Blind Blake

This article is about blues singer and guitarist Blind Blake. For the Calypso musician of the same artist name, see Blake Alphonso Higgs .

Blind Blake (* 1896 in Newport News , Virginia , † December 1, 1934 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ), also Blind Arthur, actually Arthur Blake, was an American blues singer and guitarist .

Life

Very little is known about Blake's life. His real name was Arthur Blake, the author's information for his songs are variations of Blind Arthur Blake. Until his death certificate was discovered in 2014, it was speculated that his real name could also have been Arthur Phelps. The stage name refers to Blake's blindness , Josh White was his blind guide at times.

His record company named Jacksonville in Florida as his birthplace, but some blues historians believe it is also possible that he came from the Sea Islands in Georgia , as he spoke the local dialect, as documented in the Southern Rag . According to his death certificate, he was born in Newport News, Virginia.

Blake lived as a traveling musician and made music on street corners, on Saturday events and festivals. He came to Georgia in the 1910s and moved to Chicago in the early 1920s. There he received a recording contract with Paramount Records in 1926 and also recorded with Johnny Dodds and Charlie Spand . His debut Early Morning Blues / West Coast Blues was a success and led Blake to record around 80 pieces by 1932.

The collapse of the record market due to the Great Depression in 1929 led, like many blues musicians, to Blind Blake's career dip and he began to work for George Williams' vaudeville show Happy Go Lucky , where he stayed until late 1930 and early 1931. Blake made his last recordings in 1932 , after which Paramount Records went bankrupt. That same year, Blake disappeared from Chicago.

There was innumerable speculation and theories about his death. He was said to have died in a traffic accident either in New York in 1934 or in Atlanta in 1941, had drunk himself to death or was murdered, or died in Joliet or St. Louis in the early 1930s. Research done in 2011 revealed that he died of pulmonary tuberculosis on December 1, 1934 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin .

effect

In addition to Blind Lemon Jefferson , Blind Blake was one of the most successful male blues musicians of the 1920s; the early success of the two led to an increased interest of record companies in country blues musicians. Blake is sometimes called "the king of because of his virtuoso guitar playing ragtime referred -Guitar" (King of Ragtime Guitar). His swinging style, which has strong influences from ragtime and jazz , was style-defining for the East Coast Piedmont Blues . In 1990 Blind Blake was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame .

Trivia

In Lee Childs 1997 debut novel Megalomania (Killing Floor) , the hero Jack Reacher visits the fictional location of Margrave, Georgia , to investigate rumors that Blind Blake was killed there; Blind Blake is also mentioned in his 2011 Jack Reacher novel "The Affair".

literature

• Robert Santelli: The Big Book of Blues: A Biographical Encyclopedia. 1993, pp. 38-39, ISBN 0140159398 .
• Christin Avent, Joshua McDaniel: Blind Blake ( Memento from May 17, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ). In: East Coast Piedmont Blues.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alex van der Tuuk, Bob Eagle, Rob Ford, Eric LeBlanc and Angela Mack: In Search of Blind Blake - Arthur Blake's death certificate unearthed. (PDF) In: Blues & Rhythm. No. 263, October 2011, pp. 8-10.
2. ↑ Arthur "Blind" Blake. Paramount Music Association, December 1, 2014 (English).