Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

At Izzy young’s Folklore Center, MacDougal Street, NYC, l-r Sam charters, Izzy Young, Memphis Willie B., Furry Lewis, and Gus cannon, 1964 (Photo by Ann Charters)

Samuel Charters played a central role in the folk revival of the 1950′s and 1960′s. His 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 was born in 1929 and graduated from Sacramento City College in 1949. In 1951, at the age of 21, he moved to New Orleans. After a two-year stint in the Army, he began to study jazz, but soon felt himself drawn to rural blues. Encouraged by fellow jazz researcher Frederic Ramsey, Charters began recording jazz and blues artists in 1955. The following year Folkways Records began issuing his recordings. Charters  work as a field recorder and researcher  would be poured into 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.” Unlike the more formal music histories written by Paul Oliver, Charters’ book was a popular history designed to pass on his enthusiasm for the blues to others. A companion album, also titled The Country Blues, would simultaneously be released on Folkways’ RBF reissue series for which Charters produced about twenty albums. His other claim to fame during this period was his re-discovery, after a lengthy search, of Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins who he recorded for Folkways in 1959.

In the 60′s Charters wrote several books including The Poetry of the Blues and The Bluesmen. A 1961 trip for Prestige Records yielded records by Furry Lewis, Memphis Willie B., Baby Tate and Pink Anderson. Charters visited St. Louis to do recording sessions in 1961 and 1962 resulting in several albums by Henry Townsend, Henry Brown and Edith Johnson, Dady Hotcakes, J.D. Short, Speckled Red and Barrelhouse Buck. In 1963 he was hired by Prestige as an A&R representative, and oversaw the Bluesville and Folklore series.

Sam charters recording Sleepy John Estes, Brownsville, TN, 1962 (Photo by Ann Charters)

Charters’ Prestige recordings of Homesick James, Billy Boy Arnold, and Otis Spann were some of the first electric blues releases aimed at the revival market. He continued in this vein as an independent producer for Vanguard with the influential three-volume anthology Chicago: The Blues Today as well as solo albums by Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, James Cotton and Charlie Musselwhite.

In the early 70′s Charters moved to Sweden where he worked as a producer for Sonet. The twelve-volume series Legacy of the Blues resulted in a similarly titled book. He also recorded zydeco albums during this period by Clifton Chenier and Rockin’ Dopsie.

On today’s program we track recordings charters made from the late 1950′s through the early 70′s’. Much of the background on today’s artists come from Charters’ own writings, either taken from the original liner notes or Walking A Blues Road: A Blues Reader 1956-2004 a collection of his writings issued in 2004. The First half of the show is devoted primarily to acoustic blues artists. As Charters wrote: ”In the first years of the blues rediscoveries there was a heady level of excitement just at finding that the blues was more than names on old phonograph records. For any of us who had come to the blues through our interest in classic jazz or through our involvement in the folk movement, the modern electric blues was considered with some wariness as an intrusion on the ‘folk’ spirit of the blues. For myself, there was also a sense of urgency. The younger blues artists in places like Chicago or Detroit could wait – whatever we thought of their style of the blues. The older blues artists who were still living in rented rooms or tenement apartments in cities like Memphis or Atlanta didn’t have so many years ahead of them, and if we didn’t save their stories and their music their rich legacy would slip away from us.”

“My life as a record producer began with a duet session that I set up and recorded with Billie and Dee Dee [Pierce] in the spring of 1954. …The material from the session was released by Folkways as part of the series I recorded and complied with some tracks done by other field collectors in the city titled The Music of New Orleans. Billie and Dee Dee were included in Volume Three of the series, Music of the Dance Halls… …If you’re interested in the old New Orleans jazz styles there are still a dozen places to hear bands, even if most of them don’t have music every weekend, and you never know who’s going to play unless one of the musicians calls you. What we knew about Luthjen’s was that every night on the weekends Billie Pierce would be sitting on the bench of the place’s much battered piano and singing the blues, and her husband Dee Dee Pierce would be sitting on an old kitchen chair beside her,  adding the lyric trumpet fills that are an indispensable musical complement to the classic blues style.” From the above mentioned album we play ”Married Man Blues.”

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We spin  a pair of cuts by Lightnin’ Hopkins who Charters located after a lengthy period of not recordings. ”On a windy winter morning in January 1959 I was driving along Dowling Street, in Houston, Texas. I stopped at a red light and a car pulled up beside mine. The window was rolled down, and a thin, nervous man, wearing dark glasses, leaned toward me.

‘You lookin’ for me?’
‘Are you Lightnin’?’
‘Lightnin”, I said, ‘I sure am.’

“I had been looking for lightnin’ Hopkins, off and on, for the five years that had passed since I first heard him on record. …I was in and out of Houston for the next five years, recording, interviewing musicians, and asking about Lightnin’ Hopkins. …When I finally found him he was anxious to begin recording again, and after I’d rented an acoustic guitar for him  I carried the tape recorder I had in the trunk of my car into his shabby room on Hadley Street. He sang all afternoon, becoming more emotional and even more musically exciting as the hours passed.” The results were issued on a self-titled album on Folkways.  The results helped introduced his music to an entirely new audience. Soon after Hopkins went from gigging at back-alley gin joints to starring at collegiate coffeehouses, appearing on TV programs, and touring Europe. He was recording more prolifically then ever, laying down albums for World Pacific, Vee-Jay,Bluesville, Bobby Robinson’s Fire label, Candid, Arhoolie, Verve and, in 1965, the first of several LP’s for Stan Lewis’ Shreveport-based Jewel logo. During the 70′s his recording activity slowed, cutting just a handful of sessions for verve and Sonet with several live collections issued. He was still touring widely and made trips to Mexico, Japan and Germany.  After a final gig at Tramps in New York in November 1981 he returned to Houston where his health declined rapidly. He passed January 30, 1982.

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Charters visited St. Louis to do recording sessions in 1961 and 1962 resulting in several fine albums of material. As Charters wrote: “I first visited St. Louis on the long research trip for The Country Blues in January 1959 …We were in the city again for two recordings trips, the first in May of 1961, and the second, to film J.D. Short for the documentary film The Blues, in the summer of 1962. Two of the albums, by Henry Townsend and Barrelhouse Buck, were released at the time of recording. One album, with J.D. Short, was released as part of the Legacy of the Blues series in 1973, and the other albums were released by Folkways in 1984.

George “Daddy Hotcakes” Montgomery was born in Georgia and came moved to St. Louis in 1918. He began singing the blues as a youngster and worked as an entertainer during the 1920’s. Sometime in the late 30’s he had an opportunity to record through blues artist and talent scout Charlie Jordan but the recording session fell through. He was still occasionally playing parties when Charters recorded him in 1961. These are his only recordings. As Charters wrote: ”I am still also as surprised -when I listen to what we recorded in his room over the next two or threes days – at the complete, natural spontaneity of his blues. …Using his imagination and a store of familiar blues phrase to help him through occasional hesitations he simply made up the songs as he went along. I had some of the same experience when I recorded Lightnin’ Hopkins and Robert Pete Williams but even as loose and free as they were with their blues I still could anticipate most of what they were going to do. With George, however, I never could be sure what might come next if I asked him to repeat anything.” …The songs George recorded in his room – as far as I know these were his only recordings -made me conscious again of the haphazard circumstances that left their mark on what we knew of the blues. How many singers were there like George, who missed a recording trip because they didn’t get the times right? How many were there who never were heard by anyone who knew where to send them to get their songs on record?” these recordings were issued on Folkways under the title The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 1: Daddy Hotcakes (originally planned to be issued on Bluesville).

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While in St. Louis Charters cut an excellent album by veteran bluesman Henry Townsend backed his friend Tommy Bankhead. The results were issued on Bluesville as Tired of Being Mistreated and on Folkways as The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 3: Henry Townsend.  Townsend was one of the only artists to have recorded in every decade for the last 80 years.  He first recorded in 1929 and remained active up to 2006. ”One of the things that was most intriguing for me about working with Henry was that this was the first time I’d ever recorded anyone playing an electric guitar. …The first blues they ran down together wiped out an lingering prejudices I had against electric instruments. It wasn’t electric guitars that had changed the blues. It was the life in the African American ghettos, the new society, experiences of the people who created the blues that had changed, and it was the new instrument and their changes sound that expressed the new conditions of  their lives.”

Charters also recorded  a fine session by Edith Johnson and Henry Brown. The results were issued on the album The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 2: Henry Brown and Edith Johnson – Barrelhouse Piano and Classic Blues. Edith Johnson recorded eighteen sides in 1928/29 as “Edith North Johnson”, “Hattie North” and “Maybelle Allen.” Henry 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. Recorded for Brunswisck with Ike Rogers and Mary Johnson in 1929, for Paramount in Richmond and Grafton in ‘29 and ‘30. He served in the army in the early ’40s, then formed his own quartet to work occasional local gigs in St. Louis area from the ’50s, and worked the Becky Thatcher riverboat, St. Louis in 1965. In addition to his pre-war recordings, he was recorded by Paul Oliver in 1960 and by Adelphi in 1969.

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. 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. Charters’ recordings of Short can be found on the albums J.D. Short and Son House: Blues from the Mississippi Delta and album as part of  The Legacy of the Blues series released in the 70′s.

St. Louis was always a good piano blues town, and in addition to recording Henry Brown, Charters also captured Barrelhouse Buck and Speckled Red. Barrelhouse Buck McFarland cut his final session for Folkways and an unissued session in 1961 that was belatedly released a few years back on Delmark. The recordings Charters made were released on Folkways as Backcountry Barrelhouse. He died shortly afterward. McFarland was born in Alton, Illinois in 1903 in the same area as two other exceptional piano players, Wesley Wallace and Jabbo Williams, all three of which made names for themselves on the bustling St. Louis blues scene. McFarland got his shot in the recording studio waxing ten sides; two for Paramount in 1929, two for Decca in 1934 and four more for Decca in 1935, which were not issued. Speckled Red (born Rufus Perryman) was born in Monroe, LA, but he made his reputation as part of the St. Louis and Memphis blues scenes of the ’20s and ’30s. In 1929, he cut his first recording sessions. One song from these sessions, “The Dirty Dozens,” was released on Brunswick and became a hit in late 1929. In 1938, he cut a few sides for Bluebird. In the early ’40s, Red moved to St. Louis, where he played local clubs and bars for the next decade and a half. Charlie O’Brien, a St. Louis policeman and something of a blues aficionado “rediscovered” Speckled Red on December 14, 1954, who subsequently was signed to Delmark Records as their first blues artist. Several recordings were made in 1956 and 1957 for Tone, Delmark, Folkways, and Storyville record labels. The recordings Charters made were issued on Folkway under the title The Barrel-House Blues of Speckled Red.

Charters also spent time in Memphis getting to know and record some of the city’s pre-war blues recording artists. ”Will Shade, the guitar and harmonica player who had organized the Memphis Jug Band for victor Records in 1927, had remembered Furry in a conversation in February 1959. …I looked out the window,  over the roofs toward Beale Street, and said to him, thinking out loud as much as anything else, ‘I certainly would like to have heard some of those old blues singers, Jim Jackson, Furry Lewis, John Estes, Frank Stokes…’ Will leaned out of his chair and called to his wife, Jennie Mae, who was working in the kitchen. ‘Jennie Mae, when was the last time you saw that fellow they call ‘Furry’?’ ‘…Furry Lewis you mean? I saw him just last week.’” Charters eventually found Furry: ”He no longer had a guitar and he hadn’t played much in twenty years, but when I asked him if he could sing and play he straightened and said, ‘I’m better now than I ever was.’”  Lewis returned to the studio under Charters’ direction, first cutting a self-titled album for Folkways in 1959 and then two albums for the Prestige/Bluesville label in 1961.

“Usually I stop by Will’s whenever I’m in Memphis, and over the years he’s led me to other singers like Gus Cannon, Charlie Burse and Furry Lewis. …I stopped by in April 1961 …he mentioned that one of the blues singers he’s known in the 1930s has stopped by his place a few weeks before. ‘His name’s Willie B. I don’t know what all his name is, but that’s what we call him. Willie B. He’s one of those real hard blues singers like you’re always asking about. …He”ll sing the real old hard blues for you.’” Charters recorded Borum at a  session at the Sun studios for Prestige’s Bluesville label, with one more session to follow. The albums were issued as Introducing Memphis Willie B. and Hard Working Man Blues. Borum, was a mainstay of the Memphis blues and jug band circuit. He took to the guitar early in his childhood, being principally taught by his father and Memphis medicine show star Jim Jackson. By his late teens, he was working with Jack Kelly’s Jug Busters. This didn’t last long, as Borum joined up with the Memphis Jug Band. Sometime in the ’30s he learned to play harmonica, being taught by Noah Lewis, the best harp blower in Memphis and mainstay of Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers. Willie B. began working on and off with various traveling Delta bluesmen, performing at various functions with Rice Miller, Willie Brown, Garfield Akers, and Robert Johnson. He finally got to make some records in 1934 for Vocalion backing Hattie Hart and Allen Shaw, but quickly moved back into playing juke joints and gambling houses with Son Joe, Joe Hill Louis and Will Shade until around 1943, when he became a member of the U.S. Army. Memphis Willie B. passed in 1993.

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In South Carolina Charters made important recordings by Pink Anderson and Baby Tate. Anderson was born in South Carolina and early on sang in the streets for pennies. He was self-taught as a guitarist and toured throughout the Southeast with a variety of medicine shows during 1915-1945, picking up work wherever he could. He was employed not only as a musician and a singer but as a dancer and comedian. Anderson recorded four titles in 1928 with his partner Simmie Dooley but did not make another record until 1950 for Riverside, sharing an album with Rev. Gary Davis. Anderson continued to work at parties, street fairs, and medicine shows during the first half of the 1950s before retiring for a time due to ill health. But in 1961 the Bluesville label sent Charters to record him. He recorded three albums of unaccompanied performances by Anderson, documenting him in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Carters also recorded one album by Anderson that was issued on Folkways as Carolina Medicine Show Hokum And Blues. Anderson stayed active on a part-time basis up until the time of his death in 1974.

Guitarist Baby Tate recorded only a handful of sessions, spending the bulk of his life as a sideman, playing with musicians like Blind Boy Fuller, Pink Anderson, and Peg Leg Sam. When he was 14 years old, Tate taught himself how to play guitar. Shortly afterward, he began playing with Blind Boy Fuller, who taught Tate the fundamentals of blues guitar. For most of the ’30s, Baby played music as a hobby, performing at local parties, celebrations, and medicine shows. Tate picked up music again in 1946, setting out on the local blues club circuit. In the early ’50s, Baby moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he performed both as a solo act and as a duo with Pink Anderson. In 1962, Charters recorded Tate for the album, See What You Done Done for Bluesville. The following year, he was featured in Charters’ documentary film, The Blues. For the rest of the decade, Baby Tate played various gigs, concerts, and festivals across America. With the assistance of harmonica player Peg Leg Sam, Baby Tate recorded another set of sessions in 1972. Pete Lowry recorded him extensively in 1970 but theses sides remain unreleased. He died on August 17, 1972.

Charters first foray into recording Chicago electric blues were a batch of albums for Prestige/Bluesville including sessions by Otis Spann, Homesick James and Billy Boy Arnold. Born in Chicago, Billy Boy was gravitated who was a big influence. Still in his teens, Arnold cut his debut 78 for the obscure Cool logo in 1952. “Arnold made an auspicious connection when he joined forces with Bo Diddley and played on the his two-sided 1955 debut smash “Bo Diddley”/”I’m a Man” for Checker. That led, in a roundabout way, to Billy Boy’s signing with rival Vee-Jay Records. Arnold’s “I Wish You Would,” utilizing that familiar Bo Diddley beat, sold well and inspired a later famous cover by the Yardbirds. Thhe group also took a liking to another Arnold classic on Vee-Jay, “I Ain’t Got You.” Other Vee-Jay standouts by Arnold included “Prisoner’s Plea” and “Rockinitis,” but by 1958, his tenure at the label was over. Other than an excellent Samuel Charters-produced 1963 album for Prestige, More Blues on the South Side, Arnold retained a low profile until signing with Alligator in the 90′s.

Homesick James was playing guitar at age ten and soon ran away from his Tennessee home to play at fish fries and dances. His travels took the guitarist through Mississippi and North Carolina during the 1920s, where he crossed paths with Yank Rachell, Sleepy John Estes, Blind Boy Fuller, and Big Joe Williams.Settling in Chicago during the 1930s, Williamson played local clubs. Williamson made some fine sides in 1952-53 for Chance Records. James also worked extensively as a sideman, backing harp great Sonny Boy Williamson in 1945 at a Chicago gin joint called the Purple Cat and during the 1950s with his cousin, Elmore James. He also recorded with James during the 1950s. Homesick’s own output included 45′s for Colt and USA in 1962, and the album for Blues On The South Side produced by Charters.

“I came to Chicago for the first time in the winter of 1959, as part of the long research trip for the book The Country Blues. …For the next few years I was in and out of Chicago – and after so many nights down on the south side listening to the  bands, I was becoming more and more impatient to go into a recording studio to document some of the unforgettable music I was hearing. But the companies I was involved with – Folkways and Prestige – either didn’t have the money for the sessions, or they weren’t ready to record the electric blues.” Fortunately Charters  hooked up with Vanguard Records who were more receptive to the idea.

In early 1966, Vanguard issued three-volume set, Chicago/The Blues/Today!. Every artist on the three volumes had recorded before (some, like Otis Rush and Junior Wells, had actually seen small hits on the R&B charts), but these recordings were largely their introduction to a newer — and predominately white — album-oriented audience. This series accurately portrayed a vast cross section of the Chicago blues scene as one could hear it on any given night in the mid-’60s. Rather than record full albums (which Charters had neither the budget nor the legal resources to pull off), each artist simply came in for a union-approved session of four to six songs, with each volume featuring three different groupings. Other notable records Charters cut for Vanguard include Buddy Guy’s A Man And The Blues,the guitarist’s first album away from Chess and Junior Wells’ It’s My Life Baby, a mix of studio recordings and live tracks recorded at Pepper’s Lounge in Chicago.

Charters and his family moved to Sweden in1971 and began working with a local record company called Sonet. He was eventually asked to do a blues series for the label. The series, Legacy of the Blues, ran to twelve albums with Charters producing the series as well as writing extensive liner notes for each. The notes were expanded for a book of the same name which was published in 1975. The entire series has been reissued on CD by Verve in 2006. As was often the case, Charters was able to coax some exceptional performances resulting in some  excellent albums by Memphis Slim, Robert Pete Williams and Snooks Eaglin.

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:

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 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.