Of the multitude of artists who achieved regional fame in their day through radio and live performance, only to be forgotten after leaving the limelight, Texas-born harmonica player and animal imitationist Freeman Stowers was one of the lucky few whose work was preserved on record for future generations. But while his recordings have been relatively well known among collector of pre-war blues, his biography has hitherto remained quite unexplored.
Freeman Stowers, pictured in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 5, 1926, Page 59. via Newspapers.com, clip page by user puettjoshua. Copyrighted image used under fair use doctrine (17 U.S.C. § 107).
Freeman Jefferson Stowers, son of George Stowers and the former Mary Menifee, was born in the vicinity of the Brazos River valley in central eastern Texas, most likely in either Grimes or Bell County, on the twenty-fifth of November in an uncertain year—variously reported as 1884, 1893, 1897, 1902, and other years in different documents. He grew up near Anderson, Texas, and spent most of his early adult life working on farms around the small towns of nearby Falls County—Barclay, Lott, Rosebud, and the like. Nicknamed “Shorty”, he was a man of small stature and dark complexion. Surrounded by all manner of animals—both wild and domestic—in the agrarian country of east Texas, Stowers developed a knack for impersonating (imanimalating?) the sounds of said creatures with remarkable verisimilitude. In 1908, Stowers married Miss Ethel Green in Marlin, Texas, and the couple had a daughter named Lillian the following year. That marriage seems to have been rather short-lived, for around 1917 he married Pearl Smith and had two more daughters, Lucille and Bertha. In the 1920s, Stowers began to draw some attention for his imitations of barnyard animals and train sounds, earning him an engagement entertaining the Texas Butter, Egg and Poultry Association at their 1924 convention in Fort Worth. Around the middle part of the same decade, Stowers relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, where he worked as a porter on the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, better known as the Cotton Belt Route. Soon after, his imitations were overheard by the publicity director of the railroad, Mr. A. Campbell McKibbin, who was sufficiently impressed to secure him a spot on the radio. Called a “natural born mimic” and also a proficient harmonica player, Stowers could be heard on Mondays and Fridays at 8:00 P.M. over station KMOX as part of a Cotton Belt program, and he proved to be quite a hit with listeners (as well as their pets). Working on the railroad also brought Stowers far and wide around the nation, and he was called upon to perform in various venues alongside the likewise company sponsored Cotton Belt Quartet (who themselves had made records for Vocalion and Paramount), including a series of appearances back in his home state of Texas at the Cotton Palace in Waco. Around 1927, he remarried yet again, this time to a woman named Ella Strambler, with whom he had three more children: Freeman Jr., Gladys, and Louise. In the early months of 1929, Stowers ventured to Richmond, Indiana. to record for the Starr Piano Company, manufacturers of Gennett Records. Billed as “The Cotton Belt Porter”, he produced a total of five sides in two sessions, of which four were issued: the animal imitations “Texas Wild Cat Chase” and “Sunrise On the Farm”, and the harmonica instrumentals “Medley of Blues” and “Railroad Blues”. The unissued side was an alternate take of “Texas Wild Cat Chase” titled “Texas Wild Cat Hunt” in the Gennett ledgers. Later in the 1920s, he was employed by Purina Mills and continued to perform and broadcast under their sponsorship, adopting the name “Checkerboard Sam” after Purina’s famous logo. At some point after 1934, Stowers took up residence in Fulton, Missouri—where he remained for at least the next two decades—and separated from Ella, who retained custody of their children and later remarried. He was still appearing as “Checkerboard Sam” as late as 1958, and under that name evidently produced another record, a 45 RPM single containing “The Fox Chase” and “The Coon Chase” for Duncan and Gibbs Sales of Milledgeville, Illinois (aural identification indicates that the recording is indeed of Stowers). He eventually returned to St. Louis, where he would remain for the rest of his life, working in later years as a maintenance man. On December 6, 1972, Freeman Stowers died of arteriosclerosis at the St. Louis Chronic Hospital. Though his age was listed as seventy on his death certificate, Social Security records reported it as eighty-eight, reflecting an 1884 birth date. Stowers’s cousin Willie Menifee (1923-1997) of Navasota, Texas, was also a harmonica player and singer of some local repute, who recorded with Mance Lipscomb in the 1960s.
Supertone 9393 was recorded in two sessions in 1929, the first on January 19th, and the second on March 11th, both in Richmond, Indiana. It features Freeman Stowers “The Cotton Belt Porter” playing two unaccompanied harmonica solos, with talking on the first. It was also issued on Gennett 6814 and Champion 15837, and reissued (for some reason) on Supertone 9430.
With a tip-of-the-hat to his hometown of St. Louis, “Railroad Blues”—the first side Stowers recorded—is an archetypal (and quite excellent) train piece much in the vein of those made popular by contemporaneous harmonicists like William McCoy and DeFord Bailey. Quite appropriate considering Stowers line of work at the time.
Railroad Blues, recorded January 19, 1929 by Freeman Stowers “The Cotton Belt Porter”.
On the “B” side, Stowers blows a dandy harp on his “Medley of Blues”, interpolating “All Out and Down”, “Old Time Blues”, and “Hog in the Mountain”. To the average listener, Stowers’s harmonica recordings are considerably more palatable than those of his barking and howling solos.
Medley of Blues, recorded March 11, 1929 by Freeman Stowers “The Cotton Belt Porter”.