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 have a wide ranging mix on today’s program spanning the years 1925 to 1978. We feature many artists from the 1920’s and 30’s including several artists like Lonnie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Eugene Powell, Victoria Spivey and Robert Wilkins who bridge both the pre-war and post-war eras. We spotlight three from Lonnie Johnson. Unlike many blues artists who recorded in the 1920’s and were later rediscovered, Lonnie was only out of the music business for a relatively short spell; he was not musically active and made no recordings between 1954 and 1959. He came back strong in the 1960’s through the assistance of Chris Albertson who got Lonnie signed to Bluesville, resulting in a number of strong recordings and an active touring schedule. Featured today are “I’m Not Rough” one of six sides Lonnie recorded with Louis Armstrong in 1927 and 1929. From the 1961 Bluesville album, Another Night To Cry, we spin “Fine Booze and Heavy Dues” and from 1963 “Lonnie’s Traveling Light” from the LP Spivey Blues Parade. The latter record is a grab bag of previously unreleased numbers recorded for the Spivey label and put together as a blues revue. Other artists include Sippie Wallace, Sonny Boy Williamson and Walter Horton among others.

Among the other artists who recorded in both the pre-war and post-war eras we spin tracks by  Son House and Mississippi John Hurt. We hear Son on the magnificent “Pearline” which like “Empire State Express” and “Louise McGhee” are newer songs. Hurt’s wonderful “Richland Woman Blues” is from a 1965 Oberlin College concert which has been issued in various configurations and sequences by several labels under different titles and with different cover art over.

Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann and Samuel Lawhorn

Victoria Spivey made her last pre-war blues in 1937 and reemerged in the early 1960’s. Shortly before she formed her own Spivey label in 1961, Spivey made a fine duo album, Woman Blues!, with  Lonnie Johnson whom she had last recorded with back in 1929. Today’s two tracks come from her Spivey LP’s; “Diving Mama” finds her teamed up with Otis Spann and comes from the album The Muddy Waters Blues Band: They Done It Again! Vol. 2 while “Inter-Mission State” finds her partnered with Walter Horton and comes from the album Spivey’s Blues Parade.

Less well known than the above artists is Eugene Powell who also recorded in the pre-war and post-war eras. In 1936, Eugene Powell, along with Mississippi Matilda, Willie Harris and some of the Chatmon family traveled to New Orleans to record for the Bluebird label. Setting up at the St. Charles Hotel, Powell cut six sides during these sessions under the moniker Sonny Boy Nelson. From that session we spin “Pony Blues.” In the 1970’s Powell began playing festivals and recording again. He died in 1998.

Among the other fine early blues performances are some excellent piano blues. Charlie McFadden was an expressive  St. Louis singer who made some superb sides between 1929 and 1937 backed by St. Louis pianists like Roosevelt Sykes (heard on our selection, “Gambler’s Blues”), Eddie Miller and “Pine Top” Sparks.
The exciting barrelhouse pianist Louise Johnson cut four songs for Paramount at the legendary 1930 session that also included sides by Charlie Patton, Willie Brown and Son House. You can hear Patton, Son House and Willie Brown shouting encouragement in the background. Turner Parrish cut eight sides between 1929 and 1933 including the the rollicking instrumental “The Fives”, a song also recorded by Hersal Thomas, Cripple Clarence Lofton and Jimmy Yancey.

Also worth mentioning is the mysterious Kid Cole of whom we play his “Niagra Fall Blues” which coincidentally makes no reference at all to the famous landmark. Kid Cole was a Cincinnati blues artist who cut four sides for Vocalion in 1928. According to Steven C. Tracy’s Going To Cincinnati, Cole most likely also recorded as Bob Coleman, cutting three sides under that name in 1929 and two sides with the Cincinnati Jug Band the same year. It’s also been suggested that he recorded under the moniker Sweet Papa Tadpole for a six song 1930 session with Tampa Red and the same year as Walter Cole for Gennett.

Also on tap are some fine Chicago blues including sides by Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Eddie Boyd and Sunnyland Slim. Muddy’s “Forty Days And Forty Nights”comes from the new release, Authorized Bootleg: Live at the Fillmore Auditorium – San Francisco Nov 04-06 1966. This excelelnt set features the great George “Harmonica” Smith who played with Muddy for only a short stint. From the out-of-print LP Blues Southside Chicago we spin Eddie Boyd’s “Where You Belong” a session supervised by Willie Dixon. Mike Leadbitter discusses the aim of the record in his liner notes: “This album was recorded In Chicago’s Southside by Willie Dixon with one aim in mind-to provide the English enthusiast with blues played as they are played in the clubs, without gimmicks and without interfering A & R men. This album is not intended to be commercial in any way and by using top artists and top session men an LP has been produced that doesn’t sound as cold as studio recordings usually do.”

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.