Tag Archives: 1920s

Supertone 9393 – Freeman Stowers “The Cotton Belt Porter” – 1929

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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. Photograph discovered by Ethan Kelly and Joshua Puett. 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”.

Paramount 12790 – Charlie Spand – 1929

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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

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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.

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

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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.

Paramount 12855 – Will Ezell – 1929

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At Old Time Blues, we have developed a tradition of honoring both the legends and the lost of recorded American music—and quite often both are one and the same.  In that vein, let us take a look herein at the life and career of Texas native ragtime pianist, boogie-woogie pioneer, and Paramount recording star Will Ezell, and a record that some have hailed as the birth of rock ‘n’ roll.

William Ezell was born in Brenham, Texas, on December 23, 1892, one of six children born to Lorenza and Rachel Ezell.  Beginning in his teenage years, Will was playing piano in juke joints and lumber camp barrelhouses around eastern Texas and western Louisiana—the country where boogie-woogie was born.  As an itinerant piano player, Ezell was known to have played in various locations from Dallas to New Orleans, where he was living by the time of the First World War.  It was perhaps during this time in Louisiana that he encountered blues singer Elzadie Robinson—a native of the Shreveport area—and the two struck up something of a partnership.  Around 1925, Ezell and Robinson traveled north to Chicago, where they made their phonograph recording debut for the New York Recording Laboratories of Port Washington, Wisconsin, manufacturers of Paramount Records.  Subsequently, between 1926 and 1931, Ezell recorded somewhat prolifically for Paramount, both solo and as an accompanist.  He became well known around Chicago as well as Detroit, alongside Charlie Spand and fellow Texas pianist Hersal Thomas.  A few of his notable piano recordings include “Barrel House Man”, “Heifer Dust”, “Mixed Up Rag”, “Bucket of Blood”, and “Pitchin’ Boogie”.  As an accompanist, Ezell played piano behind such blues singers as Lucille Bogan, Bertha Henderson, Side Wheel Sally Duffie, Blind Roosevelt Graves, and of course Elzadie Robinson.  In 1929, he appeared with Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Papa Charlie Jackson, Charlie Spand, and the Hokum Boys on the “Hometown Skiffle”, a “descriptive novelty” record featuring Paramount’s top stars.  It has been reported, of uncertain veracity, that Paramount commissioned Ezell to escort the body of their star recording artist Blind Lemon Jefferson home to Texas upon his untimely demise in late 1929.  When the Great Depression struck and severely affected Paramount’s recording activities, Ezell’s output slowed considerably, and he made his final known recordings in early 1931, accompanying Sam “Slim” Tarpley on one record.  Although he made no further recordings, his existing body of work began to see reissues as early as the 1940s.  Subsequently, he reportedly went back on the road, returning for a time to Louisiana, before settling in Chicago permanently by the end of the 1930s, where he found work for the WPA.  According to John Steiner—who revived the Paramount label in the late 1940s—Ezell later made appearances alongside fellow former Paramount artists Blind Leroy Garnett and Charlie Spand at the Big Apple Tavern in Chicago, owned by prolific pianist Cripple Clarence Lofton.  Ezell called Chicago his home for the rest of his life, and he died there on August 2, 1963.

Paramount 12855 was recorded at the Starr Piano Company’s recording laboratory in Richmond, Indiana, on September 20, 1929.  Will Ezell is on the piano, and is accompanied by Blind Roosevelt Graves on guitar, his brother Uaroy Graves on tambourine, and probably “Baby Jay” James on cornet.

Ezell’s hard-driving “Pitchin’ Boogie” is often suggested to be an early antecedent of rock ‘n’ roll, with its stomping barrelhouse piano beat coupled with the guitar and cornet of the Graves brothers’ Mississippi Jook Band making for a prototype of the early rock band lineup.

Pitchin’ Boogie, recorded September 20, 1929 by Will Ezell.

On the “B” side (which the original owner evidently enjoyed more than the former), “Just Can’t Stay Here” dishes out more of the same stuff, but arranged more as a standard twelve-bar blues song than a rent party rollick.

Just Can’t Stay Here, recorded September 20, 1929 by Will Ezell.