Kresge's Department Store, Lafayette, Indiana, 1947. In some ways, most notably Santa's uniform, wig and beard, this picture doesn't even look as if it were shot in America. Latvia, maybe.
I don't know much about Indiana, but they sure knew how to stuff a reindeer back in 1947.
It was no accident that actor/ producer Tim Reid showed up on last season's Treme. Portraying a sympathetic judge in two episodes, Reid brought back the humanity, however briefly, that he displayed in his short- lived sitcom (for lack of a better term) Frank's Place. The series, which ran from September of 1987 to March of 1988, depicted life in New Orleans, centered around a restaurant, the Chez, and its staff and regulars.
I have several episodes on video that I taped much later when the series was re- run on BET, sandwiched between late- night party- line commercials. Last night I brought out a couple to see if the series was as good as I remembered. It wasn't. It was much better than I remembered.
Nowadays a series as intelligent, sensitive, evocative and well- written as Frank's Place would be on HBO or some other premium cable outlet. No laugh track, no studio audience, and each episode looks like a half- hour movie, with multiple camera set- ups and lingering close-ups, all shot in the single- camera method.
Instead of wondering why was this show cancelled (it was on CBS), I wonder how did this show ever get on the network to begin with.
From the evocative opening credit sequence of sepia- toned photos taken in New Orleans, with Louis Armstrong singing, "Do You Know What It Means (To Miss New Orleans)?" in the background, to the outstanding cast of regulars, particularly Francis E. Williams as the veteran waitress Miss Marie, and Robert Harper as the genial alcoholic attorney Bubba Weisberger, to the authenticity of every song that comes off that great jukebox, Frank's Place takes us to New Orleans as effectively as Treme does, but Tim Reid does it without leaving a Hollywood soundstage.
A canny mixture of out and out comedy and intense drama, it is unique in television history, which is why the producers of Treme honored the show with a Frank's Place night in New Orleans. Two episodes were screened recently at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, with show creators Hugh Wilson and Tim Reid in attendance. Most of the audience had not seen it since 1988.
Everyone who was a fan has their favorite episodes, and I've had more than one barroom conversation in New Orleans recounting my favorites and re-living someone else's, much like the character Soapy who comes into the Chez and recounts the week's soap opera plots in exchange for free drinks.
They're all good, but some are really, really good. The two- parter that revolves around Cool Charles' slide into the drug trade is amazing with its ethereal ending, both episodes involving the Drivers are wonderful and a personal favorite is the one where the aging business tycoon thwarts the takeover of his company in New York without leaving the Chez.
There are no DVD sets forthcoming, because the music rights (including Armstrong's opening song) are too expensive. As far as I know, nothing has come of Reid's plan to replace the theme or the jukebox songs (how can you replace Guitar Slim singing "The Things I Used to Do"?) So I'm lucky I have my small collection of videos, and whenever I want, I can go to New Orleans, order a bowl of gumbo from Miss Marie and see my pals at the Chez.
Amazingly, we blues fans probably have more information on the elusive and quasi- supernatural Robert Johnson than we do on his one- time running partner, Sonny Boy Williamson II. Not the fine Tennessee- born harmonica player/ singer John Lee Williamson, but the many- named harmonica player/ singer Rice Miller. Known in didactic circles as Sonny Boy Williamson II, he was probably named Alec Ford at birth, which, in typical blues fashion, may have taken place in 1899, 1908, or, according to scholar Dr. David Evans, 1912. Most sources agree on December 5th, but his gravesite has a date of March 11th.
Apparently, the least accurate source was Sonny Boy himself, who loved to play fast and loose with the facts.
He claimed to have made a recording with Robert Johnson playing electric guitar that never ever surfaced.
He claimed to have tried to warn Robert not to drink the poison liquor that fateful night on the Money Road outside of Greenwood. Johnson died weeks afterward of pneumonia as he tried to recover from the poisoning.
He claimed to have been the artist who recorded under the name Sonny Boy Williamson for RCA Bluebird. When that didn't work, he claimed that he had the name first and that the other Sonny Boy copied him.
While these last claims are definitely not correct, who is to say the others aren't? What connoisseur would not give anything for an acetate of Rice Miller and Robert Johnson?
His sly, sparse style of playing enabled him to record with artists as diverse as B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, British jazzman Chris Barber (on a Duke Ellington song, no less) and the Animals. And on all these, he is the leader!
Not to say he wasn't a gifted accompanist. His playing on Elmore James' original of Dust My Broom is, well, perfect. His playing with Muddy Waters on the American Folk Blues recording is, well... interesting. Recordings behind Baby Boy Warren in Detroit, Tampa Red in Chicago and Memphis Slim in Paris are wonderful.
He was also one of the truly great blues songwriters. His lyrics reflect his "trickster monkey" sensibilities- his baby needs a hundred dollars but he only has ninety- nine, or if you cross your heart, you're not supposed to tell a lie, and if you say wrong or do wrong, then it's so long and even... goodbye. His woman can bring eyesight to the blind (and cure the dying. What a woman!) The car radio in his Pontiac picks up that great music from the north. All this punctuated by that remarkably distinctive harmonica and mellow singing.
With Robert Lockwood, Jr. at the KFFA Studios
Miller's story is the history of modern blues- from the plantations of the south in the early part of the century, to the Chess studios in Chicago in the 1960's, from KFFA in Arkansas to a Swedish radio station, from juke joints and street corners in Mississippi to private parties in Germany, he took it all in stride. He once claimed that he could be broke in a strange town at dawn and full of liquor and money by nightfall, as long as he had his harmonica.
Archival footage shows him leaving an airplane in Europe, loping (there's no other word for it) into the airport. Unlike Little Walter, he loved Europe and especially Great Britain, where he made several recordings that introduced him to white audiences around the world, most notably his live session with the Yardbirds, a young Eric Clapton holding down the guitar chores. While in London he had an incredible suit made by bespoke tailors on Saville Row: of his own design, it was made from two different colors of material. He wore it back to West Helena, where his old friends refused to believe he'd been anywhere like Europe.
That's when he came back, after the final European tour. He said, "We're like elephants, we have to come home to die." Levon Helm remembers him spitting blood into a coffee can during a jam session.
He died of a heart attack on May 25th, 1965. Fortunately, he was able to feast on his success prior to his death, unlike Robert Nighthawk, or Elmore James.
There's a story from his time in London: coming back from a gig with Paul Oliver at dawn, Sonny Boy asked to be let out at Picadilly Circus. Oliver's last glimpse of him that day was harlequin- suited Sonny Boy loping down Broad Street, blowing his harmonica, coattails flapping in the dawn breeze. The trickster god at leisure.
Cathy Ponton King, a great local singer/ guitarist, sent me this link to an outstanding set of color photographs taken by the Farm Security project at the same time the famous black and white shots were made.
This photograph, in particular, seemed apropos of the blog lately. The caption is from the story found in the Denver Post.
Backstage at the "girlie" show at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
"Nighthawk" is one of the great names: Washington, DC DJ Bob Terry used it in the '60's when he had the best radio show in the city. John Hammond used it for his band the Screaming Nighthawks, a fixture in NY's Greenwich Village in 1965 or so, and a band that briefly boasted young Jimi Hendrix, fresh from the 101st Airborne, on lead guitar prior to his journeying to Great Britain.
My friend Mark Wenner has called his fine band the Nighthawks for over forty years now, and they're still going strong, I'm pleased to report.
But really, when the rubber hits the road, when push comes to shove, when it's time to fish or cut bait, there is only one original Nighthawk. Robert Nighthawk (or Night Hawk), the prowling Nighthawk, the legendary blues guitarist from Louisiana, one of the greats of Chicago blues and also an amazingly inventive slide guitar player with a beautiful touch.
Tomorrow, November 30th would have been Nighthawk's hundred- and- first birthday. Born in 1909, he died of heart failure (don't we all?) on November 5th, 1967, too early for the inevitable fame that accompanied white crossover adulation.
Robert McCullum with his brother on harmonica
His real name was Robert Lee McCullum and although he began as a harmonica player, he was a "go-to" guitarist as early as 1937, playing under the name Robert Lee McCoy, and recording for RCA with the first Sonny Boy, John Lee Williamson. By 1950 he was calling himself Robert Nighthawk, named after a popular recording of his.
Nighthawk in the '40's
Thankfully he left behind a good amount of recordings, all of them excellent. A protogee of veteran guitarist Houston Stackhouse, Nighthawk took Stack's style a little further and honed some of the rougher edges. He also had his disciples, Earl Hooker in particular, who played slide in the Nighthawk manner, that is, standard tuning, and mostly in the key of E.
While slide players like Elmore James re-tuned the guitar to an open tuning, like D, for instance, or, as in Muddy's case, open G, Nighthawk tended to play in the regular EADGBE tuning, dampening strings as needed and fretting chords with his free fingers, alternating with his elegant single note runs.
Robert with Houston Stackhouse and Peck Curtis behind his classic "King Biscuit Enterainers" bass drum
Combined with his rich singing and perfect time, Nighthawk's performances stand out from many of his contemporaries and some rank right up there with Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf.
Nighthawk's standard, Anna Lee, got recorded over and over and each version is a gem. His Maggie Campbell and Kansas City are must- haves for any aspiring blues musician. The recordings that he made with Big Walter Horton in 1964 for the Swedish aficionados, released under the name An Offer You Can't Refuse, are a virtual Chicago blues guitar textbook: clean, simple, unassuming and perfect.
You may want to check his recordings out here, but if I may, let me recommend a few for you.
1. Bricks in My Pillow (Delmark)- Nighthawk's singles on United and States- definitive!
2. Masters of Modern Blues (Testament) - Half Nighthawk, the other Houston Stackhouse. Not only do you get to compare both men, but Peck Curtis' drumming alone is worth the price of the recordings.
3. Live on Maxwell Street, 1964 (Bullseye)- amazing recordings done as part of a film documentery.
4. Bluebird Recordings 1937- 1938 (RCA) - the great early stuff with John Lee Williamson on harmonica and Big Joe Williams on guitar, not to mention virtuosic mandolin from Yank Rachell. Excellent sound.
5. The Original Sonny Boy Williamson, volume 1 (JSP?- not sure)- a very inexpensive 4- disc set of the Bluebird recordings that include a lot of great back- up from Nighthawk (as Robert Lee McCoy). Must have anyway because of Sonny Boy.
6. I Blueskvarter• Chicago, 1964, volume 1 (Jefferson, import) - this complilation has the speed- corrected, beautifully mastered Big Walter/ Nighthawk recordings. From the same session released earlier as An Offer You Can't Refuse.
All of the above are available on Amazon as well as Frank Scott's Roots and Rhythm site, a wonderful resource for blues and roots music based in the San Francisco Bay area.
Washington DC photographer, husband of Susan, father of Rebecca, Emilie and Charlotte, grandfather of Dorothy and Luke, blues harmonicist, AKA Big Boy Little, Washington, DC native son
www.Littlehales.com
"Nighthawk" is one of the great names: Washington, DC DJ Bob Terry used it in the '60's when he had the best radio show in the city. John Hammond used it for his band the Screaming Nighthawks, a fixture in NY's Greenwich Village in 1965 or so, and a band that briefly boasted young Jimi Hendrix, fresh from the 101st Airborne, on lead guitar prior to his journeying to Great Britain. 
