Rock Roots

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1915 – April 30, 1983), known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered “the Father of blues”. Blues musicians Big Bill Morganfield and Larry “Mud Morganfield” Williams are his sons. A major inspiration for the British blues explosion in the 1960s, Muddy was ranked #17 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Although in his later years Muddy usually said that he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1915, he was actually born at Jug’s Corner in neighboring Issaquena County, Mississippi in 1913. Recent research has uncovered documentation showing that in the 1930s and 1940s he reported his birth year as 1913 on both his marriage license and musicians’ union card. A 1955 interview in the Chicago Defender is the earliest claim of 1915 as his year of birth, which he continued to use in interviews from that point onward. The 1920 census lists him as five years old as of March 6, 1920, suggesting that his birth year may have been 1914. The Social Security Death Index, relying on the Social Security card application submitted after his move to Chicago in the mid ’40s, lists him as being born April 4, 1915.

Son Sims, Muddy Waters

His grandmother Della Grant raised him after his mother died shortly after his birth. His fondness for playing in mud earned him the nickname “Muddy” at an early age. He later changed it to “Muddy Water” and finally “Muddy Waters”. He started out on harmonica but by age seventeen he was playing the guitar at parties emulating two blues artists who were extremely popular in the south, Son House and Robert Johnson. “His thick heavy voice, the dark coloration of his tone and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House,” wrote music critic Peter Guralnick in Feel Like Going Home, “but the embellishments which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson.”

On November 20, 1932 Muddy married Mabel Berry; Robert Nighthawk played guitar at the wedding, and the party reportedly got so wild the floor fell in. Mabel left Muddy three years later when Muddy’s first child was born – the child’s mother was Leola Spain, sixteen years old, (Leola later used her maiden name Brown), “married to a man named Steve” and “going with a guy named Tucker”. Leola was the only one of his girlfriends with whom Muddy would stay in touch throughout his life; they never married. By the time he finally cut out for Chicago in 1943, there was another Mrs. Morganfield left behind, a girl called Sallie Ann.

Alan Lomax listening to the Blues recordings he made

In 1940, Muddy moved to Chicago for the first time. He played with Silas Green a year later, and then returned to Mississippi. In the early part of the decade he ran a juke joint, complete with gambling, moonshine and a jukebox; he also performed music there himself. In the summer of 1941 Alan Lomax went to Stovall, Mississippi, on behalf of the Library of Congress to record various country blues musicians. “He brought his stuff down and recorded me right in my house,” Muddy recalled in Rolling Stone, “and when he played back the first song I sounded just like anybody’s records. Man, you don’t know how I felt that Saturday afternoon when I heard that voice and it was my own voice. Later on he sent me two copies of the pressing and a check for twenty bucks, and I carried that record up to the corner and put it on the jukebox. Just played it and played it and said, `I can do it, I can do it.’” Lomax came back again in July 1942 to record Muddy again. Both sessions were eventually released as Down On Stovall’s Plantation on the Testament label.

In 1943, Muddy headed back to Chicago with the hope of becoming a full-time professional musician. He lived with a relative for a short period while driving a truck and working in a factory by day and performing at night. Big Bill Broonzy, one of the leading bluesmen in Chicago at the time, helped Muddy break into the very competitive market by allowing him to open for his shows in the rowdy clubs. In 1945, Muddy’s uncle Joe Grant gave him his first electric guitar which enabled him to be heard above the noisy crowds.

Muddy Waters holding some of his first recordings

In 1946, he recorded some tunes for Mayo Williams at Columbia but they weren’t released at the time. Later that year he began recording for Aristocrat, a newly-formed label run by two brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess. In 1947, he played guitar with Sunnyland Slim on piano on the cuts “Gypsy Woman” and “Little Anna Mae.” These were also shelved, but in 1948 “I Can’t Be Satisfied” and “I Feel Like Going Home” became big hits and his popularity in clubs began to take off. Soon after, Aristocrat changed their label name to Chess Records and Muddy’s signature tune “Rollin’ Stone” also became a smash hit.

Initially, the Chess brothers would not allow Muddy to use his own musicians in the recording studio; instead he was provided with a backing bass by Ernest “Big” Crawford, or by musicians assembled specifically for the recording session, including “Baby Face” Leroy Foster and Johnny Jones. Gradually Chess relented, and by September 1953 he was recording with one of the most acclaimed blues groups in history: Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica; Jimmy Rogers on guitar; Elga Edmonds (a.k.a. Elgin Evans) on drums; Otis Spann on piano. The band recorded a series of blues classics during the early 1950s, some with the help of bassist/songwriter Willie Dixon, including “Hoochie Coochie Man” (Number 8 on the R&B charts), “I Just Want to Make Love to You” (Number 4), and “I’m Ready”. These three were “the most macho songs in his repertoire,” wrote Robert Palmer in Rolling Stone. “Muddy would never have composed anything so unsubtle. But they gave him a succession of showstoppers and an image, which were important for a bluesman trying to break out of the grind of local gigs into national prominence.”

Early Muddy Waters publicity photo

Muddy, along with his former harmonica player Little Walter Jacobs and recent southern transplant Howlin’ Wolf, reigned over the early 1950s Chicago blues scene, his band becoming a proving ground for some of the city’s best blues talent. While Little Walter continued a collaborative relationship long after he left Muddy’s band in 1952, appearing on most of Muddy’s classic recordings throughout the 1950s, Muddy developed a long-running, generally good-natured rivalry with Wolf. The success of Muddy’s ensemble paved the way for others in his group to break away and enjoy their own solo careers. In 1952 Little Walter left when his single “Juke” became a hit, and in 1955 Rogers quit to work exclusively with his own band, which had been a sideline until that time. Although he continued working with Muddy’s band, Otis Spann enjoyed a solo career and many releases under his own name beginning in the mid-1950s.

Muddy headed to England in 1958 and shocked audiences (whose only previous exposure to blues had come via the acoustic folk/blues sounds of acts such as Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Big Bill Broonzy) with his loud, amplified electric guitar and thunderous beat. His performance at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, recorded and released as his first live album, At Newport 1960, helped turn on a whole new generation to Waters’ sound. He expressed dismay when he realized that members of his own race were turning their backs on the genre while a white audience had shown increasing respect for the blues.

Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bo Diddley

However, for the better part of twenty years (since his last big hit in 1956, “I’m Ready”) Muddy was put on the back shelf by the Chess label and recorded albums with various “popular” themes: Brass And The Blues, Electric Mud, etc. In 1967, he joined forces with Bo Diddley, Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf to record the Super Blues and The Super Super Blues Band pair of albums of Chess blues standards. In 1972 he went back to England to record The London Muddy Waters Sessions with Rory Gallagher, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech and Mitch Mitchell — but their playing was not up to his standards. “These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before ‘em and play it, you know,” he told Guralnick. “But that ain’t what I need to sell my people, it ain’t the Muddy Waters sound. An’ if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man.”

Muddy’s sound was basically Delta blues electrified, but his use of microtones, in both his vocals and slide playing, made it extremely difficult to duplicate and follow correctly. “When I play on the stage with my band, I have to get in there with my guitar and try to bring the sound down to me. But no sooner than I quit playing, it goes back to another, different sound. My blues look so simple, so easy to do, but it’s not. They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play.”

Muddy Waters' son, Big Bill Morganfield

Muddy’s long-time wife Geneva died of cancer on March 15, 1973. A very devastated Muddy was taken to a doctor and told to quit smoking, which he did. Gaining custody of some of his “outside kids”, he moved them into his home, eventually buying a new house in suburban, mostly white Westmont, IL. Another teenage daughter turned up while on tour in New Orleans; Big Bill Morganfield was introduced to his Dad after a gig in Florida. Florida was also where Muddy met his future wife, the 19-year-old Marva Jean Brooks whom he nicknamed “Sunshine”.

On November 25, 1976, Muddy Waters performed at The Band’s farewell concert at Winterland in San Francisco. The concert was released as both a record and a film, The Last Waltz, featuring a performance of “Mannish Boy” with Paul Butterfield on harmonica.

James Cotton, Johnny Winter, Muddy Waters

In 1977 Johnny Winter convinced his label, Blue Sky, to sign Muddy, the beginning of a fruitful partnership. His “comeback” LP, Hard Again, was recorded in just two days and was a return to the original Chicago sound he had created 25 years earlier, thanks to Winter’s production. Former sideman James Cotton contributed harmonica on the Grammy Award-winning album and a brief but well-received tour followed.

The Muddy Waters Blues Band at the time included guitarists Sammy Lawhorn, Bob Margolin and Luther Johnson, pianist Pinetop Perkins, harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, bassist Calvin “Fuzz” Jones and drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith. On “Hard Again”, Winter played guitar in addition to producing; Muddy asked James Cotton to play harp on the session, and Cotton brought his own bassist Charles Calmese. According to Margolin’s liner notes, Muddy did not play guitar during these sessions. The album covers a broad spectrum of styles, from the opening of “Mannish Boy”, with shouts and hollers throughout, to the old-style Delta blues of “I Can’t Be Satisfied”, with a National Steel solo by Winter, to Cotton’s screeching intro to “The Blues Had a Baby”, to the moaning closer “Little Girl”. Its live feel harks back to the Chess Records days, and it evokes a feeling of intimacy and cooperative musicianship. The expanded reissue includes one bonus track, a remake of the 1950s single “Walking Through the Park”. The other outtakes from the album sessions appear on King Bee. Margolin’s notes state that the reissued album was remastered but that remixing was not considered to be necessary. Hard Again was the first studio collaboration between Waters and Winter, who produced his final four albums, the others being I’m Ready, King Bee, and Muddy “Mississippi” Waters – Live, for Blue Sky, a Columbia Records subsidiary.

Muddy Water's 1978 album, "I'm Ready"

In 1978 Winter recruited two of Muddy’s cohorts from the early ’50s, Big Walter Horton and Jimmy Rogers, and brought in the rest of his touring band at the time (harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, guitarist Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, and bassist Calvin Jones) to record Waters’ I’m Ready LP, which came close to the critical and commercial success of Hard Again.

The comeback continued in 1979 with the lauded LP Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live. “Muddy was loose for this one,” wrote Jas Obrecht in Guitar Player, “and the result is the next best thing to being ringside at one of his foot-thumping, head-nodding, downhome blues shows.” On the album, Muddy is accompanied by his touring band, augmented by Johnny Winter on guitar. The set list contains most of his biggest hits, and the album has an energetic feel. King Bee the following year concluded Waters’ reign at Blue Sky, and these last four LPs turned out to be his biggest-selling albums ever. King Bee was the last album Muddy Waters recorded. Coming last in a trio of studio outings produced by Johnny Winter, it is also a mixed bag. During the sessions for King Bee, Waters, his manager, and his band were involved in a dispute over money. According to the liner notes by Bob Margolin, the conflict arose from Waters’ health being on the wane and consequently playing fewer engagements. The band members wanted more money for each of the fewer gigs they did play in order to make ends meet. Ultimately a split occurred and the entire band quit. Because of the tensions in the studio preceding the split, Winter felt the sessions had not produced enough solid material to yield an entire album. He subsequently filled out King Bee with outtakes from earlier Blue Sky sessions and the cover photograph was by David Michael Kennedy. For the listener, King Bee is a leaner and meaner record. Less of the good-time exuberance present on the previous two outings is present here. The title track, “Mean Old Frisco”, “Sad Sad Day”, and “I Feel Like Going Home”, are all blues with ensemble work. The Sony Legacy issue features completely remastered sound and Margolin’s notes, and also hosts two bonus tracks from the King Bee sessions that Winter didn’t see fit to release the first time.

In 1981, Waters was invited to perform at ChicagoFest, the city’s top outdoor music festival. He was joined onstage by Johnny Winter — who had successfully produced Waters’ most recent albums — and played classics like “Mannish Boy,” “Trouble No More” and “Mojo Working” to a new generation of fans. This historic performance was made available on DVD in 2009 by Shout! Factory.

Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters at Waters' last public performance

In 1982, declining health dramatically curtailed Muddy’s performance schedule. Muddy Waters’ last public performance took place when he sat in with Eric Clapton’s band at a Clapton concert in Florida in autumn of 1982.

His influence is tremendous, over a variety of music genres: blues, rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, hard rock, folk, jazz, and country. He also helped Chuck Berry get his first record contract.

His 1958 tour of England marked possibly the first time amplified, modern urban blues was heard there, although on his first tour he was the only one amplified. His backing was provided by Englishman Chris Barber’s trad jazz group. (One critic retreated to the toilets to write his review because he found the band so loud).

The Rolling Stones named themselves after his 1950 song “Rollin’ Stone”, (also known as “Catfish Blues”, which Jimi Hendrix covered as well). Hendrix recalled “the first guitar player I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I first heard him as a little boy and it scared me to death”. Cream covered “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” on their 1966 debut album Fresh Cream, as Eric Clapton was a big fan of Muddy Waters when he was growing up, and his music influenced Clapton’s music career. The song was also covered by Canned Heat at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival and later adapted by Bob Dylan on the album Modern Times.

Muddy Waters' recording of Willie Dixon's "You Need Love" was the basis of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"

One of Led Zeppelin’s biggest hits, “Whole Lotta Love”, is lyrically based upon the Muddy Waters hit “You Need Love”, written by Willie Dixon. Dixon wrote some of Muddy Waters’ most famous songs, including “I Just Want to Make Love to You” (a big radio hit for Etta James, as well as the 1970s rock band Foghat), “Hoochie Coochie Man”, which The Allman Brothers Band famously covered, and “I’m Ready”, which was covered by Humble Pie. In 1993, Paul Rodgers released the album Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters, on which he covered a number of Muddy Waters songs, including “Louisiana Blues”, “Rollin’ Stone”, “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “I’m Ready” (among others) in collaboration with a number of famous guitarists such as Brian May and Jeff Beck.

Angus Young of the rock group AC/DC has cited Muddy Waters as one of his influences. The song title “You Shook Me All Night Long” came from lyrics of the Muddy Waters song “You Shook Me”, written by Willie Dixon and J. B. Lenoir. Earl Hooker first recorded it as an instrumental which was then overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters in 1962. Led Zeppelin also covered this song on their debut album Led Zeppelin I.

Robbie Robertson, Muddy Waters, Bob Margolin, and Paul Butterfield in Martin Scorsese's film about The Band, "The Last Waltz"

Muddy Waters’ songs have been featured in long-time fan’s Martin Scorsese’s movies, including The Color of Money, Casino and Goodfellas. Muddy Waters’ 1970s recording of his mid-’50s hit “Mannish Boy” (a.k.a. “I’m A Man”) was used in Goodfellas and the hit film Risky Business, and also features in the rockumentary The Last Waltz.

Screenwriter David Simon has written an unproduced teleplay about Muddy Waters’ life.

The 2006 Family Guy episode “Saving Private Brian” includes a parody of Muddy Waters trying to pass a kidney stone; his screams of pain form a call and response with the Chicago blues band in his bathroom.

In 1994, the US Post Office honored Muddy Waters with a commemorative stamp

In 2008, Jeffrey Wright portrayed Muddy in the biopic Cadillac Records, a film about the rise and fall of Chess Records and the lives of its recording artists. A second 2008 film about Leonard Chess and Chess Records, Who Do You Love, also covers Muddy’s time at Chess Records.

In 2009, in the movie, The Boat that Rocked (pirate radio in the UK) the cryptic message that late night DJ Bob gives to Carl to give to Carl’s mother is “Muddy Waters Rocks.”

On April 30, 1983 Muddy Waters died in his sleep, at his home in Westmont, Illinois. At his funeral at Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, throngs of blues musicians and fans showed up to pay tribute to one of the true originals of the art form. “Muddy was a master of just the right notes,” John P. Hammond, told Guitar World magazine. “It was profound guitar playing, deep and simple… more country blues transposed to the electric guitar, the kind of playing that enhanced the lyrics, gave profundity to the words themselves.”

Muddy Waters' final resting place at the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, IL

Two years after his death, Chicago honored him by designating the one-block section between 900 and 1000 E. 43rd Street near his former home on the south side “Honorary Muddy Waters Drive”. More recently, the Chicago suburb of Westmont, where Waters lived the last decade of his life, named a section of Cass Avenue near his home “Honorary Muddy Waters Way”. Following Waters’ death, fellow blues musician B.B. King (who was hugely influenced by Waters) told Guitar World, “It’s going to be years and years before most people realize how greatly he contributed to American music”. Attesting to the historic place of Muddy Waters in the development of the blues in Mississippi, a Mississippi Blues Trail marker has been placed in Clarksdale, Mississippi by the Mississippi Blues Commission designating the site of Muddy Waters’ cabin to commemorate his importance. The cabin of Muddy Waters still stands on the plantation of Stovall Mississippi, not very far from where he was said to have had other relatives.

CHAMPAGNE AND REEFER

THEY CALL ME MUDDY WATERS

YOU NEED LOVE

MANNISH BOY (from the film “The Last Waltz”)

GOT MY MOJO WORKIN’ (Muddy with friends including Dr. John, Koko Taylor, and Johnny Winter)

Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin (between July 1867 and January 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. He achieved fame for his unique ragtime compositions, and was dubbed the “King of Ragtime.” During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the “Maple Leaf Rag”, became ragtime’s first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

He was born into a musical African-American family of laborers in eastern Texas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. During the late 1880s he traveled around the American South as an itinerant musician, and went to Chicago for the World’s Fair of 1893 which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.

His composition in 1899 of the “Maple Leaf Rag” brought him fame, and had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life with royalties of one cent per sale, equivalent to 26 cents per sale in current value. During his lifetime Joplin did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems, which contributed to the loss of his first opera, A Guest of Honor. He continued to write ragtime compositions, and moved to New York in 1907. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form which made him famous, without much monetary success. His second opera, Treemonisha, was not received well at its partially staged performance in 1911. He died from complications of tertiary syphilis in 1917.

Joshua Rifkin

Joplin’s music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album of Joplin’s rags recorded by Joshua Rifkin, followed by the Academy award–winning movie The Sting which featured several of his compositions, such as “The Entertainer”. The opera Treemonisha was finally produced in full to wide acclaim in 1972. In 1976 Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Scott Joplin, the second of six children, was born in eastern Texas, outside of Texarkana, to Giles Joplin and Florence Givins. His birth, like many others, represented the first post-slavery generation of African Americans. Although for many years his birth date was accepted as November 24, 1868, research has revealed that this is almost certainly inaccurate – the most likely approximate date being the second half of 1867. In addition to Scott, other children of Giles and Florence were Monroe, Robert, Rose, William, and Johnny. His father was an ex-slave from North Carolina and his mother was a freeborn African American woman from Kentucky. After moving to Texarkana a few years after Joplin was born, Giles began working as a common laborer for the railroad. Florence did laundry and cleaning for additional income. Joplin was given a rudimentary musical education by his musical family, Florence playing the banjo and singing, and Giles playing and teaching the violin to Joplin, Robert and William; at the age of seven he was allowed to play piano in both a neighbor’s house and at the home of an attorney while his mother worked.

At some point in the early 1880s, Giles Joplin left the family for another woman, leaving Florence to provide for her children through domestic work. Biographer Susan Curtis speculated that his mother’s support of Joplin’s musical education was an important causal factor in this separation; his father argued that it took the boy away from practical employment which would have supplemented the family income.

Early layout of Texarkana

According to a family friend, the young Joplin was serious and ambitious. While in elementary school, he spent his after-school hours studying music and learning to play piano. While a few local teachers aided him, he received most of his serious music education from Julius Weiss, a German-Jewish music professor who had immigrated to the U.S. Weiss had studied music at a university in Germany and was listed in town records as a “Professor of music.” Impressed by Joplin’s talent, and realizing his family’s dire straits, Weiss taught him free of charge. He tutored the 11-year-old Joplin until he was 16, during which time he introduced him to folk and classical music, including opera, sometimes playing the classics for him along with describing the great composers. Weiss supported the young composer’s ambitions and helped his mother acquire a used piano from another student. Joplin, according to his wife Lottie, never forgot Weiss, and in his later years, when he achieved fame as a composer, sent his former teacher “gifts of money when he was old and ill,” until Weiss died.

Joplin played music at church gatherings and for non-religious entertainments such as African-American dances. Although it is likely he played well-known dances of the era, “waltzes, polkas, and schottisches”, eye-witnesses recalled him playing his own compositions; “He did not have to play anybody else’s music. He made up his own, and it was beautiful; he just got his music out of the air.”

In the late 1880s, having performed at various local events as a teenager, Joplin chose to give up his only steady employment as a laborer with the railroad and left Texarkana to work as traveling musician. He was soon to discover that there were few opportunities for black pianists, however; besides the church, brothels were one of the few options for obtaining steady work. Joplin played pre-ragtime ‘jig-piano’ in various red-light districts throughout the mid-South. He also managed to fit in classes in composition and counterpoint at one of the nation’s first all-black academic institutions, the George R. Smith College for Negroes in Sedalia, Missouri.

Scott Joplin's home at 2658 Delmar Boulevard in St. Louis, MO

By the early 1890s, Ragtime had become popular among African-Americans in the cities of St. Louis and Chicago. In 1893 large numbers of African-American musicians, including Joplin, made their way to Chicago to perform for the visitors at the World’s Fair. They found work in the cafés, saloons and brothels that lined the fair and the city’s seedy and corrupt “Tenderloin” district. While in Chicago, Joplin formed his first band and began arranging music for the group to perform. Although the World’s Fair was “not congenial to African Americans,” he still found that his music, as well as that of other black performers, was popular with visitors. The Exposition was attended by 27 million Americans and had a profound effect on many areas of American cultural life, including ragtime. Although specific information is sparse, numerous sources have credited the Chicago World Fair with spreading the popularity of ragtime. By 1897 ragtime had become a national craze in American cities, and was described by the St. Louis Dispatch as “a veritable call of the wild, which mightily stirred the pulses of city bred people.”

Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri in 1894 and began working as a pianist in the Maple Leaf Club and the Black 400, social clubs for “respectable [black] gentlemen”. (By 1900 the city was the fifth-largest in the state, with about 15,000 people.) He gained a reputation as a well-respected piano player, and began composing songs and teaching music. One of his earliest works in 1896 was “The Great Crush Collision March”, a “special… early essay in ragtime”, written after a staged train crash in McLennan County, Texas, at which Joplin may have been present.

Sheet music for Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag"

In 1899, Joplin married Belle, the sister-in-law of collaborator Scott Hayden and sold what would soon become one of his most famous pieces, “Maple Leaf Rag”, to John Stark & Son, a Sedalia music publisher. It was an immediate success and was ragtime’s first hit, in addition to being the first great instrumental music hit in America. It sold 75,000 copies in about six months. It also served as a model for the hundreds of rags to come from future composers, especially in the development of classic ragtime. After the publication of the “Maple Leaf Rag”, Joplin was soon being described as “King of rag time writers”, not least by himself on the covers of his own work, such as “The Easy Winners” and “Elite Syncopations”.

After the Joplins’ move to St. Louis in early 1900, they had a baby daughter who died only a few months after birth. Joplin’s relationship with his wife was difficult as she had no interest in music; they eventually separated and then divorced. About this time, Joplin collaborated with Scott Hayden in the composition of four rags. It was in St. Louis that Joplin produced some of his best-known works, including “The Entertainer”, “March Majestic”, and the short theatrical work “The Ragtime Dance”.

In June 1904, Joplin married Freddie Alexander of Little Rock, Arkansas, the young woman to whom he had dedicated “The Chrysanthemum” (1904). She died on September 10, 1904 of complications resulting from a cold, ten weeks after their wedding. Joplin’s first work copyrighted after Freddie’s death, “Bethena” (1905), was described by one biographer as “an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of ragtime waltzes”.

During this time, Joplin created an opera company of 30 people and produced his first opera A Guest of Honor for a national tour. It is not certain how many productions were staged, or even if this was an all-black show or a racially mixed production (which would have been unusual for 1903). During the tour, either in Springfield, Illinois, or Pittsburg, Kansas, someone associated with the company stole the box office receipts. Joplin could not meet the company’s payroll or pay for the company’s lodgings at a theatrical boarding house. It is believed the score for A Guest of Honor was lost and perhaps destroyed because of non-payment of the company’s boarding house bill.

The sheet music for Scott Joplin's opera, "Treemonisha"

In 1907 Scott Joplin moved to New York City, which he believed was the best place to find a producer for a new opera. After his move to New York, Joplin met Lottie Stokes, whom he married in 1909. In 1911, unable to find a publisher, Joplin undertook the financial burden of publishing Treemonisha himself in piano-vocal format. In 1915, as a last ditch effort to see it performed, he invited a small audience to hear it at a rehearsal hall in Harlem. Poorly staged and with only Joplin on piano accompaniment, it was “a miserable failure,” the public being not yet ready for “crude” black musical forms, so different from the style of European grand opera of that time. The audience, including potential backers, was indifferent and walked out. Scott writes that “after a disastrous single performance … Joplin suffered a breakdown. He was bankrupt, discouraged, and worn out.” He concludes that few American artists of his generation faced such obstacles: “Treemonisha went unnoticed and unreviewed, largely because Joplin had abandoned commercial music in favor of art music, a field closed to African Americans.” In fact, it was not until the 1970s that the opera received a full theatrical staging.

In 1914, Joplin and Lottie self-published his “Magnetic Rag”. using the name the “Scott Joplin Music Company” which had been formed the previous December. Biographer Vera Brodsky Lawrence speculates that Joplin was aware of his advancing deterioration due to syphilis and was “consciously racing against time.” She noted that he “plunged feverishly into the task of orchestrating his opera, day and night, with his friend Sam Patterson standing by to copy out the parts, page by page, as each page of the full score was completed.

The Manhattan State Hospital where Scott Joplin died. Today it is referred to as The Manhattan Psychiatric Center

By 1916, Joplin was suffering from tertiary syphilis and a resulting descent into madness In January 1917, he was admitted to Manhattan State Hospital, a mental institution. He died there on April 1, 1917 of dementia. After Joplin’s death at the age of just 49, from advanced syphilis, he was buried in a pauper’s grave that remained unmarked for 57 years. His grave at Saint Michaels Cemetery, in East Elmhurst, was finally honored in 1974.

About Treemonisha

The opera’s setting is a former slave community in an isolated forest near Joplin’s childhood town Texarkana in September 1884. The plot centers on an 18 year old woman Treemonisha who is taught to read by a white woman, and then leads her community against the influence of conjurers who prey on ignorance and superstition. Treemonisha is abducted and is about to be thrown into a wasps’ nest when her friend Remus rescues her. The community realizes the value of education and the liability of their ignorance before choosing her as their teacher and leader.

Joplin wrote both the score and the libretto for the opera, which largely follows the form of European opera with many conventional arias, ensembles and choruses. In addition the themes of superstition and mysticism which are evident in Treemonisha are common in the operatic tradition, and certain aspects of the plot echo devices in the work of the German composer Richard Wagner (of which Joplin was aware); a sacred tree under which Treemonisha is found recalls the tree from which Siegmund takes his enchanted sword in Die Walküre, and the retelling of the heroine’s origins echos aspects of the opera Siegfried. In addition, African-American folk tales also influence the story, with the wasp nest incident being similar to the story of Br’er Rabbit and the briar patch.

Treemonisha is not a ragtime opera because Joplin employed the styles of ragtime and other black music sparingly, using them to convey “racial character”, and to celebrate the music of his childhood at the end of the 19th Century. The opera has been seen as a valuable record of rural black music from 1870s-1890s re-created by a “skilled and sensitive participant”.

Edward A. Berlin, author of the book, "King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era"

Biographer, Edward A. Berlin speculates about parallels between the plot and Joplin’s own life. He notes that Lottie Joplin (the composer’s third wife) saw a connection between the character Treemonisha’s wish to lead her people out of ignorance, and a similar desire in the composer. In addition, it has been speculated that Treemonisha represents Freddie Joplin’s second wife, because the date of the opera’s setting was likely to have been the month of her birth.

At the time of the opera’s publication in 1911, the American Musician and Art Journal praised it as “an entirely new form of operatic art”. Later critics have also praised the opera as occupying a special place in American history, with its heroine “a startlingly early voice for modern civil rights causes, notably the importance of education and knowledge to African American advancement.” Curtis’s conclusion is similar: “In the end, Treemonisha offered a celebration of literacy, learning, hard work, and community solidarity as the best formula for advancing the race.” Berlin describes it as a “fine opera, certainly more interesting than most operas then being written in the United States”, but then states that Joplin’s own libretto showed the composer “was not a competent dramatist” with the book not up to the same quality as the music.

Joplin’s skills as a pianist were described in glowing terms by a Sedalia newspaper in 1898, and fellow ragtime composers Arthur Marshall and Joe Jordan both said that he played the instrument well. However, the son of publisher John Stark stated that Joplin was a rather mediocre pianist and that he composed on paper, rather than at the piano. Artie Matthews recalled the “delight” the St. Louis players took in outplaying Joplin.

You can still hear Joplin play by listening to recordings of the piano rolls he made in 1916

While Joplin never made an audio recording, he did use the early piano roll for use on mechanical player pianos, for which he made seven rolls in 1916. Of the seven rolls attributed to Joplin, the 6 rolls released under the Connorized label show evidence of significant editing, probably by Connorized staff arranger, William Axtmann. Even if Joplin did record the Connorized rolls, they are likely to have been edited beyond semblance of Joplin’s original performance. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin reached St. Louis he may have been experiencing disco-ordination of the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis the disease that took his life in 1917. The second roll recording of “Maple Leaf Rag”, on the UniRecord label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as “… shocking… disorganized and completely distressing to hear.” While there is disagreement among piano-roll experts about the accuracy of the reproduction of a player’s performance, Berlin notes that the “Maple Leaf Rag” roll was “painfully bad” and likely to be the truest record of Joplin’s playing at the time. The roll, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life.

Joplin and his fellow ragtime composers rejuvenated American popular music, fostering an appreciation for African American music among European Americans by creating exhilarating and liberating dance tunes, changing American musical taste. “Its syncopation and rhythmic drive gave it a vitality and freshness attractive to young urban audiences indifferent to Victorian proprieties… Joplin’s ragtime expressed the intensity and energy of a modern urban America.”

Joshua Rifkin, a leading Joplin recording artist, wrote that “a pervasive sense of lyricism infuses his work, and even at his most high-spirited, he cannot repress a hint of melancholy or adversity… He had little in common with the fast and flashy school of ragtime that grew up after him.” Joplin historian Bill Ryerson adds that “In the hands of authentic practitioners like Joplin, ragtime was a disciplined form capable of astonishing variety and subtlety… Joplin did for the rag what Chopin did for the mazurka. His style ranged from tones of torment to stunning serenades that incorporated the bolero and the tango.”

Joplin biographer Susan Curtis expands on those observations:

The King of Ragtime

“When Scott Joplin syncopated his way into the hearts of millions of Americans at the turn of the century, he helped revolutionize American music and culture. His ragged rhythms and lilting melodies made people want to tap their feet, slap their thighs, or dance with happy abandon. As Americans embraced his music, they participated in a dramatic transformation of American popular culture – their Victorian restraint gave way to modern exuberance. And whether in the elegant parlors of comfortable, respectable American homes or in the honky tonks and cafes of America’s sporting districts, ragtime music accompanied a reorientation of cultural values in America in the twentieth century. The excellence and appeal of his compositions earned for Joplin the generally accepted title “King of Ragtime”.

Composer and actor Max Morath found it striking that the vast majority of Joplin’s work did not enjoy the popularity of the “Maple Leaf Rag”, because while the compositions were “of increasing lyrical beauty and delicate syncopation” they remained “obscure” and “unheralded” during his lifetime. Joplin apparently realized that his music was ahead of its time: As music historian Ian Whitcomb mentions, Joplin “opined that “Maple Leaf Rag” would make him ‘King of Ragtime Composers’ but he also knew that he would not be a pop hero in his own lifetime. ‘When I’m dead twenty-five years, people are going to recognize me,’ he told a friend.” Just over thirty years later he was recognized, and later historian Rudi Blesh would write a large book about ragtime, which he dedicated to the memory of Scott Joplin.

Jazz historian, Floyd Levin with Louis Armstrong

Although he was penniless and disappointed at the end of his life, Joplin set the standard for ragtime compositions and played a key role in the development of ragtime music. And as a pioneer composer and performer, he helped pave the way for young black artists to reach American audiences of both races. And when he died, notes jazz historian Floyd Levin, “those few who realized his greatness bowed their heads in sorrow. This was the passing of the king of all ragtime writers, the man who gave America a genuine native music.”

After his death in 1917, Joplin’s music and ragtime in general waned in popularity as new forms of musical styles, such as jazz and novelty piano, emerged. Even so, jazz bands and recording artists such as Tommy Dorsey in 1936, Jelly Roll Morton in 1939 and J. Russell Robinson in 1947 released recordings of Joplin compositions. “Maple Leaf Rag” was the Joplin piece found most often on 78 rpm records.

In the 1960s, a small-scale reawakening of interest in classic ragtime was underway among some American music scholars such as Trebor Tichenor, William Bolcom, William Albright and Rudi Blesh. In 1968, Bolcom and Albright interested Joshua Rifkin, a young musicologist, in the body of Joplin’s work. Together, they hosted an occasional ragtime-and-early-jazz evening on WBAI radio.

In November 1970, Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin Piano Rags on the classical label Nonesuch. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch’s first million-selling record. Record stores found themselves for the first time putting ragtime in the classical music section. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories: Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra). Rifkin was also under consideration for a third Grammy for a recording not related to Joplin, but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. Rifkin did a tour in 1974, which included appearances on BBC Television and a sell-out concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

In January 1971, Harold C. Schonberg, music critic at the New York Times, having just heard the Rifkin album, wrote a featured Sunday edition article entitled “Scholars, Get Busy on Scott Joplin!” Schonberg’s call to action has been described as the catalyst for classical music scholars, the sort of people Joplin had battled all his life, to conclude that Joplin was a genius. Vera Brodsky Lawrence of the New York Public Library published a two-volume set of Joplin works in June 1971, entitled The Collected Works of Scott Joplin, stimulating a wider interest in the performance of Joplin’s music that included a recording called Joplin: The Red Back Book by Gunther Schuller, a french horn player and music professor.

The Sting was the impetus for bringing Scott Joplin back into the limelight fifty-six years after his death

Marvin Hamlisch lightly adapted Joplin’s music for the 1973 film The Sting, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and Adaptation on April 2, 1974. His version of “The Entertainer” reached #3 on the American Top 40 music chart on May 18, 1974, prompting the New York Times to write, “the whole nation has begun to take notice”. Thanks to the film and its score, Joplin’s work became appreciated in both the popular music world and in the classical music world, becoming (in the words of music magazine Record World), the “classical phenomenon of the decade”.

On October 22, 1971, excerpts from Treemonisha were presented in concert form at Lincoln Center with musical performances by Bolcom, Rifkin and Mary Lou Williams supporting a group of singers. Finally, on January 28, 1972, T.J. Anderson’s orchestration of Treemonisha was staged for two consecutive nights, sponsored by the Afro-American Music Workshop of Morehouse College in Atlanta, with singers accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Robert Shaw, and choreography by Katherine Dunham. Schonberg remarked in February 1972 that the “Scott Joplin Renaissance” was in full swing and still growing. In May 1975, Treemonisha was staged in a full opera production by the Houston Grand Opera.

Original Broadway Cast Recording of Joplin's opera, "Treemonisha"

The company toured briefly, then settled into an eight-week run in New York on Broadway at the Palace Theater in October and November. This appearance was directed by Gunther Schuller, and soprano Carmen Balthrop alternated with Kathleen Battle as the title character. An “original Broadway cast” recording was produced. Because of the lack of national exposure given to the brief Morehouse College staging of the opera in 1972, many Joplin scholars wrote that the Houston Grand Opera’s 1975 show was the first full production.

1974 saw the Royal Ballet, under director Kenneth MacMillan, create Elite Syncopations a ballet based on tunes by Joplin and other composers of the era. That year also brought the premiere by the Los Angeles Ballet of Red Back Book, choreographed by John Clifford to Joplin rags from the collection of the same name, including both solo piano performances and arrangements for full orchestra.

1970: Joplin was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame by the National Academy of Popular Music.

The US Post Office issued a commemorative postage stamp featuring Scott Joplin in 1983

1976: Joplin was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his special contribution to American music.

1977: Motown Productions produced Scott Joplin, a biographical film starring Billy Dee Williams as Joplin, released by Universal Pictures.

1983: the United States Postal Service issued a stamp of the composer as part of its Black Heritage commemorative series.

1989: Joplin received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

2002: a collection of Scott Joplin’s own performances recorded on piano rolls in the 1900s was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. The board annually selects songs that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

MAPLE LEAF RAG (from piano roll made by Scott Joplin)

EASY WINNER (from piano roll made by Scott Joplin)

PLEASANT MOMENTS (from piano roll made by Scott Joplin)

THE ENTERTAINER (a piano roll – artist unknown)

From Wikipedia:

“Love Hurts” is the name of a song, written and composed by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. First recorded by The Everly Brothers in July 1960, the song is best known from a 1975 international hit version by the rock band Nazareth.

The song was introduced in December 1960 as an album track on A Date with The Everly Brothers, but was never released as a single (A-side or B-side) by the Everlys. The first hit version of the song was by Roy Orbison, who earned Australian radio play, hitting the Top Five of that country’s singles charts in 1961. A recording by Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons was included on Parsons’ posthumously released Grievous Angel album. After Parsons’ 1973 death, Harris made the song a staple of her repertoire, and has included it in her concert set lists from the 1970s to the present. Harris has since re-recorded the song twice.

The most successful recording of the song was by hard rock/heavy metal band Nazareth, who took the song to the U.S. Top 10 in 1975 and hit number one in Norway and the Netherlands. The song was covered by Cher in 1975 for her album Stars. Cher re-recorded the song in 1991 for her album of the same name.

Roy Orbison covered “Love Hurts” in 1961 and issued it as the B-side to “Running Scared”. While “Running Scared” was an international hit, the B-side only picked up significant airplay in Australia. Consequently, chart figures for Australia show “Running Scared”/”Love Hurts” as a double A-Side, both sides peaking at #5. This makes Orbison’s recording of “Love Hurts” the first version to be a hit.

Performed as a rock ballad, the Nazareth version was the most popular version of the song and the only rendition of “Love Hurts” to become a big hit single, reaching #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1976. As part of the “Hot Tracks (EP)” it also reached #15 in the UK in 1977. Nazareth’s version was an international hit (reaching #8 in the US, #15 in the UK, and #1 in Canada and Norway), and remains the best-known recording of the song. The Nazareth single was so successful in Norway that it charted for 57 consecutive weeks on the Norwegian charts (VG-lista Top 10), including 14 weeks at #1.

A later recording by Nazareth, featuring the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, peaked at #89 in Germany.

The lyrics of the song remained unchanged on all versions up until Nazareth’s 1975 recording, where the original line “love is like a stove/it burns you when it’s hot” was changed to “love is like a flame/it burns you when it’s hot”. The Nazareth track has been featured in the movies Dazed and Confused, Detroit Rock City, Together, and Halloween, among others. It was edited for use in a late-’90s Gatorade TV commercial. In 2009, it was used in a TV commercial for the Nissan Altima.

THE EVERLY BROTHERS

ROY ORBISON

GRAM PARSONS & EMMYLOU HARRIS

NAZARETH

JOAN JETT

Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline (September 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963), born Virginia Patterson Hensley, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s. Since her death in 1963 at age 30 in a private airplane crash at the height of her career, she has been considered one of the most influential, successful, and acclaimed female vocalists of the 20th century.

Cline was best known for her rich tone and emotionally expressive bold contralto voice, which, along with her role as a mover and shaker in the country music industry, has been cited as an inspiration by many vocalists of various music genres. Her life and career have been the subject of numerous books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays.

Her hits included “Walkin’ After Midnight”, “I Fall to Pieces”, “She’s Got You”, “Crazy” and “Sweet Dreams”. Posthumously, millions of her albums have sold over the past 50 years and she has been given numerous awards, which have given her an iconic status with some fans similar to that of legends Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Ten years after her death, she became the first female solo artist inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Patsy Cline's plaque in the Country Music Hall of Fame

In 2002, Cline was voted by artists and members of the country music industry as number one on CMT’s television special, The 40 Greatest Women of Country Music, and in 1999 she was voted number 11 on VH1′s special The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll by members and artists of the rock industry. She was also ranked ranked 46th in Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Singers of all Time.” According to her 1973 Country Music Hall of Fame plaque, “Her heritage of timeless recordings is testimony to her artistic capacity.”

Born September 8, 1932, in Winchester, Virginia, she was the daughter of Sam and Hilda Patterson Hensley, a blacksmith and a seamstress; Hilda was only 16 when Patsy was born. Patsy was the eldest of three children, the others being Samuel and Sylvia. The three children, despite their given names, were called Ginny, John, and Sis. Patsy grew up a poor girl “on the wrong side of the tracks,” but except for the fact that her father deserted the family in 1947, when she was 15, the Hensley home was quite happy.

Patsy Cline's childhood home in Winchester, Virginia

The family lived in many different places around Virginia before settling in Winchester. Cline often said as a child that she would one day be famous, and admired stars such as Judy Garland and Shirley Temple. A serious illness as a child caused a throat infection which, according to Cline, resulted in her gift of “a voice that boomed like Kate Smith’s.” Well-rounded in her musical tastes, Cline cited everyone from Kay Starr to Hank Williams as influences. As a child, she often sang in church with her mother. Cline was also a by-ear pianist who sang with perfect pitch.

Cline began performing in variety-talent showcases in and around Winchester. She asked WINC-AM disc jockey Jimmy McCoy if he would let her sing on his show, which he did. His program was a showcase for local talent.

To help support her family after her father abandoned them, she dropped out of high school and worked various jobs, soda jerking and waitressing by day at The Triangle Diner across the street from her school, John Handley High. At night, Cline could be found singing at local nightclubs, wearing fringed Western stage outfits that she designed and that her mother made.

Patsy Cline and her first husband, Gerald Cline in Nashville, TN (circa 1955)

In her early 20s, Cline met two men who would influence her rise to stardom. The first was contractor Gerald Cline, whom she married in 1953 and divorced in 1957. The dissolution of the marriage was blamed not only on a considerable age difference, but also Patsy Cline’s desire to sing professionally and Gerald Cline’s lack of support of her quest for stardom. While she dreamed of a career as a superstar, he wanted her to conform to the role of a housewife first. The second was Bill Peer, her new manager, who gave her the name Patsy, from her middle name and her mother’s maiden name, Patterson.

Cline’s numerous appearances on local radio attracted a large following in the Virginia-Maryland area—especially when Jimmy Dean learned of her. In 1954 she became a regular on Connie B. Gay’s Town and Country afternoon radio show on WARL-AM in Washington, DC, which also featured Dean, himself a young country star.

Jimmy Dean and Patsy Cline

In 1955, Cline was signed to Four Star Records. Her contract, however, only allowed her to record compositions by Four Star writers; Cline disliked this, and later expressed regret over signing with the label. Her first record for Four Star was “A Church, A Courtroom & Then Good-Bye”, which attracted little attention, although it did lead to several appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. Between 1955 and 1957, Cline also recorded honky tonk material, with songs like “Fingerprints”, “Pick Me Up On Your Way Down”, “Don’t Ever Leave Me Again”, and “A Stranger In My Arms”; the latter two both co-written by Cline, and she experimented with rockabilly. None of these songs, however, gained any notable success.

According to Owen Bradley, her Decca Records producer, the Four Star compositions only seemed to hint at the potential that lurked inside of Cline. Bradley thought her voice was best suited for singing pop music. The Four Star producers, however, insisted that Cline would record only country songs, as her contract also stated. During her contract with Four Star, she recorded 51 songs.

Patsy Cline's first major hit, "Walkin' After Midnight"

Cline made her network television debut on January 7, 1956 on ABC-TV’s Grand Ole Opry; followed by an appearance on the network’s Ozark Jubilee later that month, returning to the show in April. Later that year, while looking for material for her first album, Patsy Cline, a song appeared titled “Walkin’ After Midnight”, written by Don Hecht and Alan Block. Cline initially did not like the song because it was, according to her, “just a little old pop song.” However, the song’s writers and record label insisted she should record it.

She auditioned for Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts in New York City, and was accepted to sing on the CBS-TV show on January 21, 1957. Godfrey’s “discovery” of Cline was typical. Her scout, actually her mother, presented Patsy who initially was supposed to sing “A Poor Man’s Roses (Or a Rich Man’s Gold)”, but the show’s producers insisted she instead sing her recent release, “Walkin’ After Midnight”. Though heralded as a country song, recorded in Nashville, Godfrey’s staff insisted Cline not wear one of her mother’s hand-crafted cowgirl outfits but appear in a cocktail dress.

Patsy Cline performing

The audience’s enthusiastic ovations stopped the meter at its apex, and she won the competition and was invited to return. The song was so well-received that she released it as a single. In short, although Cline had been performing for almost a decade and had appeared nationally three times on ABC-TV, Godfrey was largely responsible for making her a star. For a couple of months thereafter, Cline appeared regularly on Godfrey’s radio program.

“Walkin’ After Midnight” reached No. 2 on the country chart and No. 12 on the pop chart, making Cline one of the first country singers to have a crossover pop hit. She rode high on the hit for the next year, making personal appearances and performing regularly on both Godfrey’s show, and for several years on Ozark Jubilee (later Jubilee USA). She could not follow it up with another hit, however, in part because of the deal with Four Star that limited her to recording songs only from its writers.

Cline co-wrote two songs, both in 1957 under her birth name, Virginia Hensley:

• “A Stranger in My Arms”, written with Charlotte White, and Mary Lu Jeans and recorded on April 24, 1957. The song was released as a Decca 45 single (Decca 30406), on August 12, 1957 b/w “Three Cigarettes (In An Ashtray)”, and also as a 45 single on the Festival label as Festival SP45-1620.
• “Don’t Ever Leave Me Again”, written with James E. Crawford, Jr., and Lillian N. Claiborne. “Don’t Ever Leave Me Again” appeared on the 1957 Decca LP Patsy Cline and was the title track of a 1991 compilation album released on Laser Light.

Patsy Cline and Charlie Dick on their wedding day

Also in 1957, she met Charlie Dick, a good-looking ladies’ man who frequented the local club circuit Cline played on weekends. His charismatic personality and admiration of Cline’s talents captured her attention. Their relationship resulted in a marriage that would last the rest of her life. Though their love affair has long been publicized as controversial, Cline regarded him as “the love of her life.” After the birth of their daughter, Julie, in 1958, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1959, Cline met Randy Hughes, who became her manager. With Hughes’s promotion and a new label, Cline would begin her ascent to the top. When her Four Star contract expired in 1960, she signed with Decca Records-Nashville, under the direction of legendary producer Owen Bradley. He was not only responsible for much of the success behind Cline’s recording career, but he positively influenced the careers of Brenda Lee and Loretta Lynn as well.

Thanks to her vocal versatility, and with the help of Bradley’s direction and arrangements, Cline enjoyed both country and pop success. His arrangements incorporated strings and other instruments not typical of country recordings of the day. He considered Cline’s voice best-suited for country pop-crossover songs, and helped smooth her voice into the silky, torch song style for which she is famous. Nevertheless, she did not enjoy singing pop material. This new, more sophisticated instrumental style became known as The Nashville sound, created by Bradley and RCA’s Chet Atkins, who produced Jim Reeves, Connie Smith, and Eddy Arnold.

Patsy Cline's first single for Decca Records, "I Fall to Pieces"

Cline’s first Decca release was the country pop ballad, “I Fall to Pieces” (1961), written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard. The song was promoted at both country and pop music stations across the country, leading to success on both country and pop charts. The song slowly climbed to the top of the country chart—Cline’s first number one. The song also made No. 12 on the pop chart, as well as No. 6 on the adult contemporary chart, a major feat for any country singer at the time. The song made her a household name, demonstrating that a woman country singer could enjoy as much crossover success as a man.

In 1960, Cline joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry, realizing a lifelong dream. She became one of the Opry’s biggest stars, and is believed to be the only person granted membership by asking.

Believing that there was “room enough for everybody,” and confident of her abilities and appeal, Cline befriended and encouraged a number of women starting out in country music, including Loretta Lynn, Dottie West, Barbara Mandrell (with whom Cline once toured), Jan Howard and Brenda Lee, all of whom cite her as an influence. According to Lynn and West, Cline always gave of herself to friends, buying them groceries and furniture when they were hard up. On occasion, she would even pay their rent, enabling them to stay in Nashville and continue their careers. In Ellis Nassour’s 1980 biography Patsy Cline, Cline’s friend, honky tonk pianist and Opry star Del Wood, was quoted as saying, “Even when she didn’t have it, she’d spend it—and not always on herself. She’d give anyone the skirt off her backside if they needed it.”

Ferlin Husky, Patsy Cline, Faron Young and Jerry Reed (circa 1958)

Cline also befriended Roger Miller, Hank Cochran, Faron Young, Ferlin Husky, Harlan Howard and Carl Perkins, male artists and songwriters with whom she socialized at Tootsies Orchid Lounge next door to the Grand Ole Opry.

In the 1986 documentary The Real Patsy Cline, singer George Riddle said of her, “It wasn’t unusual for her to sit down and have a beer and tell a joke. She’d never be offended at the guys’ jokes, because most of the time she’d tell a joke better than you! Patsy was full of life, as I remember.”

Cline used the term of endearment “Hoss” to refer to her friends, and referred to herself as The Cline. According to the book “Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline” by Ellis Nassour, Patsy Cline met Elvis Presley in 1962 at a fundraiser at St. Judes and they even exchanged phone numbers. Having seen him perform during one of his rare Grand Ole Opry appearances, she admired his music, called him The Big Hoss, and recorded with his backup group, The Jordanaires.

Patsy Cline

Cline was in control of her own career, making it clear that she could stand up to any man—verbally and professionally—and challenge their rules if they got in the way of where she felt her career should be headed. In a time when concert promoters often cheated stars out of their money by promising to pay them after the show but running with the money during the concert, Cline stood up to many of the male promoters before she took the stage and demanded their money by proclaiming: “No dough, no show.”  According to friend Roy Drusky in the 1986 documentary The Real Patsy Cline: “Before one concert, we hadn’t been paid. And we were talking about who was going to tell the audience that we couldn’t perform without pay. Patsy said, ‘I’ll tell ‘em!’ And she did!” Friend Dottie West stated, “It was common knowledge around town that you didn’t mess with ‘The Cline!’”

Cline continued to thrive in 1961, and gave birth to a son, Randy. On June 14, 1961, she and her brother, Sam, were involved in a head-on car collision on Old Hickory Boulevard in Nashville, the second and more serious of two during her lifetime. The impact threw Cline into the windshield, nearly killing her. Upon arriving, Dottie West picked glass from Patsy’s hair, and went with her in the ambulance. While that happened, Patsy insisted that the other car’s driver be treated first. This had a long-term detrimental effect on Ms. West; when West was fatally injured in a car accident in 1991, she insisted that the driver of her car be treated first, possibly causing her own death. Cline later stated that she saw the female driver of the other car die before her eyes at the hospital.

Patsy Cline

Suffering from a jagged cut across her forehead that required stitches, a broken wrist and a dislocated hip, she spent a month hospitalized. While in the hospital, Cline, according to the Nassour biography Patsy Cline and to friend Billy Walker (who died in a vehicle accident in 2006), rededicated her life to Christianity. She received thousands of cards and flowers sent by fans. When she left the hospital, her forehead was still visibly scarred. For the remainder of her career, she wore wigs and makeup to hide the scars, and headbands to relieve pressure on her forehead. She returned to the road on crutches, determined to be a survivor with a new appreciation for life.

In the 1990s, a series of recordings from her first concert after the accident were released. These archives, recorded in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were found in the attic of one of Cline’s former residences by the current owners and given to the family. The album, released in 1997, is titled Patsy Cline: Live At the Cimarron Ballroom. and features dialogue of Cline interacting with the audience, providing an historical archive of what her live performances were like.

Willie Nelson about the time he wrote Patsy Cline's signature song, "Crazy"

After the success of “I Fall to Pieces”, Cline needed a follow-up after a month lost from touring and promotions. Written by Willie Nelson, it was called “Crazy”, which Cline originally hated. Her first session recording was a disaster, and Cline claimed that the song was too difficult to sing. She tried to record “Crazy” like its demo recording, which featured Nelson’s idiosyncratic style, but had a tough time recording it not only because of the demo, but also because she found the high notes hard to sing due to injured ribs from her car accident. The day in the studio at Decca resulted in a head-on fight between Cline and Bradley.

Cline recorded the song the next week in one take, a version completely different from the demo. It became a classic and, ultimately, Cline’s signature song—and the one for which she remains best known. In late 1961, the song was an immediate country pop crossover hit, and also constituted her biggest pop hit, making the Top 10. Loretta Lynn later reported that the night Cline premiered “Crazy” at the Grand Ole Opry, she received three standing ovations.

“Crazy” was a hit on three different charts in late 1961 and early 1962—the Hot Country Songs list (No. 2), the US Hot 100 list (No. 9), and the Adult Contemporary list (also No. 2). An album released that November entitled Patsy Cline Showcase featured Cline’s two hits of 1961.

Patsy Cline

With Cline’s success climbing the record charts, she was in high demand on the concert circuit. Although many women in country music at that time were considered “window dressing” or opening acts for the more popular and higher-paid male stars, Cline was the first to headline her own show and receive top billing above some of the male stars with whom she toured. While bands typically backed up the female singer, Cline led the band through the concert instead. She was so respected by men in the industry, that rather than being introduced to audiences as “Pretty Miss Patsy Cline” as her female contemporaries often were, she was given a more stately introduction such as that given by Johnny Cash on their 1962 tour together: “Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Patsy Cline.” As an artist, she held her fan base in extremely high regard (many of whom became friends), staying for hours after concerts to chat and sign autographs.

Cline was not only the first woman in country music to perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall (which she did with fellow Opry members and disapproval from gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen—whom Cline fired back at) but also to headline the Hollywood Bowl with Johnny Cash and, later, in 1962, the first woman in country music to headline her own show in Las Vegas.

The house Vegas built - Patsy Cline's modest home in the Goodlettsville suburb of Nashville, TN

This success enabled Cline to buy her dream home in Nashville’s Goodlettsville community, personally decorated in her style featuring gold dust sprinkled in the bathroom tiles and a music room. Loretta Lynn stated in a 1986 documentary interview, “She called me into the front yard and said, ‘Isn’t this pretty? Now I’ll never be happy until I have my Mama one just like it.’” Cline called her home “the house that Vegas built” since she was able to pay it off with the money she earned during her time there. (Later, after Cline’s death in 1963, Cline’s home was sold by her husband to singer Wilma Burgess who told Patsy Cline author Ellis Nassour that “strange occurrences” happened during her years there.)

With this new demand for Cline came a higher price tag, and reportedly towards the end of her life, she was being paid at least $1,000 for appearances—then an unheard-of fee for women in the country music industry, since they usually grossed less than $200. Her penultimate concert, held in Birmingham, Alabama, grossed $3,000.

Patsy Cline (circa 1962)

To match her new sophisticated sound, Cline also reinvented her personal style, shedding her trademark Western cowgirl outfits for elegant sequined gowns, cocktail dresses, spiked heels, and even gold lame pants. Cline’s new image was considered riskier and sexier by a then-conservative country music industry more accustomed to gingham and calico dresses for women. But like her sound, Cline’s style in fashion was mocked by many at first, then copied. She also loved dangly earrings and ruby-red lipstick; her favorite perfume was Wind Song.

During her short career of only five-and-a-half years, Cline received 12 awards for her achievements and three more following her death. Most were from Cashbox, Music Reporter, and Billboard Awards, considered high honors during her time. (Awards such as the ACM and CMAs were not established until after her death, and the Nashville chapter of the Grammys wasn’t founded until 1964.)

Cline wrote of her success in a letter to friend Anne Armstrong (from the 1993 documentary Remembering Patsy): “It’s wonderful—but what do I do for ’63? Its getting so even I can’t follow Cline!”

In late 1961, Cline was back in the studio to record songs for her upcoming album in 1962. One of the first songs recorded in late 1961 was the song “She’s Got You”, written by Hank Cochran, who pitched the song over the phone to Cline. It was one of the few songs Cline enjoyed recording. The song was released as a single in January 1962, and soon was another country pop crossover hit, reaching No. 1 on the country chart again (her second and last chart-topper), No. 14 on the pop charts, and No. 3 on the adult contemporary charts (originally called “Easy Listening”). It would be Cline’s last Top 40 Pop hit.

Patsy Cline's hit song, "She's Got You"

“She’s Got You” was also Cline’s first entry in the U.K. singles chart, covered by one of Britain’s most popular female artists, Alma Cogan; it reached No. 43. Her biggest U.K. record sales Hit Parade entry before her death was her version of the standard tune “Heartaches,” reaching the Top 30 in late 1962.

Following the success of “She’s Got You,” Cline enjoyed a string of smaller country hits, including the Top 10 “When I Get Thru’ With You”, “Imagine That”, “So Wrong”, and “Heartaches”. These hits were not big crossover pop hits as her previous three had been on the country charts; but were Top 10 and 20 hits.

In late 1962, Cline appeared on American Bandstand and released her third album in August, Sentimentally Yours. When asked in a WSM-AM interview about her vocal stylings, Cline stated, “Oh, I just sing like I hurt inside.”

Though she was in high demand and her career was at its peak, the wear and tear of the road and business began to present the possibility of a hiatus for Cline, who longed to spend more time raising her children, Julie and Randy, especially after heading her own show at the Mint Casino in Las Vegas at the end of 1962.

Faded Love

A month before her death, Cline went into the studio to record her fourth album, Faded Love. Recording a mix of country standards and such vintage pop classics as Irving Berlin’s “Always” and “Does Your Heart Beat for Me”, these sessions proved to be the most contemporary-sounding of her career, without any country music instruments and featuring a full string section. (Owen Bradley told Patsy author Margaret Jones that he and Cline had even talked of doing an album of show tunes and standards before her death, including “Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine”, since Cline was a fan of Helen Morgan.)

Cline, so involved with the story in the song’s lyrics, reportedly cried through most of what would be her last sessions. This emotion can be heard on certain tracks, especially “Sweet Dreams” and “Faded Love”. At the playback party that night at the studio, according to singer Jan Howard on the documentary Remembering Patsy, Cline held up a copy of her first record and a copy of her newest tracks and stated, “Well, here it is…the first and the last.”

As stated in the Nassour biography, Patsy Cline, friends Dottie West and June Carter Cash both recalled Cline telling them that she felt a sense of impending doom and didn’t expect to live much longer in the months leading up to her death. Cline also told Loretta Lynn of this, along with Cash and West, as early as September 1962. Cline, though known for her extreme generosity, even began giving away personal items to friends, writing out her own last will on Delta Air Lines stationery and asking close friends to care for her children if anything should happen to her. She reportedly told Jordanaire back up singer Ray Walker as she exited the Grand Ole Opry a week before her death: “Honey, I’ve had two bad ones (accidents). The third one will either be a charm or it’ll kill me.”

Patsy Cline backstage before her final show on March 3, 1963 in Kansas City, KS

On March 3, 1963, Cline, though ill with the flu, gave a performance at a benefit show at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, Kansas City, Kansas, for the family of a disc jockey, Cactus Jack Call, who had recently died in an automobile accident. Also performing on the show were George Jones, George Riddle and The Jones Boys, Billy Walker, Dottie West, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, and George McCormick and the Clinch Mountain Clan. The three shows, at 2:00, 5:15 and 8:00 p.m. were standing-room only. For the 2 p.m. show, she wore a sky-blue tulle-laden dress, for the 5:15 show a red shocker and for the closing show at 8 p.m. Cline wore a white chiffon gown and closed the show with her performance to a thunderous ovation. Her last song was the last one she recorded during her last sessions the previous month, “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone”.

Dottie West, wary of Cline flying, asked her to ride back in the car with her and her husband, Bill. Cline, anxious to get home to her children, refused West’s offer, saying, “Don’t worry about me, Hoss. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time.” Poor weather delayed their departure by a day, and on March 5, she called her mother from the airport and then boarded a Piper Comanche bound for Nashville. The pilot was her manager Randy Hughes, with passengers Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins, who had taken Billy Walker’s seat. After stopping to refuel in Dyersburg, Tennessee, the plane took off at 6:07 p.m. CT. According to revelations by the airfield manager in the Nassour biography, he suggested that they stay the night after advising of high winds and inclement weather on the flight path, but Hughes responded, “I’ve already come this far. We’ll be there before you know it.”

The plane flew into severe weather, however, and according to Cline’s wristwatch, crashed at 6:20 p.m. in a forest outside of Camden, Tennessee, 90 miles from the destination. There were no survivors. Throughout the night, reports of the missing plane flooded the radio airwaves.

The Nashville Banner announces the deaths of Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and Randy Hughes

Roger Miller told Patsy Cline author Nassour that he and a friend went searching for survivors in the early hours of the morning: “As fast as I could, I ran through the woods screaming their names—through the brush and the trees, and I came up over this little rise, oh, my God, there they were. It was ghastly. The plane had crashed nose down.” Not long after the bodies were removed, scavengers came to take what they could of the stars’ personal belongings and pieces of the plane. Many of these items were later donated to The Country Music Hall of Fame, including Patsy’s beloved Confederate Flag cigarette lighter which played “Dixie”, her wrist watch, belt with ‘Patsy Cline’ studded across it and one of 3 pairs of her gold lame slippers which were featured on the revised version of her Showcase With The Jordanaires album. However, the white chiffon dress that Cline had worn for her last performance and the money bag carrying the star’s payment for their last concert were never found.

As per her wishes, Cline was brought home to her dream house for the last time before her memorial service, which thousands attended. Hours later, news surfaced that singer Jack Anglin of country duo Johnnie and Jack fame had died on the way to her service, and the Opry mounted a tribute show to honor the victims.

A memorial stone marks the site of the fatal plane crash in a forest outside of Camden, TN

She was buried in her hometown of Winchester, Virginia, at Shenandoah Memorial Park. Her grave is marked with a simple bronze plaque, which reads: Virginia H (Patsy) Cline “Death Cannot Kill What Never Dies: Love.” A bell tower in her memory at the cemetery, erected with the help of Loretta Lynn and Dottie West, plays hymns daily at 6:00 p.m., the hour of her death. A memorial marks the place where the plane crashed in the still-remote forest outside of Camden, Tennessee.

In December 1998, Cline’s mother, Hilda Hensley, died in Winchester, Virginia of natural causes. (Cline’s father had died in the 1950s.) Hensley rarely granted interviews, living the rest of her life practicing her craft as a master seamstress in Winchester and helping to raise her grandchildren. Cline’s daughter, Julie, stated in a 1985 People Magazine article: “Grannie loved my mother so much that it’s still hard for her to talk about her.” Hensley stated in her later years that the outpouring of love given to her by Cline’s fans over the years had been amazing. “I never knew so many people loved my daughter,” she told one newspaper.

Because Cline and her mother were so close in age, Cline often commented that her mother was also her best friend and the one person she could truly count on. Hensley also commented that Cline was a “wonderful daughter” who never let her family down in the hard times they endured. Cline’s brother died in 2004, though her sister still lives in Virginia.

Patsy Cline's widower, Charlie Dick and their daughter, Julie

Charlie Dick resides in Nashville, where he continues to be a member of the country music community, producing documentaries on Cline and other artists through a video production company. Dick is involved with Cline’s fan base and considers them an extension of family, attending many fan functions. Daughter Julie joins him in representing Cline’s estate at public functions and has four children of her own (one, Virginia, named for Cline, was killed in an automobile accident in 1994) and five grandchildren. Son Randy was the drummer of a Nashville band, although he chooses not to live in the limelight. Dick’s brother, Mel, heads up the “Always… Patsy Cline” fan organization.

After Cline’s death, Dick married singer Jamey Ryan in 1965, but they were divorced a few years later. Ryan provided the vocals for three songs in the film Sweet Dreams: “Bill Bailey (Won’t You Please Come Home)”, “Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” and “Blue Christmas” (a tune Cline never recorded). Ryan’s sound is so close to Cline’s that some fans search Cline’s discography trying to find these two songs but discover that the tracks were recorded solely for the film and were not included on the soundtrack.

Guitarist-producer Harold Bradley said of Cline in the 2003 book Remembering Patsy, “She’s taken the standards for being a country music vocalist, and she raised the bar. Women, even now, are trying to get to that bar…. If you’re going to be a country singer, if you’re not going to copy her—and most people do come to town copying her—then you have to be aware of how she did it. It’s always good to know what was in the past because you think you’re pretty hot until you hear her…. It gives all the female singers coming in something to gauge their talents against. And I expect it will forever.”

In 1993, the US Postal Service honored Patsy Cline with a stamp

When Cline made her first recordings in 1955, Kitty Wells, known as The Queen of Country Music, was the top female vocalist in the field. By the time Cline broke through as a consistent hit-maker in 1961, Wells was still country’s biggest female star; however, Cline dethroned her by winning Billboard magazine’s Favorite Female Country & Western Artist for two years in a row and the 1962 Music Reporter Star of The Year award.

The two country queens could not have been more different, given that Cline’s full-throated sophisticated sound was a marked contrast to Wells’ pure-country, quivering vocals. Though Cline had gained attention on country and pop charts, she did not think of herself as anything other than a country singer and was known for her humility in her motto: “I don’t want to get rich—just live good.”

WALKIN’ AFTER MIDNIGHT

CRAZY

I FALL TO PIECES (PERFORMED ONLY TEN DAYS BEFORE HER DEATH)

BLUE

Scotty Moore

Winfield Scott “Scotty” Moore III (born December 27, 1931 near Gadsden, Tennessee) is an American guitarist. He is best known for his backing of Elvis Presley in the first part of his career, between 1954 and the beginning of Elvis’ Hollywood years. He was ranked forty-fourth in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Scotty Moore learned to play the guitar from family and friends at eight years of age. Although under-aged when he enlisted, Moore served in the United States Navy between 1948 and 1952.

Moore’s early background was in jazz and country music. A fan of guitarist Chet Atkins, Moore led a group called the “Starlite Wranglers” before Sam Phillips at Sun Records put him together with then teenage Elvis Presley. Phillips believed that Moore’s lead guitar and double bassist Bill Black was all that was needed to augment Presley’s rhythm guitar and lead vocals on their recordings. In 1954 Moore and Black accompanied Elvis on what was going to be the first legendary Presley hit, the Sun Studios session cut of “That’s All Right (Mama)”, a recording regarded as a seminal event in rock and roll history. Elvis, Black and Scotty Moore then formed the “Blue Moon Boys”. They were later joined by drummer D.J. Fontana. Beginning in July 1954, the “Blue Moon Boys” toured and recorded throughout the American South and as Presley’s popularity rose, they toured the United States and made appearances in various Presley television shows and motion pictures.

Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley, Bill Black

Moore played on many of Presley’s most famous recordings including “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, “Baby Let’s Play House”, “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Mystery Train”, “Hound Dog”, “Too Much” and “Jailhouse Rock”.

Scotty Moore is given credit as the pioneer of the rock ‘n’ roll lead guitarist. Most popular guitarists cite Moore as the performer that brought the lead guitarist to a dominant role in a rock ‘n’ roll band. Although some lead guitarists/vocalists had gained popularity such as Chuck Berry and blues legend B.B. King, Presley rarely played his own lead while performing, usually providing rhythm and leaving the lead duties to Moore.

Scotty Moore and Keith Richards

Moore was a noticeable presence in the Presley performances, strictly as a guitarist. As a result, he became an inspiration to many subsequent popular guitarists, one of the more vocal of these being Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Moore, being quite introverted on stage, accomplished this almost exclusively through his performance and interpretation of the music.

In the 1960s, Moore released a solo album called The Guitar That Changed the World. He performed on the NBC television special known as the ’68 Comeback Special.

While with Presley, Moore initially played a Gibson ES-295, before switching to a Gibson L5 and subsequently a Gibson Super 400.

For his pioneering contribution, Moore has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2000, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Mark Adam portrayed Moore in the 2005 CBS miniseries Elvis.

Emory Smith portrayed Moore in the 1981 documentary film This is Elvis.

SCOTTY MOORE AND ERIC CLAPTON PERFORMING “THAT’S ALL RIGHT MAMA”

ELVIS PRESLEY AND THE BOYS PERFORMING “SHAKE, RATTLE, ROLL/FLIP FLOP AND FLY”

SCOTTY MOORE DISCUSSING ELVIS’ 1968 COMEBACK SPECIAL

SCOTTY MOORE DISCUSSING THE EARLY SUN RECORDS SESSIONS

SCOTTY MOORE AND MARK KNOPFLER PERFORMING “BLUE MOON OF KENTUCKY”

There are no known photographs of Pinetop Smith

Clarence Smith, better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith (11 June 1904 – 15 March 1929) was an influential American boogie-woogie style blues pianist. He is a 1991 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

Smith was born in Troy, Alabama and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees. In 1920 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the T. O. B. A. vaudeville circuit, performing as a singer and comedian as well as a pianist. For a time he worked as accompanist for blues singer Ma Rainey and Butterbeans and Susie.

In the mid 1920s he was recommended by Cow Cow Davenport to J. Mayo Williams at Vocalion Records, and in 1928 he moved, with his wife and young son, to Chicago to record. For a time he, Albert Ammons, and Meade Lux Lewis lived in the same rooming house.

Vocalion's 1929 release of Pinetop Smith's song, "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie"

On December 29, 1928 he recorded his influential “Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie,” one of the first “boogie woogie” style recordings to make a hit, and which cemented the name for the style. Pine Top talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number. He said he originated the number at a house-rent party in St. Louis, Missouri. Pinetop was the first ever to direct “the girl with the red dress on” to “not move a peg” until told to “shake that thing” and “mess around”.

Pinetop Smith was scheduled to make another recording session for Vocalion in 1929, but died from a gunshot wound in a dance-hall fight in Chicago the day before the session. Sources differ as to whether he was the intended recipient of the bullet. “I saw Pinetop spit blood” was the famous headline in Down Beat magazine.

No photographs of Smith are known to exist.

Albert Ammons

Pinetop Smith was acknowledged by other boogie woogie pianists such as Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson as a key influence, and he gained posthumous fame when “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” was recorded by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the late 1930s.

From the 1950s Joe Willie Perkins became universally known as “Pinetop Perkins” for his famous recordings of “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie”. Perkins later became Muddy Waters’ pianist, and much later when in his 90′s, recorded a song on his 2004 Ladies’ Man album which played on the by-then common misconception that Perkins had himself written “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie”.

Ray Charles adapted “Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie” for his song “Mess Around”, for which the authorship was credited to “A. Nugetre”, Ahmet Ertegun.

In 1975 the Bob Thiele Orchestra recorded a modern jazz album called I Saw Pinetop Spit Blood that included a treatment of “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” as well as the title song.

Gene Taylor recorded a version of “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” on his eponymous 2003 album.

PINETOP SMITH’S RENDITION OF “NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU’RE DOWN AND OUT”

PINETOP SMITH PERFORMING “I’M SOBER NOW”

CRIPPLE CLARENCE LOFTON’S VERSION OF “PINETOP SMITH’S BOOGIE WOOGIE”

Willie Dixon

William James “Willie” Dixon (July 1, 1915 – January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as an acclaimed, prolific songwriter, and one of the founders of the Chicago blues sound. His songs have been recorded not only by himself, or that of the trio and other ensembles in which he participated, but an uncounted number of musicians representing many genres between them. A short list of his most famous compositions include “Little Red Rooster”, “Hoochie Coochie Man”, “Evil”, “Spoonful”, “Back Door Man”, “I Just Want to Make Love to You”, “I Ain’t Superstitious”, “My Babe”, “Wang Dang Doodle”, and “Bring It On Home”. They were written during the peak of Chess Records, 1950–1965, and performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter, influencing a worldwide generation of musicians. Next to Muddy Waters, he was the most influential person in shaping the post World War II sound of the Chicago blues. He also was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. His songs were covered by some of the biggest artists of more recent times, including Bob Dylan, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Foghat, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Megadeth, The Doors, The Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead, and a posthumous duet with Colin James.

Willie Dixon

Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 1, 1915. His mother Daisy often rhymed the things she said, a habit Dixon imitated. At the age of 7, he became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as an early-teenager. He learned how to sing harmony as a teen as well, from local carpenter Leo Phelps. Dixon sang bass in Phelps’ group, The Jubilee Singers, a local gospel quartet that regularly appeared on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. Dixon began adapting poems he was writing into songs, and even sold some of them to local music groups.

Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, at 6 and a half feet and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing; he was so successful that he won the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. Dixon turned professional as a boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis’ sparring partner. After four fights, Dixon left boxing after getting into a fight with his manager over being cheated out of money.

Dixon met Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston at the boxing gym where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago but it was Caston that got him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon’s experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned the guitar.

The original Big Three Trio: Bernard Dennis, "Baby Doo" Caston, Willie Dixon

Dixon, whose initial attempts at his vocation as a boxer were now dubious, began performing around Chicago and with Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston, who convinced him to move towards a musical career. In 1939, was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon’s progress as he progressed on the Upright bass came to an abrupt halt during the advent of World War II when he resisted the draft as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive and then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, who went on to record for Columbia Records.

Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but began performing less and became more involved with the record label. By 1951, he was a full time employee at Chess where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with the Chess label was sometimes strained, although his tenure there covered the years from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time his output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, where he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. He later recorded on Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the middle 1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, along with two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album Peace? on Yambo, as well as singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.

Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy

Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, and others. His double bass playing was of a high standard. He appears on many of Chuck Berry’s early recordings, further proving his linkage between the blues and the birth of rock and roll.

Dixon is remembered mainly as a songwriter; his most enduring gift to the blues lay in refurbishing archaic Southern motifs, often of magic and country folkways and often derived from earlier records such as those by Charlie Patton, in contemporary arrangements, to produce songs with both the sinew of the blues, and the agility of pop. British R&B bands of the 1960s constantly drew on the Dixon songbook for inspiration. In December 1964, The Rolling Stones reached #1 in the UK Singles Chart with their cover version of Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster”.

By the late sixties, Dixon’s songwriting and production work began to take a back seat to his organizational abilities, which were utilized to assemble all-star, Chicago-based blues ensembles for work in Europe.

Chuck Berry, Willie Dixon

In his later years, Willie Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation. The organization works to preserve the blues’ legacy and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, “The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It’s better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues.”

Dixon’s health deteriorated increasingly during the seventies and the eighties, primarily due to long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs had to be amputated.

Willie Dixon instructing his grandson, Alex, on the piano

Dixon was inducted at the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation’s ceremony, and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980. In 1989 he was also the recipient of a Grammy Award for his album, Hidden Charms.

Dixon died of heart failure in Burbank, California on January 29, 1992, and was buried in the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the “early influences” (pre-rock) category in 1994.

Actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.

Willie Dixon’s grandson, Alex Dixon, recently recorded two Willie Dixon songs, (“Spoonful” and “Down in the Bottom”), on his latest release titled Rising from the Bushes.

I’M NERVOUS

YOU SHOOK ME

BASSOLOGY

From Wikipedia:

The “Alabama Song” (also known as “Whisky Bar” or “Moon over Alabama” or “Moon of Alabama”) was originally published in Bertolt Brecht’s Hauspostille (1927). It was set to music by Kurt Weill for the 1927 “Songspiel” Mahagonny and used again in Weill’s and Brecht’s 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. In the latter, it is performed by the character Jenny and her fellow prostitutes in the first act. Musically it contains elements of foxtrot, blues and advanced soprano coloraturas, sung by Jenny Corless.  Originally recorded by Kurt Weill’s wife Lotte Lenya in 1930.

The lyrics for the “Alabama Song” are in English (albeit specifically idiosyncratic English) and are performed in that language even when the opera is performed in its original German.

The song was covered in 1967 by rock band The Doors (credited in their albums as “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”). The lead singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison, changed the second verse from:

Show us the way to the next pretty boy to Show me the way to the next little girl.

In addition, the verse from the original, Show me the way to the next little dollar is omitted.

David Bowie, a Brecht fan, incorporated the song into his 1978 world tour. He cut a version at Tony Visconti’s studio after the European leg of this tour, and in 1980 it was issued as a single to hasten the end of Bowie’s contract with RCA.

With unconventional key changes, the track “seemed calculated to disrupt any radio programme on which it was lucky enough to get played”. Nevertheless, backed with a stripped-down acoustic version of “Space Oddity” recorded in December 1979, the single reached #23 in the UK.

Bowie would appear in a BBC version of Brecht’s Baal, and release an EP of songs from the play. He performed “Alabama Song” again on his 1990 Sound+Vision Tour and 2002 Heathen tours.

LOTTE LENYA

THE DOORS

DAVID BOWIE

MAX RAABE UND DA PALAST ORCHESTER

DAVID JOHANSEN, ELLEN SHIPLEY, RALPH SCHUCKETT, AND BOB DOROUGH

Gene Autry

Orvon Eugene Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s. Autry was also owner of the Los Angeles/California Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997, as well as a television station and several radio stations in southern California.

Although his signature song was “Back in the Saddle Again”, Autry is best known today for his Christmas holiday songs, “Here Comes Santa Claus” (which he wrote), “Frosty the Snowman”, and his biggest hit, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.

He is a member of both the Country Music and Nashville Songwriters halls of fame, and is the only celebrity to have five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Autry, the grandson of a Methodist preacher, was born near Tioga, Texas. His parents, Delbert Autry and Elnora Ozment, moved to Ravia, Oklahoma in the 1920s. He worked on his father’s ranch while at school. After leaving high school in 1925, Autry worked as a telegrapher for the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway.

Gene Autry

Talent with the guitar and his voice led to performing at local dances.

While working as a telegrapher, Autry would sing and accompany himself on the guitar to pass the lonely hours, especially when he had the midnight shift. One night he got encouragement to sing professionally from a customer, the famous humorist and wit, Will Rogers, who had heard Autry singing.

As soon as he could collect money to travel, he went to New York. He auditioned for Victor Talking Machine, at just about the time (end of 1928) it became RCA Victor. According to Nathaniel Shilkret, Director of Light Music for Victor at the time, Autry asked to speak to Shilkret when Autry found that he had been turned down. Shilkret explained to Autry that he was turned down not because of his voice, but because Victor had just made contracts with two similar singers. Autry left with a letter of introduction from Shilkret and the advice to sing on radio to gain experience and to come back in a year or two. In 1928 Autry was singing on Tulsa’s radio station KVOO as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy,” and the Victor archives shows an October 9, 1929, entry stating that the vocal duet of Jimmie Long and Gene Autry with two Hawaiian guitars, directed by L. L. Watson, recorded “My Dreaming of You” (Matrix 56761) and “My Alabama” (Matrix 56762).

Autry signed a recording deal with Columbia Records in 1929. He worked in Chicago, Illinois, on the WLS-AM radio show National Barn Dance for four years, and with his own show, where he met singer-songwriter Smiley Burnette. In his early recording career, Autry covered various genres, including a labor song, “The Death of Mother Jones” in 1931.

Gene Autry

Autry also recorded many “hillbilly”-style records in 1930 and 1931 in New York City, which were certainly different in style and content from his later recordings. These were much closer in style to the Prairie Ramblers or Dick Justice, and included the “Do Right Daddy Blues” and “Black Bottom Blues”, both similar to “Deep Elem Blues”. These late-Prohibition era songs deal with bootlegging, corrupt police, and women whose occupation was certainly vice. These recordings are generally not heard today, but are available on European import labels, such as JSP Records.

Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette

His first hit was in 1932 with “That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine”, a duet with fellow railroad man, Jimmy Long. Autry also sang the classic Ray Whitley hit “Back In The Saddle Again,” as well as many Christmas holiday songs including “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” his own composition “Here Comes Santa Claus”, “Frosty the Snowman”, and his biggest hit, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.

Autry also owned the Challenge Records label. The label’s biggest hit was “Tequila” by The Champs in 1958, which started the rock-and-roll instrumental craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Autry made 640 recordings, including more than 300 songs written or co-written by him. His records sold more than 100 million copies and he has more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first record ever certified gold.

DVD cover for Autry's first starring role in the 12 part serial, "The Phantom Empire"

Discovered by film producer Nat Levine in 1934, Autry and Burnette made their film debut for Mascot Pictures Corp. in In Old Santa Fe as part of a singing cowboy quartet; he was then given the starring role by Levine in 1935 in the 12-part serial The Phantom Empire. Shortly thereafter, Mascot was absorbed by the newly-formed Republic Pictures Corp., and Autry went along to make a further 44 films up to 1940, all B westerns in which he played under his own name, rode his horse Champion, had Burnette as his regular sidekick, and had many opportunities to sing in each film.

In the Motion Picture Herald Top Ten Money- Making Western Stars poll, Autry was listed every year from 1936 to 1942 and 1946 to 1954 (he was serving in the US Army Air Corps 1943-45), holding first place 1937 to 1942, and second place (after Roy Rogers) 1947 to 1954. He appeared in the similar Box Office poll from 1936 to 1955, holding first place from 1936 to 1942 and second place (after Rogers) from 1943 to 1952. While these two polls are really an indication only of the popularity of series stars, Autry also appeared in the Top Ten Money Makers Poll of all films from 1940 to 1942, His Gene Autry Flying “A” Ranch Rodeo show debuted in 1940.

Gene Autry was the first of the singing cowboys in films, succeeded as the top star by Roy Rogers when he served in WW II. Autry briefly returned to Republic after the war to finish out his contract, which had been suspended for the duration of his military service and which he had tried to have declared void after his discharge. He appeared in 1951 in the film Texans Never Cry, with a role for newcomer Mary Castle. After 1951 he formed his own production company to make Westerns under his own control, which continued the 1947 distribution agreement with Columbia Pictures.

Gene Autry, his boxer Mike, and his first wife Ina May Spivey

In 1932 he married Ina May Spivey (who died in 1980), who was the niece of Jimmy Long. In 1981 he married Jacqueline Ellam, who had been his banker. He had no children by either marriage.

Autry retired from show business in 1964, having made almost 100 films up to 1955, and over 600 records. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969, and to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. After retiring, he invested widely and in real estate, radio, and television, including the purchase from dying Republic Pictures the rights for films he had made for the company.

In 1952, Autry bought the old Monogram Ranch in Placerita Canyon (Newhall-Santa Clarita, California) and renamed it Melody Ranch. Numerous “B” Westerns and TV shows were shot there during Autry’s ownership, including the initial years of Gunsmoke with James Arness. Melody Ranch burned down in 1962, dashing Autry’s plans to turn it into a museum. According to a published story by Autry, the fire caused him to turn his attention to Griffith Park, where he would build his Museum of Western Heritage (now known as the Autry National Center). Melody Ranch came back to life after 1991, when it was purchased by the Veluzat family and rebuilt. It survives as a movie location today as well as the home of the City of Santa Clarita’s annual Cowboy Festival, where Autry’s legacy takes center stage.

Reggie Jackson poses with team owner, Gene Autry after joining the Angels organization in 1982

In the 1950s, Autry had been a minority owner of the minor-league Hollywood Stars. In 1960, when Major League Baseball announced plans to add an expansion team in Los Angeles, Autry—who had once declined an opportunity to play in the minor leagues—expressed an interest in acquiring the radio broadcast rights to the team’s games. Baseball executives were so impressed by his approach that he was persuaded to become the owner of the franchise rather than simply its broadcast partner. The team, initially called the Los Angeles Angels upon its 1961 debut, moved to suburban Anaheim in 1966, and was re-named the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels from 1997 until 2005, when it became the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Autry served as vice president of the American League from 1983 until his death. In 1995 he sold a quarter share of the team to The Walt Disney Company, and a controlling interest the following year, with the remaining share to be transferred after his death. Earlier, in 1982, he sold Los Angeles television station KTLA for $245 million. He also sold several radio stations he owned, including KSFO in San Francisco, KMPC in Los Angeles, KOGO in San Diego, and other stations in the Golden West radio network.

Gene Autry and his horse, Champion

The number 26 (as in 26th man) was retired by the Angels in Autry’s honor. The chosen number reflected that baseball’s rosters are 25-man strong, so Autry’s unflagging support for his team made him the 26th member.

Included for many years on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans, he slipped to their “near miss” category in 1995 with an estimated net worth of $320 million. Gene Autry died of lymphoma 3 days after his 91st birthday at his home in Studio City, California and is interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. His death on October 2, 1998 came fewer than three months after the death of another celebrated cowboy of the silver screen, radio, and TV, Roy Rogers.

In 1972, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Autry was a life member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Burbank Lodge No. 1497. His 1976 autobiography, co-written by Mickey Herskowitz, was titled Back in the Saddle Again after his 1939 hit and signature tune. He is also featured year after year, on radio and “shopping mall music” at the holiday season, by his recording of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. “Rudolph” became the first #1 hit of the 1950s. CMT in 2003 ranked him #38 in CMT’s 40 Greatest Men of Country Music.

A statue of Gene Autry in Palm Springs, California

When the Anaheim Angels won their first World Series in 2002, much of the championship was dedicated to him. The interchange of Interstate 5 and State Route 134, located near the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, is signed as the “Gene Autry Memorial Interchange.” In 2007, he became a charter member of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana.

Johnny Cash recorded a song in 1978 about Autry called “Who is Gene Autry.” Cash also got Autry to sign his famous black Martin D-35 guitar, and the signature can be seen very clearly in the video for “Hurt”.  NWA member Eazy-E mentioned Autry in his song “We Want Eazy” from his 1988 album Eazy Duz It.  Ringo Starr has stated that Gene Autry was his earliest influence in music.

Autry was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2004, the Starz Entertainment Corporation joined forces with the Autry estate to restore all of his films, which have been shown on Starz’s Encore Western Channel on cable television on a regular basis to date since.

Wynonie Harris

Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969), born in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American blues shouter and rhythm and blues singer of upbeat songs featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. With fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952, Harris is generally considered one of rock and roll’s forerunners, influencing Elvis Presley among others. He was the subject of a 1994 biography by Tony Collins.

Harris’ mother, Mallie Hood Anderson, was fifteen and unmarried at the time of his birth. Harris’ paternity is uncertain. Harris’ wife, Olive E. Goodlow, and daughter Patricia Vest, have said that Harris’ father was a Native American, named Blue Jay. Harris had no father figure in the house until 1920, when his mother married Luther Harris, fifteen years her senior.

In 1931 at age 16, Harris dropped out of high school in North Omaha. The following year his first child, daughter Micky, was born to Naomi Henderson. Ten months later, Harris’ second child, son Wesley, was born to Laura Devereaux. Both children were raised by their mothers. Wesley became a singer in the Five Echoes and The Sultans. Later he became a singer and guitarist in Preston Love’s band.

Wynonie Harris

In 1935 Harris, age 20, started dating 16-year-old Olive E. Goodlow (Ollie) of neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa, who came to Omaha to watch him perform. On May 20, 1936, Ollie gave birth to daughter Pattie (Adrianne Patricia). On December 11, 1936, they married. Later they lived in the Logan Fontenelle projects in North Omaha. Ollie worked as a barmaid and nurse; Wynonie sang in clubs as well as taking on some odd jobs. Wynonie’s mother, Mallie Harris, was Pattie’s main caretaker. In 1940, Wynonie and Ollie Harris moved to Los Angeles, California, leaving Pattie with Mallie in Omaha.

With dance partner Velda Shannon, Harris formed a dance team in the early 1930s. The team performed around North Omaha’s flourishing entertainment community, and by 1934 they were a regular attraction at the Ritz Theatre. It was not until 1935, however, that Harris was able to earn his living as an entertainer. While performing at Jim Bell’s new Harlem nightclub with Velda Shannon, Harris began to sing the blues.

"Papa Tree Top" by Wynonie Harris - note the nickname "Blues"

He also began traveling frequently to Kansas City, Kansas where he paid close attention to the blues shouters including Jimmy Rushing and Big Joe Turner. Harris became a local celebrity in Omaha during the depths of the Great Depression in 1935. Harris’ break in Los Angeles was at a nightclub owned by Curtis Mosby. It was here that Harris became known as “Mr. Blues”.

Due to the wartime embargo on shellac, Harris was unable to pursue a recording career. Instead, he relied on personal appearances. Performing almost continuously, in late 1943 he appeared at the Rhumboogie Club in Chicago. Harris was spotted by Lucky Millinder who asked him to join his band’s tour. Harris joined on March 24, 1944, while the band was in the middle of a week-long residency at the Regal in Chicago. They moved on to New York, where on April 7 Harris took the stage with Millinder’s band for his debut at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. It was during this performance that Harris first publicly performed “Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well” (a song recorded two years earlier by Doc Wheeler’s Sunset Orchestra).

Lucky Millinder and His Orchestra's "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" was Wynonie Harris' first recording

After the band’s stint at the Apollo, they moved on to their regular residency at the Savoy Ballroom, also in Harlem. Here, Preston Love, Harris’ childhood friend, joined Millinder’s band replacing alto saxophonist Tab Smith. On May 26, 1944, Harris made his recording debut with Lucky Millinder and His Orchestra. Entering a recording studio for the first time, Harris sang on two of the five cuts that day, “Hurry, Hurry” and “Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well”, for the Decca label. Although lessening, the shellac embargo had not yet been removed, and release of the record was delayed.

Harris’ success and popularity grew as Millinder’s band toured the country. He and Millinder had a falling out over money. In September 1945 while playing in San Antonio, Texas, Harris quit Millinder’s band. Three weeks later, upon hearing of Harris’ separation from the band, a Houston, Texas promoter refused to allow Millinder’s band to perform. Millinder called Harris and agreed to pay Harris’ asking price of one-hundred dollars a night. The promoter re-instated the date, but it was the final time Harris and Millinder worked together. Bull Moose Jackson replaced Harris as the vocalist in the band.

Johnny Otis

In April 1945, a year after the song was recorded, Decca released “Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well”. It became the group’s biggest hit; it went to number one on the Billboard R&B chart on July 14 and stayed there for eight weeks. The song remained on the charts for almost five months, also becoming popular with white audiences, an unusual feat for black musicians of that era. In California the success of the song opened doors for Harris. Since the contract with Decca was with Millinder (meaning Harris was a free agent), Harris could choose from the recording contracts with which he was presented.

In July 1945, Harris signed with Philo, a label owned by the brothers Leo and Edward Mesner. Harris’ band was assembled by Johnny Otis, and the group recorded the 78rpm record “Around the Clock”. Although not a chart-topper, the song became popular and was covered by many artists, including Willie Bryant, Jimmy Rushing and Big Joe Turner.

Harris went on to record sessions for other labels, including Apollo, Bullet and Aladdin. His greatest success came when he signed for Syd Nathan’s King label, where he enjoyed a series of hits on the U.S. R&B chart in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These included a 1948 cover of Roy Brown’s “Good Rocking Tonight”, “Good Morning Judge” and “All She Wants to Do Is Rock”. In 1946, Harris recorded two singles with pianist Herman “Sonny” Blount, who later earned fame as the eclectic jazz composer and bandleader Sun Ra.

Wynonie Harris loved to surround himself with beautiful women to maintain his persona as the "Bad Boy of the Blues"

In 1951 he covered Hank Penny’s “Bloodshot Eyes” (King 4461).

Harris transitioned between several recording contracts between 1954 and 1964. In 1960 he cut six sides for Roulette Records that included a remake of his hit “Bloodshot Eyes” as well as “Sweet Lucy Brown”, “Spread the News”, “Saturday Night”, “Josephine” and “Did You Get the Message”. He also became more indebted, and was forced to live in less glamorous surroundings.

In 1964 Harris resettled for the last time in Los Angeles. His final recordings were three sides which he did for the Chess Records label (in Chicago) in 1964: “The Comeback”, “Buzzard Luck” and “Conjured”. His final large-scale performance was at the Apollo, New York in November 1967, where he performed with Big Joe Turner, Big Mama Thornton, Jimmy Witherspoon and T-Bone Walker.

On June 14, 1969, aged 53, Harris died of esophageal cancer at the USC Medical Center Hospital in Los Angeles.