UPDATE: Diligent experts have identified these tunes as “Down Yonder” (first side), and “The Waltz You Saved For Me” (second side). Thank you, for your great assistance, Messrs. Chalfen, Johnston, and Bosch!
Here’s another home recording that I found along with that old time fiddle one, it features two very familiar sounding, and quite enjoyable piano solos whose names I cannot seem to place. I’m hoping someone out there can help me identify the names of the pieces being played. If any of you treasured readers out there can put a name with them, I’ll update the article with special thanks.
This Wilcox-Gay Recordio home recording disc is completely unmarked, making it impossible for me to offer any information on its artist or date. The copyright date of 1950 would likely place it in that vicinity as far as dating goes. As is often the case with these home recordings, sound quality is on the low end, and there is quite a bit of noise, but these aren’t too bad, all things considered.
This side sounds especially familiar to me, but I just can’t put my finger on the title. At first I though it was “Waiting on the Robert E. Lee”, but it doesn’t seem to quite fit that tune.
Thanks to a reader’s identification, this tune seems to be L. Wolfe Gilbert’s 1921 composition “Down Yonder”.
Down Yonder, recorded ? by unknown pianist.
This little ditty, too, sounds quite familiar, but again, I just can’t quite think of the title, if I ever knew what is was called. Some talking can be heard in the background of this one at one point.
The Waltz You Saved for Me, recorded ? by unknown pianist.
Going back now to the music of America’s roots, I offer a classic albeit worn blues record by great bluesman “Texas” Alexander.
Alger “Texas” Alexander was born in Jewett, Texas on September 12, 1900. Playing at functions in the Brazos River bottomlands of his home state, he sometimes worked with contemporary and fellow Texas blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson. Alexander traveled to New York City to make his first recordings for Okeh Records in 1927, and made many further recordings back home in Texas. Unable to play any musical instrument, he was backed on his recordings by various sidemen and groups, including the Mississippi Sheiks for one session. Although Alexander has long been cited as serving five years in the penitentiary in Paris, Texas for the 1939 murder of his wife, modern research yields no evidence of that being true, as no records exist of Alexander serving, and in fact, no prison ever existed in Paris, Texas. More likely, Alexander served on a county work farm for publicly singing songs with lewd lyrics. Texas Alexander continued to record in the 1940s, and made his last recordings with Benton’s Busy Bees in 1953 before dying of syphilis the next year.
Okeh 8511 was recorded on August 11 and 12, 1927 and is “Texas” Alexander’s second issued record from his first recording session, and probably his best selling Okeh. Alexander is accompanied by the always excellent Lonnie Johnson on guitar. This record, as many, if not most of this type of record are, has seen better days and plays rough. Nevertheless, the music is still audible, albeit over heavy noise.
On the first side, Alexander moans his way through the classic “Long Lonesome Day Blues”.
Long Lonesome Day Blues, recorded August 11, 1927 by “Texas” Alexander.
“Corn-Bread Blues”, a little worse for wear, features that classic line, “they cook cornbread for their husband, and biscuits (or is it ‘brisket’?) for their man.”
Corn Bread Blues, recorded August 12, 1927 by “Texas” Alexander.
Updated with improved audio on July 1, 2017, and again on May 3, 2023.
I tend to pick up home recordings and lacquer discs when I see them, providing the price is right. Sometimes, the quality of sound on them is surprisingly decent, but often, they sound terrible. What you’ll find on those discs is also a crapshoot, oftentimes I’ve found families marking a special occasion, or the ubiquitous child’s recital of a song or instrument. Once I even found a bawdy comedy skit. However, rarely do I ever turn up anything musically exciting.
Recently, I picked up about five lacquer discs. One of them was a recording of a local family’s Thanksgiving in 1944, one an unintelligible recording of children’s voices, another was an unusual cornet performance. One completely unmarked disc contained a pair of very enjoyable piano solos that I’ll post here at a later date. Then there was this one. When I came to this one, I put the needle on the record, curious to hear what secrets it had concealed for so many years, I was thrilled to hear a great old time fiddle and guitar duet burst to life. Then, after about five seconds of play, the stylus skated all the way across the disc to the label. Unfortunately, despite (or perhaps because of) the record’s excellent musical content, the lacquer surface of the home recording disc was in absolutely dismal condition, bubbled and cracked, with large worn passages.
Nevertheless, I knew I had to figure out a way to coax those tunes out of these shallow old grooves. Eventually, I wound up using two methods to transfer the two sides of this eccentric disc. On the first one, I rigged up a very unconventional method of tracking the grooves by tying a string to the tone-arm and guiding it by hand. On the flip, I managed to get it to track with an LP stylus at 45 RPM, and changed the speed to 78 RPM on the computer.
On this presumably unique metal based lacquer disc, a fiddler and guitarist play two classic old time tunes. Given the nature of this record, I know nothing of the identity of the artists. It would stand to reason that they were based in North Texas, as I found the disc in Dallas. My estimate for the date comes from the copyright date on the label, but it could have been made much later.
Please take warning, these transfers are not for the faint of heart, while the music is superb, the condition of the record is awful, making these a very noisy and distorted pair of transfers. Since the record is virtually unplayable through normal means, I think they’re pretty decent under the circumstances. I’ve cleaned them up to to the best of my abilities. If at any time in the future I figure out a way to get a better transfer of these, I’ll update this post.
First, J.L. Cosslly (?) and “Frank” play it slow and easy on “Saving Up Cupons [sic]“. This side plays a bit more respectably than the next, and I find it quite listenable for the most part, though it begins to break up near the end.
Saving Up Cupons, recorded ? by J.L. Cosslly and Frank.
On the other side of the disc, “Jess and Frank” play “Give Me Back My 15¢”. This side unfortunately has more than its fair share of skips and jumps, the worst being a passage from about twenty-five to thirty-five seconds that is greatly interrupted by a severe crack in the lacquer surface.
In 1931, Victor introduced their first budget label, Timely Tunes in an attempt to cope with the economic downturn. Timely Tunes was not much of a success, as only about forty were issued over a period of three months beginning in April of ’31. In that short time, however, quite a bit of fascinating material was issued, including this intriguing pair of Dallas, Texas recorded folk songs by Newton Gaines under the pseudonym “Jim New”.
A listing for Gaines’ other record in a 1930 Victor supplemental.
The colorful character of Dr. Samuel Newton Gaines (sometimes called Newton C. Gaines), born in 1890, was a professor of physics at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth noted for his work with sound waves, and long time member of the Texas Folklore Society, serving as president in 1929. Besides physics, Gaines had a passion for Western folklore and cowboy songs, and also enjoyed throwing boomerangs and wearing kilts and colorful caps. In the 1920s, Gaines served as the first chairman of the fledgling physics department at TCU, and dedicated himself to ensuring the department’s excellence. In October of 1929, Newton Gaines recorded four cowboy songs in one session for the Victor Talking Machine Company on their Dallas field trip. One pair of sides was issued on Victor’s V-40000 rural series and the other two were pseudonymously released on their short-lived Timely Tunes budget label in 1931. Gaines was an associate of John A. Lomax, recording several cylinders for the Library of Congress under his supervision, and receiving mention in Lomax’s 1934 book American Ballads and Folk Songs. Gaines retired from TCU in 1958 and died in 1963.
Timely Tunes C-1564 was recorded October 12, 1929 in Dallas, Texas, and this issue dates to 1931. While the label credits the fictitious “Jim New” as the artist, Newton Gaines is credited as the arranger on both sides.
On the first side, Gaines sings a railroad disaster ballad, “Wreck of the Six Wheeler”, which bears great lyrical resemblance to Andrew Jenkins’ “Ben Dewberry’s Final Run”, and “Milwaukee Blues” as recorded by Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers, as well as Richard M. Jones “Trouble In Mind”. This one’s not a very cheerful song, and Gaines’ mournful voice certainly doesn’t add any joy to the mix!
Wreck of the Six Wheeler, recorded October 12, 1929 by Jim New.
On the flip side, Gaines sings a considerably less depressing version of the classic Texas folk song, “For Work I’m Too Lazy”, also known as “Rye Whiskey” or “Jack o’ Diamonds”.
For Work I’m Too Lazy, recorded October 12, 1929 by Jim New.
A crop of the only known photograph of Lemon Jefferson, as was pictured in the Paramount Book of Blues.
On this day, we celebrate the probable birthday of the great blues man Blind Lemon Jefferson, so for this momentous occasion, I present to you a great treasure of the Old Time Blues collection, which happened to have been recorded on Lemon’s thirty-sixth birthday.
Lemon Henry Jefferson was born most likely on September 24, 1893 (though, as is so often the case with early blues people, this date is disputed), one of seven children born to a family of poor sharecroppers in Coutchman, Texas (or “Couchman” as the locals seem to spell it, though the former is correct according to the Texas Almanac), near Tehuacana Creek and about five miles west of Streetman, in Freestone County. He was blind from infancy, though the full extent of his visual impairment is debatable—some, including Victoria Spivey, have suggested that he may have had limited sight, and he was reputed to have been able to fire a gun with considerable accuracy. Lemon took up the guitar in his teens and played at picnics and rent parties, or “booger roogers” as he called them, in East Texas. He later took up in Dallas, and in the 1910s worked frequently in Deep Ellum, often playing with fellow musicians such as Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and Alger “Texas” Alexander. In late 1925 or early ’26, a time when most of recorded blues consisted of the vaudevillian variety of women singing with a jazz band backing, Blind Lemon traveled to Chicago to record for Paramount records. Between 1926 and 1929, Jefferson recorded around a hundred songs for Paramount, and made one additional record with Okeh. In addition to recording, Lemon also gigged all around the southeastern United States, along the way meeting other blues musicians like King Solomon Hill, who would later record as “Blind Lemon’s Buddy”. Blind Lemon Jefferson died under mysterious circumstances in Chicago at 10:00 AM on December 19, 1929, Paramount paid for his body to be shipped back to Texas, where he was buried in the Wortham Negro Cemetery.
Paramount 12872, featuring “Bed Springs Blues” and “Yo Yo Blues”, was recorded September 24, 1929—Lemon’s birthday—in either Chicago, Illinois, or Richmond, Indiana. This proved to be Blind Lemon Jefferson’s final recording session. The condition’s pretty rough on this one, but I think the music still comes through. Now, two years after my original posting, a new Grado cartridge has facilitated a much finer quality of transfers than my originals. Though still plagued by some groove stripping and plenty of pops and clicks, they are now much crisper and clearer, and those pesky skips have been all-but-eliminated.
First, Lemon’s “Bed Springs Blues” provides an excellent demonstration of Lemon’s unique style of playing guitar. “Tell me why do them springs tremble so on your bed, baby!”
Bed Springs Blues, recorded September 24, 1929 by Blind Lemon Jefferson.
On the flip, Lemon performs his own “Yo Yo Blues”. A number of songs carrying the same title were recorded around the same period—most notably by Barbecue Bob—opening with “got up this morning, my yo-yo mama was gone,” but Lemon’s is a different song, instead starting with “I would go yo-yoin’, but I broke my yo-yo string.”
Yo Yo Blues, recorded September 24, 1929 by Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Updated with improved audio on July 28, 2017, and again on February 21, 2023.
