Category: 1920’s Blues

Show Notes:

Today’s show is a sequel, or prequel if you will, to last week’s show, Post-War Downhome Gals. On today’s show we shine the light on some fine down-home blues ladies from the prewar era. Down home blues is essentially rougher and last polished blues and is usually the provenance of the men. The definition is somewhat arbitrary but the woman featured today ran in parallel to the more polished classic female blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Clara Smith and the like. Unlike the classic female blues singers, many of today’s singers were backed by guitar, some like Geechie, Elvie Thomas and Mattie Delaney played their own or were backed by barrelhouse piano, some like Louise Johnson and Leola Manning played their own piano, in contrast to the more stalely piano on the records of the classic singers. Like last week’s show, the spotlight is on exceptional lesser-known artists, many who left behind few recordings, like fine singers such as Marie Grinter, Madlyn Davis, Mattie Dorsey, Johnnie Strauss, Side Wheel Sally Duffie, Elizabeth Johnson and Margaret Thornton to name a few. We hear some remarkable field recordings captured in prison, something of a rarity for women, by Ozella Jones and Mattie May Thomas. Several names today are well regarded among blues collectors, particularly the work of Geechie Wiley and her partner Elvie Thomas, plus tough blues ladies such as the prolific Memphis Minnie, Lucille Bogan, Mary Johnson and Lil Johnson as well as singers like Lottie Kimbrough and Hattie Hart who left relatively small bodies of work but have big reputations. Many of these ladies have not been well served on reissues, and while we can thank the Document label for making them available, sound quality often leaves much to be desired. In addition, the backgrounds on many of today’s performers remain sketchy. Every once in awhile I have have too many tracks to fit into the broadcast so today’s show is longer than usual.

We hear several tracks today with excellent guitar including cuts by Madlyn Davis, Blue Belle, Mattie Delaney, Geechie Wiley & Elvie Thomas, Coletha Simpson, Mae Glover, Lillian Miller, Hattie Hart, Lottie Kimbrough Bertha Lee, Ruth Willis, Mississippi Matilda and Pearl Dickson. Madlyn Davis made ten recordings in Chicago, for Paramount Records, with her first session taking place in June 1927. In October 1928, Davis had her final recording stint, with her backing musicians including Georgia Tom Dorsey on piano and Tampa Red on guitar, heard to good effect on our track, “Too Black Bad”, the lyric of which gives today’s show its title.

Mattie Delaney cut just one 78: “Down The Big Road Blues b/w Tallahatchie River Blues” for Vocalion on February 21, 1930 in Memphis. Her name evoked no response from Son House or from any Delta resident when researcher Gayle Wardlow made a tri-county search of those towns which boarder the Tallahatchie. Supposedly she was born Mattie Doyle in Tchula, MS 1905. Wardlow was the one who discovered the record: “But the prize was Mattie Delaney doing ‘Tallahatchie River Blues’, a song that refers to a river flood in the Delta. My copy of this 1930 disc was the only one known to surface. I learned this from New York collectors eager for me to trade it away.” According to collector John Tefteller there are about five copies known to exist.

Geeshie Wiley recorded six songs for Paramount Records, issued on three records in 1930 and 1931. Wiley recorded “Last Kind Words Blues” and “Skinny Leg Blues”, singing and accompanying herself on guitar, with Thomas providing additional guitar accompaniment. Thomas also recorded two songs, “Motherless Child Blues” and “Over to My House,” with Wiley playing guitar and singing harmony. In 1931 Wiley and Thomas returned to Grafton and recorded “Pick Poor Robin Clean” and “Eagles on a Half.” “Pick Poor Robin Clean” has gained some notoriety recently because of a performance of the song in the blockbuster movie Sinners.

Mae Glover cut fourteen sides at two sessions; four for Gennet in 1929 and the rest for Champion in 1931. Her best sides are from the first session where she backed by guitarist John Byrd. The two turn in a driving, sexy performance on “I Ain’t Givin’ Nobody None” and “Shake It Daddy.”

Hattie Hart appeared on several of the Memphis Jug Band’s discs in 1929 and 1930. Her first recordings were made in Memphis for the Victor label in 1929. Three songs were recorded but only two were issued. In 1934 she was recorded again in New York City in September of that year including “I Let My Daddy Do That” with excellent guitar work from Allen Shaw. She moved to Chicago where in 1938 she cut sides as Hattie Bolten.

Coletha Simpson cut fours sides for Brunswick in 1929. On our track, “Lonesome Lonesome Blues”, Willie Harris lays down some fine guitar work. Harris cut five sides at three sessions in 1929 and 1930 for Brunswick. One of those sides was unissued.

Lottie Kimbrough was born in 1900 in Kansas City and enjoyed a recording career between the years 1924 to 1929. She started performing professionally in the early 1920’s singing in the city’s red light district clubs and speakeasy’s. She was often accompanied by her brother Sylvester, and by the ‘Pruitt Twins’, Miles on guitar and Milas and banjo. She shared her first recording session for Paramount with the legendary Ma Rainey in 1924, and also recorded the following year with Papa Charlie Jackson. In the same year there followed recording sessions for the Kansas City based Merrit Records, which was was owned by performer and promoter Winston Holmes. The two soon began to collaborate further, recording in Richmond, Indiana, and Holmes provided yodels, bird calls, and train whistles on the 1928 masterpieces “Lost Lover Blues” and “Wayward Girl Blues. She recorded prolifically during this period, recording for Gennett, using her own name, and under different other names she also recorded for Champion, Supertone and Superior. She made her final recordings in 1929 and by 1930 Lottie Kimbrough had disappeared from the Kansas City music scene.

Mississippi Matilda married Eugene Powell, who became known in his professional career as Sonny Boy Nelson, in 1935. he couple, in the company of Willie Harris, Robert Hill, and members of the Mississippi Sheiks, traveled to New Orleans to record for Bluebird Records. Billed as Mississippi Matilda, she recorded four self-penned sides, including her signature song, “Hard Working Woman.” She is backed by Powell and Harris on guitar. Her song, “Peel Your Banana”, was unreleased. She never recorded again.

We hear from some excellent blues singers backed by superb piano players, or who played their own, including Lucille Bogan, Evelyn Brickey, Mozelle Alderson, Ivy Smith, Doretha Trowbridge, Elizabeth Washington, Lizzie Washington, Johnnie Strauss, Elzadie Robinson, Ida May Ma , Bessie Tucker, Gertrude Perkins, Side Wheel Sally Duffie, Moanin’ Bernice Edwards, Clara Burston, Frances Wallace, Lil Johnson and Louise Johnson. Evelyn Brickey cut one 78 in 1925 for OKeh backed by pianist Ruben Walker. Walker was remembered by Roosevelt Sykes and Little Brother Montgomery as playing in Arkansas and Louisiana. He was later associated with Hersal Thomas in Chicago.

Mozelle Alderson recorded three singles released by Black Patti Records in 1927, on which she was accompanied by the pianist Blind James Beck: “Mobile Central Blues”, “Tall Man Blues”, “Mozelle Blues”, “State Street Special”, “Sobbin’ the Blues” and “Room Rent Blues.” She recorded “Tight Whoopee” backed with “Tight in Chicago”, released by Brunswick Records in 1930. “Mobile Central Blues” was advertised in the Jul 16, 1927 edition of the Chicago Defender. The pianist Judson Brown accompanied her on the Brunswick recordings. She also recorded as Kansas City Kitty, Hannah Mae and Jane Lucas. As Kansas City Kitty she recorded quite a number of hokum sides with Georgia Tom between 1930 and 1931. As Jane Lucas she waxed sides with The Hokum Boys during the same period.

Cow Cow Davenport briefly teamed up with singer Ivy Smith in 1927, backing her on some two-dozen sides. They formed an act called the Chicago Steppers which lasted for some months and, in 1928, the partnership began to record for the Paramount Company.

St. Louis also boasted some superb women singers as well as pianists. We hear from Doretha Trowbridge who cut one 78 in 1933 for Bluebird backed by Pinetop Sparks, Sparks also backs Elizabeth Washington on “Riot Call Blues”, Lizzie Washington was backed by the fine piano of Eddie Miller on “Whiskey Head Blues” and we hear from Johnnie Strauss who waxed two sides in 1934 for Decca backed by pianist Henry Brown. Mary Johnson got her start in show business as a teenager in St. Louis. and frequently worked with Lonnie Johnson who she married in 1925. She recorded eight selections in 1929, six sides in 1930, two in 1932, four in 1934, and two final numbers in 1936. He “Peepin’ at the Risin’ Sun” features piano from Henry Brown. Among the St. Louis women was one Blue Belle, listed in the Columbia files as Bessie Martin. She is generally agreed to have been the woman who also recorded as Mae Belle Miller, St. Louis Bessie Mae and Streamline Mae. Paul Oliver’s questioning of St. Louis artists elicited little information about her. Lonnie Johnson who accompanied her on the 1927 recordings, said was his wife Mary, was jealous of her. Henry Brown didn’t know her. Big Joe William said she was his  “old lady” but otherwise had little to say about her. She recorded sixteen sides at sessions in 1927, 1928 with a final session in 1941.

Pianist K.D. Johnson became famous, backing the outstanding Texas singers Bessie Tucker and Ida May Mack. Johnson backs them on their legendary session for Victor on August 29th and 30th 1928 in Memphis. He was remembered as ’49’ by Alex Moore and not only did Mack call him ‘Mr. 49’ during his solos, she even named a song after him called “Mr. Forty-Nine Blues.”

Gertrude Perkins recorded one 78 for Columbia in 1928 backed by pianist Willie Tyson. Tyson was active in Dallas and was part of a group of blues pianists that included K. D. Johnson and Whistlin’ Alex Moore, who accompanied various female blues singers in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Tyson contributed a number of fine accompaniments to several women blues singers, such as Lillian Glinn, Hattie Hudson, Ida Mae Mack, and Bessie Tucker and also backed Billiken Johnson. In addition to his piano accompaniment, Tyson recorded two piano solos that were never issued, “Roberta Blues” and “Missouri Blues.”

Side Wheel Sally Duffie recorded six titles for Paramount in Chicago in 1927 and on our track, “Bunker Hill Blues”, is backed by the fine Will Ezell. It was suggested that this is a pseudonym for Mae Glover, but that suggestion was not picked up by the editors of Blues and Gospel Records 1890-1943 who gives Duffy a separate entry without any mention of Glover.

Moain’ Bernice Edwards possessed a beautiful, deep, lowdown voice and piano style that fell within the Santa Fe school of pianists. Edwards waxed twelve sides for Paramount in 1928 and six more for Vocalion in 1935. As David Evans states: “It is likely that no family has contributed more personalities to blues history than the Thomas family of Houston, Texas, whose famous members included George W. Thomas, his sister Beulah “Sippie” Wallace, their brother Hersal Thomas, George’s daughter Hociel Thomas, and Moanin’ Bernice Edwards who was raised up in the family.”

Back in 1994 Howard Rye wrote the following in the notes to the first volume of Lil Johnson’s recordings on the Document label: “Lil Johnson was a big-voiced, exuberant singer of blues, hokum, and vaudeville songs, who in an eight-year career recorded more than sixty songs. and that is very nearly all that is known about her. “Keep On Knocking” features the rollicking piano of Black Bob.

Louise Johnson was barrelhouse pianist and girlfriend of Charlie Patton’s who went to Grafton to make records with Patton, Willie Brown and Son House. She cut four sides at that session, her sole recorded legacy. From the book Preachin’ The Blues Dan Beaumont writes: “North of Robinsonville, Patton directed Ford to visit the Kirby plantation where they picked up a young woman named Louise Johnson, who was one of Patton’s girlfriends. Johnson sang and played piano in a barrelhouse operated by a Liny Armstrong.

We hear two excellent field recordings today by Ozella Jones and Mattie May Thomas. Jones was recorded at the State Prison Farm in, Raiford, Florida by John Lomax. “I Been a Bad, Bad Girl (Prisoner Blues)” is derived from Barefoot Bill’s “Bad Boy” recorded in 1930 for Columbia. Mattie May Thomas waxed three remarkable acapella numbers in 1939. They were recorded Library of Congress in the woman’s camp of the notorious Parchman Farm by Herbert Halpert. She recorded four sides. One of the songs she sings, “Dangerous Blues”, was also recorded by Parchman prisoner Floyd Batts and Joe Savage. I first heard these recordings on Jailhouse Blues on the great Rosetta label.

You keep on talking ’bout the dangerous blues
If I had a pistol I’d be dangerous too
Say, you may be a bully, say but I don’t know
But I fix you so you won’t give me no trouble in the world I know
She won’t cook no breakfast, she won’t wash no clothes
Say, that woman don’t do nothin’ but walk the road
My knee bone hurt me, and my ankle swell
Says, I may get better but I won’t get well
Say, Mattie had a baby, and she got blues eyes
Say, must be the captain, he keep on hanging around
He keep on hanging around, keep on hanging around