Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

A varied mix show today stretching from the 1920′s up through the 1970′s with the emphasis more on the post-war blues then usual. On deck today are a pair of extended sets focusing on some terrific blues ladies, a batch of prime Chicago blues from the 1950′s and 60′s, a pair of cuts by Tampa Red plus a pair featuring Johnny Heartsman. Amid the obscure players we feature quite a number of well known artists although, perhaps, performing lesser known tracks.

Alberta Hunter

Among the better known blues ladies featured today are Lavern Baker, Memphis Minnie and Alberta Hunter. From 1953, her second session and first for Atlantic, we spin Lavern Baker’s torrid “How Can You Leave A Man Like This” backed by a rocking combo featuring Jimmy Lewis on guitar and Freddie Mitchell on tenor sax. During her time at Atlantic Records (1953-62), Baker cut half a dozen singles that rose to high positions on both the pop and R&B charts, including “Tweedle Dee” and “Jim Dandy.” The niece of blues singer Memphis Minnie, Baker was blessed with a powerful voice, which she put to use as a teenager singing in nightclubs under the stage name Little Miss Sharecropper. She recorded under that and other pseudonyms (including Bea Baker), finally adopting the name LaVern Baker while singing for Todd Rhodes and His Orchestra.

A couple of decades before Baker made her debut, Memphis Minnie made hers. Starting in 1929, her remarkable career ran through 1953,  following three basic phases : the duet years with Kansas Joe, the “Melrose” band sound of the late thirties and early forties, and her later electric playing with Ernest “Little Son Joe” Lawlars. From 1936 we hear the powerfully sung “Out In The Cold.”

Then there’s Alberta Hunter, one of the original woman who ushered in the blues craze, making her debut for the legendary Black Swan label way back in 1921. Hunter recorded in six decades of the twentieth century, outlasting just about all her peers. Hunter first cut “Chirpin’ The Blues” for Paramount in 1923 and again in 1939 which is the version featured today. Backed by a stellar band featuring Charlie Shaver on trumpet, Buster Bailey on clarinet and Lil Armstrong on piano, Hunter delivers a magnificent performance.

No less talented are the lesser known blues ladies including Madonna Martin, who only cut four sides in 1949, and delivers the storming “Madonna’s Boogie”, Hattie Green, who cut six sides for Atlas in the 50′s, lays down the tough “Pawn Shop Blues” and Annisteen Allen shouts the blues on the raucous “Hard to Get Along.” From the pre-war there’s the superb, but utterly obscure, Madelyn James who cut a lone 78 for Brunswick in 1930, “Long Time Blues b/w Stinging Snake Blues”,  featuring the excellent session pianist Judson Brown.

Today’s program is also sprinkled with some top notch Chicago blues from the 50′s and 60′s including cuts by Eddie Taylor, Robert Nighthawk, Big John Wrencher, Johnny Littlejohn and J.B. Lenoir. Eddie Taylor hit Chicago in 1949, falling in with harpist Snooky Pryor, guitarist Floyd Jones, and Jimmy Reed who was a childhood friend. From Jimmy Reed’s second Vee-Jay date in 1953, Taylor was on the great majority of Reed’s Vee-Jay sides during the 1950s and early ’60s, and he even found time to wax a few classic sides of his own for Vee-Jay during the mid-’50s. He also recorded behind John Lee Hooker, John Brim, Elmore James, Snooky Pryor, and many more during the ’50s. He cut his debut album, I Feel So Bad, in 1972 for Advent. From that album we spin his fine cover of Robert Nighthawk’s “Jackson Town Gal”, here title “Jackson Town.”

Delta born John Funchess left home in 1946, pausing in Jackson, MS; Arkansas, and Rochester, NY, before winding up in Gary, IN. Littlejohn waited a long time to wax his debut singles for Margaret, T-D-S, and Weis in 1968. But before the year was out, Littlejohn had also cut his debut album, Chicago Blues Stars, for the Arhoolie logo. Unfortunately, a four-song 1969 Chess date remained in the can. After that, another long dry spell preceded Littlejohn’s 1985 album So-Called Friends for Rooster Blues. Littlejohn had been in poor health for some time prior to his 1994 passing. Today’s cut, “I Got My Nose Open” was recorded for the Mississippi Ace label but inexplicably was unissued.

One-Armed harmonica player Big John Wrencher was a fixture of Maxwell Street. Wrencher was a traveling musician, playing throughout Tennessee and neighboring Arkansas from the late 1940’s to the early 1950’s. By the early 1960’s he had moved North to Chicago and quickly became a regular fixture on Maxwell Street. His first recordings surfaced on a pair of Testament albums from the 1960’s, featuring Big John in a sideman role behind Robert Nighthawk. We hear him today backing Nighthawk on a fine rendition of “Blues Before Sunrise.” Wrencher cut the excellent Maxwell Street Alley Blues for the Barrelhouse label and cut Big John’s Boogie for the British Big Bear label in 1975. Wrencher passed in 1977.

We have a couple of twin spins, of sorts on today’s program. Two from the incomparable  Tampa Red, including 1940′s solo “Noonday Hour Blues” and 1941′s gorgeous “Georgia, Georgia Blues” backed by pianist Big Maceo and Ransom Knowling. We also spin two versions of the blues standard ‘Eyesight To The Blind” by The Larks and B.B. King. The song was originally cut by Sonny Boy Williamson and has has been covered many times. The most successful early version was that by The Larks. The group’s recording of “Eyesight to the Blind”, with vocals and guitar by Allen Bunn, who later worked solo as Tarheel Slim, reached #5 on the Billboard R&B charts in July 1951. King first cut the song in 1965 and played the song often live.

Through one of his main influences, guitarist Lafayette “Thing” Thomas, a teenage Johnny Heartsman hooked up with Bay Area producer Bob Geddins. Heartsman played bass on Jimmy Wilson’s 1953 rendition of “Tin Pan Alley,” handling guitar or piano at other Geddins recordings.  Other artists he backed included Ray Agee, Little Willie Littlefield and Jimmy McCracklin . He cut his own two-part instrumental, the “Honky Tonk”-inspired “Johnny’s House Party,” for Music City, which become a national R&B hit in 1957. The early ’60s brought a lot more session work — Heartsman played on Tiny Powell’s “My Time After Awhile” (soon covered by Buddy Guy) which we also spin, and Al King’s remake of Lowell Fulson’s “Reconsider Baby.” Stints in show bands, jazzy cocktail lounge gigs, and a stand as soul singer Joe Simon’s organist came prior to his return to the blues in the 90′s. In 1991 he cut his best album, The Touch for Alligator. He passed in 1996.

Also worth mentioning are some fine down-home blues by Guitar Slim Green and Jim Bunkley. West Coast guitarist Slim Green cut a handful of sides in the late 40’s and late 50’s for a bunch of small California labels and in 1970 cut the album Stone Down Blues for Kent backed by Johnny and Shuggie Otis. From that album we spin “Fifth Street Alley” a reworking of his 1948 gem, “Alla Blues.”

George Mitchell recorded a handful of sides by Bunkley in Geneva, Georgia in 1968. From Mitchell’s notes:  ”Jim Bunkley lived in a small tar-papered house he bragged was his own, in Geneva, Georgia, his birthplace. He was ‘eight years old when they took the census in 1920. It was about that time he made friends with the guitar.” ‘When I was about eight, my brother had one, and me and my nine year-old sister used to play it. Us couldn’t hold it. Had it hanging up ‘side of the wall and we’d get up on a chair and play it. Everyone in my family could play – we had five boys and four girls.’ ”When he ‘got up in age, Bunkley was about the best known musician around Talbot County. He recalled the many times he walked away with prizes offered at a theater in nearby Junction City. ‘I was rough then,’ he said. ‘I had on a great big ole cowboy hat and I got up there on the stage and cracked a whole lot of jokes and then played. I win all that money, too.’” Our track, the topical “Segregation Blues”, comes from the recent collection, President Johnson’s Blues and was originally released in 1971 on the Revival label as George Henry Bussey and Jim Bunkley. The CD is a companion to Guido van Rijn’s book of the same name, the fourth in a series of superbly researched books dealing with topical blues and gospel. I’ve read Rijn’s previous books and look forward to reading this one as well. There’s an additional CD companion to his latest book, Martin Luther King’s Blues which is another fascinating collection of topical rarities.

J.D. Short

I suppose it sounds rather romantic spending your time roaming around the south with a tape recorder recording blues but for all the rewards and exciting discoveries it’s a stressful enterprise, not to mention a precarious way to make a living. These days hardly anyone one does it anymore and the sad fact is that blues has largely disappeared as integral part of African-American rural communities; most of the old timers have passed on and few of the younger generation are interested in blues, particularly traditional blues. Much has been written about John and Alan Lomax who scoured the south and beyond making landmark recordings for the Library of Congress from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. Less well known are those that followed in the Lomax’s footsteps; there was folklorists and researchers such as David Evans, Sam Charters, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Art Rosenbaum, Pete Welding, Chris Strachwitz ,Bruce Bastin, Bengt Olsson, Dick Spottswood, Kip Lornell, Glenn Hinson, Tim Duffy, Siegfried A. Christmann and Axel Küstner. Some were hunting for the famous names who made records in the 1920’s and 1930’s, others were seeking to fill in biographical blanks regarding some of the older musicians coveted by collectors and then there were those who were seeking to document the blues tradition as it still existed in rural communities, men like George Mitchell and Peter B. Lowry. This was a very different undertaking than 1960’s blues revival which sought out and put back on the circuit such legendary artists of the past as Son House, Skip James, Bukka White and Mississippi John Hurt. The field recordings made during this era were a sort of a parallel undercurrent to the more famous artists. What they recorded in the rural communities of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi in the 1960’s was a still thriving, if largely undocumented, blues culture.

Today’s abbreviated show is part two of our look at field recordings made in the 1960′s and 70′s. Today’s program spotlights recordings made by Paul Oliver, David Evans, Sam Charters, William Ferris, Fredric Ramsey Jr. and Bruce Jackson. In the second hour we present Truckin’ My Blues an hour-long special which introduces listeners to the stories and sounds of four older Southern bluesmen—and to the efforts of Tim Duffy, founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, to help lift these musicians from poverty and obscurity.

In the opening set we spin a couple of tracks recorded by Sam Charters.  Charters’ fieldwork, extensive liner notes, production efforts, and books served as an introduction to many who had never heard of artists like Lightnin’ Hopkins and Robert Johnson. Charters also began his work as a field recorder during the ’50s, and this research would result in his first book in 1959, The Country Blues. “…The Country Blues was the first full-length treatment of the topic,” wrote Benjamin Filene in Romancing the Folk, “and its evocative style inspired thousands of whites to explore the music.” A companion album, also titled The Country Blues, would simultaneously be released on Folkways. Charters compiled vintage blues reissues, produced numerous albums and did extensive field recording, much of it released on the Folkways label.

Baby Tate’s “When I First Started Hoboing” comes from the film The Blues (read loner notes) which  was begun as, Charters wrote, ” an effort to document aspects of the blues that couldn’t be put on to a phonograph record. In 1961 and 1962 I was doing a great deal of recording in the South, and in Memphis I became interested in not only the sound of Furry Lewis’s guitar style, but in the patterns of movement in his hands and fingers as he played. Out of this came the long trip through St. Louis, Memphis, Louisiana, and South Carolina in the summer of 1962 that led to the film. It was shot under very severe limitations of equipment and film knowledge with a hand held Bolex 16 mm camera, and the sound track was recorded with a portable Ampex machine and a small battery operated Uher. The Blues was finished early in 1963, and was premiered at the University of Chicago Folk Festival in January, 1963″

J.D. Short recorded two sessions in the early ’30s for Paramount and Vocalion, then quickly faded into obscurity. Charters recorded Short at his transplanted home base of St. Louis in 1961 while Charters was passing through the area making similar field recordings of Henry Townsend, Barrelhouse Buck Edith North Johnson, Henry Brown, and Daddy Hotcakes. Short’s recordings have recently been reissued on CD as part of the Sonet Blues Story. As Charters writes in the notes: “The recording that we did in his house that summer – mostly in the kitchen to get away from the noises in the street – was his last, but we didn’t have any idea of it. I was filming him for a sequence in ‘The Blues’ and trying to get his ideas about the backgrounds and the aesthetics of the blues for ‘The Poetry Of The Blues’ so we recorded a lot of music – new versions of songs he’d done before – new songs – and his own comments about the styles and the music.” Short unexpectedly passed away shortly after this session at the age of 60. Short also did a 1958 session with pal Big Joe Williams which was released on Delmark as Stavin’ Chain Blues.

Also in the first set we play a recording by another early field recorder, Frederic Ramsey. Ramsey traveled all over the South photographing black life.Much of his fieldwork is to be found in Music From the South, a 10-volume set of recordings that was released on Folkway. His book “Been Here and Gone,” about black culture was published in 1960.In 1958, folklorist Frederic Ramsey, Jr. recorded someone named Cat-Iron in Buckner’s Alley in Natchez, Mississippi. Ramsey wrote a detailed poetic description of his discovery of Cat-Iron for The Saturday Review which, alas, offered no background on the artist. A biographic cipher, Cat-Iron’s sole testament is Cat-Iron Sings Blues and Hymns, described in the 1958 Folkways catalogue as “old-time Negro songs and guitar style.”

We also play a pair of tracks from the CD accompanying William Ferris’ new book, Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues. Ferris has written and edited 10 books, including the influential Blues from the Delta, and created 15 documentary films, most of which deal with African-American music and other folklore representing the Mississippi Delta. Ferris has produced several albums and made numerous field recordings.

On part one of this feature we played several recordings made by David Evans. It was Evans’ investigation into Tommy Johnson in the late 1960’s that we owe a good deal of what we know about Johnson and it was through Evans’ field recordings that Johnson’s influence comes into sharper focus. Evans began making field recordings in 1965 when he spent about five weeks taping blues artists in Mississippi and Louisiana. The collection Goin’ Up The Country released on Decca in 1968 collects some of the best performances he recorded. The album was reissued in 1976 on Rounder and Rounder also released South Mississippi Blues in 1973, another collection of field recordings from the same period. The Legacy of Tommy Johnson (1972) was issued as  the companion LP to Evans’ Tommy Johnson biography. Today’s selection, Ranie Burnette’s “Shake ‘Em On Down”, comes from the album Afro-American Folk Music From Tate And Panola Counties, Mississippi . The collection is a survey of the hill country, just east of the more famous Mississippi Delta, which has been compiled from recordings made by David Evans in 1969 -71, together with three takes from Alan Lomax’s famous 1942 visit there.

The earliest tracks come from 1960 and were made by Paul Oliver and Chris Strachwitz and come from the albums Conversations With The Blues, a companion to Oliver’s landmark book, and recordings the men made of Alex Moore and the Black Ace which were subsequently issued on Arhoolie Records. Conversation With The Blues is a series of interviews in the artists own words, compiled from interviews with over sixty blues singers. In the Summer of 1960 blues scholar Paul Oliver and his wife made a trip through Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas to interview and record older blues artists for a series of programs sponsored by the BBC. Among those recorded were Sam Chatmon, K.C. Douglas, Big Joe Williams, Butch Cage & Willie Thomas, Robert Curtis Smith among several others.Oliver was also in Chicago were he organized a recording session resulting the album Blues From Maxwell Street which features tracks by Arvella Gray, James Brewer, Daddy Stovepipe and King Davis.

Born in Hughes Springs, Texas, Babe Kyro Lemon AKA Black Ace was raised on the family farm, and taught himself to play guitar, performing in east Texas from the late 1920s on. During the early 1930s he began playing with Smokey Hogg and Oscar “Buddy” Woods, a Hawaiian-style guitarist who played with the instrument flat on his lap. In 1937 Turner recorded six songs Decca Records in Dallas, including the blues song “Black Ace”. In the same year, he started a radio show in Fort Worth, using the cut as a theme song, and soon assumed the name. In 1941 he appeared in The Blood of Jesus, an African-American movie produced by Spencer Williams Jr. In 1943 he was drafted into the United States Army, and gave up playing music for some years. However, in 1960, Arhoolie Records owner Chris Strachwitz and paul Oliver persuaded him to record an album for Arhoolie (reissued on CD as I Am The Boss Card In Your Hand). His last public performance was in a 1962 documentary, The Blues, and he died of cancer in Fort Worth, in 1972.

In 1929, Alex Moore made his debut recordings for Columbia Records and recorded again in 1937 for Decca Records. It was 1951 before Moore recorded again with RPM/Kent. However, throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Moore performed in clubs in Dallas and occasionally other parts of Texas. He was recorded by Paul Oliver and Chris Stratwichz in 1960 (reissued as From North Dallas To The East Side), and those subsequent recordings saw him obtain nationwide recognition.

Our final selection, the nearly ten minute “I Got Too Much Time For The Crime I Done”, comes from the remarkable album Ever Since I Have Been a Man Full Grown issued on  Takoma in 1965. The recording was made by Bruce Jackson in 1965 at Texas’s Ramsey Prison Farm of a fellow named Johnnie B., or J. B., Smith. As far as I know this is the only LP devoted to a single unaccompanied singer of prison work-song. From the liner notes: “Smitty – J.B. Smith – is eleven years into a forty-five year sentence that begun in 1954; he is 48 years old. This is his fourth time in prison in Texas and he does not expect to be paroled for some time. For him, a song like “No More Good Time in the World for Me”, though it draws heavily on the general inmate song vocabulary, is completely personal; the situation applies to him almost without qualification.” J.B. Smith: “The oldtimers still sing. That is, if whoever is carrying (in charge of) the squad will let them. In some cases the boss won’t let them sing. …The young men don’t get a chance to work with the older men and they haven’t experienced working with older men. A lot of them have never been in the system before. And the crews they work with don’t even know the songs, the worksongs that they work by. But once they get to working with the older men, they learn the songs and they try to carry them on when they can. But like I said, in most cases they can’t because they’re not permitted.”

In the second half of the program we air Truckin’ My Blues Away. From the notes: “This music-rich hour-long special introduces listeners to the stories and sounds of four older Southern bluesmen—and to the efforts of Tim Duffy, founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, to help lift these musicians from poverty and obscurity. The musicians cover a wide swath of the South: Boo Hanks from Virgina, Va.; Captain Luke from Winston-Salem, N.C.; Eddie Tigner from Atlanta; and Little Freddie King from New Orleans. In their own words and performances, these men bring us the story of a music, an era and a culture that are uniquely American.The program is co-produced and co-written by Richard Ziglar and Barry Yeoman, who traveled around the South collecting interviews and field recordings of the musicians. Yeoman, who co-produced our Gracie Award-winning program ‘Picking Up the Pieces,’ narrates.”

Show Notes:

For more than 50 years Sunnyland Slim rumbled the ivories around the Windy City, playing with virtually every local luminary imaginable and backing the great majority in the studio at one time or another. He was born Albert Luandrew in Mississippi and got his start playing pump organ. After entertaining at juke joints and movie houses in the Delta, he made Memphis his homebase during the late ’20s, playing along Beale Street and hanging out with the likes of Little Brother Montgomery and Ma Rainey. He adopted his name from the title of one of his best-known songs, “Sunnyland Train.” Slim moved to Chicago in 1939 and set up shop as an in-demand piano man, playing for a spell with John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson before making his debut in 1947. If it hadn’t been for the helpful Sunnyland, Muddy Waters may not have found his way onto Chess; it was at the pianist’s 1947 session for Aristocrat that the Chess brothers first met Waters. Aristocrat was but one of the many labels that Sunnyland recorded for between 1948 and 1956: Hytone, Opera, Chance, Tempo-Tone, Mercury, Apollo, JOB, Regal, Vee-Jay (unissued), Blue Lake, Club 51, and Cobra all cut dates on Slim, whose vocals thundered with the same resonant authority as his 88s. In addition, his distinctive playing enlivened hundreds of sessions by other artists during the same time frame, backing artists such as Muddy Waters, Robert Lockwood, Little Walter, Johnny Shines, Memphis Minnie, St. Louis Jimmy, John Brim and many others.

Sunnyland first surfaced on record with Jump Jackson for Specialty on September 26, 1946 singing “Night Life Blues” during a ten title session.  Sunnyland made official his debut for the small Chicago label H-Tone, cutting six sides fro the label backed by Lonnie Johnson. Later in the year he cut two two-song sessions for Aristocrat labeled Sunnyland Slim and Muddy Water and labeled Sunnyland Slim and Muddy Waters Combo. Sunnyland played a large role in launching the career of Muddy Waters. The pianist invited him to provide accompaniment for his 1947 Aristocrat session that would produce “Johnson Machine Gun.” One obstacle remained beforehand: Waters had a day gig delivering Venetian blinds. But he wasn’t about to let such an opportunity slip through his fingers. He informed his boss that a fictitious cousin had been murdered in an alley, so he needed a little time off to take care of business. When Sunnyland had finished that day, Waters sang a pair of numbers, “Little Anna Mae” and “Gypsy Woman,” that would become his own Aristocrat debut 78. Sunnyland  cut one other session in 1947;  In December he eight songs for Victor under the name Doctor Clayton’s Buddy, after the popular and recently deceased Doctor Clayton.

Circa December 1947 Sunnyland backed Muddy Waters again on a four-song session for Aristocrat. In May 1948 Sunnyland backed Little Walter at his second recording date, backing Walter on “Blues Baby b/w I Want My Baby” for the Tempo-Tone label with Muddy Waters featured on the latter track. He backed Memphis Minnie circa 1949/1950 for a four-song session for Regal playing alongside Jimmy Rogers and Ernest “Big” Crawford, both who played with Muddy Waters in the early years. From that session we spin “Kidman Blues.” Sunnyland also worked with St. Louis Jimmy on three session in 1948 and 1949 and we play “Trying To Change My Ways” from that date.

Sunnyland backed Robert Lockwood on several sessions; one for J.O.B. in March 1951, a second session for Mercury in November and again for J.O.B. in 1955. Lockwood in turn backed Sunnyland on sessions for J.O.B.  and Mercury in 1951 and again for J.O.B. in 1954 plus some sessions in 1960. Lockwood and Sunnyland made a potent team and among their collaborations we hear “Down Home Child”, “Low Down Sunnyland Train”, “Glory For Man”, “I’m Gonna Dig Myself a Hole” and “Pearly B.”

In 1951 and 1952 Sunnyland backed Leroy Foster on four songs for J.O.B. with the 1951 date listed as Baby Face and Sunnyland Trio. Sunnyland also backed J.B. Lenoir on two sessions in 1952 and 1953 for the J.O.B. label. Also at that 1953 J.O.B. Sunnyland and J.B. backed Johnny Shines on two numbers including the superb topical blues “Livin’ In The White House.”

We spin several tracks form the 1960′s; In 1960 Sunnyland traveled to Englewood Cliffs, NJ to cut a session that was released on Bluesville as the LP Slim’s Shout. From that album we play his “Devil Is A Busy Man” a song he cut several times including at his 1947 but that record seems to have disappeared. The session features King Curtis on sax. Fuel 2000 released a live date (Live ’63) with guitarist J.B. Lenoir Sunnyland almost 33 years after the original session took place at Nina’s Lounge, a small club on the near west side of Chicago of which we play another Sunnyland favorite, “It’s You Baby.” Sunnyland played the AFBF in 1964, 1980 and 1981 and we play his seminal “Everytime I Get To Drinking” backed by Hubert Sumlin.

Sunnyland continued to record steadily in the 70′s and 80′s, cutting albums for Bluesway (Plays The Ragtime Blues is an excellent date but unfortunatley out-of-print), Earwig and for his own label, Airway Records (some of this material has been gathered on two fine collections on Earwig: She’s Got A Thing Goin’ On and Be Careful How You Vote). Notable records from the 1970′s include Sad And Lonesome a fine date for Jewel featuring Walter Horton and Hubert Sumlin, the solo date Travelin’ which includes some fascinating monlogues and the 1977 session Smile On My Face sporting excellent guitar work from Lacy Gibson. There are loads of reissues of Sunnyland’s early material with notable ones including Sunnyland And His Pals a 4-CD set on JSP that spans 1947 to 1955 including many seminal sessions backing other artists, Sunnyland Special: The Cobra & J.O.B. Recordings 1949-1956 and three chronological volumes on the classics label (1947-1948, 1949-1951 and 1952-1955)). Sunnyland Slim finally died of kidney failure in 1995.

Show Notes:

Today’s shown revolves around blues songs relating to presidents and politics. Overt political commentary was rare in recorded blues and gospel prior to the 1960′s. Some of the most moving political songs were tributes for Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who had great appeal to African Americans. One theme running through today’s show is several songs dealing with the death of president Kennedy who was assassinated 45 years ago yesterday. There were also quite a number of gospel songs written on the topic, and although we normally don’t play gospel we make an exception today. Roosevelt was considered the “poor man’s friend” and the lyrical evidence suggests he was viewed “as a benevolent and powerful patron or ‘bossman’” while Truman was seen as much more fallible and “unresponsive to the economic plight of black people as well as their growing demands for equal rights.” Kennedy’s reputation, particularly in the early years, was rather ambivalent but his death, as the lyrical evidence makes clear, “virtually eradicated any criticism of his international or political policies and left him an unadulterated hero.” These last quotes come from scholar Gudio Van Rijn who has written the books Roosevelt Blues, The Truman & Eisenhower Blues and Kennedy’s Blues which analyze lyrics of blues and gospel songs that deal with topical issues. In addition each book has an accompanying CD, which is where many of today’s songs come from. Several of the Kennedy songs come from the album Can’t Keep From Crying: Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy on the Testament label.

I guess you can say I wear my sympathies my sleeve with the opening numbers; Champion Jack Dupree’s “God Bless Our New President” and Bobo Jenkins’ “Democrat Blues.” “God Bless Our New President” was cut only a few days after Truman was sworn in following the death of FDR. The flip side was “F.D.R. Blues.” The record was advertised in Billboard as a “new sensational timely blues record.” In “Democrat Blues” cut in 1952 Jenkins is clearly not happy about Dwight Eisenhower who was the first Republican in the White House since 1933. If Jenkins was still with us he would clearly be a happy man.

A running thread throughout today’s show is some remarkable songs on the death of President Kennedy. In the wake of John Kennedy’s assassination, Pete Welding recorded over a dozen acoustic blues tributes to the late president for the compilation Can’t Keep from Crying: Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy in late 1963 and early 1964. Several other songs come form Kennedy’s Blues. Not surprisingly Kennedy’s assassination provoked an outpouring of memorial songs where “the deceased president emerges as a near-saint.” As Rijn notes, “the blues and gospel singers’ president was in heaven now. Like Christ he had died for our sins.” Indeed Kennedy’s death is often compared to the crucifixion of Christ a theme hammered home in several gospel songs. Among the moving performances are Otis Spann’s impassioned “Sad Day In Texas”, his voice choked with emotion, Jim and Fannie Brewer’s simply but deeply moving “I Want To Know Why” and Perry Tillis’ “Kennedy Moan.” There are several strong gospel performances including Ronda Mitchell & Mrs. Lovell magnificent “J.F. Kennedy’s Reservation”, The Southern Bell Singers’ soaring “The Tragedy Of Kennedy” and the Dixie Nightinglaes’ haunting “Assassination.”

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president of the United States, thousands of black Americans, traditionally Republican, deserted the party of Lincoln and became Democrats. Roosevelt was immensely popular among blacks as evidenced in songs like Otis Jackson’s two-part “Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt” and Big Joe Wiilliams’ moving “His Spirit Lives On.” While were practically no blues lyrics critical of Roosevelt, Truman was criticized explicitly early on. Expectations were high for post-war prosperity and Truman’s inability to stem inflation made him ripe for criticism. It wasn’t long for the sentiment expressed in Champion Jack Dupree’s “God Bless Our New President” cut in April 1945 (Truman became President in January that year) became more pointed in songs like J.B. Lenoir’s “Eisenhower Blues” and the “positively revolutionary” variation “Everybody Wants To Know:”

You rich people, listen, you better listen real deep
If we poor peoples get hungry, we gonna take some food to eat

While Rijn has yet to write his book on Nixon (I have no doubt he will) there were a number of songs about Nixon and as you would imagine they were not very flattering. Watergate is a topic taken up by Howlin’ Wolf on “Watergate Blues” on his final album The Back Door Wolf while Big Joe is back with his “Watergate Blues.” Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown addresses Nixon directly in “Please Mr. Nixon” to “Don’t cut off your welfare line.” Other songs that directly addressed the president were several songs that came along at the same time including Roy C’s “Open Letter To The President” and his more explicit “Impeach The President, King Solomon’s “Please Mr President” the Angels Of Joy’s gorgeous plea “Mr President.”

Today’s show also features a trio of fantasy songs inspired by Big Bill Broonzy’s “Just A Dream.” The idea of a black man as a president was the stuff of fantasy as Big Bill relates:

Dreamed I was in the White House, sittin’ in the president’s chair.
I dreamed he’s shaking my hand, said “Bill, I’m glad you’re here”
But that was just a dream. What a dream I had on my mind
And when I woke up, not a chair could I find

Some fifteen years later Johnny Shines recorded his “Livin’ In The White House:”

Now I’m livin’ in the White House, just trying to help old Ike along (2x)
And tryin’ to make an admendment, for things Harry left undone

I want to live in paradise, make servants out of kins and queens (2x)
Now, don’t shake me, please, darling, this is one time I wanna finish my dream

Then there’s Louisiana’s Red surreal, hilarious “Red’s Dream” where he goes “to the U.N. and set the whole nation right”, threatens Castro with a “Georgia shave” (slit his throat) and is finally summoned to the White House by the President where he plans to install some “soul brothers” in the senate like Ray Charles, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley and Big Maybelle! Then of course there’s Louis Jordan’s “Jordan For President.” After announcing that he is ready to move “… from the phonograph record to the ‘Congressional Record’”, Jordan promises to help listeners “… get straight on all the candidates” and “… make the proper selection in the coming election.” Jordan’s hoping you’ll vote for the swing ticket: “For an administration that’ll move you, groove you, and keep you fit” and “… to walk on the sunny side of the street with the candidate with the beat … vote for Jordan for President!” Jordan’s electoral promises: “Every American will get his portion – after I get mine” and “… we’ll all serve – time!.” I Don’t Want To Be President” by the ever philosophical Percy Mayfield takes a Nixon era slant:

Now just suppose I had a girlfriend and called her, and she lived way across the lake
Why Congress would know the whole conversation because, you see, they’d have it on tape
Then they put me on the television to tell the whole world my private life
Hell I wouldn’t mind if people knowing but what about my wife

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.