Category Archives: 2 – Transitional Blues

The change between rural blues and Urban blues (electric blues), Tampa Red, Leadbelly, Muddy Waters

2 - Transitional Blues

Transitional Blues – Part 1

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The “In Betweens” Part 1

Blues musicians like Tampa Red, Leadbelly, Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr and Big Bill Broonzy would shape and direct the move and the sounds of a new kind of blues in the late 1930s and 1940s. These “midway” transitional bluesman were directly influenced by the rural folk bluesman like Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Skip James, Memphis Minnie, Johnny Johnson and Robert Johnson, just to name a few.

Although these “In Between” blues musicians/singers were not considered urban or electric, they had an enormous influence on the new electric Urban Blues that would come out of Chicago, New York and other northern cities.

 

Tampa Red

Tampa Red was born on Smithville, Georgia as Hudson Woodbridge in 1904. His parents died when he was very young and went to live with his aunt and grandmother in Tampa, Florida. Here he was influenced by his older brother and a street musician known as Piccolo Pete who first taught him blues guitar. He learned and perfected a guitar technique known as slide guitar where one used a bottle neck or metal tube to run up and down the fret board to give a glissando effect (a continuous sliding of one pitch to another pitch without any breaks in the sound, similar to the sliding up and down of a pitch on a trombone or a slide whistle).

He moved to Chicago in the 1920s and accompanied the Blues singer pioneer Ma Rainey. He recorded his first hit song “It’s Tight Like That” in 1928 in a raunchy and humorous style that became known as “Hokum”. Tampa Red, along with Georgia Tom (Thomas A. Dorsey), recorded many songs in various incarnations as the Hokum Boys or as Tampa Red’s Hokum Jug Band. He acquired a steel bodied resonator guitar which helped him further develop his slide guitar technique.

In the 1930s, he went on to play and record with many other famous blues artists like Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Minnie, Big Bill Broonzy, Victoria Spivey and Big Maceo (Merriweather), just to name a few. He started the Chicago Five which invented the “Bluebird” sound and became a big influence on the small comb groups of Jump Blues and R&B. He was the center of a community of Blues musicians as they made the trip from the Delta to Chicago. He had many hit songs throughout his career in both Blues and the new R&B styles. In 1942 he had an early R&B hit called “Let Me Play with Your Poodle” and later in 1949 with “When Things Go Wrong with You (It Hurst Me Too)” on electric guitar.

He was later “re-discovered” like so many other bluesmen in the 1950s blues revival and enjoyed a resurgence of critical acclaim. Even though he was a big star, recording over 300 sides, he died in poverty in Chicago at the age of 77. Later, he was recognized as one of the most prolific influences of the Blues and the newer styles (Urban, Jump and Rock & Roll) and is one of the greatest bluesman in the development of the blues genres.

 

Leadbelly

Huddie William Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, was an enormous influence on the Folk, Blues and Gospel genres. He was born on a plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana around 1888. He is best known for his knowledge of many folk and blues standards, his strong tenor singing skills and his virtuosity on the 12- string acoustic guitar. He was a multi-instrumentalist who played piano, harmonica, accordion and many stringed instruments such as the guitar, mandolin and the violin.

His song writing included topics about day laboring, cattle herding, prison life, rural lifestyles as well as being one of the first bluesman to write about socio-economic, social matters including social inequality, bigotry and American politics. He would often write about what was current in the newspapers of his time including the sinking of the Titanic (immortalized in his song “The Titanic), World War I, the Depression era, World War II and the upheaval in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. He had notable success in performing game songs that appealed to children since he performed at children’s birthday parties as a young man.

Leadbelly spent a lot of his life in and out of prison due to his volatile temper, starting in 1915. He had escaped a chain gang in one instance but was again imprisoned after killing a relative in a fight over a woman. He is famous for being pardoned by Texas Governor Pat Morris Neff after he wrote a spiritual song about the Governor (regardless of Texans pledge to issue no pardons). He frequently entertained the prison guards and was highly praised for his abilities as a Bluesman and talented guitar player.

In 1930 he was sentenced to the infamous Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana after stabbing a white man in a fight. It was at Angola where he was recorded in 1933 and 1934, by John and Alan Lomax. They recorded hundreds of songs for the Library of Congress, including his signature song “Goodnight Irene”. Once again, Leadbelly was released on “good behavior” after serving a minimum sentence at Angola.

After his release, Leadbelly was hired by John Lomax as a driver while he continued his mission to record many folk singers and bluesmen in the southern states. Later at the end of 1934, Leadbelly and Lomax went to Pennsylvania where he participated in a performance at Bryn Mawr College. This is when he found fame as the “singing convict”, written about in many newspapers in New York City. He would continue traveling with John Lomax, playing at lecture halls on a short tour of colleges including Harvard. He even had newsreels about his music and life produced by Time Magazine. Alan Lomax wrote a book that came out in 1936 called “Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly”.

Lomax and Leadbelly had a falling out due to management contract disagreements where Leadbelly decided to strike out on his own playing and performing at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre in New York City. Life Magazine featured (a rather racist) three page article on Leadbelly in April of 1937, detailing his music and prison life and suggesting that he was pardoned due to his talents as a folk singer and bluesman.

He found success speaking and playing at lectures, concerts and benefits with an emphasis on his southern black culture. He befriended the great black novelist Richard Wright (member of the Communist Party) with whom he became close friends and a literary subject in the “Daily Worker”. At this time Leadbelly wrote left wing influenced “Bourgeois Blues”, one of his more famous songs.

He fell in with Alan Lomax and was featured in the CBS radio show “Back Where I Came From”, befriending many of New York City’s folk scene including Josh White, Sonny Terry Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seger in the early 1940s. He recorded for RCA and performed regularly on WNYC radio show for Henrietta Yurchenco; had great success in California on Capitol Records and was one of the first black folk and country bluesman to achieve fame in Europe particularly in France.

Sadly, Leadbelly was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1949, fell ill and died shortly after a tribute performance to his mentor, John Lomax, at the University of Texas. He is honored with a statue at the Caddo Parish Courthouse in Shreveport.

Leadbelly’s influence on the Blues is almost insurmountable to many of his peers. He greatly influenced many bluesman and folk singers that would come to fame later in the 1950s and in the folk revival of the 1960s. He was very influential to the genres of Blues, Folk, Gospel, R&B, Rock & Roll and Rock and is cited by so many artists that the list is too long to cite here.

 

2 - Transitional Blues

Transitional Blues – Part 2

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Lonnie Johnson

Lonnie Johnson was born in New Orleans in 1899 and was influential to both the Blues and Jazz. He played the guitar, piano, mandolin and the violin. Lonnie pioneered a technique of the single string solo style so well used in Jazz, Rural and Urban Blues, and in modern Rock.

Lonnie Johnson started playing on riverboats up the Mississippi river with his brother as a duo and with the Fate Marable Orchestra, among others. He began his recording career with Okeh Records after winning a Blues contest in 1925 and recording over 130 sides for Okeh with many successful hits. He recorded with Victoria Spivey, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five, Duke Ellington and the great Stride Jazz pianist James P. Johnson.

With Louis Armstrong Johnson recorded on the sides “I’m Not Rough”, “Savoy Blues” and “Hotter Than That”; with the Duke, Lonnie recorded on the sides “Hot and Bothered”, “Move Over” and “The Mooch”; then he recorded his own sides of “Racketeers’ Blues”, “Hard Times Ain’t Gone Nowhere” and “Fine Booze and Heavy Dues” which were successful in addressing the hardships endured by Black America in the 1920s and the Depression era of the early 1930s. During the late 1930s, like so many other Bluesmen, he was forced to take on menial jobs to make ends meet when the record industry experienced a lull.

In 1939, Johnson started playing the electric guitar and recorded for Bluebird Records the hit songs “He’s a Jelly Roll Baker” and “In Love Again”. Lonnie Johnson made the switch to Rhythm and Blues after WWII, recording for King Records with the mega hit “Tomorrow Night” in 1948. It topped the newly named R&B (race records) category for seven weeks and crossed over at #19 on the pop charts. He followed “Tomorrow Night” with the R&B hits “Pleasing You”, “So Tired” and “Confused”. At this time his hits bared almost no resemblance to his earlier Blues and Jazz sides of the 20s and 30s. He then toured Britain with Lonnie Donegan (an influence on the Beatles) in 1952.

Later in the 1950s, Johnson once again was forced to take on menial jobs in Philadelphia, but had a “rediscovery” during the early 1960s Folk Revival period. Then he was reunited with the Duke for an all- star pair of concerts at New York City’s Town Hall. He toured Europe with Muddy Waters in 1963 as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. Later in 1965, he moved to Toronto, Canada where he played, recorded and toured for the rest of the decade. Sadly, Lonnie Johnson was struck by a car in March of 1969, suffered a stroke in August and never fully recovered from these two setbacks. He got a standing ovation at his last performance at Massey Hall in Toronto, performing with Buddy Guy. He died in June of 1970 and his body was transferred and buried in Philadelphia.

Johnson’s contribution to music is in his influence on the single note solos. Where would Jazz, R&B, Rock and Roll and (Blues influenced) Rock be, without the quintessential guitar solo? Everyone from Charlie Christian (in Jazz), Muddy Waters and BB King (in Blues) to the genres of Rock & Roll and Rock guitar solos (Chuck Berry, Hendrix, Page, Clapton and Beck, just to name a very few) all trace their music back to Lonnie Johnson.

 

Leroy Carr

Born in Nashville in 1905, Leroy Carr was a blues singer, songwriter, and pianist who first came to fame with the song “How Long, How Long Blues” in 1928. He had a laid back singing style that was influential to the Blues incorporating an urban feel that was taken up by Blues artists T-Bone Walker, Count Basie, blues shouter Jimmy Rushing and R&B singers Charles Brown and Amos Milburn and also pop giants Nat “King” Cole and Ray Charles.

His most famous songs showcasing his unique crooner style were “Blues before Sunrise”, “Midnight Hour Blues” both in 1932 and “Hurry Down Sunshine” in 1934. He had a lifelong partnership with the great Blues and Jazz melodic guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. Although he died in 1935 at the age of 30 from chronic alcoholism, he left behind a large body of work that became very influential in the genres of Blues and R&B.

Leroy Carr’s virtuoso piano playing was somewhat in the style of the New Orleans Tin Pan Alley and barrelhouse styles. Though not exactly in the Blues format (12 Bars), his songwriting reflects the Blues ethos. His songs, accompanied by Blackwell, were precursors for the Rural Blues of his time, showing the “move” to Urban Blues sophistication.

In his song “How Long, How Long Blues”, he gives us a sense of yearning for the old rural ways even though he was very much a sophisticated urbanite (living as he did in Indianapolis). His singing and playing styles were very influential to the coming Blues styles of Urban Blues, Jump Blues, R&B and later Rock & Roll. Carr’s soul searching and introspective lyrics were tremendous on the new genres that he was never to live long enough to see or experience.

 

Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy was one of the key figures in the transition from Rural Blues to Urban Blues. He helped develop the transmutation of Blues in the late 1930s and 1940s and then went back to his country folk Blues in the late 1950s, as a part of the American Folk Blues Revival. Broonzy wrote more than 300 songs in his long and varied career that show a unique writing style that chronicles the “move” from country Blues to Urban Blues.

Born Lee Conley Bradley, sometime between the years of 1893 to 1898 in Arkansas or Mississippi, Blues scholars and historians are in dispute on this. He began playing and learning spirituals and folk songs at a very early age from his uncle. He began performing the fiddle at segregated social and church events. He was drafted into the army in 1917 and served two years in Europe during World War I. Upon returning to the states, he was discouraged by the racism and bigotry he experienced in Arkansas and made the move to Chicago (like so many other black performers, in 1920).

In Chicago, Big Bill learned guitar from Papa Charlie Jackson, a medicine show minstrel and Paramount recording artist. At the time, Big Bill worked at odd jobs and menial labor, as he perfected his bluesman craft. He tried several times to become a successful recording artist through Paramount but didn’t have much success. He then moved to New York City in 1932, where he had some success as a performer. He returned to Chicago where he had steady work in the South Side clubs and teamed up with Memphis Minnie.

By 1934, Big Bill was signed to Bluebird Records and had success when he teamed up with the pianist Black Bob Call. He began to make the “move” from a folk blues guitarist to more of an Urban Blues style (a pre-cursor to R&B). He started to record in small combos with horns, harmonica, piano, upright bass and drums under the Vocalion label. Throughout the mid 1930s, Big Bill was a composer of many important songs recorded by Tampa Red and his half brother, Washboard Sam, both signed to Bluebird Records. He played on most of Washboard Sam’s sides. However, due to contract intricacies, he had to be billed as composer only. He became an important figure in the Chicago Blues scene.

His career took a turn for the better when he was asked to fill in for Robert Johnson (who had recently died) in the famous Carnegie Hall John Hammond concerts and production “From Spirituals to Swing” in 1938. He had a role in the movie “Swinging the Dream”, along with Maxine Sullivan, Louis Armstrong and the Benny Goodman Sextet.

At this point Big Bill Broonzy had become a pivotal artist in the transformation of Country Blues to Urban Blues. Like Leroy Carr’s lyrics of the yearning for the old days in rural America, Big Bill wrote songs that appealed to the urban black audience’s sophistication and reflections of where they came from. He was a prolific writer encompassing many genres such as Rural Blues, Folk songs, Spirituals and early Gospel, Hokum Blues, Jazz songs, Ragtime and most importantly the new sounds and themes of Urban Blues and Chicago Electric Blues.

His recordings of “Where the Blues Began” (with Big Maceo on piano and Buster Bennett on Saxophone), “Martha Blues” (with Memphis Slim on piano) and the quintessential Urban Blues defining song, “Keys to the Highway” all appeared in the mid 1940s. In 1948, Big Bill moved to Mercury Records and started a tour with the folk music revue “I Come For To Sing” with Studs Terkel and was the key artist.  He had to quit the tour due to health problems later that year.

After he regained his strength in 1951, he commenced a very successful tour of Europe, where he was greeted with standing ovations and critical praise. The tours he had of Europe and particularly in England, made him a star influencing many up and coming musicians of the British Blues, Jazz and Folk scenes, including John Lennon of the Beatles.

He returned to the states triumphant and financially secure. He then began performing with Pete Seger, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee as part of Folk Revival. Here is where Big Bill returned to his roots and toured the world in Africa, South America and the Pacific as well as Europe. In 1955 he published an autobiographical book entitled “Big Bill Blues”. In 1957, he helped start a school called the Old Town School of Folk Music. Unfortunately in August of 1958, Big Bill died after a battle with throat cancer in Chicago.

Big Bill Broonzy’s influence in music is quite remarkable and vast. He was a great songwriter who wrote in many genres and was a key figure in the “move” of the Blues to Urban Blues, R&B and the later genres of Rock & Roll and modern Rock. He was a bridge from the older genres to the newer genres of the 20th century, bridging the music of Son House, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Jimmie Rodgers with Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Eric Clapton, Yes, The Grateful Dead and even Rush as well as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and the British Blues scene of the mid and late 1960s and 1970s. He is also credited as an educator against racism and bigotry and a proponent of the Blues and music in general.