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

January 31, 2021January 31, 2021 Jeff Leave a comment

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.

-Calt, Stephen; Epstein, Jerome; Perls, Nick; Stewart, Michael. Cripple Clarence Lofton & Walter Davis. USA: Yazoo L-1025, c1971.

-Smith, Chris. Walter Davis: The Bullet Sides. UK: Krazy Kat KK 7441, 1986.

-Rowe, Mike. Charlie ‘Specks’ McFadden: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, 1927–1937. Austria: Blues Document BDCD-6041, 1993.

Big Road Blues Show 6/4/17: I Could Hear My Name Ringin’ – Conversation with the Blues Pt. 1

June 4, 2017June 4, 2017 Jeff Leave a comment

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Georgia Tom	Maybe It's The Blues	The Essential
Georgia Tom	Spoken Comments From Georgia Tom	Georgia Tom & Friends
Tampa Red and his Hokum Jug Band	Mama Don't Allow No Easy Riders Here	Blues Images Vol. 9
Big Bill Broonzy	Travelling: Keys to the Highway/Black, Brown and White	His Story
Son House	Death Letter	Son House With Studs Terkel - Chicago 1965
Son House	Interview with Studs Terkel	Son House With Studs Terkel - Chicago 1965
Barrelhouse Buck	Reminiscences: Balling the Jack and First Recordings	Backcountry Barrelhouse
Barrelhouse Buck	Lamp Post Blues	Piano Blues Vol. 2 1927-1956
Gatemouth Moore	Conversion Story	Saturday Night, Sunday Morning
Gatemouth Moore	Walking My Blues Away	Cryin' and Singin' the Blues
Gatemouth Moore	Recollections/Singing with Rufus Thomas	Saturday Night, Sunday Morning
Gatemouth Moore	The Bible's Being Fulfilled Every Day	Windy City Gospel
Howlin Wolf	Ain't Going Down That Dirt Road	The Chess Box
Howlin Wolf	Howlin Wolf Talks #1	The Chess Box
Charlie Patton	Down The Dirt Road Blues	The Best Of
J.D. Short	Charlie Patton	Blues from the Mississippi Delta
Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy	Conversation Begins	Blues in the Mississippi Night
Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy	I Could Hear My Name Ringin'	Blues in the Mississippi Night
Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy	Conversation Continues	Blues in the Mississippi Night
Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy	Life is Like That	Blues in the Mississippi Night
Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy	Conversation Continues #6	Blues in the Mississippi Night
Lightnin' Hopkins	Reminiscences Of Blind Lemon	Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins	See That My Grave Is Kept Clean	Lightnin' Hopkins
Howard Armstrong	Louie Bluie (Spoken)	Louie Bluie
Howard Armstrong	Louie Bluie Blues	Louie Bluie
Howard Armstrong	Exposed To Music All My Life	Louie Bluie DVD
Howard Armstrong, Tom Armstrong, Ted Bogan, and Ikey Robinson	Railroad Blues	Louie Bluie Soundtrack
Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee	What are the Blues/Blood River Blues	Blues

Show Notes:

Read Liner Notes (PDF)

Today’s show is a follow-up of sorts to a show we aired several years back, also titled Conversation with the Blues. In that show I played music and interviews from Paul Oliver’s trip to the United States in the summer of 1960. His aim, he wrote, was “putting on tape the conversation and music of blues artists in the country and the cities, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. Some of the blues singers were famous, or had been, whilst others were unknown and destined to remain so. … The blues singers of the Mississippi Delta or East Texas Piney woods may have sung and played in different styles from those currently working in Chicago or Detroit but between them was a common bond of feeling and expression which lay at the root of the blues.” On his return to England Oliver produced BBC radio-documentaries on his experiences and compiled the conversations he had with blues singers in his groundbreaking book, Conversation with the Blues. Today’s show shares a similar aim, drawing on a wide range of interviews from radio, albums and film, as we hear from famous blues artists such as Georgia Tom, Big Bill Broonzy, Son House, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Gatemouth Moore and Howlin Wolf to lesser known artists like Howard Armstrong and Barrelhouse Buck. The conversations deal with the artists’ career in blues, those artists that influenced them, comebacks, career changes and the conditions of trials of operating in a deeply segregated society. We also play plenty of musical examples along the way. Next week we hear from several of the blues’ most famous piano players including Roosevelt Sykes, Little Brother Montgomery, Memphis Slim, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Spann as well as celebrated figures like Blind Willie McTell, Furry Lewis, Lonnie Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, some jug band veterans and much more.

We hear from several artists we made their debuts in the pre-war era including Georgia Tom and Barrelhouse Buck McFarland. In 1916 Dorsey moved to Chicago where he began working as a composer and arranger for the Chicago Music Publishing Company under J. Mayo Williams. In 1924 Ma Rainey chose him to organize and lead her Wild Cats Jazz Band. In 1928, through the intercession of Mayo Williams, he teamed up with Tampa Red and recorded the Paramount label hit “Tight Like That. The success of “Tight Like That” initiated the blues genre known as hokum. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom recorded almost 60 sides, sometimes as “The Hokum Boys” or, with Frankie Jaxon, as “Tampa Red’s Hokum Jug Band.” “Spoken Comments From Georgia Tom” comes from the long out-of-print Riverside album Georgia Tom & Friends.

Buck McFarland was born in Alton, Illinois in 1903 in the same area as two other exceptional piano players, Wesley Wallace and Jabbo Williams, all three of which made names for themselves on the bustling St. Louis blues scene. McFarland was a member of Charlie Creath’s Jazzomaniacs and Peetie Wheatstraw’s Blues Blowers. He also led his own bands under a variety of names. Between 1929 and 1934 he made ten records. McFarland cut his final session for Folkways and an unissued session in 1961 that was belatedly released a few years back on Delmark as Alton Blues. The recordings Charters made were released on Folkways as Backcountry Barrelhouse which is where our interview comes from. He died just a few months afterward.

We hear from several other artists who got their start in the pre-war, all appearing on Studs Terkel‘s radio program. Terkel, who passed in 2008, was an oral historian, radio host and writer. Blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Son House all appeared on his program. There are two wonderful albums of interviews and music that were issued on the Folkways label: Big Bill Broonzy: His Story (1956) and Blues With Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee (1958). These were from Studs’ radio program, which he began In 1953 on WFMT, Chicago and ran until 1998. There was also another album with Pete Seeger and Big Bill called Studs Terkel’s Weekly Almanac: Radio Programme, No. 4: Folk Music and Blues. In recent years a 1965 show featuring Son House has surfaced capturing Son at the start of his comeback.

We hear from Broonzy again, this time from 1947. That year, Alan Lomax sat down in a New York recording studio with Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy Williamson. ”Listen,” he said. ”You all have lived with the blues all your life, but nobody here understands them. Tell me what the blues are all about.” The answer came in a conversation so intense that, as Lomax writes in notes to Blues in the Mississippi Night, the three musicians ”really forgot that I was there as they talked, played, and sang together.” It surfaced for the first time only in the late ’50s — and then with the musicians’ names removed. ”If these records came out on us,” the bluesmen told Lomax after the interview, ”they’d take it out on our folks down home; they’d burn them out and Lord knows what else.”

Read Liner Notes (PDF)

We play some excerpts from two of my favorite blues documentaries: Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: The Travels of Gatemouth Moore and Louie Bluie about the great Howard Armstrong. “One night during a performance I was singing Stardust and while I was doing my song, a drunk woman staggered up to the stage and said “Ah, sing it you Gatemouth S.O.B. The drummer fell off his seat, the rest of the band quit playing and the theater went into an uproar. And there I stood in front of a frenzied audience a new personality named “Gatemouth Moore.” So recalled Moore who went on to a remarkable career as a blues crooner, gospel singer, ordained Reverend and disc jockey. In 1941 Gatemouth was in Kansas City where he sang at the Chez Paree. To cash in on Gatemouth’s popularity the club owner recorded him on her own Chez Paree label. The songs eventually came to the attention of National Records A&R man Herb Abramson. Gate recorded two sessions for National in 1945. In 1947 when he signed with the King label where he cut over two dozen sides. In 1949 he had a religious conversion and became a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and served his first church on Florida and Colorado Street. He recorded gospel in the 50’s for labels such as Aristocrat, Artists and Choral. In 1960 he cut the a full length album Revival! for the Audio Fidelity label and After Twenty-One Years in 1973, another gospel outing this time for the Bluesway imprint. He recorded his last record in 1977, titled Great R&B Oldies on Johnny Otis’ Blues Spectrum label. This was a blues release as Gatemouth recut some classics and cut some new ones.

Howard Armstrong proved to be a true renaissance man, excelling in a variety of artistic endeavors during his amazing 80-year career including storytelling, poetry and painting. He managed to conquer nearly every genre of music, learned to play multiple instruments and spoke several languages. One of his most celebrated accomplishments involved learning traditional folk songs in their native tongues and then performing them flawlessly to the astonishment of ethnic audiences. Armstrong was part of a whole generation of African-American string-band artists who played Americana in the 1920’s and 30’s for black and white audiences alike, everything from Tin Pan Alley tunes to gospel and blues. In 1985 Terry Zwigoff released Louie Bluie, his documentary on Howard Armstrong. Zwigoff was a collector of 1920’s and 1930’s recordings and was particularly obsessed with “State Street Rag,” which he had taped so that he could play it back repeatedly, and slowly, in order to catch all the notes and pick them out on his own mandolin.” In 1979, Zwigoff started filming Howard Louie Bluie Armstrong, using up his life savings in the first few weeks. He followed the musician over the next five years, documenting his life and capturing a wonderful character in full swing. The movie has been released on DVD by Criterion.

Read Liner Notes To Soundtrack

Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton were both hugely influential as evidenced in the reminiscences of many artists who came after, and how often their songs were recorded and remembered by fellow artists. When Hopkins was eight years old, he met Jefferson, who was playing at the annual meeting of the General Baptist Association of Churches in Buffalo, Texas, about sixteen miles northwest of Centerville. …“I run up on Blind Lemon Jefferson. He had a crowd of peoples around him. And I was standing there looking at him play, and I went to playing my guitar, just what he was playing. So, I was so little and low, the peoples couldn’t see me. And we were standing by a truck. They put me up on top of the truck, and Blind Lemon was standing down by the truck, and me and him, man, we carried it on. And the excitement was me, because I was so little. And I was just picking what he was. I wasn’t singing, but I was playing what he was playing. That’s right.” We hear Hopkins talk about Jefferson and hear him play Lemon’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.”

As Howlin’ Wolf told Pete Welding: “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. …That was the first I heard him, and I liked it, so from then on I went to thinking about music. I remember he was playing the tune “Hook Up My Pony And Saddle Up My Old Black Mare” and also “High Water Everywhere,” “Spoonful,” and “Banty Rooster”—oh, lots of tunes. I done forgot most of them, but at one time I could play his music. After all, he done taught me. I don’t play it much now, but I can play it.” Today we hear Wolf on the acoustic “Ain’t Going Down That Dirt Road” and talking about meeting Patton. We also hear from J.D. Short who recalls meeting Patton in Hollandale, Mississippi.

Big Road Blues Show 9/4/16: Mix Show

September 4, 2016September 4, 2016 Jeff Leave a comment

Show Notes:

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Big Joe Turner	Blues On Central Avenue	Coral Rhythm & Blues Vol. 1
Al Winter	Central Avenue Blues	Hollywood Boogie
Al Cake Wichard Sextette & Duke Henderson	Gravels In My Pillow	Cake Walkin': The Modern Recordings, 1947-1948
Will Ezell	Just Can't Stay Here	Will Ezell 1927-1931
Blind Roosevelt Graves	Woke Up This Morning	The Frog Blues & Jazz Annual No. 1
The Palooka Washboard Band	Back Door	Charlie & Joe McCoy Vol. 2 (936-1944
Jesse Allen	After Awhile	The Best Of Duplex Records
Jesse Allen	Goodbye Blues	The Ace Records Blues Story
Fats Jefferon	Married Woman Blues	Goin' Back To Tifton
Lyin' Joe Holley	So Cold in the U.S.A.	So Cold in the U.S.A.
Barrelhouse Buck	20th Street Blues (Twentieth Street Blues)	Backcountry Barrelhouse
Little Brother Montgomery	West 46th Street Boogie	Blues
Tommy Johnson	Maggie Campbell Blues	Masters of the Delta Blues: Friends of Charlie Patton
Joe McCoy	Look Who's Coming Down The Road	Charlie & Joe McCoy Vol. 1 1934-1936
Robert Nighthawk	Maggie Campbell	Prowling With The Nighthawk
Little Aaron	East St. Louis	Down On Broadway And Main
Earl Hooker	Blues In D Natural	Blue Guitar
Al King	Wet Back Hop	Honk! Honk! Honk!
Big Jack Reynolds	Gonna Love Somebody	Broke and Disgusted
Doc Terry	Things Can't Stay The Same	38 Pistol Blues
K.C. Red	K.C. Red's In Town	Grab Me Another Half a Pint
J.B. Smith	Poor Boy	Old Rattler Can't Hold Me: Texas Prison Songs Vol. 2
Bukka White	Poor Boy	Living Legends
Papa Charlie Jackson	Long Gone Lost John	Broadcasting the Blues
Jim Jackson	Long Gone	Jim Jackson Vol. 2 1928-1930
Little Hat Jones	Kentucky Blues	My Rough And Rowdy Ways Vol. 1
Andy Boy	House Raid Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 8: Texas Seaport 1934-193
Charlie Patton	Lord I'm Discouraged	Best Of
Blind Willie Davis	I Believe I'll Go Back Home	Blues Images Vol. 10
Shirley Griffith	Saturday Blues	Saturday Blues
Willie Guy Rainey	John Henry	Willie Guy Rainey
Mack Maze	Makes A Longtime Man Feel Bad (Roberta)	I'm Troubled With A Diamond

robert-nighthawk-maggie-campbell-states-78

A wide variety of blues styles today as we delve deep into the blues, spinning tracks from the 1920’s to more modern times. We open the shows with some fine West Coast blues, spin a pair of tracks from the unsung Jesse Allen, play a batch of superb piano blues, examine some fascinating field recordings and spend a couple of sets exploring the history of classic blues plus much more.

Central Avenue was Los Angeles’s main stem, where African-Americans enjoyed the chance to shop, relax, and go about their business by day, then see the great blues and jazz artists in the strip’s myriad theaters, clubs and dives at night. We open the show with musical tributes to the strip including Big Joe Turner’s “Blues On Central Avenue” backed by Freddie Slack’s trio (“I’m in the land of sunshine, standin’ on Central Avenue”) and pianist Al Winter’s rollicking instrumental “Central Avenue Blues.” We also hear from Al Wichard. Wichard was born in Welbourne, Arkansas, on August 15th, 1919 but the steps by which he arrived in Los Angeles as a drummer in 1944 remain shadowy. He managed to record with Jimmy Witherspoon and Jay McShann within weeks of his arrival, and in April 1945 was the drummer on Modern’s first session, accompanying Hadda Brooks. The Ace label has issued a CD titled Cake Walkin’: The Modern Recordings 1947-1948. which consists entirely of sessions made under his own name. Thirteen tracks have vocals by Jimmy Witherspoon while others feature vocalist Duke Henderson and guitarist Pee Wee Crayton. All these sides were cut between 1945 and 1949.

We spin two numbers by the mysterious Jesse Allen today. Jesse Leroy Allen was born on the 25th of September, 1925, in Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida. He never learned to read music but was a self taught guitarist, playing by ear and learning licks from fellow musicians as he picked up work in small time clubs and bars starting in Dade and Broward counties, Florida. His first recording session was four sides for Aladdin Records in New Orleans on October 13th, 1951. On December 8th, 1951 he recorded two sides for the Coral label. His next recording session was for Bayou, a subsidiary of Lew Chudd’s Imperial label. In August 1953, Allen had his first recording session for Imperial. Imperial had enough faith in Jesse Allen to call him back to the studio for a solo recording session in early 1954. Backed by a line up of New Orleans’ finest session musicians, Jesse cut four sides and two more later in the year. His final sides were for Vin in 1958 and Duplex in 1959.

Piano players never seem to get the recognition of the guitarists but that won’t stop me form playing them whenever I can. Among those featured today are Will Ezell, Barrelhouse Buck, Little Brother Montgomery, Lyin’ Joe Holley, Fats Jefferson and several others. Born in Texas, pianist Will Ezell played in the jukes around Shreveport before moving to Detroit and Chicago. He was a frequent accompanist for Paramount Records and even took Paramount’s star, Blind Lemon Jefferson’s body back to Texas for burial. Ezell cut sixteen sides for the label between 1927 and 1929 and backed artists such as Lucille Bogan, Elzadie Robinson, Bertha Henderson and others. In 1929 he backed Blind Roosevelt Graves and his brother on several songs and they returned the favor; the brothers back Ezell on our featured track, the infectious “Just Can’t Stay Here.” We hear the brothers on a later session as we spotlight “Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind On Jesus)” one of my favorite religious songs of all time.

Buck McFarland was born in Alton, Illinois in 1903 in the same area as two other exceptional piano players, Wesley Wallace and Jabbo Williams, all three of which made names for themselves on the bustling St. Louis blues scene. McFarland was a member of Charlie Creath’s Jazzomaniacs and Peetie Wheatstraw’s Blues Blowers. He also led his own bands under a variety of names. Between 1929 and 1934 he made 10 records. Sam Charters recorded McFarland for a session for Folkways and there was an unissued session in 1961 that was belatedly released several years back on Delmark as Alton Blues. The recordings Charters made were released on Folkways as Backcountry Barrelhouse. He died just a few months afterward.

“Maggie Campbell Blues” was about Tommy Johnson’s wife, Maggie Bidwell (or Bedwell) who he married in 1914 or 1915. They separated between 1917 and 1919. The song was recorded by Johnson in 1928. Joe McCoy cut it in 935 under the title “Look Who’s Coming Down The Road” and Robert Nighthawk recorded a version in 1952 (he also cut a version in 1964). Other versions were recorded by men who knew Johnson including Shirley Griffith and Roosevelt Holts.

In 1920 W.C. Handy published “Long Gone” with words by black songwriter Chris Smith based on a Kentucky folk song, known variously as “Lost John”, “Long John” or “Long John Dean.” The sheet music claimed it was “Another Casey Jones” or “Steamboat Bill.” Papa Charlie Jackson recorded the song early in 1928 followed shortly after by Jim Jackson’s version the same year. Little Hat Jones cut the songs as “Kentucky Blues” in 1930 and Andy Boy refashioned it as “House Raid Blues” when he cut it in 1937. The song was also used as a prison work song.

Big Road Blues Show 5/23/10: Walking A Blues Road – The Blues Recordings of Sam Charters

May 23, 2010April 5, 2016 Jeff 4 Comments

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Lightnin' Hopkins	Goin' Back To Florida	Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins	I Growed Up With The Blues	Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings
Daddy Hotcakes	Strange Woman Blues	The Blues in St. Louis Vol. 1
Henry Townsend	Tired Of Being Mistreated	Tired Of Being Mistreated
J.D. Short	You're Tempting Me	The Sonet Blues Story
J.D. Short	So Much Wine	Blues from the Mississippi Delta
Billie and De De Pierce	Married Man Blues	Music of New Orleans Vol. 3
Edith Johnson & Henry Brown	Nickel's Worth of Liver	The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 2
Edith Johnson & Henry Brown	Henry Brown Blues	The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 2
Barrelhouse Buck	20th Street Blues	Backcountry Barrelhouse
Speckled Red	Uncle Sam's Blues	The Barrel-House Blues of Speckled Red,
Pink Anderson	You Don't Know My Mind	Carolina Medicine Show Hokum & Blues
Pink Anderson	That’s No Way to Do	Medicine Show Man
Baby Tate	See What You Done Done	See What You Done Done
Jesse Fuller	Red River Blues	Jesse Fuller's Favorite
Furry Lewis	Pearlee Blues	Furry Lewis
Furry Lewis	Kassie Jones	Furry Lewis
Memphis Willie B.	Uncle Sam Blues	Hard Working Man Blues
Robert Pete Williams	Come Here Sit Down on My Knee	Legacy of the Blues Vol. 9
Billy Boy Arnold	Two Drinks Of Wine	More Blues On The South Side
Homesick James	The Woman I'm Lovin'	Blues on the South Side
Buddy Guy	A Man And The Blues	A Man And The Blues
Otis Spann	Sometimes I Wonder	Chicago The Blues Today!
J.B. Hutto	Married Woman Blues	Chicago The Blues Today!
Junior Wells	Help Me	Chicago The Blues Today!
Otis Rush	It’s My Own Fault	Chicago The Blues Today!
Johnny Young	One More Time	Chicago The Blues Today!
Johnny Shines	Dynaflow	Chicago The Blues Today!

Show Notes:

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

Samuel Charters played a central role in the folk revival of the 1950’s and 1960’s. His fieldwork, extensive liner notes, production efforts, and books served as an introduction to many who had never heard of artists like Lightnin’ Hopkins and Robert Johnson. Charters was born in 1929 and graduated from Sacramento City College in 1949. In 1951, at the age of 21, he moved to New Orleans. After a two-year stint in the Army, he began to study jazz, but soon felt himself drawn to rural blues. Encouraged by fellow jazz researcher Frederic Ramsey, Charters began recording jazz and blues artists in 1955. The following year Folkways Records began issuing his recordings. Charters work as a field recorder and researcher would be poured into his first book in 1959, The Country Blues. “…The Country Blues was the first full-length treatment of the topic,” wrote Benjamin Filene in Romancing the Folk, “and its evocative style inspired thousands of whites to explore the music.” Unlike the more formal music histories written by Paul Oliver, Charters’ book was a popular history designed to pass on his enthusiasm for the blues to others. A companion album, also titled The Country Blues, would simultaneously be released on Folkways’ RBF reissue series for which Charters produced about twenty albums. His other claim to fame during this period was his re-discovery, after a lengthy search, of Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins who he recorded for Folkways in 1959.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read Liner Notes (PDF)

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

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

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

Read Liner Notes (PDF)

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

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

Read Liner Notes (PDF)

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

Charters also recorded a fine session by Edith Johnson and Henry Brown. The results were issued on the album The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 2: Henry Brown and Edith Johnson – Barrelhouse Piano and Classic Blues. Edith Johnson recorded eighteen sides in 1928/29 as “Edith North Johnson”, “Hattie North” and “Maybelle Allen.” Henry Brown worked clubs such as the Blue Flame Club, the 9-0-5 Club, Jim’s Place and Katy Red’s, from the twenties into the 30’s. Recorded for Brunswisck with Ike Rogers and Mary Johnson in 1929, for Paramount in Richmond and Grafton in ‘29 and ‘30. He served in the army in the early ’40s, then formed his own quartet to work occasional local gigs in St. Louis area from the ’50s, and worked the Becky Thatcher riverboat, St. Louis in 1965. In addition to his pre-war recordings, he was recorded by Paul Oliver in 1960 and by Adelphi in 1969.

J.D. Short recorded two sessions in the early ’30s for Paramount and Vocalion, then quickly faded into obscurity. Charters recorded Short at his transplanted home base of St. Louis in 1961. As Charters writes in the notes: “The recording that we did in his house that summer – mostly in the kitchen to get away from the noises in the street – was his last, but we didn’t have any idea of it. I was filming him for a sequence in The Blues and trying to get his ideas about the backgrounds and the aesthetics of the blues for The Poetry Of The Blues so we recorded a lot of music – new versions of songs he’d done before – new songs – and his own comments about the styles and the music.” Short unexpectedly passed away shortly after this session at the age of 60. Charters’ recordings of Short can be found on the albums J.D. Short and Son House: Blues from the Mississippi Delta and album as part of The Legacy of the Blues series released in the 70’s.

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

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

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

Read Liner Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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