Big Road Blues Show 7/9/23: I’m A Free-Hearted Man – Forgotten Blues Heroes Pt. 22 (Pt. 2)

Show Notes:

Today’s show is part of a semi-regular feature I call Forgotten Blues Heroes that spotlights great, but little remembered and little recorded blues artists that don’t really fit into my weekly themed shows. Today’s show is part two as we span the 50s through the 70s spotlighting several fine blues artists from Louisiana. There is some connections between the artists; Jimmy Anderson, Silas Hogan and Arthur “Guitar” Kelley recorded for the Excello label and both worked together, Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas and Clarence Edwards were recorded by Harry Oster and played on some of each other’s recordings. Harmonica player Jimmy Anderson modeled his sound on Jimmy Reed and cut all his sessions for Jay Miller circa 1962 and 1964. In 1962, at the ripe old age of 51, Silas Hogan was introduced by Slim Harpo to producer Jay Miller, cutting sides for Excello from 1962 to early 1965. Boogie Bill Webb cut sides for Imperial in the early 50s, recorded again in the 60s and 70s by David Evans and some field and studio recordings in the 80s. Clarence Edwards began playing around Baton Rouge and was taped by Oster between 1959 and 1962, by Chris Strachwitz for Arhoolie in 1970, finally cutting his debut album in 1990. Fiddler James “Butch” Cage was born in Mississippi and settled in Zachary, LA playing string band music at house parties and church functions, often in conjunction with guitarist Willie B. Thomas. Harry Oster recorded them extensively.

Harmonica player Jimmy Anderson modeled his sound on Jimmy Reed and cut all his sessions for Miller circa 1962 and 1964. As John Broven wrote: “Jimmy Anderson, a younger artist from Baton Rouge, was too much in jimmy Reed’s shadow to succeed.” Anderson quit recording In 1964, feeling that he was being gypped out of royalties. He continued to play for a few years, taking up the guitar, but when he appeared at the 1991 Utrecht Blues Estafette, Jimmy had been out of music for 20 years.

Clarence Edwards was born in Lindsay, Louisiana, one of fourteen children, and relocated with his family at the age of twelve to Baton Rouge. He joined the Boogie Beats, a local blues band, along with one of his brothers, Cornelius, in the mid-1950s, and later played in the Bluebird Kings. Edwards was shot in the leg in a fracas outside a club in Alsen. Initially, Edwards found full-time employment on a farm, but he later worked for thirty years at Thomas Scrap. Dr. Harry Oster recorded Edwards between 1959 and 1961, with Cornelius and the violin player Butch Cage. By 1970, when he next recorded, for the producer Mike Vernon, Edwards had moved from an older styling to a more contemporary approach. He was not widely known until the late 1980s, when he performed on the national blues festival circuit. Swampin’ (1991) and Louisiana Swamp Blues, Vol. 4 (1993) showcased the range of Edwards’s style, which gained appreciation among blues aficionados. Edwards died in May 1993, in Louisiana, at the age of 60.

Fiddler James “Butch” Cage was one of the last artists in the black string band tradition. Born on March 16, 1894, in Hamburg, MS, Cage’s first real instrument was a cane fife. He moved to southwest Louisiana following the devastating Mississippi floods of 1927, eventually settling in Zachary, where he worked a succession of menial jobs while playing string band music at house parties and church functions, often in conjunction with guitarist Willie B. Thomas. Musicologist Harry Oster heard Butch Cage and Willie Thomas playing in Zachary in 1959 and recorded them extensively. The duo was also a huge hit at the 1960 Newport Folk Festival. The duo can be heard on several fine anthologies including Country Negro Jam Sessions (Arhoolie), I Have To Paint My Face (Arhoolie), The Folk Music Of The Newport Folk Festival 1959-60 Vol. 1 (Folkways), Country Spirituals (Storyville), Country Blues (Storyville), Raise A Rukus Tonight (Flyright) and Old Time Black Southern String Band Music (Arhoolie).

Boogie Bill Webb won a talent show in 1947. He moved to New Orleans in 1952 and became friends with Fats Domino and was thus introduced to Dave Bartholomew and obtained a recording contract with Imperial Records where he cut fours sides, two unreleased at the time. Webb was recorded again in the 60s and 70s by David Evans. Exposure at home and in Europe led to visits to Webb from blues fans and invitations to tour. He was recorded for the Living Country Blues USA series of albums by Siegfried A. Christmann and Axel Küstner. In 1982 he appeared at the Utrecht Festival, in the Netherlands. In 1989, with financial assistance from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, he released the album Drinkin’ and Stinkin’. He passed in 1990.

Regarding his musical background, Silas Hogan said: “…I’d been living in the country, there was some old people there picking guitar. And that’s how I learned, following them. …They were real bluesmen, the old way-back stuff. When we were playing back yonder, we were playing them house parties, they didn’t have as many juke joints as they have now. …I played all night for  for seventy-five cents.” After performing with Guitar Kelly he started gaining prominence in the Baton Rouge are when he formed the Rhythm Ramblers in 1956. Also in the group was harmonica man Sylvester Buckley (Buckley recorded four sides circa 1962/63 for Jay Miller that were unissued). Buckley laid down sympathetic support on several of Hogan’s Excello releases while Whispering Smith played harmonica on several others.

Arthur Kelley was born on November 14, 1924 in Clinton, Louisiana. By the age of 14, Kelly was playing the guitar when he moved to Baker, Louisiana. There he performed at local parties from 1947 to 1950, and with Lightnin’ Slim through the 1950’s and 1960’s. Kelly performed with Silas Hogan at clubs, bars, and dance halls in the Baton, Rouge area from 1966 into the 1970’s. Several songs were issued in the 1970 on Louisiana Blues on Arhoolie, one 45 came on Excello and tracks on the double album Swamp Blues. Other tracks came out on Blues Live In Baton Rouge at the Speak Easy and late 80s sides on the Wolf label.