Listening to Prestige 522: Shirley Griffith

LISTEN TO ONE: In the Evening

 Indianapolis's great contributions to the blues were Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, so something of a blues scene grew up in their wake, with its own boosters. According to Indianapolis bluesman Guitar Pete (quoted by Arthur Rosenbaum in his liner notes to Indiana Avenue Blues), the Indianapolis part of the Great Migration brought musicians from the border states of Kentucky and Tennessee, where "the best blues musicians come from, because 'they are far enough South to have the feeling, and far enough North to play it right, to get their changes right.'"

One of the best of this group was Shirley Griffith. Griffith was from the Mississippi Delta, where he was mentored by the legendary Tommy Johnson. He came to Indianapolis in 1928, where met and became a protege of Carr and Blackwell. Carr was reportedly in the process of setting up a New York recording date for him when he died in 1935.

Indianapolis may have had a fine tradition of blues music, in local beer halls and fish frys, but it was not much of a town for recorded blues, so the musicians there toiled pretty much in obscurity. Just how much obscurity they were toiling in was revealed when Art Rosenbaum, then a local kid and college student, told a more knowledgeable friend about a terrific guitar player he'd met who "said he made some records back in the old days. His name is Scrapper Blackwell."

So Rosenbaum, who went on to become a professor at the University of Georgia and a distinguished folklorist, accidentally rediscovered Scrapper Blackwell. That not only brought Blackwell back to the attention of the newly renascent blues public, it also began Rosenbaum's reputation as a folklorist, which brought him to the attention of Bluesville's Kenny Goldstein. Rosenbaum recorded Blackwell's comeback sessions for Bluesville, and they in turn led to these two sessions with Griffith, the first one also featuring Griffith's frequent partner, Kentucky transplant J. T. Adams.

The album with Adams, Indiana Ave. Blues, features a couple of  their own songs, including instrumentals, and some popular recorded blues, staples of their party and beer joint repertoire, including Jim Jackson's "Kansas City" and "In the Evening," one of Leroy Carr's most famous songs.

Saturday Blues is perhaps more of a traditional folklorist's album, as it features Griffith alone, singing traditional blues from his youth in the Mississippi Delta, including Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues," one of the most widely celebrated widely covered Delta blues songs.

All of the recording was done in Indianapolis by Rosenbaum.