Topic: Rare blues photos

[Blues Vintage]

I came across this facebook page with some rare blues photos.


Why I Love National Guitars

https://www.facebook.com/WhyILoveNationalGuitars/


Below allegedly a young Leroy Carr, Brownie McGhee and Leslie Riddle, Big Joe Williams, Elmore James And Sonny Boy Williamson 2, Kokomo Arnold, and John Hurt (without hat !)

[dj]

Thanks, Harry.  I'd never seen that Leroy Carr photo before and had no idea he'd been in the army.  But a quick search of online biographies confirms it, including this from the Tennessee Encyclopedia:

"As a child, Carr left Nashville for Indianapolis to live with his mother, a period punctuated by stints in a traveling circus, the U.S. Army, and jail."

So perhaps Carried Water For The Elephant is autobiographical!

[btasoundsradio]

Theres an article in Frog Annual about Carr that has that photo and info on his early years.

[Blues Vintage]

Probably a scan from the Frog Annual (or another source) below. Leroy Carr was born in 1904. That would make him 15/16 years old in the photo.
Little young for the army I would think if the birth date is correct. But then again I noticed Stefan Wirz and Wikipedia have different birth dates for our heroes.

For example;

Blind Willie McTell         Wirz 1903  Wiki 1905
Charley Patton             Wirz 1885  Wiki 1891
Sam Chatmon              Wirz 1900  Wiki 1897
Kokomo Arnold             Wirz 1896  Wiki 1901

[dj]

Theres an article in Frog Annual about Carr that has that photo and info on his early years.

Dang!  You're right, there it is on page 75 of Annual number 5.

It just goes to show the wisdom of changing my stock phrase when encountering something "new" from "I never knew that" to, in my late 60s "I probably knew that once, but I forgot it".

[harriet]

Thanks- never seen one of John Hurt playig an electric.

[rein]

There is a also a really large amount of upside down guitars in the pictures, both Big Joe (or he probably was still called Po Joe at the time ) ,Brownie mc Ghee and Leslie Riddle hold their instruments upside down, probably because of the wishes of the photographers. That would have confused us if those were the only pictures we had !

[rein]

They appear to be reversed as well, maybe thats why the photographer did it. I am not too familiar with photography techniques in the thirties and forties, would they have used glass negatives at the time ?

[MTJ3]

A point of clarification.  According to his death certificate and marriage license application (so there should be no valid argument that the death certificate informant just threw out a random date), Carr was born March 27, 1905. 

I don't know where Paul Swinton got that photograph.  Duncan Scheidt saw a photo of Carr in uniform holding his discharge papers, which photo one of Carr's family members had but understandably didn't want to part with.  The soldier does appear to be holding papers, but we can't tell if they are discharge papers.  I had always assumed, without any evidence, that Scheidt had been able to see that they were, in fact, discharge papers.  To judge from Carr's later photos, it doesn't look a lot like him to me, but we all change over time, especially when crossing over from adolescence to adulthood. Also, Scheidt described Carr as looking "obviously proud" in the photo.  Did Scheidt later acquire the family's photo?  Does Carr look proud there (or did Scheidt misinterpret that)?  Is it really Leroy?  I don't know.  Who am I to say?

Just to muddy the waters a bit more, Scheidt was the first to suggest that "Carried Water For the Elephant" was autobiographical  Maybe it was, but composer credit for the song goes to Thompson and Guernsey, who also hold the copyright.  It seems to me that the song is along the same lines as some of the other Carr tunes for which they have composer credit.  If they did pen the song, maybe they got the idea for the song from Leroy?

[dj]

composer credit for the song goes to Thompson and Guernsey, who also hold the copyright

Hey, MTJ3, Where'd you find the composer/copyright info for Carried Water For The Elephant.  I can't find that.  Bob MacLeod's list shows no author given on the record label.  Also, do you know of any other songs that Thompson and Guernsey hold copyright for, especially non-blues songs?  Or have any idea who Thompson and Guernsey were?  Professional songwriters?  Performers?  The people who did the paperwork for Carr's session?

[Stuart]

Floyd Thompson & J.E. Guernsey

cf. https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=819

Also:

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/115530/Thompson_Floyd

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/204097/Guernsey_J._E

More research is needed to suss out the details, but this is a start.

[MTJ3]

Guernsey ran and was at least part owner in Lyric Music, a music store on Illinois Avenue, for a while and is said to have "discovered" and put together Carr and Blackwell.  Thompson had a bit of a career as, for lack of a better term, a country musician and, with his Hometowners, had some association with Emry Arthur.

[dj]

Thanks, Stuart and MTJ3.  A person sure can learn a lot hanging around this forum!

[Rivers]

Thanks- never seen one of John Hurt playig an electric.

I'd never seen one of him without a hat on, either!

[Blues Vintage]

Thanks- never seen one of John Hurt playig an electric.

I'd never seen one of him without a hat on, either!

Here's another one.

[Rivers]

Very cool, thanks.

[MTJ3]

dj, Please pardon my delay in responding.  I check in here very seldom.  In answer to your question, the Vocalion 1593 label that I saw provides composer credit for "Thompson-Guernsey," and the Catalog of Copyright Entries also shows them as holding the copyright.  They are shown as having composer credit on a total of 13 Carr-Blackwell titles (although there are 7 titles in the Carr-Blackwell recording corpus that I have not seen). 

[Sunflower]

This is my favourite, probably around 1930 , a young Son House with lady and umbrella !!!! Fantastic....beyond words
Is it possible that comes from John Tefteller collection?

[Blues Vintage]

Yes, it's from Tefteller.
If I remember correctly he has two more photos from Son House from this period that are unpublished far as I know.

[dj]

For those interested, the Son House photo has already been discussed here: https://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=11437.0.

There are a few obvious questions that I haven't been able to answer by poking around the internet.  Any help would be appreciated:

Assuming that the photograph is in Tefteller's possession, how did he get it?  What's the photograph's provenance?  I know, they were "discovered by Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty", but where and how were they discovered?  If they'd been in the possession of house's family, you'd think they'd have been known back in the 1960s.

How certain is the identification of House?  This may be answered by the answer to the first question.

Assuming that Tefteller owns the above and possibly two more, why haven't they appeared in one of his calendars.  A picture of a youthful Son House would certainly goose sales.

I'm assuming that the photo(s) surfaced at some point after 2011 (Daniel Beaumont's Son House biography, Preachin' The Blues, doesn't contain or mention them) and 2017, when the American Epic book came out.  Does the book have any mention of where and when the photo was found?

[Blues Vintage]

Here's some more rare stuff. Again from "Why I Love National Guitars".

[Blues Vintage]

Here one that surfaced less than two years ago I think. Big Maceo (Jim O'Neal Collection)

The Blues Archive - The University of Mississippi

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/bluesphoto/

[btasoundsradio]

screen shot from possible footage of Henry Thomas. Seems to be a mobile medicine show, note the bottles and ad on the truck window, and the man with the headdress. The capo position, thumb pick, and quill rack really make me think it might be him.