Blues Unlimited: Essential Interviews From The Original Blues Magazine

Blues Unlimited: Essential Interviews From The Original Blues Magazine
Edited by Bill Greensmith, Mike Rowe and Mark Camarigg
University of Illinois Press

Part of the "Music in American Life" series this new volume contains a number of important interviews from this pioneering publication which I was a subscriber to (and even made a few modest contributions to over four decades ago). Bill Greensmith and Mike Rowe were important contributors to Blues Unlimited and Mark Camarigg played an important role in the production of this volume. The editors provide an overview of the publication's history and the various artists whose interviews are reprinted here. They also update and correct some of the interviews here. They note that they have not included some interviews where they were superseded by interviews elsewhere.

Included are interviews with some legendary figures as well as others who likely are not as well known among those who are blues fans today. The volume is split up regionally with the first part (and lengthiest part) devoted to Chicago with interviews of Freddie King, Jimmy Walker, Louis Myers, Red Holloway, Fred Below, and Moody Jones, Floyd Jones and Snooky Pryor. While King and Cotton are the best known of these performers, there is plenty of blues history to be learned here. Most intriguing among the Detroit artists considered is the piece on the great pianist, Big Maceo based on Rowe's interviews with Maceo's widow and pianist Boogie Woogie Red.

The lengthiest interview here is with Jimmy Thomas and goes into his lengthy time with Ike Turner starting in St. Louis. Another St. Louis artist interviewed was Fontella Bass, recalling her days with Oliver Sain and recording "Rescue Me." Arguably the most significant interview with Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup is included. Blues Unlimited played a major role in promoting Houston one-man band, Weldon 'Juke Boy' Bonner, so it is not a surprise to find his interview here, and many will find the 1979 interview of Albert Collins of great interest (I know I did). There is also an interview with Johnny Otis (although one wishes they had reprinted the series of interviews Otis did for the publication), Roy Brown, and two pioneering record men, Henry Glover and Ralph Bass.

This is an invaluable publication with over 400 pages of blues history source material in a large page format. It is an understatement to state this is a major addition to the blues bookshelf and if you have any serious blues lover, it would make a terrific gift.

I purchased this book. This is one of a number of short reviews I have written for the 2015 Holiday Gift Guide edition of Jazz & Blues Report which is available to download at jazz-blues.com.

Record Makers And Breakers Is Story of Independent Record Industry

Record Makers and Breakers 

John Broven
University of Illinois (2009 640 pages)

John Broven, the author of Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans and South to Louisiana, to important studies of regional Louisiana music, has authored an important new volume Record Makers and Breakers. Subtitled Voices of the Independent Rock’n’Roll Pioneers, Broven has provided an invaluable history of the many small independent labels that helped launch most of today’s contemporary music. While his prior books had a primary focus on the artists, while discussing some of the regional labels and the men who were behind the label, the aim of the present volume is a focus on the emergence of the small labels and other aspects of the independent record scene through interviews with the label owners, A&R folk, juke box operators, independent distributors, radio personalities and some performers.

This history of the Independent record Industry is documented in 480 pages of the main body of the text which Broven developed in interviews over the past several decades. There are 97 photographs of some of the people discussed, and appendices with US Record Sales, a listing of Independent Record Distributors over several points of time, a listing of pressing plants, a listing of many postwar record labels and their current owners, list of record men in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, biographical data on Record Makers, and those he conducted oral history with. The are 44 pages of End Notes, and 11 pages of Bibliography that includes a list of selected reissues from these small labels and a very extensive index.

Taking us from the early days of the Indie labels including a couple like Capitol and Mercury that would become majors, we learn about how the Bihari Brothers and others started recording performers to have records for juke boxes they company serviced. We join John R and other radio legends as they start broadcasting rhythm and blues on radio sponsored by Randy’s in Nashville and meet other characters and innovators. There is Sam Phillips in Memphis who starts recording Howlin' Wolf and others for the Bihari Brothers and then when he feels that the Biharis were not doing him right sends Rocket 88, to Leonard Chess and soon Joe Bihari himself is traveling in the Deep South with Ike Turner recording Elmore James, Sunny Blair and others leading to the eventual resolution of the dispute with Chess that gives Howlin’ Wolf to Chess and Roscoe Gordon to the Modern labels and results in Phillips forming Sun records.

It isn't simply the well-known stories like Sam Phillips and Sun that is the subject of Record Makers & Breakers. The meat and potatoes of the book focuses on the personalities and the doings of independent record companies. Leonard Chess and others get into their cars laden with records and travel to meet distributors, juke box operators and disk jockeys. This iss a world of payola for dee-jays and free records for promotional persons. Labels would provide their distributors with 1000 records to distribute to mom and pop stores and other retail locations while adding another 300 for the distributor to use when visiting dee jays and other promotional activities. Then there was the small independent pressing plants that were used, and if luck struck and one had a hit,  the label hopefully would get paid so it get more copies pressed. One hears about how  artists got ripped off, but the labels themselves often were on a tightrope in their constant battle to keep producing hits and stay in business.

The focus on the labels and distributors is initially on the R&B and hillbilly labels and some of the regional labels that focused on ethnic music such as cajun music, but there are slight detours into the world of children’s music as well as the New York office of a British label that licensed the music of various independent labels for English release. There are shady characters and mob connections, bootlegging of smash hits and the payola scandals along with the decline of the independent labels during the sixties and seventies as the major labels fully embraced rock’n’roll.

This only suggests some of the threads that Broven weaves together in this history of the post-war Independent Record labels. There are some independent labels that are not discussed, but practically every single major label that led to the rise of rock’n’roll gets its due. Obviously in considering the history of popular music, the performers and styles are prominent. However, without the business  of producing, manufacturing and distributing for sale, and broadcast, music, the music simply does not get disseminated and distributed. Record Makers And Breakers is a book that anyone seriously interested in understanding today's  popular music and the development of the record industry needs to obtain.

I likely received a review copy from the publsiher or a publicist for the publisher. This review was written several years ago, but I do not believe it was published. There is a paperback edition for this book and it is available as an ebook.

Peter Muir's Fascinating Consideration of the Long Lost Blues

Long Lost Blues: Popular Blues in America, 1950-1920
Peter C. Muir
2010: University of illinois Press

A new book has been published examining the emergence of blues in popular American music prior to the face race records recordings of the music. Peter Muir, described as “an internationally recognized pianist, composer, scholar and conductor,” provides the reader with a musicological analysis of blues that was published and sold in sheet music form as well as a textual analysis of these published songs that supplement what we know about the emergence of blues as a song form and as a musical idiom. There are many musical examples included. The extensive use of musical examples is also accompanied by recordings by the author that can be downloaded on the books website and Muir also provides verbal descriptions to facilitate those who are not able to read musical notation.

It is a study of the emergence of the blues industry and Muir brings to our attention a number of interesting facts including the fact that on January 12, 1912, a piece of sheet music was registered for copyright by the Library of Congress entitled The Blues, and was authored by two African-American writers, Chris Smith and Tim Brymn, who had been active in the popular music industry for over a decade, and had collaborated before. Muir observes that while essentially a ragtime song, The Blues contained much that was blues related including a scenario of a woman grieving for a deserting lover but most telling the chorus when the singer declares “I got the blues, but I’m too blamed mean to cry,” which music that makes striking use of blue notes, represented by a musical example as well. Muir further notes that it was the second publication to describe itself as a blues, the earlier composition was I’m Alabama Bound, subtitled The Alabama Blues. But by 1912, four more songs described as blues would be copyrighted and he then traces and shows the increasing number of such sheet music over the decade, as well as shows the links with black and white vaudeville. In 1916, blues compositions were published with an aggregate through 1916 of 92, and in 1920, when blues recordings for Blacks started to become available, there were 147 published and an aggregate amount of 457 published.

His analysis involves distinguishing folk from popular blues, which includes describing some of the elements of popular blues (which I suspect many would not consider blues, but rather vaudeville) as well as discusses the performances of such music. He furthermore considers the origins of the word “blues,” and postulates that blues was in a sense a cure for the condition that was a theme of many blues songs and then categorizes songs as either homeopathic and allopathic, a distinction between a singer singing a depressed song to drive his blues away, as opposed to employing a lively tempo number to cure the blues. He suggests that most folk blues are homeopathic while popular blues is in the latter category. He accompanies this discussion with a history that goes back to Greek times of music as a cure for melancholy and depression.

There is also a discussion of several notable composers of blues, including a full chapter of W.C. Handy, as well an overview of such important early blues as Dallas Blues, and Baby Seals Blues. and such other notable composers as Euday Bowman, Perry Bradford and George Washington Thomas (Sippie Wallace’s oldest brother). The final chapter on Proto-Blues of the 18th Century examines some of the published parlor songs and minstrel that use the phrase I Got the Blues, as well as the evolution of the twelve-bar sequence that is found in some of blues ballads such as Frankie and Johnny and Boll Weevil, as well as compositions of ragtime pianist Hughie Cannon, the most famous song associated with is Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home. He also shows how the blues ballad musically was distinguished from the blues song.

This is a fascinating book which will bring to light an aspect of blues in American musical life that has not been given attention, and helps our understanding of how blues emerged in the early 20th century, and got disseminated to become so influential in wide areas of American culture.

I believe I received a review copy from the publisher.

Blues Before Sunrise's Enlightening Blues Interviews

Blues Before Sunrise: The Radio Interviews
Steve Cushing
2010: University of Illinois


Steve Cushing hosts a long-running, syndicated blues radio program. "Blues Before Sunrise" on WBEZ on Chicago and he has compiled a collection of interviews on that program that should be of interest to anyone interested in the blues. What sets this book of interviews apart is that he does not focus on persons that were household names or written about extensively. What is valuable also is the depth that many of the interviews here are in the fashion of some of the interviews that were in living Blues in that publication's glory days. There is a common format to each of interviews as Cushing discusses the circumstances of how the interviews took place.


This book is divided into three parts. The first is entitled "Ancient Age" and includes interviews with Yank Rachell, Jesse Thomas, Alberta Hunter and The Grey Ghost. There is insight about their personalities as well as their career. Rachell provides insights on John Estes, Sonny Boy Williamson I, as well as his own style. Alberta Hunter's has her talk about some of her associates and some of the facts of her career while Jesse Thomas talks about T-Bone (and how T-Bone got some guitar stuff from him), Lloyd Glenn and his various recordings, both pre-war and post-war. Pianist Grey Ghost was part of a vibrant Texas piano blues tradition and reminiscences about life and some of his contemporaries. Neither Thomas not The Grey Ghost are presented extensively in interviews (my friend Eleanor Ellis did do one with Thomas) so having these available are invaluable.


Part Two is entitled "Postwar Glory" and has lengthy interviews with John and Grace Brim, Jody Williams. Rev. Johnny Williams and Little Hudson. Of these Jody Williams revived his musical career in the past several years, while the Brims provide insight into the scene in Gary, as well as a recording career that took them to Detroit with Big maceo and Chicago where they did sides with Little Walter. Jody Williams is among the most significant blues guitarists though was disgusted by the industry after he was ripped off of composer credits for "Love Is Strange." He chronicles his time with Howlin' Wolf and Bo Diddley here as well as his own choice recordings. With the late blues mandolinist/guitarist, Johnny Williams made among the earliest recordings in the post-war Chicago scene and provided recollections of numerous artists on the scene. Little Hudson is among a number of artists like Big Boy Spires and Moody Jones who made some memorable recordings but never became big names.


Part 3 is entitled "Esoterica" and has interviews with Tommy brown, Ralph Bass, Cadillac Baby and Richard Stamz. Tommy brown is still with us and regales Cushing and us with a flamboyant story of his career as a blues shouter, comedian and more. There are some tall tales as represented by a claim to have spoken with Otis Redding the night before he died. The problem with this is Brown claims Redding came to the DeLisa to see him, but Redding performed in Leo's Casino in Cleveland before taking his fatal flight. Brown is not the only interviewee who has embellished his career, and while one can appreciate his music, some of his claims here may be overstated. Ralph Bass discusses his lengthy career in recording and while I was familiar with his time with King Records, I was unaware of his prior stint at Black & White and his role with "Open The Door Richard," as well as recording T-Bone Walker, Jack McVea and Helen Humes. Cadillac Baby was another character detailing his club and recoding activities while Stamz was a very popular Chicago radio host I was totally unfamiliar with.


Living Blues Co-Founder Jim O'Neal provides a cogent foreword to the interviews here. Cushing concludes the book with a brief history of the radio show and how it has changed from the early days when he conducted it live he developed a relationship with many of his listeners and how syndication and time has changed aspects of this. It is the coda on a fascinating selection of interviews. One wonders what other interviews Steve might have included.  One might only hope sales of this would encourage a follow-up volume. "Before Sunrise: The Radio Interviews" is highly recommended.


I purchased my copy.