White Blues and Zydeco

When the field recording units were setting up their equipment, the engineers and talent scouts like Frank Walker representing Columbia Records, John and Alan Lomax, father and son for the Library of Congress and Polk Brockman for Okeh Records were getting ready for a full days work of recording for their companies. Sitting side by side waiting their turn to either sing or play their blues were both the blacks and the whites. This was about the closest relationship the two races would have in common. They all wanted to be heard on records.

On the particular day during the early 1920s in Atlanta. Georgia, two young white brothers from Tennessee, Austin and Lee Allen came up to the microphone with their guitar and banjo tuned to its accurate pitch, sang what became the biggest blues hits for Columbia Records, they were, "Chattanooga Blues," "Coal Mine Blues,'" and "Laughin' and Crying Blues."

When the day had ended, Frank Walker had waxed masters of ballads, ragtime songs, coon songs, novelty songs, dance music and the blues. But it was primarily the white country blues that they were focusing on for the white audiences out there. During the 1920s, there was an abundance of white blues available. Among them was Jimmie Rodgers, the White Country Blues Yodeler. The first country recorded instrumentalist was violinist Eck Robertson's version of "Arkansas Traveler" for Victor Records. Okeh Records had Frank Hutchinson's "Cannonball Blues."

Fiddlin" John Carson and his daughter Rosa Lee (Moonshine Kate) was the first country blues vocal of "Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" for Okeh Records. Former Governor or Louisiana, Jimmie Davis, recorded a hokum version of "Down at the Country Church" for Victor Records in 1931. Another form of white blues was "Talking Blues," where the performer spoke the lyrics against a rhythmic background rather than singing them. There was Chris Bouchillon's "Talking Blues"' for Columbia Records in 1926. Other artists to follow this pattern were, Lonnie Glossom's "Arkansas Hard Luck Blues" in 1936 for the Conqueror Label and "Talking Dust Bowl Blues" by Woody Guthrie for the Victor Label in 1940. During the 1940s, Woody worked with popular black artists like Leadbelly, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry and Big Bill Broonzy in New York. Broonzy's blues played a major part in Bob Dylan's career in the 1960s.