March blues blog page 2

March 2015 Blues Trivia: If anyone is a fan of Bonnie Raitt, you should know that one of her main influences of her career was a lady by the name of Sippie Wallace. She was born Beulah Thomas, one of the thirteen children of George Washington Thomas Sr. and Fanny Bradley. Beulah got the nickname of Sippie because of sipping her food and would be best- known by that name for the rest of her life. She got the Wallace part of her name when, in 1917, she married Matt Wallace, a gambler. Born November 1st, 1898, in Plum Bayou, Arkansas. Shortly after that, the family moved to Houston, Texas, where her father was to become the deacon of the Shiloh Baptist Church. Sippie sang and played the organ in that church up to about age 12 At that age she moved to New Orleans to stay with her older brother, Goerge w. Thomas Jr., for a short time. She then moved back to Houston, where she stayed until 1923, when she then moved to Chicago. She stayed there until late in 1929, when she moved to Detroit, Michigan, which would be home for the rest of her life. Though living in Detroit, she did a considerable amount of recording in Chicago. Some of the people with whom she recorded with were Eddie Haywood, Clarence Williams, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong and Albert Ammons. While home in Detroit she also did some recording, but worked mostly outside the music field. She worked as a singer/ organist at the Leland Baptist Church from 1929 up into the 1970’s. Also while living in Detroit she served as director of National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, Inc., Chicago, forward from the mid-1930s. She met then toured and performed with Bonnie Raitt from the mid-1970’s into the 1980’s. Sadly, she passed away on November 1st.,1986, her 88th. birthday, in Detroit after suffering a massive stroke while performing at a concert/ festival in Germany. There are several parts of the trivia related to her. Two of her brothers, George Jr. and Hersal were composers and performers. Her niece, Hociel Thomas, daughter of George w. Jr. was also a singer/ pianist. The main part of the trivia is that her younger brother, Hersal, wrote, then, for his first recording a song called “Suitcase Blues” at the age of 15. That song, by the way, has been recorded by many other since including Sippie. He was performing in Detroit, Michigan at the age of 19, in a place called “Penny’s Pleasure Inn”, where he died of food poisoning. The circumstances of that poisoning were never resolved

Some March Blues passings

• March 1, 1970 – Lucille Hegamin, aka Fanny Baker
• March 16, 1975 – Aaron Thibeaux “T-Bone” Walker
• March 30, 1981 – Edith Wilson, aka “Aunt Jemima” of Quaker Oats fame

As a blues fan, you have to love the fact that today’s performers are still doing, in their own versions, the songs of the masters!! Check out “Suitcase Blues” for example.