| ARTIST | SONG | ALBUM |
|---|---|---|
| Eddie Boyd | Rosa Lee Swing | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Eddie Boyd | Mr Highway Man | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Eddie Boyd | Baby What's Wrong With You | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Memphis Slim | Two of a Kind | The Bluebird Recordings 1940-1941 |
| Memphis Slim | Mistake In Life | Memphis Slim Vol. 2 1946-1948 |
| Memphis Slim | Slim's Boogie | Memphis Slim Vol. 1 1940-1941 |
| Willie Mabon | Beggar or Bandit | Willie's Blues: The Greatest Hits 1952-1957 |
| Willie Mabon | Monday Woman | Willie's Blues: The Greatest Hits 1952-1957 |
| Willie Mabon | I Got to Go | Willie's Blues: The Greatest Hits 1952-1957 |
| Detroit Jr. | Don't Unpack | The Complete Detroit Jr |
| Detroit Jr. | Call My Job | The USA Records Blues Story |
| Detroit Jr. | Talk Fast | Hard Times: Chicago Blues Of The Sixties |
| Eddie Boyd | Third Degree | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Eddie Boyd | Chicago Is Just That Way | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Eddie Boyd | 24 Hours | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Memphis Slim | Nobody Loves Me (Everyday I Have The Blues) | Memphis Slim Vol. 2 1946-1948 |
| Memphis Slim | Blue And Lonesome | Memphis Slim Vol. 3 1948-1950 |
| Memphis Slim | Pacemaker Boogie | Memphis Slim Vol. 2 1946-1948 |
| Willie Mabon | Lonesome Blue Water | I'm The Fixer: The Best Of The U.S.A. Sessions |
| Willie Mabon | Some Time I Wonder | Willie's Blues: The Greatest Hits 1952-1957 |
| Willie Mabon | Something For Nothing | Chess Blues Box |
| Memphis Slim | You're Gonna Need My Help Someday | Memphis Slim Vol. 4: 1951-1952 |
| Memphis Slim | No Mail Blues | Memphis Slim Vol. 4: 1951-1952 |
| Memphis Slim | Rockin' Chair (Rockin' the Pad) | Memphis Slim Vol. 4: 1951-1952 |
| Eddie Boyd | I Got The Blues | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Eddie Boyd | Vacation From The Blues | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Eddie Boyd | It's Too Bad | The Singles Collection 1947-62 |
| Memphis Slim | Four Years of Torment | Rockin' The House: The Best of the R&B Years |
| Memphis Slim | Sassy Mae | Rockin' The House: The Best of the R&B Years |
| Memphis Slim | Steppin' Out | Vee-Jay: The Definitive Collection |
| Henry Gray | Matchbox | Down Home Blues: Chicago |
| Henry Gray | Goodbye Baby | Hand Me Down Blues |
| Henry Gray | Watch Yourself | Hand Me Down Blues |
| Willie Mabon | Life Could Be Miserable | Willie's Blues: The Greatest Hits 1952-1957 |
| Curtis Jones | Flamin' Blues | Curtis Jones Vol. 4 1941-1953 |
| Willie Mabon | Seventh Son | Willie's Blues: The Greatest Hits 1952-1957 |
Show Notes:
Today’s program and two-follow ups are part nine, ten and eleven of a series of shows devoted to lesser known Chicago blues artists, some session artists, others who cut a handful of sides under their own name, all who are little remembered outside of die-hard collectors. In past installments we’ve spotlighted some fine guitarists including William Lacey, Lefty Bates, Lee Jackson, Cooper, Lee Jackson, Jody Williams, Smokey Smothers to sax men like Buster Bennett and Sax Mallard to jump band and crooners like Jo Jo Adams, Tom Archia, J.T. Brown among many others. On our latest crop of shows the bulk of the recordings are from well-known piano men who I haven’t featured in-depth before like Memphis Slim, Eddie Boyd, Curtis Jones (his voluminous pre-war output will be the subject for another show) and Willie Mabon. All made their first recordings in the 40’s and recorded prolifically through the decades, all having some chart success. We trawl through the entirety of their commercial recordings for labels big and small, playing well known and forgotten numbers. All these men would got on to cut full-length albums and all moved to Europe in the 60’s and 70’s seeking better opportunities and cutting many records, several fine ones, for European labels which are out of scope for these shows. Artists like Otis Spann and Henry Gray did a fair bit of session working before stepping out on their own but cut only a handful of commercial records, those of which, in many case, not released at the time. Detroit Jr played with several bands and cut a number of sides for Chicago labels garnering some local success.
Born in Memphis in 1915 as John Chatman, he was exposed to the blues at a very young age by his family. His father Peter Chatman led a group called the Washboard Band, which featured the influential blues pianist Roosevelt Sykes. Inspired by Sykes, the young Chatman began to teach himself the piano and was soon touring in juke joints and dancehalls throughout the Southeast. In 1939 he moved to Chicago to join the vibrant local music scene. He quickly found himself in company with some of the city’s most well-respected blues musicians, most notably guitarist Big Bill Broonzy and harmonica player “Sonny Boy” Williamson. As homage to his father, Chatman soon began recording with Okeh Records under the name Peter Chatman before moving to Bluebird Records in 1940. With a suggestion from Bluebird producer Lester Melrose, Chatman began performing under the name Memphis Slim. Slim became a regular session musician for Bluebird, and his piano talents supported established stars such as John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, Washboard Sam, and Jazz Gillum. Many of Slim’s recordings and performances until the mid-1940s were with Broonzy, who had recruited Slim to be his piano player after the death of his accompanist Joshua Altheimer in 1940.
After World War II, Slim began leading bands that generally included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. Starting in late 1945, he recorded with trios for the small Chicago-based Hy-Tone Records. With a lineup of alto saxophone, tenor sax, piano, and string bass (Willie Dixon played the instrument on the first session), he signed with the Miracle label in the fall of 1946. One of the songs recorded at the first session was “Rockin’ the House,” from which his band would take its name as the House Rockers. He recorded mainly for Miracle through 1949, with some commercial success. Among the songs they recorded were “Messin’ Around” (which reached number one on the R&B charts in 1948) and “Harlem Bound. One of Slim’s 1947 recordings for Miracle, released in 1949, was originally titled “Nobody Loves Me”. It has become famous as “Every Day I Have the Blues.” The song was recorded in 1950 by Lowell Fulson and subsequently by numerous other artists. Early in 1950, Miracle succumbed to financial troubles, but its owners regrouped to form the Premium label, and Slim remained on board until the successor company faltered in the summer of 1951. Slim made just one session for King, but the company bought his Hy-Tone sides in 1948 and acquired his Miracle masters after that company failed in 1950
Slim was never a Chess artist, but Leonard Chess bought most of the Premium masters after the demise of Premium. After a year with Mercury Records, Slim signed with United Records in Chicago. The A&R man, Lew Simpkins, knew him from Miracle and Premium. The timing was propitious, because he had just added the guitarist Matt “Guitar” Murphy to his group. He remained with United through the end of 1954, when the company began to cut back on blues recording. After 1954, Slim did not have a steady relationship with a record company until 1958, when he signed with Vee-Jay Records. In 1959 his band, still featuring Murphy, recorded the album Memphis Slim at the Gate of the Horn. In December 1959, Willie Dixon’s debut album, Willie’s Blues, was released and Slim was given almost equal credit on the album as Dixon’s piano accompanist.Slim record several albums for Folkways between 1959 and 1962 including Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon at the Village Gate with Pete Seeger, Memphis Slim and the Honky-Tonk Sound, Chicago Blues: Boogie Woogie and Blues Played and Sung By Memphis Slim and Memphis Slim and the Real Boogie-Woogie.
Slim first appeared outside the United States in 1960, touring with Willie Dixon, with whom he returned to Europe in 1962 as a featured artist in the first of the series of American Folk Festival concerts organized by Dixon, which brought many notable blues artists to Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. Slim moved permanently to Paris. He appeared on television in numerous European countries, acted in several French films and performed regularly in Paris, throughout Europe, and on return visits to the United States. Slim died in 1988.
Eddie Boyd was born on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale in 1914. He taught himself how to play piano and guitar, and he worked the jukes joints in and around the Mississippi delta and then moved to Memphis in 1936. In Memphis he often played on Beale Street with his band the Dixie Rhythm Boys. Hoping to record, Boyd left Memphis for Chicago in 1941. Lester Melrose, signed Eddie to Victor as a session pianist in 1947. Boyd played on some of the classic recordings of harp legend Sonny Boy Williamson I, such as “Elevator Woman” (1947). In the same year, he played piano on a session with Big Maceo, after the latter had suffered a paralysis to his right-hand side. Melrose also gave Boyd the opportunity to record his own material, billing him as “Little Eddie Boyd”. He debuted as a solo artist for RCA Victor in 1947 and remained with the label until 1949, recording a total of 21 fine sides in five sessions for the company.
Convinced that “Five Long Years” was something special, Boyd personally financed a recording session with J. T. Brown’s Boogie Band, and then sold the disk to J.O.B. Records. It was released in 1952 and gave Boyd his greatest success, topping the R&B charts. Top DJ Al Benson briefly signed him to his own Parrot label, before selling the contract to Chess in 1953. In his first year with Chess, Boyd cut two more R&B hits: “24 Hours” and “Third Degree”. Nevertheless, his spell at Chess really should have yielded greater success. Unfortunately, he failed to hit it off with Leonard Chess from the outset, and as time went on things further deteriorated. Chess allegedly told Boyd that he was “talentless”, and made no bones about airing his view that the pianist’s songs would sound better if recorded by Muddy Waters!
Boyd’s career received a severe blow in 1957 when he was involved in a very serious car crash in Illinois. This left him in a hospital bed for some three months, and when he finally recovered he realized that his relationship with the Chess management had reached the point of no return. Boyd promptly moved on to Cadillac Baby’s Bea & Baby label, and recorded a series of eight sides in 1959. Almost by chance, he found himself on the 1965 American Folk Blues Festival touring roster, and decided that perhaps his future lay in Europe. An appearance at the Hague Blues Festival followed in the same year, and Boyd realized that not only was Europe relatively free of the racial discrimination that had plagued him in the U.S. it also promised to be the starting place for the blues revival, with ample recording opportunities for past greats like himself. Switching residence from Paris to Belgium, he also found time to visit London and record an LP for Blue Horizon in 1967. In 1970, he married a Finnish woman and settled in Helsinki, continuing to gig regularly in Finland over the next two decades. Despite health issues he managed to play at the the Chicago Blues Festival in 1986. He passed in 1994.
Willie Mabon was born and brought up in the Hollywood district of Memphis, Tennessee. He moved to Chicago in 1942, by which time he had become known as a singer and pianist. Willie made connections with other musicians and by 1947 had formed a trio, Blues Rockers, with guitarists Lazy Bill Lucas and Earl Dranes. Two 78s appeared on Aristocrat in 1949 and ’50, the first, “Times Are Getting Hard,” leading into its follow-up, “When Times Are Getting Better.” The group made the rounds of Windy City clubs for the next couple of years before Mabon embarked on a solo career. Mabon’s manager, Chicago radio personality Al Benson, started Parrot Records and waxed two tracks with the singer in the fall of 1952. The A side, “I Don’t Know,” was adapted from Cripple Clarence Lofton’s “I Don’t Know” cut in 1935. Benson had the record pressed on Parrot but quickly sold the master to Chess. The son hit number one on the rhythm and blues chart at the end of December and remained on top eight weeks.
Mabon returned to the top R&B slot in 1953 with “I’m Mad” and had another hit in 1954 with the Mel London song “Poison Ivy”. After one single for Federal (“Light Up Your Lamp”), followed after a two-year wait by a pair on the Mad label, then one on Solar and two on Formal. Live performances were his main source of income and a contract with U.S.A. Records from ’62 to ’65 provided some stability . He and Willie Dixon enjoyed working together on several well-produced tracks, standouts being “Just Got Some,” “I’m the Fixer,” instrumental “Harmonica Special” and piano blues lament “Lonesome Blue Water.”
Willie stopped making music for a few years in the late ’60s, then returned to the scene of his greatest success and frustration in 1969, long enough to get one single out on Checker, “I’ll Keep on Hurtin’.” A remake of “Poison Ivy” was issued on the Blues on Blues label in ’72. Mabon moved to Paris in 1972 and toured and recorded in Europe as part of the promoter Jim Simpson’s American Blues Legends tour, recording The Comeback for Simpson’s Big Bear Records and albums for Ornament Records, Black & Blue, Antilles, L+R as well as backing a few artists such as Koko Taylor and Mickey Baker. He also performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Mabon passed in 1985.
Detroit Jr. was born Emery Williams Jr. in Arkansas. He learned the church organ at an early age and became a noted piano player in local juke joints. When in Chicago, Detroit Jr was taken under the wing by Eddie Boyd who introduced him in clubs and studios. During the 1950’s and 60’s Detroit Jr. played with several bands including those of Morris Pejoe, Lefty Dizz, Little Mack Simmons and recorded for labels like Bea & Baby, Chess, C.J., Palos, gaining local hits with “Money T” and “Cal My Job.” Detroit became a regular member of Howlin’ Wolf’s band.In later years he recorded several fine albums and played festivals and toured Europe. Detroit Jr died in Chicago on August 9th, 2005.
Curtis Jones was born in Naples, Texas, United States, to sharecropping parents, and played guitar whilst young but switched to piano after a move to Dallas. 1936 he relocated to Chicago, where he recorded prolifically between 1937 and 1941 on Vocalion, Bluebird, and OKeh. His best-known tunes from these recordings was the oft covered “Lonesome Bedroom Blues” recorded at his first session. World War II interrupted his recording career, which he did not resume until 1953, when a single of his, “Wrong Blues b/w Cool Playing Blues”, was released on Parrot, featuring L. C. McKinley on guitar. Another four-song session for Parrot went unissued but “Flamin’ Blues” and “Upside Down Blues” were issued decades later. Jones’s first full-length album appeared in 1960 on Bluesville followed by one on Delmark. In the early 60’s he moved to Europe where he record albums for Decca and Blue Horizon. He lived there and in Morocco for the rest of his life.Jones died of heart failure in Munich in 1971.
Shortly after he was born, Henry Gray, an only child, moved with his parents to a farm in Alsen, Louisiana, a few miles north of Baton Rouge, where he lived during his childhood. He began studying the piano at the age of eight. By the time he was 16 he was playing blues at a club in Alsen. In 1943 join the Army and returned to the States in 1946 and spent a brief time in Alsen before relocating to Chicago, where he had relatives. One day while he was sitting in at a club, he caught the attention of Big Maceo Merriweather. Merriweather befriended Gray and had an important influence on Gray and also introduced Gray to several notable bands and club owners. As a result, Gray obtained steady gigs with groups like Little Hudson’s Red Devil Trio and the guitarist Morris Pejoe before moving into extensive work as a session musician. In 1956, Gray joined Howlin’ Wolf’s band and was Wolf’s main piano player for twelve years in performance and on recordings. Also during this time, Gray became a session player for numerous artists on recordings made by Chess Records. He recorded with many leading figures of the blues, including Sonny Boy Williamson II, Homesick James, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Hubert Sumlin, Lazy Lester, Little Walter Jacobs, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Little Milton, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor. His only work under his own name was an unissued session for Chess done in 1953 and a Parrot session from December 8, 1955 which remained unknown for much of his career, and was not released until it came out on the Relic collection, Hand Me Down Blues in 1989.
Terrific show Jeff (Skippy). Thanks again.