Category Archives: Records

Timely 1003 – Otis Hinton – 1954

Posted on by
Reply

In our continuing examination of the Texas blues, we have taken a look at some of the most renowned figures—like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and “Texas” Alexander—as well as some of the more obscure—like “Stick Horse” Hammond, Gene Campbell, and Jesse Lockett.  Now, let us turn our attention to one of the obscurest of them all, Dallas bluesman Otis Hinton, and his one record (which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest ever made).

Otis was born Odis Hinton in Jacksonville, Texas, on June 8, 1916 (or 1918), one of eleven children of the Reverend Claude A. and Mae Ollie Hinton.  Prior to revelatory research by blues historian Bob Eagle, he was believed to have hailed from Shreveport, Louisiana.  After receiving a third grade education, Hinton relocated to Dallas around the age of ten.  There, he was surely exposed to the blues scene flourishing in Deep Ellum and its surrounding neighborhoods.  As an adult, Hinton stood six feet tall, of dark complexion, and was blind in his right eye.  In the early 1940s, he married Rachael Mae Washom, the daughter of a family with whom he had lived for some time prior.  The couple had at least two children, Tommie and Odell, the former of whom died in infancy.  Though he evidently made his living working menial jobs in white folks’ yards, Hinton was a proficient musician in a style similar to many of his fellow Texas musicians.  His skills were presumably of some local renown, as they earned him a listing as a musician in the Dallas city directory.  He traveled to New York, purportedly in 1953, to wax four sides for Apollo Records—”No More to Roam”, “Railroad Woman” (or “Beloved Woman” per copyright filing), “Little Woman”, and “Hinton’s Boogie”—none of which ever saw release.  Copyrights were filed for all four unissued Apollo recordings on September 9, 1955, perhaps suggesting that they may at one time have been planned for release, or that they were recorded later than attributed (the latter, in my opinion, is the more likely scenario).  In 1954, he recorded two additional sides for Apollo founder Hy Siegel’s new record label, Timely, which were released this time around.  Back home in Texas, he found work for the Binyon-O’Keefe Company, a storage and moving business in Dallas-Fort Worth.  Just over three years after his only record’s release, Hinton was pronounced dead from pneumonia—the same ailment that had claimed his infant son years earlier—at Parkland Hospital on November 18, 1957.  He was interred at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, where his father had previously been buried, as would many more of his family members in years to come.  Otis Hinton’s two released recordings have been featured on several reissue compilation since the folk-blues revival of the 1960s.  His younger brother “Little Joe” Hinton (1937-2022) was also a noted singer and songwriter, recording a series of soul singles in the 1960s and ’70s.

Timely 1003 was recorded in New York City, probably in early 1954.  The date has often been cited as July 7, 1954, however this seems improbable, as it was advertised as a “New R&B Record” in Billboard magazine on June 26, 1954.  Otis Hinton accompanies himself on guitar and is joined by an unidentified rhythm section consisting of bass and drums.

Hinton’s “Walkin’ Down Hill” is a loose variant of the classic “Big Road Blues”, made famous by Mississippi bluesman Tommy Johnson in the 1920s.  Billboard’s review opined that “Southern blues fans should enjoy this bright reading of a bouncy down-home effort sung by Otis Hinton.  He accompanies himself solidly on the guitar.  Side could catch loot in the South.”  This is one of my favorite sides of all time.

Walkin’ Down Hill, recorded 1954 by Otis Hinton.

“Emmaline” seems to be a variant of the blues standard popularized by Little Son Jackson as “Rockin’ and Rollin'”, also known as “Rock Me, Mama”.  Although Hinton’s country blues style might seem somewhat dated in the days of rock ‘n’ roll—and indeed, his record does not seem to have sold particularly well—it would foreshadow the revival of traditional blues that was on the horizon at the time.

Emmaline, recorded 1954 by Otis Hinton.

Paramount 12790 – Charlie Spand – 1929

Posted on by
2

Gaining fame in Detroit and Chicago during the Roaring Twenties, piano man Charlie Spand was both a pioneer of boogie-woogie and a highly regarded bluesman both during and after his life.  Yet as is too often the case with such musicians, despite his success and popularity, little is known of Spand outside of his sporadic recording career.

For many years, it was thought that Charlie Spand may have hailed from Alabama, Georgia, or Louisiana.  Thanks to the groundbreaking research of Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc, it is now believed that Spand was born on May 8, 1893, in Columbus, Mississippi.  The activities of his early life are largely unknown, but it is evident that he became a proficient piano player by young adulthood.  He may have served in the First World War; service records exist for one or more Charlie Spands, but it is difficult to ascertain if they are the same one.  A participant of the Great Migration, Spand had relocated to Detroit by the early 1920s, where he made a name for himself alongside Texas pianists Will Ezell and Hersal Thomas on the boogie-woogie scene burgeoning on Hastings and Brady Streets.  By the end of that decade, he had moved on to Chicago, where he lodged at 732 East 45th Street (to which he referred in his 1929 recording of “45th St. Blues”, a variant of James “Stump” Johnson’s popular “The Snitchers Blues” of the previous year).

Under the auspices of their race records manager Aletha Dickerson, Spand made his recording debut for Paramount Records on June 6, 1929, at the Richmond, Indiana, facilities of Gennett Records, waxing two sides of barrelhouse piano boogie-woogie, backed by stalwart guitarist Blind Blake.  His first record sold quite well, and he was called upon to record further for Paramount, subsequently returning to their recording laboratories every month until October of 1929 (and we know what happened at the end of that one), then in September of both 1930 and ’31, producing a grand total of twenty-six sides—notwithstanding alternate takes—of which all but three were issued, plus a guest spot on Paramount’s “Hometown Skiffle” record featuring their top stars.  His second session, on August 17, 1929, produced his most enduring recording, the rollicking “Hastings St.”, a piano and guitar duet with Blind Blake dedicated to the Detroit boogie hot spot of the same name.  There is debate as to the identity of Spand’s accompanist for the rest of the same session, with some proposing an early appearance by Josh White, and others suggesting Blake or another guitarist.  As the Great Depression hit bottom in the early 1930s, record companies were hit hard, and Paramount ceased operations in 1932, thus Spand would not record again for nearly a decade.  His activities over the course of that decade are largely unknown; blues and jazz researcher and later owner of the Paramount label John Steiner reported that Spand may have worked with Will Ezell and Blind Leroy Garnett at Cripple Clarence Lofton’s Big Apple Tavern on South State Street in Chicago during the 1930s.  When he finally did return to the microphone, the year was 1940, and it was for Okeh Records—just in time for the boogie-woogie craze.  In two sessions, one week apart, Spand produced his swan song of eight final titles, still in excellent form.  He was accompanied on guitar on the former date by Memphis Minnie’s husband Little Son Joe Lawlars, and on the latter by an unknown guitarist identified by some sources as Big Bill Broonzy.  Despite the concurrent success of fellow boogie pioneers like Meade “Lux” Lewis, these records did not seem to see big sales, and he returned to obscurity.

Spand’s later life and eventual fate are unknown; some said that he moved to California after World War II, while others have claimed that he lived in Chicago as late as the 1970s.  The 1940 census reported a Mississippi-born Charles Spand living at 4340 South Evans Avenue, employed as a “water man” and married to a woman named Elizabeth—ten years later she was still living at the same address and reported herself as widowed, so it is uncertain if this was the same Spand, though many details seem to be a match.  He was photographed at some point in the 1940s with piano great Jimmy Yancey at the latter’s Chicago apartment, looking rather gaunt but indeed still alive at that time.  Fellow pianist Little Brother Montgomery, who knew Spand in his earlier years, claimed that he was still active in Chicago as late as 1958.  A death certificate issued for one Charles Spand residing at 4055 South Ellis Avenue in Chicago, Illinois—born around 1899 in Columbus, Mississippi—shows that he died on March 31, 1959, and was buried five days later at Burr Oak Cemetery; while no positive identification has yet been made, it seems quite probable that this was indeed the “our” Spand.

Paramount 12790 was recorded June 6, 1929, at the Starr Piano Company (Gennett) studio in Richmond, Indiana, and was released aronbd August of  the same year.  It is both Spand’s first recorded and first released record.  Spand plays the piano and sings, accompanied on the guitar by Blind Blake (though some have cast doubt on this identification, proposing alternative possibilities including the elusive Freezone).  Apparently, Paramount, being the consummate professionals that they were, also issued the 12790 catalog number to a record by Hattie McDaniels (of future Gone With the Wind fame).

While perhaps overshadowed by the success of the other song, “Fetch Your Water” is a fine piece of piano blues, and certainly deserving of recognition.

Fetch Your Water, recorded June 6, 1929 by Charlie Spand

Although allotted to the record’s “B” side, “Soon This Morning Blues” was in fact Spand’s first recording, and a signature number of his.  It proved to be the more influential side of the two, becoming something of a barrelhouse standard, covered and adapted by many subsequent piano bluesmen (such as Walter Roland) and others, though—like perhaps most such songs—it drew heavily on earlier blues songs itself.  Spand himself followed it up with “Soon This Morning No. 2” in both 1930 and 1940.

Soon This Morning Blues, recorded June 6, 1929 by Charlie Spand.

Victor V-38041 – “Tiny” Parham and his Musicians – 1929

Posted on by
2

In the second half of the 1920s, bandleader, pianist and organist “Tiny” Parham produced a series of hot recordings considered some of the finest of the Jazz Age.  Alongside Duke Ellington, Jelly-Roll Morton, Bennie Moten, and others, Parham stood—both figuratively and literally—as one of the biggest in pre-war jazz.

“Tiny” Parham and his Musicians, pictured in 1930 Victor race records catalog.

“Tiny” was born Hartzell Strathdene Parham in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on February 25, 1900 (though both his World War I and II draft cards suggest the same date in December of either the same year or the previous one).  From a very young age, he lived in Kansas City, Missouri.  There, he studied piano under the “Little Professor,” ragtime composer James Scott, and found work playing piano and organ in local vaudeville theaters.  A heavyset man of five feet, ten-and-a-half inches and 275 pounds, he earned the nickname “Tiny” in ironic reference to his stature.  In 1926, he made his debut recordings accompanying blues singer and future Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel on a pair of sides for the Kansas City-based Meritt label.  Shortly thereafter, he relocated to Chicago, where he began working for the New York Recording Laboratories, makers of Paramount records, as an artist as well as a talent scout and arranger.  His earliest Paramount recordings found him as pianist in Junie Cobb’s Hometown Band, followed shortly by a series of records accompanying blues singers Ardell Bragg, Ora Brown, Priscilla Stewart, Sharlie English, “Ma” Rainey, and possibly Ida Cox, Leola B. Wilson and Elzadie Robinson.  Parham debuted his first recording ensemble under his own name—the Pickett-Parham Apollo Syncopators—in joint leadership with violinist Leroy Pickett for a single session at the end of 1926.  Subsequently, he led his band to St. Paul, Minnesota, to make a single recording for J. Mayio Williams’s legendary Black Patti label.  Other recordings Parham made during this period included Paramount sessions with Johnny Dodds, Jasper Taylor’s State Street Boys, and his own “Forty” Five, plus a Gennett session with King Brady’s Clarinet Band.  Beginning in 1928, Parham joined the likes of Jelly-Roll Morton and King Oliver as an exclusive Victor artist, leading a band dubbed the Musicians.  Over the course of the next two years, “Tiny” Parham and his Musicians cut thirty-nine outstanding hot jazz performances for Victor, of which all but four were issued.  At the end of 1930, Parham, like Morton and Oliver, was unceremoniously dropped by Victor, and he did not make any further recordings in the decade that ensued, though he continued to work both as a touring bandleader and theater organist.  In 1940, Parham made his last recordings for Decca, with a group called the Four Aces, producing two instrumentals and one side accompanying hokum singer Lovin’ Sam Theard.  Three years later, during a performance in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “Tiny” Parham died in his dressing room on April 4, 1943.

Victor V-38041 was recorded at 852 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on February 2, 1929, in a session supervised by Ralph S. Peer.  Parham’s Musicians are Ray Hobson on cornet, Charlie Lawson on trombone, Charles Johnson doubling on clarinet and alto saxophone, Elliot Washington on violin, Mike McKendrick on banjo and guitar, Tiny on piano, Quinn Wilson on tuba, and Mike Marrero on drums.

On side “A”, the Musicians play “Subway Sobs”, heavily featuring Quinn Wilson’s tuba and the respective violin and guitar of Elliot Washington and Mike McKendrick.

Subway Sobs, recorded February 2, 1929 by “Tiny” Parham and his Musicians.

A slower number than the first, they play “Blue Island Blues” on the reverse, with more of Washington and McKendrick’s violin and banjo to be heard, plus plenty of cornet from Ray Hobson.

Blue Island Blues, recorded February 2, 1929 by “Tiny” Parham and his Musicians.

Decca 7279 – Sleepy John Estes – 1935

Posted on by
Reply

Producing more than fifty recordings between 1929 and 1941, Sleepy John Estes ranks alongside Blind Boy Fuller, Big Bill Broonzy, Peetie Wheatstraw, and a few others as one of the most prolific of the pre-war bluesmen.  Though not considered the most capable guitarist, Estes amply made up for whatever he may have lacked in instrumental ability with his distinctive “crying” vocals and storytelling talent.  Estes’s songs—many of which were based on things that happened to him or people he knew—are considered by some to be among the best of their kind, and have proved influential among the generations of musicians that followed him.

Sleepy John Estes with Yank Rachell and Hammie Nixon in 1964. Photo by Len Kunstadt, published in Record Research magazine.

John Adams Estes (while his headstone and modern sources give his middle name as “Adam”, early documents seem to support the “s” as in our second president) was born on January 25 of either 1899 or 1900, in Ripley, Tennessee.  As a youth, he moved with his family to the nearby town of Brownsville, where he learned to play guitar with local musician Hambone Willie Newbern.  Though a farmer by trade, he established himself in the blues scene alongside the likes of Son Bonds, Charlie Pickett, and his frequent accompanists Hammie Nixon and James “Yank” Rachell.  In 1929, veteran blues artist Jim Jackson brought Estes and his compatriots to the attention of Ralph S. Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company.  Thereafter, Estes made his debut recordings at a series of sessions in September and October of 1929 in Memphis, Tennessee, backed on most by his friend Yank Rachell on mandolin and pianist Jab Jones of the Memphis Jug Band.  He continued to record for Victor until late in 1930, producing sixteen sides including such excellent recordings as “Diving Duck Blues”, “Milk Cow Blues”, and “The Girl I Love She Got Long Curly Hair”, as well as four sides as a member of Noah Lewis’ Jug Band.  As the onset of the Great Depression largely quelled on-location recording activities, Estes had to travel to Chicago and New York to make further recordings, and he did so in 1935 for the fledgling Decca record company, initially appearing on their Champion subsidiary (which they had recently acquired from Gennett).  Joined on most by Hammie Nixon’s harmonica and on many others by Charlie Pickett’s guitar, Estes produced thirty vocal recordings for Decca between 1935 and 1940, as well as several more accompanying pianists Lee Brown and Lee Green, and fellow Brownsville bluesman Son Bonds   Among those thirty were many of his most famous songs, including “Someday Baby Blues”, “Floating Bridge”, “Everybody Oughta Make a Change”, and “Liquor Store Blues”.  Estes final pre-war session was on September 24, 1941, with Son Bonds and Raymond Thomas joining him to wax twelve sides for RCA Victor’s Bluebird label, three of which were credited to Estes, another three found him accompanying Bonds, and the rest were released under the name “The Delta Boys”.  After the war, Estes unsuccessfully attempted to revive his recording career with sessions for Ora Nelle in 1948 and Sun in 1952, but none of the recordings were issued, and he descended into obscurity.  As the folk music revival brought new fame to old blues musicians in the late 1950s and early ’60s, Estes’s recordings were reissued on several prominent compilations, but he was initially believed to be dead (thanks in no small part to the testimony of Big Bill Broonzy).  When he was eventually rediscovered by folkorists Sam Charters and Bob Koester, he was in fact very much alive, albeit blind and living in abject poverty.  Sounding much the same in old age as when he was a young man, Estes, along with Nixon and Rachell, returned to recording and touring with considerable success for the decade-and-a-half that followed.  On June 5, 1977, John Estes suffered a stroke, and died at his home in Brownsville, Tennessee, which has since been preserved for posterity as a museum.

Decca 7279 was recorded on July 9, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois, and was originally issued on Champion 50068 (which does not turn up very often).  This issue.was released in March of 1937.  It features Sleepy John Estes singing and playing guitar, accompanied by Hammie Nixon on harmonica.

On side “A”, Estes sings “Someday Baby Blues” backed by Nixon’s harmonica, an iconic performance if there ever was one (and that’s not a term I use lightly), which inspired numerous covers transcending the blues genre into jazz and country music.  Though Estes and Nixon are credited as the song’s composers and often considered the originators the song, Estes’s rendition was preceded by an unissued recording by Memphis Willie B. the previous year, which did not see the light of day until finally being remastered and released by John Tefteller’s Blues Images in 2022.

Someday Baby Blues, recorded July 9, 1935 by Sleepy John Estes.

On the reverse, he sings the far less famous, but also excellent “Who’s Been Tellin’ You Buddy Brown Blues”.  The titular character, (known to “eat his breakfast, and then lay back down”) has appeared in a few other blues songs, most notably “Texas” Alexander’s “Ninety-Eight Degree Blues” of 1929.

Who’s Been Tellin’ You Buddy Brown Blues, recorded July 9, 1935 by Sleepy John Estes.

QRS R. 7049 – James (Stump) Johnson and his Piano – 1928

Posted on by
Reply

The Jazz Age saw several notable pianists by the name of “James Johnson”: stride master James P. Johnson, Lonnie Johnson’s brother James “Steady Roll” Johnson, songwriter and bandleader J.C. Johnson (who, in fact, was not named “James”, but is sometimes misidentified as such), and the St. Louis blues singer James J. “Stump” Johnson.  Perhaps one day every one of those Johnsons will have his time in the Old Time Blues limelight, but today we turn our attention only to the last, with his first and surely most popular recording.

James Jesse Johnson was born on January 17, 1902, to Henry F. and Betty Johnson of Clarksville, Tennessee.  When he was about seven years old, his family relocated to St. Louis, Missouri.  Growing up in a city rich in blues and ragtime, Johnson taught himself to play piano.  Standing just under five feet tall and just over two-hundred pounds as an adult, he earned the nickname “Stump” from his squat stature.  With the aid of his brother Jesse Johnson, a prominent music promoter and owner of the De Luxe Music Shoppe in St. Louis, he made a career for himself as a musician.  In late 1928, brother Jesse arranged for A&R man “Uncle” Art Satherley to bring Stump and his sister-in-law Edith North Johnson to the studio for their recording debut with a pair of discs for the short-lived QRS label, produced by the manufacturer of the eponymous piano rolls.  Subsequently, he made a series of sporadic recordings for various labels in the years that followed, both under his own name and under several pseudonyms, typically not making more than one or two records at a time.  His next record date came in August of 1929 with a Chicago session for the Brunswick company, making a single record under the name “Shorty George” with Tampa Red backing him on guitar.  In October of the same year, he went to Richmond, Indiana, to cut four sides with a small ensemble at the Gennett studio to be released on Paramount.  The following month, he was back in Chicago making two records for Okeh as “Snitcher Roberts” with pianist Alex Hill and guitarist Harry Johnson (presumably his brother of the same name).  Although Johnson himself was a competent piano player, a number of his recordings found him only taking the vocal while other pianists provided his accompaniment.  He next made one further Paramount in February of 1930 at their new Grafton, Wisconsin, recording facility.  It would be two more years before Johnson record again, breaking that dry spell with a February, 1932, session for Victor in Dallas, Texas, waxing another two sides, on which he was accompanied by fellow pianist Roosevelt Sykes (a.k.a. Willie Kelly)—plus one accompanying blues singer Walter Davis.  His last pre-war recording session was in Chicago in August of ’33, for RCA Victor’s Bluebird subsidiary, producing three sides featuring the piano of Aaron “Pine Top” Sparks and guitar of Joe C. Stone (believed to be a pseudonymous J.D. Short), one of which found him in duet with Dorothea Trowbridge.  As work for a musician became scarcer during the Great Depression, Johnson turned to work as a deputy constable and tax collector for the city of St. Louis, and he served in the army during the Second World War.  More than thirty years after his previous session but still in fine form, Stump made his final recordings in St. Louis in 1964, one of which appeared on the Euphonic label.  Only five years later, on December 5, 1969, Stump Johnson died from esophageal cancer at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.

QRS R. 7049 was recorded in Long Island City, New York, in December of 1928 (some sources suggest January, 1929) and released the following year.  It was also issued on Paramount 12842.  As the label indicates, it features James “Stump” Johnson singing and accompanying himself on the piano.

An instant classic, “The Duck—Yas—Yas—Yas” (better known as “The Duck’s Yas Yas Yas”) was undoubtedly Stump’s most famous and successful song, spawning cover versions for decades to come, by artists ranging from hokum kings Tampa Red and Georgia Tom to jazz bands like Eddie Johnson and his Crackerjacks.  Stump himself re-recorded the song at least twice.

The Duck—Yas—Yas—Yas, recorded c. December 1928 by James (Stump) Johnson.

Though not as big of a hit as the former, “The Snitchers Blues” was evidently another of Johnson’s signature songs, as he recorded it several times over the course of his career, and adopted it’s title as his nom de disque for his Okeh recordings of 1930.  Stump’s exclamation at the end of “What?  Well give me another drink then, that’s all right then,” was apparently a candid remark in reference to the booze offered to him and other black musicians in the studio by the record producers in hopes of loosening them up and getting better performances.

The Snitchers Blues, recorded c. December 1928 by James (Stump) Johnson.