Big Road Blues Show 1/21/18: I’m Gonna Start Me A Graveyard Of My Own – Bad Man & Heroes Pt. II

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Hazel Meyers	Frankie Blues	Edna Hicks/Hazel Meyers /Laura Smith Vol. 2 1923-1927
Leadbelly	Frankie And Albert (Pt.1)	Important Recordings 1934-49
Mance Lipscomb	Frankie Was A Good Woman	Trouble In Mind
Unknown	Delia	Cap'n, You're So Mean-Negro Songs of Protest Vol. 2
Blind Willie McTell	Little Delia	Atlanta Twelve String
Ma Rainey	Stack O'Lee Blues	Mother of the Blues
Long ''Cleve'' Reed & Little Harvey Hull	Original Stack O' Lee Blues	Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
(John Lee) Sonny Boy Williamson & Memphis Slim	Staggerlee (Bama's Stackerlee)	Blues In the Mississippi Night
Mississippi John Hurt	Spike Driver Blues	Songsters & Saints
Reese Crenshaw	John Henry	Deep River of Song: Georgia
Leadbelly	John Henry	Leadbelly Vol. 5 1944-1946
Furry Lewis	Kassie Jones	Before The Blues Vol. 3
Jesse James	Southern Casey Jones	Cincinnati Blues 1930-1936
Big Bill Broonzy	Joe Turner Blues No. 1	His Story
Mississippi John Hurt	Joe Turner	D.C. Blues The Library Of Congress Recordings Vol. 1
Big Bill Broonzy	John Henry	Big Bill Broonzy 1951
Pink Anderson	John Henry	Ballad & Folksinger Vol. 3
Blind Arvella Gray	John Henry	Blues From Maxwell Street
Vera Hall	Railroad Bill	Deep River of Song: Alabama
Martha Copeland	Hobo Bill	Martha Copeland 1927
Marvin & Turner Foddrell	Railroad Bill	The Original Blues Brothers
Carl Martin	Joe Louis Blues	Jaybird Coleman & The Birmingham Jug Band 1927-1930
Dixieaires	Joe Louis Is A Fightin' Man	Gospel Greats
Lee Green	Bad Man Napper	My Rough And Rowdy Ways Vol. 2
Jim Jackson	I'm Gonna Start Me A Graveyard Of My Own	Jim Jackson Vol. 1 1927-1928
Edith Wilson	Rules And Regulations "Signed Razor Jim"	Broadcasting the Blues
Blind Willie McTell	Razor Ball	The Classic Years 1927-1940
Lightnin' Washington & Group	Long Gone	Deep River of Song: Big Brazos
Jim Jackson	Long Gone	Jim Jackson Vol. 2 1928-1930
Little Hat Jones	Kentucky Blues	My Rough And Rowdy Ways Vol. 1
Luke Jordan	Traveling Coon	Songsters & Saints
Washboard Sam	Traveling Man	Washboard Sam Vol. 5 1940-1941
Mississippi Joe Callicot	Frankie and Albert	Ain't A Gonna Lie To You
Champion Jack Dupree	Frankie and Johnny	Blues from the Gutter
O.C. King	Shine and the Titanic	Library of Congress Website
Cousin Joe	What a Tragedy	Relaxin' in New Orleans
*Unknown	Shine and the Titanic	Get Your Ass In The Water and Swim Like Me
*Henry Ramsey	Stackalee	Get Your Ass In The Water and Swim Like Met
*Johnny Otis Band	The Great Stack A Lee	Cold Shot, Snatch And The Poontangs
*Mance Lipscomb	Stavin' Chain	Unexpurgated Folksong Of Men

Show Notes:

Today’s program is a two-part survey of “bad men” (also women) and “heroes“ as portrayed in blues songs from the 1920’s through the 1980’s. We spin songs that colorfully tell the exploits of characters such as Stagolee, John Henry, Casey Jones, Railroad Bill, Stavin’ Chain, Po’ Lazarus, Shine, the traveling man, Frankie and Johnny, Duncan and Brady, Betty and Dupree, Joe Turner, Lost John/Long John, Ella Speed, Delia, Joe Louis, the Bully and more. These songs are generally known as blues ballads which David Evans defines as “narrative folksongs that tell a story in a very loose, subjective manner and tend to ‘celebrate’ events rather then relate them chronologically and objectively in the manner of other American folk ballads.” As Peter C. Muir wrote in Long Lost Blues: Popular Blues in America, 1850-1920: “Blues ballads are mostly, if not entirely, based on actual events and characters, and most seem to be of black origin. The genre probably dates from the 1860s, reached its height in the 1890s, and appears to die out by the mid-1920’s.” Blues ballads have long been acknowledged as the immediate precursor of blues; a fusion of field hollers and the twelve-bar structure of blues ballads. As to the bad man that so often appears in blues song, H. C. Brearley wrote in a 1939 article: “in many Negro communities …this emphasis upon heroic deviltry is so marked that the very word bad often loses its original significance and may be used as an epithet of honor.If a black wanted to use the word with its usual meaning, he pronounced it as described in the dictionary, but if he wished to describe a local hero, he calls him ‘ba-ad.’ The more he prolongs the a, the greater is his homage.” For blacks, the bad man was somebody to be proud of, someone who would not stay in the place assigned him by white society. The traits of the bad man were a disregard for death and danger; a concern with sexual prowess; extravagance in cars, clothing, and the like; and an insatiable appetite for’a good time. The bad man in blues is related to the trickster, who Ayana Smith writes in Blues, Criticism, and the Signifying Trickster, is “one who flouts the norms of society, using cunning, humor and deceit to obtain personal gain.” Of course there were real life heroes like John Henry, boxers like Jack Johnson and Joe Louis and President Roosevelt (called the “poor man’s friend”), the latter two appearing in several blues songs of the 20’s and 30’s, later supplanted by John F. Kennedy who was also celebrated in numerous songs.

“Stagger Lee”, also known as “Stagolee” and other variants, is about the murder of Billy Lyons by “Stag” Lee Shelton in St. Louis, Missouri at Christmas, 1895 The historical Stagger Lee was Lee Shelton, an African-American pimp living in St. Louis, Missouri in the late 19th century. He was nicknamed Stag Lee or Stack Lee. He was well known locally as one of the Macks, a group of pimps who demanded attention through their flashy clothing and appearance. In addition to these activities, he was the captain of a black Four Hundred Club, a social club with a dubious reputation. On Christmas night in 1895, Shelton and his acquaintance William “Billy” Lyons were drinking in the Bill Curtis Saloon. Lyons was also a member of St. Louis’ underworld, and may have been a political and business rival to Shelton. Eventually, the two men got into a dispute, during which Lyons took Shelton’s Stetson hat. Subsequently, Shelton shot Lyons, recovered his hat, and left Lyons died of his injuries, and Shelton was charged, tried and convicted of the murder in 1897. He was pardoned in 1909, but returned to prison in 1911 for assault and robbery. He died in incarceration in 1912. The song was first published in 1911, and was first recorded in 1923 by Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians. Another version was recorded later that year by Frank Westphal & His Regal Novelty Orchestra, and Herb Wiedoeft and his band recorded the song in 1924. Ma Rainey recorded the song the following year, Furry Lewis cut a version in 1927 and Mississippi John Hurt recorded it in 1928. In 1950, a version of “Stack-a-Lee” by New Orleans pianist Archibald reached #10 on the Billboard R&B chart. Lloyd Price recorded the song as “Stagger Lee” in 1958, and it rose to the top of both the R&B and US pop charts in early 1959.

Po’ Lazarus” is almost as widely known and in as many variations as “Stagolee.” Po’ Lazarus” is about a bad man, and complex versions begin with him robbing the commissary of the company he worked for. But much of the song is, in fact, a protest against the law and its brutality. According to the story, the “high sheriff” or “judge” instructed his deputies to go out and “bring me Lazarus, dead or alive.” Versions of the song were captured at prisons by Alan Lomax and William Ferris. In 1959, James Carter was a prisoner in Camp B of Parchman Farm, Mississippi State Penitentiary near Lambert, Quitman County, Mississippi, when Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins recorded him in stereo sound leading a group of prisoners singing “Po’ Lazarus.” Decades later, the recording was licensed for use in the soundtrack to the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and was paid $20,000, and credited, for a four-decade-old lead-vocalist performance.

“Frankie and Johnny” was inspired by an actual murder which took place in St. Louis, Missouri on the morning of October 15, 1899. Frankie Baker,m a 22-year-old woman, shot her 17-year-old lover Allen (also known as “Albert”) Britt in the abdomen. Britt had just returned from a cakewalk at a local dance hall, where he and another woman, Nelly Bly (also known as “Alice Pryor”), had won a prize in a slow-dancing contest. Britt died of his wounds four days later at the City Hospital. On trial, Baker claimed that Britt had attacked her with a knife and that she acted in self-defense; she was acquitted and died in a Portland, Oregon, mental institution in 1952. In 1899, popular St Louis balladeer Bill Dooley composed “Frankie Killed Allen” shortly after the Baker murder case. The first published version of the music to “Frankie and Johnny” appeared in 1904, credited to and copyrighted by Hughie Cannon. The familiar “Frankie and Johnny were lovers” lyrics first appeared (as “Frankie and Albert”) in On the Trail of Negro Folksongs by Dorothy Scarborough, published in 1925. The earliest recorded blues versions were Mississipi Joh Hurt’s “Frankie” in 1928 and Nick Nichols & Whistlin Alex Moore two-part version in 1929.

For over a year, Railroad Bill eluded sheriffs, private detectives hired by the L&N line, and bounty hunters who traveled across the country to match guns with the legendary desperado. The African American outlaw was wanted on multiple charges of robbery and murder, and rumor had it that he stole from the rich to give to the poor. He terrorized busy train lines from east of Mobile to the Florida Panhandle, but as soon as the lawmen got close, he disappeared into the bayous and pine forests–until one day his luck ran out, and he was gunned down inside a general store in Atmore, Alabama. Both black an white artists recorded Railroad Bill songs. Blues version include ones by Vera Hall, Will Benett, Frank Hovington, Cephas & Wiggins, John Jackson, Bill Williams, Marvin and Turner Foddrell and others.

Louis “Bull” Martin shot prostitute Ella Speed on September 3rd, 1894. Louis shot Ella once with a Harrington and Richardson 0.38-caliber pistol. As police were summoned, Louis walked out of the house. Ella collapsed, sprawled on the floor near the door to her room, and died shortly afterwards.A massive but unsuccessful manhunt was mounted for Louis, who turned himself in early the next morning. Before Judge John H. Ferguson, Louis was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in the state penitentiary. The first well distributed text of “Ella Speed,” under the title “Bill Martin & Ella Speed,” was in John A. Lomax’s and Alan Lomax’s seminal American Ballads And Folk Songs (1934). Versions had appeared before, notably “Poor Little Ella,” in Dorothy Scarborough’s The ‘Blues ‘ As Folk Song (1923), and “Alice B.,” in Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag (1927). Versions were recorded by the Lomaxes in 1934 by Tricky Sam (at the Huntsville Penitentiary) and Finious ‘Flat Foot’ Rockmoore in 1940. Probably the most familiar rendering of “Ella Speed” is Lead Belly’s recording for Capitol in 1944. In 1960, Mack McCormick and Chris Strachwitz encountered the Texas songster Mance Lipscomb, whose version of “Ella Speed” is almost as familiar as Lead Belly’s. McCormick collected several renditions in Texas, including one by Lightnin’ Hopkins (1959) and another with Strachwitz and Paul Oliver from Jewell Long (1960). Thus McCormick noted: “‘Ella Speed’ is, judging from the number of people who know of the piece, probably the best-known Texas ballad next to ‘Casey Jones’.”

Jonathan Luther “Casey” Jones was an Illinois Central Railroad engineer with a reputation for keeping his trains on schedule. On April 29, 1900, Jones and his fireman, Simeon “Sim” Webb, were asked to take over the night run of the Memphis, Tennessee to Canton, Mississippi passenger train, Cannonball Express, for an engineer who was ill. When they started out, the train was already ninety-five minutes late and it was raining. Jones attempted to make up some of that time. The train collided with another train that was stalled at Vaughan, Mississippi. Jones told Webb to jump as he tried to slow the train before the collision. It became part of our national memory because of the many versions of the ballad that this train wreck inspired. These treat Jones as a hero, as he was the only person to die and so was credited for saving the passengers and fireman. Soon after Casey’s death, the song was first sung by engine wiper and friend of Casey’s named Wallace Saunders to the tune of a popular song of the time known as “Jimmie Jones.” With vaudeville performers T. Lawrence Seibert credited with the lyrics and Eddie Newton with the music, it was published and offered for sale in 1909 with the title “Casey Jones, The Brave Engineer.” By World War I, dozens of versions had been published and millions of copies were sold, securing the memory of a new American folk hero.

In the late 19th century, a man named Joe Turney became well-known in the South. He was the brother of Pete Turney who was the governor of Tennessee. Joe Turney had the responsibility of taking black prisoners from Memphis to the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. It is said that Joe would make a habit of distributing some of the prisoners to convict farms along the Mississippi River, where employers paid commissions to obtain laborers. According to Leon F. Litwack in his book Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow: “Most of the prisoners had been rounded up for minor infractions, often when police raided a craps game set up by an informer; after a perfunctory court appearance, the blacks were removed, usually the same day, and turned over to Turney. He was reputed to have handcuffed eighty prisoners to forty links of chain. When a man turned up missing that night in the community, the word quickly spread, ‘They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone.” Somehow Joe Turney became Joe Turner in the many versions of “Joe Turner’s Blues.” Joe Turner has been sung about in early blues songs, most notably in W. C. Handy’s composition “Joe Turner Blues.” In addition, the writer August Wilson titled a play “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” There is another version of the song Joe Turner, one that Big Bill Broonzy recorded. According to this version a white man named Joe Turner had a habit of looking after black folks in his region whenever they were in dire need. After a day of hunting fore food they would come home and find a sack of flour or beans, a tin of lard, and perhaps a smoked ham setting by the door of each cabin. All anyone knew that it was a gift from a man they thought was named Joe Turner.

The “Traveling Man”, also known as “The Traveling Coon”, was widely recorded – Texan Coley Jones cut a version in 1927, East coast bluesman Luke Jordan recorded it in 1928 and Jim Jackson in 1928 – and has affinities with the lore and tales of “Shine And The Titanic” and other bad man or hero songs of black folklore. As Chris Smith wrote: “For an unambiguous Titanic-based song about relations between the races, we must turn to another alter ego of the Traveling Man, Shine. ‘Shine & The Titanic’ is by and for blacks; usually, it is a ‘toast’, or narrative poem, relentlessly obscene like almost all toasts…” In these toasts, McCormick writes, “much of the delight comes from the Negro’s triumph over the whites.” In the Unexpurgated Folksong of Men he writes: “Few incidents have caught the folk imagination so well as the Titanic disaster. In the years following the event more than a dozen songs, ranging from the religious to the comic, dealt with the sinking …All have in common the idea of drawing humor or pathos from the dramatic circumstances in which the ship’s carefully erected barriers between rich and poor were transcended by a disaster that threatens everyone aboard.” A few of these toasts were recorded; Alan Lomax recorded O.C. King’s “Shine and the Titanic” for the Library of Congress in 1942, other versions were also captured by folklorists Mack McCormick and Bruce Jackson and then there’s the x-rated “Hey Shine” by Delmar Evans backed the Johnny Otis band cut in 1970.

In Born In a Mighty Bad Land, Jerry H. Bryant has this to say about toasts: “There are many fewer toast collections than ballad collections, so we have considerably less to work with than in the case of the badman ballad. Nearly all of the collections, furthermore, were made by white men in the fifties and sixties. Bruce Jackson claims that most of these pieces derive from an earlier creative period and were kept alive by young black men, especially those who went to jail, where they heard the poems and performed them in their own segregated cell blocks. …Most of these collectors agree that three figures dominate the toasts they collect: Stagolee, the Signifying Monkey, and Shine. …The toast is a classic example of the smart weak getting the best of the dumb strong.”

Frank DuPre, an eighteen year old who’d just begun trying his hand at petty theft in Atlanta where he found himself out of work, fell hard for seventeen year old Betty Andrews. She told him that if he wanted to keep courting her that she expected more nice things, even a diamond ring. On December 15, 1921 he paid a visit to Kaiser’s Jewelry, where he managed to get a manager to show him an immensely expensive diamond ring. He snatched it and ran for the door, where he slammed in to Irby Walker, a Pinkerton agent the store manager had just hired for extra holiday security. DuPre produced a .32 Colt ‘hammerless’ from his pocket and killed Walker. He bolted down Peachtree Street and wounded another man before skipping town that evening. After pawning the ring in Chattanooga and spending several weeks on the run, the law caught up with Frank. He was quickly tried and convicted, and eventually hanged on September 1, 1922. The earliest known print reference to the ballad was in Howard Odum and Guy Johnson’s 1926 Negro Workaday Songs. “The Fate of Frank Dupree” was recorded by Blind Andrew Jenkins and released in 1925 on Okeh. Kingfish Bill Tomlin cut his track “Dupree Blues” in November 1930 and Willie Walker cut “Dupree Blues” in December of 1930. Georgia White recorded it twice, once in 1935 as “Dupree Blues” and once in 1936 as “New Dupree Blues.”

“Duncan and Brady,” a popular folk song in both black and white traditions, was based on a historical incident. James Brady, a St. Louis policeman, was shot by a bartender, Harry Duncan, in a bar fight, on October 6, 1890. Duncan was later executed for his crime. Better known as “Brady,” the song was found by the Library of Congress fieldworkers at various places. The Lomaxes recorded convicts singing it at Parchman Farm in Mississippi in 1933 and Blind Jessie Harris in Alabama in 1937. Lead Belly’s version was picked up during the folk revival by singers like Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush, and Paul Clayton and is now considered a standard.

Mack McCormick had this to say about “Stavin’ Chain”, sung by an unidentified artist on the LP Unexpurgated Folksong Of Men: “his is one of the great Negro folk characters who has been pretty much ignored outside the folk community because of his lewd behavior.” Stavin’ Chain wa also, supposedly, a 19th-century rail worker of legendary strength and stamina. According to Lil Johnson’s 1937 recording of “Stavin’ Chain,” he was the chief engineer on a train, and a big, strong man who could make love all night: “Stavin’ Chain was a man of might/He’d save up his money just to ride all night.” When John and Ruby Lomax were recording songs by prisoners at Ramsey State Farm, Camp #4, in Brazoria County, Texas in 1939, they noted that “two boys claimed the nickname of the famous ‘Stavin’ Chain’; they compromised by accepting the amended names Big Stavin’ Chain and Little Stavin’ Chain.”Alan Lomax also photographed and recorded Wilson Jones, a.k.a. Stavin’ Chain, in Layfayette, LA. Jelly Roll Morton’s “Whining Boy Blues” has the line “pick it up and shake it like that sweet stavin’ chain.” On the Library of Congress recordings between Jelly Roll Morton and Alan Lomax, Jelly Roll speaks of Stavin’ Chain on the track Bad Men and Pimps: “Stavin’ Chain, well he was a pimp. Supposed to have more women in this district than any other pimp.” The term “staving chain,” may come from the chains used by barrel manufacturers to hold barrel staves together until an iron band could be fitted around the end of the barrel. Another theory is that staving chain was the name for the chain used to chain prisoners together by their ankles in a chain gang.

“Lost John/Long John” is a tale of a Kentucky trickster, the most complete version recorded by Papa Charlie Jackson who recorded it as “Long Gone Lost John” in 1928 and by Little Hat Jones who recorded it as “Kentucky Blues” in 1930. It had been adapted and published in 1920 by Chris Smith and W.C. Handy. There were a set of stories evolved around Old John, a slave who outwitted his master while pretending to be subservient. The folklorist J. Mason Brewer collected some of these stories in the early 20th century. Old John metamorphosed into Lost John, an escapee from confinement (first from slavery, then from the institution that replaced it: prison). Lost John, for example, had shoes with heels at both ends, so no one could tell which way he was going when he escaped, one of many tricks for confusing trackers and bloodhounds. Songs about Lost John were common among southern African-Americans. The song is closely related to Long John Green and Lost John Dean.

According to reports published in Georgia newspapers, Delia Green was shot and killed by 15-year-old Moses “Cooney” Houston late on Christmas Day, 1900, in Savannah, Georgia, after an argument earlier in the evening. The shooting took place at the home of Willie West, who chased down Houston after the shooting and turned him over to the city police. Houston was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. After serving more than twelve years, he was paroled by Governor John M. Slaton in 1913. Songs based on Delia Green’s murder became both common and popular in the next few decades. In 1928, folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon reported to the Library of Congress that he had traced the songs back to a murder in Savannah and that he had interviewed both Green’s mother and the police officer who took Houston into custody. One version, usually attributed to Blake Alphonso Higgs, is known as “Delia’s Gone.” It is explicitly told from her killer’s point of view. The second version, usually attributed to Blind Willie McTell (recorded in 1940 and 1949), is usually known as “Delia” and is told from an ambiguous point of view. Among the many singers who have covered “Delia” are Bob Dylan, David Bromberg, Josh White, Pete Seeger Harry Belafonte, Burl Ives, The Kingston Trio, Johny Cash and others.

Around the turn of the century there was the “bully song” or more formally “The Bully of the Town” or “Looking for the Bully.” There were several songs published with ‘Bully” in the title around this period. Paul Oliver noted that the song “reinforced the stereotypes of the razor-totin’, watermelon-suckin’, chicken-stealin’ ‘nigger’ of that period.” The core of the story is an altercation, usually with a razor, between the bully and a rival with the action usually happening at a dance or ball. In the blues era several songs drawn on these earlier sources including Sara Martin’s “Down At The Razor Ball” (1925), Blind Willie McTell’s “Razor Ball” (1930) and Washboard Sam’s “Down At The Bad Man’s Hall” (1941). The most famous related song, however, is the Willie Dixon penned “Wang Dang Doodle” (1960) which draws its inspiration from the Sara Martin number. Another razor song is “A To Z Blues” which has the protagonist literally carving the entire alphabet in the victim’s body. The song was recorded by Butterbeans & Susie, Josie Miles, Blind Willie McTell and Charley Jordan under the title “Cutting My ABCs.”

John Henry is said to have worked as a “steel-driving man”— a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel. According to legend, John Henry’s prowess as a steel-driver was measured in a race against a steam-powered hammer, a race that he won only to die in victory with hammer in hand as his heart gave out from stress. The historical accuracy of many of the aspects of the John Henry legend are subject to debate. Several locations have been put forth for the tunnel on which John Henry died. The first recording credit (in March 1924) went to white performer Fiddlin’ John Carson; the second recording (in August) came from an itinerant black street musician named Sam Jones (Stovepipe No. 1) but went unreleased.

Many songs were written about Joe Louis over his career from 1934 into the 1950’s. The songs reflect Louis’ status as a kind of a folk hero to black America and eventually to all of America. Louis was a popular fighter well before he became the champ. His 4th round knockout of former champ Max Baer made him famous. But the fight that made him a hero to millions of African-Americans was in 1935 against the giant Primo Carnera. People throughout the U.S. rejoiced when Louis handled Carnera easily knocking him out in the sixth round. That same year, Memphis Minnie recorded two songs about the Brown Bomber and Joe Pullum recorded “Joe Louis is the Man.” Other tributes were written by Carl Martin, Jack Kelly, Sonny Boy Williamson I, Bill Gaither and others.