Charlie Spand | Big Road Blues

Big Road Blues Show 4/10/11: What Kind Of Piano Player Is This? – Barrelhouse & Boogie Giants

April 10, 2011April 15, 2024 Jeff Leave a comment

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Cow Cow Davenport	5th Street Blues	Boogie Woogie Blues
Cow Cow Davenport	Jim Crow Blues	The Essential
Cow Cow Davenport	Cow Cow Blues	The Essential
Charlie Spand	Soon This Morning	Dreaming The Blues
Charlie Spand	Good Gal	Dreaming The Blues
Charlie Spand	Back To The Woods Blues	Dreaming The Blues
Cripple Clarence Lofton	You Done Tore Your Playhouse Down	Cripple Clarence Lofton: Vol.1 1935-1939
Cripple Clarence Lofton	Strut That Thing	Cripple Clarence Lofton: Vol.1 1935-1939
Cripple Clarence Lofton	Brown Skin Girls	Cripple Clarence Lofton: Vol.1 1935-1939
Walter Roland	Red Cross Blues	Lucille Bogan & Walter Roland: The Essential
Walter Roland	Penniless Blues	Lucille Bogan & Walter Roland: The Essential
Walter Roland	Jookit Jookit	Lucille Bogan & Walter Roland: The Essential
Cow Cow Davenport	Chimes Blues	The Essential
Cow Cow Davenport	That'll Get It	The Essential
Cow Cow Davenport	State Street Jive	The Essential
Charlie Spand	Thirsty Woman Blues	Charlie Spand: 1929-1931
Charlie Spand	Moanin' The Blues	Dreaming The Blues
Charlie Spand	Hastings St.	Dreaming The Blues
Cripple Clarence Lofton	Lofty Blues	Cripple Clarence Lofton: Vol.2 1939-1943
Cripple Clarence Lofton	I Don't Know	Boogie Woogie Piano: Chicago-New York 1924-45
Walter Roland	45 Pistol Blues	Lucille Bogan & Walter Roland: The Essential
Walter Roland	Early This Morning ('Bout Break Of Day)	Lucille Bogan & Walter Roland: The Essential
Walter Roland	Railroad Stomp	Walter Roland: Vol. 1 1933
Cow Cow Davenport	Mama Don't Allow No Easy Riders	The Essential
Cow Cow Davenport	Railroad Blues	The Essential
Charlie Spand	Room Rent Blues	Dreaming The Blues
Charlie Spand	Ain't Gonna Stand For That	Dreaming The Blues
Cripple Clarence Lofton	Crying Mother Blues	Broadcasting The Blues
Cripple Clarence Lofton	Streamline Train	Cripple Clarence Lofton: Vol.2 1939-1943
Walter Roland	House Lady Blues	Walter Roland: Vol. 1 1933
Walter Roland	Big Mama	Lucille Bogan & Walter Roland: The Essential

Show Notes:

Today’s show spotlights a quartet of great, mostly little remembered, barrelhouse and boogie pianists who’s heyday was in the 1920’s and 30’s. Piano blues records were very popular on record in the 20’s and 30’s and by the early 1940’s there was a full-fledged Boogie-Woogie craze. Today’s pianists plied their trade in the juke joints, clubs and rent parties of Chicago, Detroit and down south. Today’s best known artist is undoubtedly Cow Cow Davenport who’s “Cow Cow Blues” has become a standard. Also on deck are the extroverted piano work of the colorful Cripple Clarence Lofton and the more subtle and technically adept playing of once popular race artists, Walter Roland and Charlie Spand. The bulk of today’s notes come from Peter Silvester’s A Left Hand Like God: A History of Boogie-Woogie Piano and from the liner notes to Francis Smith’s groundbreaking 21 volume piano series on the Magpie label.

While the piano blues is something of a declining art form it flourished on record in the 1920’s-30’s and with the boogie-woogie craze of the 1940’s. To quote Peter J. Silvester’s A Left Hand Like God: A History of Boogie-Woogie Piano: “Originating in barrelhouses and entertainment spots that served the black labor force who worked in the lumber and railroad industries throughout the deep south, it could be heard later at rent parties in Chicago, buffet flats in St. Louis and other black urban centers like Birmingham, Al and several towns in Texas among others. When the music evolved into boogie-woogie entering New York nightclubs like Café Society, pianists such as Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons became stars. In the 1940’s the boogie-woogie craze hit big but faded by the 1950’s.”

Cow Cow Davenport is remembered most for his famous song “Cow Cow Blues” which has elements of the style that would flourish as boogie-woogie. Davenport learned to play piano and organ in his father’s church from his mother who was the organist and it looked like he was going to follow in the family footsteps until he was expelled from the Alabama Theological Seminary in 1911 for playing Ragtime at a church function. Davenport’s early career revolved around carnivals and vaudeville. His first break in pursuit of his objective came when he was offered work as a pianist at a club on 18th Street. Unable to read music, he began to compose his own tunes and to improve his keyboard skills, but he could still play in only one key. With a larger repertoire and a sharper technique he now began to tour the mining towns of Alabama playing in the honky-tonks. It was at one of these establishments hat he was heard by Bob Davies, a trained pianist, who ran a touring company called the ‘Barkroot Carnival’. Davies invited Davenport to join the show as the pianist. One of the requirements was to accompany the women singers, which necessitated being able ro play in several keys. Davies took Davenport under his wing and began to teach him.

He toured TOBA with an act called Davenport and Company with Blues singer Dora Carr and they recorded together in 1925 and 1926. The act broke up when Carr got married. Davenport didn’t cut a 78 record until 1927 although prior to that he made a number of piano rolls between 1925 and 1927 including three versions of “Cow Cow Blues.” Cow Cow was desperate for money, so he negotiated with a piano-roll company, called the Vocal Style, to make some piano rolls of his new composition. Neither Mr Miller, the owner, nor any of the musical stores in Cincinnati, where the company was situated, would handle the piano rolls, so Cow Cow traveled from house to house selling them. He managed t o do this successfully o an equal-share basis with the manufacturer until he had repaid the cost of cutting the rolls. As the rolls sold well, Miller included ‘Cow Cow Blues’ on the company’s catalog of piano rolls. We open our show with one of those rolls, “5th Street Blues”, which was made in 1926.

As for Cow Cow’s most famous song it came about when Dora left. He was deeply upset by this, so much so that he composed the “Railroad Blues”, which finally took form as the “Cow Cow Blues”. The new name was said to have been inspired by a section in the music where Charles was trying to use musical imagery to describe the signalman boarding the engine from the front of the train where the cow catcher was situated. During one theater engagement shortly after he had composed the number, and while playing the section, he sang, ‘Nobody rocks me like my Papa Cow Cow do.’ There was no particular reason why he introduced the expression “cow cow” but the name stuck and thereafter Charles was known to his fellow-pianists and his friends as “Cow Cow” Davenport.

Davenport briefly teamed up with Blues singer Ivy Smith in 1928 and worked as a talent scout for Brunswick and Vocalion records in the late 1920’s and played rent parties in Chicago. They formed an act called the Chicago Steppers which lasted for some months and, in 1928, the partnership began to record for the Paramount Company. Among these sides were “Jim Crow Blues”, a reflection of Davenport’s racist experiences in the South:

I’m tired of being Jim Crowed, gonna Leave this Jim Crow town
Doggone my black soul, I’m sweet Chicago bound

Yes I’m leaving here from this old Jim Crow town
I’m going up North where they say money grows on trees
I don’t give a doggone if my black soul is free
I’m going where I don’t need no baby

Jimmy Yancey(left) listens to Charlie Spand,
Chicago, 1940’s. Photo from A Left Hand Like God.

He moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1930 and toured the TOBA vaudeville circuit and recorded with Sam Price. In 1938 Davenport suffered a stroke that left his right hand somewhat paralyzed and affected his piano playing for the rest of his life, but he remained active as a vocalist until he regained enough strength in his hand to play again. In the early 1940’s Cow Cow briefly left the music business and worked as a washroom attendant at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street in New York. In 1942 Freddie Slack’s Orchestra scored a huge hit with “Cow Cow Boogie” with vocals by seventeen year old Ella Mae Morse which sparked the Boogie-Woogie craze of the early 1940s; this led to a revival of interest in Davenport’s music. He tried to make a “comeback” in the forties and fifties but his career was often interrupted by sickness. He died in 1955 of heart problems in Cleveland.

Despite his popularity, Charlie Spand remains a shadowy figure despite numerous attempts to uncover his story. The first factual information about Charlie Spand is his residence in Detroit, Michigan, where he played piano on Hastings and Brady Streets in the Black Bottom, Detroit’s black section. Together with pianists James Hemingway, Hersal Thomas and Will Ezell, Spand formed the boogie nucleus of the city. He likely also performed in Chicago as well during this period.

Spand’s recording career started for Paramount on 6th June, 1929; during the next two years he recorded 24 songs. He cut two titles at this first session: “Soon This Morning Blues” and “Fetch Your Water” with the accompanying guitarist thought to have been Blind Blake. Probably recorded by Paramount on the suggestion of Blake, Spand’s first record was a hit. After three records he was considered important enough to be included on the Paramount “sampler” “Home Town Skiffle” alongside such established artists as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Papa Charlie Jackson, the Hokum Boys, Will Ezell and Blind Blake.” By 1929 Spand had moved to Chicago, and recorded “45th Street Blues” at Grafton in 1930, the title being an indication of his recent Chicago address. In September 1930 Spand traveled to Grafton to record some more titles for Paramount, six in total. Spand’s last session for the Paramount label was recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin in July 1931, by which time the company was on its last legs.

Nothing much is known about Spand’s activities during the 1930’s, although it is rumored that he returned to Detroit. Boogie-woogie was in full swing by the late 1930’s. Artists like Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons and Jimmy Yancey embraced the popularity of boogie-woogie and were subsequently recorded during the 1939-1940 period. Spand may have taken advantage of the revival of interest in piano blues and boogie-woogie. He got the opportunity to do two separate recording sessions for OKeh, on 20th and 27th June, 1940, recording a total of eight songs, including a remake of his “Soon This Morning.” No major rediscovery story resulted and no coverage was given on the whereabouts of Spand, in contrast to Lofton and Yancey. After his final 1940 sessions there is concrete information about Spand. Several sources believed that he died in Chicago around 1975.

Regarding his style, Bob Hall and Richard Noblett write in the Piano Blues vol. 16: “His playing was typical of the Detroit pianists of his day, essentially consisting of two main styles, an insistent rolling-boogie using a walking octave bass in the key of F or occasionally in the key of Bb,and a deliberate, at times almost majestic, barrelhouse style using a stride piano bass …it is however, his lyrics that set Span apart from his contemporaries. Not only have numbers like “Soon This Morning” become blues standards, but we hear in his work very strong indications of the future direction of the music. His songs frequently have a continuity which come from a genuine sense of poetry rather than the mere stringing together of traditional verses. Spand was in fact one of the first real blues song-writers, foreshadowing the work of such ‘thirties artists as Leroy Carr.”

Cripple Clarence Lofton (left) and Jimmy Yancey,
c. 1950’s. Photo from A Left Hand Like God.

Cripple Clarence Lofton was born as Albert Clemens in Tennessee in 1887, although he is most closely associated with his adopted hometown of Chicago, where he was a popular entertainer noted for his energetic performing style that, in addition to piano playing and singing, included tap dancing, whistling, and finger-snapping.A description of Lofton is provided in an excerpt from Boogie Woogie by William Russell:

“No one can complain of Clarence’s lack of variety or versatility. When he really gets going he’s a three-ring circus. During one number, he plays, sings, whistles a chorus, and snaps his fingers with the technique of a Spanish dancer to give further percussive accompaniment to his blues. At times he turns sideways, almost with his back to the piano as he keeps pounding away at the keyboard and stomping his feet, meanwhile continuing to sing and shout at his audience or his drummer. Suddenly in the middle of a number he jumps up, his hands clasped in front of him, and walks around the piano stool, and then, unexpectedly, out booms a vocal break in a bass voice from somewhere. One second later, he has turned and is back at the keyboard, both hands flying at lightning- like pace. His actions and facial expressions are as intensely dramatic and exciting as his music.”

Owing his nickname to a limp from which he suffered, he became a favorite of early jazz collectors during the boogie-woogie craze of the late 1930’s along with Meade Lux Lewis, Jimmy Yancey, Cow Cow Davenport, and many others. Born in Tennessee he lived most of his life in Chicago becoming a fixture on the Chicago nightlife scene. He owned his own nightclub called the Big Apple where he ran his own boogie school teaching youngsters the art form. Between 1935 and 1943 he cut close to forty sides for Vocalion, Swaggie, Solo Art and Session including exuberant pieces such as “Brown Skin Girls,” “Policy Blues,” “Streamline Train,” and “I Don’t Know,” the latter a number one R&B hit for Willie Mabon in 1952. The bulk of these were solo sides with guitarist Big Bill Broonzy adding support for two sessions. In addition Lofton provided accompaniment to Red Nelson, Sammy Brown, Al Miller and Jimmy Yancey. Lofton remained on the scene cutting sides for the Gennett, Vocalion, Solo Art, Riverside, Session and Pax labels. He stayed around Chicago until his death in 1957 from a blood clot in the brain.

As for his playing style, Peter Silvester writes: “Lofton was an eclectic performer who played in two keys, C and G. While his pounding style and interpretation were his own he obtained inspiration from the themes of other pianists. His most compelling composition, ‘Streamline Train’, was inspired by ‘Cow Cow Blues’, while ‘Pinetop’s Boogie-woogie’ was transformed into a very powerful and almost unrecognizable number. He was an undisciplined pianist and would often begin playing a new chorus before he had fully completed the one he was playing. The twelve-bar pattern would sometimes be reduced to ten, as was the case in ‘I Don’t Know’ or eleven and a half bars, as in some interpretations of ‘Streamline Train’. What he lacked in discipline, however, he more than made up for with vivacity and exuberance. I n some respects he can be compared to players like Jimmy Yancey and Montana Taylor, because their playing was untouched by time and their recordings reflected accurately the closed community of the rent party. None of them was required to perform relentlessly for the public, as Johnson, Ammons and Lewis were obliged to do when they became commercially popular. Lofton remained untouched by commercialism to the end.”

As Bob Hall and Richard Noblett write in the Piano Blues vol. 6: “In the annals of the blues there are many artists who have made outstanding contributions to the music, but whose personal lives remain a mystery. Just such a man is Walter Roland, who during the Depression, recorded over ninety issued sides for ARC as a soloist and accompanist.”As for his style and influence, they write: “…There is no doubt that Roland was a major and highly influential figure in his time, and his recorded output contains compositions which have become part of the repertoire of a host of younger musicians. …He was a highly accomplished pianist capable of playing in two distinct styles. The first employed a simple rolling boogie woogie bass, most often in the key of F, played in a variety of tempos. The second, less common barrelhouse style employed a stride piano bass of alternating octaves and chords, usually in the key of E. Throughout Roland’s work certain distinctive treble phrases emerge, and particularly striking is his use of repeated single note staccato triplets, foreshadowing the use of the same device by the post-war Chicago pianists.”

Roland was born at Ralph, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama on 20 December 1902 (according to his Social Security documents) or 4 December 1903 (according to his death certificate). Roland was one of the most technically proficient of all blues pianists, and in addition he displayed considerable feeling in his playing and singing. He was also an able guitarist, and recorded several titles backing his own vocals and those of others, playing guitar. Roland was said to have been based in the 1920’s or 1930’s around Pratt City, near Birmingham, Alabama.

Walter Roland

Although his recording career began in 1933, it is evident that Walter was already an accomplished musician with a fully formed style. Roland partnered Lucille Bogan when they recorded for the A R C labels between 1933 and 1935, in the course of which, he recorded in his own right. Walter’s first disc, “Red Cross Blues” has since become a blues standard, versions having been recorded by Sonny Scott, Sonny Boy Williamson, Champion Jack Dupree, Robert McCoy, Forest City Joe, and many others. In 1933, he was recorded at New York City for the American Record Company, and he had apparently traveled to the session with Lucille Bogan and guitarist Sonny Scott. His best-selling recording was “Early This Morning”, a reworking of an earlier Paramount recording by Charlie Spand, “Soon This Morning”, but Walter was successful enough to continue recording until 1935.

At some later time, possibly as late as 1950, Walter became a farmer. Roland was reputedly playing guitar as a street singer in the 1960’s. As well as Birmingham, he worked around Dolomite and the Interurban Heights, around Brighton and elsewhere. In about the late 1960’s, Walter was trying to be a peacemaker in a domestic argument between a neighboring husband and wife and one of the disputing parties fired a shotgun, with the result that Walter was blinded by buckshot. By 1968, Walter had retired from music because of his blindness, and was cared for by his daughters at Fairfield, near Miles College. In 1968, he applied for an old age pension. He died there of bronchogenic carcinoma on 12 October 1972.

–Charlie Spand – Back To The Woods by Alex van der Tuuk (Blues & Rhythm No. 217, 2007) (PDF)

–Cripple Clarence Lofton In Memoriam by Albert J. McCarthy (Jazz Monthly, November 1957 p. 31-32) (PDF)

–Walter Roland Blazed Through Music World Then Faded by Ben Windham (Tuscaloosa News Feb 27, 2000) (PDF)

–The Piano Blues Vol. 6: Walter Roland 1933-1935 (JPG)

–The Piano Blues Vol. 9: Lofton/Noble 1935-1936 (JPG)

–The Piano Blues Vol. 16: Charlie Spand 192-1931 (JPG)

Big Road Blues Show 5/9/10: Mix Show

May 9, 2010May 5, 2016 Jeff Leave a comment

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Madonna Martin	Madonna's Boogie	Le Boogie Woogie Par Les Femmes
Hattie Green	Pawn Shop Blues	Atlas Blues Explosion
LaVern Baker	How Can You Leave a Man Like This	Lavern Baker 1949-1954
Annisteen Allen	Hard to Get Along	Annisteen Allen 1945-53
Clifford Gibson	Blues Without A Dime	Clifford Gibson 1929-1931
Barbecue Bob	Good Time Rounder	Barbecue Bob Vol. 3 1928-1929
Charlie Spand	Ain't Gonna Stand For That	Dreaming The Blues
J.B. Lenoir	Sitting Down Thinking	J.B. Lenoir 1951-1958
Johnny Littlejohn	I Got My Nose Open	Shuckin' Stuff Rare: Blues From Ace Records
Big John Wrencher	I'm A Root Man	Big John's Boogie
Guitar Slim Green	Fifth Street Alley	Stone Down Blues
Jim Bunkley	Segregation Blues	President Johnson's Blues
Lightnin' Hopkins	The Devil Jumped The Black Man	Complete Prestige / Bluesville Recordings
Sonny Boy Williamson	Going In Your Direction	Cool Cool Blues:The Classic Sides
Memphis Slim	I’m Going To The River	Alone With My Friends
Sunnyland Slim	Drinking And Clowing	Bea & Baby Records Vol.3
Willie Mabon	Monday Woman	Willie Mabon 1949-1954
The Larks	Eyesight To The Blind	Blowing the Fuse 1951
B.B. King	Eyesight To The Blind	The Soul Of
Madelyn James	Long Time Blues	Memphis Blues 1927-1938
Memphis Minnie	Out in the Cold	Memphis Minnie Vol. 2 1935-1936
Lizzie Miles	Lizzie's Blues	Jazzin' The Blues 1943-1952
Alberta Hunter	Chirpin' the Blues	Men Are Like Streetcars
Ivory Joe Hunter	Lying Woman Blues	Ivory Joe Hunter 1947-1950
Gatemouth Moore	Highway 61 Blues	Hey Mr. Gatemouth
Elmore James	Stormy Monday	Who's Muddy Shoes
Robert Nighthawk	Blues Before Sunrise	Modern Chicago Blues
Eddie Taylor	Jackson Town	I Feel So Bad
Tampa Red	Noonday Hour Blues	Tampa Red Vol. 11 1939-1940
Tampa Red	Georgia, Georgia Blues	Tampa Red Vol.12 1941-1945
Bobby Marchan	Pity Poor Me	Clown Jewels: The Ace Masters 1956-75
Tiny Powell	My Time After While	Bay Area Blues Blasters Vol. 1
Johnny Heartsman	Johnny's House Party, Part One	Bay Area Blues Blasters Vol. 1

Show Notes:

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

Alberta Hunter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big Road Blues Show 3/28/10: Some Piano Player, I’ll Tell You That – A Tribute To Francis Smith & The Piano Blues

March 28, 2010March 31, 2016 Jeff 4 Comments

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Little Brother Montgomery	Vicksburg Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 1 Paramount
Charles Avery	Chain 'Em Down	The Piano Blues Vol. 1 Paramount
Blind Blake & Charlie Spand	Hastings St.	The Piano Blues Vol. 1 Paramount
Lucille Bogan	Ally Boogie	The Piano Blues Vol. 2 Brunswick
Mozelle Alderson	Tight In Chicago	The Piano Blues Vol. 2 Brunswick
Louise Johnson	By The Moon And The Stars	The Piano Blues Vol. 1 Paramount
Charles 'Speck' Petrum	Harvest Moon Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 2 Brunswick
Eddie Miller	Freight Train Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 2 Brunswick
Bert Mays	You Ca'’t Come In	The Piano Blues Vol. 3 Vocalion
Dan Stewart	New Orleans Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 3 Vocalion
Cow Cow Davenport	Back In The Alley	The Piano Blues Vol. 3 Vocalion
Joe Dean	I'm So Glad I'm 21 Years Old Today	The Piano Blues Vol. 3 Vocalion
Lee Green	Memphis Fives	The Piano Blues Vol. 3 Vocalion
Pinetop Smith	Pine Top's Boogie Woogie	The Piano Blues Vol. 3 Vocalion
Romeo Nelson	Head Rag Hop	The Piano Blues Vol. 3 Vocalion
Leroy Carr	Alabama Woman Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 7: Leroy Carr
Walter Roland	Early This Morning	The Piano Blues Vol. 6 - Walter Roland
Turner Parrish	Trenches	The Piano Blues Vol. 5: Postscript
Joe Pullum	Cows, See That Train Comin'	The Piano Blues Vol. 8: Texas Seaport
Andy Boy	House Raid Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 8: Texas Seaport
Cripple Clarence Lofton	Strut That Thing	The Piano Blues Vol. 9 Lofton/Noble
Alfoncy Harris	Absent Freight Train Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 11 Texas Santa Fe
Black Boy Shine	Brown House Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 11 Texas Santa Fe
Pinetop Burks	Jack Of All Trades	The Piano Blues Vol. 11 Texas Santa Fe
Pigmeat Terry	Black Sheep Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 13: Central Highway
Peetie Wheatstraw	Shack Bully Stomp	The Piano Blues Vol. 13: Central Highway
Georgia White	The Blues Ain't Nothin' But...	The Piano Blues Vol. 13: Central Highway
Whistlin' Alex Moore	Blue Bloomer Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 15: Dallas
Charlie Spand	Soon This Morning Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 16 - Charlie Spand
Jabo Williams	Pratt City Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 17 - Paramount Vol. 2
Pinetop and Lindberg	East Chicago Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 20 - Barrelhouse Years
Stump Johnson & Dorothy Trowbridge	Steady Grindin'	Piano Blues Vol. 17 - Paramount Vol. 2
Bumble Slim w/ Myrtle Jenkins	Somebody Loses	Piano Blues Vol. 17 - Paramount Vol. 2
Speckled Red	The Dirty Dozen No. 2	The Piano Blues Vol. 20 - Barrelhouse Years
Henry Brown	Henry Brown Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 1 Paramount

Show Notes:

Some piano player, I’ll tell you that
(Ivy Smith, Alabama Strut)

Read Liner Notes

On December 4, 2009 Francis Wilford-Smith died and today we pay tribute to him. Smith was an avid collector of 78 records, a broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 (Aspects of the Blues) and the compiler of some excellent piano blues LP’s on the British label Magpie Records, drawing all the material from his own collection. Today’s selections all come from Smith’s groundbreaking 21 volume series he started in 1977 and issued on the Magpie label, a subsidiary o of the Flyright label. Subsequently his collection was used for a piano blues series on Yazoo issued on CD. He had one of the largest collections of piano blues 78’s in the world. Smith also field recorded Roosevelt Sykes and Little Brother Montgomery at his home in Sussex in 1960, yielding two 1980s LP’s of the latter: These Are What I Like: Unissued Recordings Vol. 1 and Those I Liked I Learned: Unissued Recordings Vol. 2. Smith made a good living from cartoons published under the pen name ‘Smilby’ in Playboy, which allowed him to outbid others for rare 78s. Wilford-Smith was 82, had suffered from Parkinson’s disease since 1994, and spent his last years in a nursing home. He died asleep in bed.

On a personal note, it was through the Magpie series that I became a life long fan of piano blues. I came to the series late, my first purchase was volume 20 and I must have been around 16. The album made a huge impression on me and I even remember exactly where I purchased it – Tower Records on West 4th St., NYC. I went back and picked up as many of the rest of the albums I could find and over the years completed the entire series. The series had everything you would want; each thematically well assembled, excellent liner notes (brief introductions by Smith) by Bob Hall, Paul Oliver and Richard Noblett and superb transfers.

Read Liner Notes

Before I give some background on the individual volumes, its worth quoting Wilford-Smith from his introduction to the series: “The well-merited reissue of so many excellent blues guitar records over the past few years has had, perhaps, one unfortunate and unintentional – in that it caused the pianist to be unfairly overshadowed. This album marks the start of a series which, it is hoped, will put into perspective the role of the piano in blues history and do justice to the memory of the many fine pianists who have so enriched the music. We are only using 78 originals from my own collection, thus giving the listener the rare chance to hear records; at their best. No dubs, no tape-tracks that have wandered in and out of half-a-dozen tape collections before being issued with that all too familiar dead and muffled cotton-wool-in-the-ears sounds. No ordinary filtering of any sort has been done in any misguided attempt t0 ‘improve’ the quality, and each listener is left free to filter to his own taste. Surface noise there may be, but freshness and vitality are not strained away. The selection of records both here and throughout the series will be essentially subjective and reflect my own taste, but l shall endeavor to include a wide-ranging variety of piano styles and treatments to give as broad as possible a picture of the whole blues piano scene.”

More or less, we work our way through the series volume by volume. The first volume and volume 17 are devoted to Paramount and as Smith writes: “…We start with Paramount, almost unchallenged as the greatest blues label, and its piano content lives up to its reputation. Here are joys indeed – and some of the greatest blues piano ever recorded. Spand, Little Brother, Ezell, Louise Johnson, Wesley Wallace, Garnett. …I think the playing here must satisfy the most critical lover of the blues.” From those volumes we spin tracks by Little Montgomery, Charles Avery, Charlie Spand, Louise Johnson, Henry Brown and Jabo Williams.

“…The second volume”, Smith writes, “in our Piano Blues Series, will be found very different in character to Volume One. … Here on Brunswick a large proportion of the piano blues bear a strong family resemblance and emotional unity. This perhaps because several of the artists would seem to hail from the St. Louis area, and share that hollow-chorded easy-rocking piano style.” The Piano Blues Vol. 3 is devoted to the Vocalion label which was founded in 1916 and acquired by Brunswick in 1925. These are particularly strong volumes and we included several tracks from these collections including Eddie Miller, Charles “Speck” Pertum, Lucille Bogan, Mozelle Alderson, Romeo Nelson and Joe Dean among others.

Read Liner Notes

Next to St. Louis, one of the most musically rich piano regions was Texas as Paul Oliver observed: “Texas was as rich in piano blues as Mississippi was in guitar blues …A cursory glance through the discographies will emphasize the fact that a remarkable number of blues pianists came from Texas.” Four volumes in the series are devoted to the piano blues of Texas: The Piano Blues Vol. 4 – The Thomas Family 1925-1929, The Piano Blues Vol. 8 – Texas Seaport 1934-1937, The Piano Blues Vol. 11 – Texas Sante Fe 1934-1937 and The Piano Blues Vol. 15 – Dallas 1927-1929. The Texas pianists, Oliver notes, “…can be grouped into ‘schools’, characterized by certain similarities of style and approach, that were partly a reflection of the environments in which they worked, of their friendships and associations with other pianists, and by the isolation of Texas from other states.” One school was the so-called “Santa Fe group” who were based in the southwestern part of the state where the cities of Galveston, Houston and Richmond lie. Here was where the music thrived and pianists could be found like Pinetop Burks, Son Becky, Rob Cooper, Black Boy Shine, Andy Boy, Big Boy Knox, Robert Shaw, Buster Pickens and the singers who worked with them like Walter “Cowboy” Washington and Joe Pullum. The other important school was a cluster of pianists and singers based in Dallas such as Alex Moore, Texas Bill Day, Neal Roberts Willie Tyson, and singer Billiken Johnson. The earlier Texas piano tradition is documented on The Piano Blues Vol. 4 – The Thomas Family 1925-1929. As David Evans states: “It is likely that no family has contributed more personalities to blues history than the Thomas family of Houston, Texas, whose famous members included George W. Thomas, his sister Beulah “Sippie” Wallace, their brother Hersal Thomas, George’s daughter Hociel Thomas, and Moanin’ Bernice Edwards who was raised up in the family.”

Several volumes in the series are devoted to individual artists or a cluster of artists: The Piano Blues Vol. 6 – Walter Roland 1933-1935, The Piano Blues Vol. 7 – Leroy Carr 1930-1935, The Piano Blues Vol. 9 – Lofton-Noble 1935-1936 (Cripple Clarence Lofton and George Noble), The Piano Blues Vol. 12 – Big Four 1933-1941 (Little Brother Montgomery, Walter Davis, Roosevelt Sykes, Springback James) and The Piano Blues Vol. 18 – Roosevelt Sykes/Lee Green 1929-1930.

Read Liner Notes

Among the other volumes in the series we play tracks from The Piano Blues Vol. 5 – Postsript 1927-1935, The Piano Blues Vol. 13 – Central Highway 1933-1941, The Piano Blues Vol. 14 – The Accompanist and The Piano Blues Vol. 20 – Barrelhouse Years 1928-1933. Among the tracks we spin from these collections are Turner Parrish’s remarkable “The Trenches” who Bob Hall calls “an eccentric and probably unschooled pianist with nevertheless a considerable technique”, Georgia White accompanying herself on piano on the boisterous “The Blues Ain’t Nothin’ But…”, the obscure Pigmeat Terry who sings magnificently on the moving “Black Sheep Blues” accompanied by his own piano and the wonderful Pinetop and Lindberg’s “East Chicago Blues.”

The piano blues series officially concluded with The Piano Blues Vol. 21 – Unfinished Boogie 1938-1945 which collects unreleased recordings of Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. As mentioned previously two collections of recordings by Little Brother Montgomery were made at Smith’s home in 1960 and were the final albums issued on the Magpie imprint. Yazoo Records launched their own piano blues series also using 78’s from Smith’s collection. As far as I can tell the series has stopped but they issued seven excellent collections.

Notes to The Piano Blues Vol. 8 – Texas Seaport 1934-1937, The Piano Blues Vol. 11 – Texas Sante Fe 1934-1937 and The Piano Blues Vol. 15 – Dallas 1927-1929 (Word Doc)