Big Road Blues Show 1/31/21: Think You Need A Shot – Forgotten Blues Heroes Pt. 14

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Walter Davis	M & O Blues	The Essential Walter Davis
Walter Davis	Moonlight Blues	Walter Davis Vol. 1 1933- 1935
Walter Davis	New B. & O. Blues	The Essential Walter Davis
James ''Stump'' Johnson	The Duck Yas-Yas-Yas	James ''Stump'' Johnson 1929-1964
James ''Stump'' Johnson	The Snitcher's Blues	James ''Stump'' Johnson 1929-1964
James ''Stump'' Johnson	Bound To Be A Monkey	Twenty First St. Stomp: The Piano Blues Of St. Louis
Charlie McFadden w/ Roosevelt Sykes	Low Down Rounders	Twenty First St. Stomp: The Piano Blues Of St. Louis
Charlie McFadden w/ Eddie Miller	Weak-Eyed Blues	Down On The Levee: The Piano Blues of St. Louis Vol. 2
Charlie McFadden w/ Eddie Miller	Gambler's Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 2 Brunswick 1928-30
Eddie Miller w/ John Oscar	Dyin' Mother Blues	Chicago Piano 1929-1936
Eddie Miller	Freight Train Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 2 Brunswick 1928-30
Eddie Miller w/ John Oscar	Whoopee Mama Blues	Down In Black Bottom: Lowdown Barrelhouse Piano
Barrelhouse Buck McFarland	Weeping Willow Blues	Piano Blues Vol. 2 1927-1956
Barrelhouse Buck McFarland	Mercy Mercy Blues	Piano Blues Vol. 2 1927-1956
Barrelhouse Buck McFarland	Lamp Post Blues	Piano Blues Vol. 2 1927-1956
Walter Davis	Oil Field Blues	The Essential Walter Davis
Walter Davis	I Think You Need A Shot	The Essential Walter Davis
Walter Davis	I Just Can't Help It	The Essential Walter Davis
James ''Stump'' Johnson	Kind Babe Blues	Twenty First St. Stomp: The Piano Blues Of St. Louis
James ''Stump'' Johnson	Snitcher's Blues	James ''Stump'' Johnson 1929-1964
James ''Stump'' Johnson	Don't Give My Lard Away	Twenty First St. Stomp: The Piano Blues Of St. Louis
Charlie McFadden w/ Eddie Miller	Harvest Moon Blues	Twenty First St. Stomp: The Piano Blues Of St. Louis
Charlie McFadden	People People	Charlie ''Specks'' McFadden 1929-1937
Charlie McFadden w/ Roosevelt Sykes	Groceries On The Shelf	Charlie ''Specks'' McFadden 1929-1937
Eddie Miller	Good Jelly Blues	Twenty First St. Stomp: The Piano Blues Of St. Louis
Eddie Miller	School Day Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 2 Brunswick 1928-30
Barrelhouse Buck McFarland	I Got To Go Blues	Piano Blues Vol. 2 1927-1956
Barrelhouse Buck McFarland	Mean To Mean	Piano Blues Vol. 2 1927-1956
Walter Davis	What May Your Trouble Be	The Essential Walter Davis
Walter Davis	Come Back Baby	The Essential Walter Davis
James ''Stump'' Johnson	Steady Grindin'	Down On The Levee: The Piano Blues of St. Louis Vol. 2
James ''Stump'' Johnson	Barrel Of Whiskey Blues	James ''Stump'' Johnson 1929-1964
Walter Davis	I Can Tell By The Way You Smell	The Piano Blues Vol. 12: Big Four 1933-1941
Walter Davis	Root Man Blues	The Essential Walter Davis
Walter Davis	God Gal	The Essential Walter Davis
Charlie McFadden w/ Roosevelt Sykes	Lonesome Ghost Blues	Charlie ''Specks'' McFadden 1929-1937
Walter Davis	Tears Came Rollin' Down	Walter Davis Vol. 7 1946-1952

Show Notes:

Walter Davis, February 19, 1936. From the Frederick O. Barnum III Collection of RCA Victor Company negatives.

Today’s show is part of a semi-regular feature I call Forgotten Blues Heroes that spotlights great, but little remembered blues artists that don’t really fit into my weekly themed shows. Today we spotlight several artists from St. Louis, four pianists and one singer. St. Louis was an exceptional piano town and one of the most popular was Walter Davis, who despite his voluminous output, has not been spotlighted on the show previously. Davis waxed close to two hundred sides between 1930 and 1952 but on his first few years of recording used Roosevelt Sykes as the pianist before accompanying himself on piano. James ”Stump” Johnson was a self-taught piano player who made a career playing the city’s brothels. He cut twenty-two sides between 1929-1933 for several labels. Singer Charlie McFadden cut two-dozen sides between 1929 and 1937 usually featuring Roosevelt Sykes on piano but also employed Eddie Miller and Aaron “Pinetop” Sparks. Eddie Miller cut eight sides under his own name at sessions in 1929 and 1936 and backed artists such as Bumble Bee Slim, Merline Johnson, Ma Rainey and others. Buck McFarland got his shot in the recording studio waxing ten sides; two for Paramount in 1929, two for Decca in 1934 and four more for Decca in 1935, which were not issued. He made some final sides in 1961.

Walter Davis was born on a farm in Grenada, Mississippi. He ran away from home at about 13 years of age, landing in St. Louis, Missouri. He started singing with pianist Roosevelt Sykes and guitarist Henry Townsend. Davis made his first recordings, including the successful “M&O Blues”, in 1930, as a singer accompanied by Sykes on piano. A self-taught pianist, Davis increasingly accompanied himself as he became more proficient. Influenced by Leroy Carr, and with a mournful vocal tone and imaginative lyrics, Davis recorded prolifically for Victor and Bluebird, making over close to two hundred sides between 1930 and 1952. Many featured Henry Townsend and/or Big Joe Williams on guitar.

In Paul Oliver’s Conversation With the Blues he recalled how he got his start: “I was playing over there for JC’s Nightclub in East St. Louis. …Jesse Johnson and Jack Kapp came over and they heard me play and then they asked me about making some recordings for RCA Victor. Well I didn’t think I was good enough to play for a big outfit like that, but they told me I was doing fine, and they asked me to play some more blues, so they could hear them. Well naturally, blues was something that was just talent to me somehow or other, and I played a couple more blues for them. So Mr. Kapp signed me up, gave me a contract. Well, I didn’t think too much about it til he gave me fifty dollars… I knew he meant business because he wasn’t just giving away fifty dollars. The I got ready to go to New York.”

As Julian Yarrow wrote of Davis: “There are few, if any, blues singers who recorded as much as Walter Davis did who were so consistently strong in there performances. Drop the metaphorical needle on to any track on any of the seven volumes on the Document label, covering his recording career and the chances are that you will find a performance that is not only immensely deep and touching, but that is marvelously self-contained – a brilliant, profound statement of the blues in two to three minutes. His accompaniments are comparatively – deceptively – simple, but he makes each note carry a weight of power and emotion, and his vocals echo this with their remarkably eloquent evocations of alienation and loss.”

By 1946, Davis had just come through a long dry spell, having been out of the studio since the end of 1941. In 1947 Davis sued RCA for unpaid royalties on his earlier recordings. They apparently settled amicably for he recorded later with RCA/Victor again. He was active only sporadically up until his final session in 1952. As Julian Yarrow wrote: “Extraordinarily, at his very last session, in 1952, he made what could be his finest recording of all – the stunning Tears Came Roiling Down, a favorite amongst blues collectors, with its iterative, rolling accompaniment underlining the utter despair of the vocals.”

As Chris Smith writes in the liner notes to The Bullet Sides…  1949-1952: “Davis was a musician of widespread popularity and considerable influence, as may be heard in the recordings of Gus Jenkins, and Mercy Dee, and the early sides of Jimmy McCracklin, particularly those accompanied by J.D. Nicholson. May singers recorded his songs, among them Ed “Carolina Slim” Harris, who twice recorded versions of ‘Come Back Baby’, and Blue Smitty with a terrifyingly gloomy rendition of ‘The Only Woman’ called appropriately ‘Sad Story.’ Walter Davis’ own career as a musician was ended around 1953 by a stroke which robbed him of control of his left hand, and his thoughts turn increasingly towards region. He worked as the night clerk and switchboard operator in St. Louis hotels, spending his free time preaching and pastoring a church in Hannibal, MO. He died in late 1963 or early 1964 [the actual date appears to be October 22, 1963], leaving behind a reputation as one of the biggest names on the St. Louis scene of the thirties, and a large body of recordings of consistently high quality.”

James “Stump” Johnson was the brother of Jesse Johnson, “a prominent black business man,” who around 1909 had moved the family from Clarksville, Tennessee, to St. Louis, where he ran a music store and was a promoter. James, a self-taught piano player, made a career playing the city’s brothels. He had an instant hit with the “whorehouse tune” “The Duck’s Yas-Yas-Yas”, “a popular St. Louis party song”. The song’s title is from the lyric “Shake your shoulders, shake ’em fast, if you can’t shake your shoulders, shake your yas-yas-yas.” In Paul Oliver’s Conversation With the Blues he recalled how he got discovered: “My brother Jesse Johnson had a music shop which was on Market Street which was a very prominent street for the colored people. He had a piano in there and I came to sitting around and picked on the piano and learned how to play a few little blues – without notes, of course. I was sitting in this place close to Christmas day and I was broke… and a scout come here form Chicago looking for someone to make recordings, well he heard me play a little ditty made on the piano which I later gave the name of the ‘Duck’s Yas Yas Yas.'”

He made a number of other recordings under various pseudonyms. These included Shorty George and Snitcher Roberts. One of the more obscene songs was a version of “Steady Grinding”, which he recorded with Dorothea Trowbridge on August 2, 1933. He recorded twenty-one sides between 1929 and 1933. Johnson also backed artists Teddy Darby and Walter Davis. In 1954 Charlie O’Brien re-discovered Johnson and he was interviewed by Bob Koester. In 1960 Paul Oliver interviewed him for his book Conversation With the Blues. He made some final sides in 1964 at O’Brien’s house. Johnson died on December 5, 1969, from the effects of esophageal cancer at the Veteran’s Hospital in St. Louis. He was 67 years old.

Charlie McFadden was a singer based out of St. Louis. Henry Townsend knew him and said that he could play piano a little bit, but preferred that someone else played it on his recordings. Roosevelt Sykes was the usual pianist, even though Eddie Miller and Aaron “Pinetop” Sparks made a couple of appearances, each. He cut two-dozen sides between 1929 and 1937. “Gambler’s Blues” is his first title (unissued but later remade for Brunswick) and of his thirteen arrests from 1929 to his last in  1935, ten were for gambling. Roosevelt Sykes recalled McFadden well, “We called him ‘Specks’ – he had them on his nose, y’now, ole four-eyes” while Henry Townsend remembered, “I knew Charlie quite well. He and I and Roosevelt used to be together quite a bit on 17th between Cole and Carr ….Charlie played a little piano himself now. I don’t know whether he may have – whether he played for himself any time or not but he played a little piano himself.”  McFadden had a distinctive high voice and both Roosevelt Sykes and Big Joe Williams considered him the best singer in the city.

Chicago Defender Ad, Mar. 1, 1930

Thomas “Barrelhouse Buck” McFarland played drums in Charlie Creath’s band and was part of the recording groups formed by Jesse Johnson and had his own group called Buck’s Jazz Hounds. His song “The Four O’Clock Blues” was a generic piece played by most of the local pianists like Roosevelt Sykes, who had some recording success with it. Buck got his shot in the recording studio waxing ten sides; two for Paramount in 1929, two for Decca in 1934 and four more for Decca in 1935, which were not issued.

Bob Koester’s conversations with Big Joe Williams and J.D. Short led Charlie O’Brien to find Buck’s brother in the phonebook. Buck was living in Detroit but was in town visiting his mother, so O’Brien spoke with him on the phone to see if he was the legendary piano player. Buck told O’Brien to call back the next night at a neighbor’s number. O’Brien called and while the neighbor held the phone to the back of an upright piano Buck proved that he was indeed the long lost Barrelhouse Buck by playing one of his pre-war hits over the phone. McFarland cut his final session for Folkways recorded by Sam Charters and an unissued session in 1961 that was belatedly released several years back on Delmark (Alton Blues). The recordings Charters made were released on Folkways as Backcountry Barrelhouse.

Eddie Miller cut eight sides under his own name at sessions in 1929, an unissued 78 in 1936 and final sides in 1936. Miller backed Merline Johnson, Charlie McFadden, Lizzie Washington, Ma Rainey and others. Miller played behind singer John Oscar on a handful of fine sides for Decca and Brunswick between 1929 and 1931. Oscar was and associate of singer Sam Theard and may have been the pianist for Oscar’s Chicago Swingers and the Banks Chesterfield Orchestra.