Sunday Morning Blues - Big Bill Broonzy, Scrapper Blackwell, Blind Blake, Champion Jack Dupree, Cousin Joe

Continuing the epic ABC Of The Blues, this week we finish the B's and head into the C's. Disc 5 deviates from the 10 Songs/2 Artist model to give us one solo track from Scrapper Blackwell and only 9 songs from Blind Blake.

Big Bill Broonzy
William Lee Conley Broonzy was one of the more influential early blues artists, active from the late 20s to his death in 1958, at age 55. He played a number of styles of blues that eventually led the way for post-war Chicago Blues. He's also credited with copyrighting over 300 songs, though it's disputed if he wrote most of those or not, as many of them are recognized as folk songs handed down. He is one of the most prolific recorders of songs during his time as well.

The ten songs here are mostly folk-blues and country-blues songs. And are all clean recordings, I think most of these songs come from the early part of his career, pre-WWII, but am not entirely sure. It's hard to date a lot of early blues as "race music" wasn't tracked and charted until 1942, and most of Broonzy's recordings took place before that.

Scrapper Blackwell
Only one solo song from Francis Hillman "Scrapper" Blackwell appears here, though he did have a long enough solo career he could have filled out a 10-track selection. Mostly he is known for his work with pianist Lary Carr (we'll get to that next week). He is a guitarist with a distinct 'string-snapping' sound that was later duplicated by any number of blues musicians.

With only one song, it's hard to judge the body of work, but it's a good song. He covers Komoko Arnold's Kokomo Blues here, a good rendition of it.

Blind Blake
Arthur Blake is another very early blues artist, his finger picking style of playing guitar contributed to the rise of Easy Coast (or Piedmont) Blues. Blake died in 1934 with a small but significant recording history.

All his songs had to be taken off of surviving 78s, and do contain a lot of hiss. Though here they did a good job of cleaning out the other noise on the recordings. They all have a bit of a ragtime feel to them, recording in the mid 1920s.

Champion Jack Dupree
We know when William Thomas Dupree died (1992), but not when he was born (early 1900s, dates given are from 1908-1910).  What he left was a New Orleans Blues, and Boogie Woogie legacy from the 1930s onwards. He gets the name Champion from his boxing career where he was a Golden Glove winner. He moved to Europe in 1960 and stayed there until his death. Even while he continued to record he also made a living as a cook serving Louisiana Cooking.

These are good quality recordings, though they're quiet. Most of it is good slow blues, Jack's piano with minimal accompaniment. The last track is Stack-O-Lee, one of my favorite classics, a story told almost differently every time it's sung. This one comes with a great sax solo.


Cousin Joe
Born in 1907, Pleasant Joe, is another important foundation stone in the legacy of Blues. I don't have a lot of information on this artist, and had not heard of him until now. So mostly I can only sit back and comment on the music a little bit. Another New Orleans artist, his music has a big band upswing to it that places it near jazz as much as it does traditional blues.

The songs are good, clear recordings, though some of them are old enough to have the tell-tale hiss of being taken from old records. While Joe never hit major mainstream success he played with just about everyone in the scene, and his influence can be heard in this selection if you listen closely. Most of them bounce nicely in a way that only blues from New Orleans really can.

Next Week - Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell (together), Pee Wee Crayton, and Bo Diddley.