Essay - Tracing The Origins of Dying Crapshooters Blues

In the history of recorded blues, it was generally the more urban singers who were first immortalized on wax running at 78 revolutions per minute. After the historic break-through of Mamie Smith (the first black blues singer on record) with Crazy Blues in 1920, this opened the floodgates, because of the unexpected and staggering response from the black working-class population; for many more female artistes whose singing styles covered the whole range of what was to become known as vaudeville-blues (nee ‘classic blues’). Singers such as Edith Wilson, Rosa Henderson, Edmonia Henderson, Bessie Smith. Clara Smith (not related), Ma Rainey and Bertha ‘Chippie’ Hill, all contributed to the blues scene in the early 1920s. Ranging from the lighter more vaudeville blues of Edmonia Henderson and Edith Wilson, through the more bluesy Rosa Henderson (both Hendersons also not related), to the ‘heavy’ blues of Rainey, both the Smiths and Chippie Hill. Of course some of these singers, like Ma Rainey continued to record until the end of the decade, with Bessie and Clara Smith going on into the early 1930s.

In the ensuing dash to maintain the momentum of this new source of income, the record companies scoured the big cities for more talent. The reason for this was that the vaudeville blues singers worked the theatre/cabaret circuit accompanied by various jazz groups and bands who in themselves contained some illustrious names, King Oliver and Louis Armstrong among them. As the fountain began to run dry, the record companies began to search further afield, literally, as they went ‘into’ the countryside, and between 1924 and 1926 with recording debuts by Papa Charlie Jackson, Blind Blake, Bo Weavil Jackson, Peg Leg Howell, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, the rural or country blues had “arrived”. Of course in the evolution of the blues, some thirty years old by 1920, the complete opposite was the case. In any event, this paved the way for a whole host of country blues singers and musicians such as the immortal Charlie Patton, Barbecue Bob, Texas Alexander, Bukka White, Memphis Minnie, Bessie Tucker, Son House, Robert Johnson, Memphis Jug Band, et al.

Unlike the earlier vaudeville blues singers who, generally speaking did not play an instrument on their recordings, the rural artists, in the main, used their own accompaniment. This usually featured just a guitar or piano, and sometimes a harmonica, a fiddle, or a second guitar were added. Also incorporated were rough unorthodox instruments like a kazoo, jug, an imitation bass, washboard, and so on. Many of these singers were decidedly not ‘sophisticated’. They sang blues of 12-bars, 16-bars, 13½-bars, or no bars at all! Their voices were sometimes rough, archaic-sounding and barely comprehensible, and again sometimes clear and nearer white. Between these two extremes were an endless variety of vocal styles including falsetto, moaned choruses and antiphonal ‘call and response’ where the guitar becomes a second voice which completes the half-sung line. Many of these blues singers were itinerant beggars and ramblers, never staying in one place very long before ‘hopping a freight’ and letting a train take them to pastures a-new or walking ‘on down that old lonesome road’, often having to live by their wits through lack of employment and the oppression of the insidious Jim Crow segregation laws; it was especially tough for the blind singers.

It was one of the latter and one of the greatest blues men, Blind Willie McTell, who on a wintry day in November, 1940, cut the first known recording of Crapshooter in the style of the rural blues, in Atlanta, Georgia (McTell’s home state) for the Library of Congress based in Washington D.C. It was a song he was to re-record on two more occasions in the post-war period.

Although McTell had started his recording career as early as October, 1927, for Victor Records, a commercial company, he did not include Crapshooter in his repertoire; and like the potted history of blues above, it was first recorded under the broad umbrella of the vaudeville-blues with a small jazz group accompaniment, by Martha Copeland in the same year. In the following month of June, Mamie McKinney cut her version with Porter Grainger on piano but it remains unissued. Viola McCoy recorded Crapshooter in late August with a similar line-up to Martha Copeland. The following month Rosa Henderson put out her version accompanied by Cliff Jackson on piano; and remained the last recording of this particular blues until November 1940 in Atlanta. These four performances of Dying Crapshooter’s Blues, as far as we know, are the sum total committed to wax (excluding McTell’s version) in the pre-war blues era of 1890-1943. All four female singers were vaudeville blues artists more at home in a jazz setting. The recordings were all made within five months of each other and they were all made in New York City.

Blind Willie McTell’s first known recording of Crapshooter as has already been stated was in November, 1940, and as part of his introduction to this version he states “I am gonna play this song that I made myself, originally this is from Atlanta” (see Appendix.I). This statement also has strong significance when tracing the path of Crapshooter’s origins which we will return to later. McTell’s third and final version has a lengthy spoken introduction including the claim “I started writin’ a song in ’29, though I didn’t finish it, I didn’t finish it til 1932.” (see Appendix II) But despite this statement, I believe that 1927 was the year that McTell wrote Dying Crapshooter’s Blues, or at least the best part of it. I would now like to indulge in a little linguistic detective work!

By the time of his last session (1956) his memory was not so quick (the effect of prolonged hard drinking?) as at the time of his interview with Alan Lomax, the famous American folklorist, in 1940. Besides the repeated words in the last quote by McTell, this phenomenon occurred on three other occasions during his introduction, plus one re-utterance three times! Plus two other mistakes where he corrected himself (see Appendix II). Off-hand I can only recall one spoken mistake in the entire interview conducted by Lomax some sixteen years earlier. So I am saying he was mistaken in his remembrance of the year of Crapshooter’s authorship, and did not correct himself on this occasion. This would seem to indicate another downward spiral in the condition Willie McTell’s memory, which would have been more obviously apparent if another hypothetical ‘last session’ could have been held some sixteen years further on, in 1972. (He died in 1959).

Eminent American blues authority, Sam Charters, says of the 1940 version of Crapshooter’s: “This personal reworking of the old ‘Streets of Laredo’ theme is one of McTell’s masterpieces, and this version, which seems to have been recorded not long after he wrote it , since he didn’t do it on earlier sessions, has a clarity of musical detail that the two later versions lack,” (1) [Footnote 1: I find it intriguing to note that, apart from Charters and myself, there is only one other blues writer who makes any connection between this song and Crapshooter. Richard Spottswood says of the McTell composition, that it “is another version of the old bawdy funeral chant best known to most as the expurgated ‘Streets of Laredo’.” (2) ] Thus Charters would appear to put the date of authorship of Crapshooter somewhere between 1935 and 1940, when a quick glance at Table B would put it at least eight years earlier. Just because Willie McTell didn’t record it then, could be down to a number of reasons. Self-censorship if he thought the song too blasphemous or ‘over the top’. Or Victor Records might have heard it and censored it for the same reason, or maybe because of the sudden ‘rush’ of cover versions (see Table B) before his own initial recording session; perhaps neither he or Victor thought there would be any mileage in adding another version (albeit the original!) to the list, in October, 1927. In any event, McTell could have seen it fit to shelve the song until his recording sessions for Decca in 1935, if one title Dying Doubter Blues is possibly his true first recorded version of Crapshooter. We may never know as this remains an unissued item. If it was the case, then it might seem a natural selection for McTell in November, 1940, when Lomax gave him virtually an ‘open cheque book’ as far as material was concerned, for the Library of Congress.

Label shot from Max Haymes' collection - used with permission

As this singer had been musically active for several years before his recording debut in 1927, it would be fairly safe to assume that he wrote Crapshooter sometime in the first four months of that same year, but did not record it until 1940. This would at least explain the small ‘glut’ of cover versions just discussed, if not the total absence of rural recordings of the song at the time. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that McTell completed Crapshooter in 1927 although starting it a couple of years earlier.

Quoting a song called Rollin’ Mill, Odum and Johnson reveal the third verse as follows:

	Carried him off in hoo-doo wagon,
	Brought him back wid his feet a-draggin’,
	O babe, O babe! (3)

It is possible that the above was collected from an unknown singer, in 1925, whom McTell heard in person and got his phrase ‘hoo-doo wagon’ from them. I believe that it was McTell, in any event, that first popularized or even thought of, the replacement phrase ‘one foot up, a toenail dragging’. Another source of inspiration could have come from a ballad called Dis Mornin’, Dis Evenin’, So Soon. This describes how a man leaves his wife in the morning to go downtown ignoring her warning of possible danger to himself as a coloured man; and his wife has her worst fears realized “ ‘when she got word dat Bill was dead’. The final verse is a scenario for a pantomime”. (4) In view of the subject matter, either Sandburg knew little of working class black culture or he had a grim sense of humour! The last verse runs:

	Dey brought Bill home in a hurry-up wagon dis mornin’,
	Dey brought Bill home in a hurry-up wagon dis evenin’,
	Dey brought Bill home in a hurry-up wagon,
	Dey brought Bill home wid his toes a-draggin’,
	Dis mornin’, dis evenin’, so soon. (5)

The ‘hurry-up wagon’ has a parallel in McTell’s ‘hoo-doo wagon’, and of course the phrase ‘toes a-draggin’’ is very similar to his ‘a toenail dragging’. Some thirty odd years later, McTell’s phrase crops up in a blues by another Georgia singer/guitarist, William Robertson (aka Cecil Barfield) who included it in the following verse of a totally unrelated song:

This would seem more than coincidental with McTell’s lyrics and would point to the latter having probably created this verse. In passing, while it is not clear when the Sandburg verse was collected, the ‘plantation’ phraseology of ‘dis, ‘dat’, and ‘de’ puts it in the nineteenth century, probably in the latter half. Carl Sandburg’s source for this song is “Nancy Barnhart, painter and etcher, of St. Louis.” (7) In all three songs quoted, by the use of the slang term for a hearse, ‘hoodoo wagon’, etc., would seem to indicate a superstitious attitude of fear to death, as seen from a purely secular point of view. Although McTell recorded such philosophically religious sides as We‘ve Got To Meet Death Some Day in the 1930s and ‘40s, it was apparently not from any inner conviction at the time. He did not ‘get religion’ until much later, not surprisingly, just prior to his death in 1959. (8) Perhaps as this superstition was so strong in working class blacks at the time, it was a main factor of so little coverage of Dying Crapshooter’s Blues by recorded rural blues singers. This might explain why McTell’s Dying Doubter Blues of 1935 remains unissued. It is interesting, or coincidental (?) to note that Sandburg’s book was published in 1927, the year of the four female cover versions of Crapshooter, and also the year I believe Blind Willie McTell wrote it.

We now turn to McTell’s composition and influences on it. While via his recorded output (1927-1956), his songwriting reputation is assured, there is generally some outside influence which helps to generate the inspiration and this in turn moulds the influential parts into his own personal and very often very original vocal and musical statements. While discussing some of his songs, during the introduction to another 1956 recording called A Married Man’s A Fool, (itself drawn from an earlier title by vaudeville duo Butterbeans and Susie from 1924) McTell says with disarming honesty “... I’d jump ‘em from other writers, but I’d arrange ‘em my way…”. So Blind Willie McTell, in 1940, introduced and sang his own Dying Crapshooter’s Blues to the accompaniment of his fine twelve-string guitar. (see Appendix I).

What stands out more than anything else in this blues is the completely unholy content and atmosphere which is the central theme; religious followers would deem these factors as blasphemous. This blues typifies the picture that church-going blacks had of the blues singers and the blues in general. It was ‘devil’s music’, evil, encouraged promiscuity and drunkenness, etc. The main constituent of this unholy atmosphere is what I will call the ‘numbers request’ motif; ‘sixteen real good crapshooters’, ‘twenty-two women out of the Hamilton Hotel’, etc. This motif, in varying degrees, is to be found running through the majority of songs which have links with Crapshooter going back into the eighteenth century.

The song also has an air of secular anti-establishment present, especially regarding the ‘high sheriff’, the solicitor ‘who jailed me fourteen times’ and the judge. But over-riding this is the complete disregard for death itself. The thumb-nose and devil-may-care attitudes are all-pervading in this song. Also note the veiled reference to advanced stages of venereal disease in his friend Jessie in verse six, via the latter’s familiarity with the ‘hotels’ referred to. Venereal disease as the cause of death, although only implied in Crapshooter, if Jessie hadn’t been shot, he’d have died anyway because of his dissolute habits; has a strong connection with the songs in Group Three: namely Young Sailor/Girl Cut Down In His/Her Prime, and some versions of St. James Hospital. And also some of the songs in Group One: The Unfortunate Lad/Lass and Streets Of Port Arthur. Another aspect of Crapshooter is Jessie’s illegal action when ‘he used crooked cards and dice’. This links with songs in Group Two (see Ch. III for details of these Groups) such as Flash Lad, Wild And Wicked Youth, and Rake And Rambling Boy. The theme in these songs is that the reason for ‘a-robbing on the king’s highway’ was to keep the robber’s wife/girlfriend in fine clothes and jewelry. Although not mentioned in the 1940 version of McTell’s song, his friend Jessie had acquired a female partner in the 1949 and 1956 recordings. Lorraine, pronounced ‘Loreen’, obviously applied the same financial pressures for material comfort on Jessie. As soon as his ‘luck’ changed and he was penniless ‘Sweet Loreen had packed up an’ gone’ (1956). Lyrically there is little difference between this and the Library of Congress version, apart from the entrance of Lorraine, or rather her exit! What is different is McTell’s approach. The contrast is marked between performing for a white man (Alan Lomax) and potentially for his fellow black citizens (the blues-buying public). The 1956 version comes across as more ‘jivey’, less somber and even more disrespectful to the subject of death. (see Appendix II)

The group of songs that Crapshooter itself resides in, Group Five, includes a direct link via the American song Those Gambler’s Blues (see Appendix III and Appendix IV) which possibly evolved around the turn of the 20th. Century (c. 1899). It was around this era that the word ‘jass’ became modified to the familiar ‘jazz’, which lends support to my theory of the approximate dating of this song.

But before we go diving back into the past, I would like to mention some of Crapshooter’s song contemporaries which seem to fall into two categories. First of all there is the group of songs which come under the various headings of St. James/Joe’s Infirmary/Hospital which was to become a jazz standard in the late 1920s. Interestingly, the best known title St. James Infirmary seems to have evolved out of Those Gambler’s Blues just mentioned. Indeed, some of the songs in this group are labelled Gamblers Blues.

Added to these pre-war recordings is an unissued St. James Infirmary by McTell himself in 1956, down in Atlanta, Georgia, as yet unheard by me. Of course all the foregoing are secular by nature and the other category or songs contain all sacred items; or to be more accurate variations of one religious theme, i.e. ‘if you stay a sinner all your life, you will go to hell’. Virtually all the titles allude to the gambler about to die.

Once more, Willie McTell himself recorded a Dying Gambler and on this occasion it is available to us. The much-travelled singer was far from his Georgia homeland when he recorded a session for another commercial company, Decca this time, in Chicago on 23^rd. April, 1935; which included this version of Gambler (see Appendix V). This originates from the Rev. J.M. Gates’ recording of the same title in 1926, and obviously reflects the situation with a religious bias; and it is significant that the lead vocal is taken by McTell’s wife, Kate, who was a devout believer and would not record blues. Certain similarities can be seen between Dying Gambler and the sacrilegious Crapshooter. Starting with the obvious one included in both titles, we can also see a parallel of sorts in the unstated cause of death. Although less implied in the religious song than in Crapshooter, one could draw conclusions from the line ‘His body began to grow so weak, an’ things began to shake’. The ‘numbers-request’ motif is not present, but requests there are, nevertheless, in the final verse; and a direct connection with Crapshooter can be made via the statement ‘My dice an’ cards will be by my head’.

It should be stressed here that similar looking titles in print can be misleading and in fact have no bearing on the subject whatsoever. For instance Dying Gambler’s Blues by Bessie Smith, which she recorded three times in 1924; Gambler’s Blues by Charlie ‘Specks’ McFadden in 1929; Gamblin’ Man’s Prayer by Piano Kid Edwards in 1930; and the 2-part Dying Sinner’s Blues by Tommy Griffin in 1936. Conversely, some titles can seem a little obscure. The Trice brothers’ 1937 rendition (Table E) gets its title from a line borrowed from St. James Infirmary (Table C). Some thirty-odd years later (1969-1971) the same line crops up in Bud White’s 16 Snow White Horses. (Footnote 2: See Rounder LP Georgia Blues [Rounder 2008. Somerville, Massachusetts] 1970.) White was a singer-guitarist from Richland in Georgia, also of course Blind Willie McTell’s home state. However, the rest of the 45-year old Bud White’s song does not appear to have any connection with McTell’s Crapshooter. Interestingly, the only female title from the US in the story of this song, sung by ‘Aunt’ Molly McDonald (Table E), was a variation of this same line and was recorded only about a week prior to McTell’s version in 1940, also by the Library of Congress; in Livingstone, Alabama, this time. McTell himself was responsible for another less-than-obvious title Lay Some Flowers On My Grave (Table E) which he first recorded for Vocalion Records in September, 1933. However, this side was unissued and Joshua White’s ‘cover’ came out a couple of months later for the rival ARC organization. Eventually though McTell re-recorded it for Decca two days after his Dying Gambler (Table D) in 1935. (see Appendix VI). Although the first three verses contain the secular but respectful strand of death, by verse four the unholy strand, by implication has taken over. With repeated references to his ‘hot mama’; and extending his harem with lines like ‘I left a-many gal’s heart in pain’ and ‘When I’ve bidded this life goodbye, don’t none of you womens cry’. These lines and the first half of verse two all share the same ‘unholy’ atmosphere of Crapshooter.

The first title in Table E, Dying Pickpocket Blues was recorded with piano accompaniment some eighteen months after the four female versions of Crapshooter and could do with a little scrutiny. (see Appendix VII). ‘Barrelhouse’ Welch the singer –pianist on this blues, recorded it in January, 1929, in Chicago and seems to have adopted the secular but respectful strand to death. The first two verses incorporate a similar theme to be found in not only Crapshooter but some of the earlier variants as well; such as Tarpaulin Jacket (see Appendix XII) and The Dying Cowboy (see Appendix XIII). That is that the dying man’s friends are gathered round his death-bed (although only implied in Cowboy) so that they may hear his last words and requests. This is only a short step to the ‘numbers-request’ motif so prevalent in Crapshooter. As Welch, or Welsh, recorded his blues at the beginning of 1929, obviously any inspiration he got for writing Pickpocket must have come from a year or two earlier, possibly from McTell’s composition in 1927. Although recorded in Chicago, it could be significant that Dying Pickpocket Blues with its ballad-like theme set in the New York City workhouse (Footnote 3: See Riverside LP. Piano Blues 1927-1933 [Riverside 8809. New York City] c. 1965.) was set in the same city in which the four cover versions of Crapshooter were recorded.

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Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Appendix I	"Dying Crapshooter's Blues" by Blind Willie McTell, 5/11/40, Atlanta, Ga. (L. of C.)
Appendix II	"Dying Crapshooter's Blues" by Blind Willie McTell, 1956, Atlanta, Ga. (Bluesville)
Appendix III	"Those Gambler's Blues" ("The American Songbag", Carl Sandburg)
Appendix IV	"Those Gambler's Blues" ("The American Songbag". ibid.)
Appendix V	"Dying Gambler" by Blind Willie & Kate McTell, 23/4/35. Chicago, Ill.
Appendix VI	"Lay Some Flowers On My Grave" by Blind Willie McTell, 25/4/35, Chicago, Ill.
Appendix VII	"Dying Pickpocket Blues" by Barrel House Welch, -/1/29. Chicago, Ill.
Appendix VIII	"The Flash Lad"
Appendix IX	"In Newry Town" ("Folk-Song Society Vol. 1." Ed. A. Kalisch. c. 1905.)
Appendix X	"The Wild And Wicked Youth" Vsn 2 ("The Constant Lovers" Ed. Frank Purslow. 1972.)
Appendix XI	(Unused)
Appendix XII	"The Tarpaulin Jacket" written by George Whyte-Melville. c. 1855.
Appendix XIII	"The Dying Cowboy" ("The Penguin Book of American Folk Songs" Alan Lomax. 1964.)
Appendix XIV	"The Young Sailor Cut Down In His Prime" ("The Everlasting Circle" J. Lee.)
Appendix XV	"The Unfortunate Lass" sung by Norma Waterson, c. 1977.
Appendix XVI	"The Unfortunate Lad" (Everyman's Book of British Ballads" Ed. Roy Palmer. 1980.)
Appendix XVII	"The Wild Cowboy" (The Dying Cowboy) ("Folk Songs of The South" John Harrington Cox. 1963.)
Appendix XVIII	"The Cowboy's Lament" ("Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. John A. Lomax. 1966.)
Appendix XIX	"The Dying Hobo" written by Bob Hughes c. early 20th century.
Appendix XX	"The Dying Hogger" (Anonymous) "A Treasure of American Ballads".
Appendix XXI	"The Newry Highwayman" ("More Irish Street Ballads" C.O. Lochlainn. 1965)
Appendix XXII	"Rake and Rambling Boy" by Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers.
Appendix XXIII	"The Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime" sung by Frankie Armstrong. 1972.
Appendix XXIV	"The Bad Girl's Lament" ("Folk Songs of Canada" Eds. Edith Fulton Fowke & Richard Johnstone. 1955.)
Appendix XXV	"St. James' Hospital" sung by Laura V. Donald ("English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians Vol. II. Cecil Sharp. 1952.)
Appendix XXVI	"St. James' Hospital - "Iron Head's Version" by James (Iron Head) Baker. -/5/34. Sugerland, Texas. 1966.
Appendix XXVII	"Dying Crapshooter's Blues" by Blind Willie McTell, 1949, Atlanta, Ga. (Atlantic).
Notes
Bibliography