The Amazing Secret History of Elmore James Steve Franz

The Amazing Secret History of Elmore James
Steve Franz
BlueSource Publications: St Louis

Initially published in 2002 and reprinted in 2008, Steve Franz's biography of Elmore James, one of the greats of the post World War II blues, was made available in June 2019, shortly before Franz's unexpected passing. This is a richly researched and detailed biography of the slide guitar master, but as Franz shows, James was so much more.

Franz recalls an unusually warm January day in 1987 when he was first formally introduced to Elmore James' music. He had just transferred to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville when he heard a ceramics student blasting music. It reminded him of a song he heard on a compilation album. Franz reacted similarly to myself when I first heard Elmore a couple of decades earlier.

"I found the music invigorating and mesmerizing, all at the same time. Just then there was a lull in our conversation, as the opening notes of "Standing at the Crossroads" broke out over the speakers. I was completely transfixed. I had heard music that rocked my soul before, but never anything quite like this. My whole being was so focused on the music emanating from the tiny speakers, that all activity, time, and motion in the surrounding world seemed to slow down or fade away, while the only thing that traveled through it was Elmore James, singing this song. I remember thinking to myself at the time that 'Elmore was singing it like was the best goddamn song ever written.'"

Before launching into the biography, Franz provides an overview of how interest in Elmore among blues enthusiasts (himself included) at the same time he had passed. There is a brief description of the early research into James' career, including pioneering research by Europeans. Also, there is a brief overview of the release and reissue of his recordings before Franz details his life.

I am not going to go into great detail about the contents, but Franz takes us from Elmore's early days growing up in the Mississippi farmlands, his learning to play music, and more. There is a description of his playing with Robert Johnson and Sonny Williamson II. Those that knew Elmore, including Homesick James, Floyd Jones, Sunnyland Slim, Houston Stackhouse, and David 'Honeyboy' Edwards, provide their recollections as Elmore became a juke joint musician. Later after serving in the Navy during the Second World War, Elmore worked in a radio shop where "he began to work out the ideas for an acoustic guitar amplification system that would guarantee a unique sound."

 

The original recording of "Dust My Broom"

Elmore and Sonny Boy Williamson II began a fruitful performing relationship, which also led to some of Elmore's earliest recordings on Trumpet Records with Sonny Boy and Willie Love. This led to Elmore recording "Dust My Broom." Franz demolishes the myth that Elmore was tricked into recording the song. He also details how Joe Bihari recorded Elmore while James was under contract to Trumpet, and various legal proceedings that led Bihari to have to sit on the recordings for a period.

There is much devoted to his performing career as well as subsequent recordings. These included discussion of the various specific songs he waxed and sideman sessions he was on with Big Joe Turner for Atlantic and Junior Wells for the States label. The analysis of these sessions also provided considerable space devoted to The Broomdusters. One of the finest post-war Chicago blues bands, it consisted of pianist Little Johnny Jones, tenor saxophonist J.T. Brown, bassist Ransom Knowling, and drummer Odie Payne.

Franz chronicles Elmore's time playing in various Chicago clubs and the problems he had with the union in great detail. The various union issues that prevented him from playing or recording in Chicago, so he relocated back down south, are discussed. Also, the circumstances that led him to record for Bobby Robinson are given. The personnel of the various sessions are listed, including the shifting changes in the personnel of The Broomdusters.

There also are brief snippets of those who saw Elmore live, including James Meredith's relatively well-known recollections. The late George Adins recalled, "Elmore James will always remain the most exciting and dramatic blues singer and guitarist that I've ever had a chance to see perform in the flesh."

In addition to Adins, Jacques Demetre and Marcel Chauvard saw Elmore at a Chicago Lounge. "All was ready for the grand ritual of pure blues. What do I say? What words can I use to describe this? How to put the music on this paper—bluesy, one-hundred percent.... From the public's side, exclusively black except for the two of us, it was a party. A great festival... Elmore James was, at the instant, a shaman, and had a precise role—to exorcise their misery and to make them forget their troubles. It was during this time, while he was singing and playing that exclamations of encouragement came from the public without stop. "Yes, you is right, man!", "Talk to me!" and others "That's the truth!", forming like a choir, sustaining... his presentation... ."

"The band sounded rather wild," Demetre and Chauvard noted, "but their music was very beautiful. Elmore sang just like a preacher, using many gospel effects. He accompanied himself magnificently on his electric guitar, a small metal slide on the little finger of his left hand. His stunning 'Hawaiian' style reminded us of Robert Johnson and Kokomo Arnold. Next to him, Sunnyland Slim played a mean boogie-woogie accompaniment on the piano."

Elmore was about to be reinstated by the Chicago Musicians Union, record again, and play in Chicago when he suddenly passed. Franz considers Elmore's legend among his fellow musicians and fans. He then provides information on the post-Elmore James careers of Johnny Jones, J.T. Brown, and Odie Payne. Another chapter considers Elmore's musical legacy, including the various artists who adopted Elmore's "Dust my Broom" guitar lick. The artists range from Boyd Gilmore, Woodrow Adams, and Lil Son Jackson, to B.B. King and Juke Boy Bonner, L.C. 'Good Rockin' Robinson to Hop Wilson, and Ike Turner, Eddie Taylor, to Earl Hooker to mention some of those artists.

Then there is a chapter devoted to the Keepers of the Flame. It provides an overview of the careers and music of those who played in the style of Elmore. These include Joe Carter, Hound Dog Taylor, Johnny Littlejohn, J. B. Hutto, and Homesick James. These portraits of these artists are reasonably detailed. I do note that Franz missed one Keeper of the Flame. New Orleans guitarist, Deacon John Moore has shown himself in live performance, including on a live CD, more than a little familiar with James' music. One might understand how Deacon John was overlooked because he was a studio musician, and his commercial recordings did not show him as a Keeper of the Fame. But to hear him do "Standing at the Crossroads," one appreciates his love of Elmore, even if only a small portion of his repertoire.

Some appendices deal with various issues. One is devoted to the myths and folklore about Elmore. Here Franz provides considerable detail about the myth Elmore was hoodwinked into recording "Dust My Broom." There is a full discography of Elmore's recording sessions, including the personnel and the various releases a song was issued on.

This book is copiously illustrated with photos, trade magazine ads, label shots, and newspaper ads for club listings. There are over 880 footnotes,  an extensive bibliography, and other sources. This book was a labor of love and joins biographies of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, B.B. King, and others that belong in any blues lover's library. The original printed edition may be hard to find, so, fortunately, this is available as an e-book.

Also, Steve Franz, under the name Sleepy Boy Hawkins,  hosted a radio show, Blues Unlimited, which delved into various blues topics. These shows are available as downloadable podcasts on Bandcamp, https://bluesunlimited.bandcamp.com. There are four episodes devoted to Elmore James that might serve as a musical soundtrack to this book. These are episodes 321, 326, 327, and 328.

I purchased my e-book. Here is Elmore James doing "The Sky Is Crying."

 

Rabbit's Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges

Rabbit's Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges
Con Chapman
Oxford University Press
New York: Oxford University Press: 232 pages

Nearly fifty years after he passed away, we finally have a full biography of Johnny Hodges. Hodges was arguably the premier alto saxophonist before Charlie Parker. Perhaps it was his close association with Duke Ellington that underscored the absence of a full biography. After all, his musical career was so intertwined with that of Ellington. Also, he was a taciturn person who sought to keep his private life private and was also a person of few words. With this background, we can appreciate Con Chapman's efforts to detail Hodges' life and music.

Chapman has written a straightforward account of the great saxophonists life and his music as he straightens out some facts about his life. In the Prologue, he notes that the first name by which he is known does not appear on his birth certificate and his given name does not appear on his death certificate. While his birth year is cited as 1906, his birth certificate shows he was born in 1907, and he provides several cases where wrong information is given about him. Other misconceptions are corrected here as well as telling Hodges story.

Chapman first examines Hodges roots, tracing his parents back to Virginia before they moved to the Boston area. His family was a musical one, but his attraction to the saxophone was because he found this one soprano saxophone in a store window "looked so pretty." He details Hodges education on the saxophone that included a few lessons from teachers and other players. Sidney Bechet was a significant influence whom he met when Bechet was in a show in Boston. Also, he learned from listening to records, and he gained experience playing with local artists in Boston as well as travel to New York.

In New York, he scuffled playing in dance clubs and jam sessions, before playing with Bechet at a club the New Orleans artist-owned. Eventually, Willie 'The Lion' Smith took over the band, and at some point, he joined Chick Webb's band, which became established at the new Savoy Ballroom. At some point, Otto Hardwick, who played alto, soprano and baritone saxophones with Duke, was injured in a taxicab accident and Ellington sought Hodges to replace him. Ellington has twice before asked Hodges but was rebuffed, but it was Webb who convinced Hodges this time, telling him it would be better for him in the long-time. So began an association that would last, with one significant interruption, until Hodge's death.

A good portion of the book, of course, is concerned with Hodges' time with Duke. This includes discussing some of the recordings, and live performances Hodges had while with the Duke. There is also discussion of small group recordings Hodges made with members of the Ellington Orchestra, and with non-Ellington small groups including accompanying vocalists such as Billie Holiday and Mildred Bailey. There is also the relationship he had with Billy Strayhorn and other members of the Orchestra including his fellow Bostonian, Harry Carney, and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster who was influenced by Hodges sound and approach to ballads, blues and more.

Chapman explains the factors causing Hodges to leave Ellington Orchestra, going out on as a leader and featured star performing and recording. Chapman details Hodges participation with Jazz at the Philharmonic and an association with Lawrence Welk. Chapman also notes the circumstances leading to Hodges return to the Ellington orchestra with whom he would remain with for the rest of his life. There are also chapters devoted to Hodges' very distinctive 'Tone,' his rivalry with other alto saxophonists, especially Benny Carter, "The Blues" which was always a significant part of his sound and repertoire, and finally a consideration of Johnny Hodges' legacy in Jazz.

In discussing Hodges music, Chapman does not employ technical musical examples in discussing Hodges playing, but his descriptions help bring his music to life in words as best as one can. A biography of Johnny Hodges has been long overdue and Chapman, not merely has filled a hole in the jazz literature, but provided a thoroughly researched, literate, and engaging biography. In addition to telling Johnny Hodges story, it details Hodges legacy and accomplishments as one of the most influential saxophonists in the history of Jazz.  I note that my advance copy did not include photos or an index. These will be in the actual published book.

I received my copy from a publicist. Tomorrow I will post a short Johnny Hodges playlist.

Up Jumped the Devil:The Real Life of Robert Johnson
by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow
2019: Chicago Review Press
336 Pages, 6X9 pages.

This long-awaited biography of the legendary Mississippi bluesman is the product of decades of research. Gayle Dean Wardlow has been interviewing people who knew Robert Johnson since the early 1960s. He was the person who discovered Johnson's death certificate in 1967. Bruce Conforth began his study of Johnson's life and music in 1970 and made it his personal mission to try to fill in the gaps in what was still unknown about him. While reading a pdf review proof of this book I perused the sources at the end and there are countless interviews with those who knew Johnson by the authors and other sources as well as the interviews Worth Long and other folklorists conducted of Robert Lockwood, Jr., Johnny Shines, David 'Honeyboy' Edwards, and Henry Townsend at the 1991 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. To my knowledge, they are among the first to make use of this material. It indicates that the research for this book is quite substantial.

Robert Johnson is one of the seminal persons in the pre-World War II blues. "Robert Johnson was using his guitar abilities to forge the transition from the older blues of Charley Patton, Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas, Lead Belly, or even Son House, to the more modern approach and sounds of Muddy Waters and the postwar blues players. He played blues, pop tunes, jazz, and ragtime; started to popularize the use of guitar riffs as signature elements of a song; and was one of the first to use a boogie beat for his rhythm accompaniment, copying the driving, rhythmic bass that barrelhouse pianists played with their left hand. His playing helped move blues guitar fretting out of the first position and into the use of the entirety of the fretboard, opening musical possibilities that had previously been reserved for jazz guitarists."

To paraphrase the Chicago Review website, for this definitive biography the two authors relied on every possible interview, resource and document, most of it material that no one has ever seen before. As they state: "No book before this one has included all of the reminiscences of Johnson by the people who knew him personally. After more than fifty years of researching Robert’s life and performing his music, we decided to correct that omission and bring together those resources in our comprehensive biography. We meticulously researched every article, book, video, or film by any author or producer, from academic scholar to lay blues fan; we transcribed every quote by anyone who ever knew Robert; and we grounded this all with quotations from our own research and every other resource we could find. Every census record, city directory, marriage license, funeral notice, and newspaper article was studied and referenced."

The book opens with a chapter on how the legend surrounding Johnson, one of the Delta blues seminal artists developed, including a very cursory overview of the literature and early research on him. When Gayle Dean Wardlow located the Robert Johnson death certificate, it provided leads that allowed the tracing of his ancestors and those who knew him and the reconstruction of his life was made possible. But also parallel research from Mack McCormick and Steven LaVere also located Johnson family members and significant individuals such as Ike Zimmerman who played a significant role in Johnson's musical development. The role of reissues of Johnson's recordings in telling Johnson's story also is noted along with the liner notes and booklets accompanying the reissues, and books, articles and documentary videos.

Then they introduce us to Robert and his music. "The summer of 1936 Robert Johnson stood in front of Walker’s General Store and Gas Station adjoining the Martinsville train depot. He put down his bag made of blue-and-white bed ticking packed full of clothes, at least one notebook, and other belongings, and began playing his guitar. He was there to advertise his nighttime performance at O’Malley’s—a bootleg house not far from the old Damascus Church just north of neighboring Hazlehurst’s City limits, up the railroad tracks on the east side of old Highway 51. Hazlehurst was a town of about three thousand souls sitting thirty-five miles south of Jackson, Mississippi. Robert had been born in Hazlehurst twenty-five years earlier, and now he was there to play his blues at one of the many juke joints he frequented throughout the area. A slight five foot eight, 140 pounds, Robert was well known for more than just his music."

Then they provide the details of his life, first tracing his ancestors and the aspects of their lives. They also located the house Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, his birth and family hardships that led his mother to move with Charles Dodd, known as Spencer in Memphis. Charles Dodd fled to Memphis to avoid being lynched and provided Robert with as stable a home life as any he had in his young years. Later, Julia Majors with her existing children move in with Noah Johnson, Robert's actual father. They provide details of Robert's life in Memphis, including attending school and some of the experiences he could have expected growing up not far from Beale Street. He would likely have seen such Beale Street performers such as Frank Stokes, Will Shade, Furry Lewis, and others, perhaps attending and becoming part of the 'Spencer' family.

In the interval, his mother remarried to a sharecropper and came to Memphis to take Robert back to the Delta and uprooted him and moved him in with and moved him in with Will “Dusty” Willis, a sharecropper his mother had married in 1916. As the authors state "An intelligent, citified nine-year-old had been uprooted and placed in an alien environment: the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta." Furthermore, while exposed to the haunting blues of the Delta region, Robert hated farming, and his reluctance to go into the fields led to caning by his step-father and other punishments. There is much more here about his life and how he would leave for periods to visit the Spencers who he considered his only real family. He was finally told that his real father was a Noah Johnson and after finding out started calling himself Robert Johnson. Also by the time he was 15 Robert had started playing music. He was pretty good on the harmonica and jew's harp. He could also play some guitar and piano which he learned from his stepbrother in Memphis.

The authors detail experiments with a home-made guitar and the conflicts with his step-father and then how he met Willie Brown who further helped him with his guitar skills so he started playing parties and busking, at times traveling with Willie Moore. Moore was a musician turned “juke house gambler” that had toured with Handy’s Orchestra from Memphis. He teamed with Robert in the late 1920s playing a “complimenting guitar.” Moore recalled some of the songs Johnson played including “Captain George,” “Make Me a Pallet,” and “President McKinley"(using on slide on this), “You Can Mistreat Me Here but You Can’t When I Go Home” (perhaps an early version that later became “Dust My Broom”), “East St. Louis Blues,” and a bottleneck version of “Casey Jones.”

The authors detail teenage Robert's marriage to a 14-year old Virginia Travis, and her death during a difficult childbirth while he was away juking and playing music. The combined circumstances of her death and her family blaming him for her death because he played the devil's music. The authors state "Robert’s friends said he began to believe that he was to blame for her death, and he turned his back on the church and God. He began to blaspheme so badly when he was drinking… ."

He also was becoming skilled enough as a professional musician in the Delta region. But he still was playing in an older folk style whereas the rough, in-your-face, original bottleneck dance tunes that folks like Charlie Patton and Son House played was what folks increasingly wanted and when House and Willie Brown was in Robinsonville, Robert went to see them. House, years later would recall claiming Robert was a little boy who couldn't play guitar except making noise. And while House did give some tips, he was a 19-year old player who had been in jukes for two years.

After this incident, Johnson took up with Ike Zimmerman, who worked on a road crew as well as played the jukes. Zimmerman was quite an accomplished player and a showman. "Zimmerman alternated between fingerpicking and playing bottleneck slide—his slide was home-made from a bone. He was also a skilled harp player like the young Robert Johnson. And Ike understood how to work an audience." Robert even lived with Zimmerman for a period in addition to being mentored by him. At a certain point Robert had progressed enough that Ike began taking him on his regular playing route, locations where people had money to spend: lumber camps with sawmills (probably the Piney Woods section of Copiah County), fish frys(sic), and jukes." (My review pdf may not have all final edits, so I have indicated that by the sic).

Other dalliances with women are noted as was his increased notoriety as a musician. They recount that when Johnson came upon Son House and Willie Brown playing at a juke, he started playing. House was there with his mouth wide open seeing how good Robert was. House's comments have led some blues writers to attribute Robert's musical skills as due to supernatural forces, but the authors note House never made such an assertion. The authors provide an overview of the folkloric origins of the selling of one's soul at the crossroads myth and dealing with statements made decades after Robert's death about this myth.

They trace Robert's subsequent career as he worked around the Delta busking at stores and playing jukes and house parties. They detail the dalliance with Robert Lockwood, Jr.'s mother, and Johnson taking Robert Jr. under his wing and mentoring the young man. Johnson's fame would grow including his two recording sessions which include details including auditioning for H.C. Spier. In this time frame, the first of the two known photos of Robert was memorialized at the Hooks studio in Memphis. San Antonio was particularly active the week of his first session celebrating the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and the end of the Texas Centennial Year celebration. While playing in the streets, he was arrested and his guitar broken beyond repair. He called Don Law (who was supervising the recordings) from jail, who got him out of jail and obtained a borrowed guitar for recording. The authors, citing Law, refute the notion that Johnson recorded facing the wall. Law stated that Johnson only turned his back several days later when asked to play for some Mexican musicians.

In addition to detailing the recording sessions, there is considerable discussion of the music of actual recordings Johnson produced in San Antonio, and then a year later in Dallas, and his musical innovations as a delta blues artist. In contrast to most country blues artists whose performances of a song could vary greatly, and whose recorded takes varied similarly, Johnson's second or alternate takes are almost identical to the first one. They quote Henry Townsend, "They (older musicians) would play it this way this time, and the next time it was altogether different—the same tune but it was altogether different. But Robert, he was not like that. Each time, whatever he played, was uniform, and this could make you notice." The authors observe that Robert would adapt parts of older songs, "But Robert’s genius was beyond just knowing good songs to copy: he rewrote them, changed the tempo, synced his guitar more closely with his vocal than those who preceeded (sic) him, added a guitar riff, and literally remade the piece. … The song’s lyrics are thematically cohesive and the overall effect is of a musical whole, and not the type of whole that one would normally hear in a juke joint."

Johnson's recordings made him a prominent juke artist in the Delta area.Through the accounts of Honeyboy Edwards and Johnny Shines (as well as Townsend and Lockwood), we get a sense of his amazing abilities, including the extent of his repertoire. Another aspect was his ability to hear a song on the radio or a record once and be able to play it. Johnny Shines recalled, “Robert was a man who could sit and talk to you like I’m talking to you now, and be listening to the radio at the same time, and whenever he got ready he’d play whatever he heard on that radio. Note for note, chord for chord, … ."

We are taken along not only on his travels in the Delta, but also to St. Louis where Townsend met him, and later the circumstances that Johnson, Shines and Shines' cousin Calvin Frazier traveled North after Frazier had killed a man. They eventually made it to Chicago, then to Detroit, where the trio would go to Windsor, across the river from Detroit and perform gospel songs for a gospel radio show. Frazier would remain in Detroit (where he recorded for the Library of Congress and later was part of the Detroit post-war blues scene). Johnson and Shines made their way to Buffalo and then New Jersey and New York City and even played an Italian wedding in Newark.

Eventually Johnson returns to the Delta for his final juke joint performances and the circumstances that led to his death by poisoning, including naming the person who gave him the corn liquor laced with mothballs that ordinarily would have simply made Johnson sick, but underlying health issues (including an ulcer) exacerbated the liquor's effects.

Detailing his burial and other post-death events, the authors state, "Robert Leroy Johnson, the man, was gone. His legend was just about to begin." It is a legend where myth would obscure reality, but thanks to Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow, we have his real story, which I find more fascinating than the tales spun about him. This will be a must for those interested in vernacular music history and one of the blues greatest artists.

This will be available on June 4 as a hardcover and ebook. I received a pdf to review from a publicist.

Ron Weinstock

In the Midnight Hour: The Life and Soul of Wilson Pickett by Tony Fletcher

In the Midnight Hour: The Life and Soul of Wilson Pickett
Tony Fletcher
New York: Oxford University Press
2017: 302 + xviii pages

I first heard about this biography of the great soul legend Wilson Pickett from the social media post of Curtis Pope, the Washington area musician who led Pickett's band for a number of years. The enthusiasm expressed about this biography made it an easy choice for purchase. Upon reading it, the hopes I had about this book was more than realized.

Taken from interviews with family members, band-members, interviews held with the great soul singer, Tony Fletcher provides a well-knit story of Pickett's life from the poverty of growing up in Jim Crow Alabama, to moving to Detroit and his development on the gospel circuit, then crossing over and making recordings as a member of the Falcons to his remarkable career as one of the greatest of the deep soul artists to emerge in the 1960s.

Fletcher tells the story with warts and all starting from his childhood where he first displayed the mean streak that would be part of his personality for years, the suffering of deep physical punishment growing up, spending time in rural Alabama and Detroit as he grew up and emerged into his career. Through interviews with family members, fellow members of the groups he performed in, the studio bands on his recordings, the musicians in his touring band we get inside the studio when with The Falcons he recorded "I Found a Love" with his vocal set against Robert Ward's fiery, echoey guitar playing.

The success of the Falcons led to his time with Atlantic Records and Fletcher takes us to the sessions in which so many classic recordings such as "In the Midnight Hour," "634-5789," "Land of a Thousand Dances, "Mustang Sally" and so many others. We are there as he improvises around the lyrics of "Thousand Dances" and go down to Muscle Shoals for the inspired cover of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" with his vocal and Duane Allman's celebrated slide guitar created so much magic. His friendship with Don Covay as well as Solomon Burke (from whom he covered "Everybody Needs Someone to Love") and the rivalry with James Brown are part of his legacy.

Fletcher takes us to Europe, the Apollo and other concerts, shows and festivals by Pickett as well and the legendary Soul Clan recording that was bittersweet because of the tragic passing of Otis Redding. Then there is the decline in his career as well as some of the personal troubles he had with substance abuse and domestic violence issues as well by the revival of his recording and performing career before his passing.

This is a wonderful written and documented biography of one of the greatest singers and performers to emerge in the sixties and seventies that I had difficulty putting down before I finished it. This has my highest recommendation.

I purchased this. Here is the Wicked Pickett doing his classic take of "Land of a Thousand Dances."

Nica's Dream Is Fascinating Story of the Jazz Baroness

Nica’s Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness
David Kastin
New York: WWNorton

Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter played an intriguing, even crucial role, in New York City’s jazz scene in the fifties through the eighties. A member of the Rothschild family, Nica, as she was known, was a patron to a number of the most significant jazz artists of the time including Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Barry Harris, Mary Lou Williams, and Thelonious Monk. She was, in the eyes of some, a controversial and scandalous figure as some of the tabloid sheets wrote about her and the death of Charlie Parker. David Kastin has attempted to separate fact from myth in providing her story, one he was able to cast from news accounts and interviews with many of the musicians who knew her as well as published interviews with her. Unfortunately limited assistance were provided by her children who have generally held to Rothschild family custom of not talking about family matters. Still Kastin weaves a fascinating portrait


Kastin provides a background in the history of the Rothschilds, including the immediate ancestors and siblings of Pannonica which include individuals who would be viewed as eccentric as she would. Her early life, including the somewhat sheltered life she had, her marriage and her experiences as part of the French Resistance in World War II are described as is her introduction to jazz while living in Mexico with her husband, who was a diplomat, when she heard excerpts of Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown & Beige.” She had met Teddy Wilson in Europe and started making forays into New York City with Wilson, who in his Harlem apartment played Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight,” which would prove pivotal.


Estranged from her husband who tried to have a very controlling relationship, she moved to New York beginning a remarkable life over several decades where she befriended and hosted so many famous musicians at the Stanhope Hotel, and two other hotels . She outwore her welcome in each because of her relationship with musicians coming in at all hours. Eventually, she had a home in New Jersey, overlooking Manhattan known as the Cathouse because of the countless felines that lived there along with musicians who would come by at all hours (like they had when she was at a hotel). Kastin weaves in a history of big band jazz, bebop along with other progressive artist groups like the beats and painters like Jackson Pollack.


She was able to develop a relationship with musicians of totally different circumstances who learned that she appreciated them as artists and did not regard them as exotics. She also appreciated their music and they learned to value her opinions as well, advice and patronage. Charlie Parker took ill, but not wanting to go to a hospital, she had her personal doctor look after him. He died watching television at her Stanhope hotel suite leading to scandal in the papers (the white rich woman and black jazz artist) and leading her husband to finally file for divorce, although the scandal was more of ‘no good deed going unpunished.’


Other jazz greats would have lengthy associations with Nica, but none more importantly than Thelonious Monk. There relationship was of strong, close, platonic friends and Monk’s wife Nellie also became a good friend. A good portion of this book is the story of Nica and Monk’s relationship, and how she fostered and supported his music and person. The affection Monk had for her is reflected in the two compositions he wrote for her, “Pannonica” and “Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lue-are.” The latter tune refers to the Hotel Bolivar, where she moved after the Stanhope management made it clear she was no longer welcome them. Monk was not alone in celebrating Nica. Sonny Clark, Kenny Dorham, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Drew, Gigi Gryce, Freddie Redd, Barry Harris, and Horace Silver also wrote memorable compositions in her honor.


The lengthy discussion of Monk and Nica complements that in Robert Kelley’s superb biography, “Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of An American Original.” Kelley in fact provides a blurb praising this book as “a stunning cultural biography of New York City and a riveting portrait of one the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.” Kelley’s succinct comments summarize my feelings about this volume on a lady who made substantial contributions to the jazz scene of the fifties through eighties without playing a note. Her story will captivate any fan of this music as it did me.


I purchased this book.

Son House's Life Subject of Excellent Preachin' The Blues

Preachin' The Blues: The Life & Times of Son House
by Daniel Beaumont
2011, Oxford University Press

In a year here we have been blessed by biographies about Big Bill Broonzy and Mississippi John Hurt, Daniel Beaumont has provided us a strong portrait of one of the archetypal blues performers, Eddie 'Son' House. I never had the chance to see Son House perform in person, but I recall being at NYC's Museum of Broadcasting to see some fifties television programs featuring jazz and the last one opened up with Son House describing the blues before launching into performance. This black and white video is among the most riveting musical performances I have ever seen.

Beaumont's narrative begins with the rediscovery of House in Rochester, New York in 1964 by Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro, and his first performances including having Alan Wilson teaching House how to play House's music. From detailing how they located House and the fiasco of a schedule Newport Folk Festival appearance, Beaumont then takes us back to the young House and his early years including being brought up in the church and his early experiences in church becoming a pastor and then married a woman, Carrie Martin, although she died young.

House worked at a number of jobs, shining shoes, sharecropping and working on levee camps (an experience he would recall in song years later), and worked in a steel plant. The temptations of the flesh, women and liquor, left him ready for a change. And the change was becoming a blues musician as Beaumont details House's accounts of taking up guitar and being influenced by Rube Lacy in one account, and one James McCoy in another. It is McCoy who is stated to have taught him "My Black Mama" and "Preachin' the Blues," perhaps his two most important recordings. Beaumont then describes the rapidity into which House engaged in a musical career as well as an incident in which he killed a man and spent time at Parchman Farm.

After serving some time in Parchman, House was released and moved to Lula Mississippi where he came across Charlie Patton, where they struck up a friendship and also met Willie Brown. House then traveled with Patton to Grafton, Wisconsin along with Brown and woman barrelhouse piano player, Louise Johnson, who was Patton's gal at the time but on the drive to Grafton had a fight and then she took up with House. In Grafton, they made what are considered among the classic recordings of DElta Blues. Beaumont goes into detail to discuss House's recordings, copies of a couple only being discovered in recent years.
In the aftermath of the Grafton trip, the most lasting relationship House formed was with Willie Brown.

Beaumont details years he calls "Dry Spell Blues" when he married Evie as well as intermittently took up the pulpit. House's everyday activities, especially his blues playing, was not well received by the congregations. This led him to giving up the pulpit for good and he was to be found with Brown and others in juke joints. Other musicians he associated with included Henry 'Son' Sims and Fiddlin' Joe Martin. House and Brown, at this time, were seen by and influenced such future legends as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.

In 1941 and 1942, House was recorded by Alan Lomax as part of his field recordings for the Library of Congress, initially in conjunction with John Work of Fisk University and made a body of recordings that included performances with small string bands (with Martin and others) and one solo performance, a rendition of Charlie Patton's "Shetland Pony Blues." These sides, issued decades later, displayed a maturation of House's music but also showed him to be as compelling as on his Paramount Recordings.

Not long after the Library of Congress recordings, House relocated to Rochester, NY, probably following a sweetheart as well as work in a defense plant and he even convinced Willie Brown to go there. Brown returned to Mississippi and House even went there briefly for a musical reunion, but Brown died not too long after that, which led House to give up music at the time. Evie at some point joined Son. As Beaumont notes, there is not much we know about these years. For much of this time, House had stopped performing and those who interviewed House after his rediscovery were more interested in the time he was performing music.

Beaumont uncovered an incident when House was involved with the law while in a Long island migrant farm camp. A younger farm worker came looking for money and figuring House might be an easy mark and House knifed him. House was cleared of manslaughter by a Grand Jury, finding he acted in self-defense. Otherwise until the early sixties, and his rediscovery, Son House lived in oblivion.

Beaumont then returns to House's part in the blues revival and reprints an article by a young reporter, Betsy Bues that ran in the Rochester Times-Union. House's career touring and recording is accounted for including his relationship with Dick Waterman. The various recordings House made including the classic Columbia album and a live English performance are considered as well as his years after retirement. Beaumont also discusses House's relationship to and mentoring of Joe Beard and John Mooney, and describes his last years when House's mental and physical abilities had diminished further.

One unusual aspect of the book was the use of footnotes as opposed to chapter notes and end notes, that made it easier to see the sources for the author's statements. This is a concise, yet through, account of one of those artists who left a lasting impression upon so many and whose influence is still felt. Beaumont's marvelous account, of Son House's life and music, does its subject justice which I was glad to have purchased.

Broonzy Biographer Bob Riesman Coming to DC's Politics and Prose July 7

Since today is what would be the 98th Birthday of Big Bill Broonzy. it is appropriate to alert folks around Washington DC about the upcoming appearance in Washington by Broonzy biographer Bob Riesman.

Thursday evening, July 7, Bob Riesman, author of “I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy” (2011 University of Chicago Press) will be appearing at Politics and Prose to discuss his biography of the Chicago blues legend who passed away over half a century ago, but whose music and life still influences the blues world of today. He is scheduled to speak starting at 7:00PM

On its website, Politics and Prose (http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/bob-riesman-i-feel-so-good) notes “Riesman’s life of Big Bill Broonzy (1903-1958) encompasses the bluesman’s many pivotal roles. From melding the traditional, rural blues of his native Arkansas Delta region with the urban sound in 1930s Chicago, to influencing the resurgence of folk music after World War II and inspiring the blues-rock musicians of the 1960s, Broonzy was a key figure for 20th-century popular music.”

Riesman, in compiling this biography did considerable research as well as interviewed countless people including “ including blues man Billy Boy Arnold (who was mentored by Big Bill and is scheduled to have an album of Broonzy’s music released), members of Broonzy’s family, Bill Randle who produced the last interviews of Broonzy, Studs Terkel, David ’Honeyboy’ Edwards, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Pete Seeger, Rambling Jack Elliott, Jody Williams, Jimmie Lee Robinson and Ron Sweetman. He also explored the archives of Yannick Bruynoghe, and Jim O’Neal provided tapes of an interview with Blind John Davis and a transcript of one with Memphis Slim.

In his research of Broonzy, Riesman was able to ascertain that Big Bill Broonzy’s real name is Lee Bradley and he was born in Jefferson County, Arkansas on June 26, 1903, the fourth and last boy of Frank and Mittie Bradley, and the Bradley Family lived in Jefferson County outside Pine Bluff from the 1880s through the 1920s. Riesman traces his musical and recording career, including both his prominence in the Chicago blues from the thirties until his death, the significant role he played in establishing the folk music circuit as his pioneering tours of Europe.

In a May 2 review on this blog, I concluded “I Feel So Good was a compelling read and a biography worthy of the subject, whose blues are timeless. Highly recommended.” Politics and Prose is located at 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008 and the phone number is 202-364-1919 or 800-722-0790. Directions to it can be found on their web page.

Bob Riesman is also scheduled to appear on Sirius-XM’s B.B. King’s Bluesville with Bill Wax on Monday, July 11, although as I post this it is not clear whether he will be on live or taped for later broadcast.

The Resurrection of the Man in Black Chronicled

The Resurrection of Johnny Cash: Hurt, Redemption and American Recordings
by Graeme Thomson
2011 - London:Jawbone Press (254 pages)

While not a full biography, Graeme Thomson’s “The Resurrection of Johnny Cash” is a remarkably thorough examination of the revival of Johnny Cash’s musical and career fortunes in the last years of his life. Cash of course emerged with Sun Records in the mid-fifties and then had a lengthy career on Columbia Records which included some major recordings, both thematic albums and “Live at Folsom Prison.” The Man in Black also had a weekly television show where he had an intriguing mix of performers from Louis Armstrong to Bob Dylan.

But as the 1980s came, and shifting personnel at Columbia as well as shifting musical trends and tastes, Cash found himself without a record contract as sales on his recordings dropped to the tens of thousands, well below what was required by the bean counters that were running the major labels. And as a concert act, he was increasingly a country oldies act, playing to older crowds that might flock to the Cash Theater in Branson, Missouri, or county and state fairs. And lets not talk about country radio, to which a new Cash release was no longer a must play. At the same time, Cash was having other personal battles including health issues and ongoing battles with addiction and a career that seemed directionless.

Thomson traces how the what superficially would seem to be the odd linkage between Cash and Rick Rubin, the head of Def Jam and Def American Records and known as the producer of hip hop and metal records. But it was a partnership that enabled Cash to return to prominence with nothing more simple than having him sing some songs accompanied solely by his own guitar. This simple idea recognized that Cash’s strength was his personality as a performer, undiluted by lavish accompaniments and production. This was evident with his Sun Records and the best of his Columbia recordings. His music had an integrity that resonated with listeners that transcended fans of country music that had been diluted. Many high moments and who can ever forget, having seen, the video for “Hurt.”

Interviews with countless interviews including Rosanne Cash, Nick Lowe, Rodney Crowell, Will Oldham, ‘Cowboy’ Jack Clement, Adam Clayton of U2, Bruce Lundvall and others helps Thomson put together the story, taking us from the depths, to a show at the Viper Room in Hollywood, shortly after completing the “American Recordings,” and to an unforgettable set in Glastonbury in 1994. The recordings with what seemed as the time, unusual choices of material, are detailed as well as his health struggles that he fought through the final recordings with Rubin which includes a discussion of the production of Cash’s posthumous recordings and how they were compiled.

Thomson is to be thanked for this terrific chronicle of Johnny Cash’s last years. It is an excellent biography that is thoroughly researched, well written, handsomely published and certainly appeal to fans of Cash as well as contemporary popular music.

I received a review copy from a publicist.

Bill Bill Broonzy celebrated in Two Biographies Part 2 - I Feel So Good

Blues Smoke: The Recorded Journey of Big Bill Broonzy
Roger House
2010: Louisiana State University Press

I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy
Bob Riesman
2011: University of Chicago Press


This is the second part of my consideration of two recent Big Bill Broonzy biographies. Today the focus on the just published I Feel So Good.


Bob Riesman’s I Feel So Good stands as the biography on Broonzy. Going beyond the mostly library sources of House’s book, Riesman described the challenges he faced:


"Over the course of researching and writing the book, I’ve learned that Bill was exemplary in many respects, flawed in others, and capable of exquisitely contradictory behavior. He left invaluable material for future historians by writing dozens of letters to correspondents in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States, who preserved many of them. During the same period, he provided substantial amounts of misleading or just plain wrong information about himself, his family, and his colleagues to interviewers, readers, and audiences on three continents that would take decades to untangle.


"Because of Bill’s success at what magicians call misdirection—directing the audience’s attention away from where the crucial action is being performed—the challenges facing a would-be biographer have not been simple or straightforward. He specified incorrect marriage dates to wives whose names he changed in the telling, heaped praise on a favorite uncle who is absent from all family records and memories, relocated his own birth to a different state and set it in a different decade, and gave himself different first and last names. It turned out that it was necessary to retrace his steps in Europe to find out who he was and where he came from.”


Key to uncovering this was when he interviewed “Pim van Isveldt, the Dutch woman with whom he had fathered a son, Michael, in 1956. “Near the end of our conversation, Pim handed me a shoebox in which she had kept the many letters Bill had written her. He had written one of them while visiting his sister, Lannie Bradley Wesley, in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Her home address, which Bill had given as the return address, was a vital clue."


He would later meet and interview Broonzy’s grand-niece and grand-nephew, who helped establish some of the facts that Broonzy obscured. “Bill’s imaginative powers enabled him to obscure his origins and many portions of his journeys, while illuminating the worlds he grew up in and passed through. In my view, Bill’s life and work can best be understood and appreciated by considering both the facts and the truth—as Studs Terkel put it, “Bill is speaking the truth—his truth.” Here is my version of Big Bill Broonzy’s story.””


In the course of compiling this story he interviewed countless people including blues man Billy Boy Arnold (who was mentored by Big Bill and is scheduled to have an album of Broonzy’s music released), members of Broonzy’s family, Bill Randle who produced the last interviews of Broonzy, Studs Terkel, David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Pete Seeger, Rambling Jack Elliott, Jody Williams, Jimmie Lee Robinson and Ron Sweetman. He also explored the archives of Yannick Bruynoghe, and Jim O’Neal provided tapes of an interview with Blind John Davis and a transcript of one with Memphis Slim. This is just to give a sense of the depth of research and material used for this biography.


And through his research (collaborated by other blues researchers), we know that Big Bill Broonzy’s real name is Lee Bradley and he was born in Jefferson County, Arkansas on June 26, 1903, the fourth and last boy of Frank and Mittie Bradley, and the Bradley Family lived in Jefferson County outside Pine Bluff from the 1880s through the 1920s.


While from the 1930s on, Broonzy claimed he was born in Scott, Mississippi, ten years earlier than his actual birth date, Riesman observes that “the documentary evidence is clear that the facts are otherwise. Lannie Bradley Wesley’s granddaughter Rosie Tolbert keeps the family records. She and her older sister Jo Ann Jackson remember their uncle Bill and his sister (their grandmother Lannie), their great-grandmother Mittie, their great-uncle Frank Bradley Jr., and their great-aunts Gustavia and Mary. The censuses of 1900, 1910, and 1920 all show Frank and Mittie Bradley and their children living at home in Jefferson County. Tax records, marriage licenses, Social Security applications, and death certificates all confirm and reinforce the fact that Big Bill Broonzy was Lee Bradley of the Bradley clan.” Yet while he might misdirect on specifics as to his family and his early dates, Big Bill provided “an indelible sense of what it was like to be in a particular place at a particular time. This was both his gift and his artistry.” The truths he spoke were more general truths than the life he may actually have lived.


Riesman helps us understand and follow his life in considerable detail. The book opens with a chapter with an account of Broonzy’s funeral and notes that the arrangements were taken care of by Win Stracke, who had toured the Midwest with Big Bill in a folk song review, as well as also appearing on Studs Terkel’s radio program, and he helped launched Big Bill’s European concerts tours. Bill trusted Win enough to name him executor of the estate. While House summarizes Broonzy’s funeral, Riesman goes into depth about the participants and their roles and the deliberate choice of four black and four white pallbearers.


Riesman continues in tracing his musical career as a country fiddler, often playing for white folk, to the brilliant guitarist who became the preeminent blues artist in Chicago. More context is placed in discussing his appearance at From Spirituals To Swing, including the fact that Blind Boy Fuller was in jail, led to Broonzy, not Fuller, being the ‘primitive’ blues artist in lieu of the deceased Robert Johnson. He covers more fully Bill’s performances in taverns as well as touring with Lil Green. The time he spent in Iowa is also fully detailed as is the European travels, with much new information presented that gives a sense of him as a person and how he was regarded by so many from such different backgrounds. 


For this review I read a proof of Riesman’s text which included footnotes, a selected discography (actually recommended reissues) and Big Bill on film. It did not include photographs that likely will be in the published version nor an index. 

I Feel So Good was a compelling read and a biography worthy of the subject, whose blues are timeless. Highly recommended.

Bill Bill Broonzy celebrated in Two Biographies Part 1 - Blue Smoke

Blues Smoke: The Recorded Journey of Big Bill Broonzy
Roger House
2010: Louisiana State University Press

I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy
Bob Riesman
2011: University of Chicago Press

It is rather intriguing that two books on the life and music of legendary Chicago bluesman Big Bill Broonzy have been published within a year. I had purchased and read, Blue Smoke, by Roger House when I became aware of Bob Riesman’s I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy. While the latter book will be available in early May, 2011, it provides a very different book than House’s and, as discussed below, is the preferred biography of Broonzy, although House’s book, while consolidating information that was known when he wrote it, is valuable as a cultural history of Broonzy and his songs, but accepts perhaps too much of Broonzy’s sometimes fanciful autobiography Big Bill’s Blues: William Broonzy’s Story As Told To Yannick Bruynoghe.

For those who are not familiar with him, Broonzy was a very popular blues singer, guitarist and songwriter who had moved from the deep South after World War I and was mentored by Papa Charlie Jackson and Blind Blake before commencing a recording career in 1927 when Paramount issued his House Rent Stomp. By the mid-1930s he had become established as a popular recording artist who recorded regularly for what was known then as Race Records series and, after World II, “Rhythm and Blues.” Such songs as Key to the Highway, It Was a Dream, When I Get to Drinking, I Feel So Good, Southbound Train, and others established Broonzy as a major star in the Chicago blues world and became part of the blues repertoire. He also played a significant role in the live club scene and was ready to take someone under his wing to mentor.

Broonzy also was one of the first bluesmen to cross over to a more general audience, starting with his appearance at the fabled From Spirituals To Swing concerts that John Hammond presented at Carnegie Hall in the late 1930s. Broonzy was a replacement for Robert Johnson who Hammond originally sought, but had died before he had been contacted. It was the beginning of a relationship with the white audience that included performing at the famed Cafe Society, concerts organized by Alan Lomax at Carnegie Hall and other venues in the late forties, and he later participated in early folk revival concerts in the United States, and he was amongst the earliest ‘folk’ bluesmen to tour Europe where he had lengthy engagements as well as developed some close personal relationships. His repertoire included ‘folk songs’ including those associated with other artists like Leroy Carr or Leadbelly, reworked renditions of his commercial recordings and protest songs like Black, Brown and White.

House’s Blue Smoke is a less detailed attempt at a biography. It is reliant on Big Bill’s Blues for facts on Broonzy’s early life as well as until he moved up north. He takes the basic parameters presented in the books, such as the claim of his parents being together during slave time, being born in Mississippi, serving in Europe in World War 1 and leaving the South after experiencing the white supremacist backlash against blacks after he returned from the War. The problem is that Broonzy’s account of his early days is a fantasy that reflects the image that Broonzy wishes to project about his origins, but is not consistent with some of the facts of Broonzy's early life. That said, it isn't the only source of information on Broonzy's early life as Broonzy wrote a short account for Art Hodes magazine The Jazz Record, and was also interviewed by Alan Lomax.

House's strength is focusing on Broonzy and his recording in the socio-cultural context they took place in. Broonzy was one of many blacks that migrated from the racist deep South to the urban North and places his music in the context of the house and rent parties, taverns and theaters and shared experiences the migrants had in the northern urban ghettoes. He traces Broonzy's recording career from Papa Charlie Jackson's introduction of him to Paramount Records through his establishing himself as one of the most recorded blues artists in the thirties and forties. Broonzy's recordings evolved from guitar duets where Broonzy displayed the influence of the great Blind Blake, to spectacular piano-guitar duets with Black Bob, and Joshua Altheimer, and then the small group blues with horns with Memphis Slim and Blind John Davis.

In considering Broonzy’s crossing over to white audiences starting with the Spiritual to Swing, House does not note that Broonzy was a replacement for the dead Robert Johnson, and notes how Broonzy was presented as an authentic primitive in contrast to his status as a significant urban blues artist of the time. But while he recites facts about Broonzy’s life, he also does not go into depth about, for example, the relationship Broonzy had with Lil Green, which went beyond simply playing guitar on many of her sessions, but also writing songs for her and accompanying her on early tours before she was connected with Tiny Bradshaw’s Big Band.

After the roughly 160 pages on Broonzy, Blue Smoke also contains an extensive and invaluable 60-odd-page discography of all known recordings that Broonzy made as well as those by other artists on which he played. While flawed as a biography, there are insights and issues raised as well as some astute consideration of Broonzy’s music that makes it worth considering. I do not regret purchasing this book despite its flaws.

I will conclude this survey tomorrow with the focus on Bob Reisman’s I Feel So Good.

Fletcher Henderson Bio Well Worth Spending Time WIth

The following review of James Magee’s marvelous Fletcher Henderson’s biography originally appeared in the September 2010 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue329) which can be downloaded at jazz-blues.com.

The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz
Jeffrey Magee
Oxford University Press
Despite his importance in the history of Big Band Jazz, Fletcher Henderson has not been the subject of as much discussion as his stature warrants. Musicologist James Magee helps address this shortcoming with an overview of Henderson’s life, training to be a school teacher, musical career, and, most importantly, detailed analysis and discussion of his music, ranging from his early blues accompaniments, the legendary big band and then his career arranging for Benny Goodman’s Big Band, alluded to by the book’s title. At the same time, Magee challenges some of the simplified interpretations of jazz history in analyzing Henderson’s importance, brushing aside the simple dichotomies between dance music and art music to have a more realistic and accurate discussion of Henderson’s music.


Fletcher Henderson’s musical career coincided with the shift in the music industry from sheet music sales to phonograph record sales. Instead of furthering his science education, he became a song plugger for Pace and Handy Music Company and then music director for Pace’s Black Swan label, a label striving for cultural respectability as well as blues, where he played a significant role in the rise of Ethel Waters, and later toured with the Black Swan Troubadours.


The would be chemist had arrived in the forefront of black musical life and was leading an orchestra when he applied for an opening at the Roseland Ballroom in 1924, then looking for versatile non-jazz bands. His band was a disciplined band whose members were able to read and handle a wide repertoire, and Magee notes how the band evolved with any number of celebrated musicians such as Coleman Hawkins joining him. Like the white orchestras he competed against, Magee notes the wide variety of new arrangements of songs from Tin Pan Alley that dominated the band’s repertoire, which also included a fair amount of material from the race records.


Two figures would help Henderson emerge as one of the leading jazz big bands. One was Don Redman, who built upon innovations by such arrangers for Paul Whiteman as Ferde Grofé. McGee uses musical examples from the band’s early recordings to show how Redman imaginatively rearranged stock arrangements of the time, employing stop-time, cymbal punctuation and other devices. The other major individual was Louis Armstrong who left King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in Chicago to join Henderson, and whose year and a half would help accelerate the band’s growth and maturation.


While much has been made about how Armstrong transformed the Henderson Orchestra into a jazz’ band, Magee’s analysis is far more sophisticated and also shows how Redman’s arrangements help feature Armstrong’s trumpet and showcase the star as he doctored existing stock arrangements. Magee provides detailed analysis of the rendition of “Wolverine Blues” to illustrate this point. Included are some musical examples, some of which are more descriptive and others more fully notational.


The framework is set and Magee continues to trace the band’s history after Armstrong and Redman leave, as the repertoire goes beyond that for ballroom dancing. The triumphs and pitfalls of the band’s history are detailed from their successful residency at Connie’s Inn to the band’s dissolution. Henderson’s own emergence as an arranger after Redman’s departure is chronicled, and after the dissolution how Henderson became one of the foremost arrangers of the Swing era and the crucial role he played for Benny Goodman’s Kingdom of Swing.


To demonstrate this point, detailed musical examples are provided of some of the seminal recordings Goodman made using Henderson’s arrangements. Henderson died in 1952 and there is some discussion of his legacy. Included is a list of Henderson’s arrangements for Goodman, an extensive bibliography and a discography that is frustrating because so many of the reissues are hard to find. While the detailed musical analysis may deter casual readers, Magee’s cogent analysis is well worth spending time with.


A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher

Alyn Shipton Ably Tells Cab Calloway's Story

British jazz critic and historian Alyn Shipton has authored a marvelous biography, "Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway," that should lead to a reevaluation of the remarkable career of a person who most only will know from his iconic personality. Some will only know Calloway from his performance of "Minnie the Moocher," in the movie "The Blues Brothers," while others will remember him from his performances on Broadway and others will have heard some of his recordings and think of him as a popular vocalist.

Shipton traces his early years in Rochester and Baltimore, to Chicago where he was influenced by his older sister Blanche, through his linking up with the Alabamians who would become the Missourians and eventually his Orchestra. He gets engagements at the mob-connected Connie's Inn and the Cotton Club, and linked with Irving Mills, also Duke Ellington's manager at the time, and with Mills connections and these performances develops into a pioneering scat singer (second perhaps to Armstrong) while leading a disciplined and terrific jazz big band that had excellent musicians and soloists in addition to his remarkable singing.

There is the discussion of the many musicians who were part of the Calloway Band such as Ben Webster, Milt Hinton, Danny Barker, Doc Cheatham, Jonah Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and Chu Berry and how Calloway was constantly improving the band, trying to get strong sections as well as soloists. It is interesting that after Chu Berry replaced Ben Webster, instrumental features for the band become much more frequent and Cab featured a small band within his Orchestra as well. And the stories of life on the road and the friction sometimes between Cab and members of his band, such as the infamous incident when he accused Dizzy Gillespie of throwing spitballs and Dizzy coming after him with a knife.

And the body of recordings that Calloway produced over his life is examined in the context of his career as Shipton recounts the tours, his appearances in film (including the Betty Boop cartoons and the unique process that was used to animate his dancing style (that Shipton observes presages Michael Jackson's "Moon Walk'). Shipton takes us through his remarkable early recording of "St. Louis Blues," that was far removed from Louis Armstrong's big band recording, to the immortal "Minnie the Moocher," and the musical elements that were so original here and in its various sequels. Shipton discusses the music clearly and cogently without the use of detailed technical musical analysis so this book will be of interest to general readers.

Calloway, like his other contemporaries, suffered from the decline of the big bands but Shipton details how he started working with small groups, and then how his performance as "Sportin' Life" in a revival of Porgy & Bess re-established him as a leading performer and entertainer as well as on other productions such as the All Balck cast of "Hello Dolly," as well in the touring cast of "Bubbling Brown Sugar." I did not remember he was a featured performer on The Ed Sullivan Show for one of the broadcasts that also featured The Beatles. It was a rich musical life that continued until shortly before he passed away.

Shipton discusses the stresses of leading the band with its substantial touring inflicted on Calloway's personal life. How he had a lengthy estranged relationship with his first wife, and how hiss second wife forced him to give up his race track gambling habit while he tried to do his best as a father to his children.

As Alyn Shipton observes in his introduction, prior to this project he had scant awareness of the full and impressive range of Cab Calloway's accomplishments. After reading "Hi-De-Ho", the reader will have a full awareness of Cab Calloway's remarkable life and music.

I received my review copy of this book as a reviewer for Amazon.Com’s Vine Program and I initially posted this review on amazon.com.

Lightnin Hopkins Life and Music Celebrated by Alan Govenar

One of the blues most iconic artists, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins, is the subject of a welcome new biography, “Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues” (Chicago Review Press), by writer and photographer Alan Govenar. Govenar has written a number of books including “Texas Blues : The Rise of a Contemporary Sound,” as well as a musical “Blind Lemon Blues,” that has been performed Off-Broadway.


Hopkins was celebrated during his life for his ability to spin songs seemingly out of the blue, for his sometimes acerbic commentary on people, the relationships between men and women and current events, while performing for two very different audiences, the urban working class folk that bought his commercial recordings and frequented the bars in Houston’s black community and the white audience that was first introduced to his music during the folk revival and later when he became one of the most respected performers on the blues circuit from the sixties through his death in 1982.



Hopkins was born in rural Centreville, Texas. At the time Texas was pretty racist, with lynchings happening far too frequently. In this world, life was rough and hard and often violent. Hopkins’ dad was shot to death over a card game when he was three. Shortly thereafter his oldest brother, John henry left because he would have killed the man who shot their dad. He grew up in a world of country suppers and square dances, and had to share in the farm work. he learned to play guitar as well as dance as a youngest and this enabled him to give up the hard life of farm work. Relying on interviews of those who knew the young Hopkins, as well as Hopkins’ own recollections (some were issued on one of the many recordings he made), Govenar shows the develop of the young artist who would spend time with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander. Alexander was a particularly important person for Hopkins and their travels together would be reflected in some of his repertoire.



Hopkins would settle into Houston whose Black Community had a varied night life ranging from the upscale El Dorado Ballroom Club to neighborhood bars for the working and country folks. It was the later venues that Lightnin’ would play at. To middle and upper-level residents of the Third Ward, he was likely invisible. Then he was discovered by Lola Cullum, who had discovered Amos Milburn and had taken the pianist out to California where he recorded for Aladdin Records in 1946. As a follow-up to Milburn’s success she brought Hopkins and pianist Wilson “Thunder’ Smith to record. While Hopkins played on Smith’s “Rocky Mountain Blues,”, Hopkins on acoustic guitar, SMith on piano and a drummer, he recorded “Katie Mae Blues,” and “Mean Old Twister.” It was at the session that Cullum nicknamed Hopkins Lightnin’. These recordings would start one of the most prolific recording careers in blues history and were unusual in the use of acoustic guitar, since Hopkins played electric on nearly every recording he made until he recorded during the folk revival when some producers insisted (based on some false notion of authenticity), that he play acoustic. Not all did so, as Chris Strachwitz who started Arhoolie Records in part because of Hopkins. Strachwitz had been a fan of Hopkins juke box recordings and would record Hopkins using electric guitar for the recordings that would be issued on Arhoolie as well as some he made for other labels such as Poppy (later reissued on Tomato).



Govenar tracks Hopkins’ recordings after his initial Aladdin sides, through he recordings at Bill Quinn’s studio for Gold Star and other labels, Bobby Shad, the Herald label and then Mack McCormick who was first to record Hopkins for the folk music market, followed by Samuel Charters, Strachwitz and others. Hopkins, like his contemporary John Lee Hooker, was one who would record for any label willing to pay him, and he insisted in being paid in cash which may relate to Hopkins having minimal education and essentially being illiterate as well as a general mistrust of whites. So he would insist on cash payments, and eschew royalties. Then he would complain he was underpaid by the record company, while asserting he received substantial cash payments.



Govenar traces Hopkins’ career as a recording artist and performing artist, noting the changing nature of those who booked and managed him. Mixed in are accounts of his performances including recollections of those who saw his performances and his differing persona for his two different audiences, who related to his music in fundamentally different fashions. The interaction between Lightnin’ and those watching him at the Third War neighborhood bars was far different from the restrained, but attentive white audiences that proved to much more financially lucrative. While Hopkins had a guarded personality, he does flesh out some of his personality as well as provides a cogent discussion of Lightnin’s songs and music, ranging from his ability to spin songs out of current events to his development of “Mr. Charlie,” which with his spoken introduction, became a staple of his performance.



“Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues” is a celebration of Hopkins’ life and music. There are a couple of minor factual errors. There is a reference to a performance at Toronto’s New Yorker Theatre which John Hammond opened as being in 1978, but unless this was a repeat booking, I am certain this show was in 1977 because I was living in Buffalo and went with my friend Paul to catch this show, one of the two chances I had to see him perform. In 1978 I was living in the New York area, and did not return to Toronto until 1984. Also Terry Dunn, the owner of Tramps, was remembered as a Texan but in fact was an Irish immigrant whose origins would be hard to miss. Still these are minor errors and do not detract from the invaluable biography Govenar has provided us.



In addition to extensive endnotes and a selected bibliography, Andrew Brown and Alan Balfour have contributed a fifty page discography of Hopkins extensive recording career which includes much new information including correcting the identity of the steel guitarist who recorded with Hopkins in 1949 for Gold Star. It was Hop Wilson, not Frankie Lee Sims as long suggested, who can be heard on “Jail House Blues,” and “‘T’ Model Blues.” In addition to Govenar’s narrative, this discography ensures that this will be the standard reference on Hopkins for years to come. In summary, this is an invaluable addition to the blues literature.



This was received as a review copy from publisher.