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A late survivor of the black string band tradition of the early 20th century was the trio of Carl Martin, Ted Bogan and Howard Armstrong. These three musicians from Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee worked together, with the addition of one or more others, often relatives, for decades, under the names The Tennessee Chocolate Drops, The Four Keys or simply Martin Bogan and Armstrong. They played Piedmont style blues, tin pan alley hits, Mexican folk songs, square dance music and whatever else an audience might want to hear.

In the early 1970s the three were all living in the Chicago area, working at, or retired from various day jobs and getting together occasionally to play music. They recorded an album in 1972 for Rounder records and were on the folk music circuit for a while in the ’70s. Steve Goodman encouraged them to record with him and they made a record Jessies Jig and Other Favorites with him, which was released in 1975. Goodman also recorded heir song The Vegetable Song aka on his 1973 album, Somebody Else’s Troubles.

There is little film or video available of Martin Bogan and Armstrong. I did find this clip, recorded at an informal jam session with Jethro Burns, another one of Steve Goodman’s mentors, at the University of Chicago folk festival some time in the late 70’s. Carl Martin is singing, Ted Bogan playing guitar and Howard Armstrong playing fiddle. Martin has put down his mandolin to allow room for Burns to play.

Mose Allison was born in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi in 1927. As a young child he learned to play the piano by ear, picking out the melodies of songs he heard on the radio on the keyboard. He played trumpet in high school and began writing his own songs, influenced by Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan, and Nat King Cole. After a year at the University of Mississippi, he went to the Army in l946, playing in the Army Band in Colorado Springs. Allison returned to college twice, taking time off again to tour with his own jazz trio and finally graduated in 1952 from Louisiana State University. During the 1950s Allison performed and recorded with jazz greats Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Gerry Mulligan as well as with his own Mose Allison Trio.

Allison’s songs are extremely witty. I found a reference to him as the “William Faulkner of jazz.” His piano accompaniment is complex, yet the songs structure tends to be fairly simple. The Yardbirds, Leon Russell, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, even The Clash have recorded rock versions Mose Allison’s songs. At 81, Allison continues to tour and perform.

Here is Mose in an appearance during the 1970s, on the WTTW Chicago television show, Soundstage.

Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins was born in Belzoni, Mississippi in 1913. He takes is name “Pinetop” from Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie, a showpiece instrumental he has long included in his performances but which was written and first recorded by Pinetop Smith in 1928 when Perkins was only 15 years old, but already playing guitar in Mississippi juke joints. Perkins switched to the piano after injuring the tendons in his left forearm in a barroom fight.

Perkins appeared with Robert Nighthawk and Sonny Boy Williamson on KFFA radio in Helena Arkansas during the 1940s, both on guitar and piano. While touring as a sideman with Earl Hooker, he made his first solo recording (of Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie) at Sam Phillip’s Sun Records studio in Memphis. During the 1950s he dropped out of the music business, settling in Illinois and taking a day job. He was convinced by Earl Hooker to accompany him on a recording in 1968, however, and soon found himself replacing Otis Spann on the piano in Muddy Waters’ band.

Now living in Austin, Texas, Perkins celebrated is 95th birthday in 2008. This video was made at a blues festival in Norway, of all places, last summer.