Obituary: Brewer Phillips

Obituary: Brewer Phillips - Chicago Tribune, September 14, 1999.

Brewer Phillips, 65, a blues guitarist who was a steady force in Chicago blues from his arrival in 1954 to an appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival in 1990, died Sept. 3 1999 after a heart attack in his South Side apartment. Mr. Phillips is perhaps best remembered for his work as a sideman to slide guitarist Hound Dog Taylor, in whose band the Houserockers he played for nearly two decades.

''His sound had so much edge and so much attack and a controlled distortion that it made a kind of snarl that people for years have tried to get from effects pedals and fancy amplifiers," said Bruce Iglauer, founder of Chicago-based Alligator Records. "He got it all from his hands." Mr. Phillips was born in Mississippi and taught himself to play guitar at an early age, even though he never learned to read music. His first gigs were staged in juke joints, where relatives and friends would gather to drink moonshine. "We would just play guitars, and dance, and party," said his older brother, Vance Phillips. Mr. Phillips left Mississippi in the late 1940s for Memphis, where he played behind Roosevelt Sykes, Joe Hill Louis and Memphis Slim, Iglauer said.

In 1954, Mr. Phillips packed up again, this time fallowing Vance to Chicago. He arrived in Chicago at a time when the city's most legendary blues artists were defining the art, said Chicago-based Delmark Records founder and owner Bob Koester. It was a time when Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Junior Wells could be heard regularly at clubs on the South and West Sides.

In 1957, Mr. Phillips joined Hound Dog Taylor, an alliance that would last through several albums until Taylor died in 1975. Two of those albums were nominated for Grammy Award. Phillips cut his only solo album, "Home Brew," on Delmark. Survivors include two brothers, Robert and Eddie, and two sisters, Lauren Harrington and Lorina Durens. A funeral service was held Saturday at Trinity Memorial Chapel, 7605 S. Halsted St.

The Robert Johnson I Knew - Johnny Shines (1970)

Johnny Shines, "The Robert Johnson I Knew" The American Folk Music Occasional 2 (1970): 30-32.

In this remarkable and interesting reminiscence of the legendary Robert Johnson, a singer and guitarist who knew him well in the mid-1930s, traveled with him on and off for two years, and absorbed a great deal from him named Johnny Shines (born April 26, 1915, in Frazier, Tennessee, then a suburb of Memphis but now absorbed into the city) details his experiences traveling with Robert Johnson. Despite growing up in a musical family, Shines learned to play the guitar over the course of 1932, and he learned to play by listening to the recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Chas. Patton, Lonnie Johnson, and Scrapper Blackwell. Over the next several years, he worked regularly in and around Memphis with a number of bluesmen. He met Johnson in 1935, and he traveled and performed with him until 1937.

Reconciling the Blues King: Rubin Lacy and the Importance of Inclusive Memorialization Processes

Rubin Lacy circa 1930

Rubin Lacy was one of the most talented and influential artists in Mississippi blues during his short career as a secular performer. The grandson of a minister, Lacy was born in Pelahatchie on January 2, 1901. He was a well-known blues performer in the Jackson area and the Delta until 1932, when he put his guitar down and became a preacher. In the 1950s he moved to California, where he died on November 14, 1969. 

Although the Mississippi Blues Trail marker installed in 2009 to purportedly further "racial reconciliation" and rehabilitate the state's image as an intransigent racist backwater claims that he was buried in Pelahatchie, Mississippi (based on the information written on his death certificate), his remains actually never made it back to the Magnolia State--a fact that Mexican American blues artist, custodian, and Mt. Zion Memorial Fund affiliate Gabriel Soria discovered in the early 1990s, when he raised the funds to mark his actual gravesite. Eschewing the Manifest Destiny-like memorialization process of the Blues Commission, Soria tracked down the descendants of the "Blues King," learned the actual location of his remains, and worked with them to design and install his headstone in Union Cemetery in Bakersfield, California. 

Letter from Ruby Thomas, the daughter
of Rubin Lacy, to Gabriel Soria

For the amateur blues researcher, it was important to consult with the family members of the artist during the process of memorialization. Indeed, the letters he sent to them showed respect by requesting information and seeking their blessing, and the letters he received in response demonstrated the importance of shared authority and collaboration (between admirer/scholar and family members) in the memorialization process. It is of the utmost importance to reach a consensus about the past in any serious effort at reconciliation, but the exclusive research process and premature installation of the MBT marker in downtown Pellahatchie, Mississippi suggests that the cultural legacy of Rubin Lacy was merely appropriated for its potential economic boon, which left a lot on the table in terms of the state's image and racial reconciliation. A more inclusive research and memorialization process, or shared authority with the descendants of Rubin Lacy (or even an enamored Latinx musician and respectful custodian in Cali), would have not only prevented the metal forging of a falsehood onto the marker, but also increased the power of the MBT to rehabilitate the state's image, bridging the societal and racial divide through the memorialization process.

The MBT did not consult with the family before it installed the marker in February 2009 at 716 Second St. in downtown Pelahatchie, Mississippi--in front of the city's museum and not far from the library. "We put it in the middle of town," Pelahatchie Mayor Knox Ross admitted. "It just adds one more thing for people to come see." - (Jackson, MS) Clarion Ledger, Feb 24, 2009.

Although Rubin “Rube” Lacy recorded only a handful of blues songs, he played an important role in the formative years of Mississippi blues. Lacy learned to play the guitar and mandolin by emulating George “Crow Jane” Hendrix, a multi-instrumentalist who led a string band in Pelahatchie. As a young man Lacy traveled widely, and among his experiences were meeting country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers while both were railway workers, and working in Chicago with an uncle from Germany who taught Lacy to speak German fluently. After moving back to the Jackson area, where he became known as the “blues king,” Lacy played in an elite circle that included Son Spand, Ishmon Bracey, Tommy Johnson, Charlie McCoy, and Walter Vinson. He later moved to Itta Bena, where he met Italian immigrant and talent scout Ralph Lembo and toured the Delta performing with such artists as Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Ralph Lembo at his store in Itta Bena circa 1929

Lacy made four recordings for Columbia Records at a session in Memphis in December 1927, but none were released. The following March he traveled to Chicago, where he recorded two songs for the Paramount label, “Mississippi Jail House Groan” and “Ham Hound Crave,” both of which he learned from Hendrix. Accompanying Lacy on the trip was music talent agent Ralph Lembo of Itta Bena, who contributed a spoken part to “Ham Hound Crave.” The two Paramount tracks, the only blues recordings by Lacy that were ever released, are considered such prime examples of Mississippi blues that both songs have appeared on numerous reissue CDs and LPs around the world.

Rev. Rubin Lacy and his wife in the 1960s

Following a train-related injury in 1932 Lacy decided to join the ministry, a path followed at times by fellow Mississippi bluesmen of his generation, including House, Skip James, Ishmon Bracey, Skip James, and Robert Wilkins. Lacy preached in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri before relocating to California. In1966 ethnomusicologist David Evans, John Fahey, and Alan Wilson located Lacy in Ridgecrest, California, and recorded him preaching and performing gospel songs together with members of his congregation. Although Lacy would no longer perform blues, he remained proud of his early recordings and suggested to Evans that the religiously devout feel the blues “quicker than a sinner do, ‘cause the average sinner ain’t got nothing to worry about.”

Lacy was one of a number of blues performers born in Rankin County. Others included Luther and Percy Huff, Shirley Griffith, John Henry “Bubba” Brown, Tommy Lee Thompson, Othar Turner, Elmore James, Jessie “Little Howlin’ Wolf” Sanders, and Pelahatchie native Lefty “Leroy” Bates. Griffith, Bates, and some of Lacy’s children later moved to Indianapolis, Indiana.*

The trivia section of the Clarion Ledger on Oct 16, 1990 asked readers to guess the name of the mysterious blues singer from Pelahatchie who died in 1972. 
The answer was Rubin Lacy, but he died in 1969.

Blues Researcher Anne M. Evans Passes at 103

Anne M. Evans (née Kunze) was born November 2, 1916 and died Feb. 7, 2020 in Millington, TN. She was 103 years old.

She grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, and lived in other New England locations before moving to Savannah with David Evans Sr. around 1974. She had only a high school education and no experience or training in field research, other than a bit of prior amateur folklore collecting in New England, and no real knowledge of blues and folk music or any particular interest in it, but she was in the South and wanted to know if she could somehow help her son, David Evans Jr. with his research. He suggested Blind Willie McTell, since his life was little known, at the time, other than that he had grown up in Statesboro not far from Savannah. Her son also suggested that she investigate around Thomson farther to the North, where McTell said he had been born. Anne and David Evans Sr., set out to find information, first asking around in Savannah, where they turned up a few memories of him. 

Anne also collected other folklore there, including folktales that her son used in a publication. Then the couple went to Statesboro and met and interviewed several informants who knew McTell, including McTell’s half-brother Robert Owens. 

Anne M. Evans “in the field” ca. 1977
with Georgia bluesman Embry Raines at his sister’s house

In the Thomson area, they found McTell’s cousin and other family members and Kate McTell Seabrooks in nearby Wrens. The relatives in Thomson led her to McTell’s burial site, which has since become well known and often visited. She also found active musicians Ira “Tiny” Coney and Embry Raines and some excellent church singers in Clyo, Savannah, and Pin Point. And she located McTell’s old partner Blind Log, following a tip provided by Pete Lowry. 

David Evans Sr. passed away in Savannah on Sept. 11, 1976, and Anne continued doing fieldwork for a while. In fact, she became quite good friends with Kate McTell, who also lost her husband around the same time. In 1975, her son began to follow up on her work, re-interviewing many of the informants and finding a few new ones, but she did the bulk of the basic work. 

David Evans Jr. published a preliminary version of the McTell research in 1980 in an essay in the booklet notes to Atlanta Blues: 1933, which won a Grammy nomination for “Best Album Notes” (shared with Bruce Bastin, who also contributed to the booklet). He also published shorter versions of the research in other album notes. 

I’d estimate that up to 75% of what the world knows about McTell’s life is due directly or indirectly to her efforts. (You wouldn’t know this from Michael Gray’s “biography,” where he convert’s McTell’s life into a travelogue of his own “voyage of discovery” - using, of course, the road map that her research had largely laid out.) In addition to making a mark in blues research, Anne Evans also published a number of children’s short stories and wrote several unpublished children’s novels in various historical settings. 

Family of Robert Johnson Turns on Kitchens' Law Firm

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2020 - THE (MEMPHIS, TN) COMMERCIAL APPEAL

Johnson's heir fights lawyers' perpetual pay

For more on this dubious legal case, click HERE - "How Claud Johnson won the Royalties of Robert Johnson's Estate"

For more on the problematic stories of blues tourism in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, read THIS ARTICLE.

Legend has it he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his talent as a blues musician, but few would hear his music. He mysteriously died at age 27 and didn't become famous during his lifetime. Even though he only recorded 29 songs, the royalties from his music are in the millions and the law firm which proved who was the rightful heir is still being paid for its services 20 years later. 

"That litigation went on from 1991 to 1999, actually, when the appeal came through,” said Michael Johnson of Crystal Springs. "It was settled in the Chancery Court in Greenwood, Miss. So, it actually was a 10-year battle from the beginning to the end." 

The Restored Headstone of Sonny Boy Williamson II

The restored headstone - All Photos by Alan Orlicek

In December 2019, the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund set out across the state of Mississippi to check up on the memorials we have erected over the past 30 years. Along the way, we conducted new research, surveyed several cemeteries, and visited the gravesites of several musicians whose graves have not been maintained for decades.

Thus, we recently commissioned master stonemason Alan Orlicek to repaint the lettering and level the detached headstone of Sonny Boy Williamson II in Tutwiler, MS. Indeed, we learned about several maintenance issues at other cemeteries containing the graves of blues musicians, and we have several ongoing projects to mark the graves of artists such as Nathan Beauregard, Zula Van Hunt, Roosevelt Graves, and many others!

We need your help to ensure these markers are available for viewing and visiting for years to come! You can write a review here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/blackandbluescemeteries/reviews/

You can make a donation here:

The seriously unmaintained marker as we found it in December 2019

1972 Blues Concert at BG Offered More Than Music

In 1972, McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters, won his first Grammy Award, for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording for They Call Me Muddy Waters, a 1971 album of previously unreleased recordings. Later in 1972, he flew to England to record the album The London Muddy Waters Sessions. The album was a follow-up to the previous year's The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions, and Chess Records producer Norman Dayron intended the showcase to feature Chicago blues musicians playing with the younger British rock musicians.

Muddy Waters was not satisfied with the results. "These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before 'em and play it, you know," he told music writer Peter Guralnick. "But that ain't what I need to sell my people, it ain't the Muddy Waters sound. An' if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man." He stated, "My blues look so simple, so easy to do, but it's not. They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play." Waters, nevertheless, won another Grammy, again for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording.

He also performed with his band in Bowling Green, Ohio in 1972. Below is the review of the concert published in The BG News as well as the letters to the editor that came in response to the biting commentary. It is a telling exchange that offers insight into the social climate on campus in the early 1970s.

Review: "Muddy Waters Is the Blues"

The BG News, October 11, 1972

By Richard Brase 

On Monday night, a genuine, honest-to-goodness. down-by-the-delta blues band came to campus and generated about as much excitement as your roommate doing his laundry on the weekend.

That is not to say the music was bad---it wasn't. Instead, the Bowling Green audience was not completely able to identify with the music of a downtrodden people. New Orleans blues certainly differs from lamentations over having a chemistry test the next day.

It was under these circumstances that a highly polished group of musicians known as the Muddy Waters Blues Band gave a free concert in the Grand Ballroom of the Union to an estimated crowd of 2.500 persons. 

The six-piece band broke into four jumpy numbers (about as jumpy as the blues can get) before MuddyWaters made his first appearance on stage The audience resounded with a standing ovation 

The impeccably dressed Waters, clad in maroon and white, took a seat on a stool and began to wail on his guitar. His technique was smooth and polished, which also best describes the performances of the rest of the members of the group.

The group is composed of three guitarists. Waters and two others, a bass player; a drummer, a pianist, and tremendous harmonica player, not quite rating in the same class with John Sebastian.

All were fine musicians, especially Fuzz Jones, the bass player.

Waters played five songs, including his hit, "Rolling Stone,'' before breaking for intermission. When the group returned, they maintained the same pace, a slow and grinding beat throughout the second hall of the concert.

Two things which detracted from the performance were the inadequate audio facilities, which made the words of the singers unintelligible, and the minor problem that none of the names of the songs were announced. 

But the largest problem of the evening was that the audience simply did not understand the music played by the Muddy Waters Blues Hand.

The crowd came expecting music which "moved out," but it never happened. The music reflected the lives of the people of the delta---it seemed to be music which was perfect for just allowing people to sit back and listen.

Many people walked away disappointed because they couldn't jump up and "boogie," or cheer to the words of a song which they all knew But there were also many who were content with just listening to some good musicians telling stones through music.

"Blues Take on a New Meaning" for BGSU Student in 1974

"Blues Take on a New Meaning," The BG News, May 1, 1974.

By Montel Jennings

210 Rodgers

Guest Student Columnist

The cover of Blues People by Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones)

The blues are a part of our tradition reflecting not only the history of the black man in America, but also the prodding changes of civilization as it grew from the farm to the factory, and from small rural townships to the larger cities. 

Although the blues can reside only with black people, it also accurately reflects the movements, trends and changing atmosphere of American society as a whole. 

Today the blues are taking on a new meaning because at no other time in history has the large black populous been on the verge of achieving a sense of equality with the larger white majority. 

FREEDOM, anti-racism and black power are the keynotes for a movement that is attempting to move the black man away from subservience, hypocrisy and second-rate American citizenship. 

A large part of current change is due to evolution and the almost frenetic pace of contemporary society. All men, whether black or white, when the proper time arises, will attempt to claim the few universal rights which should ideally govern one man's relationship to his fellow man.

The blues in the early years dealt with the black man's interaction with his new environment, the oppressive struggles of work, torment and the never-ending fear of an unpredictable future. 

THESE VERY tangible, unendurable hardships permeated a good deal of the early music. Lack of hope and incentive will weaken a man; driving away all feeling of hope and he eventually arrives at the point where he no longer wishes to work, realizing that the road is endless.

Feelings and moods changed as this country grew, for the blues spoke for an entire people, cleansing the impurities of everyday life and giving sustenance for one's day today existence. Like any musical form, it slowly evolved as this country began to grow and expand. New elements were injected into the music as the black man's needs and scope broadened. 

THE HISTORY of the blues is in essence a study in self-realization. That is to say that, as the black man's perspective of himself in relation to society changed, his music changed in almost direct proportion. In the early years, the question of freedom was always very remote; it was thought about, but more often than not. it was only a pleasant dream never to be actually enjoyed. 

But as the years passed through Civil War and Reconstruction, the black man's feeling about himself and his new status came to the fore with a more pressing Immediacy. 

Each new problem that faced the newly emancipated slave was dealt with in song; such as the movement away from the plantation, searching for work, on the rails, and finally the mass migration to the big city in search of new opportunities and a supposedly new grasp of life.

Traditional blues varied with interpretation. It was happy, sad. melancholy and always mournfully soulful. To the present time, the blues still reflect the enforced isolation or cultural separation resulting from an entire group's one outstanding common bond-skin pigmentation. 

THE BLUES of today represents a synthesis of all that preceded it, primarily in terms of textual contents and musical form. Early blues tended to be a purer form in that the degree of outside influences were negligible. While enslaved, the black man's musical frame of reference was quite limited. Plantation life and the unending tortures of work served as the primary textual motivation. 

However, the form and drive of this early music was still rooted in an African culture whose influences were to slowly dissipate as time obliviated memories of a past life. The early music revealed a rhythmic structure that utilized polyrhythms. exotic syncopated patterns and had a responsorial flavor never before heard in this country. 

These early characteristics remained, but as the black man's life became more complicated, new influences were to slowly alter basic forms and content. 

Today the blues are a sophisticated art form whose rhythmic and formal structures are over expanding The relaxed down-home quality of much of early rural blues has given way to a form that is not only musically interesting, but aggressive and proud in all its aspects. 

A GOOD part of early blues music was not written down and many singers and writers are to this day still anonymous. Words and music were passed down from father to son, generation to generation, never to be formally recorded in musical history. 

The work songs, chain gang songs, and gospel music were a source of relief and were a socially acceptable way for a singer to give voice to his innermost feelings.

It is now. more than ever, one of the black man's creative tools, proudly enforcing his equality, his manliness, and his right to be free in a country that has denied his existence for well over a hundred years. 

Traditional 12-bar blues' patterns and rather simple guitar accompaniments are being replaced by more elaborate instrumental ensembles utilizing sophisticated recording techniques. Some of the contemporary blues artists are using rhythm and blues effects, ensemble groups and a basic rock foundation to forcibly drive home a point. 

THE BLUES will never cease to be sung it will only change as time alters and redefines the black man's plight in this country.

1972 Blues Concert at BG Offered More Than Music

In 1972, McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters, won his first Grammy Award, for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording for They Call Me Muddy Waters, a 1971 album of previously unreleased recordings. Later in 1972, he flew to England to record the album The London Muddy Waters Sessions. The album was a follow-up to the previous year's The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions, and Chess Records producer Norman Dayron intended the showcase to feature Chicago blues musicians playing with the younger British rock musicians.

Muddy Waters was not satisfied with the results. "These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before 'em and play it, you know," he told music writer Peter Guralnick. "But that ain't what I need to sell my people, it ain't the Muddy Waters sound. An' if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man." He stated, "My blues look so simple, so easy to do, but it's not. They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play." Waters, nevertheless, won another Grammy, again for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording.

He also performed with his band in Bowling Green, Ohio in 1972. Below is the review of the concert published in The BG News as well as the letters to the editor that came in response to the biting commentary. It is a telling exchange that offers insight into the social climate on campus in the early 1970s.

Review: "Muddy Waters Is the Blues"

The BG News, October 11, 1972

By Richard Brase 

On Monday night, a genuine, honest-to-goodness. down-by-the-delta blues band came to campus and generated about as much excitement as your roommate doing his laundry on the weekend.

That is not to say the music was bad---it wasn't. Instead, the Bowling Green audience was not completely able to identify with the music of a downtrodden people. New Orleans blues certainly differs from lamentations over having a chemistry test the next day.

It was under these circumstances that a highly polished group of musicians known as the Muddy Waters Blues Band gave a free concert in the Grand Ballroom of the Union to an estimated crowd of 2.500 persons. 

The six-piece band broke into four jumpy numbers (about as jumpy as the blues can get) before MuddyWaters made his first appearance on stage The audience resounded with a standing ovation 

The impeccably dressed Waters, clad in maroon and white, took a seat on a stool and began to wail on his guitar. His technique was smooth and polished, which also best describes the performances of the rest of the members of the group.

The group is composed of three guitarists. Waters and two others, a bass player; a drummer, a pianist, and tremendous harmonica player, not quite rating in the same class with John Sebastian.

All were fine musicians, especially Fuzz Jones, the bass player.

Waters played five songs, including his hit, "Rolling Stone,'' before breaking for intermission. When the group returned, they maintained the same pace, a slow and grinding beat throughout the second hall of the concert.

Two things which detracted from the performance were the inadequate audio facilities, which made the words of the singers unintelligible, and the minor problem that none of the names of the songs were announced. 

But the largest problem of the evening was that the audience simply did not understand the music played by the Muddy Waters Blues Hand.

The crowd came expecting music which "moved out," but it never happened. The music reflected the lives of the people of the delta---it seemed to be music which was perfect for just allowing people to sit back and listen.

Many people walked away disappointed because they couldn't jump up and "boogie," or cheer to the words of a song which they all knew But there were also many who were content with just listening to some good musicians telling stones through music.