Columbia 14410-D – Dallas String Band with Coley Jones – 1928
With a repertoire ranging from ragtime to pop songs, the eight songs recorded by the Dallas String Band are incomparable to most anything else on shellac records, and indeed are very difficult to...
View ArticleVocalion 1727 – Peetie Wheatstraw (The Devil’s Son-in-Law) – 1932
The last thing we heard from the East St. Louis blues king Peetie Wheatstraw was a couple of swing-blues sides from the tail end of his career. Now, let us direct our attentions eight years earlier...
View ArticleVocalion 03002 – State Street Boys – 1935
If there’s one thing I’m particularly fond of, it’s the swinging Lester Melrose-style Chicago blues of the mid-1930s, by the likes of Big Bill Broonzy, Washboard Sam, Memphis Minnie, Blind Boy Fuller,...
View ArticleOkeh 8554 –“Mooch” Richardson – 1928
Like old Seth Richard, “Mooch” Richardson is one of the countless blues musicians whose life and times are shrouded in obscurity. He showed up for two sessions while the Okeh company was in Memphis,...
View ArticleDecca 7340 – Black Ace (B. K. Turner) – 1937
Of all the countless musical artists active before the Second World War, only a fraction were fortunate enough to have their art preserved on records, and an even smaller fraction recorded...
View ArticleVocalion 1111 – Furry Lewis – 1927
There are some folks who say that seeing two “elevens” in a row holds some special or otherworldly significance. Well, I don’t claim to know a thing about that, but I would say that this record does...
View ArticleGold Star 662 – Lightnin’ Hopkins – 1949
Dating to four years after the close of the second World War, these two sides are a little past the typical era of material presented on Old Time Blues, but their excellence earns them a position among...
View ArticleSilvertone 4042 – Daddy Stove Pipe – 1924
The illustrious “Daddy Stove Pipe” (not to be confused with “Stove Pipe No. 1” or “Sweet Papa Stovepipe”) holds a number of important distinctions; he was one of the earliest male country blues...
View ArticleParamount 12417 – Elzadie Robinson – 1926
When asked to imagine “country blues,” what image springs to mind? Probably that of a lone man with an acoustic guitar busking on some southern street corner, or hiking down a lonesome dusty road....
View ArticleVictor 21549 & V-40017 –“Buddy” Baker – 1928
There are fair number of artists who might have achieved the success of Jimmie Rodgers, but, for whatever reason, did not. Some, like Atlanta’s Ernest Rogers, were not musicians by profession, and...
View ArticleBrunswick 7184 – Gene Campbell – 1930
The enigmatic Gene Campbell was among the most exemplary of the Texas blues musicians to record in the beginning of the Great Depression, yet nothing much is known of the elusive guitarist and singer;...
View ArticleVocalion 05551 – Charlie Burse and his Memphis Mudcats – 1939
Standing alongside Will Shade and Gus Cannon as a jug band mainstay of the 1920s and ’30s, “Laughing” Charlie Burse’s exuberant vocals and bright tenor guitar work was the life of the party on numerous...
View ArticleVictor 23696 – Jimmie Rodgers – 1932
As Jimmie Rodgers’ successful recording career entered its fifth year, he was at the height of his fame, and times had never been better—or worse—for the Blue Yodeler. In 1932, Jimmie Rodgers was...
View ArticleParamount 12354 – Blind Lemon Jefferson – 1926
The legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson was renowned for traveling far and wide all across the United States, ranging territories far exceeding that traversed by many of his contemporaries. His journeys...
View ArticleOkeh 8106 – Sippie Wallace – 1923
While Blind Lemon Jefferson is often identified as the Father of the Texas Blues for his pioneering recordings made in 1926, it is every bit as important to acknowledge the lady blues singers that...
View ArticleMontgomery Ward M-8493 – Roy Shaffer – 1939
Though once a widely known and popular personality on radio stations around St. Louis, with a brief recording career that produced only eight discs, cowboy singer Roy Shaffer since drifted into near...
View ArticleParamount 12637 – Ramblin’ Thomas – 1928
Out of the marshlands of northwestern Louisiana, where the Sabine River demarcates the edge of Texas, came Willard Thomas, a rambling character whose mournful singing and sliding steel guitar would...
View ArticleVictor 21361 – Ernest Rogers – 1928/1927
We have heard once before from that Atlanta newspaper man and down-home song spinner—and one of my personal heroes—Ernest Rogers, when he graced us with his memorable rendition of the old vaudeville...
View ArticleMelotone M 12117 – Dessa Foster and Howling Smith – 1931
Some twenty years before Chester Burnett became famous as “Howlin’ Wolf”, another blues musician claimed that title for his own, a Texas guitarist and singer also known as “Funny Paper” Smith, called...
View ArticleVocalion 02614 – Sonny Scott – 1933
When the Great Depression rolled in, along with it came the blues. People had been singing the blues since times untold, yes, but the hard times surely gave them something to sing ’em about....
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