be covered by Count Basie, The Ink Spots, Blind Willie McTell and, later, Howlin’ Wolf.

Joe and Charlie recorded, with Joe as lead bill, for Decca in 1934 as The Mississippi Mudder (Mud Dauber Joe) on notable numbers like “Evil Devil Woman Blues” a smoother version of Skip James’ “Devil Got My Woman” with mandolin like guitar from Charlie and “Going Back Home Blues” strongly influenced by Tommy Johnson. Three sessions in 1941-1942 are listed as Big Joe And His Rhythm a group containing, at times, Robert Lee McCoy, Washboard Sam, Ransom Knowling, Alfred Elkins, Amanda Sortier and Harman Ray. The music is hard to define with Tony Russell dubbing it “skiffle Blues” and describing it this way: “the blend of perky harmonica, stolid rhythm guitar and washboard produces an unusual but shallow ensemble sound and, although it is somewhat freshened by the addition of Charlie McCoy’s mandolin…the half dozen examples…may for some listeners be all the late Joe McCoy they need.” Overall the music is entertaining particularity a follow-up to the Hamfat’s popular “Oh! Red” in “Oh Red’s Twin Brother”, the prominent mandolin of “I’ll Get You Off My Mind” and “It Ain’t No Lie” once again featuring the “Cow Cow Blues” motif and “Bessie Lee Blues.”