Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Tefteller Interview [edited version] (MP3)

Pete Lowry & Tarheel Slim 1970’s, photos by Valerie Wilmer

I suppose it sounds rather romantic spending your time roaming around the south with a tape recorder recording blues but for all the rewards and exciting discoveries it’s a stressful enterprise, not to mention a precarious way to make a living. These days hardly anyone one does it anymore and the sad fact is that blues has largely disappeared as integral part of African-American rural communities; most of the old timers have passed on and few of the younger generation are interested in blues, particularly traditional blues. Much has been written about John and Alan Lomax who scoured the south and beyond making landmark recordings for the Library of Congress from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. Less well known are those that followed in the Lomax’s footsteps; there was folklorists and researchers such as David Evans, Sam Charters, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Art Rosenbaum, Bruce Bastin, Bengt Olsson, Dick Spottswood, Kip Lornell, Glenn Hinson, Tim Duffy, Siegfried A. Christmann and Axel Küstner. Some were hunting for the famous names who made records in the 1920’s and 1930’s, others were seeking to fill in biographical blanks regarding some of the older musicians coveted by collectors and then there were those who were seeking to document the blues tradition as it still existed in rural communities, men like George Mitchell and Peter B. Lowry. This was a very different undertaking than 1960’s blues revival which sought out and put back on the circuit such legendary artists of the past as Son House, Skip James, Bukka White and Mississippi John Hurt. As Lowry told me “the ‘collector’s mentality’ is behind so much of the research done on various forms of ‘roots’ music, even jazz to an extent. …It was those who made the rarest recordings who got the attention.” And as Mitchell lamented, “Too many people went to Mississippi.”

Belying the fact that he was born on April Fool’s Day and signs off his e-mails with “may the farce be with you”, Peter B. Lowry is an extremely fastidious, dedicated blues scholar. Lowry did not go to Mississippi, did not discover long lost bluesmen from the 1920’s but in his voluminous research, writing and recording has charted his own path, becoming perhaps the most renowned expert on the blues of the Southeast and is credited with coining the term Piedmont Blues. Between 1969 and 1980 he amassed hundreds of photographs, thousands of selections of recordings, music and interviews in his travels through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. It would take more time and space than I have to relate all of Lowry’s research and writing - the man’s Curriculum Vita is twenty-six pages! - instead focusing on the primary outlet for his recordings, his Trix label.

As for the nature of field recording itself it’s worthwhile to quote Bruce Bastin, author of the classic Red River Blues and running mate of Lowry’s,  on some of his experiences: “Armchair research can never replace the infectious pleasure of personal contact, or indeed the streetwise experiences of fieldwork at the very edges of existence. …Talk to Bengt Olsson about his times in Tennessee and Alabama. Talk to Pete Lowry about his (sadly unsuccessful) endeavors to record Buddy Moss… Talk also to us about our meeting with rednecks in Edgecomb County, North Carolina…or with Newton County, Georgia, police for ‘consorting with blacks’… ” On the other hand were plenty of positive experiences: “How do you replace memories of hearing Guitar Shorty perform at Chapel Hill’s Endangered Species bar, packed with professors and ‘kitty money’… Or watching a genuinely excited Buddy Moss play a stunning ‘Chesterfield’ on his battered guitar one hot August afternoon at his home? Or seeing Henry Johnson play slide guitar flat across his lap, Hawaiian style, at home and some time later stroll into Chapel Hill’s TV station with a petrified Elester Anderson, casually watch a quartet finish playing Mozart and pack up, then settle down to back Elester (whom he’d never met before) on ‘Red River Blues’… Or of tracing Floyd Council via the local cab company’s switchboard? Or meeting the truly larger-than-life character Peg Leg Sam?”

Peg Leg Sam, from the film Born For Hard Luck

It’s useful to provide some background on Lowry’s activities just prior to setting up Trix. Most of what follows is extracted from my correspondence with Lowry in response to questions I posed and by its nature is highly condensed. “I had not attempted field recording prior to 1970… Bastin and I hooked up in 1969 to look for 78’s using my car as our transport in the SE (successfully)…and went back the next year. I figured that I should do more than just drive the car, so I purchased a tape recorder (Uher 4200, 1/2 track stereo, 5″ reels). A series of pieces for Blues Unlimited came out of the ‘69 trip. …Bruce and I were focused in 1970 on collecting material for a book, as he had been asked to do one in the Studio Vista series off of our BU series of articles, resulting in Crying for the Carolines [the basis for Red River Blues]. We WORKED for a solid month, doing library research (city directories were helpful, especially when there were back issues - in the old days, there was (c) after a name for ‘colored’, so that helped eliminate similar names. Then, vital statistics also were not so closed to non-family members - folks who helped us in the early years had to stop [legally] later on). Next-of-kin were often still findable. Those research tools were suggested by Gayle Dean Wardlow. We started with a copy of Godrich & Dixon and known names, likely ‘home’ locations of those who had made recordings pre-war, and worked from there. …There was NOBODY ‘working’ the SE when we attacked it, for Mitchell had wandered off to the sainted MS stuff, where the little work being done was being done. We broke ‘new’ ground, if you will, in part encouraged by BU editor Simon Napier. …Most of the info Bruce used for his books came from my/our work…”

Lowry set up the Trix Records label in 1972 starting with a series of 45’s with LP’s being released by 1973. It lasted about a decade as an active label dealing mainly with Piedmont blues artists from the Southeastern states with seventeen albums in its catalog at the time of their sale to Joe Fields of Muse Records. Trix issued albums by the following artists: Eddie Kirkland, Peg Leg Sam, Frank Edwards, Henry Johnson, Willie Trice, Guitar Shorty (John Henry Fortescue), Robert Jr. Lockwood, Pernell Charity, Tarheel Slim, Roy Dunn, Homesick James, Big Chief Ellis, Honeyboy Edwards and the anthology Detroit After Hours, a collection of Detroit piano players. “I spent an interesting decade”, Lowry wrote, “burned myself out, and haven’t really been back since 1980. Sales of TRIX LPs were disappointing, but, master of timing, I started up when the second-to-last blues boom was drying up and quit before the most recent one took off! I am proud of each and every release…” 1978 was the last year Trix releases were assembled; Lowry didn’t go out in the field in 1978 although he did capture quite a number of recordings in 1979 and one lengthy session in 1980. Lowry wrote that “there have been no more recording sessions since this date. This single session was done during my final southeastern trip during the summer of 1980.”

Baby Tate, photo by Pete Lowry

I’ve written extensively (as well as devoting a show with interview) to the recordings of George Mitchell who started recording several years prior to Lowry and ending roughly around the same time. On Oct. 12th I will be devoting an entire show to the Trix catalog and, like Mitchell, there will certainly be a sequel as two hours is not enough time to do justice to Lowry’s recordings. Mitchell has written, and related to me, that by around 1976 he noted a sharp decline in blues in rural communities. This is somewhat at odds with the fact that Lowry recorded fairly extensively during this period. Also in 1980 two Germans, Siegfried A. Christmann and Axel Küstner, came to the States to embark on a recording trip through the south which resulted in fourteen LP’s under the title Living Country Blues (just issued on CD and distilled into a domestic 3-CD set back in 1999 on the Evidence label). While it may be impossible to quantify, the fact is there was quite a bit of quality blues players to be found and quite a number of them in the Southeast region as Lowry optimistically stated in a 1973 article written by Valerie Wilmer: “‘I never really believed all that stuff about the blues being dead,’” he said, ‘As with other celebrities who said ‘my death has been greatly exaggerated’, so the blues. I think it’s been submerged beneath the overlay of modern black pop music, but hell-you go down through Georgia and the Carolinas and there’s still country-suppers. Peg Leg Sam still goes around busking in the streets, blowing his harp and collecting quarters and dollars.’” In addition to the seventeen issued Trix albums there is sufficient material for another 40 to 50 CD’s. Some of Lowry’s recordings have appeared on the Flyright label including tracks on Another Man Done Gone and The Last Medicine Show which includes spoken monologue and musical performances of Peg Leg Sam working the last active medicine show with Chief Thundercloud. There’s also a wonderful film called Born For Hard Luck which features some fine performances of Sam including some footage working the same medicine show.  In March 1973 Lowry recorded the entire three day Fine Arts Festival, University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill which resulted in the Flyright albums Carolina Country Blues and Blues Come To Chapel Hill (the concert featured Guitar Shorty, Willy Trice, Henry Johnson, Elester Anderson, Eddie Kirkland, Tarheel Slim amongst others).

The same Valerie Wilmer article also goes on to explain how Lowry operated in the field: “Lowry will be back from his third field trip in 12 months at the end of the year. He does all his traveling by Volkswagen bus, accompanied by a faithful hound and no less than eight guitars. One such trip lasted five months and netted enough material for 20 albums, all of which he will be processing himself. ‘I said, ‘Christ, I’ve got an awful lot of stuff here-there’s no sense in farting around with other people, I’ll do it myself.’ The guitars are needed because often the people he encounters have not played for a while or else their existing instrument may be in bad shape, rattling or buzzing. ‘I’ve always tried to keep a clean sound on my recordings unlike most of the so-called field work’… I’m not just an out-and-out field recorder, nor do I use a studio as such. I usually say that the best sound-quality stuff I do is sort of in a Holiday Inn recording studio in whatever town I happen to be staying. You know, if it’s not too cool where they’re living or something, we go back to the hotel room.’”

Tarheel Slim, photo by Pete Lowry

A portion of the Trix catalog are recordings in the Piedmont style as Lowry explains in the same article: “This slightly ragtime-based kind of guitar is what a lot of white people are playing and listening to,” he explained. “I’m trying to hook on to that because it is the essence of the Piedmont style.” Still, there’s a fair bit of diversity to be found including some piano blues (Lowry didn’t find many piano players or female performers for that matter) including a self titled Big Chief Ellis album and Detroit After Hours - Vol. 1 (the result of extensive taping he did at an after-hours piano joint in Detroit), the Mississippi-by-way-of-Chicago blues of Honeyboy Edwards, the sophisticated jazzy blues of Robert Jr. Lockwood (Does 12 and Contrasts remain probably his best recordings) and a pair of fine records by Eddie Kirkland with his mix of John Lee Hooker styled blues and a more contemporary approach. The other Trix albums are a mix of great discoveries like Roy Dunn, Guitar Shorty (the album Carolina Slide Guitar came out in 1971, two years before he recorded for Trix), Henry Johnson, Peg Leg Sam, Pernell Charity all whom had never recorded before and those that had made commercial records like Tarheel Slim, Frank Edwards, Willie Trice and Homesick James. Many of the artists who had albums released were recorded extensively by Lowry and in most cases there is enough material in the can for follow-up records. In fact Lowry’s unreleased recordings far exceed the released recordings. Lowry was gracious enough to send me his master recording list, a year by year breakdown of his recording activities. Among those whose recordings went unreleased are artists who should be familiar to collectors such as Richard Trice, Pink Anderson, John Cephas, Phil Wiggins, Cecil Barfield, Marvin and Turner Foddrell, John Snipes, Dink Roberts. Other names include Elester Anderson, Charlie Rambo, Earnest Scott Clifford, Lee “Sam” Swanson and George Higgs (who has since made recordings for Music Maker) among many others. Among Lowry’s regrets “is that I never got my one jazz album out before Maurice Reedus died…” Reedus was Robert Jr. Lockwood’s great, long time sax player heard to good effect on Lockwood’s two Trix records. Reedus’ record was mixed and mastered and titled Get Outta Town, Man (Trix 3318). Baby Tate was another artist close to Lowry’s heart who he recorded extensively but only issued one 45. Again from the Valerie Wilmer article: “Baby Tate was one of his closest musician friends and his untimely death last year grieved Lowry considerably. ‘My plan last Summer was to really record him in depth,’ he explained. ‘ He was just an incredible person and a wonderful person to deal with. I can’t say I’m satisfied with what I’ve got on tape because I know he could do three times more and a lot better. But just having been around him and dealt with him and lived with him, there’s a degree of satisfaction.’”

As Lowry stated in the same article: “…I know I’m not going to get rich. I’ll be lucky if I break even, but I’ve met an awful lot of good people, a lot of good musicians, and dammit-they should be heard. It’s that simple.” The Trix label is a testament to these amazing musicians and to one man’s passion and dedication to get this music out to the wider world. Fortunately the entire Trix catalog has been issued on CD which include the original liner notes plus some follow-up information about the artists. Sadly the majority of the artists have since passed on. As for the vast amount of unreleased recordings, Lowry says that “to date, nobody has evidenced any interest in my stuff - I’m not surprised.” On our Trix program on October 12th, in addition to the released material, I’ll also be featuring some of these unreleased recordings which Lowry was gracious enough to send me.

Peg Leg Sam - Who’s That Left Here ‘ While Ago (MP3)

Big Chief Ellis - Prison Bound (MP3)

Tarheel Slim - Some Cold Rainy Day (MP3)

Frank Edwards - Chicken Raid (MP3)

Pernell Charity - God Bless The Child (MP3)

Robert Jr. Lockwood - Selfish Ways (MP3)

Roy Dunn - Move To Kansas City (MP3)

Willie Trice - My Baby’s Ways (MP3)

Guitar Shorty - Working Hard (MP3)

Show Notes:

Houston Stackhouse

We cut a wide swath on today’s mix show with recordings spanning1928 to 1979. We have a pair of twin spins including a pair of cuts by Houston Stackhouse. I recently wrote a piece on Stackhouse for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas and have been listening to his music quite a bit lately.  Stackhouse never achieved much in the way of success yet he was a pivotal figure on the southern blues scene from the 1930’s through the 1960’s who worked with, or knew, just about every significant blues musician during that period. He was greatly influenced by Tommy Johnson who he met in the 1920’s. In the 1930’s he met Robert Nighthawk, whom he taught how to play guitar. In 1946 Nighthawk asked Stackhouse to join him in Helena where he would stay for almost twenty-five years. For a year he was a member of Nighthawk’s band. After splitting with Nighthawk in 1947 he joined with drummer James “Peck” Curtis who was working on KFFA’s King Biscuit Time. In 1948 Sonny Boy Williamson (the program started with him in 1941) rejoined the show and the group performed all over the delta. Stackhouse played with all the important musicians who passed through Helena including Jimmy Rogers and Sammy Lawhorn, both whom he tutored on guitar, as well as Elmore James, Earl Hooker, Willie Love, Ernest Lane and Roosevelt Sykes. Unlike many of his fellow bluesmen, Stackhouse remained in the south continuing to perform locally as well as working regular jobs through the 1950’s. In 1967 field researcher George Mitchell recorded Stackhouse in Dundee, Mississippi. The group, calling themselves the Blues Rhythm Boys, consisted of “Peck” Curtis and Robert Nighthawk and marked the final recordings of Nighthawk who died a few months later. A week later field researcher David Evans recorded Stackhouse in Crystal Springs with long time partner Carey “Ditty” Mason. In the 1970’s Stackhouse began taking part in the blues revival, touring with Wilkins throughout the decade as The King Biscuit Boys, traveling with the Memphis Blues Caravan, playing various festivals and making a lone trip overseas to Vienna in 1976. He recorded for Adelphi in 1972 with various live tracks appearing on compilations. He died in 1980.

The other twin spin today is a pair of cuts by Blind Willie McTell and his longtime partner Curley Weaver. Both tracks come from Document’s Blind Willie McTell & Curley Weaver: The Post-War Years 1949 - 1950. All tracks on this CD have been remastered in 2008 with three additional tracks and excellent booklet notes by David Evans. It’s McTell’s early sides that are most revered by collectors but these later sides find the versatile McTell in excellent shape playing a broad repertoire of blues, gospel and pop tunes. The under recorded Weaver is no slouch either as he proves on the bouncy, ragtime flavored “Trixie” a version of the oft covered “Trix Ain’t Walking No More.”

As usual there’s a good chunk of sides from the 1920’s and 30’s including sides by Lonnie Johnson, Johnnie Temple,  Tommy Johnson, Oscar “Buddy” Woods, Rube Lacey and Lane Hardin. “Violin Blues” was issued as The Johnson Boys which consisted of Lonnie Johnson on violin and vocals, Nap Hayes on guitar and Mathew Prater on mandolin. This is a wonderful low-down number with a great vocal by Johnson and superb mandolin by Prater. Also from the same session is the wailing “Memphis Stomp” which I’ll have to play at a later date. Johnson is also listed as playing guitar on “Good Suzie (Rusty Knees)” by Johnnie Temple although his playing is submerged. Temple delivers a great vocal on this number although I have no idea what the title means.  Born and raised in Mississippi, Temple learned to play guitar and mandolin as a child. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing house parties and various other local events. Temple moved to Chicago in the early 30’s, where he quickly became part of the town’s blues scene. Often, he performed with Charlie and Joe McCoy. In 1935, Temple began his recording, releasing “Louise Louise Blues” the following year on Decca Records. Although he never achieved stardom, Temple’s records, issued on a variety of record labels, sold consistently throughout the late 30’s and 40’s. In the 1950’s, his recording career stopped, but he continued to perform, frequently with Big Walter Horton and Billy Boy Arnold. He moved back to Mississippi where he played clubs and juke joints around the Jackson area for a few years before he disappeared from the scene. He died in 1968.

We also play some latter day country blues By Bukka White, K.C. Douglas with Sidney Maiden, Soldier Boy Houston and Robert Pete Williams. White’s “Black Bottom” comes from the fine out of print LP Living Legends featuring live performances by Skip James and Big Joe Williams recorded at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York City in 1966. I first heard Soldier Boy Houston (Lawyer Houston was his real name) on an Atlantic LP years ago and he’s a very appealing singer with a light tenor voice backing himself with some springy guitar work. His songs are captivating tales packed with loads of descriptive detail, much seemingly based on his real life experiences. His eight issued sides can be found on Lightning Special: Volume 2 of the Collected Works.

I always slip in a few prime barrelhouse number, this time out we spin excellent tracks by Jabo Williams and Barrel House Welsh. I’ve been featuring Williams quite a bit on my mix show. He was a terrific player who cut only eight sides that appear to be extremely rare, with few in absolutely terrible shape. “Polock Blues”, which takes its name from a section of East St. Louis, is a marvelous mid-tempo blues. Nolan Welsh recorded as Barrel House Welch on three sides for Paramount in 1928-29 and as Nolan Welsh on sides in 1926, two with Louis Armstrong. He really gives those “Chicago women” the business on his forceful “Larceny Woman Blues.” From the wonderful album Country Negro Jam Session we hear Robert Pete Williams & Robert “Guitar” J. Welch reviving Barbecue Bob’s 1927 classic, “Mississippi Heavy Water Blues.”

Moving up to the 1950’s and 1960’s we play classic Chicago blues from Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters,  Jimmy Reed, Floyd Jones, Little Johnnie Jones plus excellent sides from Gatemouth Brown, Professor Longhair, Gene Phillips and  John Lee Hooker. Jimmy Rogers’ shuffling “Look-A-Here” sports superb piano from Otis Spann as does Muddy’s 1965 gem “I Got a Rich Man’s Woman” a great lesser known tune featuring  James Cotton and Sammy Lawhorn and Pee Wee Madison on guitars. Over in Texas we play Gatemouth’s torrid instrumental “Boogie Uproar”, Earl Hooker’s vicious instrumental “Alley Corn”, from New Orleans the tough “Longhair Stomp” by Professor Longhair and from the West Coast it’s Gene Phillips & His Rhythm Aces on the low-down “My Baby’s Mistreatin’ Me”featuring some great guitar from Phillip who’s guitar skills were not spotlighted nearly enough. If you’re a fan of West Coast blues I highly recommend the two Phillips collections on Ace, Swinging The Blues and Drinkin’ And Stinkin’. We close out with terrific topical number by John Lee Hooker, “Birmingham Blues” cut for Vee-Jay in 1963. The Birmingham campaign was a strategic effort by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to promote civil rights for black Americans. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, and aimed at ending the city’s segregated civil and discriminatory economic policies, the campaign lasted for more than two months in the spring of 1963. To provoke the police into filling the city’s jails to overflowing, Martin Luther King, Jr. and black citizens of Birmingham employed nonviolent tactics to flout laws they considered unfair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While “Midnight Creepers” takes a more ominous viewpoint:

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

Hand In Hand Women (MP3)

Midnight Creepers (MP3)

Too Many Men (MP3)

Grass Cutter Blues (MP3)

Dark Angel (MP3)

Show Notes:

Although the harmonica was present in many pre-war recordings, it became a dominant force in the 1950’s, when it was amplified by the likes of Big Walter Horton, Little Walter and Snooky Pryor. As such many players and fans seem to think that blues harmonica began with Little Walter and are unaware of the rich early tradition of harmonica recordings. In the early days harmonica soloists were common who played now forgotten pieces like train imitations and set pieces like Lost John, Fox Chase, Mama Blues and other call-and-response pieces that featured the harmonica over the voice, if the voice was used at all. We hear many of these players on today’s program including DeFord Bailey, George “Bullet” Williams, William McCoy, Alfred Lewis and Sonny Terry. We also feature early harmonica/vocalists like Daddy Stovepipe, Jaybird Coleman and Jazz Gillum. In addition we hear some great accompanists like Rhythm Willie, Robert Cooksey and Blues Birdhead. There were also play tracks by several notable harmonica players who worked in jug bands like Noah Lewis, Jed Davenport and Eddie Mapp. It was John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson who defined the language of modern blues harmonica playing so it’s fitting we end with a few of his numbers. Below is some brief background on some of today’s performers.

Bobby Leecan (who sang, and played guitar and kazoo) performed in a duo with harmonica player Robert Cooksey. Leecan and Cooksey teamed up for the first time in 1926 to cut sides for Victor, their recording output inhabiting a borderland between blues, vaudeville, and jazz. They are believed to have been based out of Philadelphia. Cooksey first entered the studio in the spring of 1924, when he backed up blues singer Viola McCoy on sessions for Vocalion. That puts him within months of the very first recording of harmonica ever made, the Clara Smith recording “My Doggone Lazy Man,” which featured harmonica player Herbert Leonard. The following year, he backed up Sara Martin on Okeh label. It was two years later when he finally teamed up with Leecan.

Johnny Watson, alias Daddy Stovepipe, was born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1867 and died in Chicago, in 1963. A veteran of the turn of the century medicine shows, he was in his late fifties when he became one of the first blues harp players to appear on record in 1924. He later recorded with his wife, Mississippi Sarah, in the 1930’s and spent his last years as a regular performer on Chicago’s famous Maxwell Street, where he made his last recordings.

DeFord Bailey

DeFord Bailey cut several records in 1927-1928, all of them harmonica solos. Emblematic of the ambiguity of Bailey’s position as a black recording artist is the fact his arguably greatest recording, “John Henry”, was released separately in both RCA’s ‘race’ and ‘hillbilly’ series. Bailey was a pioneer member of the WSM Grand Ole Opry, and one of its most popular performers, appearing on the program from 1927 to 1941. During this period he toured with many major country stars, including Uncle Dave Macon, Bill Monroe, and Roy Acuff. Bailey was fired by WSM in 1941 because of a licensing conflict with BMI-ASCAP which prevented him from playing his best known tunes on the radio. This effectively ended his performance career, and he spent the rest of his life shining shoes, cutting hair, and renting out rooms in his home to make a living. Though he continued to play the harp, he almost never performed publicly. One of his rare appearances occurred in 1974, when he agreed to make one more appearance on the Opry. This became the occasion for the Opry’s first annual Old Timers’ Show.

Singer and harpist Noah Lewis was a key figure on the Memphis jug band circuit of the 1920’s. Upon moving to Memphis, he teamed with Gus Cannon, becoming an essential component of Cannon’s Jug Stompers. On a series of sides cut in the first week of October 1929, Lewis made his debut as a name artist, cutting three great harmonica solos as well as “Going to Germany,” which spotlighted his fine vocal style. He also cut a few sides under his own name between 1929-30. As the Depression wore on Lewis slipped into obscurity, living a life of extreme poverty; his death on February 7, 1961 was a result of gangrene brought on by frostbite.

As a child, Jaybird Coleman, taught himself how to play harmonica and would perform at parties, both for his family and friends. Coleman served in the Army during World War I and after his discharge moved to the Birmingham, AL area. While he lived in Birmingham, he would perform on street corners and occasionally play with the Birmingham Jug Band. Jaybird made his first recordings in 1927 for Gennett. For the next few years, he simply played on street corners. Coleman cut his final sessions in 1930 on the OKeh label. During the 1930’s and 1940’s, Coleman played on street corners throughout Alabama. By the end of the 1940’s he had disappeared from the blues scene. In 1950 Coleman died of cancer.

Realizing his eyesight would keep him from pursuing a profession in farming, Sonny Terry decided instead to be a blues singer. He began traveling to nearby Raleigh and Durham, performing on street corners for tips. In 1934, he befriended the popular guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller convinced Terry to move to Durham, where the two immediately gained a strong local following. By 1937, they were offered an opportunity to go to New York and record for the Vocalion label. A year later, Terry would be back in New York taking part in John Hammond’s legendary Spirituals to Swing concert. Upon returning to Durham, Terry continued playing regularly with Fuller and also met his future partner, guitarist Brownie McGhee, who would accompany Terry off and on for the next two decades.

Sonny Boy Williamson I

John Lee Williamson is regarded as “the first truly virtuosic blues harmonica player”, “who brought the harmonica to prominence as a major blues instrument.” Generally regarded as the original “Sonny Boy”, John Lee Williamson was born in Jackson, Tennessee on March 30, 1914. He hoboed with Yank Rachell and John Estes through Tennessee and Arkansas in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. He worked with Sunnyland Slim in Memphis in the early 1930’s. John Lee Williamson moved to Chicago in 1934 where he worked Maxwell Street and as a sideman with numerous blues groups at the local clubs. His first recording, made in May of 1937 at the Leland Hotel in Aurora, Illinois for the Bluebird label, is also the first recording of “Good Morning Little School Girl”, which has become a much recorded blues classic tune. Bluebird recorded him until 1945 when Victor recorded him into 1947. Williamson worked frequently with Muddy Waters from 1943 and toured with Lazy Bill Lucas through the 1940’s. He recorded with Big Joe Williams for the Columbia label in Chicago in 1947. In 1948 upon leaving the Plantation Club in Chicago after playing a gig, he was mugged and beaten. He died of a fractured skull and other injuries on June 1, 1948 and is buried in Jackson, Tennessee.

Jazz Gillum is usually treated with indifference among blues critics, looked upon as a rather generic performer who typified the mainstream Chicago blues style of the 1930’s and 40’s. While there’s some truth to this, Gillum’s recordings were consistently entertaining throughout his sixteen year recording career punctuated with a fair number of exceptional sides. Gillum was by no means a harmonica virtuoso - he had a kind of wheezy high-pitched sound - he was certainly no Sonny Boy Williamson I and certainly no “Harmonica King” as he boasts in “Gillum’s Windy Blues.” Yet he was a very expressive, easygoing singer who penned a number of evocative songs backed by some of the era’s best blues musicians. Gillum recorded 100 sides between 1934-49 as a leader in addition to session work with Big Bill Broonzy, Curtis Jones and the State Street Boys.

Throughout the show we also play a number of little recorded, shadowy figures such as George “Bullet” Williams, William McCoy, Alfred Lewis, Blues Birdhead, Ollis Martin and Eddie Mapp. George “Bullet” Williams was originally from Alabama. He cut one session for paramount in 1928. Ollis Martin cut one side in 1927 for Gennet. He was active around the Birmingham area in the latter part of that decade, also showing up on two gospel sides the same year by Jaybird Coleman. Blues Birdhead’s real was James Simons who cut one 78 for Okeh in 1929. Alfred Lewis cut one issued 78 in 1930 for Okeh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Black And Evil Blues (MP3)

Broadway St. Woman Blues (MP3)

Riverside Blues (MP3)

Trouble Blues (MP3)

Lonesome Blues (MP3)