On the Shelf: 2023 Blues Images Calendar w/CD!

Another year is coming to a close and, yes, it’s time for the Reverend to preach his annual sermon on the joys of having a Blues Images calendar hanging on your wall. The 2023 calendar is now available and, much as with previous years, John Tefteller and his Blues Images crew have outdone themselves with another great effort!

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Tefteller’s annual gift to blues fans, the Blues Images calendar features vintage advertising artwork from the long-gone, legendary Paramount Records label. Each year’s calendar preserves an invaluable slice of visual history of the early years of the blues. Whereas previous publications have skewed more heavily towards early, primitive B&W pen ‘n’ ink artwork, last year’s calendar included more photo-oriented advertising. This year’s banger does even better, with several photographic ads (reproduction technology was in its infancy in the 1930s) as well as more than a few splashes of color.

The Blues Images 2023 calendar features advertising promoting Paramount releases of plastic fantastic sides like Joshua White’s “No More Ball and Chain”, Bessie Smith’s “Shipwreck Blues”, Charley Patton’s “Poor Me”, Ma Rainey’s “Big Boy Blues”, and Blind Blake’s “Worried Blues”, among other classic old-school blues 78s from folks like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Texas Alexander, Henry Thomas, and Ida Cox. Each calendar page is annotated with historical and biographical information about the featured artist, and each month also includes the birth and death dates of classic blues artists.

The Blues Images 2023 calendar cost slightly more than some cheap wall-hanger you’d buy from the mall or local bookstore, but for the hardcore blues fan, Tefteller packs a lot of value for the $29.95 (plus shipping) it costs. Each Blues Images calendar includes a full-length CD that features rare, impossible-to-find, and often one-of-a-kind tracks, many of them sourced from Tefteller’s extensive personal collection. The performances, which include the songs from the original advertising in the calendar as well as related releases, have been remastered from the original 78rpm records using the ‘American Epic’ digital process that makes the sound on these antique shellac marvels really pop out of your speakers.

This year’s accompanying CD features recordings from the 1920s and ‘30s, a fine selection that includes the aforementioned sides featured in the monthly advertisements, as well as too-cool-for-school obscurities like “Funny Paper” Smith’s 1930 track “Old Rounder’s Blues”, Brother Fullbosom’s 1931 gospel-blues “A Sermon On A Silver Dollar”, and Texas Alexander’s 1928 side “Blue Devil Blues”. Since there are only twelve months in a year, and that’s too few songs to fill out a complete CD, Tefteller has dipped into his vast record collection to include several rare tracks recorded in 1953 by ‘Playboy Fuller’, a pseudonym for bluesman Louisiana Red (a/k/a Iverson Minter). There are also songs by Scrapper Blackwell (1930’s “Springtime Blues”), Edith North Johnson, Memphis Willie Borum, and Pete Franklin, among others, 25 tracks total. The CD closes with the bittersweet “I’m Going Away Blues” by Frank Stokes.      

The annual Blues Images calendar and CD is a “must have” addition to the collection of any serious old-old-school blues fan. Blues Images sells other cool blues-related stuff, too, like posters, t-shirts, CDs from previous years, and past years’ calendars. Sadly, as Tefteller writes in the intro to the 2023 calendar, this will be the last calendar after publishing annually for 20 years. A dwindling market for this sort of thing, plus the increased cost of printing and distributing makes the yearly labor-of-love a money-losing proposition. There are many of us who are going to miss the annual calendar, but you can still grab some blues music swag from the Blues Images website. Tell John that “the Rev sent ya!”

Blues: The Devil's Music (2008)

Long known as the “devil’s music,” thanks to the legend surrounding bluesman Robert Johnson’s alleged deal with the devil at a Mississippi crossroads, “Old Nob,” as he’s known, has become firmly identified with blues music.

The devil is often just a metaphor used by blues singers to describe a cheatin’ woman, a bad boss, or even the evil in the world, and not a literal being. Still, from his first appearance in Clara Smith’s 1924 song “Done Sold My Soul To the Devil,” the devil persists in the culture of the blues. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular blues songs to evoke the devil’s name.

Brownie McGhee – “Dealing With the Devil” (1941)
Recorded during the Piedmont bluesman’s brief incarnation as “Blind Boy Fuller No. 2,” Brownie McGhee’s “Dealing With the Devil” is a classic tale of love gone wrong. Singing that “my woman don’t love me no more,” McGhee goes on to describe a lover that tries to poison him with “salt in his gravy” and “potash in his tea;” she “has a shotgun in the corner” and a “blackjack on the bed;” and he doesn’t understand why she “goes to bed with an icepick in her hand.” Delivered in Fuller’s traditional ragtime-influenced finger-picked style, McGhee’s spry, almost comedic reading of the song belies its seriousness.   BUY!

Charley Patton – “Devil Sent the Rain” (1929)
Patton’s “Devil Sent the Rain” is a plain-and-simple song of grief. Although the only remaining recording of this early track is pretty scratchy, as are many old blues 78s from the 1920s, the singer’s feelings are clear despite the ancient recording’s raw sound: his mother has died and he’s going to leave home to wander. Patton sings “Good Lord sent sunshine, devil he sent the rain” in response to his loss, adding “I didn’t know I loved her ‘til they eased her down.”   BUY!

Clutch – “The Devil & Me” (2007)
With an evil blues-metal soundtrack and stunning sandpaper guitars, rockers Clutch delivered one of the most chaotic-sounding songs on the subject with the open flame that is “The Devil & Me.” Turning the Robert Johnson myth on its head, the song speaks of a split between the protagonist and the devil, referring to some shadowy deal with the verse “the devil and me had a falling out, violation of contract beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Singer Neil Fallon doesn’t say exactly what caused the rift between the “best of friends” but the song cleverly name checks Beale Street in Memphis and Skip James’ classic “Killing Floor,” both places where one might run across the Prince of Darkness.   BUY!

Lonnie Johnson – “Devil’s Got the Blues” (1938)
Johnson’s classic song compares the blues to the devil – when one overtakes you, the other can’t be far behind. Johnson sings “the blues is like the devil, it comes on you like a spell, it will leave your heart full of trouble and your poor mind full of hell.” The protagonist is personifying the blues lifestyle, claiming that “the blues will drive you to drink and murder” whether due to heartbreak, poverty, or just good, old-fashioned depression. Johnson’s song includes a fine six-string performance by the influential guitarist.   BUY!

Peetie Wheatstraw – “Devil’s Son-In-Law”
Some time during the 1930s, bluesman William Bunch adopted the name and persona of “Peetie Wheatstraw,” also known as “the Devil’s Son-In-Law” and “the High Sheriff of Hell,” and all but two of his records were released under the Wheatstraw name. Although most historians believe that Bunch took on his diabolic moniker as a marketing ploy – playing up his macho image to sell more records – he penned several songs boasting of his connections to the underworld, including the ethereal “Devil’s Son-In-Law.” A larger-than-life figure that died young (the fate, it seems, of those that fool around with the devil), Bunch/Wheatstraw inspired a character in writer Ralph Ellison’s classic novel Invisible Man.   BUY!

Robert Johnson – “Cross Road Blues” (1936)
The myth behind Robert Johnson’s enormous talent, of course, is that the bluesman met the devil at the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi and sold his soul in exchange for his guitar-playing prowess. Oddly enough, Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues” has nothing to do with any late-night bargaining with the devil, its lyrics instead describing the singer’s desperation to get home as darkness is falling. With the lynching of African-America men in the Southern United States not unusual during the 1920s and ‘30s, Johnson’s fears were not entirely unfounded. Regardless, the myth of Johnson’s shadowy midnight tryst has endured. The song available on Johnson’s The Complete Recordings set.   BUY!

Robert Johnson – “Hell Hound On My Trail” (1937)
Recorded during his last RCA studio session in 1937, Johnson’s “Hell Hound On My Trail” sounds terrifying. Over a strummed guitar, Johnson wails a desperate tale of a man trying to escape his fate – whether it’s the devil coming to collect on the Faustian bargain made by the singer, or just the police looking to arrest and jail him. Either way, Johnson maximizes the impact of the song through his use of brilliant poetic imagery and a vocal delivery that borderlines on the edge of desperation.

Robert Johnson – “Me and the Devil Blues” (1937)
The last of the fabled bluesman’s devil-related songs, “Me and the Devil Blues” seems to be a standard-issue blues tune about having trouble with your woman. In this case, the devil might personify the singer’s troublesome lover, or it might be a reference to the artist’s belief that the woman’s love would lead him to the grave…or maybe both. Johnson’s final verse, “you may bury my body down by the highway side, so my old evil spirit can catch that Greyhound bus and ride” touches upon the blues tradition of anonymous roadside internment.

Sam Collins – “Devil In the Lion’s Den” (1927)
This song by obscure bluesman Sam Collins offers one of the earliest references to the devil in blues music. The singer, a “motherless child” (another blues tradition), states “yon’ come the devil, we gonna set this town on fire” before boasting of his personal powers (“I got ways like a devil, sleep in the lion’s den”) before letting his woman know that he’ll be “goin’ up the country” when she asks him to stay. Not unlike modern rap songs with their braggadocio, Collins’ “Devil In The Lion’s Den” may be the first recorded tale of the ramblin’, gamblin’ man.   BUY!

Skip James – “Devil Got My Woman” (1931)
Country bluesman Skip James’ “Devil Got My Woman” is a song of romantic entanglement. James opens the song by singing “I’d rather be the devil, to be that woman man” before blaming the evil one’s influence for his lover’s infidelity, closing the first verse with “was nothin’ but the devil, changed my baby’s mind.” It turns out that the song’s protagonist is not without blame, ‘cause it turns out that the “woman I loved, took her from my best friend,” later adding “but he got lucky, stoled her back again.” Although delivered with James’ typical high wail and accompanied by a haunting guitar track, the song displays an irony usually absent from the bluesman’s repertoire.   BUY! 

Also on That Devil Music:
Spotlight On R.L. Burnside
Lost & Found: Preacher Boy

The Blues Images 2019 calendar has arrived!

The Reverend has been a big fan of John Tefteller’s incredible Blues Images calendar for around a decade now, and every autumn I look forward to receiving that record-shaped box that includes the next year’s calendar. The 2019 edition is now available and, as usual, Mr. Tefteller has outdone himself once again.

The Blues Images calendar features vintage 1920s-era advertising artwork from long-gone blues label Paramount Records. Some of each month’s art includes artist photos – this year more than in the past – but typically each page offers gorgeous B&W artwork from label advertisements that noted record collector and dealer Tefteller literally rescued from a dumpster almost 20 years ago. Each year’s calendar preserves an immensely-valuable visual history of the early years of the blues; I donate my copies at the end of each year to the Bill Schurk Sound Archives at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

The 2019 calendar offers the imaginative pen-and-ink art promoting Paramount releases of plastic fantastic sides like Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Piney Woods Money Mama” (February), Blind Blake’s “Too Tight Blues No. 2” (May), “Dad” Nelson’s “Coon Can Blues” (August), “Papa Charlie” Jackson’s “Ash Tray Blues” (September), and Charley Patton’s “Oh Death” (October). Several pages feature rare B&W photos of blues artists like Papa George Lightfoot, Memphis Minnie, the Beale Street Sheiks, and Joe Williams instead of the drawings. Each calendar page is annotated with historical and biographical information about the featured artist, and each month also includes the birth and death dates of classic blues artists.
 
The Blues Images 2019 calendar cost more than some cheap wall-hanger you’d buy from the mall or local bookstore, but for the hardcore blues fan, Tefteller packs a lot of value for the $24.95 (plus shipping) it will cost you. Each Blues Images catalog also includes a full-length CD that features rare, impossible-to-find, and often one-of-a-kind tracks, many of them sourced from Tefteller’s extensive personal collection. The performances, which include the songs from the original advertising as well as related releases, have been remastered from the original 78rpm records using the recently-developed ‘American Epic’ digital process that makes the sound on these antique shellac marvels really pop out of your speakers.

The free CD accompanying the Blues Images 2019 calendar features a wealth of vintage ‘20s blues tunes by both reasonably well-known artists like Memphis Minnie (“Ma Rainey”), Blind Lemon Jefferson (“Low Down Mojo Blues”), Charley Patton (“Troubled ‘Bout My Mother”), and Joe Williams (“My Grey Pony”) as well as the aforementioned tracks illustrated by the advertising artwork. The disc also includes super-rare sides by obscure bluesmen-and-women like Lottie Kimbrough (“Don’t Speak To Me”), Leola B. Wilson with Blind Blake (“Black Biting Bee Blues”), Otto Virgial (“Got the Blues About Rome” and “Seven Year Itch”), and gospel-blues artist Sam Butler (“Heaven Is My View” and “Christians Fight On, Your Time Ain’t Long”) and others.

Throw in newly-discovered songs by William Harris (“I’m A Roamin’ Gambler” and “I Was Born In the Country – Raised In Town”) and Papa George Lightfoot (“Winding Ball Mama” and “Snake Hipping Daddy”) from Tefteller’s ever-evolving collection, and between the calendar and 23-track CD, you have a bona fide collector’s item. Blues Images sells other cool blues-related stuff like posters, t-shirts, CDs from previous years, and past years’ calendars. You can find it all on the Blues Images website. Tell John that “the Rev sent ya!”

Blues Images 2018 Calendar

We’ve written about John Tefteller’s wonderful Blues Images calendar for quite a few years, and each new edition never disappoints. For 15 years now, noted record collector and dealer Tefteller has been publishing what is essentially a labor of love in the Blues Images calendar. Featuring vintage 1920s-era Paramount Records advertising art – some with photos, but usually just gorgeous B&W artwork – that Tefteller literally rescued from a dumpster, each new year further preserves an immensely-valuable visual history of the early years of the blues.

The 2018 calendar includes imaginative pen-and-ink artwork that promoted Paramount Records’ releases like Tampa Red’s “Strewing Your Mess” (February), Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Hot Dogs” (March), Blind Blake’s “Hard Road Blues” (June), and the Beale Street Sheiks’ “Wasn’t That Doggin’ Me?” (September) as well as pages featuring rare photos of little-known blues artists like Johnnie “Geechie” Temple, Isaiah Nettles, and the popular duo of Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie. Each calendar page is annotated with historical information about the featured artist and each month also includes the birth and death dates of classic blues artists.

You’ll pay more for the Blues Images 2018 calendar than you would for some cheap wall-hanger from a mall kiosk, but for the hardcore blues fan, Tefteller packs a lot of value for the $24.95 (plus shipping) it will cost to put this on your wall. Each Blues Images calendar includes a full-length CD that features rare, impossible-to-find (and many one-of-a-kind) tracks, many of them sourced from Tefteller’s extensive personal collection. The performances, which include the songs from the original advertising as well as related releases, have been remastered from the original 78rpm records using the revolutionary new ‘American Epic’ digital process that makes the sound on these antique shellac flapjacks really shine.

The Blues Images 2018 CD includes a wealth of early blues music, including releases by haunted Delta legend Tommy Johnson (“Slidin’ Delta” and “I Wonder To Myself”), Mississippi Delta legend Charley Patton (“Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues,” “Mississippi Boweavil Blues”), Texas blues great Blind Lemon Jefferson (“Hot Dogs,” “Weary Dogs Blues”), and the duo of Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie (“Frisco Town”). You’ll also find rare tracks by lesser-known artists like “Hi” Henry Brown (“Brown Skin Angel, “Hospital Blues”), the Mississippi Moaner (“It’s Cold In China Blues”), and Johnnie “Geechie” Temple (“Jacksonville Blues,” “The Evil Devil Blues”) as well as two recently-discovered songs by Jab Jones and the Memphis Jug Band.

The calendar is a bone fide collectors’ item as well as a fine addition to the wall of any blues fan, while the accompanying CD, with two-dozen tracks total, is akin to those expensive import discs you’ve bought in the past, but with tracks that are scarcer than hen’s teeth. Blues Images also sells other blues-related stuff like posters (I bought a cool Blind Willie Johnson poster from them a few years back), t-shirts, CDs from previous years, and past years’ calendars. You’ll find it all on the Blues Images website.