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The Devil soninlaw The story of Peetie Wheatstraw and his songs Blues paperback Paul Garon 9780289702116 Books

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The Devil soninlaw The story of Peetie Wheatstraw and his songs Blues paperback Paul Garon 9780289702116 Books

Paul Garon, the author of the classic Blues and the Poetic Spirit (Roots of Jazz) gives both a biography and examination of the lyrics of Peetie Wheatstraw aka "The Devil's Son-In-Law" a popular blues guitarist and singer in the 1930's and 40's but one who did not gain recognition in the wake of the 60's blues revival. Although the biographical data is slim, Garon puts Wheatstraw's career and lyrics into the historical perspective of the development of a citified style of blues that falls somewhere in between the downhome Delta style and the more sophisticated big band and jazz oriented style that was prominent in the 40's. Garon fills a missing link in blues history with this and his longer text on Memphis Minnie Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues whose "When the Levee Breaks" was another example of a blues song being 'appropriated' and copyrighted by Led Zeppilen.


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The Devil soninlaw The story of Peetie Wheatstraw and his songs Blues paperback Paul Garon 9780289702116 Books Reviews

After he was killed in a railroad crossing accident in 1941, Peetie Wheatstraw warranted the front page and lead story in Down Beat. It may have helped that his last recorded songs were with dark irony entitled Hearseman Blues and Bring Me Flowers While I'm Living. But the fact remains that Wheatstraw was a highly original and influential blues singer, one of the central figures of the 1930s. Certain of his lyrics and stylistic innovations were widely imitated, and it was a measure of his popularity that he recorded throughout the Great Depression. A powerful indicator of Wheatstraw's deep connection to black culture is that his records billed him as "The Devil's Son-in-Law" and he called himself the "High Sheriff from Hell."

When Paul Garon's The Devil's Son-in-Law was first published in 1971, it was one of the first biographies of a blues singer from the 1930s; there are still only a handful. Like Chris Strachwitz' Bessie, also once again available in a revised edition, republication of Garon's book is well-deserved, overdue, and has some fresh surprises.

William Bunch, born in 1904 in Tennessee, began recording under the name Peetie Wheatstraw in 1930. Relatively little is known about his early life, though the clues Garon discovers are tantalizing and point to a rupture with a righteous family.

Wheatstraw's highly original song style has a number of intriguing elements that are not easy to disentangle. His vocals are by turns shouted, growled, delivered with raucous energy, and sometimes move toward a twisted wistfulness. Though his lyrics sometimes look flat on the printed page, Wheatstraw's delivery endows them with remarkable power. His Crazy With the Blues, for example, begins with the humdrum line, "I woke up this morning, just crazy with the blues." But in the course of four stanzas, with exquisite timing and intentional vocal sloth, Wheatstraw delivers on a promise of self-denigration that conceals profound insight into what it means to be - well, thoroughly sane.

Or again, if you thought, like I did, that John Henry Barbee (a/k/a William George Tucker) must have written Six Weeks Old Blues, a Vocalion issue from 1938, you should know that Wheatstraw recorded the first version seven years earlier. His original has the same taut quality (and virtually identical lyrics) as Barbee's masterpiece. Six Weeks Old must be one of the rare blues to offer a neonatal perspective on maternal filicide, and is of a piece with Wheatstraw's tendency to fuse wry humor with severe emotional distress.

Finally, one of the most fascinating aspect of this new edition is the attention Garon pays to William Bunch's alter ego, together with his sobriquets, the "Devil's Son-in-Law" and the "High Sheriff from Hell." But over the years it has become apparent that Bunch borrowed these names from black folk culture. This, rather than adulation, may explains why another singer, Harmon Ray, was "Peetie Wheatstraw's Buddy" and Jimmie Gordon was "Peetie Wheatstraw's Brother." Ralph Ellison wrote about a character named "Peter Wheatstraw" in his novel Invisible Man, and Rudy Rae Moore starred in his comic film Petey Wheatstraw in 1977. All these incarnations strongly suggest that this tradition endowed Wheatstraw with a distinctive allure. "These designations," writes Garon, "gave Peetie a sense of power, opposition, and resistance and it gave his listeners a figure of great majesty with whom they could identify."

Sixty-odd years on, those qualities still come through with surprising force. Although many readers will be familiar with at least some of Wheatstraw's recordings, it is fortunate that this new edition of the book includes a superb CD with 24 of Wheatstraw's best titles.

John G. Simmons
Paul Garon, the author of the classic Blues and the Poetic Spirit (Roots of Jazz) gives both a biography and examination of the lyrics of Peetie Wheatstraw aka "The Devil's Son-In-Law" a popular blues guitarist and singer in the 1930's and 40's but one who did not gain recognition in the wake of the 60's blues revival. Although the biographical data is slim, Garon puts Wheatstraw's career and lyrics into the historical perspective of the development of a citified style of blues that falls somewhere in between the downhome Delta style and the more sophisticated big band and jazz oriented style that was prominent in the 40's. Garon fills a missing link in blues history with this and his longer text on Memphis Minnie Woman With Guitar Memphis Minnie's Blues whose "When the Levee Breaks" was another example of a blues song being 'appropriated' and copyrighted by Led Zeppilen.