[William ]
(b USA, c1890; d ? USA, after 1933). American alto and tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, and singer. His first known engagements were in China (1920) and Australia. After moving to England in 1925 he played in Bert Ralton’s Savoy Havana Band and recorded with Bert Firman (...
[Alonzo ]
(b New Orleans, LA, Feb 8, 1894; d Toronto, ON, June 16, 1970). American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. Research indicates that Johnson was born in 1894 (Alger). He was influenced by the musical activities of his family and the rich musical environment in New Orleans of the early 1900s, including the early blues, jazz, and the lyrically expressive French and Spanish music traditions. He began playing violin, developed excellent guitar skill, and by the 1920s was also recording on piano, banjo, mandolin, and harmonium.
Johnson performed on violin with Charlie Creath’s band on the Mississippi riverboat St. Paul, and after winning a blues singing contest in St. Louis, he began his recording career with OKeh Records. His first recording featured “Mr. Johnson’s Blues” and “Falling Rain Blues” (OK, 1925) and was a two-sided hit. From 1925 through 1932 he made more recordings than any other bluesman. In late ...
[née Dunn; Withers, Sara(?h) Martin]
(b Louisville, KY, June 18, 1884; d Louisville, May 24, 1955). American singer. Her death certificate (reproduced in Swinton, 1997) gives her father’s name as William Dunn and shows her name at death as Sarah Martin Withers; however, Sarah may well be a misspelling of Sara by hospital staff. She married the entertainer Hayes B. Withers in December 1926 and used his surname for many years. In the course of her career in popular music Martin sang on a vaudeville circuit based in the Chicago area (from c1915), then performed in New York (1922). There her robust, extrovert style of singing the blues was noticed by Clarence Williams, who booked accompanists and arranged recording sessions for her, and in October 1922 she became one of the first female blues singers to be recorded. In addition she toured with Fats Waller (1922–3) and W. C. Handy (...
(b Louisville, KY, Oct 2, 1885; d Louisville, KY, April 28, 1949). American jug blower, singer, and bandleader. A different date of birth appears on his death certificate but the date here was given by McDonald himself to two separate sources. His family moved to Louisville when he was two. He heard the pioneer jug blower B. D. Tite on the streets in 1900 and by 1902 had organized his own Louisville Jug Band, which played for parties and at the racetrack during Derby week. The band appeared at the New York Hippodrome in 1914 and later in Chicago at Lamb’s Café (summer 1915), the Casino Gardens (winter 1916–17), and the Classic Café (1920). In 1924 a group organized jointly with Clifford Hayes visited New York, where they made some recordings as Sara Martin’s Jug Band, notably Blue Devil Blues/Jug Band Blues (OK 8188). Versions of the Louisville Jug Band recorded later for OKeh under Clifford Hayes’s name (...
[Robert Williams]
(b Ohio, March 15, 1885; d New York, Nov 25, 1936). American pianist, composer, and arranger. The family name was originally Rickets and appears thus in the 1900 census, but Bob Ricketts always used the version with two “t”s. He began his professional career with minstrel troupes and in 1907 was musical director of the Dixieland Troubadours [sic]. In 1914 he became director of the Circle Theatre in Philadelphia. In 1915 he composed additional music and wrote arrangements for the show Broadway Rastus. He was the bandleader at the Standard Theater in Philadelphia in 1915–16. After he assumed the management of the National Theatre in November 1916 his band continued to play in the Philadelphia area. By 1922 he had moved to New York City, where he provided the arrangement for Put And Take by Johnny Dunn’s Original Jazz Hounds, believed to be Sam Wooding’s band in this instance (...
(b Indianapolis, July 8, 1892; d Palmdale, CA, Sept 30, 1963). American songwriter and pianist. He was principally self-taught as a pianist, and began his career accompanying silent films in Indianapolis when he was a teenager. Since he was crippled in his right arm by polio, he developed a distinctive left-hand style incorporating gymnastic and unorthodox passages. His playing was particularly popular with piano-roll companies, and he recorded dozens of rolls for Imperial and the United States Music Company in Chicago (1917–18) before moving under exclusive contract to the QRS company in New York to record blues songs (1918–21). From January to mid-October 1919 and again from late September 1920 to mid-April 1921 Robinson was pianist for the Original Dixieland Jazz [Jass] Band, with which he toured England; during this same period he also managed W. C. Handy’s music publishing firm. He had a number of hits with his own popular songs, beginning with ...
[Arthur, Jr. ]
(b New Orleans, 11 Jan ?1890; d Los Angeles, July 2, 1949). American guitarist, banjoist, and singer. He played violin and guitar from his childhood, and in the years around 1905 worked with John Robichaux and, briefly, Freddie Keppard. In 1913 he left New Orleans and performed on the southern vaudeville circuit, then in 1915 he went to New York and worked as a nightclub singer and violinist in theater orchestras. He also studied at the Institute of Musical Art and, while working in Baltimore (1917), at the Peabody Conservatory. From spring 1923 he toured the Midwest and played intermittently in Chicago with King Oliver. It is his voice heard shouting “Oh play that thing!” on Oliver’s second recording (June 1923) of Dipper Mouth Blues (he missed the earlier session, in April 1923, at which the group’s double bass player, Bill Johnson (i), played banjo and initiated this shout). Scott worked on the West Coast with Kid Ory, briefly rejoined Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in Chicago, and then returned to Ory on the West Coast before joining Curtis Mosby’s Blue Blowers. He was in Chicago once again for much of ...
(Lee )
(b Indianapolis, July 10, 1889; d Tampa, FL, Dec 17, 1975). American singer, songwriter, and bandleader. He sang professionally from 1908, and worked as a singer and dancer through his years at De Pauw University, Greencastle, Indiana (1913), and Butler University, Indianapolis (1914 – May 1915). He formed his first orchestra in 1915 and then left university to form a duo with Eubie Blake in Baltimore. After working in society dance bands led by Bob Young and James Reese Europe he resumed his songwriting and performing partnership with Blake, then in September 1916 rejoined Europe in New York. He became a drum major in Europe’s 369th US Infantry band, with which he toured overseas in 1918; he remained in the band until its leader was murdered in May 1919. In the 1920s Sissle achieved much success as a singer and songwriter in vaudeville and on Broadway with Blake (for illustration ...
(b Spartanburg, SC, 1894; d Detroit, Feb 2, 1935). American singer. She began working in vaudeville around 1910, and by 1918 was a principal performer on the Theater Owners’ Booking Association circuit. For the next five years she toured, mainly in the South, before traveling in 1923 to New York, where she sang at clubs in Harlem and made her first recordings. Thereafter, until her last sessions in 1932, she worked in studios with such distinguished musicians as Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Green, and Joe Smith. In 1924 she opened a theatrical club in New York, but continued to tour extensively, working as far afield as the West Coast (1924-5). She appeared frequently in revues in Harlem from 1928 to 1931; in the early 1930s she worked with Paul Barbarin in New York, and also performed in Detroit and Cleveland.
Smith recorded exclusively for Columbia, whose catalogue also included the work of Bessie Smith, and the fame of the latter has undoubtedly distracted audiences from Clara Smith’s work. She was often known as the “Queen of the Moaners” – this facet of her style may be heard on ...
