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Blind Joe Reynolds

Blind Joe Reynolds was the nom de disque of the Louisiana road vocalist by the name of Joe Sheppard, who have devised his false saving names primarily to maintain one step prior to the regulation. He was blinded within the middle-’20s during an altercation with another guy who shot Reynolds in the facial skin having a shotgun. Throughout his existence, Reynolds was known through the entire South not merely like a singer, but also for his open up disrespect for law enforcement as well as the legal program, his contempt for regular morality, and his quest for trouble. His making it through recordings are seen as a Reynolds’ shrieking, high-pitched vocals; his moving, good, and infectiously rhythmic slip function; and his lyrics, which have a tendency to concentrate on unfaithful ladies. Blind Joe Reynolds was found out in the past due ’20s by Memphis record shop owner H.C. Spier, who suggested Reynolds to Paramount (as he previously Charley Patton). In November 1929, beneath the name Blind Joe Reynolds, he produced two information, “Outside Female Blues”/”Nehi Blues” (released as Paramount 12927) and “Chilly Female Blues” b/w “99 Blues” (released as Paramount 12983). Reynolds was among the last “fresh” blues performers that Paramount got on plus they didn’t require him back. non-etheless, Reynolds produced another couple of information once the Victor pickup truck ceased in Memphis a yr later on. On November 26, 1930, beneath the name Blind Willie Reynolds, he documented “Married Guy Blues” and “Third Road Female Blues” (released as Victor 23258). Two additional titles produced at this juncture, “Short Gown Blues” and “Goose Hill Female Blues” weren’t released by Victor and check copies have however found. For quite a while, this is further challenging by the actual fact that no copies of Paramount 12983, though released, appeared to be extant. These 1929 to 1930 information were the only real ones created by Blind Joe Reynolds. Afterward, Reynolds vanished into background, but his star and its own many attendant anecdotes are documented in Gayle Dean Wardlow’s 1998 reserve Chasin’ That Devil Music. In 1967, the British band Cream documented “Outside Girl Blues” over the record Disraeli Gears; without doubt they would’ve been floored to discover that the song’s primary composer had not been just still alive, but in those days still performing being a road musician within the American South. But Blind Joe Reynolds would expire significantly less than a calendar year afterwards, narrowly eluding the eye of blues revivalists and of reserving agents who went the top folk festivals. A fresh chapter of research on Reynolds was exposed with the breakthrough in 2001 from the lacking Paramount issue, discovered by an Ohio music instructor within a Tennessee flea marketplace. “Cold Girl Blues” out of this disk was included on the 2001 Revenant discharge Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues, specialized in the music of Charley Patton. Thereon, Reynolds is roofed as an associate of Patton’s “group,” although he was located in Tennessee rather than within the Mississippi Delta. Nor is normally Reynolds recognized to have been familiar with Patton, although within a superficial feeling there is more than enough similarity between your two to recommend some type of stylistic, and therefore personal, connection.

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