If Geeshie Wiley (see ABON 0149) was the most talented female Early Blues singer/guitarist then Memphis Minnie was the most popular.

 Just like Geeshie, Minnie played guitar brilliantly, sang with a voice as strong and as loud as many of her male peers and, at least in the early years, was accompanied by a second guitarist. But while Geeshie recorded just six tracks in 1930 and 1931 and then disappeared, Minnie was a major commercial success, recording over one hundred 78s between 1929 and the mid 1950s.

more

It would make perfect sense – and be absolutely logical – if the key influences on Rock’n'Rollers Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard were the pioneering Blues shouters of the of the 30s and 40s such as Big Joe Turner (see ABON 0139) and the R’n'B stars of the late 40s such as Wynonie Harris who were the first to move towards a R’n'R-tinged music.

So it might be a bit of a surprise to most people when they realise that this is wrong. The single artist who seems to have influenced all three future stars most, by their own admission, is actually Sister Rosetta Tharpe. And Sister Rosetta didn’t even sing the Blues.

more

When we last met Big Joe Turner he was a Blues Shouter trying his hand at Boogie Woogie, supported by Pete Johnson on piano (see ABON 0138). But in the years since 1938 he’d moved on from Boogie Woogie to the 1940s craze of Jump Blues – an up tempo form of Blues built for dancing and played by bands with brass sections. And so had Pete Johnson, his piano-playing partner in crime, who had seamlessly switched from Boogie Woogie piano-accompanist to leader of the Jump Blues band that Big Joe usually sang with.

But by 1950 Big Joe and Pete’s partnership had run its 13-year course. Big Joe signed solo to Atlantic Records and started the third stage of his long career - as a Rock’n'Roller. Albeit a Rock’n'Roller who was still at heart a Blues Shouter and who shouted his own particular version of R’n'R that very firmly still had at least one foot in Jump Blues.

more

Casey Jones was an American railwayman who, in 1900, while racing his train to make up for lost time, saw another stationary train on the track ahead. He ordered his fireman, Sim Webb, to jump off the moving train but refused to do so himself. Instead he died while bravely remaining on board trying to stop his train and blowing its warning whistle as it ploughed into the rear of the one ahead.

Furry Lewis was an itinerant Medicine Show musician who, in 1917, while jumping onto a moving train in order to avoid paying the fare, got his foot caught in a coupling and lost a leg. He continued making his living as a travelling guitarist and singer until 1923 when he finally decided that touring was just too difficult and settled down in Memphis as a street sweeper.   

more

During the Blues boom of the late 1920′s practically all of the talent lived and worked in the Southern States, whilst the record companies and their studios tended to based in the North. So every year each of the major labels would embark on a tour of likely cities or large towns in the South, armed with mobile recording facilities, searching for unsigned singers and recording new songs by those they’d already signed on previous visits. And when they left, the artists would get on with their lives again until the next visit.

Columbia Records usually visited twice a year - in Spring and in Autumn. In the first visit in 1927 they came across Robert Hicks. Robert was working as a chef in a barbecue restaurant in Atlanta and performing in his spare time, often in the same restaurant. That will explain why his first recording was called ’Barbecue Blues’. In their wisdom Columbia decided to photograph Bob in full chef’s gear to promote the song and rechristen him, ’Barbecue Bob’. They knew what they were doing and ’Barbecue Blues’ became a very big hit, selling 15,000 copies and making Bob Columbia’s biggest Black star up to that point.

more

In Gus Cannon you can trace almost the entire history of early 20^th Century black American music.

He was born into poverty in 1883. By 1900 he’d already made his own banjo (supposedly from an abandoned saucepan and a raccoon skin). He’d taught himself to play it. Then decided he’d work out how to play ‘slide banjo’ with a knife blade as the slide. And he’d run away from home, eventually spending several years as a musician in travelling Medicine Shows which used music to attract customers to listen to the pitches of the quacks.

more