Essay by Bengt Olsson

From The Complete Works 1927-1930 (Yazoo 1082)

Gus grew up with banjo & fiddle songs -- "John Henry & all that mess" -- all around him, as most or all of his brothers (nine in all & most older than Gus) played an instrument or two & would frequently get together with other musicians in the area. Gus was too young to get seriously into music during his Red Bank years, but managed to learn the rudiments of the fiddle from an older brother, Tom, who was in the Spanish-American war. Louis played the guitar in a pre-blues style, similar to, say Jim Jackson & "Rabbit" Brown; Elmore played bass fiddle -- "they played with bows back then" --; another brother, Houston was a good banjo player & the other brothers, though less prolific, were at least semi-active in music. From what I was able to find out, Gus' parents were not known to ever have played any instruments.

"When I was 12 years old, one of my brothers (Tom I think) came & got me & took me down to Clarksdale -- that's were he lived, South of Clarksdale by Sunflower River...West of Dublin...Hushpuckena...Used to chop cotton there. Yassuh! So that's where I made my first Banjo from a guitar neck & a bread pan mama used to bake biscuits in -- had to hold it over fire to tighten up the head before I could play it. Ha ha haaa! That thing sounded good to me then though. I thought "I am getting somewhere now." Aw shucks! Bruce Bastin of England recently located a banjo player in his mid-sixties outside Chapel Hill, N.C., who plays a banjo very similar to the one described by Gus Cannon. Usually the banjo went out of tune before the song was finished, but Gus didn't really care. The first piece he learnt was "Old John Booker you call that gone", probably best described as "a country tune". "I wore a hole in the banjo head playing that song. Aw, I used to play it all the time." He got it from "Old Man Saul", 'Old Man Saul Russell', who had lived by Sunflower River as long as anyone could remember & had a reputation for being one of the best deer & bear hunters the county had ever seen. He just played the banjo around the house for his own amusement. Gus also learnt "It ain't gonna rain no more", a song equally popular among blacks & whites, from the older man. Both pieces were played in "strumming fashion" & it wasn't until a few months later that he learnt to fingerpick from Bud Johnson, an Alabama banjo player who was staying around Clarksdale at the time. Jackson showed Gus how to pick a jig & also taught him "Going round the mountain", a well-known song that seems to have its roots in Alabama. Gus probably also transferred some of his brother's fiddle pieces ('Get up in the morning soon', being one) to the banjo. This brings us up to 1898. At about this time our hero got a new banjo: "My brother won it in a crap game -- put a coon-hide on it." Gus went banjo-wild & didn't seem to do much but play his new banjo as soon as he was back from the fields.

The music scene around Clarksdale was fresh & flowering by the turn of the century. The banjo/fiddle based groups still dominated, but new things were coming into the light. W.C. Handy & his band -- quite sophisticated & far out by the standards of the day -- spent most of their time playing for dances in the area. The band included "Bivee" (aural spelling) from Greenville on banjo & the one & only -- flash! flash! -- Jim Turner on fiddle. Cannon still recalls Turner with awe & was sufficiently impressed to get into the fiddle besides the banjo, which always was his main instrument. Jim Turner was generally thought of as the fiddler in the Delta & hill country of northwest Mississippi. He could make perfect imitations of birds, hens, cows, etc. on the violin & knew overtures as well as reels like "Shortening bread" & "Old hen cackle" Gus used to play both & probably on the fiddle.) He had unusually nimble fingers -- a great crap shooter -- & when he was to play for a plantation dance in the evening, he would pick cotton in the daytime just for the fun of it. However...the most important news was probably the emergence of what was to be known as "blues". Comparing the earliest accounts from different parts of the South, it seems likely that the knife-style or "Hawaiian guitar" made its negroized debut in the Yazoo Basin around 1900. Gus Cannon remembers his first encounter with this particular sound: "Alec Lee was the first guy I heard playing on a Hawaiian guitar...used to knife. Uh...that must've been around 1900, maybe a little before..." Alec Lee was Gus' senior by some 15 years, which would put his birth close to 1870. As far as Gus knows he'd been around Clarksdale most of his life. Alec Lee used a knife when playing songs like "Poor boy long ways from home" & "John Henry", which probably outdates all other "knife-pieces". He also played more conventional ballads & songs akin to the minstrel tradition, for which he used quite different guitar techniques. Alec Lee died in Memphis in the early twenties. Charley Patton, born somewhere between 1887-90, lived on Dockery's Plantation in Sunflower County, not far from Clarksdale. In 1903 Handy, who had come to Clarksdale earlier the same year, was perplexed when he heard the weirdest music from a lean Negro by the railroad station in Tutwiler, 15 miles southeast of Clarksdale. The song was "Yellow dog blues" & he made the guitar 'talk' by sliding a knife up & down the strings. (Willie Wilson, the first bottleneck guitarist recalled by Son House, visited Tutwiler frequently). Gus thus grew up at the time of the joining of several traditions in the local music scene & it shows in his repertory: the old country songs & reels mixed with blues & "pop songs" of the early 1900's a la "St. Louis blues". He even adopted the knife-style for his banjo, mainly due to Alec Lee's influence. Later he started using a steel-bar at Gus used the same technique for other songs, that never got on record & now have been erased from his memory.

"Bout two years after I started out down there by Sunflower River, I was playing for Saturday night balls -- that's when us colored folks had ourselves a time. Man, I played the hell out that banjo for $2.50 a night...had another boy with me on fiddle, Lawd, we was raising sand down there...sure was! Plenty liquor...dope too. A gal down in Clarksdale gave me a little snort of coke (cocaine). I went to the drugstore (this was before the Pure food &drug act) & she gave me a little nose out of that stick -- had some sugar on it. It didn't do much to me though. I reckon I just didn't have enough. I don't use no dope...no Sir! I drink beer & whisky...oh, I used to be wild about it! Beer keeps me going. I seen so many of them use dope in Memphis, Chicago...oh, don't say nothing! Noah, my harp player, used to be full of coke all the time." Though he was now playing for dances regularly & had a new banjo, a Washburn -- they were advertised in the Sears & Roebuck mail order catalogues -- Gus didn't make a living of his music, but moved around & had different jobs, never keeping one for very long. 'When I was 15 my brother gave me $10 and told me to make my own way.' Around 1900 he picked cotton by the Sunflower River & worked at a levee camp, close to Dublin. "They had mulepower back then. I used to have two mules, Shamrock & Mack...I'd always water them at 9. I made $6 a week at that place. we had our own cook...lived in tents. I'd play my banjo down there for the boys & they'd shoot dice...they'd knock a hole in the ground shoot dice with that horn!" By 1901 Gus was working on the railroad at Belzoni, a town southeast of Greenville & almost 100 miles from Clarksdale. "I was putting in wire for the Yazoo Delta (hence "Yellow Dog") railroad for the first trusses bridge across the Yazoo River. Up & down the country with my banjo.

Ashport in Lauderdale County, Tennessee is a small river town of some 150 people. Deep woods & a marshy bottom. People I met around Henning, where I worked on a farm, talk about wild (white) men with hair down their backs, who never went to school & live by hunting & digging for roots & herbs. "Ain't nothing but whores & savages down there in the bottom. We call 'em "river rats" around here, but don't you say nothing like that, should you go there, 'cause they're liable to kill you." The 'Jim Lee' would stop at Ashport on its way up the river & gradually many of the roustabouts would become acquainted with locals. After a year on the Mississippi, Gus felt it was time for a change & went to work at a plantation outside Ashport. "Snook Dillehunt's place...aw, that was a big plantation -- I reckon about 2000 acres of ground. I was farming...raising that cotton for the white folks...cut timber...all such as that. I had a nice stay with them white folks. If I had a car of my own I'd go up there now & see if some of them folks are alive. I could get myself a T-Model. Some boys up there played music...we had ourselves a three-piece outfit: banjo/jug/guitar. Jim Guffin had a coal-oil can, sounded like a bass-fiddle(Guffin also played fiddle & guitar)...a boy, we call him "Slim". I can't think of his real name...he played the guitar. Last time I seen him he played violin in a band coming through Memphis ("Slim" reportedly played the guitar on Noah Lewis' 1930 recording of "Bad luck's my buddy) The three of us had a band...aw, we'd go all up to Missouri."

"I would go to Ripley(15 miles east from Ashport) on weekends to have myself a time, play banjo & fiddle...used to go there with a wagon & mule. That sucker got stuck in mud down there in Ashport bottom...had to drag him out." In 1910, on a Sunday, Gus ran across Noah Lewis, a harp player from Henning, a small town on Highway 51, less than ten minutes south of Ripley by car. "Lawd, he used to blow the hell outa that harp. He could play two harps at the same time...through his mouth & his nose...same key & same melody. Y'know he could curl his lips 'round the harp & his nose was just like a fist. Noah, he was full of cocaine all the time -- I reckon that's why he could play so loud and aw, he was good!" Noah played with tremendous force & yet his music had a beautiful, controlled quality. His playing was so strong & loud that he would play with colored brass bands at frolics in the country outside Henning. A century ago such bands were commonplace in the South(listen to Ramsey's Folkways -- Music from the South Vol. 6 -- recordings of Alabama survivals) & they existed in the Henning area well into the twenties. The band that Noah was associated with was led by "Reynolds", an elderly man -- "he played one of them great long old slide horns." At the time Gus met him, Noah was staying in Ripley, trying to make a living out of music. He played for suppers, card/crap games, white barn dances & could frequently be found in the coalhouse yard, where he'd entertain the workers & foremen. Noah's wife was a cook for a white family -- the hustler's & heavy bluesman's trademark:

       I don't have to work so hard        'Cause I got a woman in the white folks' yard

Chicken & wine...Gus told Noah he was "looking for music", i.e. a band to play with. After a few drinks Noah took him to see Ashley Thompson, then a quiet 13-year old kid who had just started out on the guitar, but was already good enough to play with the six years older Noah. Among his first songs were "If I die in the state of Arkansas" (identical to Barefoot Bill's "Squabblin' blues"). "Sliding Delta", & Jim Shot Lula (also known as "Jim Strainer"). In September, 1971 me & Bill Barth located Ashley in Ripley -- after a lead from a white farmer in Henning where he'd lived all his life: "Gus was real famous round here -- played a fiddle too...oh, he could clown. He was the whole cheese in Ripley./ Him & Noah used to run around together all the time. I didn't care as much about drinking & chasing women as they did...just looking for trouble. But we'd go out & play for dances together. There were two other boys who played a banjo; Albert Reynolds (Reynolds was an accomplished banjo player who could read music, contrary to Gus) -- he was a tall boy -- & another called 'Philip'. They're both gone." At X-mas 1910 Gus married for the first time -- 'Louis Brown's daughter out from Henning.' It didn't last long; Gus didn't slow down.

While in Ashport/Ripley, Gus made occasional trips to Memphis & the fast life down on BEale & its side streets. 'They had a gravel & dirt road 'tween Ripley & Memphis then -- Yassuh!...I had a good horse, y'know it was rubber-tied Buggy & Hack back in them days...Aw, he was a fast sucker -- be sweating. He'd step on a rock & it wouldn't hurt him a bit. Ha Haaa! Sam Jones, famous evangelist around the turn of the century: 'If whiskey ran ankel deep in Memphis & each front door had a dipper tied to it, you could not get drunker quicker than you can on Beale Street now.' The golden years of Jim Kinnane, 'czar of the Memphis underworld.' Jim & his brother Thomas ran some of the best known saloons on & around Beale; The Blue Light, The Red Light, Hole In The Ground, The Monarch ('The Castle of Missing Men')...According to old men I talked to in the country outside Memphis, The Monarch was a favorite among the country people. 'We'd go there all the time. They had policy games & crap games running all night -- No closing time. And there was barrels of whiskey on the counters. You could get anything you wanted: Moonshine, Reefer, Cocaine (Remember Robert Wilkins' 'Old Jim Canan's?)...Oh, you name it; Jim Kinnane had it! Lots of murders down there at the Monarch, arguing over them dice. Bad Sam (a bouncer extraordinaire) would just dump the dead bodies outside on the street -- Sam he died in a shooting duel right there at the Monarch! By 1910 about 50% of the saloons/joints on Beale were owned by Italians, among those 'Pee Wee's on 317, where most of the big shot gamblers -- chocolate dandies indeed -- & musicians were hanging out -- Gus met Handy at Pee Wee's for the first time since the Clarksdale years. The walls of the backroom were decorated with fiddles, banjos, guitars, etc. & that's where the musicians would get together & fuck around, picking up new songs & ideas. Then there were The Midway, The Panama (real tough -- Mary The Wonder, a voodoo lady, received customers upstairs), The Hole In The Wall...On the sidestreets were whore-houses: magnificent double beds with velvet coverlets as well as pallets on the floor. If you couldn't get a piece of pussy on the corner of Linder/Main, you might as well forget all about it. In 1914 Mayor Crump & his men, who'd been trying to slow down -- preferably close down -- the fast life ever since they made for the top, started raids on "hotels" & gambling spots. Crump even passed a law forbidding Negroes to be on the street after midnight. However, the mayor's heavy energy only caused a superficial change & a month later everything was just like before.

After Macon Rd. Gus tried farming -- off-season -- outside Chatfield, Ark.(1916) & the next year outside Cairo, on the river in the southern corner of Illinois -- both were places he'd spotted while on medicine shows. In 1918 he returned to Dixie & got himself a job as a plumber's helper in Memphis. All-round man, huh...? At about this time he hung up the fiddle -- "It was going outa fashion & Hosea Woods played it, so I didn't need it." Throughout the twenties Gus wintered in North Memphis; during the latter years at 1331 South Hyde Park Blvd., where he roomed with Hosea Woods, a medicine show veteran, whom he'd first met on W.B. Miller's show -- at the same time Elijah Avery stayed on Springdale, just a block away from Hyde. Woods -- guitar/fiddle/cornet & kazoo -- had been on doctor shows that Gus had just heard talk about. Some years Gus senior, he had a beautiful falsetto & can probably be called a songster (sweet songs/ballads & minstrel pieces). Woods was originally from Stanton, south of Brownsville, Tenn., but by the early twenties he made Memphis his home & stayed there until his death in the mid-thirties.

Before & around 1900 Louisville, Ky. was a ragtime town -- fast black pianists & string bands stomping 'em down to the bricks. Around 1905 -- according to Fred Cox of Indianapolis who's done extensive research on the subject -- the first organized jug bands developed in the Louisville area. For the purpose they had beautiful jugs made from clay. The bands brought the jug up front -- possibly as a novelty to attract attention. Except the jug, they were usually made up of fiddle, banjo &/or mandolin & a guitarman. The music was a mixture of early jazz & country breakdowns, but the bands also knew the pop songs of the day -- good to have around for tips. Realizing the bands' mass appeal, other musicians caught on & by 1910 there were several jug bands in the area -- it's all over town... you can't mess around; gotta get down. Even more "sophisticated" bands added a jug to their line-ups of saxes, trombone, cornet, piano, etc. & presented the novelty to the city Jim Dandys. Still the jug band craze didn't spread far beyond the vicinity until the first commercial recordings of Louisville jug bands were released in the early 20's & the records of Earl McDonald's Dixieland Jug Blowers really pulled the trigger.

Down in Memphis guitar player Will Shade -- alias "Son Brimmer" (a pun; "sun brimmer" being a term for a sun shade) -- was gassed upon hearing Dixieland Jug Blowers' first records & decided to get a similar band together, The Memphis Jug Band. Besides guitar, Shade also blew harp & plucked a "bullfiddle": a washtub bass (Gus sez he first saw one in 1915). The band had a much stronger country blues flavor than the jazz-oriented DJB -- one of its founder members was Furry Lewis. They immediately got very popular with the Beale Street crowd & spent most of their time playing in Handy's Park. On weekends the country people would come to town to good-time & take in the blues players & jug band in the park -- Gus was a common sight. Later, when they became the downtown band, Memphis Jug Band got gigs among "La Noblesse": Chickasaw Country Club (cardboard palm decorations, southern belles & the lot), conventions & "stag-parties". They even played regularly for Mayor Crump -- remember?--, which proved convenient when a band member was arrested for public drunkenness. Dewey Corley, once a member of the band, reconstructed a court scene when several jug band members were charged for drunkenness in the street: "We'd have whisky in one of our coal-oil cans...y'know a jug...& we'd put some coal-oil around the top, so no one could smell that hooch. Once we was playing down on Main & Beale, a policeman walk up to us, says "Whatcha got in that jug, boys?" We say "Coal-oil" -- he say "You sure don't look like you been drinking no coal-oil," & he carried us all to jail. When we was called to court we brought our instruments with us. Judge say "You the jug band?" We say, "Yassuh!" "Well, I heard about you -- play a song & go home & don't come back!" Other jug bands rode the wave & around 1930 there were at least seven different jug bands in Memphis. The most serious Memphis Jug Band competitor was Jack Kelly's -- a Mississippi bred guitarist -- South Memphis Jug Band (all its members lived in or close to S. Memphis). A.O. Doc Higgs -- an herb doctor -- on jug, Will Batts violin &, off & on, Frank Stokes & Dan Sain on guitars. The jug bands seldom had a permanent line-up, but recruited their members from a jug band ranch, that usually was big enough to constitute two bands -- Memphis Jug Band often played two gigs at the same time!

The jug band idea wasn't new to Gus, who'd played with Jim Guffin & his coal-oil can in a loose-joined Ashport band some twenty years before -- it hadn't really been a deliberate or permanent jug band & Gus hadn't given it a thought for a long time. Seeing Shade's Memphis Jug Band hitting the jackpot, Gus had a paraffin can jug made & fixed it on a harness on his neck, the way guitar players occasionally would do with a harmonica, & in this way he could play the banjo & blow the jug at the same time -- Gus always was keen on keeping up with musical trends & probably was forced to in order to survive on the street. At times he would get together a jug band -- usually nephew Sam Lindsay on guitar & Willie Williams (from Blackrock, Ark. -- "He played the fool outa that guitar.") on guitar & fiddle. On weekends they'd leave Memphis & play for dance in Arkansas & Mississippi -- "One week we'd be down in Grenada, Mississippi & next week in Little Rock. We just played on weekends, 'cause we all had to work during the week.'

In January 1928 Victor, who had started recording Memphis Jug Band -- an instant hit -- the year before, came down to Memphis looking for new talent & preferably to add another jug band to their growing "race" stable. I'm not sure exactly how contact was established -- Will Shade may have tipped Victor officials or possibly they were familiar with the "Banjo Joe" Paramount records --; at any rate Victor approached Gus about making records with a jug band & Gus, who was off the medicine show during the winter, was only too happy to get a piece of the cake Will Shade & his boys had been eating of.

Ever since he had left Ashport/Ripley in 1913, Gus had made frequent trips back to see friends & play with Noah Lewis & Ashley Thompson. Ashley Thompson was born on May 5, 1896 about four miles east of Ripley. Grandad on his mother's side was an excellent fiddler -- Ashley never got to see him, but thinks he inherited the musical ability. In addition to guitar, Ashley also used to play fiddle and some mandolin, banjo and piano; a true string band virtuoso. It should be noted that his main musical partners consisted of Jack Burns, a white fiddle player in Henning, and his family, all of whom played string instruments and horns. Between 1910-1920 W.C. Handy and his band would frequently come to Henning and Ripley to play for dances. Ashley always tried to go and sit in with the band -- Handy got to know him and would call him up on stage -- and thus learned to play many of Handy's songs, most notable Memphis blues, St. Louis blues and Draftin' blues(also known by Joe Callicott & Rosa Lee Hill, both of whom called it The war song).

Noah -- a boogie-man who liked to get down -- would visit Memphis quite regularly, whereas Ashley loved peace & spent most of his time at home. Willie Borum(Memphis guitarist) met Noah in Memphis: "I first met Noah on North 2nd & Marble (North Memphis)...played for a crap game. Police arrested us all, but turned Noah & me free 'cause we didn't take part in the game itself. Got lots of tips there...& girls too." Ashley did venture outside Ripley once to stay with Gus in Memphis for two months -- he recalls having played with Jim Jackson & Furry Lewis during the stay. When Gus was to select musicians for the Victor jug band session he went up to Ripley for Ashley & Noah. "We rehearsed that night & the next day we recorded at the Auditorium...that's where the court-house is now." They recorded four titles: Gus & Ashley took the vocals on two songs each.

The records did alright & in September 1928 a second session was arranged. For the occasion Gus replaced Ashley Thompson with Elijah Avery Story of reason for Ashley not going back to the studio after first session as told by the man himself: Victor people sent Noah Lewis up to get Ashley for a second session. Noah got off the bus, walked past Ashley who was waiting at the bus station, and brought another guitar player, Oatneal Maines, with him back to Memphis. Obviously there was some kind of plot, whether Gus told Noah to get another guitarist who had a stronger bass line or Noah just went ahead with his own thing can only be speculated on. At time of the first session Noah Lewis got a contract from the Victor people (Ashley didn't) and brought it back to "Mr. Paul", a white man in Ripley who had a record store and handled the Cannon's Jug Stompers records in the area, only to be told that the contract was no good, so Noah went back to Memphis demanding a new contract for the second session. The Victor people gave Noah $250 and had him sign a paper. From what Ashley said Noah signed away his rights, though it is uncertain exactly what he means. A similar story has been told about Tommy Johnson, another Victor recording artist.

The next year Gus & Hosea Woods finally did record together as a duo for Brunswick; "Cannon & Woods (The Beale Street Boys)" read the credits. Cannon was under contract & an "exclusive Victor recording artist", as the ads stated. Maybe there was some kind of agreement between Victor & Brunswick, though I doubt it. There are numerous examples of "race" artists who recorded for other labels in spite of their contracts. Three weeks later the Jug Stompers were in the Victor studios again. Noah Lewis was on harp, but Avery was out & Hosea Woods in. Woods belonged to an earlier tradition & his guitar playing was that of a songster, relying heavily on strumming rather than picking. He was a good singer, admired for his strong falsetto, & he was often featured as singer with the jug band. On October 1st & 3rd the band recorded eight titles & Woods sang on two & shared the vocals with Gus on "Walk right in" & "Mule get up in the alley". The records didn't sell as well as the previous ones, but obviously merited the group for another session & in late November the Jug Stompers recorded yet four sides with the same personnel. This was the end of Cannon's Jug Stompers' recording adventures. The symptoms of the depression were slowly being felt & the poor man didn't have any $$$ leftover for records/extravagances & the record companies were forced to cut down on the output of "race records". Blacks & "white trash" had difficulties putting aside bread when things were normal & when the depression set in they had to forget it.

"Dr. Streaks...that's the last (1929) medicine show I was on...Aw, we went all over Alabama & Mississippi: Birmingham, Mobile, Bay St. Louis...I been to St. Louis, Missouri too...yeh, I been to all of 'em. Well, I left that show down in Gulfport, Mississippi & went back to Memphis, married Olynda & settled down." After all, Gus was 47 years old & probably felt he'd been on the road long enough -- it didn't agree with marriage. In the early thirties he was still at 1331 N. Hyde Park & did different kinds of manual labor -- particularly ditch-digging & gardening -- & didn't depend on music, except to get X-tra money & kicks on weekends. He was booked for engagements at Yancey's Studio on 316 Beale & received a set amount of money for each performance. Yancey also handled most of the other jug bands &, now that Pee Wee had gone back to Italy to die where he was born & his saloon had closed down, the musicians would gather at Yancey's office -- right across the street from where Pee Wee's used to be -- to talk & drink on Saturday afternoons. Gus didn't see much of Ashley & Noah anymore; Elijah Avery was back farming at Horn Lake & Hosea Woods was getting feeble (he passed in the mid-thirties). When he played for dances, Gus generally -- line-up was fluid -- brought along Sam Lindsay, Willie Williams &, on occasions, a fourth man, but when he played in Handy's Park & the streets he was by himself, his banjo-juggling & medicine show antics still attracted crowds & the visiting country people had their minds blown. By being alone Gus didn't have to split the tips with anyone & on a good day he got as much as he got for a whole week's work. The repertory still drew heavily from the old songs -- "Walk right in" & "Madison Street rag" were the real crowd-pleasers --, but to appeal to a wider audience, including whites, Gus played Handy's songs & stuff like "Oh Susanna" & "Show me the way to go home" in addition to the blues & country material.

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