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Blues legend Victoria Spivey’s got the ‘Dope Head Blues’
04.25.2016
02:57 pm
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The great American blues singer and pianist Victoria Spivey’s long and influential career began as part of her family’s string band which was led by her father, who would die when she was just seven. After this, Victoria would perform by herself at parties and various events around Houston, and later accompanying silent movies on the organ at the Lincoln Theater in Dallas.

Although she was mostly a solo act in her early years, on occasion she would perform with accompaniment from Blind Lemon Jefferson on guitar. Spivey took her cue from “dirty” blues belter Ida Cox penning and performing bawdy songs about drugs and sex in various dives, speakeasies, houses of ill repute, gambling parlours and gay bars.
 

 
King Vidor cast Spivey as the good girl Missy in his 1929 classic Hallelujah, one of the first Hollywood films with sound. Queen Vee was a star of Broadway’s famous Hellzapoppin’ Revue in the 1930s and logged many miles of road time with Louis Armstrong as a featured singer in various incarnations of his touring groups. Spivey retired from showbiz in 1951, but when the folk craze of the early 1960s hit, she found herself in demand again.
 

 
She and her boyfriend, jazz scholar Len Kunstadt, formed the Spivey Records label in 1962. Her first release on her own label featured a young Bob Dylan as a backing vocalist and harmonica player and the label would release albums by Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Big Joe Williams, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Lonnie Johnson, Memphis Slim, and Louis Armstrong. Victoria Spivey died in 1976 and the label was kept going until Kunstadt’s passing in 1996.

She recorded her first song, “Black Snake Blues” for the famed OKeh label in 1926. Here she is performing it in 1963 during the American Folk Blues Festival European Tour with Lonnie Johnson on guitar and Sonny Boy Williamson on harmonica.
 

 
More Victoria Spivey after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.25.2016
02:57 pm
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Son House heckles Howlin’ Wolf, who keeps it classy, 1966
10.12.2013
08:16 pm
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Howlin' Wolf
 
During the American Folk Blues Festival in Newport, Howlin’ Wolf reflects on the meaning of the blues, while Delta blues peer Son House heckles him, sloshed out of his ever-lovin’ gourd. It could have been way more uncomfortable than it actually was, but Howlin’ Wolf elegantly hands House his drunken ass. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Son House, but Wolf is one of those seemingly rare aggressive, “dangerous” performers who also happened to be a really, really good person.

In additions to being a devoted husband and father (and raising his wife’s two daughters from a previous relationship), Howlin’ Wolf (real name Chester Burnett) actually attempted to support his mother as soon as he became successful. Tragically, she drove him to tears, rejecting both her son and his money for their association with “The Devil’s Music.” In a time when black musicians were almost never properly compensated, Howlin’ Wolf was a musician’s union member and managed his money incredibly well. Not only did he possess innate business savvy, he passed that knowledge on to his band members, who received health insurance as a condition of their employment. They were also required to pay union dues, but if they couldn’t afford it, Wolf would front them the money, or send extra dosh to their family back home.

It might go without saying that Howlin’ Wolf attributed much of his success to the avoidance of vice and excess, and with Son House as a cautionary tale, it’s not hard to imagine why.
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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10.12.2013
08:16 pm
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Have yourself a Southern Gothic Christmas: Add Leadbelly to your holiday mix
12.17.2012
07:36 am
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image
 
A rather festive number, considering he’s best known for the most haunting rendition of an American murder ballad ever recorded… and his violent criminal record.

If you’re familiar with Leadbelly’s life, this isn’t actually very surprising. In addition to stabbing a man in a fight and killing a relative over a woman, he recorded a large repertoire of children’s music.

 

 

Posted by Amber Frost
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12.17.2012
07:36 am
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