This is a very belated response to a query from Paul Garon,
listed in ‘Words Words Words’, Blues & Rhythm magazine No. 188. April, 2004.
After listening to Chicago Bound Blues by female singer Yack Taylor
(1941), he said that the recording “begins with Yack singing that she wants to
leave old Bingham town, or at least it sounds like that. Heading for Chicago,
of course. But I can’t find a Bingham Town anywhere”. (1)
[Addendum: "Bingham Town" was used
in the 1920s to refer to Binghamtown, Alabama located not far from Birmingham. -
thanks to Murray Kirch for the info]
__________________________________________________________________________
The
following is an attempt to answer Garon’s query-some 7 years later! The Taylor
recording itself was a really late cover of an early side by Ida Cox in 1923
[Para 12056 Tk.2] which spawned three other versions later the same year. (see
Table 1 below)
Late
last night I stoled away an’ cried. (x 2)
Got the blues for Chicago, can’t be satisfied.
Got
the blues so bad, I’m gonna leave old Bingham Town. (x 2)
My man caught a train, it was Chicago bound. (2)
Ida
clearly sings “old Bingham Town”.
Table 1
Title |
Artist |
Matrix |
Date/location |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES
(FAMOUS MIGRATION BLUES) |
Ida Cox |
1503-2* |
July-Aug. 1923. Chicago, Illinois |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES
(FAMOUS MIGRATION BLUES) |
Ida Cox |
1503-3 |
as above |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES
(FAMOUS MIGRATION BLUES) |
Ida Cox |
1503-4 |
as above |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES
(FAMOUS MIGRATION BLUES) |
Ida Cox |
1503-5 |
as above |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES
(FAMOUS MIGRATION BLUES) |
Ida Cox |
1503-6 |
as above |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES |
Edna Hicks
(Columbia unissued) |
1366-3 |
21/11/23.
New York City NY |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES |
Hazel Meyers |
12379 |
30/11/23.
New York City NY |
CHICAGO BOUND BLUES |
Bessie Smith |
81391-3 |
4/12/23.
New York City NY |
[ * Take 2 is not in B.&
G. R. (1997) but is listed on Document DOCD-5322 issued 1995. Some lack of
communication here? One for Howard Rye.]
All takes (take-1 has not turned up yet) of the Ida Cox
song are virtually identical, both lyrically and musically. Only takes-5 and 6
include an additional verse which is a “T is for Texas” variant, some 4 years
prior to country singer Jimmy Rodgers picking up on it for his Blue Yodel
in 1927, as Steve Tracy pointed out in his notes to DOCD-5573 in 1997.
|
Ida Cox - 'Uncrowned Queen of the
Blues' c. 1924
From the collection of John Tefteller and Blues Images with permission,
www.bluesimages.com
|
Hazel Meyers cut a fine version some 3 months later and
she slavishly copies the earlier takes by Ida Cox. Although in a different
order but she uses the “Bingham Town” verse whilst omitting the “T is for Texas”
lines. Four days later Bessie Smith’s version followed the Myer’s order of
verses except omitting the “Bingham Town” verse altogether. This seems to imply
a personal biographic detail (not always the case) regarding a ‘window’ on the
earlier life of Ida Cox. Hazel Meyers placed this verse as the penultimate one
in her song, presumably as it had no personal interest or meaning for her.
Chicago Bound Blues is credited to Lovie Austin who was often the excellent
pianist on earlier Ida Cox recordings.
Now, to the nub of Paul
Garon’s query. Although not on early 20th. century maps, a 1995 road
atlas does include a Bingham in Illinois. It is only recently (2010!) that I
came across a copy of McNally’s 1928 Handy Railroad Atlas of the United
States. Part of the criteria for this excellent and essential publication
(to a Blues historian) is that only “towns of 2,000 population or over on
railroads are shown on this map [of Illinois]
(3) This figure varies for other
state maps included, between 500 and 5,000, depending on the population of a
particular state in 1928. So Bingham in the late 1920s was a very small burg
indeed. Yet it was served by a major railroad (the town was probably just a
whistle stop) when presumably Ida Cox was living there. The New York, Chicago &
St. Louis RR-better known as the Nickel Plate Road-running from west to east
leaving St. Louis, Missouri, and via Bingham crosses Ramsey, Illinois, which was
a stop on the Illinois Central (I.C.). The latter headed north for Chicago or
southwards through Centralia, Illinois, (of Estes fame!) down to Cairo,
Illinois, and on into Tennessee and then Mississippi on down to New Orleans.
Bingham is situated some 10 miles due south-west of Ramsey and nearly 20 miles
north-west of Vandalia, Illinois; both in Fayette County
1995 road atlas - Bingham is circled near centre.
Ida Cox could have easily got a train from
Chattanooga, Tennessee-where she spent some considerable time and recording a
Chattanooga Blues-up to Ramsey on the I.C. changing over to the Nickel Plate
for a very short ride to Bingham. Maybe she met the man in her Chicago Bound
Blues there and decided to live in the little town for a while. Ms. Cox who
was from Toccoa, Georgia, in Stephens County, spent some considerable time in
northern cities such as Chicago and New York where she recorded extensively
between 1923 and 1940. Using the Nickel Plate Road to nearby Ramsey, Ida Cox
could catch an I.C. train direct to the Windy City.
A section of McNally’s
1928 map of Illinois railroads - I have written in Bingham in top right hand
corner.
The Nickel Plate is clearly marked from St. Louis and crossing Ramsey
Like many of
her contemporaries this vaudeville-blues singer was a ‘ramblin’ woman in her
younger days. Jaybird Coleman’s words;
Gotta
head full of foolishness, my baby got a ramblin’ mind. (4)
are more
typical than not. As well as her sojourns in Chicago, etc. she also
“frequently toured as [a] feature artist on [the] vaudeville
circuit down [the] East Coast through [the] 20s;”.
(5) But despite being one of the 4 ‘hard hitters’ of
the genre along with Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Clara Smith-and just as
successful- she is not featured in the Guinness Blues Who’s Who. Although
her regular early pianist and sometime husband, Jesse Crump, is! Ms. Cox is
only mentioned ‘en passant’ in the latter’s entry.
Addendum
Nickel Plate Road
A smart new dining car (c.
early 1930s) with fast trucks (sets of bogie wheels) on the Nickel Plate Road.
Black waiters would prove the smooth running by filling cups of coffee to the
brim and they would not spill!
The official (initialled) name of the railroad appears in small letters above
an end door.
“In the late 19th.
century, nickel was used interchangeably with silver to describe something of
prestige or quality. The glittering prospects and substantial financial means
of the Nickel Plate’s founders prompted Ohio newspaper editor F.R. Loomis of the
Norwalk Chronicle to label it ‘the great New York and
St. Louis double track, nickel plated railroad’ in an
editorial published March 10, 1881”. (6) A
wide-spread story that the railroad laid its route with nickel plated tracks is
almost bound to be apocryphal-for the prohibitive cost alone. The railroad was
sold, for $7,000,000, three days after opening in 1881 to William H. Vanderbilt
who owned the New York Central RR., a powerful rival to the Nickel Plate and
regarded the latter as “one of those nuisance railroads, built parallel to
the Central’s Lake Shore route for 500 miles between Buffalo [New York]
and Chicago.” (7) Facing probable anti-trust
charges in the courts, the NYC sold the Nickel Plate in 1916.
(8) As already noted, the latter ran from St. Louis, crossing the
I.C. at Ramsey (where Ida Cox could leave the Nickel Plate from Bingham,
Illinois, to catch an Illinois Central train to Chicago) and headed for Buffalo,
NY.
Copyright
Ó
Max Haymes
2011
__________________________________________________________________________ Notes:
1. |
Garon P. |
p.22 |
2. |
“Chicago Bound Blues (Famous Migration
Blues)” |
Ida Cox vo.; Lovie Austin pno.
July-August, 1923. Chicago, Illinois. |
3. |
McNally R. |
p.15 |
4. |
“No More Good Water Cause The Pond Is
Dry” |
Jaybird Coleman vo. hca. c.13/8/27. Birmingham, Alabama. |
5. |
Harris S. |
p.134 |
6. |
Sanders C. |
p.151 |
7. |
Saunders Jr. R. |
p.50 |
8. |
Sanders |
Ibid. (see p.153) and also Sanders. Ibid. p. 52 |
Illustration of Ida Cox from the
collection of John Tefteller and Blues Images with permission,
www.bluesimages.com
Bibliography:
1. |
Harris Shelby |
Blues Who’s Who[
Da Capo. New York] 1989. Rep. 1st.
pub. 1979. |
2. |
McNally Rand. |
1928 Handy Railroad Atlas Of The United
States [Kalmbach
Publishing Co. Milwaukee, Wisconsin] 1948. Rep. 1st pub.
1928. |
3. |
Sanders Craig |
Limiteds, Locals, And Expresses In
Indiana, 1838-1971 [Indiana
University Press. Bloomington. Indianapolis] 2003. |
4. |
Saunders Jr. Richard. |
Merging Lines: American Railroads
1900-1970[Northern Illinois
University Press. De Kalb] 2001. |
5. |
Discographical details: Robert M.W.
Dixon. John Godrich. Howard Rye. |
Blues & Gospel Records1 890-1943.
4th. Ed.,(rev.). Ed. [Clarendon Press. Oxford] 1997.
|
Transcriptions by Max Haymes
__________________________________________________________________________
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