Some April Blues Births:

• April 2nd.,1918--John Thomas "JT"/"Big Boy" Brown
• April 17th.,1926-- Sam Carr
• April 25th.,1923-- Albert King, born Albert Nelson

Answer to the March 2016 Blues Question: the bluesman we were looking for is/was Don "Sugarcane" Harris, born as Don Bowman on June 18th.,1938, in Pasadena, California. The Squires, basically a doo-wop group, shortly after their forming, would include Bowman. They recorded between October of 1954, through April of 1956, on several different small labels. The first Squires recording was on the Kicks 1 label and didn't list Bowman in the credits, but did credit it to Dewey Terry. Bowman's name would show up on the next recording, on the Mambo 105 label, and was a 78 rpm record. That was in May of 1955. Some sources list Bowman as the founder of the Squires, but, due to what I just listed, I believe the group was formed by Terry and Bowman joined him shortly after that. The Squires broke up in 1957 but Don and Dewey stayed together. The pair had signed a contract, late in '56, with Art Rupe's Specialty label, so they went on for two years playing rock and roll. They both played guitar and sometimes Dewey would play piano. Don played guitar or bass, whenever or whichever was needed. As a sidebar, Dewey was taught guitar by one of the '50's blues greats-- Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones (best known for his song "The Things That I Used To Do". As a pair, Don and Dewey's music was considered too loud and too "harsh" to get much radio airplay. Some of the other artists at Specialty at the same time were Guitar Slim, Little Richard, Lloyd Price and Larry Williams. The music producer there was a guy named Sonny Bono. Some of the songs written and recorded by "Don and Dewey" were "Jungle Hop", "A Little Love", "Justine", "I'm Leaving It (All) Up To You", "Farmer John", "Big Boy Pete", and "KoKo Joe"(that one written by Sonny Bono). You should recognize some of those songs, as they were recorded and made hits by others, such as Dale and Grace, The Searchers, The Premiers, The Righteous Brothers ( their act was based on Don and Dewey's), The Olympics and others. "Big Boy Pete", for example, was recorded, with different lyrics, by The Kingsmen (of Louie, Louie fame), as "The Jolly Green Giant". As the duo, Don and Dewey, they toured with The Johnny Otis Show in the late '50's into the early "60's. They then toured with Little Richard (about the same time Jimi Hendrix was in Richard's band). They split up as a pair in 1960, but did play and record together, backing other artists. By this time Bowman was now Don "Sugarcane" Harris. The "Sugarcane" nickname was given him by Johnny Otis, because of his reputation as a ladies’ man. By this time, Harris was mostly playing the electric violin. From 1964 through 1998, he was hard at work. Besides making 8 of his own albums (1970-1976), he was featured/performed on two albums with Little Richard, two with Johnny Otis, nine with John Mayall (and the Bluesbreakers), six with Frank Zappa, and one each with John Lee Hooker, Freddie Roulette, and the Sonny Terry/ Brownie McGhee duo, and with six other bands, all scattered over 20 different labels. Some of his recordings were done in the studio, with others being done while live and on tour. If you noticed some of those names that he was recording with, you probably picked up on the fact that he was doing a lot of different types of music. There was also a lot of variation of what he was doing on those recordings: he would play any of his instruments-- guitar, violin, horn, harp, or piano, as a lead or backing player, or he would be doing lead or backing vocals. If he was using his preferred instrument, the electric violin, he would sometimes use a bow and get it to sound either like what it was or like a harmonica, or he would "finger-pick" it and have it sound like a ukulele. He passed away November 30th.,1999, of pulmonary failure.

Blues Question For April 2016: This blues musician was born and raised on a farm near St. Louis, Missouri, one of four children. He was taught to play guitar by his older brother. He eventually ended up living in Detroit, Michigan. He also did extensive touring to perform. He recorded on at least five labels. Any idea who this bluesman is ??

Blues Trivia for April 2016: We are all familiar with the most common instruments used by blues musicians-- guitar, harmonica (sometimes called a Mississippi Saxophone or a pocket piano), bass, keyboard, horns (usually trumpet or saxophone) and droms. Now, forget all that and go back to the earlier days of the blues--acoustic, no amps. Early bluesmen moved around all the time, so being able to bring the instrument along, without too much trouble, made the most common ones at that time, small, stringed ones, the guitar, mandolin, violin and banjo. The other easy one to carry was the harmonica. Piano players weren't so lucky-- they usually got to play either in the studio, on recording sessions, or at venues on the T O B A or vaudeville circuits, because those had a band/orchestra "pit". One of the early piano players was Charles Edward "Cow Cow" Davenport, born April 23rd.,1894, in Anniston, Alabama. His first recordings were done in 1924, his last in 1946. In late 1930 he moved from the South to Cleveland, Ohio, where he would own a music-record shop until sometime in 1932, when he would be travelling/ performing in the South. Somewhere between 1933 and 1935, he moved back to Cleveland, where he would now own and operate a cafe. He travelled/ performed up into 1948, when he opted to work outside the music field. He is credited with 24 songs, but said that he wrote more than that, but sold the songs and rights to them. The trivia part is, in steps, that his father, Clement, was a preacher, and his mother was an organist. Cow Cow learned the organ by age eleven, on his own. At twelve years old he started to take piano lessons. His father, however, did not approve of the "lifestyle" of musicians and sent "Charles" to Alabama Theological Seminary, Selma University, Selma, Alabama, in 1910. Cow Cow was later expelled from there because he, at a social function at the university, changed the musical accompaniment of the hymns to a rag-time and boogie-woogie style of play. It obviously turned out to be a definite no-no!!

Some March Blues Births:

• March 5 th.,1933-- "Tee" Tommy Tucker (remember his only #1 hit Hi-Heel Sneakers??)
• March 16th.,1931-- Ernest Lane
• March 27th.,1932-- Herman "Little Junior" Parker

Answer to the February 2016 Blues Question: the bluesman we were looking for is/was Willie Love, born November 4th.,1906, in Duncan, Mississippi. As I stated in the question, he was raised on a farm, where he continued to live for almost thirty years. In the mid- 1930's he left home to hobo through the areas around Belzoni, Drew, Tunica and Clarksdale, working in juke joints and barrelhouses. His career from 1938 to 1953 is a little hard to track correctly, but I'll do the best I can. From 1938 to 1940 he toured with the Barber Parker Silver Kings Band. Also in the late 30's he worked with Pinetop Perkins, Doc Ross and sometimes by himself in juke joints, gambling joints and clubs in the Greenville and Indianola areas. He often performed on King Biscuit Time on KFFA radio in Helena, Arkansas from 1942 to roughly 1946. He also performed with the King Biscuit Time Boys in jukes and on streets in the area. In the mid 40's he formed his own group, Willie Love and the Three Aces and toured/played from the Tunica/Greenville area to Memphis, Tennessee and through the Delta area. He appeared on WGVM radio in Greenville in 1948-49 with Elmore James. In 1949-50 he toured with Sonny Boy Williamson II, Willie Nix and Joe Willie Wilkins as the "Four Aces". Love appeared on KWEM radio, in West Memphis, Arkansas, with Sonny Boy on the Hadacol Show and also on his own show, The Broadway Furniture Store Show. (Check ot the song "Drinkin Hadacol" by Little Willie Littlefield) He often worked outside the music field from 1949 into the 50's. His first recordings were in January of 1951 as the piano player on Sonny Boy's recordings on Lillian McMurray's Trumpet Records label in Jackson, Mississippi. (Sonny Boy's "Pontiac Blues" was written about Lillian's car) Love also recorded under his own group's name- Willie Love and the Three Aces in December of '51, also on the Trumpet label. A couple of things about "the Three Aces": this group did several recording sessions with Trumpet and, depending on the person who was running a particular session, their Three was written out or just shown as 3, and, secondly, there were 14 different people in that group at different times, on different recordings. The recordings were all done with a mixture of three sidemen. In 1952 Love performed in Detroit, Michigan, with Baby Boy Warren. Also in '52 and into'53, he toured with Sonny Boy, working juke joints in Louisiana and Texas. His last recordings were done on April 14th.,1953, on the Trumpet label, with Sonny Boy, in Houston, Texas. He passed away on August 19th.,1953, in Jackson, Mississippi, of bronchopneumonia. He was an influence to Clayton Love, also a piano player. Willie's brothers, Jasper and Eddie, were also musicians. Andrew Love, not known to be a relative, was a saxophone player who was a session player at Stax Records. Andrew went on to join The Memphis Horns.

Blues Question for March 2016: this bluesman studied classical violin, as a youth, for ten years, then went on to learn guitar, harmonica and piano. Both of his parents were entertainers. He formed his first band at the age of 18. He eventually went on to partner with another individual who also played guitar and piano. This duo wrote and recorded many songs together, but never had a hit record of their own. A number of their songs were recorded by others who did have hits with them. Throughout his/their career, they both performed/toured with some of the biggest names in the music field. Any idea who this bluesman is/was ??

Blues Trivia for March 2016: there are many, many songs in different genres of music, including blues, that have been "borrowed", outright stolen and/or copied by other artists. It's probably happened in blues more than any other field, as many of the early blues artists were illiterate. It even happened to some of the brightest, most well-educated in the field, such as W.C. Handy. Some of the early players couldn't read or write. "Trust me, just make your mark on this line and we’ll have a contract, and I'll take care of everything" was probably heard many times in the early days. By the same token, however, the performers were not always "above board" in their dealings, either. Take the song "I've Got My Mojo Working". If you've been listening to the blues for any length of time and you hear that song, you'd probably think that's a Muddy Waters song. Many moons ago I thought the same thing. As it turns out, we're both wrong, as it was first recorded by Ann Cole and the Suburbans on the Baton label of Sol Rabinowitz, in April of 1956. Muddy recorded his version on December 1st., 1956. Muddy's was the first one released, by Chess Records. Ann's was released in 1957. At that point litigation was started and the court eventually ruled in Ann's favor. The song was actually written by Preston Foster. He was, as of 1998, still receiving the royalties on that song. By the way, it has since been covered/recorded by well over a hundred individuals and/or bands/groups. Never assume, the next time you hear a "blues standard" by a well-known artist, that you are hearing the original. Check it out for yourself-- you might be surprised!!