Charlie McFadden

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Charlie "Specks" McFadden (also "Black Patch" McFadden , actually Charles Pertum , born April 24, 1895 in Quincy , Adams County (Illinois) ; † November 15, 1966 in St. Louis ) was an American singer and songwriter of the Country blues .

Live and act

McFadden, who was from East St. Louis , Illinois and took the name of his stepfather Jack McFadden around 1910, moved to St. Louis in 1920 and played for various labels such as Bluebird , Brunswick , Decca , Okeh , Paramount , Sunrise and between 1929 and 1937 Victor Records recorded over twenty songs, accompanied a. a. by Roosevelt Sykes and Lonnie Johnson , also by Eddie "Gin" Miller (piano).

One of his most famous songs was "Groceries on the Shelf (Piggly Wiggly)" (Paramount 12928 and 13076 and 1937 as Decca 7317), a song that alludes to the early supermarket chain Piggly Wiggly . McFadden picked him up three times; it was covered in 1933 as "The Piggly Wiggly Blues" by Lucille Bogan . Piggly Wiggly (self-service) became a metaphor for sexual availability and prostitution in African American slang . The first lines of the song are:

The first Piggly Wiggly store in Memphis opened in 1916.
My name is Piggly Wiggly: I've got groceries on my shelf
Getting mighty tired: making these nights all by myself
My mama told me: my papa told me too
Don't let these cadillac women: make no flat tire out of you .

McFadden's other songs were "People People", "Weak-Eyed Blues", "Lonesome Ghost Blues", "Times Are So Tight" and "Gambler's Blues", an allusion to his passion for gambling that brought him to prison several times between 1929 and 1935 . Some of his songs, such as "Broken Down Blues", "Weak-Eyed Man" and "Harvest Moon Blues", he recorded under his original name Charles "Speck" Pertum.

Discographic notes

  • Complete Chronological Recordings 1929-37 (Blues Documents)
  • Eddie Miller & John Oscar: The Piano Blues of Eddie Miller & John Oscar (1929-1934) (Complete Recordings) (RST Records, ed. 1989)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ His nicknames related to the fact that he had lost sight in one eye and was wearing glasses with a black cover on a glass. See Guido van Rijn: Roosevelt's Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Artists on President Roosevelt , 1995, p. 29
  2. ^ Bob L. Eagle, Eric S. LeBlanc: Blues: A Regional Experience . 2013
  3. ↑ Michael Taft: Talkin 'to Myself: Blues Lyrics, 1921-1942 . 2013 -
  4. ↑ Published 1930. coupled with People People Blues . See The Paramount 'Race' Records Series
  5. ↑ http://bluesimages.com/museum-78s/HTML-By-Label/Paramount-Paramount14.html
  6. ↑ Recorded on July 19, 1933, with slightly different text: Piggly-Wiggly My name is Piggly-Wiggly, and I swear you can help yourself And I've got to have your green back, and it don't take nothin'else . See Stephen Calt: Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary , 2009, p. 182.
  7. ^ Guido van Rijn: Roosevelt's Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Artists on President Roosevelt . 1995, p. 47
  8. ↑ Quoted from Michael Taft: Talkin 'to Myself: Blues Lyrics, 1921-1942 . Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2005.
  9. ↑ Scott Yanow : Review of the album Complete Recorded Works 1929-1937 at Allmusic (English). Retrieved December 29, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME McFadden, Charlie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pertum, Charles (real name); Pertum, Charles Spec (nickname); McFadden, Bacon (nickname); McFadden, Black Patch (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American country blues singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Quincy , Adams County (Illinois)
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1966
Place of death St. Louis