The Devil's Son-In-Law

It is another cold, breezy, showery day, but I can sense that Spring is here. Looking out of the kitchen window I can see that the clematis is flowering and growing all over the world’s smallest shed. I have been listening to my new CD which arrived yesterday. It is called Peetie Wheatstraw, Complete Works In Chronological Order, Vol 5, 26 March 1937 to 18 October 1938. I will tell you how I came to buy this album. A couple of years ago I found a book in a charity shop titled The Devil’s Son-In Law by Paul Garon. It was published by Studio Vista in the UK in 1971. It was the story of Peetie Wheatstraw and his songs. I had never heard of him, but I was intrigued by the title, so I bought it. 

I think I was intending to sell it in my online bookshop. The bookshop doesn’t exist at the moment because the charity shops where I found my books have been closed for a year. Also, during the pandemic I haven’t liked queuing in Post Offices. Anyway, I forgot all about the book until the other day when during a rare tidying up session I came across it and started reading it. Peetie Wheatstraw was a popular American Blues singer of the 1930s. His real name was William Bunch and he was born in 1902, probably in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. There is only one photo of him known to exist. That is the photo on the front of the book. It shows him playing a guitar, but on the recording that I acquired he just plays piano. In the late 1920s he arrived in St Louis where he soon made a name for himself. 

His recording career began in 1930 and he was so popular that he recorded all though the Depression years when Blues recordings or ‘Race’ records as they were known were drastically cut because people simply couldn’t afford them. He acquired the sobriquets The Devil’s Son-In-Law or The High Sheriff Of Hell. Some of his lyrics were of a boastful, egotistical, chauvinistic nature which has led certain critics to compare him to some modern day rappers. This might have been just a persona he adopted, because some of his friends said he was a likeable, modest, easy going person. Peetie’s life came to a tragic end in 1941 at the age of 39 when a car in which he was travelling crashed into a stationary freight train. Two fellow passengers died instantly and Peetie a few hours later. His friend Big Joe Williams (who Van Morrison fans will know because he first recorded Baby Please Don’t Go) had a lucky escape because he had been dropped off from the car to get a tramcar home just minutes before the crash. The casual racism of the time can be seen in the Newspaper report. It doesn't say Three People Die, but Three Negroes Die.

I found his story quite fascinating and thought I ought to listen to the music. I looked on eBay and found there wasn’t a lot of choice unless I wanted to buy an expensive import from the USA, which I didn’t. The only UK CD I could find at a price I liked was one volume of a six-volume box set. That is the CD which arrived yesterday. I was pleased that the sound quality was better than I feared. I quite like it. His piano playing is rudimentary at best. He is no Jerry Lee Lewis that is for sure. There are 24 tracks here. It is the last 12 or so that I like the most, where he is accompanied by guitarist Lonnie Johnson. He is the man who Lonnie Donegan named himself after. I find the guitar adds variety and stops the CD sounding samey. I found some of the lyrics quite humorous, such as in Miss Lucille where he praises his girlfriend’s gold teeth. I have listened to it all twice, so I must quite like it. I am quite relieved I didn’t buy the whole six volumes though. I am sure there are many die-hard Blues fans who will love this album and I have enjoyed being educated about the story of Peetie Wheatstraw the Devil’s Son-In -Law.