Peetie Wheatstraw's complete recordings were reissued during the '90s by the Document label in an unprecedented seven-CD series. Vol. 5, which covers a timeline from March 1937 through October 1938 and features some fine guitar work by Kokomo Arnold and Lonnie Johnson, contains several songs inspired by the harsh realities in the St. Louis area during a time when an already disenfranchised African American working class faced difficult working conditions, low wages, job insecurity, unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. "Working on the Project" and its sequel describe what it was like to try and subsist on the lean earnings awarded to laborers who signed up with the Federal relief program known as the Works Progress (and later Work Projects) Administration, or W.P.A. While during the '30s various blues musicians referenced this program on their records (Big Bill Broonzy, Casey Bill Weldon, and Merline Johnson, for example), few laid down as many consecutive W.P.A.-related tunes as Peetie Wheatstraw did in 1937 and 1938. The context for "304 Blues" lies in a slip of paper that would appear in your pay envelope when your job was being terminated. "The Wrong Woman" has as its subtitle the straightforward message: "Lost My Job on the Project." Appropriately, the photograph on the cover of this album, which first appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on February 25, 1936, depicts a group of workers standing at the riverfront which was in the process of being radically altered; before the project was over with, the workers had to go on strike in order to be provided with hip boots while working in standing water. "Third Street's Going Down" is a poignant account of what happened to entire neighborhoods when highways were installed smack on top of areas where people lived and worked. In Peetie's case, this hit very close to home, because he lived on Third Street in East St. Louis, which was at the heart of "The Valley," a rough section of town largely consisting of gin joints, gambling dens, and houses of prostitution. While the city, state, and federal authorities obviously saw nothing wrong with evicting the inhabitants and razing many of the buildings to make way for a new highway, Peetie felt strongly enough about it to devote an entire song to the subject. Another tune in this set that references part of the urban landscape is "Cake Alley," one of three short thoroughfares that ran "from Blair Avenue on out to Fifteenth Street," According to Wheatstraw biographer Paul Garon, this existed at the edge of one of St. Louis' biggest African American ghettos, near Biddle Street and the red light district known as Deep Morgan. The alley was named for a bakery that once stood on the corner at Blair. According to the lyrics, Wheatstraw lived there at some point, but by the time he immortalized it with a song, the neighborhood had become so dangerous that visitors were likely to get assaulted and robbed, leading him to declare: "I don't go there no more." arwulf arwulf
Tracklist :
1. Crapshooter's Blues 3:08
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
2. Would You Would You Mama 2:50
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
3. Give Me Black Or Brown 2:55
Guitar – Kokomo Arnold
4. Working On The Project 3:01
Guitar – Kokomo Arnold
5. Sick Bed Blues 3:11
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar [Possibly] – Charlie Jordan
6. I'm Gonna Cut Out Everything 2:55
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar [Possibly] – Charlie Jordan
7. New Working On The Project 3:02
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar [Possibly] – Charlie Jordan
8. Baby Lou, Baby Lou 3:02
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar [Possibly] – Charlie Jordan
9. Devilment Blues 3:06
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar [Possibly] – Charlie Jordan
10. Third Street's Going Down 3:03
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar [Possibly] – Charlie Jordan
11. 304 Blues 3:04
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
12. The Wrong Woman (Lost My Job On The Project) 3:03
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
13. Hard Headed Black Gal 3::12
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
14. Banana Man 3:11
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
15. Shack Bully Stomp 2:31
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
16. Road Tramp Blues 2>59
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
17. Sweet Lucille 3:09
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
18. Saturday Night Blues 3:11
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
19. Good Little Thing 2:58
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
20. Cake Alley 3:00
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
21. What More Can A Man Do? 3:02
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
22. Truckin' Thru Traffic 2:23
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
23. Hot Springs Blues (Skin And Bones) 2:56
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
24. A Man Ain't Nothin' But A Fool 3:04
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Lonnie Johnson
Credits :
Compiled By, Producer – Johnny Parth
Liner Notes – Paul Garon
Remastered By – Gerhard Wessely
Vocals, Piano – Peetie Wheatstraw
.jpg)
