joe's blues blog june 2015

 SOME JUNE BLUES BIRTHS:
·         June 2,1917—Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston, aka “Baby Doo”/”Baby Duke”
·         June 13,1928—Lafayette Earl “The Thing” Thomas
·         June 30,1936—David “Dave” Von Ronk

 ANSWER TO THE MAY 2015 BLUES QUESTION: the bluesman we were looking for is/was Iverson “Red” Minter, aka Playboy Fuller, Cryin’ Red, Iverson Boy, Guitar Red, Richard Lee Fuller, Rockin’ Red,  Walkin’ Slim, Elmore James Jr., and Rocky Fuller. If you look for his recordings however, you’ll find him listed under his best-known name—Louisiana Red. He was possibly born March 23rd.,1936, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, but other sources list his birthplace/date as Bessemer, Alabama, on March 23rd.,1930. Which is correct ?—I don’t know. If you were at that birth, please let me know which is correct. As I stated in the question originally, he had lost both parents by age 5, and lived with his grandmother, in New Orleans, for a short period. At or around the age of 11/12, he lived briefly in Waco, Texas, before moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was just 13/14 when he sat in with Muddy Waters, in the late 40’s. He supposedly served a year in the reformatory in 1950(?). He joined the U.S. Army in 1951 and was assigned to the 82nd.Airborne and trained as a parachutist. Part of that unit was transferred to Korea, where he was then attached to the 3rd.Infantry Division. He stayed in the Army until 1958. He returned stateside to Detroit, Michigan, where he would often sit in with John Lee Hooker from late ’58 into ’59. He was then on to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he worked with James Wayne Nighthawks. From there it was on to Brooklyn, New York, where he worked with Jimmy Reed, in the early ‘60’s. From that point, it was southbound, performing in Georgia and Florida into the early ‘70’s. Then, again, early ‘70’s, up into 1981, he toured/performed mostly in the northeastern states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania), with the occasional show in Atlanta. In the mid to late ‘70’s he also toured/performed in Canada, France, Germany, England, Switzerland, and Japan. In 1981 he made Hanover, Germany his home, though he frequently returned to the U.S. to perform at festivals, with occasional club dates and recording work. He passed away February 25th.,2012, in Hanover Germany, after having a stroke which led to a coma. He stated his two main influences were Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins and Jimmy Reed.

 JUNE 2015 BLUES QUESTION: This bluesman taught himself to play the harmonica at the age of 9. At 10 years of age he ran away from home and hoboed throughout the U.S.A., Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and the Bahamas, during which he worked mostly outside the music field. He was recorded as a sideman on three different labels and was also recorded in a video of a music festival in Philadelphia. He has been known or recognized as a master of the French harp, a singer and dancer, and as an amazing story-teller. Any idea who this man is/was ??

 BLUES TRIVIA FOR JUNE2015: You’ve probably never heard of a bluesman by the name of Douglas Elijah “Doug” Quattlebaum. He was born January 22nd.,1927, in Florence, South Carolina. Somewhere between the ages of 3 to 5 he would take a stick, put a nail in each end, tie a piece of screen wire (yes, screens were actually made of metal!) to one, stretch it tight, and fasten the other end to the other nail and strum a tune on it. From that he graduated to the home-made “cigar box” guitar that most of the early bluesmen started out with. He got his first real guitar at the age of 14, from his step-father who taught him the only chord he knew, after the family moved to Philadelphia. Most of his early career was as an accompanist to the gospel groups The Haze Quartet, The Charity Gospel Singers, The Bells of Joy gospel singers, The Harlem Gospel Singers, The Ward Singers gospel group, and The Musicalaires gospel group. He was recorded while performing with some of these groups. During this same time, he occasionally worked as a preacher. Enough background—on to the trivia, and there is a lot of it, but it is all tied together. In the early ‘50’s Doug cut several sides for the local Philly label Gotham Records. None of them, at that time, were chart-toppers. Two of those cuts, however, titled “Lizzie Lou” and “Longing For My Baby”, are highly sought-after by blues record collectors today. During the early to late ‘50’s he continued to perform with the various gospel groups and work a “day job”. That job was driving a Mr. Softee ice cream truck in the south side of Philly, often referred to as “the Black Quarter”. He would park his truck in the street, next to the sidewalk, hook up a small amplifier he’d hooked up to the truck, plug in a cheap microphone, and proceed to play the pop music of the day, with an occasional blues song thrown in, all in an effort to build a crowd, which it always did, so he could sell his wares. A man  named Herb Gart heard about Doug, went to hear him, and was impressed. Herb got Doug’s contact info and called a friend of his, Peter J “Pete” Welding, to tell him about Doug. Pete, a Philly native, was working as a journalist for Down Beat magazine, with occasional articles for other magazines, including Rolling Stone. He was putting together a show to feature black musicians playing their “folk music” for local educational FM radio station WHYY. Pete took the info from Herb, got in touch with Doug, and arranged a meeting, which then turned into several. A friend of Pete’s also attended the meets, Kenneth S “Ken” Goldstein, who was also highly impressed with Doug’s musical abilities. Somewhere during those meetings, Doug agreed to do an album, which ended up being produced jointly by Pete and Ken. One of the problems with doing an album is “front money”, which includes studio time, all things related to production and distribution, and possibly wages paid somewhere along the line. Those funds weren’t readily available to them at that time, so Pete somehow found a local Philly businessman who was willing to help. That man was Maurice Strauss, known as “Moe”. Keep that name in mind. Ever heard of Emanuel Rosenfeld or Graham Jackson ? No? You know them as Manny, Moe, and Jack, the founders and owners of a Philly auto parts store. That store is now a national chain known as “Pep Boys”. With everything now in place, they set up a recording date of November 27th.,1961, at the Philly studios of Prestige/ Bluesville. Of note here is that Doug had stated in one of their meetings that his influence in playing was Blind Boy Fuller, a North Carolina bluesman. On this album Doug used the same type of instrument that Blind Boy Fuller had—a National steel-bodied resonator guitar.  In three hours, Mel Kaiser, the recording engineer, recorded 14 songs, 4 of which were Doug’s originals (Sweet Little Woman; Come Back Blues; Love My Baby and Worried Mind Blues), the other 10 were covers or Doug’s interpretations of them, with some of them done in their original style. The album was titled later as “Softee Man Blues”. Another bit of noteworthy trivia here is that Pete Welding moved to Chicago in 1962. With encouragement from Bob Koester, founder/owner of Delmark Records and The Jazz Record Mart, founded Testament Records to record blues artists. One other little bit of trivia—remember my mention of the man who gave Doug his first guitar at the age of 14, his step-father? Well, that man was the brother of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. Big Boy Crudup is considered to be the father of rock & roll. Three of his songs were “That’s All Right, “My Baby Left Me” and “So Glad You’re Mine”, which were covered by Elvis Presley and became hits for Elvis. No royalties went to Crudup until well after his passing, when his family finally won their lawsuit.

 SOME JUNE BLUES PASSINGS:
·         June  1, 1968—Carl Davis
·         June 16, 1970—Alonzo “Lonnie” Johnson
·         June 25, 1971—Elton Island Spivey, aka the Za Zu Girl