Author: Professor M

In 1921, Philadelphia-born vocalist Katie Crippen recorded four sides for Black Swan Records – a Harlem-based label founded by Harry Pace.

This song, “Blind Man Blues”, according to Walter Allen in Hendersonia, was “one of the first 12-bar blues recorded.” It features a couple of classic lines, such as “I ain’t gonna marry, I ain’t gonna settle down” – later sung in 1926 by Bessie Smith’s “Young Woman’s Blues” and in 1928 by Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel #2”. Lines such as this expressed a gendered independence and were a challenge to the social order of the time – only a year after women in the U.S. won the right to vote.

Additionally, here we have one of Fletcher Henderson’s very early recorded sessions for Black Swan and his second commercially-released recording. He had moved to NYC in 1920 to study science after graduating from Atlanta University, where he played organ for the mandatory chapel services at the university.

After working as a song plugger for the Pace and Handy Music Company, he took a job with Harry Pace at his newly formed Black Swan label as a pianist in 1920. The label strove for “cultural respectibility” in its choice of artists and repertoire, and Henderson’s first commercially-released record was providing accompaniment to classical vocalist C. Carroll Clark.

Though he was a classically-trained pianist, this recording with Kate Crippen was the first of many he would go on to record with many early blues vocalists – as Mamie Smith’s hit “Crazy Blues” in 1920 had started a surge of interest in blues recordings. This style of playing did not come naturally to Henderson, and Ethel Waters, who played and recorded with him often from 1921-23 was quoted as saying:

“Fletcher wouldn’t give me what I call ‘the damn-it-to-hell bass,’ that chump-chump stuff that real jazz needs… I kept nagging him – I said he couldn’t play as I wanted him to. When we reached Chicago I got some piano rolls that Jimmy Johnson had made and pounded out each passage to Henderson. To prove to me he could do it, Fletch began to practice. He got so perfect, listening to James P. Johnson play on the player piano, that he could press down the keys as the roll played, never missing a note. Naturally, he began to be identified with that kind of music, which isn’t his kind at all.”

Crippen continued to perform with artists such as Fats Waller and Count Basie throughout the 1920s. She tragically died of cancer in November of 1929.

Here we have an issue on the Iowa-based Claxtonola label – of my favorite labels to collect from the 78 rpm era. The label was made by the Brenard Manufacturing Company in Iowa City, which manufactured phonographs. They licensed masters from Paramount, Black Swan, and Gennett and issued them under their own labels, Claxtonola and National.

Enjoy this scarce early blues recording!

Recorded in New York City in February – March, 1921.
Originally released as Black Swan 2003.
Reissued as Paramount 12126, Puritan 11054, Famous 3048 and Claxtonola 40054.

Credits:
Katie Crippen – vocals
Unknown artist – trumpet
Chink Johnson (?) – trombone
Edgar Campbell – clarinet
Cordy Williams (?) – violin
Fletcher Henderson – piano

Sources:
Hendersonia, Walter C. Allen
His Eye is on the Sparrow, Ethel Waters & Charles Samuels
Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz, Jeffrey Magee