What people are saying about Annual No 6

A number of the major pieces here are the results of “forensic” research in official documents, especially census records, and the re-examination of older sources such as pioneering interviews from the 1960s. One of the results is “West Dallas Drag” by Bob Eagle and Michael Hortig which sheds new light on the lives (and music) of “The Santa Fee Pianists”: Black Boy Shine, Pinetop Burkes, Andy Boy, Son Becky and Joe Pullum. The article marries the vivid recollections of Buster Pickens and Robert Shaw, last survivors of the Santa Fee, with the facts rather starkly recorded in registers of births and deaths. All of this gives context to the work of these pianists and singers which I’ve long admired and collected and which is illustrated by Rob Cooper’s  splendid piano solo “ West Dallas Drag” ( CD,1). It’s a pleasure to learn so much more about their lives. 

“Crowing Rooster”, an exhaustive investigation by David Evans, Bob Eagle and associates of an obscure record by Walter Rhodes (CD 8), reveals larger contexts. Not only does it document the life and death (by lightning strike!) of Walter “Pat” `Rhodes, it also explores the role of the accordion in African-American music, the connection between Rhodes and Charlie Patton (“Banty Rooster Blues”) as well as the biographies of Rhodes’ brilliant accompanists - Richard and Mylon Harney ( Pet and Can). It is an engrossing read. 

The pre-war blues is further documented in “Memories of Tommy Johnson” (CD 6. “Cool Drink Of Water”), a compilation of reminiscences by Johnson ’s friends and family collected in the early 1960s by Gayle Dean Wardlow, who also contributes a poignant piece on the final years of Bo Carter. It is Illustrated with informal and rather charming photographs of Carter playing for a group of white children (in 1958). Wardlow offers these as an alternative to Paul Oliver’s picture (in “Conversation With The Blues”, Cassell, 1960) of the blind Bo Carter sitting alone with his steel guitar. Wardlow argues that this picture shaped ‘the contemporary image of Bo Carter in popular memory’. To my recollection it did, but it was, back then, allied with Sam Charter’s glancing reference to him in “The Country Blues” (1959) as “Bo Carter… a ‘party blues’ singer”. Armiter “Bo” Carter was much more than that : he was an exceptional guitarist and very fine singer. Alex van der Tuuk’s essay, “Clifford Gibson”, illustrated by a Victor Test of “Don’t Put That Thing On Me” (CD 7) and an engaging photograph of Gibson and his performing dog, brings this accomplished St. Louis artist to life. 

Similarly, “Altanta Black Sound” surveys the city’s rich musical culture and is splendidly illustrated with a host of  photographs, some historic like that of Barbecue Bob in a suit, tie and hat ( which I first saw on the cover of “The Atlanta Blues” RBF 15 ) and  the picture from 1907 of Curley Weaver with his mother, Savannah. Others, including one of his fellow researcher Bruce Bastin listening with obvious pleasure to Buddy Moss play, were taken by Peter B. Lowry who wrote this long and comprehensive overview back in 1977 for the Atlanta Historical Society Bulletin. Lowry and Bastin ( author of the classic “Red River Blues”, University of Illinois Press,1986)  did much of the  ground-breaking field work which documented the musical history of the eastern sea board and the article is republished here as a tribute to Peter Lowry who died last year. It’s illustrated by previously unissued field recordings made by Bastin and Lowry (CD 25. “Poor Boy” by Willie Trice and CD 26,”Ain’t Got No Mama Now” by Ernest Scott) ; both are lovely performances. 

Two essays by Chris Smith explore the wider story of African-American music which was preserved by the Library of Congress and independent field researchers like Lawrence Gellert, whose book (1936) “Negro Songs of Protest’, framed the music in the activist context of left-wing politics. The only recordings made of a named artist (Private Odell E.Hall,) by Gellert  were recorded in Camp Woolers, Texas, in 1942. (CD 20, 21).  Chris Smith’s second essay “Roger Garrett: “A Man Before His Time” is a fascinating account of a murder ballad “Eaton Clan” recorded by Garrett for the Library of Congress at Parchman Farm in 1939. Smith first explored this song and its circumstances twenty years ago, but subsequent research in the federal census records (and elsewhere) has revealed much more about the Eaton murder ( a white affair)  and about its chronicler, Roger Garrett who was black. An arresting photograph shows Garrett seated at the centre with a family of white instrumentalists standing round. As Chris Smith cautions, “This is a difficult image to read through the lenses of time, race and class’ but his careful and nuanced exploration of it gives us a real sense of complex cultural context(s) in which the ballad was created and transmitted. 

The editor, Paul Swinton, contributes a number of pieces including an authoritative look at the history of the Memphis Jug Band (a longstanding interest of his, reflected in their complete works being available in exemplary sound on Frog Records). He traces the band’s story and ever changing personnel from first to final recordings (1927 -1934) and emphasises the pivotal role of Will Shade who was at its heart : he formed it having been inspired by a Dixie Land Jug Blowers record and was the driving personality behind its success. One of the many pleasures of this article is its “asides”: when Paul discusses the band’s recording of “Aunt Caroline Dyer” it’s illustrated with a photograph of the famous soothsayer  and there’s a revealing note about the Whitewall Station, subject of an eponymous MJB recording (CD.12) One particularly arresting press photographic sequence shows jug band members entertaining Boss Crump and his white guests on a campaign train. Swinton’s expert knowledge of the band, its patrons, the places it performed - in short, the culture and world from which it came- is animated by an obvious love of the music. It made this reviewer once again play Frog DGF 15,16,18 and 62. Arlo Leach’s “Charlie Burse -The Memphis Mudcat is a superb adjunct to this. It tells the story of another key member of the MJB illustrated with family photographs and the reminiscences of his grand-children. Burse was a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and vital presence in both live performance and in the recording studio. Leach’s attempt to identify Burse’s presence - vocally, on guitar, tenor guitar and mandolin - on the MJB’s records is another invitation to close listening.  

Paul Swinton’s essay on Charlie Creath has at its core the recollections of Creath’s sister, Marge who married Zutty Singleton. They are augmented by research in the public records to produce a picture of an expressive musician whose trumpet playing recalled King Oliver. It also chronicles Creath’s addiction to gambling, his consequent involvement with organized crime and his suicide.  

David Butters contributes a brace of articles that tangentially relate to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band whose “Livery Stable Blues” is commonly taken to be the first jazz record. It became the subject of a copyright dispute between the composers of the piece, Ray Lopez and Alcide Nunez, and the ODJB and their agent. The stories of Lopez and Nunez (and the wider cultural  and musical world in which jazz emerged) are told here in compelling detail. The “World’s Greatest Jazz Clarinetist” recounts the life of Alcide “Yellow” Nunez, one of the oldest New Orleans jazz clarinetists, who recorded with the Louisiana Five in 1919 (CD.16). Although not as famous with latter day collectors as Johnny Dodds, Omer Simeon or Sidney Bechet, Nunez figures widely in the oral histories of New Orleans Jazz. Butters makes it clear that Nunez, unlike Dodds or Bechet, wasn’t an “improvisor” but an expert, professional player of syncopated music which aligned him with the subject of Butter’s  second, longer article on cornetist Ray Lopez. Born in New Orleans, Lopez was an important figure in the white musical culture of the city, playing with pioneering groups such a Jack Laine’s Reliance Band, and Tom Brown’s Ragtime Band which brought the music they called “jass” north to Chicago in 1915. These articles meld individual biographies with a wider musical and social history.  

The other, some would argue, key cultures which shaped “jass” in New Orleans - the Creole and the African-American-- are encountered in a variety of pieces. David Butters relates the life of Sam Morgan, leader of perhaps the finest band to make records of traditional New Orleans music in the 1920s (CD.2.“Short Dress Gal” ) whilst, in a reprint of a 1946 article, Robert Goffin’s tells the story  of “Big Eye” Louis Nelson. Nelson didn’t record until just before his death in 1949, but his vivid memories of playing with Buddy Bolden, Freddy Keppard , Bunk Johnson, The Superior Orchestra and others bring a world of music to life. So does a brief interview with the pianist, composer and band leader, Joe Robichaux who with his New Orleans Rhythm Boys is featured here.( CD.9. “Saturday Night Fish Fry Drag”).  

For many years Ate van Deldon presided over the “Ramblings” discography page of VJM which he often concluded with requests for information about the records of the multi-instrumentalist, Adrian Rollini( CD. 17“At The Jazz Band Ball”). His succinct biography of the master of the bass saxophone is the fruit of that research. Should you wish to read more, Ate’s fully documented account of his research is published as “Adrian Rollini: The Life And Music of a Jazz Rambler” (University of Mississippi Press, 2020 ). 

Brian Goggin contributes two fine articles. One relates the life of the obscure tuba player Lawson Buford ( who plays on “Band Box Stomp” by Jabbo Smith.CD 22.) and opens with an illuminating short history of the tuba in jazz. The other is an extended exploration of the life and music of the arranger (and sometime sax player) Jimmy Mundy who “had one of the greatest jazz brains and was a key architect of the swing era” He can be heard playing on “Caverism” by Earl Hines and his Orchestra (CD.10). 

As with the earlier annuals, this one is lavishly and colourfully illustrated with vintage advertisements, newspaper reports and articles, including a 1928 piece on Ma Rainy (complete with photograph)  and a 1938 one about Blind Willie McTell from a local Statesboro paper ,“The Bulloch Herald”: both are clearly based on interviews with the artists.  

One of the incidental pleasures of reading the Frog annuals has been the way in which they invite you revisit music that you know and also introduce you to artists, records and genres that you don’t. For me they’ve certainly opened doors to early jazz. Therefore, it’s worth noting a contemporary advertisement (illustrated with two wonderful photographs of Sister Rosetta Tharpe) which closes the final annual, but announces that “The Frog Occasional. Volume 1, Issue 1” is “COMING SOON!” I look forward to it!  In the meantime, this farewell is unreservedly recommended.