World Famous Comics: The Devil's Son-In-Law: The Story Of Peetie Wheatstraw & His Songs
The Devil's Son-In-Law: The Story Of Peetie Wheatstraw & His Songs
By: Paul Garon Publisher: Charles H Kerr Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Charles H Kerr Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 140 Publication Date: January 01, 2003
Product Description: Blue-singer, songwriter, piano and guitar player, William Bunch (1902-1941) was well-known as Peetie Wheatstraw, the Devil's Son-in-Law and the High Sheriff from Hell. Long recognized by connoisseurs as one of the most influential blues people of all time, his life and work are little known to the broad public. Blues scholar Paul Garon's important and abundantly illustrated study - drawing on his own extensive interviews with Wheatstraw's relatives, and fellow musicians - brings the exciting Whatstraw saga to life at last. With insight and imagination, Garon explores Peetie Wheatstraw's crucial role not only in blues history, but also in African American urban mythology, and - via a penetrating analysis of song lyrics - his appreciable contributions to blues poetry and to vernacular surrealism. Originally published in the UK in 1971, this substantially revised and expanded edition includes a mass of new information and images, as well as an updated bibliography, discography and index. Also included is a 24-track CD portraying Peetie at his best, with a bonus track by Harmon Ray, the previously unissued Xmas Blues!
High Sheriff from Hell is Back, and It's a Good Thing After he was killed in a railroad crossing accident in 1941, Peetie Wheatstraw warranted the front page and lead story in Down Beat. It may have helped that his last recorded songs were with dark irony entitled Hearseman Blues and Bring Me Flowers While I'm Living. But the fact remains that Wheatstraw was a highly original and influential blues singer, one of the central figures of the 1930s. Certain of his lyrics and stylistic innovations were widely imitated, and it was a measure of his popularity that he recorded throughout the Great Depression. A powerful indicator of Wheatstraw's deep connection to black culture is that his records billed him as "The Devil's Son-in-Law" and he called himself the "High Sheriff from Hell." When Paul Garon's The Devil's Son-in-Law was first published in 1971, it was one of the first biographies of a blues singer from the 1930s; there are still only a handful. Like Chris Strachwitz' Bessie, also once again available in a revised edition, republication of Garon's book is well-deserved, overdue, and has some fresh surprises. William Bunch, born in 1904 in Tennessee, began recording under the name Peetie Wheatstraw in 1930. Relatively little is known about his early life, though the clues Garon discovers are tantalizing and point to a rupture with a righteous family. Wheatstraw's highly original song style has a number of intriguing elements that are not easy to disentangle. His vocals are by turns shouted, growled, delivered with raucous energy, and sometimes move toward a twisted wistfulness. Though his lyrics sometimes look flat on the printed page, Wheatstraw's delivery endows them with remarkable power. His Crazy With the Blues, for example, begins with the humdrum line, "I woke up this morning, just crazy with the blues." But in the course of four stanzas, with exquisite timing and intentional vocal sloth, Wheatstraw delivers on a promise of self-denigration that conceals profound insight into what it means to be - well, thoroughly sane. Or again, if you thought, like I did, that John Henry Barbee (a/k/a William George Tucker) must have written Six Weeks Old Blues, a Vocalion issue from 1938, you should know that Wheatstraw recorded the first version seven years earlier. His original has the same taut quality (and virtually identical lyrics) as Barbee's masterpiece. Six Weeks Old must be one of the rare blues to offer a neonatal perspective on maternal filicide, and is of a piece with Wheatstraw's tendency to fuse wry humor with severe emotional distress. Finally, one of the most fascinating aspect of this new edition is the attention Garon pays to William Bunch's alter ego, together with his sobriquets, the "Devil's Son-in-Law" and the "High Sheriff from Hell." But over the years it has become apparent that Bunch borrowed these names from black folk culture. This, rather than adulation, may explains why another singer, Harmon Ray, was "Peetie Wheatstraw's Buddy" and Jimmie Gordon was "Peetie Wheatstraw's Brother." Ralph Ellison wrote about a character named "Peter Wheatstraw" in his novel Invisible Man, and Rudy Rae Moore starred in his comic film Petey Wheatstraw in 1977. All these incarnations strongly suggest that this tradition endowed Wheatstraw with a distinctive allure. "These designations," writes Garon, "gave Peetie a sense of power, opposition, and resistance and it gave his listeners a figure of great majesty with whom they could identify." Sixty-odd years on, those qualities still come through with surprising force. Although many readers will be familiar with at least some of Wheatstraw's recordings, it is fortunate that this new edition of the book includes a superb CD with 24 of Wheatstraw's best titles. John G. Simmons
Devoted to a great African-American blues singer The Devil's Son-In-Law: The Story Of Peetie Wheatstraw & His Songs is an amazing full-length study devoted to a great African-American blues singer. Facts, lyrics, meticulous deconstruction of details, and an expertly researched background make "The Devil's Son-In-Law" a must-read for fans of Peetie Wheatstraw's contributions to music. An accompanying CD allows blues fans to sample some of the best of Wheatstraw's rhythms. Also available in a hardcover edition, The Devil's Son-In-Law is a welcome addition to personal and academic American Music History collections.
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