St. Louis' Rich Blues History Beautifully Recalled

Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St Louis Missouri
Authored, Illustrated & Designed by Kevin Belford
2009: Virginia Publishing, St. Louis Missouri.

Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St Louis Missouri
Authored, Illustrated & Designed by Kevin Belford
2009: Virginia Publishing, St. Louis Missouri.

 I remember a LP compilation of pre-World War II blues, “Lake Michigan Blues,” that was on the Nighthawk label. It collected a nice mix of 16 recordings, many of which presaged what we would know as Chicago blues. Reading the liner notes in discussing folks like John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson, Yank Rachell, Robert Lee McCoy (Aka Nighthawk) and Henry Townsend, I observed the fact that these folks were living in St. Louis at the time they went up to Chicago to record some sides that became a strong part of the foundation of the post-war Chicago Blues. Still, the important role of St. Louis based artists in blues history has been generally ignored or not given much attention.

A new book “Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St Louis Missouri,” specifically aims to address this neglect of blues history. This book brings together the history of St. Louis blues artists and their musical contributions. Furthermore, this book is a visual feats as well. Kevin Belford did not simply draft the text, but laid-out and marvelously illustrated this volume in which his discussion of the history and artists is complemented by collages of photos, painting, press clippings and more. It is on most striking books visually as well as being an important contribution to the blues literature.

St. Louis is where the two largest rivers in the United States, the Missouri and the Mississippi, join and flow south. Its placement made it ideal for development of new ideas and musical creation. Traditional music research often focuses on the primal source (ideally one) and overlooks St. Louis’ pivotal role in the blues and other forms of American music. This simplistic focus on mythical sources then leads Henry Townsend’s birth and few months in Mississippi as more important to characterizing his music than the rest of his life lived in Cairo, Illinois and St. Louis. Townsend didn’t start playing until he heard Lonnie Johnson as a pre-teenaged boy. It is this imbalance that Belford corrects. “Adding the St. Louis part of the blues story should not mean rewriting American musical history” but rather provide a more complete history and understanding of the music. St. Louis’ importance in the rise of pre-blues and pre-jazz is widely acknowledged, but the blues history overlooked and that is aim he has here.

The early part of the book focuses on St. Louis pre-blues music which includes a discussion of the concert bands, ragtime players and composers, as well as noting three infamous murders that become crafted into folk ballads that are well known from “Duncan and Brady” (also known as ‘Looking For the Bully”); “Frankie and Johnny;” and “Staggerlee.” While the former number never made it to Tin Pan Alley’s publishing machines, the latter did. Besides mentioning these songs, the actual stories behind them are revealed. St. Louis, Missouri and the surrounding area are well known for their importance of ragtime, which mixed folk and formal music. Also early St. Louis jazz is discussed, noting historical accounts of jazz was played before what are considered the first jazz records and the musicians, both Black and White, whom played in the bands in St. Louis. In 1923, Kansas City bandleader Bennie Moten came to St. Louis to record along with singer Ada Brown and Mary Bradford, but despite the word blues in most song titles, most of these sides are not considered part of the blues legacy by many blues historians, and neither are some of the white bands like Gene Rodemich who recorded a number of titles with blues in them.

“The first recordings of St. Louis blues are of female singers mostly and a few of the great St. Louis jazz bands.” From the slums, Josephine Baker emerged and starting at the Booker T. Washington Theater where she played for tips, she became an international celebrity in Paris. Katherine McDonald recorded two songs with a pianist, Miles Davis (unrelated to the jazz icon); while Priscilla Stewart made a number recordings, many with the great pianist Jimmy Blythe. Eva Taylor started at St. Louis’ Orpheum Theater before marrying pianist and Clarence Williams and moving to New York where she made numerous recordings. Virginia Liston recorded with Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams before returning to St. Louis. Then there was Irene Scruggs, whose two page spread provides a concise summary of her recordings and career including that she toured on the TOBA circuit performing with Lonnie Johnson, Little Brother Montgomery and the King Oliver Band and in the fifties moved to Europe and likely died overseas. We learn that she was also known as Little Sister, Dixie Nolan, and Chocolate Brown. In addition to a reproduction of her image from a record ad, their are reproductions of an Okeh ad for “My Daddy’s Calling Me” and “You Got What I Want,” which was issued as by “Chocolate Brown.

At this time you had bands working on the steamboats going up and down the Mississippi such as Fats Marable and they produced such important musicians and bandleaders as Dewey Jackson and Charlie Creath. Creath’s Jazz-O-Maniacs included at different times William Blue, Pops Foster and Gene Sedric (of Fats Waller Band fame). What is important is that a variety of artists from St. Louis, jazz bands and female singers of all stripes from St. Louis recorded and nearly every session by them included at least one blues-titled song. An impressive factor as was that the performers were not lone wolfs but “seem to have known and worked with each other in a camaraderie of diverse styles that today is divided into vaudeville or jazz or blues categories.”

St. Louis blues itself arose from “artists [who] grew up listening to piano players at house parties or guitarists in poolhalls and barbershops. The typical musician worked a regular job and played their blues with a network of clubs, parties and bands around the city.” Belford doesn’t simply discuss the musicians. he notes facilitators like Jesse J. Johnson, who opened a record store, managed bands and was the connection between the musicians (including his brother James Stump Johnson and wife Edith) and the record companies. Johnson was the person who helped Victoria Spivey, Lonnie Johnson and so many to get recorded and promoted. Lonnie and his brother James moved to St. Louis after a flu epidemic. In 1925, Lonnie won a blues contest for months on running at the Booker T. Washington Theatre leading to what would be a prodigious recording career. Victoria Spivey’s career took off after she came to St. Louis to audition for Jesse Johnson and in addition to a short summary of her and Lonnie’s careers, Belford discusses pseudonyms they may have used on other recordings and some of the musicians they were associated with.

It is easy to get caught in the details and lose the sense of the story being told. There will be performers he discusses that should be known to knowledgable blues enthusiasts like Henry Townsend, Charlie Jordan, Henry Brown, Roosevelt Sykes, Mary Johnson, Clifford Gibson, Peetie Wheatstraw, Big Joe Williams, Speckled Red, Walter Davis,Teddy Darby, and St. Louis Jimmy, as well lesser known names like Alice Moore, Edith Johnson, JD Short, and The Sparks Brothers. Robert Nighthawk lived in St. Louis when the Victor Recording Company had him, Big Joe Williams, Henry Townsend and John Lee ‘Sonny Boy Williamson’ travel to Chicago to make recordings that foreshadowed the post-war Chicago blues style. While Dr. Clayton is included in Belford’s discussion as having lived in St. Louis, Belford may have been unaware that (as he told me) Robert Lockwood, Jr., was living in St. Louis at the time and traveled with Dr. Clayton for a session after which Lockwood recorded under his own name for Bluebird on this trip. Belford cogently notes that St. Louis artists Roosevelt Sykes, Lonnie Johnson, Peetie Wheatstraw and Walter Davis among the most prolific recording blues artists of the pre-World War 11 era.

In the latter pages there is a brief of the post-war scene, although perhaps not in the same detail, and there is an appreciation of the role of Charlie O’Brien, a police officer, and Bob Koester, then a college student and jazz fan, in uncovering and documenting the blues history summarized here. A 14-track CD, “The St. Louis Blues Legacy,” is included with selections from the Delmark catalog presenting some of the artists discussed by Belford. “Devil at the Confluence” accomplishes its intended purpose of bringing to the front and center the great contributions of artists associated with St. Louis on the blues tradition. “Devil at the Confluence” is a significant contribution to the blues literature.

I believe this book is a limited edition. I purchased it from amazon.com.