Tag Archives: Texas

Paramount 12386 – Deacon L. J. Bates – c. 1925

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As the years continue to fly by and 2025 gives way to 2026, we come upon a historic milestone which we cannot afford to miss: the centenary of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s first recordings.

The only known photograph of Blind Lemon Jefferson, as pictured on the cover of King of the Country Blues (Yazoo 1069).

By the time of the First World War, Lemon Jefferson had moved from his pastoral home place in Freestone County, Texas, to the big city of Dallas.  There, he set about a reputation for himself in the local music scene, particularly around the neighborhood known as Central Track, or Deep Ellum.  Eventually, Lemon’s powerful singing and virtuosic guitar picking earned him an opportunity rare at the time for a “country” blues singer such as himself—a chance to make a phonograph record.  At the time, “on-location” recording in the southern states was quite new, and hadn’t yet commenced in earnest, so it was still essentially necessary for southern artists to travel to the big cities up north if they wished to pursue a fruitful recording career.  Prior to Jefferson’s recording debut, a small few Texas blues musicians had made records—such as Sippie Wallace—but the state’s blues tradition had been hitherto largely unexplored.  The precise circumstances that precipitated Lemon’s first recordings are likely lost to time.  It is widely understood that he was “discovered” by fellow musician Sammy Price (later a widely known and respected blues and jazz musician in his own right), who was then-employed by R.T. Ashford’s Music Store at 409 North Central Avenue in Dallas.  Price had been familiar with Lemon prior to arriving in Dallas, having seen him perform in Waco when the former was a youth there.  Ashford—the store’s proprietor—was a local dealer and “agent” for Black Swan and subsequently Paramount Records, and served as a talent scout for the latter; he was later responsible for bringing several other Dallas singers to the attention of record companies, including Willard “Ramblin'” Thomas and Lillian Glinn.  In any event, it is evident that Jefferson made the journey north to Chicago around the end of 1925 to make his debut recordings for the New York Recording Laboratories of Port Washington, Wisconsin, manufacturers of Paramount Records.  On one fateful day in December of 1925 or January of ’26—the exact date being unknown—Lemon Jefferson stepped before the recording horn (as acoustical recordings were still in use at the time) for the first time and waxed two religious numbers: “All I Want is That Pure Religion” and “I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart”.  Those two sides were held back from release for the better part of a year, with his first disc being released in early April of 1926 and consisting of the blues songs “Booster Blues” and “Dry Southern Blues” (Paramount 12347), which he had recorded at his second session the preceding March.  When the products of his first session were finally released in October of that year, the name that appeared on the record was not “Blind Lemon Jefferson”, but “Deacon L. J. Bates”.  Presumably, Paramount’s executives thought that “sanctified” record buyers might be put off if they knew that their church music was being made by a singer of the devil’s music; they released one other sacred record by Jefferson under the same pseudonym, and used the same tactic a few years later when marketing Charley Patton’s sacred music under the name “Elder J.J.’ Hadley”.  (In spite of false information published by the Smithsonian Institution—or rather whoever is in charge of their social media—”Deacon L.J. Bates” was not Lemon Jefferson’s real name.)

Paramount 12386 was recorded at Rodeheaver Recording Laboratories in Chicago, Illinois, in late December of 1925 or early January of the following year, and was released around October 2, 1926.  Its two sides (Paramount matrices 11040 and 11041) comprise the first recordings ever made by Blind Lemon Jefferson, though it was his fifth to be issued.  It is also the first of two discs to be released under Jefferson’s “sanctified” pseudonym “Deacon L. J. Bates”.  It was later issued on Herwin 93031, credited to “Deacon Jackson”.

In a performance somewhat evocative of his later and more famous “See That My Grave is Kept Clean”, Lemon’s rendition of the gospel song “All I Want is That Pure Religion” is haunting to say the least, showing us that the blues singer could preach fire and brimstone nearly as effectively as his contemporary Blind Willie Johnson.

All I Want is That Pure Religion, recorded c. 1925/1926 by Deacon L. J. Bates.

Jefferson delivers a lighter, but no less effective performance of the traditional Negro spiritual “I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart” on the flip.  The popular sacred song was also recorded by slide guitarist Crying Sam Collins in 1927.

I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart, recorded c. 1925/1926 by Deacon. L. J. Bates.

Decca 5338 – Joe Patek’s Bohemian Orchestra – 1937

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We have previously taken a look at the life and work of the illustrious Czexan bandleader Joe Patek.  In the aforementioned article was passing mention of Patek’s ill-fated first recording session.  Herein, you may find a more in-depth examination of their seldom-seen and seldom-heard debut recording.

Early in the year of 1937, the Decca record company made a field trip down to Texas to conduct their first recording sessions in the Lone Star State.  With their mobile recording laboratory in tow, they arrived first in San Antonio at the beginning of February, where they recorded primarily Tejano and Mexican groups (including the first recordings of Santiago Jiménez, Sr.) between the third and eleventh of the month.  Next, they moved on to Dallas, recording a host of country, western swing, and blues talent between the fourteenth and the eighteenth.  In the little town of Shiner, Joe Patek got wind of the record company’s presence, and brought his Czech band some eighty miles west to San Antonio to record for Decca on their last days there (though many discographies ascribe the location to Dallas).  Between the ninth and the eleventh of February, 1937, Joe Patek and his Bohemian Orchestra waxed a total of seven sides: “Grandmother’s Joy”, “Clover Leaf”, “Au Revoir”, “Farewell”, “Red Handkerchief”, “Divorced”, and “Innocent Polka”.  Of those, only the first two ever saw release.  Issued in Decca’s “Hill Billy” series alongside a handful of other polka bands, the record seems to have sold rather poorly, and, as such, is quite uncommon today.  Patek attributed the suboptimal outcome of the session to his band being rushed by the session supervisor, resulting in inferior performances.  It would be roughly a decade before Patek’s orchestra recorded again, at which point they recorded exclusively—and extensively—for the small regional labels that were springing up around the state of Texas in the years following World War II.  Included among those later recordings were new versions of some of their unissued (and issued) Decca material.

Decca 5338 was recorded on February 10, 1937.  While most discographies give the location as Dallas, Texas, it seems more probably to have been recorded in San Antonio, based both upon date and matrices and Patek’s own recollection.  It is the only issued disc from Patek’s first session.

On the “A” side, Patek’s Bohemian orchestra plays the ländler “Grandmother’s Joy” (“Babiččina radost Sousedska“), penned by prolific Bohemian composer Anton Grill.

Grandmother’s Joy, recorded February 10, 1937 by Joe Patek’s Bohemian Orchestra.

A little more upbeat than the former, on “B”, they play an instrumental polka titled “Clover Leaf” (“Proč ten Jeteliček“), also composed by Grill, who shares the credit with A. Kubicek.  Patek and his orchestra later re-recorded the number in the 1940s or ’50s for the Waco-based Humming Bird label.

Clover Leaf, recorded February 10, 1937 by Joe Patek’s Bohemian Orchestra.

Timely 1003 – Otis Hinton – 1954

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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 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.

Columbia 15510-D – Lubbock Texas Quartet – 1929

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This record likely contains the earliest audio recordings of music from Lubbock, Texas, and quite possibly such from the Llano Estacado region in the Panhandle of west Texas (a number of southwest Texas “cowboy country” musicians had recorded previously, such as Jules Verne Allen).

Preceded by a number of earlier vocal groups in Lubbock town in the 1910s and beginning of the ’20s, the group known as the Lubbock Texas Quartet was formed in earnest around 1922 by Tony Q. Dyess a musical entrepreneur and promoter of the “shape note” tradition.  Dyess was born in Brazos County, Texas, on December 15, 1881, and lived in Vernon prior to taking up residence in Lubbock.  In its early years, the quartet was often known locally as the “Lubbock Peerless Quartet”, the “Home Brew Quartet”, or the ‘Lubbock Quartet”—or simply by the names of its members: Dyess, Holland, Wendell, and Wilson.  The group soon affiliated itself with the successful Stamps-Baxter music publishing company in Dallas, and were accordingly promoted variously as the “Lubbock Stamps Quartet” or sometimes simply “Stamps Quartet”, sharing the latter title with a number of other Stamps groups.  The quartet’s Personnel varied throughout its  years of existence, but from the late 1920s through the early 1940s members included Tony and Doc Dyess, Clyde Burleson, Cecil and Glenn Gunn, Wilson Carson, Minnis Meek, Louis Brooks, and Homer Garrison, with the occasional addition of pianist Marion Snider.  In December of 1929, the quartet traveled three-hundred miles to Dallas to record but a single phonograph record for Columbia, who were conducting a series of session in the city on one of their field trips south. The group never recorded again subsequently, but they continued to perform in the Texas Panhandle throughout the following decades, they sang on Lubbock’s KFYO and other stations, in addition to frequent live performances throughout Texas and the surrounding states, even venturing as far as West Virginia.  The group appears to have dissolved around 1943, as the war was escalating in Europe.

If you are interested in reading a more exhaustive examination of the Lubbock Texas Quartet and all of their history, I recommend a look at Curtis L. Peoples’s essay The Lubbock Texas Quartet and Odis “Pop” Echols: Promoting Southern Gospel Music on the High Plains of Texas, published in the Journal of Texas Music History in 2014, from which most of the information included in this article was sourced.

Columbia 15510-D was recorded on December 9, 1929, in Dallas, Texas; their only two recordings. The Lubbock Texas Quartet likely consists of tenors Clyde Rufus Burleson or possibly Cecil Lee Gunn, baritones Minnis Monroe Meek and Wilson Lloyd Carson, and possibly bass Louis M. Brooks, though all are unconfirmed; they are accompanied by an unknown guitarist, probably Carson.  It is reported to have sold a total of 12,776 copies, and remained in “print” until at least Columbia’s “Royal Blue” era around 1933-34; this pressing dates to around 1931.

Their first song, and without a doubt the better remembered of their two due to its appearance in several reissue compilations, is “Turn Away”, composed by prolific songwriter and Methodist Reverend B.B. Edmiaston and published by the Stamps-Baxter Music Company of Dallas, Texas.

Turn Away, recorded December 9, 1929 by Lubbock Texas Quartet.

The mournful “O Mother How We Miss You” is quite a lovely song in spite of its rather morose theme, and includes a brief solo guitar passage by the group’s accompanist.  It has been suggested that this song was the more popular of these two in its own day.

O Mother How We Miss You, recorded December 9, 1929 by Lubbock Texas Quartet.