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

Leroy Carr's In The Evening

Leroy Carr's legacy is perhaps not as appreciated today as it once was. A major recording star, his duets with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell, are classic blues recordings. Furthermore, he contributed countless classic blues songs that have become standards. Today we have an "In the Evening" playlist kicking off with his original recording.

While Ray Charles has also recorded this, let us not forget Charles Brown, who was an early influence on Brother Ray.

Big Bill Broonzy did this as hear here.

Robert Lockwood had a fondness for Leroy Carr as did most folks of his generation. Here he is playing his 12 string guitar and singing this classic.

Big Joe Turner did a nice rendition of this.

Here is Jimmy Witherspoon with a band that included Jay McShann on piano and was led by former Basie-ite, Budddy Tate.

Here is Ella Fitzgerald singing it for Decca Records,

Here is a Count Basie trio recording of this classic.

Here is Big Joe Williams and his 9-string guitar.

And here is the shouter Joe Williams at Newport in 1963 with a band including Howard McGhee and Clark Terry.

Here is Ernestine Anderson with Milt Jackson and others.

Then there is Gary Clark Jr. at the White House doing it.

Then there is Yusef Lateef's recording on the oboe.

I could include many more renditions, but here is a ringer to close this post with.  I wonder if the Carr estate gets royalties for Robert Johnson's recording, Love in Vain, that uses Carr's music.

ROBERT LOCKWOOD Jr. A legend in his own right!

I’ve known Robert Lockwood since the fall of 1970, my senior year at Case Western Reserve University when I interviewed him for a student newspaper. At the time Robert was driving a delivery truck for a Cleveland pharmacy, and playing music part time. The previous summer he attended the second Ann Arbor Blues Festival, and was coaxed up on stage where gave a great performance that led to his first album Steady Rolling Man (on Delmark) as well as playing on a Roosevelt Sykes album, Feel Like Blowing My Horn (also on Delmark). In addition to my interview of Robert in the fall of 1970, I had him on my radio show on the CWRU station. WRUW‑FM in Spring of 1971, and I had the opportunity to interview him in a Buffalo hotel May 12, 1978 (which Jim O’Neal and Amy Van Singel transcribed for a Living Blues interview that never ran).

Robert Lockwood Jr at the 2005 Pocono Blues Festival

In a review of Robert Lockwood Jr.’s new recording, What’s the Score, in the first issue of Blues Revue Quarterly, Brett Bonner writes, “Robert Lockwood is one of the greatest guitarists the blues has ever produced. His music has, in its own subtle way, shaped the blues of the modern era.” Living Blues editor Peter Lee concluded an article on Lockwood in the July, 1991 Guitar Player, “Lockwood’s history is almost that of the blues. Yet he brought something more to the blues in both his style and in his playing. And in doing that, he can claim much more than most musicians could ever hope to.”

Robert Lockwood was born 20 miles from Helena in Marvell, Arkansas on March 27, 1915. He was raised on a farm outside town by his mother Esther Lockwood (Shannon). At the age of 7, he was taken by his mother to St. Louis, the first of many trips to that town, but this trip was a brief one and they soon returned South to live near  Helena.  Robert recalled  growing  up  in Marvel, Helena,  Memphis,  & St. Louis. “Most of my schoolin’ was in Helena. And I dropped out of school when I was about 14, 13 ‑ something like 13, 14 years old. Started to work and try to take care of my mother.” His mother struggled to make ends meet as a cook for a white family, and Robert dropped out of school in 7th grade, finding work in the cotton fields and levee camps. He also started playing music as an additional way to make money.

Robert Lockwood Jr at 2005 Pocono Blues Festival

Recalling this time, Robert stated “That’s when I started to learn to play. Yeah. I was about 13 1/2 years old. During that time I was doin’ farm work. Going out with the cotton chopping trucks, cotton picking trucks‑things like that. But the women wasn’t makin’ no money at that time. Females worked for $3 a week and that kind of shit.... Whenever I could get a job, I’d make around $9. About $9‑10 a week. That was a lot of money at that time.”

Robert didn’t recall a lot of music around the area growing up. “ There was people who was trying to play but, I don’t know. I just didn’t find too many guitar players interesting. I didn’t have no desire to play no guitar. I Thought I was goin’ be a piano player.” Asked if there were a lot of good piano players he answered “There wasn’t a lot. But the piano, you could very well play it by yourself without any help. And that’s what I always wanted when I was beginning-to not have to depend on anybody to help me. As the years passed, I got used to trying to put things together and I got used to help. My ambition was at first to play by myself. But I found it a little boring and dull as the years passed ‑ running all over the world by yourself. I done that for about 10 years, you know about 10 or 11 years, or longer.”

Robert Johnson was the impetus for Robert Lockwood becoming a guitarist. “He was my teacher.” Recalling how he met Johnson, he stated “Oh Robert met my mother. He followed my mother home. He hung around there for, oh, a couple of months. I guess. And my mother at first felt like he was too young but Robert could talk that way‑back talk. He didn’t look like he was no older than me. But I guess he was about 4 or 5 years older than I am. But I met Robert through my mother. And when he found out I was so interested in music, he finally decided to teach me. So, I’m very grateful about that cause my very first beginnin’ was not bad.”

At the 2005 Pocono Blues Festival

Lockwood recalled that Robert Johnson was a “very good musician.... I never heard Robert try to play nothin’ like nobody else. Really I wondered where did he get his understandin’ and style from. I never heard nobody play like him.... Oh you can listen to his records today and you don’t hear nobody playin’ like him but me. Nobody but me.” When I asked about Johnny Shines Robert stated, “Johnny Shines come close. Johnny Shines do pretty good, but he doesn’t play like Robert. So I teaches Johnny Shines every time I see him. Well, we grew up together. You know that.”

Robert recollected travelling with his mentor. “I went quite a few places with Robert ... quite a few. But Robert usually liked to travel alone. That was something else that I didn’t quite understand. But he carried me to Mississippi with him two or three times and he went up into some parts of Arkansas ‑ Eldorado, Arkansas, Camden and different places. I made about three trips with Robert.” Robert remembered some of the other musicians playing at the time. “Oh there was quite a few people down there that’s been gone a long time now. There was a dude called Son Kelly, and one called Stormy Weather. There was two brothers ‑ the Britt brothers, Jim Britt and W.B. Britt. All these people had help. I mean there was always two guitars ‑ one playing lead and the other one playin’ background you know.”

Many of the musicians that would be a vital part of the Chicago blues of the 1950s and 1960s were in Memphis. Robert knew Big Walter Horton in Memphis in the thirties and was the first one to take Walter away from home. “Walter was playin’ what was bein’ recorded. Wasn’t nobody recordin’ then but Big Bill, Peetie Wheatsraw and Lonnie Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie. Walter was playin’ better then  he do now.” When I asked Robert what was better about Walter’s playing then. “I don’t know, just seemed like [he was playing better] . . . maybe it was like a kind of new experience to me. Maybe he wasn’t, you know. But he was playin’ like hell then. See Walter and I had left Memphis and went down into a levee camp and came back with so much money Walter’s mother thought we’d done robbed somebody. Yeah, I picked Walter up in Memphis and carried him with me. And brought him back home. He could play. Walter was always a loner, too. You never see Walter, see him with nobody.”

Robert remembered Howlin’ Wolf. “Howlin’ Wolf? Yeah. When I first started playin’ Howlin’ Wolf was trying to play guitar. I used to run into Howlin’ Wolf when we were both runnin’ up and down the road. Howlin’ Wolf was tryin’ to play the guitar then. I didn’t know nothin’ about him playin’ no harp until ... I went down there, it was just after ’40, after ’41. I went back down South and he had a band in West Memphis and was playin’ the harp. I said, “Well I’ll be doggone.”

It was Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) who first took Robert Jr. to Mississippi. “I met Sonny Boy through Robert. Robert was always in Mississippi ‑ well Robert’s home was in Mississippi too. And Robert was steady goin’ to and from Mississippi and he would run into Sonny Boy and I think they would play some together. And Robert was steady tellin’ Sonny Boy about me. And as the years passed, Sonny Boy finally came to Helena looking for me. He came over and begged my mother to let me go to Mississippi with him. She never wanted me to go to Mississippi, but he finally convinced her. And she told me to go ahead. And I’d been goin’ all up and down the road by myself, you know, but she just didn’t want me to go in Mississippi. Well, Mississippi was pretty bad then on Blacks. And I went to Mississippi with Sonny Boy, and we made a lot of money. $100 was a lot of money then.”

Robert Lockwood Jr honored with Lifetime Achievement Award at 2005 Pocono Blues Festival by Larry Hoffman

This was around 1936 or 1937. Sonny Boy wasn’t calling himself Sonny Boy at the time, but rather called himself “Boy Blue”. People were also calling him “Rice.” When John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson started making records, Rice Miller started calling himself Sonny Boy. “And Big Sonny Boy could play Little Sonny Boy’s material better than he could play it. So, the way I understand it, they knew each other somehow, but Little Sonny Boy got a chance to make those records. And I think he was a good song writer, Little Sonny Boy was. Both of ‘em was.... Anyway I remember when Little [Sonny] Boy came to Helena.  Well when he came to Helena I had played with him. I played with Little Sonny Boy in 1938‑39.... 1939 and a part of 1938, played with Little Sonny Boy in St. Louis. We used to play a lot of house parties. So in 1942 he came to Helena. Well, the word had got around that Sonny Boy Williamson was down South. He came down there and they talked about it and Little Sonny Boy got on the same station ‑ KFFA. And he stayed on that station for about two months. And that really confused the people. Oh man, I’ve seen some things man."

Robert joined the King Biscuit Time radio show in 1941 a few months after it started with the second Sonny Boy. “I went down after I recorded those records for RCA Victor. And I went down and Sonny Boy grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I stayed with Sonny Boy down there for about two years. And me and the owner of King Biscuit Time, we never got along too well ‑ he’s still living‑ and so I finally split. Well what was really happenin’, then, they wasn’t payin’ nothing. But the publicity was gettin’ us a lot of work. Me and Sonny Boy was playin’ seven nights a week, you know. And those road engagements was really payin’ off, you know.” Responding to my observation that life on the road must have been rough, Robert Jr.. stated, “Nah, it’s not rough when you like it. You know, you just have to like it. You have to like it. There are a lot of people who don’t like it who just be out there for the money. Then it goes kind of hard with them so that’s why they get on all these old different kinds of drugs and dope and stuff‑ to be able to work.”

Longtime Lockwood band member, Maurice Reedus

By the late thirties Robert Lockwood was living and playing in St. Louis, a rich blues community which at the time was the home of Peetie Wheatstraw, Sonny Boy Willliamson I, Henry Townsend, Big Joe Williams, Lonnie Johnson, Dr. Clayton and others. It was with Dr. Clayton, that Lockwood got his first chance to record. “Well Dr. Clayton‑ ton and me and John Lee Williams, which was Little Sonny Boy, and Peetie Wheatstraw and Walter Davis and Elijah Williams and Booker T.. Washington - we all was runnin’ around there in St. Louis - playin’ on the street corners and different little towns in Illinois, you know, and Dr. Clayton and me would sit down and share ideas with each other. And we both was writing songs, you know.  So Clayton had been to Chicago and he kept tellin” me, he said, ‘Well, let’s go to Chicago.” So I had a job parking cars, I was working at the Ninth and Chestnut garage. And I got that job down there and kind of got myself together‑ I bought me a lot of clothes, bought me a brand new instrument, and bought me a union card. So when we came to Chicago we came to Chicago to record for Decca. The talent scout was J. Mayo Williams and Mayo Williams was out of town so . . . during this process we ran into Lester Melrose and Lester Melrose and Mayo Williams was racin’ over talent, because at that  time, the black musicians, blues singers, they wasn’t paying them a goddam thing ‑ you know about 15% of 1¢ royalty.... That’s what they promised you,  know. So anyway, Dr. Clayton and me, I think we got better from Melrose than anybody else. Clayton really got paid ‑ he really got some money out of it. See well, I got $900 for playing with Clayton and for doing my own session. And at that time they was only paying $12.50 a side for a record and then a session was called two records. So that meant you  made $50 for a recording session  But I told Melrose to forget about the 15%  and, oh, he hollered. He didn’t want to give me that much money. He told me, ‘I could record 10 people for what l’m payin’ and you’re askin’ for.’  But what made him record me was I told him, I said, ‘I didn’t come here to record for Victor in no way, you. I’ll just wait until Mayo Williams comes. And he didn’t want Mayo to get me. Oh, we went through a pretty bad time cause he was telling me that he didn’t know whether my material was goin’ to sell or not and ‘I’m taking a chance.’ And I started naming all the dudes who was playin’ for him which was Big Bill, Tampa Red and Johnny Temple.” 

Both Big Bill and Tampa Red should be relatively well known to most blues listeners. Jackson, Mississippi born Johnny Temple may not have been a great instrumentalist but was a rather prolific recording artist of the thirties and forties. Robert kidded me about not knowing Temple’s biggest  record, “Well, his best record was ‘Big Leg Woman.’ I can’t see how you missed that. But Johnny Temple and  those dudes who was playin’ those guitars ... and Melrose, he really didn’t dig me too much because I’m kinda of straightforward about saying what I think. When I think I’m right, I mean you got a problem ‘cause  I’m not goin’ be givin’ in, you know. So he was tellin’ me about how he didn’t know whether my stuff was gonna sell or not and I told him, I said, ‘You can line all them sons of bitches you got ‑ that play by themself ‑ and I’ll just walk right through them. I play what they play and play what they don’t play.’ And he really didn’t like that either. But he wouldn’t let me go. He wouldn’t agree and let me record for Decca. So he finally come up with the contract and I recorded for him.”

Robert recorded four selections that were released: Take a Little Walk With Me, Mean Black Spider, Gonna Train My Baby and Little Boy Blue. With the exception of Train My Baby, the songs became blues standards that were recorded by countless other blues artists. Muddy Waters recorded Take a Little Walk With Me for the Library of Congress and his reworking of Mean Black Spider as Mean Red Spider was among Muddy’s first recordings for Chess Records. Robert gave songs to Muddy and others including Glory for Man which Sonny Boy II recorded as All My Love in Vain, Elevator Blues for John Lee ‘Little Sonny Boy’ Williamson and That s All  Right for Jimmy Rogers.

Video of Robert Lockwood Jr.

After the Bluebird recordings, Robert moved back down to Arkansas, joining the King Biscuit Time show with Sonny Boy. He remembered other musicians. “WelI in Helena there was Willie Love and Dudlow. That dude, he was nicknamed, was Robert Taylor. And Starkey Brothers. The Starkey Brothers used to be with me ‑ they was part of my first band. And a dude who used to live in Marianna named Jim Leake ‑ he had a string band. And an old man called Poppa Crump that played piano very good. And there’s somebody else who I know real good and I can’t think of him for nothing.” Robert formed  his  first band with the Starkey Brothers after leaving King Biscuit Time and started his own show for Mother’s Best Flour, a competing company to the Interstate Company that sold King Biscuit Flour and Sonny Boy Corn meal. This band was a much jazzier group than the band with Sonny Boy. As Robert Palmer chronicles in his excellent book, Deep Blues, Robert Lockwood was one of the first amplified guitar players in the Delta region and exerted considerable influence on numerous musicians including the late Joe Willie Wilkins who was one of the other guitarists that was associated with Sonny Boy and King Biscuit Time, the Murphy Brothers, Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Rogers, Louis Myers, Freddie King, and very significantly B.B. King.

When I first met Robert, he mentioned the fact that he had been working with B.B. King at the outset of B.B.’s career, trying to help B.B. work on his time while working with B.B. as a sideman. Frustrated with B.B.’s apparent inability to pick up on this aspect, Robert wanted to quit but B.B. cajoled him to stay a while longer, and when he left told the record company that was going to record B.B. to use a big band to help cover some of B.B.’s timing mistakes. It was almost two decades after Lockwood left B.B. King’s band before B.B. hired another guitarist to play in his band, so deep an impression Robert left with the Blues King.

In the early fifties Robert moved to Chicago where he would stay until the early sixties. In Chicago he became a major part of the blues scene there, recording Dust My Broom for the J.O.B. label a few months before Elmore James’ classic recording, along with Aw Aw Baby (a version of Sweet Home Chicago) and the jazzy Sweet Woman from Maine as well as established as a session player on recordings by Sunnyland Slim, drummer Alfred ‘Fat Man’ Wallace, pianist Eddie Boyd and others. While none of these records were heavy sellers, they stand up today as small gems of postwar Chicago blues. They have been reissued on a Flyright CD, Johnny Shines & Robert Lockwood which also contains Johnny Shines earliest recordings.

When Louis Myers left Little Walter’s band, the Jukes (or the Aces), in a money dispute, Robert replaced him and ended up working with Walter for several years. Robert once told the story of travelling in the south with Little Walter, and they came across some place where the pace had a sign saying that Little Walter was playing. This fact was news to them, and they had problems convincing people there that Little Walter was the real Little Walter.

Another video of Robert Lockwood Jr.

Robert was a mainstay of the Chicago recording scene, being on numerous sessions for Chess Records until the sixties when Buddy Guy assumed a similar role. Robert’s carefully placed chords and immaculate sense of timing perfectly complemented Walter’s hard driving harp solos, Eddie Boyd’s uptown band blues or Rice Miller’s wry vocals. Robert also did sessions with Muddy Waters, Floyd Dixon, Willie Mabon and the Mooglows for Chess. In 1961 Robert Jr.. travelled with Otis Spann and St. Louis Jimmy Oden to record for Candid Records. At the time, the classic album Otis Spann is the Blues with four vocals each from Spann and Lockwood along with two instrumental from Spann. Lockwood once expressed his belief that the album should have been with a full band, yet there can be little disputing the superb playing by both, with Lockwood’s guitar being a perfect compliment for Spann’s piano. A small glimpse of what might have been with a full band was two songs Spann recorded for Chess with Lockwood, Walter Horton, Willie Dixon and Fred Below that were not even known to exist until they turned up on Japanese import some ten years ago, Chicago Pianology, presenting two powerful examples of classic Chicago blues.

Shortly after returning to Chicago, Robert went to Cleveland with Rice Miller to play a club called Gleason’s for a short gig. While the second Sonny Boy left Cleveland after about nine months, Robert settled in to what has become his home town and raised his  family  with  his wonderful  wife, Annie. Musically, he remains active and doesn’t rest on his past laurels or reputation; still writing songs and still developing his music as when he started focusing on a twelve string guitar over a decade ago. He has made a number of fine albums. His Delmark album Steady Rolling Man is on vinyl or cassette, while his two Trix albums, Contrasts and Does Twelve are unfortunately out of print as is a wonderful Live in Japan that he recorded with the Aces. Similarly hard to find should be two albums he collaborated  with Johnny Shines that were on Rounder.  More recently he recorded an album for the French Black & Blue label Plays Robert & Robert on which he played an acoustic 12 string guitar. This album was recently issued on cassette. Most recently he recorded the fine What’s the Score on his own Lockwood label  which also spotlights second guitarist Mark Hahn and harmonica player Wallace Coleman, as well as show that Lockwood is the ideal blues accompanist.  While some will go to se Robert initially because of the connection with his  stepfather, (Robert Johnson), after hearing him they’ll understand why Bob Dylan was picking up a few pointers from him a decade ago. He is a Giant of the Blues.

This originally appeared in The DC Blues Calendar and Jazz & Blues Report, likely in 1991 or 1992,

Calvin Frazier This Old World’s In A Tangle

Calvin Frazier
This Old World’s In A Tangle
Laurie

This disc is is Laurie Records’ second reissue of Library of Congress field recordings that Alan Lomax recorded in Detroit in the late thirties. Containing all of the blues Calvin Frazier recorded that are still extant on fragile acetate discs, it does not include his religious songs, upon the producer’s belief that they would not appeal to blues fans. This may be a miscalculation, given this disc’s unavoidable rough sound and the short playing time.

Frazier was a cousin of the late Johnny Shines, and was associated with Robert Johnson. Johnson’s influence pervades a good portion of the music here. The title track (heard in a fragment and a full version); I’m in the Highway, Man; She’s a Double Crossing Woman, and Highway 51 Blues, echo Johnson’s Kind Hearted Women, Terraplane Blues, and Dust My Broom. Frazier also sings with a Johnson-like falsetto. Other tracks include Frazier’s Lily Mae, that he later recorded commercially, and versions of The Dirty Dozens and Pinetop Smith’s Boogie Woogie. There are two short interview fragments included as well. Calvin Frazier would be a part of the post-war Detroit blues scene, although his recordings in a combo setting are far different from these country blues recordings.

Like the previous Laurie reissue of Sampson Pittman’s Library of Congress recordings, this is accompanied by a wonderful 40 page booklet with extensive information on Frazier, and full lyric transcriptions. The sound may deter casual listeners, and the playing time is somewhat scanty. Despite these shortcomings, this will be an essential purchase for country blues devotees.

This review originally appeared in the March 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 189) and I likely received my review copy from the record company. This is out-of-print but well worth checking for used copies of it. Here is Frazier's rendition of "Double Crossing Woman."

Remembering Honeyboy, Wardell and Big Eyes

September has seen some blues and rhythm masters leave us with memories and plenty of reason to celebrate their legacy.

Honeyboy Edwards at Western Maryland Blues Festival in Hagerstown, MD.  Photo © Ron Weinstock

David' Honeyboy' Edwards passing was the last link to the pre-war generation of Delta bluesmen. Edwards literally grew up and played with all of the masters of the style including Charlie Patton, Tommy Johnson, Big Joe Williams, Tommy McLennan and most famously Robert Johnson. It was his association that led Pete Welding to Edwards after Welding had asked Big Joe of any bluesmen who knew the legendary Delta artist. Welding recorded Edwards as well as interviewed him which led to an extensive article back in the sixties.


Big Joe Williams took first Edwards out on the road as a youngster and arguably Williams highly rhythmic style is the most obvious influence on Edwards. Edwards became at times a very capable blues performer in the Delta style. Certainly the recordings Edwards made for Alan Lomax were fine examples of the Delta style. In the post-war era he had a few commercial recording sessions leading to one issued 78 and sessions for Chess and Sun that went unissued at the time, although issued later. Even most of Pete Welding's recordings of Honeyboy were unissued until the CD era, although Honeyboy was among the artists brought to play with Fleetwood Mac in the late sixties. 


Honeyboy may not have had the powerful guitar style or passionate, charismatic singing style that might have appealed to commercial record labels, but his warm personality and his personnel connections to the giants of the pre-war blues made him a popular performer for the past few decades was was capable of reaching across cultural and generational lines so well.

Wardell Quezergue and Jean Knight at the Ponderosa Stomp.  Photo © Ron Weinstock

Wardell Quezergue earned the moniker "The Creole Beethoven" as a reflection of his ability to arrange for large groups. This New Orleans native was famed as a composer, producer and arranger. He put together the charts for "Big Chief," the legendary Professor Longhair-Earl King Mardi Gras classic. As a producer he have us chart-topping soul classics like King Floyd's "Groove Me," and Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff." These two recordings were actually produced on the same day.


In more recent years his arranging touch was utilized for big band albums by Charles Brown and Gatemouth Brown; several acclaimed Dr. John albums (including the Grammy® Award Winning "Goin' Back to New Orleans"); and the wonderful "Deacon John's Jump Blues." Listening to the renditions on this CD and DVD, and comparing them with the original recordings, one appreciates how Quezergue translated small combo recordings into a big band language with considerable grace and elegance. He was spotlighted at a couple of Ponderosa Stomps in New Orleans as well as a special Stomp at Lincoln Center in new York City. When Dr. Ike asked Dr. John if he would consider doing some of his older songs on which he played guitar originally, he agreed when he learned Quezergue would be doing the arrangements and conducting. This gives a sense of the contributions of this marvelous person.

Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith at the 2010 Pocono Blues Festival, Lake Harmony PA. Photo © Ron Weinstock

Finally, we just received word that Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith passed away. Smith was honored with a Grammy® this past year alongside his friend and long-time band-mate, Pinetop Perkins, with whom he spent many years playing together with the legendary Muddy waters and later the Legendary Blues Band. Smith remained active until the stroke that recently felled him, and in more recent years was featured on harmonica and vocals and not simply handling the shuffle rhythms on drums. His presence with Muddy was in part responsible for the rock-solid swing of that band.


The quality of his music as a leader was also noteworthy. I said of his Hightone release Way Back, that it "showcases Smith’s harp as well as his amiable vocals on some choice covers as well as idiomatic originals." His son Kenny has become one of the best drummers in the blues today (and played on Way Back). What I will remember most about Willie was his infectious smile and the sparkle in his eyes. 


RIP Honeyboy, Wardell and Big Eyes.

Son House Was Riveting Performing In Seattle

The word ‘great’ is overused, but few would disagree that it is properly applied to the Delta Blues of Eddie “Son” House. House was one of the most riveting blues performers that ever recorded and performed. Dick Waterman, who used to book and manage House after he was discovered in Rochester NY has stated “Son House was the core of greatness of blues artists. There were many who had great talent but Son House was the standard by which they would be measured.” Those words can be found in the booklet to a new release, Son House in Seattle 1968 (Arcola Records).


This is a double CD that is subtitled 2 cds - concert and interview. The first CD is Son in concert in March, 1968 when he appeared under the auspices of the Seattle Folklore Society while the second disc is taken from a radio interview that Bob West conducted with him interspersed with original recordings by Son along with associates like Louise Johnson, Charlie Patton, Willie Brown, Rube Lacy and Robert Johnson.


In the accompanying booklet Bob Groom observes, about the concert performance, that it was unusual in the amount of speaking and story telling the House engages in between the performances of Death Letter Blues, Government Fleet Blues, Empire State, I Want to Live So God Can Use Me, Preachin’ Blues, and Louise McGee. No blues performer was more compelling that Son and he was in top form this day. From his forceful guitar to his vocals that bore open his soul, there are some extraordinary performances including Death Letter and the a capella I Want to Live So God Can Use Me. The lengthy spoken interludes are invaluable in giving a fuller sense of him than the driving musical performances alone. This concert predates Son suffering frostbite in the Winter 1969 that affected his use of fingers in his fretting hand.


The second disc is valuable for his lengthy recollections of his blues contemporaries. Included is a wonderful booklet with Dick Waterman’s cogent recollections of Son and Bob Groom’s lengthy overview of Son’s life and music. While Father of Folk Blues on Columbia (now Sony) remains the essential 1960s Son House release, fans of the deepest Delta blues will obviously want this. Son’s musical fires were burning brightly in Seattle during this 1968 visit and we should be grateful that Arcola has issued this wonderful package. Arcola’s website is www.arcolarecords.com, and www.bluebeatmusic.com and other retailers should have this.

This was reviewed from a CD I purchased.

Another Cephas and Wiggins Piedmont Blues Treasure

I had the privilege of knowing that late John Cephas as well as Phil Wiggins who were cornerstone’s of the Washington DC and vicinity blues scene as well as became internationally known for their style of Piedmont blues. The following review was originally published in the July-August 2006 DC Blues Calendar, then the DC Blues Society’s newsletter. It also appeared in the July-August issue of Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 284). I have made very slight stylistic edits. This was I believe their final album on Alligator.


The release of the new Alligator CD, Shoulder to Shoulder by (John) Cephas & (Phil) Wiggins will certainly be welcome by lovers of acoustic blues lovers everywhere, not simply here in the DC area. The two are in usual fine form with Cephas assured guitar and Wiggins remarkable crying harmonica. Ann Rabson adds piano to six tracks while Daryl Davis is heard on one.


This opens when a fine Cephas original, Ain’t Seen My Baby that shows off Cephas Piedmont guitar style, and closes with a blues taken from Robert Johnson’s Walking Blues, The Blues Three Ways on which Daryl Davis adds some solid piano. In between those numbers, the pair rework Skip James recording of the Delta classic Catfish Blues, on which Cephas shows himself to be one of the most consistently able interpreters of James’ music. Another highpoint is Cephas’ Piedmont reworking of Charlie Patton’s deep delta blues, Dirt Road, with Rabson’s piano adding to the tunes flavor. Seattle Rainy Day Blues is another standout original with a wonderful lyric and solid piano from Rabson behind the two.


The performances are consistently strong with the piano especially lending a bit more city feel to some of these excellent performances in what is another excellent addition to their body of recordings.


I received my review copy from Alligator.


As a postscript, while John Cephas passed away, Phil Wiggins stills performs as well as teaches. He can often be heard performing with Corey Harris, as well as with DC area bluesman Rick Franklin. He regularly gives harmonica workshops at the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation.

Big Head Todd's Well Considered Robert Johnson tribute

Big Head Blues Club is an offshoot of Big Head Todd and The Monsters created by Todd Park Mohr, to help celebrate the Robert Johnson Birthday centenary, 100 Years of Robert Johnson (Ryko/ Big Records). Guitarist and vocalist, Mohr and his band mates, bassist Rob Squires, drummer Brian Nevin and keyboardist Jeremy Lawton are joined by B.B. King, Charlie Musselwhite, Ruthie Foster, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm for renditions of ten of Johnson’s songs. Robert Johnson was a brilliant performer who died way too young so he has become a mythical figure which has led some to make the incredulous assertion that Robert Johnson was most influential blues artist of all time. This unsupported assertion has more to do with myth than reality or blues history. Call Robert Johnson the greatest blues artist of all time. That opinion can be debated but can't be faulted. But calling him the most influential exposes one’s ignorance of the music’s history (and the impact of others) and ignores the fact that if there was no Robert Johnson, blues as we know it would probably have evolved in pretty much the manner it sounds like today.

I have no idea what is included in the physical CD as I received a download promotional copy, but the music on this is not without its pleasures. For one thing, the renditions of Johnson’s songs are not overly reverential as say the tribute albums by Rory Block or Eric Clapton. As a vocalist Mohr may lack the depth of feeling that a Johnny Shines, Elmore James or Big Joe Williams brought to their interpretations of Johnson’s music, but does bring an amiable, gravelly approach and sings with plenty of heart.

The disc opens with Come On In My Kitchen features a funk groove that is more Hill Country flavored than Johnson’s original with a harp break from Charlie Musselwhite. Rambling on My Mind, follows with an emphatic groove that is slowed down from the original. Cedric Burnside is on acoustic guitar and Lightning Malcolm on slide guitar on an accompaniment not wedded to the broom-dusting riff employed on many versions of this. It is followed by a frenzied Preachin’ Blues, on which Burnside is on drums and Malcolm adding the acoustic slide. The frenzied character of the performance does a credible job of evoking Johnson’s original which struck me as one of Johnson’s most fervent recordings.


Crossroads Blues, with B.B. King, has an imaginative arrangement owing little to Johnson or Elmore James and Mohr credibly shares the vocal with King as Johnny Lawton’s funky organ helps set the mood. When You Got a Good Friend is another tine with more of a hill country fill that traditional delta-styled blues of Johnson with Foster adding backing vocals and Sumlin some guitar embellishments along with Lightnin’ Malcolm. Kind Hearted Woman is a nice piano-guitar duet between Malcolm on acoustic guitar and pianist Lawton as Foster and Mohr trade lines in the shared vocal. One jarring note is Mohr singing “Mr. Johnson” when he could have personalized it as to Big Todd. Honeyboy Edwards may be the last living link to Robert Johnson, but of those associated with Johnson, he is musically the least able and his weak vocal at the beginning of If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day, is salvaged by Mohr’s strong singing and the driving, rhythmic backing of Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm. Musselwhite contributes moody harmonica behind a smoldering, smokey treatment of Last Fair Deal Gone Down.

After Mohr’s capable solo acoustic rendition of All My Love’s In Vain, the album concludes with a somewhat inept Sweet Home Chicago, by Honeyboy Edwards which does have some nice harmonica by Musselwhite on it to make this track listenable. It perhaps ends this disc on a bum note, which is unfortunate as with this exception on this. 100 Years of Robert Johnson may not be an essential recording, but it certainly is an entertaining release that blues traditionalists like myself and those with a more casual interest in blues, should be able to enjoy.

This review originally appeared in the May 1 - June 15, 2011 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 335). A download of this was provided by a publicist for the release.

Remembering Robert Lockwood Jr.

Robert Lockwood at 2005 Pocono Blues Festival

In light of my retrospective of some of the music of Robert Lockwood in the past few weeks, I thought it might make sense to republish my obituary of him that appeared in the December 2006, Jazz & Blues Report. I knew Robert some 36 years, first interviewing for the Case Western Reserve University student paper in Fall, 1970 and having him on my blues show on WRUW. I had the pleasure to see him perform numerous times over the next thirty five years, in a variety of contexts including several memorable performances at the Pocono Blues Festival and at the Ponderosa Stomp backed by his long-time bassist, Gene Schwartz. One mistake in my review is suggesting Lockwood’s “Aw Aw Baby” may have influenced Roosevelt Sykes. Sykes recording of “Sweet Old Chicago” probably was earlier and also, as Bob Koester notes in an interview on Blues Revue’s website with Don Wilcock, includes a verse that is not in most renditions of “Sweet Home Chicago.” Koester also notes the song's origins predate Scrapper Blackwell’s “Kokomo Blues.”

Robert Lockwood, legendary and highly influential bluesman, passed away Monday November 21 at the age of 91. Born in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, near Marvell, Lockwood started playing a pump organ when at the age of 11 a traveling blues performer named Robert Johnson started a dalliance with Lockwood’s mother. Johnson showed Lockwood some stuff on the guitar and while still a teenager started playing around the Delta region with Johnson, Aleck Rice Miller (better known as Sonny Boy Williamson), Johnny Shines, Elmore James and others. For a period he lived in St. Louis, where along with blues singer, Dr. Clayton, he traveled to Chicago. In Chicago, he he backed Doctor Clayton and also made his initial recordings for Bluebird that included songs that became blues standards such as “Little Boy Blue,” “Take a Little Walk With Me” and “Mean Black Spider.” That latter number, retitled “Mean Red Spider,” was the first commercial recording of one Muddy Waters.

Robert Lockwood at 2005 Pocono Blues Festival

He returned to the Delta region and joined up with Miller for a new radio show, King Biscuit Time, that was broadcast at lunchtime and was heard throughout the delta region. Lockwood was one of the earliest electric guitarists in the south so his play- ing inspired numerous performers including B.B. King and Muddy Waters. Lockwood left King Biscuit to do his own broadcast for a competing company, Mothers Best Flour, backed by the Starkey Brothers, a jazzy band with horns in which Lockwood could expand his musical repertoire to include the big band and jump numbers that could be heard on radio and in juke boxes. He was an admirer of Charlie Christian among others and songs such as “Exactly Like You” and “Chinatown, My Chinatown” were also numbers that were part of his repertoire (as well as that of Robert Johnson) busking on the streets.


Later Lockwood mentored BB King, trying to get King to improve his timing. King’s timing was so bad, that Lockwood was among those who told Bullett Records to have King record with horns to cover his bad timing. Eventually Lockwood ended in Chicago where he became a session musician for a variety of labels appearing on classic Chicago blues recordings by Eddie Boyd, Willie Mabon, Baby Face Leroy Foster, Floyd Dixon, Sunnyland Slim, and most notably Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter. He also recorded “Dust My Broom” before Elmore James did but Mercury sat on this record- ing and did not release it until later. His J.O.B. recording, “Aw Aw Baby” was perhaps the version of Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago” that led to recordings by his good friend, Roosevelt Sykes and latter renditions by Junior Parker and Magic Sam that helped establish this as a blues anthem.

Robert Lockwood Being Honored at Pocono Blues Festival
by Blues Scholar Larry Hoffman with Lifetime Achievement Award

But the bulk of his work was supporting other artists and his marvelous chord work and single note runs behind Williamson and Little Walter were integral to these classic blues recordings. Lockwood toured with both and it was with Sonny Boy Williamson that he came to Cleveland in 1960 to play the legendary club, Gleason’s. He never left Cleveland and lived for the rest of his life there. 1960 was also when he was part of the legendary sessions that led to the classic Otis Spann albums, Otis Spann is the Blues and Walking the Blues.


During the sixties and early seventies he played local clubs while working delivering prescriptions for a pharmacy or as a painter. He was called on stage at the 2nd Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1970 which was followed by his first solo album, Steady Rolling Man for Delmark where he was backed by the Aces. He recorded a number of very fine albums for several labels with the two Trix albums, Contrasts and Does 12 both standing out. By the late seventies, he had stopped playing his Gretsch Chet Atkins model for a 12-string guitar and continued trying to come up with new sounds and songs at an age where many would retire or recreate past glories. He recorded a couple of fine albums with Johnny Shines for Rounder, although a severe stroke suffered by Shines limited the extent of the collaboration. He was honored with Handy Awards, induction into the Blues Hall of Fame and in 1995 President Clinton presented him with a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment For the Arts.


Lockwood’s influence on blues guitar is under appreciated. Guitarists Louis Meyers, Matt Murphy, Eddie Taylor and Luther Tucker are among those Lockwood touched in the fifties and sixties and more were influenced in latter years. Bob Dylan reportedly asked Lockwood to show him some tips on how to play some of Robert Johnson’s songs.

I was fortunate to know Robert for over 35 years. Some folks meeting him could view him as arrogant, but if they checked out what Robert told them they would discover he was simply stating facts. I found him quite engaging with a very dry, wry sense of humor, and someone I am pleased to have known and had interviewed on several occasions. His death coming on the heels of Ruth Brown’s passing is another great loss for the blues community. The sweet sound of his playing still resonates in my head and I will miss him as a performer and a person.


I took the photos that are part of this blog entry.

Robert Lockwood's Solo Blues Mastery

My last post examining some of the classic recordings of Robert Lockwood, Jr., involves two solo recordings. Delta Crossroads was reviewed in the September-October 2000 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 247) while The Legend Live was reviewed in the March April issue (Issue 267). It is ironic because Lockwood, when I met him in 1970, was not very interested in performing in a somewhat archaic musical style. Yet for someone not fond of performing solo, he did make fine recordings in this vein. I have made minor editorial changes from the originally published reviews. Both of these recordings are still in print. 

Delta Crossroads  Robert Lockwood, Jr., remains a national blues treasure who still sounds as fresh and vital today as he did decades ago. Telarc has issued a new cd, Delta Crossroads, which is surprising in that it is a solo acoustic album with Robert rendering fine performances of a number of his stepfather, Robert Johnson’s songs, along with several other blues standards and some of his own originals. This is not his first album as an acoustic blues performer. He recorded Plays Robert & Robert on a French label which since has been reissued in the US on Evidence. Lockwood has included tracks on prior albums in this vein. Robert has recorded most of these songs in the past, although perhaps under different titles. For example, his This Little Girl of Mine was recorded with his band as Hold Everything on Lockwood’s first Trix album and this writer is familiar with other renditions by him of most of the Robert Johnson songs. Johnson’s 32-20 Blues that opens this album may be the one song I have not heard him record before, but he recorded Dust My Broom even prior to Elmore James, although it never got issued, and he did Rambling on My Mind on his Steady Rolling Man album for Delmark. Lockwood plays with his usual skill and sings straightforwardly and without any artifice. Its nice to hear renditions of performances of such classics he regularly performs as C.C. Rider and Leroy Carr’s Mean Mistreater and In the Evening. The latter number is juxtaposed with a rendition of Love In Vain, which uses the latter tune’s melody. This is beautifully recorded and produced by Joe Harley and is a worthy addition to his growing body of recordings. I hope Telarc (or another label) does not keep us waiting too long for a full album of Robert and his great band. The Legend Live This brand-new Robert Lockwood, Jr. album on MC Records, The Legend Live, is a solo performance recorded at The Rhythm Room in Phoenix last July. There is little in the way of surprises in the material covered, which ranges from a quartet of Robert Johnson songs (including Sweet Home Chicago, Love in Vain and Rambling on My Mind), and several blues standards including Leroy Carr’s How Long Blues and In the Evening, plus Johnny Temple’s Big Legged Woman. Lockwood was a sideman when Roosevelt Sykes waxed Feel Like Blowin’ My Horn for Delmark, and he brings a bit of panache to this along with the swing classic Exactly like You. Having played the twelve string nearly thirty years, it is no wonder that he is able to get such a distinctive sound to match his unique, sophisticated playing while his vocals give no indication that he was 88 when he recorded this. This is another excellent addition to his discography. It’s two bad that the wonderful live Japanese recordings he made with the Aces in the 70’s, along with a superb 90’s Japanese album are currently unavailable in the US, but this will have to suffice for those wanting a document of his marvelous live performances. Tomorrow, I will post the obituary I wrote of Robert Lockwood Jr., after his passing. I likely received review copies for these from Jazz & Blues Report.