A Darker World

"A Darker World" is a novel I wrote in 2005 based on my experiences in Memphis in the early 1990s. 

download it here

  

Lloyd "Fatman" Smith (1922-1989)

This post collects all the solo recordings I've been able to find from Lloyd "Fatman" Smith. Information on "Lloyd Fatman" - as he was generally known - is not super easy to come by. As best as I can tell, he recorded a handful of songs as a solo artist, starting in 1949 and continuing through the 1950s. Aside from a spell as Louis Jordan's personal manager, he also managed the Equadors/Modern Ink Spots/Cardinals - a vocal group whose fascinating history is detailed by the highly knowledgeable Marv Goldberg here. Marv was also kind enough to send me two of the songs in this post, recorded from his original vinyl, as well as several photos - thanks, Marv!

Anyway, at some point, Lloyd settled down in Philadelphia, where he worked as a DJ for many years. One source mentions him recording "sporadically for local imprints" but, aside from a cover of "Saturday Night Fish Fry" in 1960 and a few stray others, I haven't been able to find much info on specific albums or singles after the 50s. According to DJ Weldon McDougal, people in Philly knew Fatman as a trumpet player and bandleader more than as a singer. In the 60s, he was "in nightclubs more than he was on the air." He booked Weldon's group "The Larks" and was often the MC at places that they appeared.

I think if Lloyd hadn't waited quite so long to begin recording, he might have had more of a solo career. In my opinion, the 10 cuts here easily stand up to the best of the jump blues era . In particular, "Miss Mushmouth" and "Where You Been," both of which were recorded for Okeh in 1956-57, are positively scorching rockers that lay waste to much of the blues shouting of that period. But there's the problem: that period was already pretty much over. Only a select few blues artists, like Big Joe Turner, were able to comfortably ride the first wave of Rock and Roll. Many, many other very talented folks were swept aside by the tidal onslaught of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis, Jerry Lee and the rest. Still, has anyone ever heard anything like the scattting on "Fat Man's Scat"? How can brilliant weirdness like that remain so obscure? It just ain't fair...

Lloyd was clearly an adept vocal mimic. "Why Oh Why" and "Giddy Up Giddy Up" are very much in the Roy Brown bag, and the vocal mannerisms of Big Joe Turner, Wynonie Harris and Screamin' Jay Hawkins (who was a friend of Fatman's) are evident elsewhere. But the Fat Man absolutely put his own stamp on whatever he did. I wish we had more from him.

Anyway, for now, enjoy some rockin' sides from an obscure madman of the great bygone early rock era.

1. Where You Been (Okeh 7073 - 1956)
2. Miss Mushmouth (Okeh 7083 - 1957)
3. Good Gracious (Okeh 7083 - 1957)
4. Part Time Sweetheart (Okeh 7073 - 1956)
5. No Better for You (Peacock 1611 - 1953)
6. My Clock Stopped (Peacock 1611 - 1953)
7. Giddy Up, Giddy Up (Peacock 1593 - 1952)
8. Why Oh Why (Peacock 1593 - 1952)
9. Fatman (Gotham, unreleased - 1951 - with Frank Motley)
10. Fat Man's Scat (Gotham, unreleased - 1951 - with Frank Motley)
11. Little Leg Woman
12. Roll On Mule

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10k2CckXQDpesf9Xvv3TgQw32t7xa41fH/view?usp=sharing

Fred Sanders with the Cadillac Blues Band - 1991

Fred Sanders (1940-2011)

Fred Sanders died a couple months ago. Most of you have probably never heard of Fred, but for anyone involved with the Memphis blues scene, he was a major figure for a very long time.

For a brief time as a young man I was around Fred quite a bit. We traveled together, played together, even lived together. I spent countless hours watching him play in a variety of settings, but mostly in Handy Park on Beale Street, playing for nickels and dimes. He was a man of immense talents, and this post was inspired by my frustration at how little of his talent has been adequately documented.

Brad Webb has gone a long way toward rectifying that situation. A stalwart supporter of the Memphis Blues scene and its citizens, he is responsible for the lovingly assembled record Long Time Comin', which is currently the only commercially available recording featuring Fred.

As valuable as that record is, and as grateful as I am that it exists, it also came too late in many respects. Fred's guitar skills never left him; even at the end, when his health was very poor, he was still a riveting instrumentalist. His voice, however, had deteriorated dramatically over the years. There are now several youtube videos available that show Fred, in his last days, still performing for tips in Handy Park, and it pains me to see the rich, supple vocals of my memory reduced by illness, age and hard living to a shadow of their former greatness.

So, I wanted to put something up that shows folks a little of what I remember of Fred, and why he was so respected throughout the Memphis music community. There are lots of stories to tell about Fred. He was truly gifted, very charismatic, and capable of moving audiences in a way that I've seldom seen before or since. He was also a complex guy, with his share of problems and difficulties. 

The first four songs in this post come from a 1991 recording of the Cadillac Blues Band I got from Brad Webb (one more big thanks to the much-appreciated Brad). I don't believe this CD has ever been officially released, but it provides an excellent snapshot of the Fred Sanders I remember so well. I have only included the cuts that feature Fred, and on each of them, he is singing and playing his heart out.

I have also added two fantastic cuts from the "Blues Man's Ball" record, as well as a cut from 1978 I found on youtube.

Fred was, in many ways, the last remaining member of a crucial generation for Memphis blues. Most of his contemporaries (some of them chronicled in other posts on this blog) have passed away. The Beale Street Cadillac Blues Band name was used by a variety of musicians who rotated in and out over the years. I witnessed several incarnations of the band in the few brief years I was in Memphis. But most of the older black artists who were the foundation of those motley street bands, who had served as mentors, teachers and examples to the younger generation of players, are now gone. Sadly, few of them left behind much in the way of a recorded legacy. These 7 cuts aren't the career-spanning body of work I wish Fred had left us, but along with "Long Time Comin'" and a handful of youtube videos, they'll have to do for now.

The Beale Street Cadillac Blues Band - recorded 1991:

Fred Sanders - vocal and guitar

Jimmy Ellis - vocals and drums

David Dunn - bass

Dan Charette - guitar



1. Everybody Wants To Win

2. Possum In My Tree

3. Let The Good Times Roll

4. Reconsider Baby



From Blues Man's Ball Vol 1:



5. I Got A Feeling

6. Big Fine Hunk Of Woman


From 1978:


7. Tripping With The Blues

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aijm6BYSHP6NCYMm4GHodNrGW4Kx7Soc/view?usp=sharing

Houston Boines - Complete Recordings, 1952-53

Houston Boines is one of those mysterious figures of the blues who cut a few sides in the 50s and then more or less disappeared. This post contains his entire recorded legacy and, including alternate takes, it's barely enough to make up a single LP. It's doubtful that such an LP will ever be officially complied, and Boines' tunes will likely remain scattered across various compilations that go in and out of print. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of collecting all the Houston Boines tunes in existence, in the hopes that it might introduce some folks to his music who might otherwise have overlooked him.

I encountered the first two songs on this compilation years ago on a Sun Records sampler, and painstakingly hunted down the rest over the years. It's sometimes hard to explain what it is about a particular bluesman that grabs me so hard. This music is certainly lacking the cohesive, almost pop arrangements of the more famous Chicago Blues tunes, and, although it has its origins in Mississippi, it isn't what most think of as "Mississippi blues" with all the acoustic/rural qualities that phrase tends to evoke.

Basically, this is what I think of as "Memphis music." Memphis in the 40s and early 50s was a fascinating hodgepodge of transplanted country bluesmen who were in the process of updating their sound to include electric instruments, particularly guitar and harmonica. Memphis during this time period frequently served as a sort of pit stop in a bluesman's career, a logical training ground to hone one's skills along the inevitable journey from the deep South to Chicago. As such, the music that came out of Memphis then was a good deal wilder, rougher and less sophisticated than much of what was coming out of the larger city to the North.

Houston Boines cut 8 complete tunes. They are crude and disjointed and sloppy, and I love them all. In addition to some fascinating lyrics that were entirely unique to him, there's just something about the quality of this man's voice that ties the haphazard timing and questionable intonation together into something that sounds like it couldn't have been played or recorded any other way.

There's not much known about Houston Boines and I've only been able to find one photo of him. He was born in Hazlehurst, MS, he played harmonica in Eddie Cusic's combo, The Rhythm Aces, he played some with Charley Booker and Jesse "Cleanhead" Love, he roomed with Little Milton in Leland, MS, and, backed by Milton, Ike Turner and others, he recorded these sides in Clarksdale and at Sun Records in Memphis before everyone lost track of him. There were rumors he spent time in Florida, but history catches up with him only once more, on his deathbed in a hospital in Jackson, MS in 1970.

Enjoy.

Houston Boines - Clarksdale MS, 1952 and Memphis, TN, 1953

1. Carry My Business On
2. Crying In The Courthouse (take 2)
3. Relation Blues
4. G Man
5. Operator Blues (take 3)
6. Going Home
7. Monkey Motion
8. Superintendent Blues
*9. Operator Blues (take 1, false start)
*10. Operator Blues (take 2)
*11. Crying In The Courthouse (take 1)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RbW8VbHtuLSf9dZJUHm0D0yGzkXPMCTv/view?usp=sharing

Levi Williams - Ain't Pickin' Cotton No More - 1997

During my Memphis days, Levi Williams was one of my favorite local musicians. He was one of the guys I never got tired of listening to, because he always put his all into every set he did. He never phoned it in, even if he was just playing in the park on a cold day for a handful of homeless dudes. It took me a long time to track this CD down. It was recorded in 1997 at a now-defunct studio and was probably mainly sold by Levi himself at gigs. There isn't much current info on Levi online, but I managed to find a guy on Ebay with this CD for sale (signed copy!) and snapped it up immediately. It's a solid set of what I believe are all original tunes, and it definitely deserves to be heard by folks outside of Memphis. Take a listen.

1. Goin' Deep Sea Fishin'
2. You Made A Good Man Out Of Me
3. Ain't Pickin' Cotton No More
4. San Antone
5. Trouble In My Home
6. Travelin' Shoes
7. Fine Lookin' Woman
8. Welfare Check
9. Shotgun
10. Burning Bush

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GWmrNwrn91dbwzf0guHc1sYKz08gDVgC/view?usp=sharing

Uncle Ben Perry

If you happened to be on Beale Street, in Memphis, TN, at any time in the last quarter of the 20th century, odds are that you heard Uncle Ben play. If you were a budding musician, you may have sat in with him for a few tunes, and if he liked the way you played, you may even have become one of his many "nephews."

It would be impossible to keep track of the scores of kids who sat in with Uncle Ben under those trees in Handy Park (before they gutted it, put a fence around it and started calling it the "Pepsi Pavillion"). He graciously allowed pretty much anyone to play a tune with him, whether they were seasoned professionals passing through or lily-green amateurs who didn't know a thing about the blues.

Playing the blues, year after year, for the motley assortment of folks who congregated in Handy Park, Uncle Ben had learned a thing or two about how to deal with crowds. For those that came under his tutelage, it was an advanced course, not only in how to handle yourself on the street, but also about how to really make blues your life. Uncle Ben had been down there, banging away on that cheap guitar and hollering those same songs as long as anyone could remember. He was the real deal.

This post collects what is - as far as I know - Uncle Ben's complete recorded output, minus the bit of him that you can see in Robert Palmer's "Deep Blues" film. It includes both his wonderful cassette releases from Bart Pate's Alley Way Records. Much respect and gratitude to Bart for giving us these priceless documents of Ben. It sounds like Bart, like many who have navigated the music business, wound up encountering too much of the darker side of human nature. But I'm sure glad he persisted with these projects before he got out of the business.

I have also included two cuts (recorded live on Beale Street) from the High Water "Deep South Blues" record, and one other song that I found on one of Brad Webb's records.

I heard Ben play these songs hundreds of times, and I'm really glad to have this musical memento of those days. I figured there might be others out there who feel the same way. Amazingly, for a guy who made such a mark on the Memphis music scene, this small handful of tunes is all we have to remember Uncle Ben by. So, I wanted to put them out there for whoever might appreciate it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E-YUUKA8VCtAalEiGL0-JmwZO4qvF6l0/view?usp=sharing

Uncle Ben Perry - Memphis Blues (1990)

1. Intro

2. Mama Look At Sis

3. Mean Woman Blues

4. Big City Living

5. Live It Down

6. I'm So Happy

7. Hey B.B.

8. Lies

9. When The Saints Go Marching In

10. Outro

Uncle Ben Perry – guitar, vocals

Clarence Govington – guitar, vocals

Gloria Sitz – bass

Uncle Ben Perry - Boogie Woogie (1992)

1. Boogie Woogie

2. Every Night

3. Shake It Baby

4. Just You Wait and See

5. Uncle Ben’s Theme

6. Gonna Rock Tonight

7. Goin’ To Richmond

8. Saturday Night Party

9. Ain’t It Funny

Uncle Ben Perry – guitar, vocals

Ronnie Morris – guitar

David Cunningham – tenor saxophone

Gloria Sitz – bass

David Workman – harmonica

Fred Ryan – percussion

+

Microwave Dave – slide guitar (4)

Rob Whitson – baritone saxophone (1,3)

Jim McLucky – trumpet (1)

---Mark Carrig and Uncle Ben Perry, Memphis, 1986

---Richard O’Donnell and Uncle Ben Perry, July 1991

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E-YUUKA8VCtAalEiGL0-JmwZO4qvF6l0/view?usp=sharing

Mississippi Cotton Club - You're the Girl - 1998

Some years ago I found the song "You're the Girl" on some website somewhere and it quickly became one of my favorite tunes. According to info I've gathered here and there on the web, Eddie Cotton Jr. grew up in Mississippi, studied music at Jackson State University, and eventually went on to serve as minister at his father's church. He's made several records over the years and they are all fantastic. This one, which was apparently recorded in a home studio, took me quite awhile to locate, and as far as I can tell, it's not available anywhere. Some fabulous, soulful music that deserves to be heard.

01. Time Will Tell
02. Why Must I Cry
03. What's Wrong With Me
04. You're The Girl
05. Vision Of A True Love
06. All Night Long
07. Love War
08. Don't Give Up On A Love Affair
09. Happy
10. Tell Me

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XiDk3G1zOJ9B_KKKjbuG7Hq-lZjIqJY4/view?usp=sharing