Some April Blues Births:
- April 2nd.,1942-- Claude Russell Bridges, aka Leon Russell
- April 16th.,1937-- Artie "Blues Boy" White
- April 27th.,1947-- Ann Lee Peebles
Answer To The March 2021 Blues Question: The bluesman we were looking for was/is Robert L. "Bob" Geddins, born February 6, 1913, in Highbank, Texas. Some records show him being born in Martin, but that's a county in another part of the state. I believe those records should be changed to read Marlin, which is 10 miles north of Highbank, though Marlin is still wrong. I'm skipping the history of Highbank, but, that too, is an interesting story. In 1933 Geddins got his feet wet in the blues and gospel areas-- he started a record store in a building next to his grandmother's garage, in Los Angeles. In '42, he went to West Oakland to visit his mother, who had just moved there-- he stayed ! He heard complaints from migrant workers who had come from the South, that they couldn't find any blues or gospel records, so he took a job at Wolf Record Store. He then got some training in welding at the Kaiser Shipyards, and also went to night school to learn radio repair. After those efforts, he and a friend of his, Jack Gutshall, with a loan from his stepfather, worked around the clock for 2 weeks, and built his first record manufacturing plant, at Center and Eighth Streets. So was the start of a long and varied career. Over the next 17 or 18 years, he founded/ owned several record labels, among them, Down Town, Big Town, Cavatone, Irma (named after his wife), Art-Tone, Veltone, and many others, much smaller ones, to do small production runs. Most of his deals, whether with other record producers or artists, were done on a handshake basis. That probably wasn't a good idea for his part, as some of those other producers and promotors were selling product pirated from him, behind his back. He made a lot of those deals to pay his business expenses, and to support his large family: wife Irma Jean (nee Dyer) and 16 children, 8 boys and 8 girls, 2 were deceased, so, raising 14. By '52 or '53, he was "unhappy" with the way the music business, in general, was going, so he opened a radiator repair shop; remember he was a Mr.Fixit, mechanically talented. At the same time, he also went into songwriting, which he was also good at. Some of the songs he wrote are: "Tin Pan Alley" for Jimmy Wilson, "Mercury Boogie" for/with K.C.Douglas, "My Time After A While" for Tiny Powell, and "Hydramatic Woman" for Joe Hill Louis. His best-known song, however, is "Haunted House", sung by Johnny Fuller, released in 1958, on Specialty Records, #655. It became a big, national hit, when it was covered by Jumpin' Gene Simmons, a rockabilly artist, on Hi Records, #45-2076, in 1964. If you look at the label on the Hi release, you'll see the performer is Jumpin' Gene Simmons, but you'll also see that the writer is listed as "Geddins". The original by Fuller is still the best version, though it's been covered by many artists since then, and has become a Halloween favorite. A lot of Geddins' early recordings were also early recordings of quite a few who went on to become highly successful, including Jimmy McCracklin, Big Mama Thorton, Johnny Fuller, Jimmy Wilson, James Reed (a piano player, not the one you're familiar with), Lowell Fulson, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Etta James, Juke Boy Bonner, and many others, including many gospel groups. He performed/recorded 1 song under his own name-- "Irma Jean Blues". He recorded a few others as "The Mystery Man". His studio band for other's recordings was known as "The Bob Geddins Cavaliers". His Cava-Tone records was as an advertisement for them. Up into the '80's, Bob and his offsprings were still making deals for small pressing runs. He passed away February 16,1991, of liver cancer, a month after he was stabbed when he was robbed by 2 teenagers, of a royalties check he had just received.
Blues Question For April 2021: This bluesman developed a blues guitar style, over the years, that others now use. His parents died when he was young, and he was raised by his stepfather. He recorded quite a bit, but almost all of it was either just himself, or one other person at a time, a different person on the next session. Any idea as to who this might be ??
Blues Song(s) And Artist(s) For April 2021: The song is "He Won't Bite Me Twice", and the artist is Big Amos Patton, the nephew of one Charley Patton, who is considered to be the father of the Delta Blues. Big Amos went to Stax Records with this song, hoping to get a contract with them. They wanted the song, but they wanted Albert King to record it. Big Amos was having none of that, so he went to Hi Records and pitched the same deal. He ended up doing 6 songs for them, including that one. It's now available on a 2 cd set on Hi Records: Rivertown Blues + R & B Sessions + The Soul (in stock here). He then went back to his own locale, performing a gig, now and then. After that, he just disappeared.
Blues Trivia For April 2021: As I was sitting here typing this in, I looked at what I'd put together for the trivia section and realized that it was way larger than what I'd already written in the blog, so here's the modified version. As I was researching the info for the Geddins section, I was led to more West Coast and Bay Area indie blues people and labels. I accumulated 70 or so pages, both printed and hand-written. It should be said that there is a definite style here in this music, much like the blues in other areas of the country. Did you know that the West Oakland/ Oakland area was called the Harlem of the West ? For this section, I had put together a list of "indie" labels and their owners, plus the artists they recorded. As I said, it turned out way too big to put in here, so maybe, sometime in the future, I'll put them in here, one at a time. I'll keep trying to do better at this.
Some April Blues Passings:
- April 5th.,1998-- Colin Trevor "Cozy" Powell
- April 14th.,2005-- James (or Johnny) Miller, aka "Cootie Stark"
- April 23rd.,2013-- Bob Brozman
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