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, Acknowledgements

My work on this book was greatly aided by generous assistance from Mary Festinger, Robert Koester, and Sunnyland Slim. Special thanks go to my family for their unending enthusiasm. Of course, this book would not have been possible without the blues pianists themselves. I completed the last chapter on the day Speckled Red died in St. Louis at the age of 80. Jimmy Yancey and Otis Spann are already gone. I sincerely hope this book will illustrate what a valuable and transient resource these piano bluesmen are and interest others in exploring their worlds.

-Eric Kriss Palo Alto, California

Photographs: courtesy of Paul Oliver pages I0 and 23 David Gahr pages 29 and 97 Ray Flerlage cover, pages 41, 55,64,75,83 and 91

Edited by Fly Bredenberg Book design by Jean Hammons

Copyright © 1973 by Oak Publications, A Division of Embassy Music Corporation, New York, NY.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

International Standard Book Number: 0.8256.0144.4 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-83128

Exclusive Distributors: Music Sales Corporation 24 East 22nd Street, New York, NY lOOlO USA Music Sales Limited 8/9 Frith Street, London WI V 5TZ England Music Sales Pty. Limited 120 Rothschild Street, Rosebery, Sydney, NSW 2018, Australia

Printed in the United States of America by Vicks Lithograph and Printing Corporation

Contents

Introduction, 4

The Basics of Blues Piano, 6

Jimmy Yancey, 9

How Long Blues, 12

The Yancey Special, 15

Yancey's Bugle Call, 18

Champion Jack Dupree, 21

Mercy on Me, 24

A Good Woman is Hard to Find, 30

Too Evil to Cry, 32

Little Brother Montgomery, 38

Trem blin , Blues, 42

Vicksburg Blues No.2, 46

Bass Key Boogie, 52

Speckled Red, 54

The Dirty Dozens, 56

Cow Cow Blues, 60

Roosevelt Sykes, 65

Highway 61 Blues, 66

Gulfport Boogie, 70

Red-Eye Jesse Bell, 76

Otis Spann, 80

Spann's Stomp, 84

Trouble in Mind, 88

Don't You Know, 92

Annotated Bibliography, 96

Part I-Books, 96

Part II-Periodicals, 97

Discography, 98

Part I-Six Blues Pianists, 98

Part II-General Piano, 100

Appendix-Record Company Addresses, 104

, ,!

Introduction

What a piano blues comes from, long time -ago befo ' the piano blues came out, we used to play these jazz bands, we had 'em on the plantation, mos' every plantation had its band, but after the whiskey went out, then you couldn't drink this liquor free like you could befo', an' then . . . we had the bootlegger slippin' in the alley, so we had a piano joint; we played the piano, an' that's where these blues come from, in the same time.

- Willie B. Thomas, bluesman from Louisiana (from liner notes to Louisiana Country Blues­Herman E. Johnson, Arhoolie 1060)

The piano was a relative latecomer to the blues scene. Many years before the piano arrived, a strong tradition of guitar blues had developed in the deep South, so the history of blues piano is one of adaptation to a blues form that already existed. The following brief history of American piano playing will outline how piano blues styles evolved.

During the latter half of the 19th century, when the minstrel show became a r. popular form of entertainment in the United States, piano playing broke away from the tenacious grasp of European classical music. Slowly, the discovery was made that the pianoforte did remarkably well as an entertainer and could be profitably used outside of the classical concert hall. At the same time, because it supplied much of the minstrel's material, black folk music flourished under a boon of commercialism. So not surprisingly, attempts were made to incorporate the piano into the already profitable black music market.

In the beginning pianists tried to imitate the sound of black music in a classical fashion, employing harmonies and structures more common to a Beethoven sonata than a moaning spiritual, rhythmic work song or sorrowful blues. But the sentimen­tal efforts of composers such as Stephen Foster failed to capture the real feeling of black folk music. As black pianists developed in the minstrelry, however, they began to improvise from white composed music to retain the feeling and flavor of their own folk music. Eventually this became known as "sassing itup," "adding some razz," or simply "jazz."

The adaptation of folk song material to the piano was approached in two distinct ways: some pianists imitated the folk music around them with varying degrees of success, while others "jazzed up" composed music to make it sound more folksy. It should be noted that prior to World War I, nonclassical piano playing was confined by its show business heritage, and only later, when it ceased to be the current rage, did the real folk piano blues emerge. Nevertheless, these early develop­ments affected later piano styles.

By the 1890's an original style of American piano playing had evolved. It was an odd combination of white classical and black folk music at first described as "ragged time," referring to the unorthodox contrast between classical harmony and black derived syncopation. But as the predominantly white consumer public became accustomed to the sound, ragtime piano gained in popularity and prospered com­mercially for over twenty years.

In structure ragtime borrowed much from European music, particularly the classical rondo form of a minuet. Scott Joplin's Magnetic Rag, for example, consists of four different themes, each 16 bars long, in the following pattern: AABBCCDD AA. Paragon Rag, also a Joplin piece, uses another typical ragtime form: AABBACC DD.

I

4

At times the similarity between European music and ragtime is striking. Com­pare, for instance, an excerpt from Joplin's Paragon Rag with Frederic Chopin's Waltz in A~ Major:

Chopin's Waltz in A~ Major (posthumous)

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Scott Joplin's Paragon Rag

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Observe the eighth note alternating bass, which maintains the rhythm, and the double time right hand solo line.

Joplin, James P. Johnson and many other ragtime artists viewed themselves as serious composers in the classical tradition, and considered their music suitable for the concert hall. Joplin even composed an ambitious opera, Treemonisha, and J ohn­son wrote several orchestral pieces, most of them beyond the ability of classically trained musicians.

The left hand in ragtime, characterized by a steady, classically derived bass, balanced the syncopated right hand melodies of tied notes and off-beat accents. As the form matured, the syncopations became more complex, more varied, and more difficult to describe. In St. Louis a group of pianists, including Tom Turpin and Louis Chauvin, took the Joplin rags (and other written compositions) and added improvised solos and endings. The result was a hybrid between emerging jazz styles and classical ragtime which made the music more danceable.

In New Orleans different influences were shaping the ragtime style: the walking bass runs of New Orleans jazz were translated onto the piano, and with masters such as Jelly Roll Morton, rags reached a new level of complexity and rhythmic sophisti­cation. In some respects New Orleans ragtime was closer to the roots of black folk music, but it was still a long way from blues.

After the First World War the musical climate among black people changed. The Navy had closed the infamous Storyville section of New Orleans in 1917, bringing to an end the wild parties and free spending of wealthy whites who usually paid the black musicians. With the collapse of the white sporting market, the minstrel era really came to an end. Instead of playing in white "gilded palaces," sporting houses, and bars, black musicians began playing for black folk.

The change in audience caused a dramatic alteration in the music performed. The composed ragtime numbers (even jelly Roll Morton wrote out almost every note which was played by his bands) didn't please the new downhome crowds, and the demand for more folk material proved irresistable. W.C. Handy, in his autobio­graphy, Father of the Blues, relates an interesting story of one of his band engagements at a rural breakdown. After failing to please the dancing crowd with his compositions, a local group was hired that, to Handy's astonishment, had the folks

5

hopping with real blues. Soon, Handy began writing his own educated versions of these rough folk blues. As classical ragtime piano lost its audience, a new breed of pianists really began to adapt folk blues to the piano.

By the 1920's the South was undergoing profound economic and social changes. The agricultural plantation system of Civil War days was gradually being replaced by timber logging, turpentine plants and other heavy industries. The lumber companies hired scores of itinerant black workers, paying them token wages and providing them with only the crudest of living arrangements. This environment of poverty and segregation provided the background for the growth of a powerful blues style. The turpentine and sawmill camps with their crews of bedraggled workers attracted a tough bunch of piano players who rocked in the local juke joints from the evening to the early morning hours. Because they were not blessed with either a good piano or the benefit of electric amplification, the juke pianists resorted to heavy, repeti­tious patterns to sustain their rhythm over the din of the unruly crowds. And since the pianos were frequently out of tune or in ill repair, it was often easier to play single note solos that could sidestep the disadvantages of the rough rural setting.

For those pianists who preferred to avoid the labor camps, the North offered a different life style. In Chicago the South Side had doubled its black population between 1910 and 1920, and Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Louisville all registered similar gains. For the thousands of Southern blacks who came North in search of jobs and a better life, the Northern urban centers actually offered little improvement. Prices were high, jobs paid poorly, and rents seemed to double every six months.

To combat the inflation, many black sections of urban America instituted rent house parties which usually featured local musicians. If a resident was behind in his rent, he would simply hire a pianist, bake some cookies, and charge his neighbors enough to keep the landlord from his door. Aside from the rent parties, small clubs opened up that, more likely than not, had an old piano somewhere in the back room. In these sordid, but very communal surroundings, blues piano developed rapidly.

This book is about these blues that evolved in the Southern labor camps or in the urban ghettos up North. They were played by musicians who didn't read music, and if they made any recordings at all, usually did so by chance and not by design. When studying these transcriptions, it is absolutely essential to listen to the original recordings, for the true piano blues are far more complex than any notation could ever indicate.

A word about the transcriptions is in order here. Western music notation often fails to describe accurately the nuances and complexities of blues music. I have tried to make these transcriptions as accurate as possible without making them hopelessly difficult and impossible to play. The transcribed vocal lines indicate approximate pitches only, and should be used as a guide when listening to the original recordings themselves. A complete discography is provided, as well as exercises to help develop blues piano techniques.

The Basics Of Blues Piano

An old piano bluesman once told me that, instead of crying, his hands would just tremble over the keyboard, and that's the way his music came out. This book won't actually make you tremble, but it will explain what a lot of that trembling is all about.

Blues piano, like blues guitar, is based on an 8 or 12 bar blues progression. In boogie or barrelhouse style the 12 bar form is preferred; in fact, for the faster boogie blues compositions, a 12 bar form is used almost without exception. Some blues are based on spirituals and gospel music, but they too are closely related to the basic blues progression.

6

The basic blues progression is built around the tonic, sub-dominant and domi­nant in the following manner:

The 12 Bar Blues Progression

(1) (2) (3) (4) (6)

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(7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)

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'{ IV I IE I b A 12 bar blues in the key of F major, for example, would begin with four measures of an F chord, followed by two measures of B~, and so on. The 8 bar form may be doubled into a 16 bar blues progression.

Like many unaccompanied blues guitarists, the blues pianists frequently took liberties with the basic blues progression, sometimes employing different chord changes, sometimes varying the length of the chorus. Cripple Clarence Lofton, for example, occasionally used 11 or 11Y2 bar progressions, while the idiosyncratic Skip J ames seemed to avoid all structure in his piano playing.

In general blues pianists used more complex harmonic ideas than their guitar playing contemporaries. This is mostly due to the extended range and greater versatility of the 88 note keyboard as opposed to the 6 or 12 string guitar. Whereas guitarists rarely used 9ths, 11ths, or 13ths in folk blues, piano blues are filled with rich chord clusters and unusual harmonies.

Much scholarly debate has centered upon the so-called blues notes and their mysterious spontaneous generation on American soil. Jazz historian Marshall Stearns describes the blues notes as "an endless variety of swoops, glides, slurs, smears, and glisses" focused around the third and seventh degrees of the scale. The blues scale below, in the key of F major, indicates several of the pitches used in blues vocal melodies. The x's indicate approximate pitches of blues notes:

A Blues Scale in the Key of F Major

~(D/~) ggJ~ ~ ~

A simpler pentatonic blues scale was widely employed in many guitar blues, and it is even found in some of the more "primitive" piano blues styles:

A Pentatonic Blues Scale in the Key of F Major

(DIq) r g,~ j (P/qJ r f The guitarist, because he could "bend" notes, made his instrument conform to the blues notes in his vocal line. The piano, however, due to its fixed tone keyboard, was not so accommodating. Therefore, the blues pianist was forced to use other tech­niques to get a similar blues note effect.

7

One of the more common techniques developed was the constant use of grace notes and slurs around the third degree of the scale. Below I have notated some of these figures:

Grace Notes and Slurs

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The pianist was able to use harmonic tension (by using 9ths, l lths, and so on) in place of bending notes. Thus, while piano blues are harmonically complex, the overall effect is one of simplicity.

Another unique contribution of blues pianists was the development of the rhythmic boogie bass line. Guitarists were limited primarily to an alternatingpicked bass, but the pianist could expand his musical ideas with bass figures which were both harmonic and rhythmic. Some of the boogie bass lines were rhythmically arpeggiated chords; others were walking bass melodies, borrowed, no doubt, from jazz bassists at the time.

The evolution of boogie styles marked a major break with the European tradition of piano music. In Western classical music the left hand was used harmoni­cally, with little attention given to its rhythmic capabilities. But in boogie bass lines, the left hand belted out an insistent repetitious melody which gave the blues a new driving excitement.

The following chapters will discuss in detail the styles of six blues-roots pianists, representing a wide spectrum of approaches to the piano. I hope this book will revive interest in the older piano blues styles and prevent this music from being buried under the weight of pop commercialism.

;1,

8

JimmyYancey Jimmy Yancey, unlike many of the older blues musicians, was born up North, in

Chicago, just as ragtime was becoming popular in the mid-1890's. A very musical child, he started dancing with the Bert Earl vaudeville show at age six, where he came in contact with minstrel music, ragtime, and probably an early style of blues.

In 1913 Yancey settled down in Chicago to work as a groundskeeper for the White Sox at Comiskey Park, a job he held for many years. Yancey never really made his living by playing piano, although he often performed at rent house parties and small clubs on the South Side, including Clarence Lofton's tavern. Yancey lived by the ball park near 35th and State Streets, and his house became a gathering place for many Chicago musicians. Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons, both disciples of Yancey's boogie style, often met there, as did veteran blues musicians like Cripple Clarence Lofton, Chippie Hill, Pinetop Smith, and Doug Suggs.

Although he grew up with ragtime influences, Yancey can hardly be called a ragtime pianist. His unique approach avoids many of the complexities of ragtime, and retains instead a simple and pure blues form. Yancey uses both the 8 and 12 bar blues; the latter he employs in his faster boogie compositions.

One important characteristic of Yancey's technique was his rolling, almost Latin sounding, bass lines. Some scholars have compared his bass lines to those of Jelly

, Roll Morton, the New Orleans ragtime artist, even though there is little musical similarity between the two. Most of Yancey's blues are variations on three or four different bass patterns, and he rarely plays more than single bass notes with his left hand. The following are examples of his most common bass patterns:

Yancey's Most Common Bass Patterns

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Yancey had a particular fondness for parallel 6ths, both major and minor, and many of his harmonies employ these intervals. He tends to avoid full seventh, diminished or augmented chords, but he cleverly suggests full chords by playing only a few outline notes. For example, in the 4th measure of How Long Blues, the right hand trills on A~, the seventh in the chord B~7, giving the measure a definite 7th sound without a full chord. In the second half of the same measure, Yancey plays D and D~, the major and minor thirds of B~, but his use of D and F in the bass outlines and Wand F6 chord.

In many respects, Yancey'sapproach to blues piano was contrapuntal, and not heavily harmonic, like his ragtime contemporaries.' He pioneered a pure style of piano blues and boogies marked by distinctive bass patterns and deceptively simple rhythmic interplay between the right and left hand.

9

In April of 1939, Yancey made his first recordings in Chicago. He continued recording for twelve years until his death, leaving a legacy of only sixty-eight known sides. Of these many were duplicates and alternate takes. The transcriptions in this book are taken from Yancey's last session, held only two months before his death on September 18, 1951. They represent some of his finest work on record, an example of the full maturation of his unique boogie blues.

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10 Jimmy Yancey

HowLong Blues (See page 12.)

How Long Blues is a beautiful version of the old blues standard played in the key of F major. Yancey recorded the piece six different times between 1939 and 1951, the last time with his wife, Mama, singing beside him. How Long was first recorded in 192 5 by Ida Cox and Papa Charlie Jackson, and later made famous by another pianist, Leroy Carr, in 1928. Many folk variants of the song exist, so it is fair to assume that Yancey learned his version without referring to these early recordings. The transcription in this book can be heard on Pure Blues-Jimmy Yancey, available on Atlantic LP 1283.

How Long is deceptively simple. Be sure to retain an easy rhythmic feeling, without stiffness or pounding on the piano. It is important to keep your foot tapping and to play steadily.

The Yancey Special (See page 15.)

Tbe Yancey Special was recorded on three separate studio dates with minor variations. It is a fast boogie in the key of C major with a tricky syncopated right­hand superimposed over the repetitious left hand figure. It is best to play both hands separately until the right hand rhythmic subtleties are mastered. As with all of Yancey's blues, play The Special in a relaxed, but rhythmically exact manner. The original recording is available on Atlantic 1283.

Yancey's Bugle Call (See page 18.)

Yancey's Bugle Call, in the key of E~ major, draws its name from the humorous imitation of Reveile in the introductory bars. Although the right hand looks easy, the job of coordinating the two hands requires practice. Play the piece slowly before attempting Yancey's up-beat tempo.

The most difficult technical problem of Jimmy Yancey's style is coordinating the rhythmic complexities of the two hands. The following exercises should be repeated with all of Yancey's bass patterns, even though I have only used one in my notations. The exercises may also be expanded into a blues progression for a more varied practice session. Remember, the goal is to play steadily, but in a relaxed way.

Exercises for Playing Jimmy Yancey

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On Side 2 of Pure Blues (Atlantic 1283), Mama Yancey sings these words to her version of the song:

I been down, down in the justice Down in the justice when I done been tried I get ten more, more troubles Than any little woman my size.

I tried to teach my baby I've talked to him the whole night long I was just only trying to teach That man right from wrong.

He did not love, he did not love me And I knew that from the start But I was trying to bring That man into my heart.

I would wake up in the morning I was trying to tell him right from wrong When I looked for my baby, My baby, he be gone.

That's why I cry how long, how long How long, how long, how long, how long How long will it be before You never try this mistreating me.

Why don't you listen to me, listen to me baby Listen to my, my poor deplea (?) I'm trying to do everything To set your heart at ease.

I do, I do, I ... I do Yes darling, you know I, I swear I do love you If it holds not no loving I would have gone away from you.

I tried, I tried so hard To make everything alright with you But don't seem like I can please you With nothing that I do.

That's why I sing how long, how long How long, how long, how long, how long How long will it be before You never learn this mistreating me.

14

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The Yancey Special

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Champion Jack Dupree1 1,

"When your mother is gone, everything you do is wronglWhen you don't have nobody, nothin' in the world can be done," laments Champion Jack Dupree in Hard Feelings Blues, and he speaks from experience-a traumatic childhood in the Colored Waifs Home for Boys in New Orleans. Dupree discovered loneliness early in the institutional setting, and he has described it ever since in his blues. But Champion]ack has several remedies for the blues, and they all center around women. "If you wanna live happy and live your whole life through," he advises in Old Woman Blues, "get you an old old woman that knows what to do."

Born in 1910, Dupree witnessed the growth and eventual decline of New Orleans ragtime and jazz as he walked the back alleys around Franklin and Rampart Streets. During one foray into the Storyville scene, Dupree met a local barrelhouse piano player named Drive 'Em Down, who developed a fondness for the boy and introduced him to the fundamentals of blues piano. When he wasn't studying music in a dimly lit barrelhouse, Dupree escaped into the fantasy world of professional boxing under the tutelage of Kid Green and his troupe of aspiring prize fighters.

Drive 'Em Down died in 1930, and Dupree, with few ties to hold him to New Orleans, set out on his own. For ten years he earned money as a professional prize fighter, and when he could find work, he played piano on the barrelhouse and juke circuit for about $1.50 a night. At first Dupree performed blues from Drive 'Em Down's repertoire-traditional songs such as How Long, Frankie and Johnny and Stack-O-Lee. But ashe matured in the rough jukes where the clientele always expressed their critical opinions in no uncertain terms, Dupree evolved his own distinctive blues.

The boxing life was not doing Dupree's piano fingers much good, so in 1940, when he knocked out Battling Bozo in the tenth round, the "Champion" quit the ring to concentrate on the blues. This last fight was held in Indianapolis, Indiana, a city with a receptive audience of newly arrived Southern blacks who were attracted by factory and defense jobs. Dupree liked what he saw and decided to settle down.

Aided by contacts he had made during the 1930's, Dupree got a job at the Indianapolis Cotton Club, a place noted for its rude patrons who delighted in hurling tomatoes at sub-standard performances. The rough life was not new to Dupree; he soon earned the respect of the rowdy critics with his genuine manner and superior blues singing. From then on he was known in blues circles as Champion]ack Dupree, an honorary title he has kept to this day.

Indianapolis boasted a school ofpiano blues led by Leroy Carr, a flamboyant figure who introduced a rhythmic, yet unsyncopated piano style with his guitarist partner, Scrapper Blackwell. Carr never developed an outstanding solo technique, but he is remembered for his bitter-sweet vocals and piano accompaniments that later influ­enced men like Mercy Dee, Bumble Bee Slim and Fats Domino. Carr's technique was especially suited for ensemble work because he did not limit himself to the boogie­woogie basses that dominated much of the early urban piano scene. Instead, Carr played an equiponderant bass illustrated by this run in Good Woman Blues (the riff is similar to one used by Speckled Red and Cow Cow Davenport):

Excerpt from Good Woman Blues

~ On Barrelhouse Woman # 2, Carr plays another unsyncopated bass line as he accom­panies the guitar solos of Blackwell:

Excerpt from Barrelhouse Woman #2

21

r Dupree's style is also marked by the absense of a strong boogie bass, though it is not clear whether this can be directly attributed to a Carr influence. The two men met briefly in the early 1930's, but by the time Dupree returned to the city to settle down in 1940, Carr had died and Scrapper Blackwell was searching for a replacement for his famous ptrtner. Dupree and Blackwell made a few recordings for the OKeh label in 1940; the new duet never clicked, however, and Dupree was soon off on his own.

Dupree's left hand often follows a loosely defined structure, more like a walking string bass than the usual repetitive piano boogie bass. This is both a strength and a weakness: the freedom gained in the left hand is countered by the need for a full, driving right hand. This makes single note soloing difficult; not surprisingly, Dupree rarely ventures into expansive solos. On Too Evil To Cry Dupree displays his single note virtuosity, but here he abandons his less structured bass for a repetitious boogie pattern. Like Leroy Carr, Dupree excels in ensemble playing; in fact, few of his albums feature him on solo piano. Often a bass, guitar, or full blues band backs him up as he sings in his low-down voice, "I opened the door, you were lying in the halllYour breath smelled like you been drinkin' nachel alcohol."

Mercy On Me (See page 24.)

Mercy On Me, in the key of F major, is structured more like a gospel song than a blues, with an 8 bar introduction and a 16 bar chorus. The chorus pattern­I/I/IVIIVII/INNII/I/IV/IV II/VII-V/I -departs from a standard blues progression, especially in bars 7 and 8 where the dominant (C major chord) gives a feeling of harmonic anticipation typical of gospel music. The 12/8 time signature is concep­tualized as four groups of three beats, as triplets would be if played in 4/4 time.

12/8 Time Signature

1 2 3

I

4

I

However, Dupree cleverly uses shifting accents to give the piece rhythmic interest. Itis necessary to refer to the original recording, available on Archive of Folk Music FS-217, to emulate these rhythmic gestures. The vocal melodies in several of the transcriptions have been raised an octave to put them in a more singable range.

A Good Woman Is Hard To Find (See page 30.)

Jack Dupree has spent a lifetime singing aboutwomen.A Good Woman Is Hard To Find has a clear message, neatly summarized in the title, and yet Dupree's delivery gives the material a suspenseful air. Like Mercy On Me, the piece is played with a feeling of three in 6/8 time. The measure is divided into two groups of three beats, with the first and fourth beats usually accented. A Good Woman Is Hard To Find, originally issued on the Danish Storyville label, is available in the United States on Archive of Folk Music FS-217.

Too Evil ToCry (See page 32.)

In 1944 Dupree recorded the dramatic blues Too Evil To Cry for Moses Asch in New York City. The blues follows the usual 12 bar pattern, but harmonically it offers a few surprises. The entire introduction is played with only an incidental use of the third (i.e., E and E~ in a C chord) in the right hand. Thus the blues has a hollow, almost minor sound that Dupree contrasts with an occasional major triad. Several chords depart from the usual blues harmonies, like the D9 chord in bar 10 or the "empty" C chord in bar 5.

Dupree's use of quintuplets, septuplets, and so on may present a timing problem for the classically trained pianist. Do not dwell on the complexities of the right hand runs for the solo effect will be lost; namely, a forced sounding figure of seemingly "out of time" character that contrasts with the steady bass. A study of the original recording, reissued on Asch AA-1, will greatly aid in mastering this blues.

Dupree attacks the keyboard with a vigor unknown in classical piano, making the

22

instrument literally shake with excitement. Generally, he relies on heavy wrist and forearm motion rather than individualfinger movement. The tremolo effects in Too Evil To Cry, for example, are best accomplished by rapid quivers of the entire hand, with the fingers more or less in a fixed position.

The exercises below will help develop energetic arm motions. The arrows marked "F" indicate forearm motion. Those marked "w" indicate wrist motion. Pounding should always be avoided. The best blues piano owes its magic to subtle understate­ment, never loud banging.

Exercises

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23

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People look at me all on the street Yes they watch me from my head to feet And as they watch me as I go by Lord I wonders what's on they mind.

I say, "Oh Lord, haven't harmed nobody" But they seem to hate me just the same I say, "Lord, oh Lord, have mercy on me!"

People have spit, spit in my face They have done me everything wrong They have called me all kind of names They say, "Nigger, keep on gain'!"

But in my heart, it be so cruel Lord I don't know in the world what to do But I say, "Lord, oh Lord, have mercy on me,

have mercy on me!"

Spoken: [ even had kids that threw dirty water in my face. Scoop it up off the street, and their mother and father standin' with 'em. And J look at 'em and have to smile. And say to myself, "Lord, have mercy! What have I done? What wrong have I done to be treated this way? Like I'm no human. I'm like some­thing in the jungle somewhere. " But when I bow down on my knees and J pray to the good Lord above, and J ask Him only in a few words, say, "Lord, please have mercy on me. For there's only one thing in life I want. And all I want is, a little favor, just to be free. " That's all J want, just to be free.

So bye and bye, when my day is come Yeah, and I leave, leave this world behind I'll say, "Lord, Lord, have mercy on me." Oh ... yeah!

28

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A Good WOJnan Is Hard To Find

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Well nowadays, a good woman is so hard Yeah nowadays, a good woman is hard to find When you think you got a good woman, oh yes, you got the other kind.

All I want is someone to love Yeah, all I want is someone to love Lord I'm lonely, oh yeah, as I could be.

Nowadays, a real good woman Yeah nowadays, Lord, a real good woman A real good woman, oh yeah, is hard to find.

31

TooEvil To Cry

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32

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My woman is evil, too damn evil to cry My woman is evil, too damn evil to cry She bends down with her head hung down, never wanna say goodbye.

Spoken: Ain't no use bein' so evil, mama You're black and evil, that's all right baby I just love you so, mama, it ain't no use.

So bye, bye, baby, listen to your daddy say goodbye So bye, bye, baby, listen to your daddy say goodbye You're gonna miss me when I'm gone, 'cause you're too damn evil to cry.

37

r -Little Brother Montgomery

"The first time I met the blues, baby, they came walking through the wood! They stopped at my house first, mama, and done me all the harm they could! Now the blues got at me and run me from tree to tree/ You should have heard me begging: 'Mister Blues, don't murder me!' " Little Brother sang these lyrics in 1936, in a veiled reference to his brutal upbringing in the lumber sawmill camps of Louisiana. Born among the itinerant workers and rough juke joints at the Kent Lumber Company, deep in the piney woods of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, Eurreal Montgomery learned first hand the meaning of the blues.

Montgomery's father, who migrated north from New Orleans around 1900, was a musician himself and fostered an interest in music in all his ten children. The Montgomery brood often sang in church and Eurreal Wilford, who came to be called Little Brother, began studying the piano at age five under the tutelage of his musical relatives. Years later, Montgomery recalled that Kunjine Baby, a tune of uncertain origin dating from the slavery period, was the first piece he learned. By age six he had graduated to simple blues pieces, and by age twelve was an accomplished musician, able to improvise with considerable facility.

In 1917 Little Brother ran away from home to become a juke pianist in Holton, Louisiana for eight dollars a week. That same year Storyville was closed, sending hundreds of blues musicians on an aimless search for new patrons. Little Brother met up with many of these wandering bluesmen, and although only eleven years old, he learned the rules of survival in the violent jukes and lumber camp barrelhouses. From Holton he ventured on to Ferriday, Louisiana, where he met two honky-tonk pianists named Long Tall Friday and Dehlco Robert. Together the trio devised new barrelhouse blues numbers, including a complex piece which eventually became known as the Vicksburg Blues or 44 Blues.

For six years Little Brother continued his nomadic wanderings, passing through countless Louisiana towns, lumber camp jukes, Mississippi night spots and rural honky-tonks. An intimation of his rootless life can be gleaned from his blues lyrics. Again and again, Montgomery makes passing references to obscure places such as Fresno, Oakdale, DeRidder and Cravens, or to more general geographical areas such as Louisiana, Chicago, Mississippi and Texas. He always seems to be miles from his favorite woman, as he sings about traveling on the A&V Railroad or the Santa Fe line.

Finally, in 1923, Montgomery returned to his family and moved with them to Norfield, Mississippi, where he quickly established himself on the local blues scene. When the Depression hit the rural South, Little Brother took to the road again as a jazz pianist in several big bands and after World War II ended up in Chicago, where he lives today. Montgomery's travels and diverse musical background gave him a versatility uncommon among rural blues pianists. Aside from playing jazz and ragtime, Little Brother has performed everything from pop songs to church hymns. It is his blues singing and piano, though, that mark him as an exceptional and creative musician.

Little Brother's compositions do not fall easily into geographic, stylistic or chrono­logical categories. While his playing bears a definite Mississippi stamp, his bass figures, use of grace notes, and structural forms defy any uniform classification. In many respects he resembles Skip James, another eclectic Mississippi piano and guitar player.

Montgomery loosely follows the standard blues form, but his variations sometimes make the patterns unrecognizable. In Vicksburg Blues No.2, for example, the chorus is 24 bars long, but is subdivided into 4 sections of 8 bars each. The piece begins on the dominant, C major, in one of the most remarkable introductions to a piano blues ever recorded.

Tremblin' Blues (See page 42.)

Even more curious is Tremblin' Blues, which is also organized around a 24 bar form. After a four bar introduction, Montgomery plays two distinct 12 bar themes, neither of which follows a standard blues progression.

Montgomery's bass lines display similar idiosyncrasies. Vicksburg Blues features a "slide" bass consisting of rapid glissandi connecting one note with another:

38

I ;

Bass Excerpt from Vicksburg Blues NO.2t 9=&y~. "~. y.~4

-~

I, In Trembltn' Blues, however, the left hand plays in a ragtime style dominated by harmonic ideas rather than rhythmic ones:

• Bass Excerpt from Tremblin' Blues

9=&&~~~ Bass Key Boogie represents yet another barrelhouse style involving a syncopated "eight to the bar" walking bass:

Bass Excerpt from Bass Key Boogie

:J:,,~~ Montgomery's right hand technique relies heavily on parallel octaves and sixths to

outline the melodic line and somtimes double the vocal. He usually treats thirds by voicing them as sixths in the following manner:

Voicings

IV7 t1 ~ b ¥ IVI N

Fi~ In this way, the transition from the I chord to the IV chord is easily made without a break in the melodic line.

In 1930 Little Brother traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin to make his first recordings for the Paramount Record Company. During the brief session he accompanied two female vocalists and cut two solo piano blues, No Special Rider Blues and the original Vicksburg Blues. In 1935 Montgomery recorded his famous, and best version of Vicksburg Blues for the Bluebird label. It is this later recording that is transcribed in this book.

After World War II blues enthusiast Bob Stendahl, Jr. recorded Little Brother for the old Disc label, but financial problems prevented the release of these sides until 1972, when Robert Koester of Delmark Records issued them on his own label. Both Tremblin' Blues and Bass Key Boogie are from Stendahl's 1947 session, and along with the 1935-36 sessions, these sides are unsurpassed examples of Montgomery's artistry.

When Little Brother rejoined his family in Mississippi, he met several other pianists including Sunnyland Slim and Cooney Vaughn from Hattiesburg, a small town due east of Norfield. Apparently Little Brother's parents didn't approve of his blues cohorts for in No Special Rider Blues he comments: "Going to get up, get up in the morning, mama, and I ain't gon' say a word/ Going to eat my breakfast and sneak to Hatties­burg." Vaughn, a locally famous piano player who recorded with the Mississippi jook Band, had developed a unique style combining New Orleans ragtime with the more emotional moaning blues associated with the delta region. Little Brother studied Vaughn's technique and adopted Vaughn's showpiece, Tremblin' Blues, into his own repertoire. The blues derives its name from the "trembling" sixteenth note figures in the right hand that contrast so brilliantly with the ragtime style left hand. Tremblin' Blues is currently available on Delmark'sPiano Blues Orgy release.

39

Vicksburg Blues NO.2 (See page 46.)

By the time Montgomery left Ferriday, Louisiana, he had developed his own masterpiece, Vicksburg Blues, from many melodic fragments. As he traveled and his blues became well known, other men picked up on his composition. In 1922 Little Brother met Lee "Porkchops" Green, and the two musicians traded blues. Green learned Vicksburg Blues and passed it on to Roosevelt Sykes around 1925. Sykes recorded the piece, renamed 44 Blues, during his first recording session in 1929, and since that time it has become one of the most popular piano blues classics. In fact, knowing a version of the Forty-Fours became a prerequisite for employment in many rural jukes, just as many urban tavern owners demanded a version of the Chicago Fives, a Jimmy Yancey favorite. Vicksburg Blues No.2 has been reissued on Yazoo L-1028.

Bass Key Boogie (See page 52.)

Bass Key Boogie illustrates Little Brother's facility as a boogie-woogie piano player. The composition incorporates many St. Louis and Chicago boogie influences, a reflection of Montgomery's move to Chicago after World War II. Like all boogie numbers, the left hand provides the rhythmic drive, while the right hand adds an extra syncopated "kick." It is important to play without pounding on the piano. Bass Key Boogie has been issued on Delmark 626. Montgomery has recorded a similar version, entitled West 46th Street Boogie, available on Folkways FG 3527.

Bass Key Boogie may present technical problems in the coordination of the right and left hands. A helpful aid in mastering the boogie style is to "double up" the left hand as illustrated below:

Exercises

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qi

40

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TrelDblin' Blues

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42

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Down there is Vicksburg, Mississippi where I long to be Down there is Vicksburg, Mississippi where I long to be I've got a cool kind pretty mama waiting there for me.

Now there is nothing I can do, mama, or no more I can say There is nothing I can do, mama, or no more I can say All I know I due in Vicksburg, Lord, this very day .

51

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52

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Speckled Red Rufus Perryman, nicknamed Speckled Red because of his freckled albino skin,

gr~w up in the rural areas of Louisiana and Georgia. In his mid-twenties, his large family (fifteen brothers and sisters) moved north to Detroit, where Red developed an interest in blues piano. A Detroit pianist named Paul Seminole was his first major influence, although Red was primarily a self-taught musician.

In Detroit, a constant stream of itinerant pianists provided Red with a rich blues education. He learned the rough barrelhouse style from lumber camp pianists, imitated Eastern ragtime numbers, and mastered the fast boogie blues of the Southwest. The urban clubs of the Midwest became Red's training ground where, like Champion Jack Dupree, he overcame a coarse environment with a powerfully distinctive style. By the twenties, Red had become a celebrated local performer in the barrelhouse tradition, known respectfully as "Detroit Red" in the tough back alley jukes.

Speckled Red, along with many blues musicians, went "underground" during the hard times of the 1930's, and remained in obscurity for over twenty years before his rediscovery in 1954. That year several blues fans found Red's trail, and a cooperative plainclothesman named Charlie O'Brien finally located the elusive pianist in St. Louis. o 'Brien and an avid blues record collector, Robert Koester, accompanied Red down to a local tavern for an introductory session on December 14, 1954.

"It was astonishing to hear that kind of piano in person," Koester later recalled. "One so easily falls into a frame of mind whereby such sounds seem to exist only on old records. Red had arthritis and his voice was frequently hoarse; so it was no easy job to get him properly recorded. He also did not function well when this was combined with excessive booze, and at the informal recording sessions we used to do in those days, someone always seemed to come along who assumed that a musician can play better drunk. "

Koester attempted several recording sessions for his then neoteric label, Delmark, but a combination of poor equipment, inferior pianos and unskilled labor delayed an adequate session until 1957. It was then that Koester obtained the services of Erwin Helfer, who recorded Red with an old Concertone machine. These tapes were even­tually issued on Delmark DL-601; from that album I have transcribed Cow Cow Blues and The Dirty Dozens for this book.

Perhaps because he was self-taught, Speckled Red's piano style is highly idiosyn­cratic. In structure, his blues often depart from the standard progression. The Dirty Dozens, for example, begins with a 13 bar introduction followed by a 15 bar vocal chorus. Equally odd is the 23 bar chorus to Cow Cow Blues. WhileRed does make use of I-IV-V progressions, the chords are often arranged in new unique combinations. The chord progression to The Dirty Dozens is an illustration:

(13 bar introduction) FIFIFIFIFIF/B~/B~/FIF/C/C/F I/I/I/I/I/I/IV/IV/I/I/V/v/I

(15 bar vocal chorus) FIFIFIFIFIFIFIF/B~/B~/FIF/C/C/F I/I/I/I/I/I/I/I/IV/IV/I/I/V/v/I

Neither section follows the usual I-IV-V blues progression, and yet the song retains the feeling of the blues.

The musical scene in Detroit before World War I was heavily influenced by rag­time piano. Red's bass lines, introductory passages, chordal harmonies, and lack of strong syncopation are all adaptations from an older ragtime style. Red's song material, however, comes more from Afro-American folk blues. Thus, his playing blends folk traditions and an adapted ragtime style into an original piano music representative of those early barrelhouse musicians who worked the rural jukes and lumber camps.

The improvised solo, as such, does not really exist in Speckled Red's playing; he often repeats a familiar riff over and over again with only a few minor variations. Unlike Jimmy Yancey or Otis Spann, who both delighted in developing new right hand

54

1 , melodic solos over a steady bass, Red limited himself to a tightly constructed song , format. He conceived of his music as light-hearted entertainment in much the same way

as the early generation of blues songsters. t Red collided briefly with the recording industry in Memphis, where he was located by Jim Jackson, the farnous blues entertainer, in 1929. During a session at the Peabody Hotel, Red performed a bouncy, though censored, version of his own Dirty Dozens. t The record put him momentarily in the spotlight; in fact, it was so popular that it was

f remade by other blues artists, including Leroy Carr, Kokomo Arnold and Tampa Red. For a while he was in demand as a recording artist, but when his commercial success faded during the Depression, Red went back to his nomadic wanderings through the Midwest.

The history of the dozens is a fascinating tale well worth summarizing. The dozens was originally a religious mnemonic device that enabled illiterate communities to transmit knowledge verbally to their young. Verses were something like "First, God made the earth in six whole days/ Second, He rested and it's good He says ..." and so on. Gradually, along with a decline in religious fanaticism, the dozens took on a special secular meaning-they became a vehicle for insult and verbal abuse. Thus the "dirty dozens" was born as a folk game of traded vulgarisms that, more often than not, ended in violence. Usually the sport concentrated on infuriating one's opponent with dirty remarks about his mother. In a skillful dozens match, the twelfth repartee was seldom reached.

TheDirtyDozens (See page 56.)

When Red recorded his first version of The Dirty Dozens in 1929, the record companies imposed a rigid censorship; so Red was obliged to clean up the lyrics, and the result is, by today's standards, pretty bland. However, Speckled Red later made an unexpurgated version for Bob Koester, and the words give a good indication of what was sung in the backwood jukes during the 1920's and '30's.

The Dirty Dozens was intended as musical entertainment, not as an introspective blues, and should be performed with this in mind.

CowCOWBlues (See page 60.)

One of the many itinerant piano players to wander through Detroit was Charles Davenport, the son of an Alabama Baptist minister who spent a lot of his time performing in local brothels. During his travels Davenport picked up a theme called The Cows and remade it into a piano showpiece, Cow Cow Blues, that dealt with the oft-used symbolism of the railroad. When Speckled Red learned the piece, he trans­posed it down a fourth, to the key of F major, but otherwise his version hardly differs from the Davenport original. When played at a fast tempo, this blues is an impressive , example of early barrelhouse piano. An alternate version of Cow Cow Blues is available on Folkways FG 3555.

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© Copyright 1929 by MCA Music, A Division of MCA, Inc., 445 Park Ave., New York, NY 10022. Copyright Renewed. Used By Permission. All Rights Reserved.

56

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want all you worn -an folk to fall in line, shake your shim -my like I'm

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Yonder go your mama going out across the field Running and a-shaking like an automobile I hollered at your mama and I told her to wait She slipped away from me like a Cadillac eight.

Chorus: Now she's a running mistreater A robber and a cheater Slip you in the dozens Papa and her cousin Her mama do the lawdy, lord!

I like your mama, I like your sister too I did like your daddy, but your daddy wouldn't do Met your daddy on the corner the other day You know about that, that he was funny that way

Chorus: So now he's a funny mistreater, etc.

God made him an elephant, he made him stout He wasn't satisfied until he made him a snout He made his snout just as long as a rail He wasn't satisfied until he made him a tail He made his tail just to fan the flies He wasn't satisfied until he made some eyes He made his eye just to look over the grass

r He wasn't satisfied 'till he made his yas, yas, yas I Made his yas, yas, yas and didn't get it fixed ~ He wasn't satisfied until it made him sick

l It made him sick, lord, it made him well You know by that, that the elephant caught hell.

Chorus: Now he's a dirty mistreater, etc.

59

:J Co~Co~Blues i.,~

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60

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Now some say it was the Seaboard, some the W.A. Don't care what train it was, it carried my gal away Starch my jumper, iron my over-alls I want to get that train they call "Cannonball."

Now come in here baby, where you been so long? Tuesday's now a week, going to get along? Told you baby, Oh you treat me so mean Treat me like a stranger, a man you ain't never seen.

Your mama even told me, papa told me too Don't let no woman be the death of you You fed my habit, corn whiskey is my fail Don't let some of these women take me down to my

grave.

64

Roosevelt Sykes Roosevelt Sykes has played and recorded steadily since 1929, the year he walked

into Jesse Johnson's De Luxe Music Shop in St. Louis with a few of his blues pieces. Johnson quickly secured a recording date with OKeh in New York City, and Sykes has been going strong ever since. The fact that Sykes has done so well, considering the economic tribulations of blues musicians in general, is a testament to his ability and talent.

Sykes was born on January 31, sometime between 1901 and 1913, depending upon whom you believe or what Roosevelt happens to remember at any given time. Helena, Arkansas, his birthplace, was "just a little old sawmill town" with "not too much happening, you know." But the area was rich with the blues, and when Sykes met a local pianist named Jesse Bell, he decided to become a bluesman himself. Around 1909 Sykes and his family moved to St. Louis, but Roosevelt continued to spend his summers in Helena on his grandfather's cotton farm. "You know, I tell you the truth," Sykes is fond of quipping, "I just been pickin' a little cotton and pickin' a little piano."

The initial session for OKeh in 1929 included a version of Little Brother Montgomery's Vicksburg Blues, later renamed 44 Blues. The record was so successful that Sykes was back in a studio a few months later in September, 1929, this time recording for the Paramount Record Company. Prior to World War II, it was common practice for bluesmen to record under assumed names, and presumably contract obligations prompted Sykes to use the pseudonym of "Dobby Bragg." Sykes had a knack for making the studio rounds, for in June, 1930, he became "Willie Kelly" for Victor, and a short time later, was "Easy Papa Johnson" for the Vocalion label. During his long career Sykes has accompanied hundreds of blues singers, including Walter Davis, Edith Johnson, Washboard Sam, Peetie Wheatstraw, Victoria Spivey, and St. Louis Jimmy.

Over the years, Roosevelt Sykes has developed a versatility that few bluesmen can surpass. He shifts easily from boogies to stomps, from slow drags to light entertain­ment, and from hard luck blues to good time rockers. Sykes' style has two fundamental elements: first, an unsyncopated single note bass; and second, a flamboyant single note right hand solo technique. Not all his compositions, however, incorporate these two elements, and any attempt to confine Sykes by artifical categories are doomed to failure.

Highway 61 Blues (See page 66.)

Highway 61 Blues has a hollow, minor sound comparable to the one-chord blues of many Mississippi delta guitarists. The chord progression, if it really can be called one, is outlined by parallel octaves and by the sparse bass notes that accompany the right hand solos. The blues is based loosely on a 12 bar form, although the 5 bar introduction does not fit into any standard pattern. Highway 61 Blues, available on Yazoo L-1033 , captures the "primitive" feeling of early Afro-American blues chants and is a dramatic example of a piano adaptation to the blues idiom.

Gulfport Boogie (see page 70.)

No traveling piano bluesman can find a job without knowing a few boogies. During the early 1960's, Sykes wandered through New York, Chicago, and Europe, but finally took a job in Gulfport, Mississippi at the Beverly Lounge. Gulfport Boogie represents the kind of music that the folks in Gulfport dance to. Stylistically, the boogie is similar to pieces played by Little Brother Montgomery and other Chicago piano players. The recording has been issued on Delmark DL-607.

Red-Eye Jesse Bell (See page 76.)

Sykes has always displayed a tendency to re-do old material in new ways. In 1961, for example, Sykes recorded Woman In Helena, Arkansas (issued on Folkways FS 3827) which bore a striking resemblance to his 1949 classic, West Helena Blues (reissued on Blues Classics 15). Then, in 1963, Woman In Helena, Arkansas was remade into Red-Eye Jesse Bell for Delmark Records (DL-607). Red-Eye Jesse Bell is a tribute to the piano player who first inspired Sykes to take up the blues. The piece is a fine illustration of sophisticated solo lines held together by an unsyncopated bass.

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I'm leaving St. Louis, I'm going out Grant Avenue I'm leaving St. Louis, I'm going out Grant Avenue I got to go down to Memphis, don't you know what's there that I want to do?

When I hit Grant, look like my troubles just begun When I hit Grant Avenue, look like my troubles just begun Oh, it break my heart to think about Highway 61.

I felt so blue as I was out on that lonely highway I felt so blue as I was out on that lonely highway I felt riding down, but maybe my troubles will end some sweet day.

I can stand right here look on Beale Avenue I can stand right here look out on Beale Avenue I can see everything that pretty Miss Liza do.

Now listen kind mama, don't worry about your dad when I'm gone Now listen kind mama, don't worry about your dad when I'm gone You know I'm wild about you kind mama, I ain't gonna do nothing wrong.

• 69

Gulfport Boogie

Roosevelt Sykes

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You look good when you come on the scene Dropping in from New Orleans

To do the Gulfport Boogie North Gulfport Boogie You can dance a long time on old highway 49.

Jump and shout 'till the break of day Right there in little Cornway

Doing the Gulfport Boogie North Gulfport Boogie You can dance a long time on old highway 49.

Spoken: Old highway 49. You know there's a new 49: double lanes. But this is the single lane-old highway 49. Old highway.

Love ya baby, love ya right off the reel Oh how good you really makes me feel

Do the Gulfport Boogie North Gulfport Boogie . You can dance a long time on old highway 49.

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Oh yeah, look like everything is going swell Forty in the morning when everything is going swell Everybody listen to that piano player called Red-Eye Jesse Bell.

79

Otis Spann

Otis Spann belongs to the post-war generation of bluesmen who introduced the electric blues to the urban scene. Along with artists such as Muddy Waters, Sunnyland Slim, Little Walter and Jimmy Rodgers, Spann pioneered a percussive, explosive blues that became known as "Chicago-style." Chicago blues has its roots in the Mississippi delta, where men like Robert Johnson developed a hard-edged sound that was later brought up North during the 1940's. For the last twenty years Chicago blues has exerted a powerful influence over American popular music, affecting such diverse markets as soul music, folk music, rock and roll, and commerical rhythm and blues.

Spann died tragically in 1970 at the height of his career, just as his blues was becoming widely accepted among a young white audience. Many rock musicians identified Spann as a vital influence in their music, and he is particularly credited for his masterful adaptation of the piano to the blues band. Spann left behind a superior legacy of recordings and worldwide respect for his musical genius. But life is not without its ironies: Spann's widow, Lucille, was declared ineligible for the $1000 Musicians Union death benefit because Spann was, according to Union officials, "behind in his dues."

By a bluesman's standards, Otis Spann came from a distinguished musical family in Mississippi. According to Little Brother Montgomery, Spann's father was Friday Ford, a respected pianist from Belzoni, Mississippi, who taught Otis the basics of the blues. Little Brother met Otis in Jackson, Mississippi when Otis was about ten years old, and gave him a few piano pointers at that time.

,..- In the late 1940's Spann arrived in Chicago and was befriended by Sunnyland Slim, another great blues piano player. "Spann, he used to sleep in my Cadillac when he first co~ to Chicago," Sunnyland told me recently. "He would be in my car sleeping­summertime. I know at first Spann had a little job, and he stayed around there about two, three weeks. Otis Spann, he got to be bad with piano. I went to hear him, always sitting at the piano, with his voice-real good. And that's when Muddy (Waters) stole

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"Stole" is perhaps a little misleading. Muddy and Otis had known each other for years; they were, in fact, half-brothers. When Spann got out of the army in 1952, he joined Muddy's band, and the two stayed together until Spann's death.

Spann's first recordings with the Muddy Waters Band were made for the Chess label around 1952. One blues from that first session, Standing Around Crying, has since become a classic. Spann continued to record with the band through the 1950's, but remained individually obscure. When Muddy toured England in 1958, for example, the

~ tour promoters were so unfamiliar with Spann that they misspelled his name in the concert program.

Spann's first solo album was cut in 1960 for the Candid label in New York City. His solo style differed greatly from his ensemble playing with the Waters band. By himself, he displayed an introspective side that made his blues into moving emotional state­ments. In 1963 Spann recorded a second solo album for Storyville in Copenhagen, Denmark that has been reissued in the United States on the Archive of Folk Music label. Several solo efforts followed, including releases on Prestige, Vanguard, Bluesway and Testament.

The backbone of Spann's blues is the boogie-the same basic left hand technique that Roosevelt Sykes, Little Brother Montgomery and Speckled Red used to mes­merize rural juke joint crowds. The older pianists tended to improvise fills between the vocal lines, but Spann expanded the boogie into a vehicle for improvised blues solos. In this respect, he resembles Jimmy Yancey, although the two musicians used different left hand figures.

Otis In The Dark, released on Candid/Barnaby Z 30246, reveals Spann's genius for playing endless variations on a simple riff against the repetitious boogie pattern:- .. 80

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Spann's Stomp, released on Vanguard VSD 1/2, is a fast boogie duet with S.P. Leary on drums. The characteristic variations, the grace notes, and the inspired solo lines make it a memorable example of Spann's artistry.

Spann's harmonic ideas revolve around the minor and major thirds in the scale. He constantly plays grace notes and chromatic melodies to gain the greatest possible mixture and balance between major and minor sounds. More than other pianists, Spann explored the possibilities of voicing both major and minor thirds in the same chord. Good Morning Mr. Blues, on Archive of Folk Music FS-216, opens with a striking example:

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harmonic structure. Spann's work is filled with chromatic thirds and sixths that highlight the blues tonality of the third and seventh degrees of the scale. Don't You Know incorporates a favorite Spann riff:

.> 81

Excerpt from Don't You Know

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The same riff, slightly modified, also appears in Trouble In Mind. For the slower blues Spann preferred a staccato left hand that provided a rhythmic bass without over­shadowing the right hand. Trouble In Mind and Don't You Know both illustrate this.

Spann occasionally fills his solos with rapid single note figures. Sometimes he uses octave tremolos, sometimes slurred scales like this passage in Don't You Know:

Excerpt from Don't You Know

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Trouble In Mind (See page 88.)

Trouble In Mind has become one of the most popular blues standards since the blues revival of the 1960's. Spann's version, transcribed from Archive of Folk Music FS-216, adds his own unique touch.

Don'tYou Know (See page 92.)

Don 't You Know is a masterpiece combining many of the techniques described in this chapter. It is available on Archive of Folk Music FS-216.

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I'm gonna lay my head I'm gonna lay my head On some lonesome railroad pc On some lonesome railroad tie And let the 219 And let the 219 Ease my troubled mind. Ease my troubled mind.

Well I'm going away to learn it Trouble in mind, yeah, yeah I'm blue Lord I won't be back no more But I won't be blue always You know I want to let the wind change now Think the wind's gonna change Down in my back door. Blow my blues away.

Whenyou see me crying, babe Crying out all night long You know I been crying, baby, "Won't my baby come home."

90

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Yes, baby everything gonna be alright Yes, baby everything gonna be alright I'm gonna love you baby, little girl every day and every night.

95

TAnnotated Bibliography

Part I- Books

Deep South Piano by Karl Gert zur Heide, Studio Vista, London, 1970. Basically this is a biography of Little Brother Montgomery, with a "who's who" of blues pianists that Little Brother knew before World War II. It includes the lyrics to 24 blues (without music) and a short pre-war discography.

They All Played Ragtime by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, Oak Publications (4th ed.), New York, 1971. A revised edition of an important work on ragtime piano, it contains 16 ragtime scores including the original 1899 version of Scott Joplin's Maple LeafRag.

The Paramount Book ofBlues, New York Recording Laboratories, Port Washington, Wisconsin, c. 1928. A unique booklet originally published to promote Paramount. recording artists. It features 30 blues songs arranged for voice and piano from the repertoires of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Blind Blake, Ida Cox, Charlie Jackson and Elzadie Robinson. The music is not literally transcribed, but is entertaining anyway.

Jazz Style In Kansas City and tbeSoutbioest by Ross Russell, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1971. Although primarily about big bands and jazz, it contains intelligent commentary on the scene in Kansas City and the development of ragtime piano.

The Deuil's Son-In-Law by Paul Garon, Studio Vista, London, 1971. An excellent analysis of pianist Peetie Wheatstraw and his St. Louis contemporaries. Unfor­tunately, like other books in the Studio Vista series, it is not sold in the United States (officially, that is). According to series editor Paul Oliver, Studio Vista is ceasing publication, so these books will quickly become collector's items.

Jazz Panorama by Martin Williams (ed), Collier Books, New York, 1964. The conver­sation with ragtime artist James P. Johnson is fascinating. Also includes chapters on Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller.

Early Jazz by Gunther Schuller, Oxford University Press, New York, 1968. The first serious treatment of jazz by a musician, Schuller discusses ragtime, Jelly Roll Morton and the Harlem stride pianists. The book is filled with erudite musical illustrations, none really of any practical value.

Blues: An Anthology by W.e. Handy, Albert & Charles Boni, New York, 1926. This first collection of blues in standard notation for piano has been recently revised and reprinted. The obvious musical gulf between composed blues and improvised recorded blues may explain why so few bluesmen learned to read music.

The Jazz Record Book by Charles Edward Smith, et. al., Smith & Durrell, New York, 1944. Written by some of the first jazz critics, this classic work includes a chapter .. '. on boogie woogie and a section devoted to old 78 rpm record reviews.

Jazzmen by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. and Charles Edward Smith, Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York, 1939. Deals with early jazz and blues styles, with first hand coverage of boogie woogie in Chicago during the 1930's.

Jazz by Rex Harris, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1952. An accurate history of jazz with sympathetic treatment of ragtime and blues piano, including comments on Jimmy Yancey, Cow Cow Davenport, Speckled Red and Fats Waller.

...:­ The Story of Jazz by Marshall Stearns, Oxford University Press, New York, 1956. Another jazz history that puts everything into a solid academic perspective.

The Blues Tradition by Paul Oliver, Oak Publications, New York, 1970. Approaches the subject via the blues song itself, with valuable perceptions about The Dirty Dozens and The Forty-Fours.

96

The Story of the Blues by Paul Oliver, Chilton Book Co., Philadelphia, 1969. The most comprehensive general history of blues development available, written in an informal, somewhat wandering style. Filled with many photographs and illustrations.

The Blues Line by Eric Sackheim, Grossman Publishers, New York, 1969. A beautiful anthology of blues lyrics compiled with a sensitive poetic eye.

Part II- Periodicals Living Blues, 917 West Dakin Street, Chicago, Ill. 60613. This fine quarterly concen­

trates on the blues scene around Chicago. Pianists like Otis Spann and Sunnyland Slim have received quality coverage along with blues pianists from St. Louis and the South. Erwin Helfer, musician and piano blues researcher, has contributed short articles on basic blues piano techniques.

Blues Unlimited, 38a Sackville Road, Bexhill-On-Sea, Sussex, England. Aimed at collectors and blues fans, this bi-monthly magazine offers little of practical value for the performing musician. However, it is a good source of biographies, blues news and recording information.

Blues World, 22 Manor Crescent, Knutsford, Cheshire, England. Very similartoBlues Unlimited in scope and content.

Arhoolie Occasional, Box 9195, Berkeley, CA 94709. An excellent source of recording information and critical reviews about Arhoolie artists.

Otis Spann and Muddy Waters

•

97

r Discography

This discography is divided into two parts. The first is a selected list of solo performances by the six pianists discussed in this book: Jimmy Yancey, Champion Jack Dupree, Little Brother Montgomery, Speckled Red, Roosevelt Sykes, and Otis Spann. I have tried to list recordings that are currently available. Consequently, the albums included are often recent reissues, not the original label. For more detailed discographical information, consult Blues and Gospel Records 1902-1942 by Dixon and Godrich, and Blues Records 1943-1966 by Leadbitter and Slaven.

Part II is a more general listing of currently available albums of piano blues. Several of these labels are small independent companies that do not distribute to a mass market. The Appendix of addresses will aid in locating many of these recordings.

Part I- Six Blues Pianists

JIMMY YANCEY

Piano solos, except where indicated.

Jimmy's Stuff, S-A 12008 (no LP)/April, 1939, Chicago The Fives, S-A 12008 (no LP) La Salle Street Breakdown, Riverside RLP 1028 Two 0 'Clock Blues Janie's Joys Lean Bacon Big Bear Train Lucille's Lament Beezum Blues Yancey Limited Rolling The Stone, Riverside RLP 1061 Steady Rock Blues PLK Special South Side Stuff Yancey's Getaway How Long Blues Jimmy's Stuff #2 East St. Louis Blues (w/Faber Smith), Columbia G 30008/

Feb 23,1940, Chicago Bear Trap Blues, CBS C3L-321Sept 6, 1940, Chicago

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fJ Barber Shop Rag, Swaggie S 1235/Dec 23, 1950, Chicago Assembly Call Boogie The Yancey Special Jimmy's Goodnight Blues Everlasting Blues Keep A Kno ckin' How Long Blues, Atlantic LP 1283/July 18,1951, Chicago Yancey Special Yancey's Bugle Call 35th And Dearborn Salute to Pinetop Shave 'Em Dry Mournful Blues How Long Blues (w/Mama Yancey) Monkey Woman Blues (w/Marna Yancey) Yancey Special (alt. take), Atlantic LP 134

98

CHAMPION JACK DUPREE

Piano solos.

Dupree Shake Dance, Columbia FPX-238/Jan 28,1941, Chicago Junker Blues Too Evil To Cry, Asch 2Vz/May 3, 1944, New York House Rent Party, Atlantic LP 8056/Dec 29,1959, Copenhagen Misery Blues New Vicksburg Blues Mercy On Me, Archive FS-217/June, 1962, Copenhagen Sleeping In The Street I'm A Gamblin' Man I'm Growing Older Every Day Door To Door Blues When I've Been Drinking The Cold Ground Is My Bed ILonesome Bedroom Blues I

I

A Good Woman Is Hard To Find I Hate To Be Alone

LITTLE BROTHER MONTGOMERY

Piano Solos, except where indicated.

No Special Rider Blues, Riverside RM-8809/Sept 1930, Grafton, Wis. Vicksburg Blues Vicksburg Blues No.2, Yazoo L-1028/Aug 10, 1935, New Orleans The First Time I Met You, RBF 1210ct 16, 1936, New Orleans Stendahl Stomp, Delmark 626/1947, Chicago Tremblin' Blues No Special Rider Bass Key Boogie Pleading Blues, Folkways FG 3527/1960, Chicago Vicksb'l11g 44 Early One Morning Now About That Prisoner Crescent City Blues Pallet On The Floor West 46th Street Boogie Louisiana Rag

FAin't No Bullfrog Mean Old Mama Tasty Blues (w/gtr & bs), Bluesville BVLP 10121

July, 1960, New York Santa Fe How Long Brother No Special Rider Brother's Boogie Vicksburg Blues Farish Street Jive Tk 1, Columbia BSX 1289/

August, 1960, London

Farish Street Jive Tk 2 New Vicksburg Blues Chinese Man Blues Cow Cow Blues Pinetop's Boogie Woogie (w/bs) No Special Rider, Adelphi AD1003S/Sept 1,1969, Chicago

Prisoner Bound Blues (w/gtr)

Cow Cow Blues (w/gtr) London Shout Tremblin' Blues Gin House Blues (w/vcl, gtr)

New Vicksburg Blues (w/vcl)

No Special Boogie (w/gtr)

SPECKLED RED

Piano Solos.

House Dance Blues, 0JL-20/Sept (l4?), 1929, Memphis The Dirty Dozen, Swaggie ]CS-B746/Sept 22,1929, Memphis Wilkins Street Stomp The Dirty Dozen No.2, Brunswick BL-58018/

April 8, 1930, Chicago The Dirty Dozens, Delmark 60111956-57, St. Louis The Right String But The Wrong Yoyo If You've Ever Been Down Wilkins Street Stomp Cow Cow Blues Red's Boogie Woogie Going Down Slow Highway 61 Blues After Dinner Blues Cryin' In My Sleep Cow Cow Blues, Folkways FG 3555/July 19,1960, Copenhagen Tain't Nobody's Business How Long Blues Uncle Sam's Blues It Feels So Good You Ain't No Good Pinetop's Boogie Woogie Baby Won't You Please Come Home Early In The Morning, Storyville SLP 117 Dirty Dozens I've Had My Fun St. Louis Stomp Red's Own Blues Milk Cow Blues Dad's Piece Four 0 'Clock Blues Blues Hurt My Tongue To Talk, Delmark 6261196?, Chicago

ROOSEVELT SYKES

Piano Solos, except where indicated.

44 Blues, Historical ASC 5829-5/June 14, 1929,New York Boo t That Thing All My Money Gone Blues (w/gtr), Yazoo L-1033 The Way I Feel Blues Fire Detective Blues, Riverside RM-8819/

Sept 7, 1929, Richmond, Ind. Single Tree Blues Skeet and Garret, Yazoo L-1033/Nov 16, 1929, Chicago Poor Boy Blues (w/gtr) Lost All I Had Blues (w/gtr), RBF RF-12 Kelly's 44 Blues, Yazoo L-1033/June 12, 1930, Cincinnati Three-Six And Nine, Riverside RM-8819/Aug, 1930, Grafton, Wis. We Can Sell That Thing No Good Woman Blues, Yazoo L-1033/Nov 5,1930, Chicago Kelly's Special, Nov 17, 1930, Memphis Don't Put The Lights Out As True As I've Been To You (w/gtr), June 9, 1931, Louisville, Ky. Hard Luck Man Blues (w/gtr) You So Dumb, June 10, 1931, Louisville

Mr. Sykes Blues, Sept 22, 1932, Richmond, Ind. Highway 61 Blues Selfish Woman, Bluesville NVLP1006/1960, New York Sweet Old Chicago, Folkways FS 3827/June, 1961, New York Don't Care Blues 47th Street Jive Memphis Slim Rock 44 Blues Security Rock RS Stomp Ran The Blues Out Of My Heart All My Money's Gone Woman In Helena, Arkansas The Sweet Root Man The Thing Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone Red-Eyed Jesse Bell, Delmark DL-607/May, 1963, Chicago I Like What You Do We Gatta Move (w/gtr)

North Gulfport Boogie Watch Your Step (w/gtr)

Hof Ho! Hof Living The Right Life New Fire Detective Blues Slidell Blues (w/gtr)

Mistake In Life She's Got Me Straddle A Log This Is A New World (w/drms), Spivey LP 1004/

June 3,1963, New York Lake Charles Stomp (w/drms) Big Ben, Storyville SLP 189/0ct 23, 1966, Copenhagen

Boot That Thing Springfield Blues Henry Ford Blues I'm A Dangerous Man True Thing You Understand Whole Lot Of Children

The Last Laugh

99

Gold Mine Good Morning Mr. Blues, Archive FS-216/ 44 Blues Oct 16, 1963, Copenhagen Sugar Cup Love, Love, Love Dog Finger Blues, Storyville SLP 183 Riverside Blues Dresser Drawers (w/gtr), Delmark 626/196?, Chicago Must Have Been The Devil Concentration Blues (w/gtr) Jelly Roll Baker Kick in ' Motor Scooter Trouble In Mind (w/gtr)

Worried Life Blues TB Blues Spann's Boogie OTIS SPANN Don't You Know

Piano solos, except where indicated. Goin' Down Slow Bloody Murder, Columbia G 30008/1953?, Memphis? Nobody Knows My Troubles, TestamentT-2211/1965, Chicago The Hard Way, Barnaby Z 30246/1960, New York Worried Life Blues Take A Little Walk With Me (w/gtr) You Can't Hide Otis In The Dark What's On Your Worried Mind Little Boy Blue (w/gtr) Vicksburg Blues (w/drms) Country Boy Spann's Boogie Woogie Beat-Up Team See See Rider My Daily Wish (w/gtr) One Room Country Shack I Got Ramblin On My Mind (w/gtr) Mr. Jellyroll Baker Worried Life Blues Three-in-one Blues (w/drrns), Delmark 626/196?, Chicago Great Northern Stomp Spann's Stomp (w/drms), Vanguard VSD Yz/196?, Chicago?

,

Part II- General Piano ~

This is a selected list of piano blues albums listed alphabetically by label name. Space permits only a brief description of each recording. More detailed information may be obtained by writing to the record company directly and requesting a catalog, ,or by inquiring at a local specialty record store.

Adelphi Records AD 1003S No Special Rider-Little Brother Montgomery t AD 1005S Really Chicago's Blues-w/Sunnyland Slim AD 1009S Merr:Phis Blues Again, Vol. l-w/Sam Clark, Mose Vinson, Joe Dobbins I AD 10 lOS Memphis Blues Again, Vol. 2-w/Piano Red, Mose Vinson, Richard Harney

Archive of Folk Music FS 215 Memphis Slim

FS 216 Otis Spann FS 217 Champion Jack Dupree

Arhoolie Records F 1006 Blues N'Trouble-w/Alex Moore, Mercy Dee F 1007 Mercy Dee F 1008 Alex Moore F 1010 Robert Shaw Texas Barrelhouse Piano F 1012 Blues N'Trouble, Vol. 2-w/Mercy Dee, Robert Shaw F 1017 Texas Blues, Vol. 2-w/Mercy Dee, Alex Moore, Robert Shaw F 1048 Alex Moore In Europe 0,

R 2006 Texas Blues, Vol. l-w/Thunder Smith F 1064 Piano Red F 1067 Dave Alexander The Rattler

Asch Recordings AA 1 The Asch Recordings, 1939-1947-w/Champion Jack Dupree

Atlantic Records 1283 Pure Blues-Mama and Jimmy Yancey 8019 Champion Jack Dupree 8045 Champion Jack Dupree 8056 Champion Jack Dupree

100

Atlantic Blues Originals Series 7225 New Orleans Piano-w/Professor Longhair 7227 Blues Piano Chicago Plus-w/Little Brother Montgomery, Meade Lux Lewis, others 7229 Chicago Piano, Vol. I-Mama and Jimmy Yancey (reissue 1283)

Barnaby/Candid Series Z 30246 Otis Spann Is The Blues

Biograph Records BLP-12010 After Hour Blues-wiSt. Louis Jimmy, Little Brother Montgomery, Sunnyland Slim BLP-12047 Black And White Ragtime Piano BLP-1001QParlor Piano-w/Cow Cow Davenport, James P. Johnson, Lemuel Fowler, others BLP-1002Q Thomas (Fats) Waller 1923-1924 Piano Rolls BLP-1003QJames P, Johnson 1917-1921 Piano Rolls BLP-1004QJelly Roll Morton 1924-1926 Piano Rolls

Blues Classics BC 4 Peetie Wheatstraw and Kokomo Arnold BC 5 Country Blues Classics, Vol. 1-w/Cripple Clarence Lofton BC 6 Country Blues Classics, Vol. 2-w/Pinetop Slim

BC 7 Country Blues Classics, Vol, 3-w/Walter Roland BC 15 Memphis & The Delta "The 1950's"--w/Roosevelt Sykes, Sunnyland Slim Be 16 Texas Blues-The 1950's-w/Mercy Dee

Blues Horizon (English Import) 763206 Champion Jack Dupree 763213 Sunnyland Slim 763214 Champion Jack Dupree

Bluestime 9006 Otis Spann

Bluesway 6003 Otis Spann 6013 Otis Spann

Buddah Records 7505 Memphis Slim

BYG (French Import) 529.065 Low Down Piano-w/Cripple Clarence Lofton, Montana Taylor 529.059 Giants of Boogie Woogie-w/Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons 529.063 Ragtime Piano Roll Classics-w/Scott Joplin, Joseph Lamb, James Scott, others

Collectors Classics (European Import) CC 38 Leroy Carr

Columbia Records C 30496 Leroy Carr

Decca Records (British Import) LK 4615 The Blues of Otis Spann SKL 4871 Champion Jack Dupree

Delmark Records 601 Dirty Dozens-Speckled Red's Barrelhouse Piano 607 Hard Driving Blues-Roosevelt Sykes 616 Roosevelt Sykes In Europe 624 Chicago Ain't Notbin' But A Blues Band-w/Sunnyland Slim 626 Blues Piano Orgy-w/Speckled Red, Curtis Jones, Sunnyland Slim, Little Brother Montgomery,

Roosevelt Sykes, Otis Spann

Folkways Records FJ 2809 Piano Jazz, Anthology #9 FJ 2810 Kansas City Boogie, Anthology #10 FA 2385 Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon FG 3524 The Real Boogie Woogie ofMemphis Slim FG 3527 Little Brother Montgomery Blues

101

, FG 3535 Memphis Slim and the Real Honky Tonk ~ FG 3536 Chicago Blues-Memphis Slim ,FG 3554 Barrelhouse Buck FG 3555 The Barrelhouse Blues of Speckled Red FS 3825 The Woman Blues ofJack Dupree FS 3827 Roosevelt (The Honeydripper) Sykes FTS 31014 Little Brother Montgomery , Historical Records HLP 5 Rare Blues Of The Twenties 1926-31-w/Roosevelt Sykes j HLP 29 Hot Pianos 1926-40-w/Cow Cow Davenport, Montana Taylor, Jelly Roll Morton,

Fats Waller

Imperial Legendary Masters Series LM-94004 Urban Blues Vol. 2-w/Fats Domino LM-94006 Rural Blues Vol. 3-w/Roosevelt Sykes

Jazz Piano JP 5001 Ragtime Piano Rolls-w/James Scott, others JP 5002 Jazz Piano Rolls-w/Cow Cow Davenport, Clarence Johnson, Cliff Jackson, others JP 5003 Library of Congress Recordings ofAlbert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis

Kent Anthology Series 9005 Texas Blues-w/Alex Moore

King Records 1082 Memphis Slim I 1084 Jack Dupree

j Mamlish Records 3803 Low Down Memphis Barrelhouse Blues l Matchbox (English Import) 146 Blues Piano-w/Cripple Clarence Lofton, Roosevelt Graves, Shorty Bob Parker, others ~ 191 The Devil's Son-In-Lau--Peesie Wheatstraw 1930-1938 192 The High Sheriff Of Hell-Peetie Wheatstraw ~ 213 Little Brother Montgomery 1930-1969

Milestone Records 2003 The Immortal Jelly Roll Morton 2009 Boogie Woogie Rarities-w/Cripple Clarence Lofton, Wesley Wallace, Meade Lux Lewis,

others

.Origin Jazz Library 0JL 15 Rugged Piano Classics-wiCripple Clarence Lofton, Romeo Nelson, Skip James, others 0JL 16 Ragged Piano Classics-w/Will Ezell, Blind Leroy, others°JL 20 The Blues In St. Louis-w/Peetie Wheatstraw, Speckled Red

Polydor-International (European Import) 623 263 Memphis Slim and Mickey Baker 423211 Pinetop Blues-Memphis Slim

Prestige Records 7719 The Blues Never Die-Otis Spann 7722 The Honeydripper-Roosevelt Sykes 7723 Slim's Shout-Sunnyland Slim 7807 Little Brother Montgomery

RCA International (British Import) 1176 Dr. Clayton and Sunnyland Slim

RCA Victor Vintage Series LPV-543 Classic Jazz Piano Styles-w/Jimmy Yancey, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton

102

RBF (RF Records)

RF 12 Piano Blues-w/Walter Roland, Wesley Wallace, Little Brother Montgomery, Roosevelt Sykes, others

Sounds 1202 Piano Roll Hall Of Fame-w/Jelly Roll Morton, Cow Cow Davenport, Clarence Williams,

others

Spivey Records 1003 Chicago Blues-w/Sunnyland Slim 1004 Three Kings And A Queen-w/Roosevelt Sykes 1006 The Queen And Her Knights-w/Memphis Slirri, Little Brother Montgomery 1008 Muddy Waters Band, Vol. l-w/Otis Spann 1010 Muddy Waters Band, Vol. 2-w/Otis Spann

Stinson 25 Meade Lux Lewis

Storyville (Danish Import) 107 Saturday Night Specials-Champion Jack Dupree 117 The Dirty Dozens-Speckled Red 118 Traveling With The Blues-Memphis Slim 138 This Is A Good Time To Write A Song-Memphis Slim 155 Barrelhouse Blues and Boogie, Vol. l-w/Jimmy Yancey, Meade Lux Lewis, others 157 Portraits In Blues, Vol. 3-0tis Spann 161 Portraits In Blues, Vol. 5-Champion Jack Dupree 168 Piano Blues-w/Otis Spann, Speckled Red, Sunnyland Slim, Jack Dupree, others 169 Portraits In Blues, Vol. 8-Sunnyland Slim 183 Barrelhouse Blues and Boogie, Vol. 2-w/Jimmy Yancey, Pete Johnson, others 184 Boogie Woogie Trio-Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson 187 Piano Blues, Vol. 2-w/Henry Brown, Speckled Red, others 188 Best of The Blues-w/Otis Spann 189 Portraits In Blues, Vol. ii-Roosevelt Sykes 194 The Blues Of Champion Jack Dupree 198 Sippie Wallace Sings The Blues-w/Little Brother Montgomery, Roosevelt Sykes 208 Barrelhouse Piano-Meade Lux Lewis

Swaggie Records (Australian Import) S 1211 James P. Johnson Piano Solos

S 1213 Jelly Roll Morton i938-40 S 1214 Jelly Roll Morton Piano Roll Solos S 1227 Fats Waller 1939-43 S 1228 Grand Piano-w/Willie "The Lion" Smith S 1235 Pitcbin' Boogie-wfJimmy Yancey, Cripple Clarence Lofton S 1243 Rare Fats Waller

Testament Records 2202 Rough And Ready-Jimmy Walker and ErwinHelfer 2211 Nobody Knows ,l1y Troubles-Otis Spann S-Ol Can't Keep From Crying-w/Otis Spann

Vanguard Records 79216 Chicago, The Blues Today Vol. 1-w/Otis Spann 6514 Cryin' Time-Otis Spann VDS-l/2 The Best Of The Chicago Blues-w/Otis Spann, others

Verve Records 3007 Memphis Slim

World Pacific 21890 Got His Thing Going-Sunnyland Slim

Yazoo Records L-1003 St. Louis Town-w/Hi Henry Brown

103

L-I015 Favorite Country Blues Piano-Guitar Duets-w/Charlie Spand, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Bumble Bee Slim, Leroy Carr, others

L-I017 Lucille Bogan and Walter Roland L-I019 Scrapper Blackwell-w/Leroy Carr L-I025 Cripple Clarence Lofton and Walter Davis L-I028 Barrelhouse Piano-wi Little Brother Montgomery, Cow Cow Davenport, Barrelhouse

Welch, others L-I030 St. Louis Blues-w/Hi Henry Brown, Peetie Wheatstraw L-I033 The Country Blues Piano Ace-Roosevelt Sykes

77 (English Import) LA 12/5 Henry Brown Blues LA 12121 Chicago Blues Session-Sunnyland Slim and Little Brother Montgomery

Appendix Record CompanyAddresses

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-'!I

Adelphi Records 516 East Indian Spring Drive Silver Spring, MD 20901

Archive of Folk Music clo Everest Enterprises Inc. 10920 Wilshire Blvd. West Los Angeles, CA 90024

Arhoolie Records (also Blues Classics) Box9195 Berkeley, CA 94709

Asch Recordings: see Folkways

Atlantic Records 1841 Broadway New York, NY 10023

Biograph Records (also Historical) 1601 East 21st Street Brooklyn, NY 11210

Blues Classics: see Arhoolie

Delmark Records 4243 North Lincoln Chicago, IL 60618

Folkways Records (also Asch, RBF) 701 7th Avenue New York, NY 10036

Historical: see Biograph

Kent Records 5810 South Normandie Los Angeles, CA 90044

King Records P.O. Box 8188 Nashville, TN 37207

Mamlish Records Cathedral Station, P.O. Box 417 New York, NY 10025

Milestone Records 119 West 57th Street New York, NY 10019

Origin Jazz Library (0 JL) Box 863 Berkeley, CA 94701

Prestige Records, Inc. 203 South Washington Avenue Bergenfield, NJ 07621

RBF: see Folkways

Spivey Records 65 Grand Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205

Stinson Records P.O. Box 3415 Granada Hills, CA 91344

Swaggie Records Box 125, P.O. South Yarra Victoria, 3141. Australia

Testament Records 577 Levering Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90024

Yazoo Records 54 King Street New York, NY 10014