Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Paramount records recorded some of the greatest blues artists of the 20′s and early 30′s and today we kick off the second of a multi-part feature on the label. In addition we’ll also be airing and interview I did with Alex van der Tuuk the author of Paramount’s Rise And Fall. Paramount Records was founded in 1917 as a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company of Port Washington, Wisconsin. The chair company had made some wooden phonograph cabinets by contract for Edison Records. Wisconsin Chair decided to start making its own line of phonographs with a subsidiary called the “United Phonograph Corporation” at the end  of 1915. It made phonographs under the “Vista” brand name through the end of the decade; the line failed commercially. In 1917 a line of phonograph records was debuted with the “Paramount” label. They were recorded and pressed by Chair Company subsidiary “The New York Recording Laboratories, Incorporated.” In its initial years, the Paramount label offered recordings of standard pop-music fare, on records recorded with below-average audio fidelity pressed in below-average quality shellac. In the early 1920′s, Paramount was still racking up debts for the Chair Company while producing no net profit. Paramount began offering to press records for other companies at low prices. The Paramount Record pressing plant was contracted to press discs for Black Swan Records. When that later company floundered, Paramount bought out Black Swan and thus got into the business of making recordings by and for African-Americans. These so-called “race music” records became Paramount’s most famous and lucrative business. Paramount’s “race record” series was launched in 1922 with its 1200 “race” series exclusively devoted to black music. The early catalog was dominated by female blues singers such as Lucille Hegamin, Alberta Hunter and Monette Moore and a bit later with records by stars Ida Cox and Ma Rainey. A large mail-order operation and weekly advertisements in black owned newspapers like the Chicago Defender were keys to the label’s early success. The label’s successful recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake shifted the focus from women singers to male. The label went on to record some of the era’s most celebrated male blues artists such as delta legends Charlie Patton, skip James, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Willie Brown plus diverse artists such as Buddy Boy Hawkins, the Mississippi Sheiks, Charlie Spand, Papa Charlie Jackson among many others. The onset of the depression crippled the recording industry and Paramount was eventually discontinued in 1932.

We open part two of our Paramount feature as we did our first, with some of the women who dominated the label’s catalog in the early years before being eclipsed by the popularity of the solo male blues artists. Today we spin tracks by Edna Hicks, Ida Cox, Edna Taylor, Edmonia Henderson, Lena Wilson Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters and others.

Blues singer Edna Hicks was born in New Orleans and was the half-sister of Lizzie Miles and her brother was the trumpet player Herb Morand. Edna left New Orleans sometime around 1916 and worked in a variety of vaudeville and musical comedy shows. She began recording in 1923 with Victor and went on to make records with Brunswick, Gennett, Vocalion, Ajax, Columbia and Paramount. In 1925 she died due to burns that she suffered in an accident involving gasoline in her home in Chicago.

Ida Cox sang in church choirs as a child in Georgia. She ran away from home in 1910 when she was a teenager and performed in minstrel and tent shows as a comedienne and singer. She toured the country throughout the Teens and 1920s sometimes singing with Jazz greats like Jelly Roll Morton and with King Oliver at the Plantation Cafe in Chicago. In 1923 she began her recording contract with the Paramount label, who billed her as the Uncrowned Queen of the Blues. She cut around ninety sides for the label through 1929.

Alongside Bessie Smith, who recorded for Columbia, Ma Rainey is one of the most celebrated woman blues singers of the era. Rainey first appeared onstage in 1900, singing and dancing in minstrel and vaudeville stage revues. In 1902 she married the song and dance man William “Pa” Rainey and from then on became known as Ma Rainey. The couple formed a song and dance act that included blues and popular songs. They toured the country, but primarily the South and became a popular attraction as part of Tolliver’s Circus, The Musical Extravaganza and The Rabbit Foot Minstrels, where Rainey befriended a young Bessie Smith. It was not until 1923 that Ma Rainey signed a recording contract with Paramount. She was billed as the “Mother of the Blues”, recording 100 songs between 1923 and 1928 for the label.

Ethel Waters was one of the most popular African-American singers and actresses of the 1920s. She moved to New York in 1919 after touring in vaudeville shows as a singer and a dancer. She made her recording debut in 1921 on Cardinal records but switched over to the Black Swan label, and recorded “Down Home Blues” and “Oh Daddy” the first Blues numbers for that company. In 1924 she cut five sides for Paramount. She frequently sang with Fletcher Henderson during the early 1920s, but by the mid-1920s Waters had became more of a pop singer.

The heyday of woman blues singers started to fade toward the mid to late 20′s. Paramount’s earliest male blues star was Papa Charlie Jackson who made his debut in 1924 followed by in 1926 by big selling artists Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake. In addition to those artists, who we profiled in part one,  we spin tracks by Frank Stokes and several fine piano players including Charlie Span and Will Ezell. Frank Stokes and partner Dan Sane recorded as The Beale Street Shieks, a Memphis answer to the musical Chatmon family string band, the Mississippi Shieks. Stokes was already playing the streets of Memphis by the turn of the century, about the same time the blues began to flourish. A medicine show and house party favorite, Stokes was remembered as a consummate entertainer who drew on songs from the 19th and 20th centuries. Solo or with Sane and sometimes fiddler Will Batts, Stokes recorded 38 sides for Paramount and Victor.

Next to nothing is known about barrelhouse pianist Charlie Spand (PDF). He waxed 22 sides for Paramount between 1929 and 1931 and two final sessions for Okeh in 1940. Spand first made a name for himself on the Detroit scene of the 1920′s.

Ezell’s early career was spent as an itinerant musician playing dances, labor camps and logging mills in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. Ezell had a recording career that lasted for four years beginning in 1927 and he produced total of 17 tracks (including alternative takes) for Paramount Records. It was in his role as “house pianist” for Paramount that he supported artists such as Blind Roosevelt Graves, Bertha Henderson and was rumored to have worked for Bessie Smith. His success disappeared during the Depression and nothing is known of him after his last recording session in 1931.

Show Notes:

1924 Paramount Catalog

Paramount Records recorded some of the greatest blues artists of the 20′s and early 30′s and today we kick off a multi-part feature on the label. In addition we’ll also be airing and interview I did with Alex van der Tuuk the author of Paramount’s Rise And Fall. Paramount Records was founded in 1917 as a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company of Port Washington, Wisconsin. The chair company had made some wooden phonograph cabinets by contract for Edison Records. Wisconsin Chair decided to start making its own line of phonographs with a subsidiary called the “United Phonograph Corporation” at the end  of 1915. It made phonographs under the “Vista” brand name through the end of the decade; the line failed commercially. In 1917 a line of phonograph records was debuted with the “Paramount” label. They were recorded and pressed by Chair Company subsidiary “The New York Recording Laboratories, Incorporated.” In its initial years, the Paramount label offered recordings of standard pop-music fare, on records recorded with below-average audio fidelity pressed in below-average quality shellac. In the early 1920′s, Paramount was still racking up debts for the Chair Company while producing no net profit. Paramount began offering to press records for other companies at low prices. The Paramount Record pressing plant was contracted to press discs for Black Swan Records. When that later company floundered, Paramount bought out Black Swan and thus got into the business of making recordings by and for African-Americans. These so-called “race music” records became Paramount’s most famous and lucrative business. Paramount’s “race record” series was launched in 1922 with its 1200 “race” series exclusively devoted to black music. The early catalog was dominated by female blues singers such as Lucille Hegamin, Alberta Hunter and Monette Moore and a bit later with records by stars Ida Cox and Ma Rainey. A large mail-order operation and weekly advertisements in black owned newspapers like the Chicago Defender were keys to the label’s early success. The label’s successful recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake shifted the focus from women singers to male. The label wnet on to record some of the era’s most celebrated male blues artists such as delta legends Charlie Patton, skip James, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Willie Brown plus diverse artists such as Buddy Boy Hawkins, the Mississippi Sheiks, Charlie Spand, Papa Charlie Jackson among many others. The onset of the depression crippled the recording industry and Paramount was eventually discontinued in 1932.

Like all the early race labels, Paramount’s fledgling catalog was dominated by women singers. As Tony Russell wrote: “Blinded by the aurora of Blind Lemon Jefferson and his fellow bluesman, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that for much of the ’20s blues was almost exclusively women’s business, whether on the vaudeville stage or amidst the smoking lights of the tent show.” We open the program with tracks by Alberta Hunter, Monette Moore, Lucille Hegamin, Trixie Smith and Ma Rainey. Hunter would become one of Paramount’s top sellers and her releases were given full-page ads in the Chicago Defender. According to Alex van der Tuuk, Hunter “had been working for a couple of years at the Dreamland Theater in Chicago and had started her recording career with Black Swan in New York, but had become disenchanted with them because they did so little to ptomote her records in contrast with the big buildup they were affording Ethel Waters.” She switched to Paramount in 1922 where her recordings launched Paramount’s 1200 race series. Hunter wrote a lot of her own material and her song “Down Hearted Blues”, became Bessie Smith’s first record in 1923. Hunter staid with the label through 1924, cutting around three-dozen sides.

Alongside Bessie Smith, who recorded for Columbia, Ma Rainey is one of the most celebrated woman blues singers of the era. Rainey first appeared onstage in 1900, singing and dancing in minstrel and vaudeville stage revues. In 1902 she married the song and dance man William “Pa” Rainey and from then on became known as Ma Rainey. The couple formed a song and dance act that included blues and popular songs. They toured the country, but primarily the South and became a popular attraction as part of Tolliver’s Circus, The Musical Extravaganza and The Rabbit Foot Minstrels, where Rainey befriended a young Bessie Smith. It was not until 1923 that Ma Rainey signed a recording contract with Paramount. She was billed as the “Mother of the Blues”, recording 100 songs between 1923 and 1928 for the label.

Less well remembered are Monette Moore, Lucille Hegamin and Trixie Smith. Monette Moore began her career accompanying silent films in Kansas City and then toured the vaudeville circuit as a pianist and singer. In the early 1920s she made her way to New York and became active in musical theater. Her recording career began in 1923. She cut over a dozen sides for Paramount. Lucille Hegamin was the second African-American Blues singer to release a record in 1920, just few months after Mamie Smith’s groundbreaking success with “Crazy Blues.” Hegamin’s first record was “The Jazz Me Blues” and “Everybody’s Blues” for Arto Records and it sold well enough, but her next record in 1921 “Arkansas Blues” and “I’ll Be Good But I’ll Be Lonesome” was one of the most popular records of 1921 and made her a star of the blossoming Blues scene. It was issued on several different labels including paramount. Trixie Smith was born in Atlanta and around 1915 moved north to New York to work in show business. At first she worked in minstrel shows and on the TOBA vaudeville circuit. In 1922 Smith made her first recordings for the Black Swan label and later that year she won a blues singing contest in New York beating out Lucille Hegamin and others with her song “Trixie’s Blues.” In 1924 Smith made her debut for Paramount, cutting twenty sides for the label through 1926.

The heyday of woman blues singers started to fade toward the mid to late 20′s. Paramount’s earliest male blues star was Papa Charlie Jackson who made his debut in 1924 followed by in 1926 by big selling artists Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake as well as the lesser known, but superb slide player, Bo Weavil Jackson who’s records made virtually no impact among the blues buying public.

“Papa” Charlie Jackson was a six-string banjo who was one of the earliest and most successful of the solo blues singer/instrumentalists. ackson settled in Chicago on the famed Maxwell Street around 1920 where he began earning a living by playing on street corners and at house parties. In 1924 he cut his first solo sides “Papa’s Lawdy Blues” and “Airy Man Blues” for the Paramount label. During this period Jackson also became a sideman with many of the hot groups in and around Chicago.He also recorded with Ma Rainey and Ida Cox before his subsequent death around 1938.

In 1925 Blind Lemon Jefferson was discovered by a Paramount recording scout and taken to Chicago to make his first records either in December 1925 or January 1926.  Jefferson was the first male blues artist to attain a national audience. His extremely successful recording career continued until 1929 when he died under mysterious circumstances. He recorded over 100 sides all for the Paramount label, except one 78 for OKeh. Forty-four ads for his records in the Chicago Defender between 1926 and 1930.

Blind Blake was one of the most popular bluesmen of the 1920’s with his  only rival in popularity was label mate Blind Lemon Jefferson. Blake’s records were advertised heavily in the Chicago Defender with twenty-four ads featured. And as Tony Russell sums up: “Blind Blake’s most remarkable achievement as a recording artist was that in a career lasting almost six years, in which he made about 80 sides, he was never reduced, whether by slipping skill, waning inspiration or the single-mindedness of record company executives, from a multifaceted musician to a formulaic blues player.”

Paramount is famous for its roster of delta blues artists which boasted Son House, Charlie Patton, Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey, Skip James, Willie Brown, Louise Johnson, Geeshie Wiley and Rube Lacy. Credit for much of this talent goes to Henry C. Spier, a music store owner from Jackson, Mississippi who scoured the south for talent and was responsible for getting Son House, Skip James and Charlie Patton on record. Paramount asked Gennett to record 14 tunes by Patton at their Richmond, Indiana studio in June 1929. “Pony Blues” b/w “Banty Rooster Blues” was the first issued and was a hit. In all, Patton recorded 38 numbers for Paramount in 1929. Patton cut one more session for Paramount in 1930 and three final sessions for Vocalion in 1934.

In 1930, Arthur Laibley who had produced Patton’s last session for Paramount, stopped in Lula to arrange another session with Patton. Patton was famous throughout the Delta and had already recorded close to forty sides for Paramount. Patton told Laibley about House and about two other musicians Willie Brown and Louise Johnson, setting the stage for one of the blues most legendary recording sessions. The group headed to the Paramount studios in Grafton, WI, where House recorded six songs at the session, Brown four (“Kicking In My Sleep Blues b/w Window Blues” has never been found – or has it?), Johnson four and four by Patton backed by Brown.

-Listen to the Alex van der Tuuk interview (edited, MP3, 1 hr.)

Show Notes:

“In the best-known photograph of Charley Patton a youngish man faces posterity with a straight but somewhat apprehensive gaze. Some of what lay ahead he might have predicted: a hard life, early death, obscurity. What was not on the cards was that some 30 years later he would begin to be described as one of the most singular musicians of the 20th century, a voice of the blues like no other, a teller of stories from a time and place that for his new listeners were as unimaginable  as the dark side of the moon. His sometimes strangled utterances, already half choked by the surface noise of old discs, gradually revealed themselves to be passages from an oral history of black Mississippi in the 1910s and ’20s: its dirt roads and rivers, drinking places and jails, the pest ravaged cottonfields of “Mississippi Bo Weavil Blues”, the drought of “Dry Well Blues”, the flooded bottomlands of “High Water Everywhere” and, turning from natural disasters to man-made ones, the layoff of railroad workers in “Mean Black Moan.” These reports, and the many other types of songs he recorded, from blue-ballads like “Frankie And Albert” and rags like “Shake It And Break It” to hymns and transformed popular songs, are delivered in a voice as tough as steel, to guitar melodies as densely springy as ryegrass. It is extraordinary music, not always easy to understand, but so full of incident that it quickly becomes totally absorbing.”

That above portrait of Patton was written by Tony Russell and I think serves as a superb  capsule of what makes Patton’s music so compelling. Today’s program spotlights Patton and those artists he worked with and influenced. The rest of the show notes are primarily drawn from David Evans’ essay in the 7-CD box set Screamin’ And Hollerin’ The Blues: The Worlds of Charlie Patton which is also where the bulk of the music comes from.

Born in 1891, Patton was older than the other Delta musicians who recorded during the golden age of the 1920s and 1930s, and he seems to have developed many of the themes that are now considered basic to the Delta blues repertoire. His trademark guitar arrangements were adopted by Tommy Johnson, Son House, and Willie Brown, as well as younger players like Howlin’ Wolf, Roebuck “Pop” Staples, all of whom hung around him in order to master the pieces he had turned into local hits. He apparently gave formal lessons to some of them, using teaching as a secondary source of income in the weekdays between juke joint performances.

Paramount promoted Charley Patton’s second release (12805) with a contest. The initial pressing run of 10,000 copies was issued under the pseudonym “The Masked Marvel,” and customers were encouraged to guess the actual artist’s identity on cards like the one above. Winners could pick a free record of their choice. The contest was formally announced in the Chicago Defender on September 7th.

Around the age of fourteen Patton obtained his first instrument given to him by his father. He first played with members of the Chatmon family and probably other local musicians around Bolton and Edwards, MS. The Chatmons were an important musical family, and a younger set of Chatmon brothers would later become the famous band and recording unit, the Mississippi Sheiks. Patton’s sister stated that he didn’t really learn to pick a guitar until he moved to Dockery’s Plantation. There he came under the influence of older,most importantly a man named Henry Sloan. Sloan was born in January 1870, in Mississippi, and  moved to Dockery’s about the same time as the Pattons, between 1901 and 1904. Charley received some direct instruction, observed and imitated the playing of the older men, and played behind Sloan’s field hollers. Evidently at some point he surpassed them in ability and reputation, probably by 1910, as he was influencing other musicians like Willie Brown at that time.

Paramount recorded some of the greatest blues performances of the era and full credit should go to talent scouts like Henry C. Spier, a music store owner from Jackson, Mississippi. Speir scoured the south for talent and was responsible for getting Son House, Skip James and Charlie Patton on record. Paramount asked Gennett to record 14 tunes by Patton at their Richmond, Indiana studio in June 1929. “Pony Blues” b/w “Banty Rooster Blues” was the first issued. The coupling was a hit and Paramount labeled his second release, “Screamin’ And Hollerin’ The Blues”, as by The Masked Marvel. The advert bore a drawing of a blindfolded singer and the clue that this was an exclusive paramount artists. Anyone guessing his identity would get a free Paramount record of their choice.  In all, Patton recorded 38 numbers for Paramount in 1929, some issued the following year, with two gospel songs issued under the pseudonym Elder J.J. Hadley.

Patton’s basic blues themes–the “Spanish tuning” arrangement he recorded first as “Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues,” and that Willie Brown recorded as “Future Blues,” Son House recorded as “Jinx Blues,” and Tommy Johnson recorded “Maggie Campbell” when recorded by Willie Brown, Son House, and Tommy Johnson respectively, or the basic blues in E he called “Pony Blues,” which was reshaped by Brown into “M&O Blues” and Johnson into “Bye and Bye Blues.”

One of Patton’s many admirers was Howlin’ Wolf who said:  “I didn’t start to fooling with guitar until about 1928, however, and I started on account of on the plantation—Young and Mara’s plantation, where our family was living—there was a guy at that time playing the guitar. He was called Charlie Patton. It was he who got me interested. … It was he who started me off to playing. He showed me things on the guitar, because after we got through picking cotton at night, we’d go and hang around him, listen to him play. He took a liking to me, and I asked him would he teach me, and at night, after I’d get off work, I’d go and hang around.”

Another Patton admirer was Bukka White who recorded the spoken “Remembrance of Charlie Patton” in 1963 in which he had this to say: “Always wanted to be like old Charlie Patton. Long ago when I was a kid, I hear him an play those numbers about:  ‘I’ll hitch up my buggy and saddle my black mare’ an I used to pick cotton an come around in Clarksdale after them cafes, eatin’ cheese an cracker. None of the other boys they didn’t have an idea what I was thinkin’.  I say, I wants to come to be a great man like Charlie Patton, but I didn’t want to get killed he did, the way he got killed, the way he had to go. …And so goes on down and got me old piece a-guitar. And I always wanted to play about ‘Hitch up my buggy, saddle up my black mare I wanna find my baby in this great big world, somewhere.’ …And so Charlie Patton used to sing that song about ‘Hitch up my buggy and saddle up my black mare and I hear, would just knock me off my feet. I was bare-feeted, little bare-feeted boy, too. And I like it so well after I growed up, the first record I put out when I was comin’ up about ‘Downtown women sickin’ them dogs on me’. ["Sic 'Em Dogs On", 1939] I was one that kind-a compare with it. Ah, I think I made a pretty good hit on that!”

In 1930, Arthur Laibley who had produced Charley Patton’s last session for Paramount, stopped in Lula to arrange another session with Patton. Patton told Laibley about Son House and about two other musicians Willie Brown and Louise Johnson, setting the stage for one of the blues most legendary recording sessions. The group headed to the Paramount studios in Grafton, WI, where House recorded six songs at the session: three of which were long enough to fill both sides of a 78: “Dry Spell Blues,” “Preachin’ The Blues,” and “My Black Mama.” On today’s program we spotlight several sides from this remarkable session.

Louise Johnson was barrelhouse pianist and girlfriend of Patton’s who went to Grafton to make records with Patton Brown and House. She cut four sides at that session, her sole recorded legacy. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Willie Brown played with Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson, mostly playing second guitar. Little is known for certain of the man whom Robert Johnson called “my friend-boy, Willie Brown” (“Cross Road Blues”). Brown is heard with Patton on the Paramount sessions of 1930 and cut”M & O Blues and” and “Future Blues” at that date.  In 1941 Alan Lomax recorded Brown with Son House, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin and Leroy Williams. Brown played second guitar on three performances by the whole band, and recorded one solo, “Make Me A Pallet On The Floor.” Brown died in Tunica, Mississippi in 1952 at the age of 52. Despite the disappointing sales of his Paramount records, for Son House the Grafton experience marked the beginning of a long musical friendship with Willie Brown. For much of the 30’s House reverted to his former pattern of preaching and then going back to the blues, usually at the prompting of Brown. In 1934 Charley Patton died and with his death, House became the biggest star in the Delta. He and Brown played all over the Delta as well as Arkansas and Tennessee for the rest of the 1930’s.

Remembered by history as a blues musician, Patton had grown up in the pre-blues era, and he played the full range of music required of a popular rural entertainer. Even though his recording career was sparked by the blues craze, only about half of his roughly fifty records can reasonably be considered part of that then-modern genre. The others are a mix of gospel and religious music like “Runnin’ Wild Blues” and “Prayer Of Death.” Charley not only performed and recorded religious songs but for most of his life wrestled with what he thought was a calling to be a preacher.

Patton had a gift for personal narrative, and seems to have enjoyed documenting events that touched his own experience, and which would have been particularly interesting to his local audience. For example, he wrung wry humor from two of his own run-ins with local lawmen, in “Tom Rushen Blues” and “High Sheriff Blues.” Recorded five years apart, these were essentially two variations on a single musical theme. “Tom Rushen Blues was actually a reworking of Ma Rainey’s “Booze and Blues” cut in 1924.

Patton’s death certificate indicates that the onset of his fatal heart trouble occurred on January 27, 1934. In early April he gave his last performance. It was a dance for whites, probably not too far from Holly Ridge. He had been suffering from bronchitis, perhaps from a winter or spring cold. Bertha Lee stated that he returned home hoarse and unable to talk or get his breath properly. He was visited by a doctor on Tuesday, April 17, and again on Friday, April 20. Many relatives and fellow blues singers and friends visited him during this final illness. His sister said that an attempt was made to take him to a hospital, but his car was bogged in mud from the spring rains. The end came on the morning of Saturday, April 28, 1934, and he was buried the following day at Longswitch Cemetery, less than a mile from his last home at Holly Ridge. He was 43.

Related Documents:

“Blues In The Round” (PDF)
Ed Komara’s account and analysis of the famous 1930 Grafton recording session of Charley Patton, Son House, Willie Brown and Louise Johnson.

“Howlin’ Wolf: “I Sing For The People” (PDF)
1967 interview with Pete Welding where Wolf talks about the influence of Charlie Patton.

Show Notes:

Newspaper photo of Son House, and a July 14 Rochester Times-Union article about his comeback.

“I’m talking about the blues now, I ain’t talkin’ about no monkey junk”

Today’s title come from a term Son House used often as his biographer Dan Beaumont explains: “House had an amusing phrase he would use when asked about the blues being played in the 1960′s. It was a phrase he used to dismiss much of the blues music of that period. ‘It’s not the blues,’ he would say. ‘It’s just a lot of monkey junk.’ The blues so dominated House’s life-we have now established the price that he had paid for it-that a period in which he all but ceased playing it may well have seemed to him simply so much ‘monkey junk.’” As anyone who’s listened to Son House knows, there was nothing frivolous or gimmicky about Son’s blues. In his hands the blues were a gripping, all consuming feeling:

You know, the blues ain’t nothin’ but a low-down shakin’, low-down shakin’, achin’ chill
I say the blues is a low-down, old, achin’ chill
Well, if you ain’t had ‘em, honey, I hope you never will

Well, the blues, the blues is a worried heart, is a worried heart, heart disease
Oh, the blues is a worried old heart disease

(The Jinx Blues Part 1, 1942)

Today’s show is our annual tribute to Son House who created some of the most visceral and gripping blues of the 1930′s and 40′s and who emerged after two decades to find himself bewilderingly hailed as a blues hero to young white audiences around the world. It’s with a matter of pride that Son’s comeback came in my adopted hometown of Rochester, NY. Over the years I met numerous people who fondly recalled Son House here in Rochester and when I started doing my yearly radio birthday tributes it brought even more people out of the woodwork who gladly shared their memories with me. So it’s puzzling that the city has never honored Son in anyway. For years myself and others thought someone should rectify this sorry state of affairs; a plaque, a statue or something to honor one of the pivotal figures in blues history. The sad fact is there is nothing tangible in this city that shows Son ever made this city his home for a good part of his life (1943-1976). It’s worth noting that Son does have a plaque in Tunica, MS as part of the Mississippi Commission’s Blues Trail.

2009 Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House Poster

Next week marks the third Hot Blues For The Homeless concert I put on with several other dedicated folks.  Now billed as Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House,  we had a fantastic turn out last year, raised a good deal of money for the Rochester homeless and hopefully raised some awareness about Son House. If you live in Rochester, live close by are just visiting on June 7th make sure to help us celebrate the memory of Son House.

On today’s program we start out by playing the bulk of Son’s legendary Paramount recordings. In 1930, Arthur Laibley who had produced Charlie Patton’s last session for Paramount, stopped in Lula to arrange another session with Patton. Patton was famous throughout the Delta and had already recorded close to forty sides for the label. Patton told Laibley about House and about two other musicians Willie Brown and Louise Johnson, setting the stage for one of the blues most legendary recording sessions. The group headed to the Paramount studios in Grafton, WI, where House recorded six songs at the session, three of which were long enough to fill both sides of a 78: “Dry Spell Blues,” “Preachin’ The Blues,” and “My Black Mama.” Two songs, “Clarksdale Moan” and “Mississippi County Farm Blues” were issued as a 78, with a lone copy surfacing just recently. In September 2005, a collector announced he had obtained the lost “Clarksdale Moan” 78 in reasonably decent condition. The details of this discovery are not known to the public as the collector has chosen to remain anonymous. On April 4, 2006, both “Clarksdale Moan” and “Mississippi County Farm Blues” were released on the collection The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of from Yazoo Records. While “Clarksdale Moan” is a previously unknown song, “Mississippi County Farm Blues” is an earlier (and faster) version of a song Son House later recorded at his Library of Congress recording session in 1941. The unissued test of “Walking Blues” we spin was not found until 1985.

Rochester Times-Union article about Son House from July 6, 1964. This is the first article written about Son’s rediscovery.

Despite the disappointing sales of his records, for House the Grafton experience marked the beginning of a long musical friendship with Willie Brown. For much of the 30’s House reverted to his former pattern of preaching and then going back to the blues, usually at the prompting of Brown. He and Brown played all over the Delta as well as Arkansas and Tennessee for the rest of the 1930’s. In August of 1941 the folklorist Alan Lomax found House working as a tractor driver on a plantation near Robinsonville. House took Lomax a few miles north to Lake Cormorant where Willie Brown lived. They rounded up two other musicians, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin and Leroy Williams. Behind Clack’s general store, House recorded five songs for Lomax. The next summer in July, House recorded, unaccompanied, ten more songs for Lomax.

A year after the Library of Congress sides House vanished, or did the next best thing which was to move to Rochester, NY. More than two decades would pass before he would resurface. On June 23rd of 1964, Dick Waterman, Phil Spiro and Nick Perls found House living on 61 Grieg Street in Rochester, NY. Waterman became Son’s manager and the following year he was signed to Columbia and played the Newport Folk Festival. Son had several good years on the comeback trail; he toured the US playing folk festivals and the coffeehouse circuit and he did tours of Europe as well. He also performed locally in Rochester. From these later years we spin several tracks for his superb comeback album Father Of The Delta Blues plus several live cuts.

Also on today’s program is my good friend Dan Beaumont. University of Rochester professor Dan Beaumont discusses  his forthcoming book, Preachin’ the Blues: The Life And Music Of Son House. This is the first full-length biography of Son House and will be published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Dan will also be reading excerpts from the book at the workshop component of the Hot Blues event. in addition we also play a couple of clips of Dick Waterman talking about Son from an interview I conducted with Dick several years ago and who was a guest at last year’s event.

Dry Bone Shuffle (MP3)

As we continue our mission to reprint the blues advertisements that appeared in the Chicago Defender we turn our attention to Blind Blake, one of the most popular bluesmen of the 1920′s. His only rival in popularity was Blind Lemon Jefferson, also a Paramount artist, who had a whopping forty-four ads in the Chicago Defender between 1926 and 1930. Blake too was advertised heavily with twenty-four ads in the Chicago Defender during the same time span. Today we spotlight “Dry Bone Shuffle” recorded April 1927 and “Wabash Rag” from November 1927.

Before we discuss Blake it’s worth giving some background on how Paramount advertised their records. Record collector John Tefteller provides some context: “In the mid-1920′s, Paramount began advertising in the now legendary Chicago Defender, carefully promoting each new blues release with clever artwork and appropriate hype. The artwork and advertisements were produced in Wisconsin [Paramount's headquarters] and then sent to Chicago for publication. Apparently, all the printing was done by the local newspaper in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin. As the Great Depression took its toll, Paramount stopped advertising in the Defender (though they continued to produce artwork and promotional materials they sent directly to record stores) and eventually folded in 1933.”

So who was Blind Blake? Despite his popularity and much investigation, he remains a shadowy figure; What was his real name? Where was he from? And perhaps most mysteriously, how did he simply disappear after a final session circa June 1932? As to his name,  Bruce Bastin notes that “on occasion he is named Arthur Phelps, but copyright submissions on behalf of Chicago Music for his Paramount recordings give his name as Arthur Blake. They state his name in a variety of manners: Blind Blake (“Blake’s Worried Blues”), Arthur (Blind) Blake (“Bootleg Whiskey” and “Goodbye Mama Moan”), Blind Arthur Blake (“Cold Hearted Mama Blues”), and simply Arthur Blake (“Detroit Bound”).” During the recording “Papa Charlie And Blind Blake Talk About It,” Papa Charlie Jackson asks him, “What is your right name?” Blake responds, “My name is Arthur Blake.”

As for biographical details there is the following from his first Defender advertisement: “Early Morning Blues” is the first record of this new exclusive Paramount artist, Blind Blake. Blake, who hails from Jacksonville, Florida, is known up and down the coast as a wizard at picking his piano-sounding guitar. His ‘talking guitar’ they call it, and when you hear him sing and play you’ll know why Blind Blake is going to be one of the most talked about Blues artist in music.” The Paramount Book of the Blues (issued in 1924 and 1927 with photographs and short bios to promote Paramount recording artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Ma Rainey) had the following bio: “We have all heard expressions of people ‘singing in the rain’ or ‘laughing in the face of adversity,’ but we never saw such a good example of it, until we came upon the history of Blind Blake. Born in Jacksonville, in sunny Florida, he seemed to absorb some of the sunny atmosphere–disregarding the fact that nature had cruelly denied him a vision of outer things. He could not see the things that others saw–but he had a better gift. A gift of an inner vision, that allowed him to see things more beautiful. The pictures that he alone could see made him long to express them in some way–so he turned to music. He studied long and earnestly–listening to talented pianists and guitar players, and began to gradually draw out harmonious tunes to fit every mood. Now that he is recording exclusively for Paramount, the public has the benefit of his talent, and agrees, as one body, that he has an unexplainable gift of making one laugh or cry as he feels, and sweet chords and tones that come from his talking guitar express a feeling of his mood.”

Blake’s disappearance only adds to the aura of mystery and legend. “I figure he went back to Jacksonville when his recording contract was over,” says researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow. “No one’s ever found out what happened to him. Gary Davis said that Blake was hit by a streetcar, and that’s the only rumor of his death that I know of. Maybe he got robbed and killed, ’cause he was blind.” Josh White never saw him after 1930 and believed he was murdered in the streets of Chicago, Big Bill Broonzy thought he died in Joliet prison in 1932 while Blind John Davis suggested Blake had died in the 1930′s in St. Louis, although he had been told this by Tampa Red.

Whatever his background there’s no doubt regarding his guitar skills. Paramount boldly promoted his skills: “He accompanies himself with that snappy guitar playing, like only Blind Blake can do,” read copy for “Bad Feeling Blues.” The company claimed that “Blind Blake and his trusty guitar do themselves proud” on “Rumblin’ & Ramblin’ Boa Constrictor Blues,” while “Wabash Rag” was “aided by his happy guitar.” Woody Mann stated, that “playing with a terrific flair for improvisation…he is at once subtle and ornate.” Gary Davis, never generous with praise, stated “I ain’t heard anybody on record yet beat Blind Blake on the guitar. I like Blake because he plays right sporty.” And as Tony Russell sums up: “Blind Blake’s most remarkable achievement as a recording artist was that in a career lasting almost six years, in which he made about 80 sides, he was never reduced, whether by slipping skill, waning inspiration or the single-mindedness of record company executives, from a multifaceted musician to a formulaic blues player.”

Blake cut quite a number of rags, even if they had “blues” in the title; “rags in blues clothing,” Russell calls them. “Dry Bone Shuffle” and “Wabash Rag” fall in the rag category. Blake was backed by an unknown rattlebones percussionist (“the accompaniment of rattling bones makes it an exciting number” the ad states) for “Dry Bone Shuffle” b/w “One Time Blues” and performs solo on “Wabash Rag” b/w “You Gonna Quit Me Blues.” Both of the flip sides feature a straight blues. The prominent bones player does a good job keeping pace with Blake as Blake offers running spoken encouragement:

Let’s go boys
That’s the way to play them bones, boy
Whup them bones into grace!

Wabash Rag (MP3)

“Wabash Rag” is another lively rag taken at a slightly slower pace. Recorded in Chicago, it’s a reference to Wabash Ave. (“lively as Wabash Ave. itself” the ad proclaims) located in the historic Bronzeville section on Chicago’s South Side. Bronzeville was known as the “Black Metropolis” and between 1910 and 1920, during the peak of the “Great Migration,” the population of the area increased dramatically when thousands of African-Americans fled the south and emigrated to Chicago in search of better opportunities.

Show Notes:

Today’s program revolves around record collector John Tefteller who’s record collection contains some of the rarest blues 78′s in existence. I’ve interviewed him on two separate occasions and each time I’ve found him to be extremely knowledgeable regarding blues from the 1920′s with a keen insight into how the record companies operated and how they marketed blues records. Due to some technical issues some of the most recent interview was not broadcast quality so I’ve combined some of the salvageable segments with the interview I conducted a few years back. What follows is some background on Tefteller as well as some context for today’s selections.

Tefteller has been buying and selling rare phonograph records for the past 30 years. According to his website he has the world’s largest inventory of blues, rhythm & blues and rock & roll 78′s with over 75,000 in stock. He also has a selection of over 100,000 45′s from the 1950′s and early 1960′s in the following categories: blues, rhythm & blues, rockabilly, rock & roll, girl groups, surf and country. His company, Blues Images, was established in 1998. As he notes: “At the time, we had no idea that in just a few short years we would have a previously unseen photograph of Charley Patton and a treasure trove of original Paramount Records label artwork. When that collection was discovered and purchased, we knew it would only be a short time before Blues Images would become a reality. The vision of this company is to provide the world with the very finest reproductions of classic Blues Images.”

In addition Tefteller regularly makes his collection available to reissue companies including Yazoo as well as issuing his own CD compilations. Like Yazoo and a few other labels, Tefteller’s CD’s contain some of the best sounding transfers of blues 78′s. Credit for this goes to Richard Nevins of  Yazoo. According to Tefteller, Nevins has about thirty different 78 needles and painstakingly tries each needle on the 78 to find out which one works best, making a test of each one. Apparently the right needle is the one that fits the groove the best and thus extracts the most music out of the grooves. After this some filtering is done, some removal of clicks and pops but unlike unlike other reissue labels they don’t lop off the high end which  makes the record sound old and tinny.

Every year around June/July Tefteller, through his Blues Images imprint, publishes his Classic Blues Artwork Calendar with a companion CD that matches the artwork with the songs. The CD’s have also been one of the main places that newly discovered blues 78’s turn up. Several years ago Tefteller uncovered a huge cache of Paramount promotional material. Paramount marketed their “race records”, as they were called, to African-Americans, most notably in the pages of the Chicago Defender, the weekly African-American newspaper, and sent promotional material to record stores and distributors. Tefteller bought a huge cache of this artwork from a pair of journalists who rescued them from the rubbish heap some twenty years previously. The depression essentially killed off Paramount’s advertising budget so many of these images were never sent out and hence have not been seen by anyone since they were first produced. Tefteller’s annual calendars have been the main vehicle for reprinting these ads. A book in conjunction with artist Robert Crumb is planned with the tentative title, Sellin’ The Blues. “The book of all the artwork should be ready in a year or so”, Tefteller said. “I am just waiting for Robert Crumb to finish his current project illustrating the Bible.”

I should make a quick aside and pay tribute to the late Max Vreede who in the 1960′s first discovered some of the blues advertisements while doing research for his book, Paramount 12000/13000 Series . Paramount’s “race” series started with issue No 12000 and finished with No 13156. Vreede found, on microfilm,  old issues of the Chicago Defender, which contained some of the artwork. His book (long out of print) reproduced a few of the images for the first time but left much to be desired quality-wise. Tefteller purchased Vreede’s papers and record collection in 1998.

Why are these old blues 78′s so rare is a question Tefteller fields often. There’s a few factors: African-Americans were often displaced and unable to hold on to collections, low press runs especially during the depression (although Tefteller has the Paramount files that state press runs were higher that was previously thought) and 78′s were used for shellac during the war, perhaps millions (Paramount donated a warehouse full of their old records) were given to the war effort which were used to make the olive colored paint for tanks and battleships. “When you’re looking at that”, Tefteller told me, “you’re looking at melted down Charley Patton records.”

King Solomon Hill signed to the Paramount label in 1932, soon traveling to Grafton, Wisconsin to record six tracks – two of them alternate takes – which comprise his known discography; songs like the eerie “Gone Dead Train” and “Down on Bended Knee” are masterly performances featuring Hill’s eerie falsetto and raw, unorthodox guitar work. In 2002 Tefteller went to Grafton and discovered the long lost Hill 78 “My Buddy Blind Papa Lemon”/”Times Has Done Got Hard” in mint condition. Not much is known of Hill – whose real name was Joe Holmes. He was closely connected to Sam Collins and traveled with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Rambling Thomas. He roamed through Louisiana and Texas playing and in 1932 was invited to record for Paramount along with Ben Curry and Marshall Owens. After this lone session, Hill returned to the juke joint circuit, eventually vanishing from sight; reputedly a heavy drinker, he died of a massive brain hemorrhage in Sibley, Louisiana in 1949.

Jaydee Short was born in Port Gibson, MS on Dec. 26, 1902 and moved to St. Louis in 1923. He made his first recordings for Paramount in 1930. One of them, Paramount 13012 “Steamboat Rousty”/”Gittin’ Up On The Hill”, has yet to be located. In 1932 he recorded for Vocalion using the name Jelly Jaw Short. Peetie Wheatstraw recorded duets with “Neckbones” who is believed to be Short. In 1933, using the name Joe Stone, he recorded for Bluebird. Short recorded again in 1958 for the Delmark label and was filmed by Sam Charters for the 1963 documentary “The Blues.” He died on Oct. 21, 1962 in St. Louis.

In November 1929 at the Paramount Recording Studios in Grafton, Wisconsin, four songs were recorded at 78 rpm by a Louisiana street musician named Joe Sheppard who, on the run from the law, used the name Blind Joe Reynolds. Within a year, the four songs were released on two records. Neither record sold well, but almost 40 years later, one of the two attracted the attention of Eric Clapton who heard the song “Outside Woman Blues” on a reissue album. In 1967, Clapton and his Cream bandmates Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce recorded a more modern day version of “Outside Woman Blues” on their classic LP “Disraeli Gears.” The second record recorded in Wisconsin on that day, “Ninety Nine Blues” backed with “Cold Woman Blues” has been lost since it was first released in October of 1930. No copies in any condition were ever located until just a few years ago. Bruce Smith, a school teacher from Ohio with an appreciation for old blues records, was attending a teachers’ conference in Nashville. With an hour to kill before catching a flight home from a school conference, he wandered into the Nashville Flea Market and found the record in a stack of old 78′s. The records were without sleeves and not in particularly good condition, but the price was right at $1.00 each. He purchased three records-two were common blues records of the 1930′s and the third was the long lost Blind Joe Reynolds (Paramount 12983.) Unaware of its value, he purchased it simply because it “looked interesting.” Not realizing quite what he had, the teacher began searching the internet to figure out exactly who Blind Joe Reynolds was and if this record might be of some significance. One site referred him to Gayle Dean Wardlow’s book Chasin’ That Devil Music. A chapter in that book called “A Devil of a Joe” tells the story of Blind Joe Reynolds and the significance of his recordings. It also said that there was a missing Blind Joe Reynolds recording, which turned out to be the one purchased at the flea market. Realizing he had stumbled upon a rare find, Smith contacted Tefteller for an appraisal, but ended up selling it to him for an undisclosed amount.

It appears that all of Patton’s 78′s have been found although there have been some significant Patton finds. Found in the material Tefteller purchased in Grafton was a full length photo of Patton. In the 1960′s a small, grainy of only Patton’s head was found in Georgia on a Paramount advertising flyer by blues collector Max Tarpley. It was until, the newly found photo, the only existing photo of Patton. There was also some confusion regarding how Patton spelled his name. According to Tefteller: “Final proof of this occurred in 2008 when Bernard MacMahon found Patton’s original handwritten military draft papers for World War I where Mr. Patton clearly signs his name ‘Charley’.”

A close friend of Charley Patton, Willie Brown played second guitar on many of Patton’s records and Patton played second guitar on at least one of his. Brown had a small amount of success, selling perhaps a few hundred copies of “M&O Blues” simply because the song became a big seller by Walter Davis. Brown made two other records, both of which have yet to be found. Not one single copy of is known to exist of Paramount 13001 “Grandma Blues”/”Sorry Blues”, which was not even known to exist until Tefteller found Paramount artwork advertising this record in 2002, or Paramount 13099 “Kickin’ In My Sleep Blues”/”Window Blues.” Tefteller has offered a $20, 000 reward for either of those records in playable condition.

In 1930, Arthur Laibley who had produced Charley Patton’s last session for Paramount, stopped in Lula to arrange another session with Patton. Patton was famous throughout the Delta and had already recorded close to forty sides for Paramount. Patton told Laibley about Son House and two other musicians Willie Brown and Louise Johnson. The group headed to the Paramount studios in Grafton, WI, where House recorded six songs at the session. Two songs, “Clarksdale Moan”/”Mississippi County Farm Blues” were issued as a 78, but no copy has ever been found until just a couple of years ago. Circumstances are hazy as to it’s discovery but apparently the collector who had it owned it for some time before making the disclosure. All the collector has said was that the record was found in the south. Tefteller has since purchased the record. Could there be another missing Son House record? Tefteller had this to say: “There was a notation in Max Vreede’s files of a Son House/Skip James double sided coupling on Paramount. He assigned it to be one of the missing numbers, but there was no information as to song titles or where he got the information. Son House, in interviews in the 60′s, insists that he recorded 16 songs for Paramount which would be eight 78′s. There are four records (eight sides) known and accounted for…along with a one sided test for “Walking Blues” but there sure could be another one issued on one of the missing numbers and also the others could exist on test pressings but none have been found (outside of “Walkin’ Blues”).”

In 2007 Tefteller issued what is apparently the only known copy of Blind Willie McTell & Mary Willis’ “Talkin’ To You Wimmen’ About The Blues.” The track and it’s flip side, “Merciful Blues”, was issued on the CD that accompanies Tefteller’s 2008 blues artwork calendar. To quote Tefteller: “the record…apparently has not been heard by anyone since its release back in the late fall of 1931. I have had this record in my collection for almost ten years. I had no idea that it was potentially a one-of-a-kind record! …Late last year, legendary Blues reissue producer Larry Cohn called me about his upcoming Blind Willie McTell box set. He told me he would like to borrow certain records from my collection …I sent him a list of what I had. To my amazement, he called immediately with the comment, “I’ve never heard the Mary Willis record!” Apparently, there is no master in the Columbia vaults. Cohn is aware of no other copy of the record anywhere. Finding this hard to believe, I started calling “all the usual suspects” and sure enough, none of them had the record or had ever heard it.”

“Night And Day Blues” b/w “Sun To Sun” (Paramount 13123) was discovered in 2007 when it was retrieved from an old steamer trunk in a trailer park in Raleigh, NC, and acquired by Old Hat Records. In either May or October 1931, Paramount cut four Blake sides and the other record for this session, “Dissatisfied Blues”/”Miss Emma Liza” has also never been found. The Blake records were acquired by Old Hat Records along with records by Charley Jordan, Buddy Moss, Tampa Red, Memphis Minnie, Bessie Jackson, Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell, Casey Bill, Georgia Tom, and the duo of Daddy Stovepipe & Mississippi Sarah, to name just a few. Tefteller had this to say regarding other possible missing Blake sides: “In a Paramount recording ledger which was found in the 60′s, there are notations of at least six more songs that Blake recorded for Paramount but were never released and no tests have ever been found. They could exist on tests but we will never know for sure until one turns up.”

Issued on Tefteller’s newest CD are two test pressings of “Home Town Skiffle” a super group of Paramount’s biggest selling artists including Charley Spand, Will Ezell, The Hokum Boys, Papa Charlie Jackson and Blind Blake. According to Tefteller: “Paramount, however, told a lie on this one – claiming on both the record label and the ad that Blind Lemon Jefferson appears on this record. Not true! Collectors long suspected that Blind Blake simply imitates Jefferson’s guitar licks and they are correct! Newly discovered test pressings of other takes of the song reveal this. We include one of those complete tests on this year’s CD so you can clearly hear for yourself that Jefferson was not in the room for these sessions.”

A welcome surprise in recent years has been the discovery of several Tommy Johnson recordings of unissued material. In 1985 an untitled Tommy Johnson test pressing was found and issued on Document as “Boogaloosa Woman”/”Morning Prayer.” Yazoo has issued “Morning Prayer” with the title “Button Up Shoes.” In around 2001 yet another important batch of records came to light. A box of unissued Paramount and QRS test pressings (the QRS material likely obtained by Paramount from Art Satherley in 1930/31) has been found by an antique dealer in Wisconsin. Tefteller purchased the Tommy Johnson test pressing of “I Want Someone To Love Me” for over $12,000. The record has since been issued on the CD that accompanies the 2004 Blues Images calendar. Our selection today is “Alchohol And Jake Blues.” The flip side is “Ridin’ Horse Blues” and is the only known copy of this 78 which was issued as Paramount 12950 purchased by Tefteller in November 2007.

John Tefteller Interview [edited version] (MP3)

We left off our look at Alice Moore with two sessions she cut in 1934. After 1934 Henry Brown and Ike Rodgers no longer accompanied Alice on record with the piano chair filled for most of the remaining sessions by the popular Peetie Wheatstraw. Moore cut two sessions in July 1935 for a total of six songs with Wheatstraw on the piano for the first session, switching to guitar on the second session as Jimmy Gordon sits behind the piano stool. Once again Moore revises her signature song, this time titling it “Blue Black And Evil Blues.” One of the session’s best numbers is the typically mournful but lovely “S.O.S. Blues (Distress Blues):”

And I can’t use hoodoo, don’t know no tricks at all (2x)
And I will do anything lord, to get that mule back in my stall
Spoken: Oh if I only was a gypsy. Oh babe I could read his mind. Play ‘em Peter, play ‘em for me now.
Yes to lose my love, is putting me in distress (2x)
And I’m not ashamed to tell you, I’m sending out and S.O.S.

“Death Valley Blues” is a cryptic and dark number:

Let me go down in death valley, and hear the death bells ring (2x)
And holler, death oh death, oh death where is thy sting
And it’s please don’t, take this pillow out from under my head (2x)
For I live hard I die hard, tell you I would rather be dead

There a few St. Louis artists who use this theme, although they differ lyrically, including Lonnie Johnson on his “Death Valley Is Just Half Way To My Home”, Lee Green’s “Death Alley Blues” and Bessie Mae Smith’s “Death Valley Moan.” Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup also cut “Death Valley Blues.”

As Guido Van Rijn notes: “One year later Peetie was back at the piano. On 22 May 1936 James “Kokomo” Arnold (1901-1969) played the guitar. While Wheatstraw continues his continuous melodic lines, Arnold keeps the volume of his guitar somewhat down during the singing, and comes back full force to fill the gaps.” Arnold’s bold playing works exceptionally well on their six song collaboration with Moore sounding particularly forceful and confident as evidenced on the salacious “Grass Cutter Blues:”

And I woke up this morning, and the rain was falling fast (2x)
And I began to wish that, ask some good man to cut my grass
And it’s daddy, daddy, what am I going to do (2x)
Can you see for yourself, Alice don’t want ‘nother grass cutter but you

The themes of rootlessness and trying to latch on to a good man to keep her from going astray are perfectly summed up in the evocative “Dark Angel Blues” where she also gives Peetie some good natured ribbing:

And I’m a little dark angel, and I’m drifting through this land (2x)
And the reason I’m driftin’, trying to find a real good man
They call me little dark angel, I am my mama’s baby child (2x)
But I want a good man ,to keep me from runnin’ wild
Spoken: Well, well, well. People look who is here. Here comes Peetie drunk again. Boy when are you gonna stop drinkin’ whiskey? Just stay drunk all the time, all the time. Oh someday you’ll quit.

1937 was a productive year but there’s been some confusion as to who plays on these sessions. Guido Van Rijn offers the following account: “The last Alice Moore recordings were made during four sessions in 1937. There is an unknown string bass on these recordings who accents the first and third beats and plucks and slaps mainly in a four to the bar rhythm. All these recordings are credited to ‘Jordan’ so we may safely assume that Charley Jordan was present. The accompanists are not very audible. The guitar is probably played with a flat-pick. The melody of the piano is followed with single string runs on the highest strings, frequent choking of the blue notes and an occasional lower bass string run. Sometimes there is a chordal intermezzo on the highest strings. The guitarist must have known Peetie’s playing very well as the two form a real team. I think Charley Jordan is the guitarist on the 1937 Alice Moore dates. …On 26 March 1937 Alice recorded “Don’t Deny Me Baby” on which Peetie’s name is mentioned again. On the tenth session of 26 October 1937 the piano is certainly not by Peetie Wheatstraw. In the solos the right hand switches from higher to lower octaves, uses tremolos and sliding notes. There is a simple octave bass in the left hand and now and then the melody is retarded. This session is clasped in between two Roosevelt Sykes sessions. I have no doubt about the presence of Roosevelt Sykes here. The bass player is far more interesting than his colleague of the eighth and ninth sessions. He has more rhythmic variations and a far greater propulsive power thanks to the use of dotted eighth notes. The guitarist plays hardly audible chords and boogie runs on the lower strings in the first position.”

Among the notable songs were “Hand In Hand Woman” which finds Moore kinder to men but overtly aggressive towards women:

I’m gonna get me partner, just to run hand in hand (2x)
But I ain t gonna get no woman, gonna get me partner man
I just came here to tell you girls, I don’t run hand in hand (2x)
Please take my advice, get yourself another man
Because that’s my man, and he is just my type (2x)
And the clothes he wears on his back, they cost me ten dollars a yard
I’m tired of telling you girls, I don’t run hand in hand (2x)
The last girl I run hand and hand with, is the girl that stole my man
These hand in hand woman, they’s ain’t no friend to you (2x)
They will take your good man, leave you with these hand in hand blues

More typical are tales of no good men as in “Too Many Men:”

These men, these men, they just won’t let me be (2x)
I’m gonna pack my suitcase, and beat it back to Tennessee
If you got too many men, they will stay right on your trail (2x)
They will get you into trouble ,and no one will go your bail
When you got too many men, you can’t even sleep at night (2x)
Every time you step on the street, some of them want to start a fight
When these men get mad, you don’t know what to do (2x)
They will hypnotize or beat you, and keep you in trouble too
So take my advice girls, don’t have too many men (2x)

While “Midnight Creepers” takes a more ominous viewpoint:

These times is so dangerous, til’ a woman can’t walk the streets (2x)
There is some dangerous man, trying to make a low down sneak
I’m going to buy me bulldog, he’ll watch me while I sleep (2x)
Just to keep these dangerous men, from making a midnight creep

Better watch your step girls, when you goes out at night (2x)
Because these dangerous men, they sure has got to be too tight
I was scared last night, and the night before (2x)
But I got me good man, don’t have to be scared no more

Moore’s demise is sketchy as Guido Van Rijn notes: “In 1960 Henry Townsend stated that Alice Moore had died ten or twelve years previously. This would mean that she died c. 1950. Early in 1954 reports came in that she was still in St. Louis, but no trace of her was found. In 1969 Mike Stewart confirmed that Alice Moore was dead.” Alice Moore’s complete output can be found on the following Document collections: St. Louis Bessie & Alice Moore Vol 1 1927 – 1929, St. Louis Bessie & Alice Moore Vol 2 1934 – 1941 and Kokomo Arnold Vol 3 1936 – 1937.

Sources:

-Rijn, Guido Van. Lonesome Woman Blues: The Story of Alice Moore, Blues & Rhythm, No 208 (2007), p. 20-21.

-Townsend, Henry and Greensmith, Bill. A Blues Life. University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1999.

-Dixon, Robert M.W., John Godrich, Howard W. Rye. Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943. 4th edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997.

-Oliver, Paul. Conversation With The Blues. Horizon Press, New York, 1965.

S.O.S. Blues (Distress Blues) (MP3)

Hand In Hand Women (MP3)

Midnight Creepers (MP3)

Too Many Men (MP3)

Grass Cutter Blues (MP3)

Dark Angel (MP3)

Before World War II St. Louis was a thriving blues town. Henry Townsend, who was an integral part of  the St. Louis blues scene during its formative years, had this to say: “It was a whole lotta fun. You didn’t find a dead place in town. Sometimes we’d just get together as a group and just do jamming, you know. Sometimes the jam sessions would last four or five hours. Henry Brown would show up, Peetie Wheatstraw, Robert Johnson was there for a while, and of course Robert Nighthawk, Big Joe Williams, and my main man, Sonny Boy. St. Louis was a hot town for blues in those days, just like Chicago.” Likely encouraged by the discovery of Lonnie Johnson in 1925 the record companies began to focus on St. Louis artists and by 1930 most of the artists of consequence had made their recording debuts. Artists such as Lonnie Johnson, Peetie Wheatstraw, Roosevelt Sykes and Walter Davis went on to enjoy prolific recording careers while the majority are little remembered today, just names on dusty records. St. Louis also boasted some superb woman singers like Bessie Mae Smith, Mary Johnson, Edith North Johnson and one of the city’s best, Alice Moore.

Little Alice, as she was known, achieved a measure of success with her first record, “Black And Evil Blues” cut at her first session 1929 with three subsequent versions cut during the 1930′s. In all she cut thirty-six sides: Two sessions for Paramount in 1929 and nine sessions (the final one went unissued) for Decca between 1934 and 1937. The recording gap was likely due to the depression. Moore possessed a penetrating, pinched nasal tone and tendency to elongate certain words that added to the somber intensity of her songs which were almost always taken at a funeral pace. Mike Stewart and Don Kent described her style this way: “Her singing style, with its particular stresses, and choppy, exclaimed phrasing, was not especially unusual. No one, however, converted it to quite such a mannerism.” She had the good fortune to record with the city’s best musicians including pianists Henry Brown, Peetie Wheatstraw, Jimmie Gordon, possibly Roosevelt Sykes as well as guitarists Lonnie Johnson, Kokomo Arnold and trombonist Ike Rodgers. On record Moore sang mostly hard bitten tales of no good, dangerous men and desperate love in bleak songs like “Lonesome Women Blues”, “S.O.S. Blues (Distress Blues)” “Midnight Creepers” and “Too Many Men.” Prison and prostitution are recurring themes in songs such as “Prison Blues”, “Cold Iron Walls”, “Serving Time Blues” and “Broadway St. Woman Blues.” On record Moore creates a persona of a vulnerable, good woman at the mercy of a cruel world and predatory, indifferent men while at other times she displays the harder shell of a jaded, good-time woman. She sang with conviction, often addressing woman listeners with pointed advice, frequently punctuating her songs with spoken asides and speaking directly to her accompanists.

Little is known of Moore’s background and what is known comes from her arrest files and the recollections of her contemporaries. In fact a photograph of her was published for the first time just recently having been discovered in a 1934 Decca catalog with the caption “Alice Moore, Little Alice From St. Louis.” According to Bill Greensmith: “In March 1925 Alice was arrested twice. The first occasion was on 7 March for ‘suspicion of gambling.’ She gave her address as 2016 Walnut Street, her age as twenty-one, and her birthplace as Tennessee. …She was arrested again on 27 March, although instead of being charged she was sent to the ‘Health Department.’ Alice was living at 2118 Randolph Street when on 19 September 1926 she was arrested and charged with ‘disturbing the peace.’” Henry Townsend told Paul Oliver in 1960: “She was a real nice girl. She was real devoted to her blues singing. From my point of it she was pretty well a nice mixer with the public and a fairly intelligent girl. They used to call her Little Alice – well she was quite small I think at the time they adopted the name to her as Little Alice, but later I think she defeated that name, by getting quite some size – she got extra size before she died about ten or twelve years ago. Henry Brown has played for Alice Moore, for a fact I think he started her out, and she was a devoted blues singer.” In 1986 Townsend told Bill Greensmith: “I remember Alice Moore. She was a beautiful person, a kind-hearted person. She was a very nice looking black gal. She was almost what you would call a pretty girl. She had a beautiful smooth skin like velvet. I think that had a lot to do with her death too. It sounds kinda off the wall, but sometimes a lot of things are against a person that don’t have an understanding about how to handle it. I think it contributed to her living a little fast. Alice Moore, Ike Rodgers, and Henry Brown was a trio. I never worked with them, but I was around them quite a bit. …Alice seemed to be slightly my senior, but not by no big difference. But from maturity, she seemed to be a little more mature than I was. Her ‘Black And Evil’ was a hit right away, that first one. She was a pretty black woman ain’t no doubt about that but the evil part, she wasn’t evil, I don’t think. But I never was her man, and that’s the only way you’re ever going to find that out. She may have been, but she never did show it on the surface; she always showed kindness, everybody like her. I don’t know how Alice died or why. It appears to me like I would have heard about it or somebody would have said something about it, as many people that knew her and me. I’m inclined to believe that whenever she died, it was one of the times that I was away for some reason. A lot of the stuff Alice recorded Henry Brown worked with her, but Jimmy Gordon played piano on one of her sessions.” In 1960 Henry Brown recalled those days: “Henry Townsend played guitar and Little Alice sang. We’d play joints on Franklin … Delmar …Easton … spots in East St. Louis  – like the Blue Flame Club.”

Moore’s first four sessions feature complimentary backing from Henry Brown and trombonist Ike Rodgers. Rodgers played rough “gutbucket” trombone, using a variety of tin cans, liquor glasses and other mutes of his own devising. Before moving to Decca in 1934 Moore cut ten songs at two sessions for Paramount in August, 1929 and possibly November of that year. “Black And Evil Blues” was a hit from this session, a dark song underscored by Rodgers’ mournful trombone that would set the tone for many subsequent songs. The song was covered by Lil Johnson in 1936 and Leroy Ervin in 1937. Paul Oliver had this to say about the number: “At times the characteristics of African racial features and color have an ominous significance in the blues, which may hint that they are indirectly related to social problems. So the state of being ‘blue’ is associated with alienation, and is linked with an ‘evil mind’ or an inclination to violence. Both are coupled with the inescapable condition of being black. …That her hearers identified  with her theme was evident in the popularity of the blues, which she made four times in different versions.”

I’m black and I’m evil, and I did not make myself (2x)
If my man don’t have me, he won’t have nobody else
I’ve got to buy me a bulldog, he’ll watch me while I sleep (2x)
Because I’m so black and evil, that I might make a midnight creep
I believe to my soul, the Lord  has got a curse on me (2x)
Because every man I get, a no good woman steals him from me

Notable form these first two sessions are four songs dealing with prison, a place Moore, as mentioned above, knew well: “Prison Blues”, “Cold Iron Walls”, “Serving Time Blues” and “Broadway St. Woman Blues.”  In “Prison Blues” she sings:

The judge he sentenced me, and the clerk he wrote it down (2x)
My man said I’m sorry for you babe, that you are county farm bound
Six months in jail, and a month on the county farm (2x)
If my man had a been any good, he would have went my bond

She offers some pointed advice in “Cold Iron Walls:”

My friends, my friends you let this world of crime alone (2x)
For crime my friends, will keep you from your happy home
My baby, law outnumbers you, a thousand to one (2x)
And when he gets you, pay for the crime that you have done
When I was in my crime, they’s as nice as they can be (2x)
And now I am in trouble, they have gone back on me
Spoken: Oh blow these blues for me. Nobody know the way I feel. Everybody take my advice.

She sings of overt violence in “Serving Time Blues:”

I laid in jail, oh baby, the whole night long (2x)
I cut my man, because he would not come back home
I told the sergeant, that he could take me to jail (2x)
Because that (?) doggone good man, to come and go my bail

The judge he slammed the door, said poor girl then rolled his eyes (2x)
And now little girl, you got to serve your time
Six bits ain’t no dollar, six months ain’t no great long time (2x)
I am going to the workhouse, baby just to serve my time

There’s an allusion to prostitution in “Broadway St. Woman Blues” which is reinforced by the St. Louis police files and the observations of Henry Townsend:

I was standing on a corner, just between Broadway and Main (2x)
And a cop walked up, and he asked poor me my name
I told the cop, my name was written on my (?) (2x)
And I’m a good-time woman, and I sure don’t have to (?)
He said I’ll take you to the jail, and see what he will do (2x)
He may give you five years, and he may take pity on you
He took me to the jail, with my head hanging low (2x)
And the judge said hold your head up, for you are bound to go

“Loving Heart Blues” from her second session is another harsh number that may also allude to prostitution:

Oh Lord if you ever, please make my babe understand (2x)
Understand that I love him, do anything for him I can
I would pawn my clothes for him, walk the street the whole night long (2x)
And I would steal for him, although I know it’s wrong
This world can be cruel babe, cruel as cruel can be (2x)

Guido Van Rijn notes that “on 17 November 1930 Alice probably recorded for Victor under the pseudonym Alice Melvin. Although these four songs remain unissued, two of the titles, ‘Lonesome Woman Blues’ and ‘Trouble Blues’ were to be recorded by Alice Moore on 24 August 1934.” Moore cut two songs apiece at her first Decca sessions in1934, cut six days apart. The records are listed as “Little Alice From St. Louis.”  “Black Evil Blues” was a remake of her popular number while “Riverside Blues” features some lovely imagery and is lyrically unlike anything else she recorded. There is no trombone on this song, instead featuring the violin of Artie Mosby a St. Louis violinist of the 1920′s and 30′s. Guido Van Rijn suggests that he may have been classically trained. Moore’s singing is also different, less nasal and more gritty as she sings:

And it’s water, water, water, water rolls everywhere (2x)
I can catch this water, but sure can’t catch my man
I see a moon in this river, and a moon shining up above (2x)
But I don’t like the moonlight, without the one I love
And I wish I could swim, Little Alice could only float (2x)
I would jump in the river, and swim down to his boat

And I’m sitting by a river, taking off both of my shoes (2x)
Want to jump in this river, and get rid of these riverside blues

On “Trouble Blues” she’s sassy and assertive despite her troubles as she sings:

Spoken: Now let me tell you about me
Now it’s Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice Moore is my real right name
All the men like Little Alice, just because she can boot that thing

Black And Evil Blues (MP3)

Broadway St. Woman Blues (MP3)

Riverside Blues (MP3)

Trouble Blues (MP3)

Lonesome Blues (MP3)