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I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!
Please email me at Info@Bmansbluesreport.com
I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!
Please email me at Info@Bmansbluesreport.com
Saturday, February 2, 2013
For Sale (Hannah Johnson's Big Jack Ass) Blues - Clara Smith
Clara Smith (c. 1894 – February 2, 1935) was an American classic female blues singer. She was billed as the "Queen of the Moaners", although Smith actually had a lighter and sweeter voice than her contemporaries and main competitors
Smith was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. In her youth she worked on African American theater circuits and tent shows. By the late 1910s she was appearing as a headliner at the Lyric Theater in New Orleans, Louisiana and on the T.O.B.A. circuit.
In 1923 she settled in New York, appearing at cabarets and speakeasies there; that same year she made the first of her commercially successful series of gramophone recordings for Columbia Records, for whom she would continue recording through to 1932. She cut 122 songs often with the backing of top musicians (especially after 1925) including Louis Armstrong, Charlie Green, Joe Smith, Freddy Jenkins, Fletcher Henderson and James P. Johnson (in 1929). Plus she recorded two vocal duets with Bessie Smith, and four with Lonnie Johnson.
The comparisons with near namesake Bessie Smith were inevitable. Clara Smith was on the whole less fortunate than Bessie in her accompanists, and her voice was less imposing but, to some tastes, prettier, and many of her songs were interesting (and she was the second best seller on Columbia's 14000-D series, behind Bessie Smith).
In 1933 she moved to Detroit, Michigan, and worked at theaters there until her hospitalization in early 1935 for heart disease, of which she died.
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Labels:
Clara Smith,
South Carolina
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Hard times they tell me made a monkey eat a red pepper
ReplyDeleteLet me tell you what they've done to a red hot stepper
Hannah Johnson was a lucky farmerette till this depression
Now she's lost most everything she had in her profession
She didn't miss the cow, she didn't miss the chicken
But when she had to sell her jack ass then she raised a bickin'
She didn't mind the loss of peas nor horses nor hay
The thing that her most was to hear the neighbors say
Old Hannah Johnson's big black ass, is on the block for sale
The way she worked that jack ass, it must be tough as a whale
Every man in this county could ride it the best
And harness or not you were safe on her jay
Long distant riding the jack ass never tired
It would work for nothing just as same as when high
Hanna Johnson big jack ass is on the block for sale
Hannah Johnson's big black ass, is on the block for sale
They way she worked that tall old ass
It must be tough as a whale
When mounting, be gentle. You'll have no trouble
She worked alright single, but wouldn't tote double
If you're on her and a neighbour should pass
Though you'd cover her head, they'd recognize her ass
Hanna Johnson big jack ass is on the block for sale
I'm still talkin' about, the mule was on the block for sale