(Andrew "Smokey" Hogg)
DISCOGRAPHY 1974-2020 (19CD)
DISCOGRAPHY 1974-2020 (19CD)
BIOGRAPHY
Hogg was born near Westconnie, Texas, and grew up on a farm. He was taught
to play the guitar by his father, Frank Hogg. While still in his teens he
teamed up with the slide guitarist and vocalist B. K. Turner, also known as
Black Ace, and the pair travelled together, playing a circuit of turpentine
and logging camps, country dance halls and juke joints around Kilgore,
Tyler, Greenville and Palestine, in East Texas.
In 1937 Decca Records brought Hogg and Black Ace to Chicago to record.
Hogg's first record, "Family Trouble Blues" backed with "Kind Hearted
Blues", was released under the name of Andrew Hogg. It was an isolated
occurrence—he did not make it back into a recording studio for over a
decade. By the early 1940s Hogg was married and making a good living busking
around the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, Texas.
Hogg was drafted in the mid-1940s. After a brief spell with the U.S.
military, he continued working in the Dallas area, where he was becoming
well known. In 1947 he came to the attention of Herbert T. Rippa Sr., the
head of the Dallas-based record label Bluebonnet Records, who recorded
several sides with him and leased the masters to Modern Records.
The first release on Modern was the Big Bill Broonzy song "Too Many
Drivers". It sold well enough that Modern brought Hogg to Los Angeles to cut
more sides with their team of studio musicians. These songs included his two
biggest hits, "Long Tall Mama" in 1949 and another Broonzy tune, "Little
School Girl" (number 9 on the U.S. R&B chart) in 1950.
His two-part "Penitentiary Blues" (1952) was a remake of the prison song
"Ain't No More Cane on the Brazos".
Hogg's country blues style, influenced by Broonzy, Peetie Wheatstraw and
Black Ace, was popular with record buyers in the South during the late 1940s
and early 1950s. He continued to work and record until the end of the
1950s.
He died of cancer, or possibly a ruptured ulcer, in McKinney, Texas, in
1960. (Wikipedia)
Relations and confusion
Smokey's cousin, John Hogg, also played the blues, recording for
Mercury in 1951.
Smokey was reputed to be a cousin of Lightnin' Hopkins, and distantly
related to Texas Alexander, although both claims are ambiguous.
He is not to be confused with Willie "Smokey" Hogg, an imposter who
was based in New York and recorded mostly after 1960, taking the name
of "Smokey" after Andrew had died. He recorded mostly for Spivey
Records, and his work is primarily a poor imitation of Lowell Fulson.
Although Andrew was the younger man, his sound represented an older
style in Texas Blues.
NEW!
1974-U Better Watch That Jive (LP) @FLAC+