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The Contemporaries of Blind Lemon A s a result of the success of Blind Lemon Jefferson, blues guitarists from around Texas and elsewhere in the South came to Dallas in the late 1920s and early 1930s looking for work. Undoubtedly, these musicians were influenced by Jefferson, but given the transient nature of many blues singers of this generation, it is difficult to assess the extent of any direct parallels in the music of those who recorded after him. Clearly, Jefferson was most influential in the way he established the commercial viability of downhome blues, and it was the potential for financial success that attracted other musicians to Dallas. Jesse Thomas and Willard “Ramblin’” Thomas, Alger “Texas” Alexander, J. T. “Funny Papa” (or “Funny Paper”) Smith, Gene Campbell, Carl Davis, Bo Jones, Willie Reed, Coley Jones, and George “Little Hat” Jones all played in the areas of Central Track, Deep Ellum, Freedmantown, and South Dallas. Jesse Thomas came to Dallas in 1928, following his brother, Willard “Ramblin’ ” Thomas, from Logansport, Louisiana (near where Lead Belly was from), where they both were born (Jesse in 1911 and Willard in 1902). In an interview with Bruce Nixon, Jesse recalled that when he was young he didn’t sing blues because he was “raised where the blues was all around. People were singing in the fields, day and night. I thought it was something lonesome and sad, not really something I liked. But when I came to Dallas, I saw that people enjoyed them, and then I liked them better. I saw that there was more to them than just a sad story.”1 In Dallas, Jesse lived with his brother on Flora Street off Hall Street and eked out a living playing on the street and at house parties. On summer evenings he sometimes put together a small string band and went from house to house in the Highland Park suburb of the city playing the popular songs of the day (such as “Shine on, Harvest Moon” and “Meet Me in Dreamland”) to entertain the wealthy white families who sat on their front porches as the C h A p t e r 7 107 sun went down. At house parties Jesse said, “We’d get paid a small salary to play. I carried that little wooden box [the guitar] everywhere I went. If you weren’t hired, you’d just go visiting, take up a collection. People would tip you to play a certain tune. But the cost of living was so low, you could get by. A house was a dollar-and-a-half a week to rent, and if you were playing, you’d get meals and drinks practically for free everywhere you went.”2 Willard Thomas was considered a more accomplished blues performer than his brother at that time. Willard had met Blind Lemon in Deep Ellum, and they reportedly played together. Evidence of this association, historian Bob Groom points out, can be heard in Thomas’s “No Baby Blues,” which incorporates a Jefferson-like guitar line.3 Moreover, it was probably through Jefferson and R. T. Ashford that Thomas was able to get a recording contract from the Paramount label, which sent him to Chicago in February 1928 to record eight sides. Later that year, in November, Thomas was invited back to Chicago to record six more sides, including his song “Hard Dallas Blues,” in which he warns his listeners: Man, don’t never make Dallas your home. When you look for your friends, they will all be gone. In February 1932 the Victor company recorded Willard Thomas in Dallas, and four songs were released, two of which were versions of his “Ground Hog Blues.” After these sessions, Ramblin’ Thomas moved on, and Jesse heard little of him until he died of tuberculosis in Memphis in 1935. Through Ashford, Jesse Thomas was given an audition by Paramount around 1928, but he wasn’t recorded until the following year, when Victor offered him a contract. On these four recordings he was identified as Jesse “Babyface” Thomas and was an accompanist on two Bessie Tucker titles, “Better Boot That Thing” and “Katy Blues.” Gene Campbell was a blues guitarist and singer who was a contemporary of the Thomas brothers, but the biographical details of his life are not as well documented as theirs.4 In his song “Western Plain Blues,” he says that he was “born in Texas, raised in Texas, too,” although he never explains where. It is likely...

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