Topic: Rube Lacy and Garfield Akers Question

[NotRevGDavis]

Just a couple of artist specific questions:

Are Mississippi Jailhouse Groan and Ham Hound Crave the only two Rube Lacy recordings available?

Are Garfield Akers recordings only available on various compilation collections?

Thanks,
Gary

[Slack]

For sure a Yes to the first question and I'm pretty sure a Yes to the second question too... at least I've only scene Garfiled Akers on compilations.  ...but trying to think if Document has a Complete Garfiled Akers ... I don't remember seeing it.

[frankie]

All of Garfield Akers is on "Son House & The Great Delta Blues Singers 1928 - 1930".   Rube Lacy, too.

edited to add:  Document DOCD-5002

[Rivers]

There is rumored to be one other missing unreleased Rube Lacey title and gosh it would be great if it turns up someday. Title escapes me.

Edited to add, I got that snippet from David Evans's book Big Road Blues. The missing title was 'Long Lonesome Blues' which, of course, is the same name as a Lemon tune.

[ryan]

Rev. Rubin Lacy - Old Hallelujahs -
Description: Down-home gospel singing and preaching by a legend of the Country Blues
recorded in Ridgecrest, California, 1966 by Evans& John Fahey
Material: 21 tracks (feat. guitar accomp. on 1 trk each by John Fahey, Alan Wilson and David Evans)
notes by David Evans, photos
In this unreleased CD, John accompanied Mr. & Mrs. Rubin Lacy on a song called "Somebody Touched Me".
Mimosa records will only lease this to a recording company.   Weenie Campbell Records???
take care,
~Ryan

[Bunker Hill]

Rev. Rubin Lacy - Old Hallelujahs -
Description: Down-home gospel singing and preaching by a legend of the Country Blues
recorded in Ridgecrest, California, 1966 by Evans& John Fahey
Material: 21 tracks (feat. guitar accomp. on 1 trk each by John Fahey, Alan Wilson and David Evans)
notes by David Evans, photos
In this unreleased CD, John accompanied Mr. & Mrs. Rubin Lacy on a song called "Somebody Touched Me".
Mimosa records will only lease this to a recording company.? ?Weenie Campbell Records???
take care,
~Ryan

Mimosa was (is?) a Steve LaVere label of the 70s. Evans sold his field recordings to LaVere's Delta Haze enterprise a couple of decades back. Only one Lacey item has ever surfaced from that 15 February 1966 session and it was 'Talk About A Child That Do Love Jesus' which appeared on a 1974 Advent compilation, Sorrow Come Pass Me Round (LP 2805). The result of Evans's interview with Lacey was published over three issues of Blues Unlimited in 1967 and at one point describes a service he attended at the Union Baptist Church in Ridgecrest where Lacey was pastor. Apparently most Lacey sermons lasted 15 minutes one of which Evan's vividly describes ! It's all fascinating stuff - for me anyway.

[Bunker Hill]

There is rumored to be one other missing unreleased Rube Lacey title and gosh it would be great if it turns up someday. Title escapes me.
Edited to add, I got that snippet from David Evans's book Big Road Blues. The missing title was 'Long Lonesome Blues' which, of course, is the same name as a Lemon tune.

I'm confused (nothing new in that), but there's an entire Columbia unissued seesion recorded in Memphis, 9 December 1927 the existence of which have been known since Dan Mahoney got access to the Columbia ledgers in the early 60s. In addition to Long Lonesome Blues there's Black Dog Blues, Railroad Blues and Red River Blues.

[Bunker Hill]

This Lacey discussion has prodded me into looking out the 1967 Blues Unlimited containing the Evan's feature. The following, which doesn't get mentioned in Big Road Blues, whilst being amusing is also useful in that Lacey states the songs weren't his :
Lacy and Lembo went up to Chicago together in March, 1928 and Lacy recorded two songs. "Mississippi Jail House Groan" and "Ham Hound Crave" (mistake for 'Gravy') accompanied by his own guitar and released as Paramount 12629. The spoken interjection on the latter piece is by Lembo. There were some other artists there that day but Lacy can't remember their names. Both of these songs were learned from George Hendrix. Paramount had asked for blues but left the selection of the songs otherwise up to Lacy. He had been practicing others, but these two came to his mind first. The record sold moderately well. Lacy was paid for recordings and also got some royalties, but he was displeased in general with the amount and decided not to record again. He thought that Lembo made too much of the money, although they still remained good friends. "My record made Ralph so much money and he done so well in being my manager until he got a tree and he called me one day down there and says, "Rube, I got a tree up there. Let's go up there and you and me set it out. Set it out right there in my front yard." So we went up there, and we set the tree out. He says, "Now this tree is named Rube Lacy. As long as this tree lives, it'll be named Rube Lacy to remember you."

[dj]

Ham Hound Crave" (mistake for 'Gravy')

I've always thought there was more than one mistake in Paramount's transcription of this title, since Ham Hound Gravy doesn't make any more sense than Ham Hound Crave.  Unless I'm misremembering, the phrase doesn't actually occur in the lyrics.  Instead, Lacy goes through a list of foods he doesn't want, then goes to the common blues metaphor of having a ham bone and wanting to get it boiled.  So it seems like the title might really have been something like Ham Bone Gravy, which Rube cleaned up for recording to Ham Hock and Gravy, but pronounced with the ck in Hock and the y in Gravy kind of swallowed, so that whoever was writing the title down for Paramount misheard Ham Ho' 'n' Grav' as Ham Hound Crave.  Just a theory...

By the way, I know Rube sounds a lot like Ishmon Bracey (or Bracey like Lacy) , but does anybody but me hear a lot of Ed Bell in this song (or a lot of this song in the works of Ed Bell)?  Bracey apparently knew Lacy, but did Ed Bell know either one of them?

[Bunker Hill]

It was Lacey himself who was adamant with Evans that Paramount got it wrong and that the title was Ham Hound Gravy. It should perhaps be remembered that the song wasn't at that time (1967) available on microgroove and only those with the 78 had heard the number. When Yazoo reissued it in late 1968 (Mississippi Moaner L-1009) I think it was a reviewer for Blues World magazine who questioned both Crave and Gravy as neither expression could be detected in the song. Personally I think that in his new capacity of pastor Lacey was ashamed of the Ham Hound (Bone) Crave connotations and wanted to distance himself from it by renaming it to something less suggestive. But this long held speculation of mine, is just that...speculation.