James Crutchfield

For the American mathematician and physicist, see James P. Crutchfield.
James Crutchfield

Crutchfield in St. Louis, 1992
Background information
Born May 25, 1912
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Died December 7, 2001(2001-12-07) (aged 89)
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Genres Blues, boogie-woogie
Occupation(s) Songwriter
Instruments Vocals, piano
Years active 1920s–2001

James Crutchfield (May 25 [uncertain], 1912 – December 7 or 8, 2001) was a St. Louis barrelhouse blues singer, piano player and songwriter whose career spanned seven decades. He was known as "The King of Barrelhouse Blues". His repertoire consisted of original and classic blues and boogie-woogie and popular songs of the Depression era.[1] His best-known songs include "I Believe You Need a Shot" and "My Baby Cooks My Breakfast".[2]

Childhood

There is no record of James Crutchfield's birth: "My mama never know'd what day it was, she never know'd what month it was, but she always know'd what year it was. 'Lotta folks back in them days never even know'd that much, but my mama always did. She told me I was born in '12, in Baton Rouge, when the high water was highest." Crutchfield said his mother, Sarah, was a Geechee, a descendent of slaves of the Georgia and Carolina sea islands, and said he much resembled her. He described his father, Tom Crutchfield, as a large copper-colored man from southwestern Mississippi, whom he did not meet until he was eight years old and with whom he maintained a cordial relationship thereafter. James was his mother's only child, and as a farm worker she traveled with the boy in Louisiana and East Texas, moving with the cotton and sugarcane seasons, sometimes living in tents. His earliest memories were of troops coming home from World War I and the silent westerns of William S. Hart, whom he idolized.[3]

Around 1920, his mother married and settled in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In his early teens, while employed as the janitor in a theater, Crutchfield began to teach himself to play on the house piano.[4] Also around this time, curious about the date of his birth, he went to the Baton Rouge library and told the story his mother had told him to an intrigued librarian. Together they looked through the 1912 newspapers and found that indeed, there had been a flood then, which crested on May 25. From that time on, he used that date as his birthday.[5]

In 1927, working as an underage employee for a local railroad, Crutchfield lost his left leg below the knee in a coupling accident. The railroad settled out of court for twenty thousand dollars. Part of the money was used to buy his mother a house in Baton Rouge, and the rest, given his diminished opportunities for employment, was used to subsidize his fledgling musical career.[5]

Career

By the end of the 1920s, Crutchfield had begun traveling a circuit of rough-and-tumble Louisiana lumber camps, Mississippi levee camps[6] and East Texas juke joints,[7] performing as the M & O Kid,[8] in tribute to his mentor, the Mississippi barrelhouse bluesman M & O, whom Crutchfield later said was the best he ever heard. The establishments that served the lumber and levee camps typically stayed open all day and night and provided food, drink and lodging for two piano players, who each played a 12-hour shift for tips.[5] Competition for these jobs was cutthroat, and Crutchfield developed his lifelong habit of playing for hours without a break, out of fear that somebody better would sit down and play in his absence and steal his job (which had evidently happened).[9]

Another early influence was Papa Lord God, a Texan: "Oh Papa Lord God, he was bad, man, he was baaad!"[5] Little Brother Montgomery showed him "44 Blues" when the Montgomery brothers performed in Bogalusa;[10] and he traded techniques in after-hours sessions with Champion Jack Dupree when they played at rival nightclubs on the same street in Baton Rouge, early in their careers.[5] Crutchfield worked as accompanist to Joe Pullum in the early 1930s and performed with him in Texas and Louisiana, occasionally hopping freight trains for transportation. He played Pullum's hit "Black Gal" for the rest of his career. Shortly after the end of World War II, Crutchfield performed with Elmore James and Boyd Gilmore around Goodman, Mississippi.[10]

In 1948, Crutchfield moved to St. Louis, Missouri, a city with a venerable blues piano tradition dating back to the ragtime era.[11] He worked in the Gaslight Square entertainment district at various venues, including a decade-long residency at Miss Rosalee's Left Bank.[12] In 1955, Crutchfield was appearing with the drummer Bat the Hummingbird in a bar at 2220 Market Street, formerly Tom Turpin's Rosebud Saloon, where Scott Joplin had performed half a century earlier.[13] He was found there by Bob Koester on a tip from a policeman, Charlie O'Brien and recorded a few days later, along with Speckled Red. Several of the songs were eventually released in the anthology series Barrelhouse Blues and Stomps on the Euphonic label. Six selections can be heard on the compilation album Biddle Street Barrelhousin', released in 2000 by Delmark Records.[14]

The decline of Gaslight Square in the late 1960s was also the decline of Crutchfield's musical career. He was professionally inactive in the 1970s and worked as a cook at the state hospital for a number of years. In the early 1980s he was collecting and selling junk tires and running an illegal gambling operation.[12]

Rediscovery

In 1981, Swingmaster, a new Dutch record label, was interested in recording any of the old-time St. Louis barrelhouse piano players still be alive. They contacted the same Charlie O'Brien who had been instrumental in locating Crutchfield a quarter-century earlier, and he reported that Crutchfield was still around and in fine form. Swingmaster visited St. Louis that year but had no luck finding him. They returned in 1983, and this time, with the assistance of bluesman Henry Townsend, they were successful. Crutchfield traveled to the Netherlands later that year and recorded the album Original Barrelhouse Blues, which was re-released on CD in 2001 as St. Louis Blues Piano.[10] He performed on tour in Belgium, France, and Germany[6] and at several venues in the Netherlands, notably a concert in a stadium in Utrecht that he later said was the largest crowd he had ever played for.[10]

Back in St. Louis, local impresario Mark O'Shaughnessy guided Crutchfield's comeback and introduced him to the contemporary blues scene.[12] He received a publicity boost when he was selected as the first recipient of the Lillian Carter Award for Outstanding Senior Citizen in 1984.[10] Crutchfield and his wife, Ernestine, moved to the Soulard neighborhood, an area known for its many nightclubs, and he played weekly at Broadway Oyster Bar, 1860 Saloon, Mike & Min's, and other clubs.[5] In the late 1980s, Crutchfield was regularly performing with a backup group consisting of Guitar Frank, Papa John (washtub bass) and Rosceaux (washboard).[15] He played the 1988 St. Louis Blues Festival at the Jefferson Memorial in Forest Park,[5] appeared every weekend at Allen Avenue,[16] and began playing every Wednesday night for the next 12 years at Venice Cafe, where many of the top blues and jazz musicians in St. Louis would often sit in.[12]

In the early 1990s, Crutchfield replaced the "tub" and "rub-board" with Sharon Foehner (bass) and Bill Howell (drums) and added Andy Millner (harmonica).[17] In addition to weekly engagements, one-nighters, parties and weddings, he appeared at the 1993 St. Louis Blues Festival on the riverfront,[18] Harp Attack at Mississippi Nights,[19] and the Casa Loma Ballroom.[20] He was a well zknown and popular character around the neighborhood; his annual birthday celebration at Molly's began the summer beer garden season in Soulard.[12]

Crutchfield appeared at the St. Louis Blues Heritage Festival in 1997[21] and continued working regularly, performing with local rock & roll pioneer Bennie Smith and the Urban Blues Express in his last years.[22]

He died of complications of heart disease on December 7[23] or 8,[24] 2001, in St. Louis, almost the last bluesman of his era. An impromptu parade through the streets of Soulard was held in his honor.[12]

Discography

Barrelhouse Blues and Stomps, vol. 4, various artists, Euphonic ESR-1204 (1957)

Levee Blues

Barrelhouse Blues and Stomps, vol. 5, various artists, Euphonic ESR-1205 (1967)

Black Woman / How Long Blues

Original Barrelhouse Blues, Swingmaster 2109 (1985)

Piggly Wiggly Blues / Pearly Mae / I Believe You Need a Shot / Forty-Four Blues / Bogalusa Blues / My Baby Cooks My Breakfast / Black Woman / U.S.- Russian Blues / Barrelhouse Blues / My Little Lucille

Biddle Street Barrelhousin', various artists, Delmark DE-739 (2000)

Levee Blues / Blow North Wind / How Long Blues / Black Gal / Ora-Nelle Blues / Pearly Mae Blues

St. Louis Blues Piano, Swingmaster CD 2205 (2001)

re-issue of Original Barrelhouse Blues, Swingmaster 2109

The Story of Piano Blues: From the Country to the City, various artists, Wolf CD 120106 (2013)

Sittin' on Top of the World

Another Friend Like Me, various artists, Document DOCD 32-20-19 (2013)

Sittin' on Top of the World / Peetie Wheatstraw Blues

References

  1. ↑ Larkin, Colin, ed. (1998). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, vol. 2. London. p. 1319.
  2. ↑ Thedeadrockstarsclub.com - accessed November 10, 2011
  3. ↑ Rio, Johnny. "Ain't Nothin' but a House Party". The Soulard Renaissance XIII, 4, Fall 1988.
  4. ↑ James Crutchfield interview; www.stlblues.net; accessed March 2011
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Rio
  6. 1 2 Larkin
  7. ↑ Silvester, Peter J. (2009). The Story of Boogie-Woogie: A Left Hand Like God. Scarecrow Press. pp. 143–44.
  8. ↑ Crutchfield, James, and Bruin, Leo. St. Louis Blues Piano, liner notes 1983/2001.
  9. ↑ Stage, Wm. James' Leg. The Riverfront Times, April 3, 2002.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Crutchfield and Bruin
  11. ↑ James Crutchfield profile; www.bluesworld.com; accessed March 2011
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stage
  13. ↑ Belford, Kevin (2009). Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St. Louis, Missouri. Virginia Publishing. p. 180.
  14. ↑ Koester, Bob (2000). Biddle Street Barrelhousin, liner notes.
  15. ↑ Crone, Thomas. Soulard's Favorite Sons. The Riverfront Times, December 16, 1998.
  16. ↑ Farrar, Jay (2013). Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs. Soft Skull Press. p. 51.
  17. ↑ Crutchfield interview
  18. ↑ Blues Festival Schedule; The St. Louis Post-Dispatch; August 17, 1993
  19. ↑ Harp Attack '93 poster
  20. ↑ Homeless Benefit Concert handbill, May 23, 1993
  21. ↑ Blues Heritage Festival; The St. Louis Post-Dispatch; August 15, 1997
  22. ↑ Crone
  23. ↑ Spencer, Rene. Urge to Submerge. The Riverfront Times, December 19, 2001.
  24. ↑ Crutchfield profile

External links

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