Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

When a woman get the blues, she goes to her room and hides (2x)
When a man gets the blues, he catches a freight train and rides
(Trixie Smith, Freight Train Blues)

For southern Blacks the appeal of the railroads has always been both a real and a symbolic one. For them the train was a symbol of power, of freedom and escape.  As blues historian Paul Oliver wrote: “In the slavery periods when they were unable to travel between districts without written ‘bonds’ from their owners, the snorting engines, with brilliant furnaces traces their progress and clouds of black smoke that hung in the still air above the tracks long after the screaming whistles had died away, inspired them in awe which their descendants still retain.” This image carried on, in the hard times of the 1920’s and 1930s’, when the southern Blacks struggled to make a living and saw the northern cities as their saviors, where work was plentiful and a better life was to be had. As the blues developed, the railroad featured prominently in the songs. Numerous songs were sung about individual trains such as the Flying Crow, the Sunshine Special and the Panama Limited, many simply abbreviated like the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio), T&P (Texas Pacific) or the L&N (Louisville and Nashville), many songs dealt with the hobos who rode the rails, others dealt with working for the railroad while other songs retold the famous railroad ballads of John Henry, Railroad Bill and Casey Jones. Today’s show will spotlight all of these types of railroad blues.

The title of today’s program comes from the song by Henry Thomas. Thomas, nicknamed “Ragtime Texas”, was born in 1874 in Big Sandy, Texas. The 1874 date marks him as one of the eldest-born blues performers on record. Thomas was the archetypal rambling musician who went wherever the railroads would take him. According to Mack McCormick, as told to him from a former railroad conductor, “Ragtime Texas was a big fellow that used to come aboard at Gladewater or Mineola or somewhere in there. I’d always carry him, except when he was too dirty. He was a regular hobo, but I’d carry him most of the time. That guitar was his ticket.” Speaking of his famous “Railroadin’ Some”, William Barlow calls it the most “vivid and intense recollection of railroading” in all the early blues recorded in the 1920’s.

Among the famous railroad songs featured today are two associated with Leadbelly, “Rock Island Line” and ‘Midnight Special”, and the folk ballads Casey Jones, John Henry and Railroad Bill. John Lomax recorded “Rock Island Line” at the Cummins State Prison farm, Gould, Arkansas, in 1934 from its convict composer, Kelly Pace. Leadbelly, who was with Lomax at the time, rearranged it in his own style, and made commercial recordings of it in the forties. The song refers to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. Lyrics appearing in the “Midnight Special” were first recorded in print by Howard Odum in 1905. The song was first commercially recorded on the OKeh label in 1926 as “Pistol Pete’s Midnight Special” by Dave “Pistol Pete” Cutrell and the following year by bluesman Sam Collins. In 1934 Lead Belly recorded a version of the song at Angola Prison for John and Alan Lomax, who mistakenly attributed it to him as the author. Leadbelly recorded at least three versions of the song, including the one we feature with the Golden Gate Quartet.

John Luther “Casey” Jones was an American railroad engineer from Jackson, Tennessee who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. On April 30, 1900, he alone was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi on a foggy and rainy night. His dramatic death trying to stop his train and save lives made him a folk hero who became immortalized in a popular song. We spin two versions on today’s program: “Kassie Jones Pt. 1″ by Furry Lewis and “Southern Casey Jones” by Jesse James.

John Henry is an American folk hero, notable for having raced against a steam powered hammer and won, only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand. He has been the subject of numerous songs, stories, plays, and novels. The truth about John Henry is obscured by time and myth, but one legend has it that he was a slave born in Missouri in the 1840s and fought his notable battle with the steam hammer along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in Talcott, West Virginia. On today’s show we play a version by the duo The Two Poor Boys.

The legend of Railroad Bill arose in the winter of 1895, along the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad line in southern Alabama. Based loosely on the exploits of an African American outlaw known as “Railroad Bill,” tales of his brief but action-filled career on the wrong side of the law have been preserved in song, fiction, and theater. He has been variously portrayed as a “Robin Hood” character, a murderous criminal and a nameless victim of the Jim Crow South. He was never conclusively identified, but L&N detectives claimed he was a man named Morris Slater. Today we spin  “Railroad Bill” by Will Bennett.

Featured today are several songs about specific trains or railroad lines. Our opening track “Sunshine Special” by Blind Lemon Jefferson refers the train of the same name which was inaugurated by the Missouri Pacific Railroad on December 5, 1915, providing service between St. Louis, Little Rock, and destinations in Texas. The Sunshine Special served as the flagship of Missouri Pacific Railroad’s passenger train service. Several songs make reference to the Flying Crow, a train line connecting Port Arthur, Texas to Kansas City with major stops in Shreveport and Texarkana. Black Ivory King, Carl Davis & the Dallas Jamboree Jug Band, Dusky Dailey, Washboard Sam and Oscar Woods all recorded songs about the train. Other songs dealing with specific trains featured today include Jack Ranger’s “T.P. Window Blues” ( Texas Pacific Railroad), Lucille Bogan’s “T& NO Blues” (Texas and New Orleans Railroad), Sparks Brothers‘ “I.C. Train Blues” (Illinois Central Railroad), Little Brother Montgomery’s “A. & V. Railroad Blues” (Alabama & Vicksburg Railroad), Willie Brown’s “M&O Blues” (Mobile and Ohio Railroad), Billiken Johnson’s “Sun Beam Blues” (Sunbeam was a named passenger train operated from 1925 to 1955 between Houston and Dallas by the Texas and New Orleans Railroad), Andrew and Jim Baxter’s “K C Railroad Blues” (Kansas City Southern Railway), George Noble’s “The Seminole Blues” (Seminole Gulf Railway), and Pink Anderson & Simmnie Dooley’s “C.C. and O. Blues” (Chesapeake and Ohio). Sam Collins’ “Yellow Dog Blues” seems to refer to two trains. In 1903 W.C. Handy related how he heard a lean, raggedy, black guitarist in Tutwiler’s railroad depot, singing of going to where the “Southern cross the Yellow Dog.” The “Southern” was the Southern Railway which began operations in 1894.“The Dog” was the Yellow Dog, a name for the Yazoo Delta Railroad which opened in 1897.

Several songs like Bukka White’s ” Special Streamline” and Cripple Clarence Lofton’s “Streamline Train” refer to streamliners. A streamliner is any vehicle that incorporates streamlining to produce a shape that provides less resistance to air. The term is most often applied to certain high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930’s to 1950’s. For a short time in the late 1930s, the ten fastest trains in the world were all American streamliners.

Other trains immortalized in blues songs will be featured in the sequel to today’s show; trains such as the Cannon Ball (an Illinois Central passenger train routing between Chicago and New Orleans, now known as the City of New Orleans), the Santa Fe (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway), the Seaboard (The Seaboard Coast Line Railroad), the Katy (the Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Texas line), the Big four (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad ) and the New York Central among others.

Show Notes:

We span a good chunk of blues history today, spinning tracks from 1924 through 1976.  On tap on today’s program are a number of fine country blues recordings from the 1960’s and 70’s, a couple of album spotlights and twin spins by pianist Henry Brown and singer Ray Agee. From the blues revival era we open with tracks by Joe Callicott and Sam Chatmon who’s careers bridged the pre-war and post-war blues eras. A product of the Chatmon family that included not only Lonnie of the famous Mississippi Sheiks but also the prolific Bo Carter and several other blues-playing brothers, Sam Chatmon survived to began performing and recording again in the ’60s. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, he recorded for a variety of labels, as well as playing clubs and blues and folk festivals across America. Chatmon was an active performer and recording artist until his death in 1983. Today’s track, “Stoop Down Baby”,  comes from  the collection, Field Recordings From Hollandale 1976-1982 which has recently been issued on the Mbirafon label. Some of these recordings were issued on the Albatros label in the 80’s. It’s interesting to hear Chatmon cover Chick Willis’ “Stoop Down Baby”, a relatively recent hit, it shows that he was still keeping his ears open to new material and the the song itself perfectly fits his repertoire which is built on many such ribald songs.

Joe Callicott waxed a lone 78 in Memphis in 1929, Fare Thee Well Blues b/w Traveling Mama Blues, and a year later played second guitar on Garfield Akers’ “Cottonfield Blues Parts 1 & 2.” It was the indefatigable field recorder George Mitchell who found him in Nesbit, Mississippi off Highway 51 not far from Hernando and short distance from Brights were Akers was supposedly born. Callicott’s “comeback” was about as short as his first recording career, lasting from the summer of 1967 through the summer of 1968; he recorded nineteen sides for Mitchell either late August or early September, four sides at the 1968 Memphis Country Blues Festival and seventeen sides for Blue Horizon in 1968. As Paul Oliver wrote: “A wider recognition came almost too late but Joe appeared at the 1968 Memphis Blues Festival and was looking forward to a European trip. Back at his home, with the birds whistling and witnessed by his wife and their bellcow, he recorded his last testament; he died early in 1969 and with him went the last echoes of Mississippi country music of the earliest phase of the blues.”

From 1969 we spin a trio of cuts from the album Memphis Swap Jam. Released to commemorate the 1969 Memphis Blues Festival, the album features 20 songs by the event’s most notable performers. Although the tracks date from the same period as the festival, they were recorded at Ardent Recording Studio and Royal Recording Studio in Memphis. Chris Strachwitz produced this two-LP set, and it marks one of the few occasions (if not only) when he worked in this capacity for a company other than his own Arhoolie Records. Artists like Bukka White, Furry Lewis, Fred McDowell and Sleepy John Estes had been recorded extensively during the blues revival but still sound quite inspired on these performances. A nice companion CD to this is The 1968 Memphis Country Blues Festival With Bukka White a terrific double CD of live and studio recording by Bukka White, Furry Lewis, Joe Callicott and Robert Wilkins.

We also spotlight another great 2-LP set, Swamp Blues, which has since been reissued on CD by Ace Records. Swamp Blues is a collection of Baton Rogue artists, most of whom had recorded for the legendary Excello label. At this point the label was owned by Nashboro who had a licensing agreement with the British Blue Horizon label owned by Mike Vernon. Blue Horizon already had albums out by Lightnin’ Slim and Lonesome Sundown and was eager to get involved with this project which was issued under the Excello imprint. It was Baton Rogue blues fan Terry Pattison who got the project off the ground. Pattison was in touch with the folks at the great, now defunct, Blues Unlimited magazine and they in turn got in touch with Vernon. An attempt was made to get Lazy Lester and Lightnin’ Slim on board but to no avail. Still it was an impressive roster featuring ex-Howlin’ Wolf pianist Henry Gray, Whispering Smith, Silas Hogan, Clarence Edwards and Arthur “Guitar” Kelly.

As for our twin spins today we play two cuts by pianist Henry Brown, one in a supporting role and one solo number. Henry Brown learned to play the piano from the “professors” of the notorious Deep Morgan section of St. Louis. Brown worked clubs such as the Blue Flame Club, the 9-0-5 Club, Jim’s Place and Katy Red’s, from the twenties into the 30’s. He recorded for Brunswick with Ike Rogers and Mary Johnson in 1929, for Paramount in ‘29 and ‘30. He served in the army in the early 40’s, then formed his own quartet to work occasional local gigs in St. Louis area from the 50’s, and worked the Becky Thatcher riverboat in 1965. In addition to his pre-war recordings, he was recorded by Paul Oliver in 1960, by Sam Charters with Edith Johnson in 1961 and by Adelphi in 1969. Our cuts feature the rollicking (mostly) instrumental “Henry Brown Blues” which was recorded by Paul Oliver and comes from the companion CD to Oliver’s book Conversation With The Blues. “Nickel’s Worth of Liver” features the vocal of Edith North Johnson, a song she first cut in 1929, that time backed by Roosevelt Sykes. Johnson cut 18  sides in 1928 and 1929, including a session with Charley Patton in Grafton, WI, for Paramount Records, although it is doubtful Patton actually appeared on any of her songs. She made her home in St. Louis, where she ran a fleet of taxis during World War II and owned a popular diner. Sam Charters recorded her with Henry Brown in 1961 for his anthology called The Blues in St. Louis Vol. 2 for Folkways Records. Born January 2, 1903, in St. Louis, she died there on February 28, 1988.

We also feature two cuts by the neglected singer Ray Agee. Agee is known primarily for his tough 1963 remake of the blues standard “Tin Pan Alley” for the tiny Sahara logo. Agee recorded for a slew of labels both large and small during the 1950’s and 60’s without much in the way of national recognition outside his Los Angeles home base. After moving to L.A. with his family, he apprenticed with his brothers in a gospel quartet before striking out in the R&B field with a 1952 single for Aladdin Records. Agee slowly slipped away from the music business in the early ’70s. Reportedly, he died around 1990. Thankfully the Famous Groove label has issued all of Agee’s 50’s and 60’s recordings across three CD’s.

Also worth mentioning are tracks by Lonnie Johnson, Little Janice, and Tony Hollis. I never get tired of Lonnie Johnson who’s guitar skills are rightly praised, yet he was also a moving singer and a superb composer. A case in point is his gorgeous “Lines On My Face”, a bit of blues poetry from his 1960 album Losing Game:

Heartaches have caused, these deep lines in my face (2x)
When you’ve been disappointed in love, your heart has no restin’ place

Each line in my face tells a story, the tears tells you the reason why
Deep lines in my face tells a story, teardrops tell you the reason why
When you been hurt in love, it shows on you face until the day you die

If I could take my poor heart and wash it, wash all these aches and pains away (2x)
But I guess I’m so in love, I hope she’ll come back to me some day

My poor heart could talk, there’s so much it could tell (2x)
When the one you love disappoints you in life, life is a livin’ hell

Tony Hollis’ small output belies his influence. Hollis  played around Clarksdale, MS in the 20’s and 30’s which is where he met John Lee Hooker, providing him with his first guitar and was a major influence on Hooker’s style. In 1941 Hollis waxed seven sides for Okeh including the influential “Crawlin’ King Snake” and the first recorded version of “Cross Cut Saw Blues.”Another song from that session, “Traveling Man Blues”, waslater made famous by Hooker as “When My First Wife Quit Me.” He cut one more session in 1951 with Sunnyland Slim. Our selection, “I’ll Get A Break”, which was based on Tampa Red’s 1934 version and comes from that latter session. The song was cut by Hollis at his first session using the title “Big Time Woman.”

Little Miss Janice is a mystery. What little is known about her is that she came from Texas, she played guitar and she had a knack for songwriting as she proves on her tough “Scarred Knees.” After this recording for Proverb, she went on to cut for Paul Gayten’s Pzazz label. Johnny Adams covered “Scarred Knees” on his first LP for Rounder and Esther Phillips cut a stunning version on her 1972 album From A Whsiper To A Scream.

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 the second installment of an ongoing series of programs built around a particular year. The bulk of the information for today’s show notes comes from the books Recording The Blues (reprinted along with two other titles in Yonder Come The Blues) by Robert M.W. Dixon and John Godrich and Blues & Gospel Records, 1890-1943 by Robert M.W. Dixon, John Godrich and Howard Rye.

The first year we spotlighted was 1927 which was the beginning of a blues boom that would last until 1930; there were just 500 blues and gospel records issued in 1927 and increase of fifty percent from 1926 a trend that would continue until the depression. The average blues or gospel record had sales in the region of 10,000. In 1928 the figure was 1,000 or so lower which was still a thriving market. Paramount, the market leader at the time, brought talent up to their northern studios. To feed the demand other record companies conducted exhaustive searches for new talent, which included making trips down south with field recording units. Between 1927-1930 Atlanta was visited seventeen times, Memphis eleven times, Dallas eight times, New Orleans seven times and so on. The record companies advertised their record in black newspapers, mainly in the Chicago Defender, which was the nation’s most influential black weekly newspaper.

During the peak years there were five major companies issuing records for the race market: Okeh, Columbia, Paramount, Brunswick-Balke-Collender (encompassing Brunswick and Vocalion (a division of Gennett). Victor was the only label  to systematically exploit the the blues talent around Memphis. Their second visit there, in January and February 1928, yielded three times as much material as their initial 1927 visit. Among those recorded were Blind Willie McTell, Jim Jackson, Memphis Jug Band, Frank Stokes, Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey, Furry Lewis, Cannon’s Jug Stompers among many others. In August alone the label cut some 180 sides, mostly by black artists.

Jim Jackson’s “Kansas City Blues” was the massive hit of 1927 and in 1928 that honor went to “How Long How Long Blues” by Leroy Carr and “It’ Tight like That” by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, both records issued by Vocalion. The highly suggestive “It’ Tight like That” was cut in September of 1928 which was just a few months after Vocalion dropped their tag “Better and Cleaner Race Records.” Vocalion also cut several sides by Leroy Carr’s guitarist, Scrapper Blackwell in 1928. In 1928 Brunswick recorded Bo Carter, Fannie Mae Goosby and Hattie Burleson among others.

In 1926 Columbia and OKeh merged but the labels were run by separate management for three years after the merger and did not compete for the same artists. Since 1927 OKeh had been issuing a new record every six weeks by Lonnie Johnson and issued some two-dozen sides by him in 1927 and about half that number in 1928. After the takeover by Columbia, OKeh made no field recordings until 1928 when they visited Memphis where they recorded blues singers such as Tom Dickson and the now legendary recordings by Mississippi John Hurt. They also recorded Sloppy Henry and Uncle Bud Walker in Atlanta a few months afterwards. Lonnie Johnson went with the unit, himself recording in both Memphis and san Antonio. In San Antonio he backed Texas Alexander who OKeh had initially recorded in New York the previous August. Columbia also made field recordings in Atlanta and Dallas where they recorded blues singers such as Barbecue Bob and his brother Charley Lincoln, Pink Anderson with Simmie Dooley, Peg Leg Howell, Curley Weaver, Lillian Glinn among many others.

The only race company that made no field trips was Paramount. Despite this Paramount remained the market leader in records released and singers recorded. Paramount issued records by the many of the blues biggest stars.

Everybody’s Blues (MP3)

Rock Island Blues (MP3)

Hey baby, tell me what’s the matter now (2x)
Lord you tryin’ to quit me, baby and you don’t know how

I ain’t got no good girl, ain’t got no lady friend (2x)
I ain’t go nobody to say, “Furry, where you been?”

If you don’t want me, won’t you tell me so (2x)
Then you won’t be bothered with me round your house no more

Hey-ey baby, you don’t treat me right (2x)
Ah the way you treat me, take my appetite

I’d rather see my coffin come rollin’ from my door (2x)
Lord than to hear my good girl says “I don’t want you no more”

Ba-aby, what you goin’ do with me? (2x)
Way you doin’ me baby, I declare I sure can’t be

(Everybody’s Blues, 1927)

After a brief hiatus we resume our continuing exploration of the blues advertisements that appeared in the Chicago Defender and turn our attention to the legendary Furry Lewis. Lewis was promoted in the Chicago Defender on five occasions; in July and August 1927 and April and June of 1928. Lewis’ first advertisement was for “Everybody’s Blues”, a rather small ad dwarfed by a large Paramount ad for Papa Charlie Jackson’s “Skoodle Um Skoo.” Perhaps because of the sales of that record he was granted larger ad space for “Sweet Papa Moan” and “Jellyroll” also cut at this first session. The year Lewis made his debut was the beginning of a blues boom that would last until 1930; there were just 500 blues and gospel records issued in 1927 and increase of fifty percent from 1926 a trend that would continue until the depression. To feed the demand record companies conducted exhaustive searches for new talent which included making southern excursions with field recording units. Memphis was a prime destination with record companies visiting the city eleven times during this period.

Lewis was actually born in Greenwood, MS and moved with his mother and two sisters to Brinley Avenue in Memphis when he was a youngster. Before he was ten he had fashioned a guitar from a cigar box and screen wire. His first guitar was supposedly given to him by W.C. Handy, a Martin that he used for decades, “until I just absolutely wore it out completely” as he recalled.” Lewis played around Beale Street in speakeasies, taverns, dance halls and house parties and worked the countryside at suppers, frolics and fish fries. In 1925 he got together with Will Shade, Dewey Thomas and Hambone Lewis to form an early version of the Memphis Jug Band and like Jim Jackson took to traveling with medicine shows. Vocalion talent scouts saw both men in 1927 but it was Lewis who went to Chicago first in April where he cut six sides with “The Panic’s On” remaining unissued. He and Jackson went up together in October the same year where Jackson cut his famous “Kansas City Blues” with Lewis cutting seven numbers including the unissued “Casey Jones.” Asked in later years if Jim Jackson was still alive in 1959, the year Lewis was rediscovered, Lewis quipped “he been dead so long he near about ready to come back.” Just under a year later Victor recorded eight more titles by Lewis in Memphis and Vocalion brought him in the studio one last time in 1929, cutting four songs at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

Jellyroll (MP3)

Mr Furry’s Blues (MP3)

While playing the blues at nights and occasional recordings, Lewis kept a day job at the city’s Sanitation Department which he secured in 1923 and kept until he retired in 1968. “When I first started there, the city didn’t have trucks, I drove a mule and a car for the city. I was a street cleaner, I hauled garbage, I worked on the city dump and I worked washing streets.”

Thirty year would pass before Sam Charters came knocking in 1959 subsequently recordings him for Folkways that same year with two more albums following for Prestige in 1961. There was nothing rusty about his playing as he had never stopped performing for neighbors and friends. Lewis was recorded often through the 1960’s, with a slew of informal recordings issued posthumously. Bob Groom wrote in his book The Blues Revival that his “return has been one of the most satisfying of the [blues] revival.” He played regularly at festivals around Memphis, appeared with Burt Reynolds in the movie W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings, sang “Furry’s Blues” on Johnny Carson and was the subject of a Joni Mitchell song (he didn’t like it). During this period Lewis’ apartment became a pilgrimage for many visitors to Memphis, from blues fans, musicians to celebrities.  Lewis died in 1981 at the City of Memphis Hospital. In the liner notes to Shake ‘Em On Down, Pete Welding wrote that Lewis’ music, “engagingly direct and sincere, typifies the best that the Memphis blues has to offer. If any single performer can be said to stand as the living embodiment of the Memphis blues, a perfomer in whose music can be found the full span of that urban-rural polarity, that man is surley Furry Lewis.”

Show Notes:

Today’s mix show spotlights quite a number of fine country blues performances from the 1960’s and 70’s plus a few recent reissues that just rolled in. We open up with two fine cuts from the 2-CD set Sunnyland Slim & Johnny Shines: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions, another entry in a very welcome reissue series of Blue Horizon recordings from the 1960’s. The sessions were recorded separately on the same day in Chicago in 1968 and originally issued as Midnight Jump and Last Night’s Dream. While this isn’t the best work by either artist this is a very solid set particularly our featured Shines cuts; “Solid Gold” a magnificent number backed by just Willie Dixon’s bass while the version of “Heartache” is a previously unissued take, backed just by Sunnyland Slim, it was intended as a run-through but I prefer it it to the issued take. We also spin a cut from the 2-CD set Furry Lewis & Mississippi Joe Callicott: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions. Lewis and Callicott met for the first time when they were both invited to perform at the 1968 Memphis Country Blues Festival (a previous title in the series).  It was after this appearance that Mike Vernon had the opportunity to book time at the Ardent Studio the following day, along with Bukka White, where these tracks were recorded over an exhaustive 24 hours in the studio and later released as separate artist albums under the series name Presenting the Country Blues. The set includes eight unissued tracks by Callicott, most welcome as his discography is very slim, and two unissued sides by Lewis. Of those unissued cuts we play Callicott’s marvelous “Lost My Money In Jim Kinnane’s.” We do play a Furry Lewis track today which comes from the record Furry Lewis, Bukka White & Friends – Party! At Home recorded in Memphis in 1968 and released on the Arcola label. These recordings are pretty rough around the edges, recorded at a party at Furry’s house, but are a whole lot of fun.

We play several other twin spins today including sides by Sylvester Weaver & Sarah Martin, Scott Dunbar and J.B. Lenoir. Sylvester Weaver was a versatile guitarist from Louisville who made the first solo recordings of blues guitar playing. Weaver first recorded in New York in 1923, where on October 23 he accompanied vaudeville blues singer Sara Martin on two numbers for Okeh. The Sara Martin selections represented the first time on records that a popular female singer had been backed up solely by guitar, and were an immediate success. Weaver would cut 25 more selections accompanying Martin in the years through 1927. Known in her heyday as “the blues sensation of the West,” Martin was one of the most popular of the classic female blues singers of the 1920’s. Martin began her career as a vaudeville performer, switching to blues singing in the early 1920’s. In 1922, she began recording for OKeh Records and continued recording prolifically until 1928. In the early 1930’s Martin retired from blues singing and settled in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky where she died in 1955. We feature one of her collaborations with Weaver, the tough “Black Hearse Blues:”

Oh death wagon, don’t you dare stop at my door (2x)
You took my first three daddies, but you can’t have number four
Smallpox got my first man, booze killed number two (2x)
I wore out the last one but with this one I ain’t through

“Death Sting Me Blues” is equally bleak featuring superb cornet from King Oliver:

Blues you made me roll and tumble, you made me weep and sigh (2x)
Made me use cocaine and whiskey, but you wouldn’t let me die
Blues blues blues, why did you bring trouble to me (2x)
Oh death please sting me, and take me out of my misery

Other pre-war blues today include fine tracks from Johnnie Temple, William Moore, Willie “Poor Boy” Lofton, Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr.

Scott Dunbar

Scott Dunbar was born 1904 on Deer Park between the Mississippi and Lake Mary (an eleven mile cut-off arm of the River) west of Woodville and south of Natchez, Mississippi. Frederic Ramsey, jr. recorded a few tracks by Dunbar in 1954 that appeared on Smithsonian anthologies. He cut a one full-length album, From Lake Mary, in 1970 on the obscure Ahura Mazda label, which was reissued by Fat Possum in 2000. He never recorded again, passing in 1994. Close to 60 sides were cut by Dunbar for the 1970 session and the bulk remain unissued. While Dunbar’s repertoire was drawn from traditional sources it was filtered through a wholly idiosyncratic, singular style that was utterly unique and absolutely captivating. He simply sounded like no one else and it’s a real shame that the bulk of his recordings still remain in the can. We also spin a pair of sides by J.B. Lenoir; “Alabama Blues” and “The Mountain” cut fourteen years apart. Lenoir’s final two albums before his death in 1967, Alabama Blues (1965) and Down In Mississippi (1966) were produced by Willie Dixon for L+R Records. Lenoir’s material on these albums, with its finger on the pulse of the mid-1960’s, deal with themes such as Civil rights, racism, lynching, and the Vietnam War, among some other traditional blues. Sadly he died shortly after these albums, in 1967 at the age of 38. “Alabama Blues” is a potent number from this later period:

I never will go back to Alabama, that is not the place for me (2x)
You now they killed my sister and my brother, and the whole world let them peoples down there go free
I never will love Alabama, Alabama seem to never have loved poor me (2x)
Oh God I wish you would rise up one day, lead my peoples to the land of peace

We play an excellent set of West Coast blues from two terrific, brand new collections: Bob Geddins: Big Town Records Story a 3-CD set Acrobat and The Downhome Blues Sessions Vol. 5: Back In The Alley 1949-1954 on Ace. These collections spotlight the contributions of record produce/songwriter Bob Geddins. Geddins was the dominant figure in Bay Area blues from the mid-1940’s to the mid-1960’s. He was involved in a series of labels including Big Town, Down Town, Cava-Tone, Rhythm, Irma, Art-Tone and others. He was notable also for being the first to set up a pressing plant in the Bay area. Many of his records were leased to bigger labels such as Modern. He released records by Lowell Fulson, Jimmy McCracklin, Johnny Fuller, Roy Hawkins, Jimmy Wilson among many others. The first four volumes of Ace’s The Downhome Blues Sessions gather together historic juke joint recordings made by Joe Bihari and Ike Turner in deep South locations between late 1951 and early 1952. Make sure to tune in October 26th as I devote the whole show to the amazing recordings and December 28th when I devote a show to Bob Geddins and the downhome West Coast blues of the late 1940’s and 50’s.

We spotlight two superb collections of field recordings from the 1970’s: Western Peidmont Blues and On The Road Again: Country Blues 1969-1974. Western Peidmont Blues is part of the Virginia Traditions series assembled by the Blue Ridge Institute for Appalachian Studies at Ferrum College in Virginia. This collection brings together field recordings from the mid-’50s and late ’70s with a pair of 78s from the 1920’s to make a nice historical portrait of blues in the region. Also worthwhile in this series are Virginia Work Songs and Tidewater Blues. On The Road Again features field recordings made by Bengt Olsson in Tennessee and Alabama between 1969-1974. These recordings originally were issued on three albums on the Flyright label: Southern Comfort Country, Lum Guffin: Walking Victrola and Old Country Blues. Bengt Olsson was a Swedish blues researcher, field recorder and author of the book Memphis Blues (Studio Vista, 1970) (an updated version is slated to be released on Routledge) as well as numerous articles. He died late January 2008, at age 58. He had recently sold all his original tapes, including uinissued material, to Fat Possum.