Addie Spivey

This blues vocalist through the late ’20s and ’30s worked beneath the pseudonym of Lovely Peas, giving shop owners the choice of filing her product between the frozen foods. Using the traditional blues style’s focus on various kinds of food being a metaphor for intimate encounters, it just seems natural a performer in the genre would offer themselves with an edible name, however the practice hasn’t spread very much beyond Addie Spivey. She actually is often baffled with her sister, the greater well-known Victoria Spivey, both of whom was raised around music, as their dad had his very own string music group. Sister Victoria’s fatter discography of recordings under her very own name was certainly enriched by her setting up among the first musician-owned blues brands. Not for Sugary Peas, whose few recordings and alternate will take are shrouded in obscurity, the backgrounds of a few of her back-up players unknown. Additionally it is worth mentioning small variations in the usage of her pseudonym. She do her initial recordings for Victor in 1929 as Special Peas, and of most her materials this is considered best because of classy support by trumpeter Henry “Crimson” Allen. She documented for Decca seven years afterwards as Special Pease Spivey and trim for Bluebird as Special Peas Spivey the next year. Becoming who owns this materials, as her sister do, was hardly the situation; actually, these recordings appear to possess got into the copyright area referred to as “anything will go,” leading to her music getting anthologized on blues compilations in a number of different countries. As a lady blues performer, Addie Spivey is normally often in the nice company of performers such as for example Sippie Wallace and Lizzie Kilometers on these models. Her obscurity also lends her particular position among would-be hipsters, like a rock and roll musician who, when asked to mention a few of his current hearing faves for his personal publicity buzz, “admits little offers impressed him apart from his Chet Baker, Lil Green, Addie Spivey, and Big Expenses Broonzy information.” If that hypothetical musician had been so smart, he’d have recognized to utilize the name she documented under, subsequently allowing him to perform together several titles in to the quite suitable “lil’ green lovely peas.” Oh well. Victoria Spivey got another blues carrying out sister aswell, Elton Spivey, who proved helpful beneath the stage name from the Za Zu Young lady, the “young lady” most likely there in the event anyone got baffled about the “Elton” section of her name. You might believe with Elton, Addie, and Victoria present and accounted for that lifestyle would be basic, but this isn’t the situation. Further recordings by Addie Spivey as well as perhaps her sister Elton Spivey may be lurking, concealed under secret pseudonyms such as for example Jane Lucas and Hannah May. In the dialogue amongst blues scholars over simply who these last mentioned two artists are really, some tone of voice an impression that it had been Addie Spivey, although there are certainly others who believe it had been actually Mozelle Alderson. Analysts concur that at one stage singers documenting under the brands of Jane Lucas and Hannah Might were in fact the same person, using the same tone of voice also in charge of some 1930 paths beneath the name of Kansas Town Kitty. Digging in to the CBS data files for “useless artists,” details for the Vocalion materials acquired by the organization indicates that so-called Jane Lucas was a Spivey, but Victoria, not really Addie; a thing that was rejected vehemently by Victoria Spivey, who was simply usually more willing to consider credit for issues than decline, no real matter what her involvement was. (Her grandest accomplishment was “finding” Bob Dylan.) The same information indicate that this Hannah Might that documented on Vocalion ideal around once was “Victoria Spivey’s sister,” which can mean yet another credit for the Nice Peas girl, though it requires scotching the idea of Hannah and Jane becoming the same person. Unless the Vocalion documents are confused, as well as the songs are both carried out from the same sister. But which? One blues professional testifies: “aurally she appears like the Za Zu Lady…,” meaning maybe Elton Spivey should obtain the credit. The Blues Who’s Would you hardly any to get rid of this dilemma, declaring authoritatively that Hannah May was Addie Spivey. Additional pundits possess threatened to burn off their copy of the tome in outrage, declaring that it had been Victoria Spivey. One method of learning the dilemma is usually to listen to them sing jointly, possible for the documenting entitled “I CANNOT Last Longer,” which Victoria Spivey had written and documented in 1936, probably to spell it out her own involvement in the ongoing controversy about blueswomen’s identities. The quantity was documented beneath the name of Jane Lucas as well as the Condition Road Four with Special Peas to arrive on the ultimate verse.