Highway 61 Radio

This week’s Highway 61 focused on brothers Joe and Charlie McCoy, who were important, but now largely overlooked, recording artists in the ’20s,  ’30s and ’40s. On Saturday Oct. 5 a Mississippi Blues Trail marker will be dedicated in their honor in Raymond, where both were born–Joe in 1905 and Charlie around 1911.

There’s not much information about the McCoy’s early years, but we can track their activities pretty closely beginning in the late ’20s, when they both started recording.  In 1928 Charlie–who played both guitar and mandolin–debuted on wax backing Jackson area pioneers Tommy Johnson and Ishmon Bracey. Many of his recordings over the next several years were in a string band vein under group names including the Jackson Blue Boys, the Mississippi Blacksnakes and the Mississippi Mud Steppers, and were made with musicians including Mississippi Sheiks members  Bo and Sam Chatmon and Walter Vinson.

In December 1928 Charlie and Bo Chatmon made the first recording of “Corrine, Corrina,” which was later covered by an astonishingly wide range of artists. On the show last week I sampled versions by Bob Wills, cajun pioneer Joe Falcon, Big Joe Turner, Dean Martin, and Bob Dylan. Here’s another version by the Collins Kids, who I had the fortune of seeing earlier this year at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans.

In the early ‘30s Charlie moved to Chicago, where he quickly became an in demand session musician and recorded with leading artists including Big Bill Broonzy, Peetie Wheatstraw, and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, as well as former Jackson area artists Johnnie Temple and Monkey Joe.

Joe McCoy never released any records under his own name, but appeared under pseudonyms including Joe Johnson, Hamfat Ham, Georgia Pine Boy, Mississippi Mudder, Mud Dauber Joe, Big Joe, the Hillbilly Plowboy, and, in a religious mode, Hallelujah Joe. He was best known, though, as “Kansas Joe,” the musical and marital partner of vocalist and guitarist Memphis Minnie, one of the biggest blues stars of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

Between 1929 and 1934 Joe appeared as a vocalist on over fifty records together with Memphis Minnie, and wrote many of their songs. At their first session he sang lead vocals on his “When the Levee Breaks,” which addressed the Mississippi River flood of 1927; in 1971 the song was covered by Led Zeppelin. Here’s Joe’s version:

Joe and Charlie recorded extensively together beginning in 1934 and from 1936 to 1939 were members of the successful recording group the Harlem Hamfats, who mixed blues, jazz and pop. Joe was the lead vocalist on most of the group’s hit songs, including their first recording, “Oh! Red,” which was widely covered. Another of the group’s songs was Joe’s “Weed Smoker’s Dream (Why Don’t You Do Now),” recorded in 1936. In 1941 blues singer Lil Green reworked it into the hit “Why Don’t You Do Right,” and the following year Peggy Lee covered the song to great success together with the Benny Goodman orchestra. Another memorable version was performed by sultry cartoon character Jessica Rabbit in the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

Between 1940 and 1944 the McCoy brothers recorded together in the group Big Joe and His Rhythm, whose ranks contained leading artists including Robert Nighthawk, Washboard Sam and Little Brother Montgomery.  Following World War II neither brother was active in music, and Joe served occasionally as a preacher. They died months apart in 1950 and are buried in the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.