Category: Field Recordings

Show Notes: 

On today’s show we shine the light on some fine down-home blues ladies from the 1940s through the 1980s. Down home blues is essentially rougher and less polished blues and is usually the provenance of the men. In the pre-war era, alongside the classic female blues singers, you had tough woman in this vein like Lucille Bogan, Geechie Wiley, Louise Johnson, Hattie Hart, Lottie Kimbrough, Bernice Edwards among others. These kind of woman blues artists seem to be less common once you get into the pre-war era. For today’s program we gather up a whole slew of my favorite obscure blues women who recorded very little. We hear from several who first recorded in the pre-war era like Memphis Minnie, Irene Wiley, Sippie Wallace, Bertha ‘Chippie’ Hill, Laura Dukes and Van Hunt. The majority of the ladies featured today are decidedly obscure, although there are more well-known names such as Grace Brim who worked with her husband John Brim and perhaps Jessie Mae Hemphill who became fairly well-known in the 1980s. Many of today’s artists are virtual unknowns such as Miss Country Slim, Beatrice Hill, Ruth “Blues” Ames, Mabel Franklin, Ruth Ames, Willie B. Huff among others. Several benefitted from the 60s blues revival and increase in field recordings like the exceptional Mable Hillery, Ethel McCoy, Bonnie Jefferson, Precious Bryant and Rosa Hill, the latter two recorded by George Mitchell.

We hear from several ladies from the pre-war era as well as several who were in the company of more well known male artists. From the pre-war era we hear from Memphis Minnie, Irene Wiley, Sippie Wallace, Little Laura Dukes and Van Hunt. Memphis Minnie is undoubtedly the most famous. For nearly 30 years she was, along with Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red, was one of the giants of the Chicago blues scene. Between 1929 and 1953 she recorded some 200 sides for a variety of labels.

Sippie Wallace made her first record in 1923 and her last in 1984. During the early 1920s she toured the TOBA vaudeville circuit where she was billed as “The Texas Nightingale.” In 1923 she followed her brothers to Chicago and began performing in the cafes and cabarets around town. In 1923 she recorded her first records for Okeh and went on to record over forty songs for them between 1923 and 1929. Sippie moved to Detroit in 1929 and left show business in the early 1930’s. During the next forty years she was a singer and organ player at the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit. She occasionally performed over the years but did little in the blues until she launched a comeback in 1966 . Wallace cut the album Sippie Wallace Sings the Blues for the Storyville label in 1966. Wallace suffered a stroke in 1970 but managed to keep recording and performing. With the help of Bonnie Raitt she landed a recording deal with Atlantic Records and recorded the album Sippie, which featured Raitt, was nominated for a Grammy in 1983 and won a W.C. Handy Award for best blues album in 1984.

Irene Wiley recorded in the pre-war era, cutting sides with her brother Arnold at sessions in 1926, 1927 and 1931. She got the opportunity to cut one fine 78 in 1946 for the Diamond Record label.

Laura Dukes was born Laura Ella Smith in North Memphis on June 10, 1907, where her father had been a drummer in W. C. Handy’s band. He took her as a young child to theaters and taverns, where she began performing and later worked as a singer and dancer. She was often billed as “Little Laura” or “Little Bit”, an allusion to her 4’7 height. She met blues singer Robert McCollum, later known as Robert Nighthawk, in 1933, and began appearing with him as a duo. After initially learning guitar, she later took up the banjo, ukulele and mandolin. She played mandolin with the Memphis Jug Band in 1934. In later years she was recorded by Gianni Marcucci, Olle Helander for Swedish Radio, for the BBC T.V. series The Devil’s Music among other recordings.

Van Hunt spent the 1920’s in minstrel shows and was involved in the early Memphis blues scene. She cut “Selling The Jelly” in 1930 with the Noah Lewis Jug Band which we hear her reprise today backed by Mose Vinson. She made some field recordings in the 60’s and 70’s

Among those who recorded with a more famous partner are Essie Sykes (cut one 78 for Regal) backed by Roosevelt Sykes on piano, Sally Dotson backed by guitarist Smokey Babe, Ruth “Blues” Ames (cut one 78 for Herald with Hopkins and four sides unissued under her own name in 1954) backed by Lightnin’ Hopkins, Brooks Berry backed by Scrapper Blackwell and Mildred White backed by Tampa Red and Pete Franklin. There were others who came from a well-known musical family such as Rosa Lee Hill who was the daughter of Hill country blues musician Sid Hemphill and Jessie Mae Hemphill, granddaughter of Sid.

Rosa Lee Hill learned guitar from her father and by the time she was ten, was playing dances with him. Several of her songs were recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959 and she was also recorded by George Mitchell. Jesse Hemphill began playing the guitar at the age of seven. She also played drums in local fife-and-drum bands, beginning with the band led by her paternal grandfather, Sid Hemphill. side from sitting in at Memphis bars a few times in the 1950s, most of her playing was done in family and informal settings, such as picnics with fife-and-drum music, until she was recorded in 1979. Her first recordings were field recordings made by the blues researcher George Mitchell in 1967 and David Evans in 1973, but they were not released. In 1978, Evans began teaching at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis). The school founded the High Water Recording Company in 1979 to promote interest in the regional music of the South. Evans made the first high-quality field recordings of Hemphill in that year and soon after produced her first sessions for High Water.

Brooks Berry was born in March, 1915, in western Kentucky and when she was in her middle teens moved up to Indianapolis, where she lived ever since. As producer Art Rosenbaum wrote: “Brooks met Scrapper [Blackwell] shortly after she moved to Indianapolis and thus began a long though at times stormy friendship that was to end suddenly some fifteen months after the last of the present recordings were made. On October 6, 1962. Scrapper was shot to death in a back alley near his home. Brooks has been, during the four years I have known her, reluctant to sing blues without her friend’s sensitive guitar or piano playing behind her; and she will sing less and less now that he is gone.” Her lone album under her own name was My Heart Struck Sorrow with Blackwell. Some additional sides by Berry and Blackwell appear on the collection Scrapper Blackwell with Brooks Berry 1959 – 1960 on Document which were recorded live at 144 Gallery in Indianapolis in 1959.

Mildred White cut one four-song session for Victor in 1949 backed by Pete Franklin (p) and Tampa Red (g). Franklin cut a magnificent four-song session backed by Tampa Red at the same date.

Do to time constraints most of today’s artists get one track outside of Grace Brim and Mabel Hillery. Grace made her debut singing on “Strange Man b/w Mean Man Blues” for Fortune in 1950 backed by John Brim and Big Maceo. On 1951 she sang on “Going Down The Line b/w Leaving Daddy Blues” for Random. In 1952 and 1953 she sang on records for JOB back by John Brim and Sunnyland Slim. She played drums on two songs Albert King cut for Parrot in 1952 and backed her husband on drums on the classic “Tough Times b/w Gary Stomp” for Parrot. She also backed her husband for Chess in 1955 on “Go Away b/w That Ain’t Right.”

Mabel Hillery married Will Adams in 1950 and moved to Brunswick, Georgia, near St Simons in the Georgia Sea Islands, about 1960. In 1961 she, joined the Georgia Sea Islanders. Between 1961 and 1965 she toured the college circuit of campuses, coffee houses, church basements, and festivals, from Berkeley to Philadelphia, from the Ash Grove in Los Angeles to the Café à Go-Go in New York City. In 1966, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto produced a film, Blues Special, for its TV series, Festival. Highlights from those sessions have been released on Blues Masters, a DVD whose performers include Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Willie Dixon, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Otis Spann, Sunnyland Slim, and Mable Hillery. In the late 60s, Mable often performed on Johns Island with the Sea Island Singers, and from 1966 through 1975, she sang throughout the South, not only on college campuses but in prisons as well. In 1968, after touring in England, where Mable did TV and concert dates and made an album for the record label Xtra. Other tracks by Hillery appear alongside the Georgia Sea Island Singers and on various anthologies. Hillery, 46 years of age, died of a heart attack, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan, on April 27, 1976.

A few other artists worth mentioning include George & Ethel McCoy, Little Miss Janice, Mabel Franklin and Lucille Spann. George and Ethel McCoy were brother and sister. They were raised in the South, around Memphis, Tennessee, and saw a great deal of their aunt, Memphis Minnie. The McCoy’s recorded two albums in their East St. Louis hometown: Early In The Morning for Adelphi in 1969 and At Home With The Blues for Swingmaster in 1981. Other tracks appear on the Adelphi anthology Things Have Changed.

Little Miss Janice is a mystery. What little is know about her is that she came from Texas, she played guitar and she had a knack for songwriting. After recording for Proverb, she went on to cut for Paul Gayten’s Pzazz label. Johnny Adams covered “Scarred Knees” on his first LP for Rounder and Esther Phillips did a great cover on her album From A Whisper To A Scream.

Mabel Franklin cut a handful of strong 45’s for Houston labels Ritzy, Ivory, Kangaroo and her own Franklin label in the 60’s. “Unhappy Woman” from 1967 features some great guitar from D.C. Bender (he also played on her 1965 45, “Let’s Do The Wiggle” b/w ” Dream I Had Last Night”).

Mahalia Lucille Jenkins began as a church gospel singer in Mississippi and continued to practice when her family moved to Chicago around 1952. She met Otis Spann in the 1960’s. The two began a musical collaboration and would later marry. Lucille and Otis performed regularly at college gigs and would record together until Otis passed in 1970. Lucille continued to work in music performing at the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival and making a few recordings before passing in 1994. She is heard on a couple of 45’s as well as on labels alongside Otis such as Spivey, Bluesway, World Pacific (unissued), Vanguard and the full-length album Cry Before I Go on Bluesway.