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Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 10:07:57 -0700
From: Tom Ball
Subject: Re: prewar texas harp players/Att Tom Ball

Pat, thanks. I have some Clifford Gibson and Jaybird Coleman recordings.
I guess I'm still on firm ground when I say that relative to Texas, the
Delta,
>and Southeast Coast, not much blues was recorded in Alabama. Obviously some
sides were cut. Actually, there were probably more pre-war recordings of
harp players from Alabama than there were of Texan players. Aside from
William McCoy, how many other Texan harp players can you name that were
recorded prior to WWII?
BTW, another Alabama harp player comes to mind, although he recorded after
WWII - Horace Sprott. He had a ton of stuff issued by Folkways.
_________
As far as prewar blues in general, I've read that more was recorded in
Texas than in Alabama. As for prewar Texas blues harmonica players, I
think I've got one somewhere on a Yahoo CD which I was just looking for
without luck, and that could be your William McCoy. Past that, you got me
by the kinks. Billy Bizor was a postwar Texas player who recorded with
Lightnin Hopkins, if you've heard him.
But other prewar Texas players? This is a case for Tom Ball. Tom, what do
you have on this? It seems Texas was always pretty much guitar country
for blues players. Wonder why that was?
================================================================Great question and one that I'm afraid I can't answer.... Texas has always
had a strong (monotone-bass) acoustic guitar tradition (Mance Lipscomb,
Buddy Woods, Lightnin' Hopkins, Black Ace, Funny Paper Smith, Little Son
Jackson, etc,) as well as a strong barrelhouse piano tradition (Son Becky,
Pinetop Burks, Black Boy Shine, The Grey Ghost, etc,) but hardly any
pre-war harmonicists. Even The Dallas Jamboree Jug Band had no harp.
Hmmm... Other than William McCoy, only other one I can think of is Freeman
Stowers, who is thought to have been from Texas, but who recorded in
Indiana....

Meanwhile, Tennessee was the harmonica hotbed. Consider in the 20's and
30's alone, the state of Tennessee boasted the presences of Noah Lewis,
DeFord Bailey, Will Shade, Jed Davenport, Alfred Lewis, the Crook Brothers,
Hammie Nixon, Dr. Humphrey Bate, Walter Horton, Ellis Williams, "Hot Shot"
Love, Rhythm Willie, Robert Lee McCoy, El Watson, Joe Hill Louis, the young
Junior Wells, the young Junior Parker, and John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson.
If Mississippi can be considered the birthplace of bottleneck guitar, one
could surely make a case for Tennessee as the spawning ground of country
and blues harmonica.

But getting back to Texas, t'is simply a mystery, innit? Where were all
the harmonica players?

- -Tom Ball