Groundhogs

Although they are still known primarily as a blues rock band, they did not start that way, nor do they continue that way. They were originally called “John Lee’s Groundhogs” and supported John Lee Hooker on his tour of England in 1964. Supporting Hooker was not easy, he was famous for his constant changes of pace. Closer to spoken blues (Talking Blues), or to his own electric version of Delta blues. John Lee's style is immediately recognizable.

His most famous period came from the time when it was difficult to get blues plays in England, demonstrating what can happen when, starting from a blues base, Tony McPhee's exceptional creativity and guitar skill explode. He says, for example, of the song on his album 'Blues Obituary' (where they are apparently burying the blues), that 'Mistreated' is a blues song, but he added 'a few chords' to it.

As a composer, he frequently disguised his feelings (against war, for example) behind ironic titles, and with a penchant for titles that distort common phrases into puns.

The band is considered a legendary group, but really although the bassists and drummers were top-notch, the center of Groundhogs was always the guitarist, songwriter and singer. Tony McPhee in Groundhogs deserves the description of Captain Sensible as 'the English Jimi Hendrix'. I'll get to the wonderful Robin Trower in a future article naturally.

There are a wide variety of sounds and timbres that McPhee uses, his skill with the pedals is amazing, but his sound never stops being completely original and recognizable. There is a lot of sophistication in the different arrangements he proposes and in his expansion of the limits of what an essentially blues guitarist could be and do, he shows many possible paths to follow.

Do you remember? Bill Broonzy

 

Despite years of research, the details of William Lee Conley Broonzy's birth date remain problematic. He may have been born on 26 June 1893 - the date of birth he often gave - or according to Bill's twin sister Laney, it may have been in 1898. Laney claimed to have documents to prove that. However, definitive research undertaken by Bob Reisman has changed the picture.

Bill often regaled audiences with tales of his birth on 26 June 1893 and that of his twin sister Laney and of his father's response to being told he had twins to care for. He claimed to have served in the US Army in France from 1918 - 1919 and to have been invited by a record company to travel to the Delta following a major flood in 1927: Turns out, that a good deal of this was fiction at worst and faction at best.

Robert Reisman's impeccable research suggests a birth date for Bill of 26th June 1903 (and in Jefferson County, Arkansas, not Scott Mississippi as previously suggested). Laney was not a twin at all but four years older than Bill. (She was born in 1898).

Bill spoke and sang about experiences in the US army and of his return from France to Arkansas/Mississippi. It turns out though, that the reported army experience was Bill's factional description of an amalgam of the stories told by black soldiers returning from overseas. A trip Bill claimed to have made to Mississippi in 1927 to the flooding was similarly untrue, but was a factional account into which Bill inserted himself.

Broonzy is/was not even his real name. He was born into the world with the name Lee Conly (note spelling) Bradley; and so it goes on.

Bill's father Frank Broonzy (Bradley) and his mother, Mittie Belcher had both been born into slavery and Bill was one of seventeen children. His first instrument was a violin which he learned to play with some tuition from his uncle, his mother's brother, Jerry Belcher. Bob Reisman suggests that there is little evidence that Jerry Belcher existed.

In Arkansas, the young Bill (Lee) worked as a violinist in local churches at the same time as working as a farm hand. He also worked as a country fiddler and local parties and picnics around Scott Mississippi. Between 1912 and 1917, Bill (Lee) worked as an itinerant preacher in and around Pine Bluff. It is not known why he changed his name.

Later, he worked in clubs around Little Rock. In about 1924, Big Bill moved to Chicago Illinois, where as a fiddle player he played occasional gigs with Papa Charlie Jackson. During this time he learned to play guitar and subsequently accompanied many blues singers, both in live performance and on record. Bill made his first recordings in 1927 (just named Big Bill) and the 1930 census records him as living in Chicago and (working as a labourer in a foundry) and his name was recorded as 'Willie Lee Broonsey' aged 28. He was living with his wife Annie (25) and his son Ellis (6).

Over the years, Big Bill became an accomplished performer in his own right. Through the 1930s he was a significant mover in founding the small group blues (singer, guitar, piano, bass drums) sound that typified Chicago bues.

On 23 December, 1938, Big Bill was one of the principal solo performers in the first "From Spirituals to Swing" concert held at the Carnegie Hall in New York City. In the programme for that performance, Broonzy was identified in the programme only as "Big Bill" (he did not become known as Big Bill Broonzy until much later in his career) and as Willie Broonzy. He was described as:

"...the best-selling blues singer on Vocalion's 'race' records, which is the musical trade designation for American Negro music that is so good that only the Negro people can be expected to buy it."

The programme recorded that the Carnegie Hall concert "will be his first appearance before a white audience".

Big Bill was a stand-in for Robert Johnson, who had been murdered in Mississippi in August that year. Hammond heard about Johnson's death just a week before the concert was due to take place. According to John Sebastian (1939) Big Bill bought a new pair of shoes and travelled to New York by bus for the concert. Where he travelled from is, however, left dangling. The inference of the text is that it was from Arkansas, but as noted above, by by late 1938 Bill was established as a session man and band leader, and as a solo performer in Chicago. Within weeks of the 1938 concert Bill was recording with small groups in a studio in the windy city.

In the 1938 programme, Big Bill performed (accompanied by boogie pianist Albert Ammons) "It Was Just a Dream" which had the audience rocking with laughter at the lines.

Flavium

Flavium is one of the leading blues bands in the Netherlands. The band has been active on blues and festival stages in our country for years, but also in Germany, Belgium, England and Ireland. Blues classics 'Nightlife' and 'Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out' gave the band positions in the charts.
The band plays with a lot of energy and love for the blues. Sparkling solos, ear-pleasing blue(s) notes, very fanatical train blues appear during the performances and they were recorded on more than ten LPs and CDs. On Saturday April 11, 2015, Johan Derksen presented the Dutch Blues Award to Flavium. Flavium has been added to the Dutch Blues Hall of Fame.

Boo Boo Davis

Very soon on JAM 66 Radio...

Boo Boo Davis was born and raised in Drew Mississippi. He is a survivor and belongs to the last generations of musicians that write and play the blues based on first hand experience of a hard life in the Mississippi Delta.

Boo Boo never learned to read or write but that did not prevent him to travel the world and share his music and thoughts with his audiences. Following his guiding spirit (that he calls Dave) Boo Boo found a way to deal with modern society. The blues helps him to keep his spirit high and survive day-to-day life. It deals with all the basic raw elements of life; good and bad, complicated and simple.

All songs on this compilation have been released before on Black and tan Records between 1999 and 2019. They tell personal stories about Boo Boo; ranging from very trivial issues to deep thoughts about life.

Remembering the past: Bessie Smith

 

Bessie Smith began to sing at a young age and in 1923 signed a contract with Columbia Records. Soon she was among the highest-paid Black performers of her time with hits like "Downhearted Blues." By the end of the 1920s, however, her popularity had lessened, though she continued to perform and made new recordings at the start of the Swing Era. Her comeback and life were cut short when she died on September 26, 1937, from injuries sustained in an automobile accident outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Smith was born on April 15, 1894, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was one of seven children. Her father, a Baptist minister, died soon after her birth, leaving her mother to raise her and her siblings. Around 1906 her mother and two of her brothers died and Smith and her remaining siblings were raised by their aunt. It was around this time that Smith began to perform as a street singer, accompanied on the guitar by one of her younger brothers. In 1912 Smith began performing as a dancer in the Moses Stokes minstrel show, and soon thereafter in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, of which blues vocalist Ma Rainey was a member. Rainey took Smith under her wing, and over the next decade, Smith continued to perform at various theaters and on the vaudeville circuit.

By the early 1920s, Smith had settled down and was living in Philadelphia, and in 1923 she met and married a man named Jack Gee. That same year, she was discovered by a representative from Columbia Records, with whom she signed a contract and made her first song recordings. Among them was a track titled "Downhearted Blues," which was wildly popular and sold an estimated 800,000 copies, propelling Smith into the blues spotlight. With her rich, powerful voice, Smith soon became a successful recording artist and toured extensively. Going forward with an idea presented by her brother and business manager Clarence, Smith eventually bought a custom railroad car for her traveling troupe to travel and sleep in.

In her recording career, Smith worked with many important jazz performers, such as saxophonist Sidney Bechet and pianists Fletcher Henderson and James P. Johnson. With Johnson, she recorded one of her most famous songs, "Backwater Blues."

Smith also collaborated with the legendary jazz artist Louis Armstrong on several tunes, including "Cold in Hand Blues" and "I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle," and "St. Louis Blues." By the end of the 1920s, Smith was the highest-paid Black performer of her day, and had earned herself the title "Empress of the Blues."

Perhaps Smith's most popular song was her 1929 hit "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," written by Jimmy Cox six years earlier. Smith's version of the song, released in September 1929, was eerily prescient in that the stock market crashed just two weeks later. The song would later become the basis of a short film by the same name.

However, at the height of her success, Smith’s career began to flounder, due in part to the financial ravages of the Great Depression and a change in cultural mores. In 1929, she and Gee permanently separated, and by the end of 1931 Smith had stopped working with Columbia altogether. However, ever the dedicated performer, Smith adapted her repertoire and continued to tour. In 1933, Smith was contacted by producer John Hammond to make new recordings, which hinted at the coming Swing Era.

On September 26, 1937, Smith was en route to a show in Memphis, Tennessee with her companion of many years, Richard Morgan, when he sideswiped a truck and lost control of their car. Smith was thrown from the vehicle and badly injured. She died of her wounds in a Clarkdale, Mississippi hospital. She was 43.

Smith’s funeral was held in Philadelphia a week later, with thousands coming to pay their respects. She was buried in Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania.

Since her death, Smith’s music continues to win over new fans, and collections of her songs have continued to sell extremely well over the years. She has been a primary influence for countless female vocalists — including Billie Holliday, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin — and has been immortalized in numerous works. A comprehensive, acclaimed bio on her life — Bessie, by journalist Chris Albertson — was published in 1972 and expanded in 2003. A film loosely based on the book aired in 2015, with Queen Latifah (who also executive produced the project) portraying Smith and Mo'Nique playing Ma Rainey.

During her marriage to Gee, Smith informally adopted a six-year-old boy and named him Jack Jr. But as her and Gee's relationship became strained, Gee would use their son as a bargaining chip, eventually kidnapping him and accusing Smith of being a neglectful, incompetent mother. A court ruling first gave custody to Smith's sister Viola, then later to Jack Jr.'s biological father who neglected the boy and sometimes forgot to feed him.