Hokum | Old Time Blues

On July 1, we commemorate the the 117th anniversary of the birth of Thomas A. Dorsey, known in different phases of his career as “Georgia Tom”, and as the “father of gospel music.” In his long life, he was a prolific songwriter and recording artist of both religious and secular songs.

Thomas Andrew Dorsey was born July 1, 1899 in Villa Rica, Georgia, the son of a preacher and a piano teacher. He began playing piano as a young man, and relocated to Chicago in 1916, where he was educated in music at the Chicago School of Composition and Arranging. He began working for Paramount Records as an agent and accompanist, and made his name in the blues world as “Georgia Tom.” During his time at Paramount, he worked with Ma Rainey and the Pace Jubilee Singers. In 1921, he heard W.M. Nix sing at the National Baptist Convention, and by the end of the 1920s, Dorsey had begun his life’s work as a composer of gospel songs, though he continued to play blues primarily at that time. In 1928, he teamed up with guitarist Hudson Whittaker, better known as Tampa Red, and made a hit with “It’s Tight Like That”. Following that success, he and Tampa Red became the first of many combinations of musicians to record as the “Hokum Boys,” making music in a similar vein as “Tight Like That”, and the duo remained popular into the early 1930s. After the hokum craze ended in the 1930s, Dorsey primarily worked writing sacred songs, and worked as a musical director at several churches. By the end of his life, his blues work was largely forgotten, and he was renowned for his sacred songs as the “father of gospel music.” After a long career, Dorsey died in Chicago in 1993, at the age of 93.

There are a number of different versions of the hokum blues classic “It’s Tight Like That” that will pop up here at some point. We last heard it played by Zack Whyte’s Chocolate Beau Brummels, now here’s original recording, done on in 1928 by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, the original Hokum Boys. This record set off a craze for so called hokum songs, that is mostly peppy songs with humorously raunchy lyrics and often very thinly veiled innuendo, which reigned in popularity over more serious blues songs for a period in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Vocalion 1216 was recorded in Chicago on two separate dates, October 16, and November 6, 1928. It features the guitar of Hudson Whittaker: “Tampa Red”, and the piano of Thomas A. Dorsey: “Georgia Tom”, with both singing the vocals.

Recorded on the latter date, “It’s Tight Like That” was one of the biggest blues hits of the 1920s, and remains a hokum blues staple. The label rather humorously (at least I think so) lists the composer credits for Hudson Whittaker and Thomas A. Dorsey as “Tampa – Dorsey”, some later issues corrected this error.

It’s Tight Like That, recorded November 6, 1928 by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom.

Next, Georgia Tom sings solo, accompanied by Tampa Red on guitar on “Grievin’ Me Blues”, one of those songs that, even though a little on the humorous side, I feel just emanates the essence of blues music. This one was recorded on the earlier date.

Grievin’ Me Blues, recorded October 16, 1928 by Georgia Tom.

Updated with improved audio on May 23, 2017.

Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues. From Jazzmen, 1938.

Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues. From Jazzmen, 1939.

On this day, we celebrate the 122nd anniversary of the birthday of the Empress of the Blues herself, Bessie Smith.

Bessie Smith was born on April 15, 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, though the 1900 census reported that she was born in 1892. Both her parents died while she was still a child, and she and Bessie and some of her siblings turned to busking to make ends meet. Her brother left to join Moses Stoke’s troupe in 1910, and returned later to take Bessie with him. She worked, variously, in stage shows and on the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit. In 1923, Smith was in New York, and made her first records for Columbia, with whom she would remain for the rest of her career, save for a few Columbia’s subsidiary Okeh. She became a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance, and the highest paid black performer in the United States. In 1929, she made her only filmed appearance in St. Louis Blues. Hard times came with the Great Depression however, she made her final recordings on Columbia in 1931, and after a hiatus, made four more in 1933 for Okeh, accompanied by Buck Washington and his band, which proved to be her last.

In the wee hours of September 26, 1937, Bessie was riding down Highway 61—”the Blues Highway”—with her lover at the wheel, when his Packard collided with a slow-moving truck ahead. Bessie was mortally wounded. The first to arrive at the scene was one Dr. Smith who dressed Bessie’s wounds while his fishing buddy called for an ambulance. After some time passed with no ambulance in sight, the doctor decided to move Bessie in his own car, when another car came screaming down the road and plowed into Bessie’s Packard, which bounced off Dr. Smith’s car and landed in the ditch off the side of the road. Finally, two ambulances arrived, one from the white hospital, and another from the black hospital. Bessie Smith was taken to the G.T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where her badly injured right arm was amputated, but she never regained consciousness, and died that morning. (Contrary to rumors propagated by John Hammond, she did not die as a result of being brought to an all-white hospital, as she was not taken to an all-white hospital.)

Columbia 14427-D was recorded May 8, 1929 in New York City by Bessie Smith. She is accompanied on piano by Clarence Williams and on guitar by Eddie Lang. The DAHR shows takes “2” and “3” were issued on both sides, these are “3” and “2”, respectively. Both sides are more than a bit on the raunchy side, so if you’re a prude, you may want to turn back here.

On the first side of this disc, Bessie sings “I’m Wild About That Thing”, probably one of her more famous tunes.