Paramount 12790 – Charlie Spand – 1929

Posted on May 8, 2025 by R. Connor Montgomery

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.

Paramount 12855 – Will Ezell – 1929

Posted on December 23, 2024 by R. Connor Montgomery

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.

Silvertone 4042 – Daddy Stove Pipe – 1924

Posted on April 12, 2019 by R. Connor Montgomery

The illustrious “Daddy Stove Pipe” (not to be confused with “Stove Pipe No. 1” or “Sweet Papa Stovepipe”) holds a number of important distinctions; he was one of the earliest male country blues performers to record, he may have been the oldest, and while definitely not the most prolific, he was surely among the longest-lived.

The man ‘neath the stove pipe, Johnny Watson, was reputedly born on April 12, 1867, in Mobile, Alabama. He’s said to have begun his musical life in Mexico around the turn of the twentieth century, playing twelve-string guitar in a mariachi band. Later, he trouped with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, which produced a fair number of prominent black entertainers of the era, including “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Butterbeans and Susie. By the 1920s, he had taken up performing on Chicago’s Maxwell Street as a one-man band, playing guitar and harmonica and singing. In the spring of 1924, Stove Pipe traveled to Richmond, Indiana, to cut a record at the Starr Piano Company’s “shack by the track” studio. There, he laid down three sides, “Sundown Blues”, “Stove Pipe Blues”, and “Tidewater Blues”, of which only the first two were released. It is evident that he hit the road after his first session, because by the time he recorded again, in 1927, he was in Birmingham, Alabama, where he waxed three more sides (of which, again, only two were issued) for Starr when they brought down their mobile recording unit. This time around, he was billed as “Sunny Jim” and was joined by an unidentified whistler known only as “Whistlin’ Pete”. In the 1930s, Stove Pipe settled down in Greenville, Mississippi with his wife Sarah, who joined him on the remainder of his pre-World War II recordings as Mississippi Sarah, singing and blowing the jug. They made their first records as a duo for Vocalion in Chicago in October of 1931, waxing eight sides, all of which were released this time. They returned to Chicago four years later for another session—which turned out to be their last—this time for Bluebird, yielding four sides, two more records. Sarah met an untimely demise in 1937, and Daddy Stove Pipe took to traveling again, playing with Cajuns in Louisiana and Texas and returning to Mexico. Eventually, he returned to Chicago’s Maxwell Street, and he became known as a fixture there. He was recorded once last time in 1960 by Björn Englund and Donald R. Hill, playing and singing songs such as “The Tennessee Waltz”, producing four tracks which were released on the Heritage label LP Blues From Maxwell Street (later reissued on a number of other labels). Watson contracted pneumonia following a gallbladder operation, and he died in Chicago on November 1, 1963.

Silvertone 4042 was recorded in Richmond, Indiana, on May 10, 1924, and originally released on Gennett 5459. It was also issued on Claxtonola 40335. Unfortunately, it is recorded rather faintly, which causes the harmonica and guitar to be somewhat drowned out by the surface noise on this worn copy, especially near the beginning of each side, though Watson’s vocals are still relatively prominent. I will defend its merits in saying that I have never yet encountered a particularly clean-playing example of these sides.

On the “A” side, Watson plays and sings the delightful “Sundown Blues”. Examination of the contemporaneous photograph depicting Daddy Stove Pipe seated next to an acoustical recording horn reveals him holding an unusual nine-string guitar, with the first, second, and third strings doubled as would be on a twelve-string guitar (as opposed to Big Joe Williams’ unique configuration), which may be the instrument played herein.

Sundown Blues, recorded May 10, 1924 by Daddy Stove Pipe.

On the reverse, Stove Pipe sings his eponymous “Stove Pipe Blues”, another arrangement of “floating” verses. “Got the Stove Pipe Blues [and] I can’t be satisfied.”

Stove Pipe Blues, recorded May 10, 1924 by Daddy Stove Pipe.

Updated with improved audio on February 21, 2023.

Champion 16081 – Hokum Boys – 1930

Posted on September 17, 2017 by R. Connor Montgomery

This record is a surprisingly obscure one considering its excellence, even in light of its extraordinary scarcity. A Google search will yield precious few results, and the upload of the only side that’s on YouTube has accrued only around five-hundred views in more than half a decade. Its rarity earned it a spot on Document Records’ “Too Late, Too Late: Newly Discovered Titles and Alternate Takes” series rather than their Hokum Boys or Big Bill Broonzy series proper, and that may be the only commercial reissue it’s ever gotten (I’m not sure). To the few who know of it (mostly a small cadre of record collectors and blues researchers), it is held in high regard as perhaps Big Bill Broonzy’s best record. I had the fortune of being enlightened to its existence some years ago, and the even greater fortune of being able to acquire a copy. I hope to shed a much needed ray of sunshine onto this gem of prewar blues guitar, and help get it some of the recognition it deserves.

In 1930, Big Bill Broonzy was under the management of Chicago “race music” impresario Lester Melrose, and playing good-time music with Georgia Tom and Frank Brasswell (or Braswell, a.k.a. “The Western Kid”) as the “Hokum Boys” (a mantle originally used by Georgia Tom and Tampa Red). Broonzy hadn’t recorded since his earliest, somewhat poorly received “Big Bill and Thomps” Paramount sessions of 1927 and ’28. Among the tunes recorded by Broonzy and the Hokum Boys were (fittingly) hokum titles like “Somebody’s Been Using that Thing” and “Eagle Riding Papa” (both of which were later covered by Milton Brown), urban blues novelties like “Mama’s Leavin’ Town”, and fast guitar rags like “Saturday Night Rub” and “Pig Meat Strut”. On the rags, Frank Brasswell’s flatpicked rhythm combined with Bill’s adept fingerpicking to make musical magic. The trio, occasionally including Delta blues man Arthur Petties, first recorded in New York for the American Record Corporation in various configurations and under various names, including “Sammy Sampson” for Bill’s solo work. Next they traveled to Richmond, Indiana to cut several sides for the Starr Piano Company’s Champion label, all ones they had made previously for the ARC, this time with Bill’s solo work credited to “Big Bill Johnson”. Those Champions were the last sides to feature Brasswell, who proceeded to drop off the face of the earth. Bill on the other hand would go on to great acclaim.

Champion 16081 was recorded on May 2, 1930 in Richmond, Indiana. The Hokum Boys are Big Bill Broonzy (recording for the Starr Piano Co. as “Big Bill Johnson”) and Frank Brasswell on guitars. It sold a total of 959 copies, of which only a handful are known to exist today. As such, it is listed in the “Rarest 78s” section of 78 Quarterly (issue number six), and while the total number of existing copies was not estimated at the time, a current estimate places the number at “fewer than ten known copies.” More popular versions of both tunes were recorded for the American Record Corporation the previous month (and both, in my opinion, are not near as good as these). There is some debate as to the correct playback speed for these recordings, with suggestions from my esteemed colleagues Mr. Russ Shor of Vintage Jazz Mart and Mr. Pete Whelan of 78 Quarterly ranging from the standard 78.26 RPM to 83 RPM. Based on an E chord on a guitar in standard tuning, my best estimate would be that they should play at approximately 80 RPM, to which I’ve set the transfers posted herein.

First up, Bill and Frank get hot on Broonzy’s classic rag composition “Saturday Night Rub” with a performance described by blues guitar teacher Woody Mann as “one of the most hard-driving rag tunes ever recorded.” Midway through, Bill utters those immortal words, “I’m gonna play this guitar tonight from A to Z!”

Saturday Night Rub, recorded May 2, 1930 by the Hokum Boys.

“Pig Meat Strut” on the “B” side is perhaps my favorite guitar instrumental (though there’s some stiff competition from Blind Blake, William Moore, Bayless Rose, Frank Hutchison, and others). Bill and Frank’s “Famous Hokum Boys” version of the rag for the ARC, recorded a little less than a month before this one, is often hailed as one of his best (I say phooey), but it sounds like a hot mess compared to this masterpiece! The riff used in “Pig Meat Strut” was seemingly ubiquitous in hokum of this era—such that I’d dub it the “hokum riff”—and appeared in a number of Broonzy and Brasswell’s other recordings of this era, later serving as the basis for Big Bill’s popular “Hey Hey” in 1951. Interestingly, a nearly identical melody was also used by Texas blues man Little Hat Jones in his “Kentucky Blues”, recorded only a month after this one, though any actual connection between the two is unknown to me. Man, did they get in the groove and how!

Pig Meat Strut, recorded May 2, 1930 by the Hokum Boys.

Updated with improved audio on February 21, 2023.

Champion 15687 – Dan Hughey – 1929

Posted on March 21, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Please note: this article dates to Old Time Blues’ first year and does not meet the standard of quality to which more recent postings are held. Thank you for your understanding.

Before there were folk singers like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, there was “The Kentucky Mountain Boy”, Bradley Kincaid (who performs under a pseudonym on this disc). Equally comfortable in hillbilly attire as with round framed spectacles, tidy hair, and pressed suits, Kincaid was of a decidedly more sophisticated mold than many of the more “hillbilly” folk singers of his day, while still not succumbing to the urbanity that has in some eyes damaged the credibility of such performers as Vernon Dalhart.

Bradley Kincaid was born in Point Level, Kentucky on July 13, 1895 and made his radio debut on Chicago’s WLS National Barn Dance in 1926 and later became a member of the Grand Ole Opry on WSM in Nashville in 1945. After a long and successful career which included giving future Grand Ole Opry star Marshall Jones the nickname “Grandpa” while working with him at a Boston radio station in 1935, Kincaid died following injuries sustained in a car accident at the ripe old age of 94 on September 23, 1989.

Champion 15687 was recorded January 28, 1929 in Richmond, Indiana by Bradley Kincaid, given the nom de disque “Dan Hughey” on this release. It was also issued on Gennett 6761 and Supertone 9362, and later reissued on Champion 45057 by Decca. The “A” side also appeared on Superior 2656.

One of the great classic American folk songs, Kincaid first sings “Four Thousand Years Ago”, called “The Highly Educated Man” by John A. Lomax in his American Ballads and Folk Songs.

Four Thousand Years Ago, recorded January 28, 1929 by Dan Hughey.

On the reverse, Kincaid sings “Liza Up In the ‘Simmon Tree”. This is one of those folk songs that bears great lyrical similarity to other songs; for example, “shoes and stockings in her hand and her feet all over the floor” can be heard in Wendell Hall’s “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo'”, and “well, I wouldn’t marry a poor girl, I’ll tell you the reason why…” is similar to the lyrics of “Chewing Gum”, as sung by the Carter Family.

Liza Up in the ‘Simmon Tree, recorded January 28, 1929 by Dan Hughey.

Updated on June 15, 2017.