78 RPM - Lucile Bogan - The Pawn Shop Blues / Grievious Blues - OKeh - USA

78 RPM Record

Artist:	Lucile Bogan
Label:	OKeh
Country:	USA
Catalogue:	8079
Date:	Sep 1923
Format:	10"
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
Community:	1 Owns
Price Guide:	$100
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PRICE GUIDE

$100

Track	Artist	Title	Composer	Rating
A	Lucile Bogan	The Pawn Shop Blues	Eddie Heywood	Rate
B	Fannie Goosby	Grievious Blues	Fannie Goosby	Rate

Notes

Contralto solo, piano accomp. (A), cornet & piano accomp. (B)
Classic Female Blues

Lucille Bogan (vocals on A); Fannie May Goosby (vocals on B); Eddie Heywood (piano); with unknown cornet (B).

A mx: 8362-B, recorded Atlanta, GA, c. June 14, 1923.
B mx: 8386-B, recorded Atlanta, GA, c. June 14, 1923.

Images

Number: 1802214

THUMBNAIL
Uploaded By: Mike Gann
Description: OKeh 8079 A-side label

Number: 1802215

Uploaded By: Mike Gann
Description: OKeh 8079 B-side label

Number: 2789830

Uploaded By: fixbutte
Description: OKeh Atlanta recordings, June 1923

Number: 2790093

Uploaded By: fixbutte
Description: Lucille Bogan's New York OKeh recordings, late May 1923

Comments and Reviews


fixbutte 2nd Nov 2021		Changed the recording date of the Lucile Bogan side in the Notes from June 15, 1923. to "c. June 14, 1923" as well (before Fiddlin' John Carson's and Fannie Goosby's recordings anyway).



han enderman 2nd Nov 2021		mxs 8374-75 by Fiddlin' John Carson are dated c. June 14, 1923 in Tony Russell's Country Music Records (2004), and Bogan's 8362 will have been made the same day or one day earlier, Goosby's 8386 one or 2 days later. But the NOTE is incorrect, as the Goosby date should be after the Bogan date.



fixbutte 29th Oct 2021		As said (and against the quote from Dixon's and Godrich's Recording The Blues) Lucille Bogan, "a popular blues singer from dear old Birmingham, Alabama" according to the Chicago Defender, was presumably well known to Ralph Peer and the OKeh executives, as "The Pawn Shop Blues" was apparently recorded after the four titles that were recorded in New York and released on OKeh 8071 and 8074. Another snippet from the Discography of OKeh Records, 1918-1934 lists these sides with some of the last matrix numbers allocated in May 1923.



fixbutte 29th Oct 2021		Uploaded a snippet from the Discography of OKeh Records, 1918-1934 by Ross Laird and ‎Brian Rust with matrix numbers of all the Atlanta location recordings in June 1923. Considering the setting from Dixon's and Godrich's book, I doubt that they spent much more than one day for these recordings.



fixbutte 29th Oct 2021		Other sources, including the YT video and the Online Discographical Project, date Goosby's side on June 20, 1923, which seems logical as well (later than Bogan's side). On the other side, an early June 1923 date for the Atlanta recordings seems to contradict the sources that report on OKeh's location recording in Atlanta in mid-June 1923, see Recording the Blues, by Robert M. W. Dixon and John Godrich (1970), page 27: Ralph Peer, son of a white Missouri storekeeper, was in charge of the 8000 scries and he was always on the lookout for new talent. In 1923 Polk Brockman, a white man who was OKeh's wholesale distributor in Atlanta, persuaded Peer to bring his equipment to Atlanta to record Fiddlin' John Carson, a favourite hillbilly singer. The June 15th edition of the Atlanta Journal advertised Peer's visit, and by the time a makeshift recording laboratory was set up in an empty loft on Nassau Street quite a lot of local talent had assembled. The Chicago Defender gave news of the trip, saying that Peer had made a 'record by Lucille Bogan, a popular blues singer from dear old Birmingham, Alabama, and an original blues by Fannie Goosby, amongst others.' OKeh 8079 coupled Lucille Bogan's "Pawn Shop Blues" with "Grievous Blues" by Fannie Goosby, the first race record to have been recorded outside the main centres of New York and Chicago. Lucille Bogan was called to New York almost immediately to record four more titles, and Miss Goosby followed a month or two later. At the end of 1923, OKeh advertisements were able to boast not only that 'OKeh made the first 12-inch blues Race record' (by Eva Taylor, one side being "Gulf Coast Blues", a 'cover' of one of the tunes on Bessie Smith's first record) and that 'the first duet record by colored artists was on OKeh' but also that 'new OKeh Race Artists have been discovered by special recording expeditions into the South.'



han enderman 28th Oct 2021		Recording date for mx 8362-B is early June 1923 in BGR 4th ed. 1997, which seems logical when compared with the higher mx.nr of Goosby's side.



fixbutte 28th Oct 2021		On repeated listening I have to agree to what the seller on Popsike commented: Fannie Goosby surprisingly good. I prefer her side to the side of the much better known Lucille Bogan. Against this comment (and Robert Dixon's and John Godrich's Recording The Blues) it seems that "The Pawn Shop Blues" was not the first recording by Lucille Bogan though. Matrix numbers suggest that her four New York sides (OKeh 8071 and 8074) were recorded before this one, in late May or early June 1923.



fixbutte 28th Oct 2021		This record is something special because both sides are designated on the labels as "Recorded in Atlanta, Ga.", making them the first sides recorded by African American blues singers outside of New York or Chicago. Lucille Bogan had recorded four sides in OKeh's New York studios before though, probably in late May 1923. Fannie Goosby's side is with "Cornet and Piano Accomp.", but only the pianist is named (Eddie Heywood Sr.), not the prominent cornet player. Against Wikipedia, Goosby obviously does not accompany herself on the piano, and the trumpet part is probably not played by Henry Mason who "played in the late 1920s around Atlanta as an accompanist to blues vocalist[s] Fannie Mae Goosby", see the actual source used by Wikipedia. Against several sources, "Grievous Blues" is as wrongly spelled here as on the re-recording on OKeh 8095. Not listed in the Talking Machine World's September 15, 1923 list, the record was probably only released in Nov 1923, see there: "First advertised in the Chicago Defender on November 17, 1923."



Mike Gann 25th Nov 2018



Mike Gann 25th Nov 2018