Alan Govenar (55 page)

12.
“European Blues,” Gold Star 665-B.

13.
Samuel Charters,
Walking a Blues Road: A Blues Reader 1956–2004
(New York: Marion Boyars, 2004), p. 221.

14.
Interview outtakes from The Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins, 1969.

15.
Anna Mae Box, interview by Alan Govenar, January 29, 2002.

16.
Interview outtakes from The Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins, 1969.

17.
Ibid.

18.
“Mrs. Lola Ann Cullum's ‘Radio Aggregation' Entertains at Glendale,”
Houston Informer,
September 14, 1940.

19.
Mike Leadbitter, “Mrs. Cullen Rediscovered,”
Blues Unlimited
46 (September 1967), pp. 7–8.

20.
Johnny Brown, interview by Alan Govenar, July 22, 2008.

21.
Ibid.

22.
Ibid.

23.
Sid Thompson, “Yer Nite Lifer,”
Houston Informer,
September 12, 1946.

24.
Ibid., October 5, 1946.

25.
Mike Leadbitter, “Mrs. Cullen Rediscovered,”
Blues Unlimited
46 (September 1967), pp. 7–8.

26.
Clyde Langford, interview by Alan Govenar, February 7, 2008.

27.
Leadbitter, pp. 7–8. There was a comedy team named “Thunder and Lightnin'” (not Smith and Hopkins) that had worked as an opening act for Milton Larkin and his Harlem Swing-Apators performing at the “Big All-Colored Midnite Show” at the Majestic Theatre in Houston in September 1939. Nothing is known about this comedy team and whether or not the naming of Smith and Hopkins had anything to do with them. However, a black convict named “Lightnin'” at Darrington State Farm in Sandy Point, Texas, was recorded by the Lomaxes in 1933 and 1934. It was not Sam Hopkins; but it makes one wonder how common a nickname this was.

28.
Frank X. Tolbert, “In Remembrance of Texas Bluesmen,”
Dallas Morning News,
March 1, 1982.

29.
Doyle Bramhall, interview by Alan Govenar, December 4, 2008.

30.
Ray Dawkins, interview by Alan Govenar, March 14, 2008.

31.
Brown, July 22, 2008.

32.
Ibid.

33.
Peppermint Harris to Hank Davis, liner notes to “I Got Loaded,” Route 66 KIX 23.

34.
Mack McCormick, quoted in Andrew Brown's liner notes to “Harry Choates, Devil in the Bayou,” Bear Family BCD 16355 BH, 2002.

35.
Advertisement for the “New Gulf Records,”
Billboard,
September 8, 1945.

36.
E-mail correspondence from Andrew Brown, June 3, 2009.

37.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to Lightnin'
Hopkins: Autobiography in Blues,
Tradition LP 1040.

38.
The exact chronology of Lightnin's releases in 1947 cannot be definitively established; this section relies on a probable chronology established by researcher Andrew Brown. It has long been assumed that Hopkins recorded “Short Haired Woman” for Aladdin first, then rerecorded it for Gold Star. (Strachwitz, liner notes to Lightnin'
Hopkins, The Gold Star Sessions, Vol. 1
[CD 330], 1990). But surviving paperwork from Bill Quinn's files (Meaux Papers, Center for American History, UT-Austin) supports the claim for Gold Star as the original label. No paperwork relating directly to Hopkins' sessions exists; however, a Quinn Recording Company contract for his cohort L. C. Williams does survive, upon which Quinn handwrote “Session 6/19/47.” This almost certainly dates Williams's debut on the label, “Trying, Trying” b/w “You Never Miss the Water” (Gold Star 614) to a session on June 19, 1947. Lightnin' plays piano and guitar on this single, which, if recorded on June 19, puts him in Quinn's studio almost two months before the August 15, 1947 Aladdin session. Lightnin's single “Shining Moon” (Gold Star 613) would then logically predate the Williams single, and “Short Haired Woman” (which prefigured the start of the 600 series) would predate both of them. Lightnin's May 7, 1948, “Option on Contract” with Quinn, referencing an earlier (now lost) contract set to expire on May 21, provides further evidence of a probable May 1947 session date for his first session for Gold Star. (Fellow blues artists Andy Thomas and Luther Stoneham signed contracts with Quinn dated June 19, 1947, and Curtis Amy's contract is dated July 18, 1947. None of this paperwork was available to earlier researchers, hence the long-standing confusion over the dating of Gold Star's blues series.) Internal evidence on the flipside, “Big Mama Jump,” also supports the chronology. During the song Lightnin' yells out, “Are you listenin', Mr. Crowe?” a reference to Houston record distributor H. M. Crowe (who was involved with Lightnin's career as late as the Herald sessions). In an interview years later with Chris Strachwitz, Lightnin' reminisced, “Now, he [Crowe] was sittin' there [in the studio]. He wanted me to do that. [Crowe] was the man runnin' with Quinn … Quinn's partner. He was a good fella.” (“Mr. Crow [sic] and Mr. Quinn,” on
The Best of Lightnin' Hopkins
[Arhoolie CD 499], 2001.) Lightnin' repeats the aside to Crowe on the Aladdin session, almost certainly in an effort to mimic his Gold Star version word for word rather than a personal acknowledgement of Crowe sitting in a Los Angeles recording studio. Finally, Quinn would have had no discernible reason to release a record that would have been readily available locally on the Aladdin label, yet Aladdin would have every reason to rerecord a breaking hit that a contracted artist of theirs had recorded, without their knowledge, for another label.

39.
By 1950, after the recording ban was history, the local union's rules had relaxed to the point that country musicians who couldn't read music were now admitted. Houston's African Americans would charter their own, segregated local of the AFM. The small labels continued on as before, however, with the tacit understanding between them, the AFM locals, and the union musicians that records made cheaply, and against union rules, were preferable to no records made at all.

40.
Gold Star 646.

41.
Brown, July 22, 2008.

42.
Chris Strachwitz, interview by Alan Govenar, May 20, 2009.

43.
SugarHill studios now occupies the Quinn's old residence and the second Gold Star building, not the one on Telephone Road where Lightnin' did most of his recording.

44.
Andy Bradley, interview by Alan Govenar, August 11, 2008.

45.
Ibid.

46.
Strachwitz, May 20, 2009. Strachwitz also recalled that Quinn told him that he had difficulty finding out how records were pressed. He tried to contact the pressing plants of several major labels, but they refused to help him. He checked encyclopedias, but didn't find much information and apparently learned the process on his own.

47.
In 1948, Eddie Henry, who owned record shops on Dowling Street in the Third Ward and on Lyons Avenue in the Fifth Ward and was, according to the
Informer,
one of the larger record distributors in the Southwest, started his own label. He put out releases by such local musicians as Conrad Johnson, Little Willie Littlefield, and Clarence Green, but never had any hits and shut down his label a year later. Sol Kahal, a doughnut shop operator and musician from Vermont, moved to Houston in 1948 and started the Freedom label, first acquiring some of Eddie's masters, and then producing a blues, country, and gospel series, which lasted until late 1951 or early 1952. Goree Carter, Sammy Harris, L. C. Williams, Lonnie Lyons, Big Joe Turner, and even Texas Alexander recorded for Freedom. Around 1947, Macy Lela Henry and her husband, Charlie, got their start as record distributors, but then started the Macy's label in 1949, probably the first to be run by a woman in the South. Over the next two years, Macy's had about sixty country releases, and twenty blues, but with two significant regional hits, Lester Williams's “Wintertime Blues” and Clarence Garlow's “Bon Ton Roulet.”

48.
For more information see Alan Govenar,
The Early Years of Rhythm and Blues
(Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, 2004) and Galen Gart and Roy C. Ames,
Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History and Discography
(Milford, New Hampshire: Nickel Publications, 1990.

49.
Bill Minutaglio, “Saying Goodbye,”
Houston Chronicle,
February 2, 1982.

50.
E-mail correspondence from Bill “Rascal” McCaskill, September 1, 2008.

51.
Johnny Brown, July 22, 2008.

52.
The “Race Records” chart was introduced by
Billboard
in 1945 as a catchall for all African American recordings to replace the chart called “Harlem Hit Parade,” which had been in use since 1942. In 1949 the “Race Records” chart was renamed “Rhythm and Blues.”

53.
Billboard,
February 25, 1949.

54.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to A
Treasury of Field Recordings,
Vol. 2, pp. 37. For more information see Bruce Jackson,
Wake Up Dead Man: Afro-American Worksongs from Texas Prisons
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972). Also, Joseph “Chinaman” Johnson's recording of “Three Moore Brothers” appears on Bruce Jackson's 1966 LP “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons,” Elektra EKL-296.

55.
Billboard,
August 13, 1949.

56.
Huey P. Meaux Papers, 1940–1994, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, box 96-384/23.

57.
For more information see Alan B. Govenar and Jay F. Brakefield,
Deep Ellum and Central Track: Where the Black and White Worlds Converged
(Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1998), p. 26.

58.
“The government excise tax on discs calls for a 10 percent fee at the first level of sale.”
Billboard,
February 7, 1948, p. 19. Also, “House Comm. Exempts Penny Machines From Excise Tax; See Other Levies Remaining,”
Billboard,
May 6, 1950, p. 107. E-mail correspondence from Andrew Brown, June 6, 2009.

59.
“When the US Government slapped a $26,000 fine and penalty on Gold Star Records, Bill (Quinn) quit record production and went back to operating a custom studio …” (Chris Strachwitz, liner notes to
Texas Blues: Bill Quinn's Gold Star Recordings
[Arhoolie CD 352], 1992.) In this account Strachwitz explains that Quinn “was under the impression that the pressing plants were paying this tax but apparently not so.” Since Quinn was pressing his own records, this doesn't make sense; it is far more likely that the twenty-six-thousand-dollar penalty was based upon the cumulative total sale and distribution of Gold Star records since the label's formation in 1946, and Quinn had simply never paid the tax. According to Strachwitz, the fine was eventually settled at a mere $250. E-mail correspondence from Andrew Brown, June 6, 2009.

60.
Billboard,
September 22, 1951.

61.
Quinn never gave a reason why he discontinued the 600 blues series long before he discontinued the Gold Star label itself. Frustrations with Lightnin' and Lil' Son Jackson may have contributed to its demise. Other Houston labels like Freedom, Peacock, and Macy's were now recording black music in earnest and driving musicians away from Quinn. Perhaps more importantly, his talent scout for blues artists, distributor and record store owner Eddie Henry, moved away from Houston in or around 1950. E-mail correspondence from Andrew Brown, June 6, 2009.

62.
Bob Shad, liner notes to
Lightning Hopkins Dirty Blues,
Mainstream MRL 326.

63.
Johnny Brown in Roger Wood,
Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003) p. 18.

64.
Arnold Shaw,
Honkers and Shouters
(New York: Collier Books 1986) p. 142–143.

65.
Bob Shad, liner notes to
Lightning Hopkins Dirty Blues,
Mainstream MRL 326.

66.
Hal Webman, “Rhythm and Blues Notes,”
Billboard,
February 9, 1952.

67.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to A
Treasury of Field Recordings,
Vol. 2, p. 51.

68.
Johnny Brown, July 22, 2008.

69.
Policy originated, according to blues historian Paul Oliver, among racketeers in Chicago around 1885 and was especially popular among poor African Americans because of the possibility of a large return for a small stake. Over time, policy became a traditional subject in blues, and songs about the game were recorded by musicians as diverse as Papa Charlie Jackson, Yodeling Kid Brown, Kokomo Arnold, Tommy Griffin, and Cripple Clarence Lofton.

70.
Billboard,
January 16, 1954.

71.
Billboard,
February 4, 1956.

72.
Herald 520.

73.
The headquarters for the Royal Amalgamated Association of Chitterling Eaters of America, Incorporated for the Preservation of Good Country Blues was in Town Creek, Alabama, where the Grand National Convention was each August.

74.
Tri-State Defender,
August 21, 1954, p. 15.

75.
Louis Cantor,
Wheelin' on Beale
(Pharos Books, New York, 1992), pp. 121–123.

76.
Cantor, p. 123, 154–168.

77.
Hunter Hancock, “Huntin' With Hunter: The Story of the West Coast R&B Disc Jockey,”
Blues & Rhythm,
No. 166, February 2002, pp. 12–14.

78.
Charles Shaar Murray, Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century, (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2002).

79.
Wood, p. 16.

80.
Mack McCormick, “A Conversation with Lightnin' Hopkins, Part 3”
Jazz Journal
14, no. 2 (February 1961), pp. 18–19.