Dana Smith interviews Kevin Belford

"St Louis’ artists have contributed some of the most well-known and important aspects of the genre and most of the music authorities never realized or acknowledged this. Yet."

At : CreativeSaintLouis.com

Dana Smith's work can be found here.

St Louis Uptown Blues at the Royale

Saturday June 26, 2010, 6 - 8 pm, No Cover.

A night of St Louis Uptown Blues with Miss Jubilee and the Humdingers

and the debut of the cocktail the "St Louis Blue Devil", designed by

Steve Smith and featuring an informal discussions with local music authors:

Daniel Durchholz author of "Neil Young: Long May You Run,"

Thomas Crone author of "Gaslight Square: An Oral History,"

Kevin Belford author of "Devil At The Confluence."

The Royale

3132 Kingshighway

314-772-3600

The Children's Illustrated Art Museum in ArtSpace

It's been too long since the last update but the problem was that the book has been so busy. Library talks, events and signings have gone unannounced here for a few months, but the next posts will change that. So many great things are happening.

The book is available directly from the publisher at Virginia Publishing's website.

The book is also available in St Louis at the St Louis source for blues music: BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, and also at The Archive on Cherokee and at Chesterfield Arts. 

Also, the book is on sale and the artwork can be seen at the Children's Illustrated Art Museum in Crestwood, Missouri. 

The Devil At The Confluence art exhibit at the Children's Illustrated Art Museum in the ArtSpace at Crestwood Court. 

37 Crestwood Court, Crestwood, MO 63126 

Wednesday - Thursday 11am - 4pm 

Saturday - Sunday 11 am - 4pm 

Last Saturday of the month 11am - 9pm

314-941-2097

Wednesday - Thursday 11am - 4pm

Saturday - Sunday 11 am - 4pm

Last Saturday of the month 11am - 9pm

The artwork and images from the book of St Louis blues history by Kevin Belford.  This exhibition tells the story of the rich history of blues music in St. Louis. The home of ragtime music during Reconstruction, St. Louis' early blues piano players such as Speckled Red, Roosevelt Sykes, Peetie Wheatstraw, and Barrelhouse Buck invented the St Louis sound. The earliest and most popular blues guitarists were creating the national sound from their home in St. Louis, including Lonnie Johnson, Clifford Gibson, Charley Jordan, Jelly Jaw Short, Blind Blues Darby, Big Joe Williams and Henry Townsend. The heart and soul of the blues were the women singers like Mary Johnson, Edith Johnson, Alice Moore and Bessie Mae Smith - all national recording stars. The St. Louis Blues, Frankie and Johnny and Stagger Lee are among the American standards that came out of the St. Louis blues tradition into national prominence. 

Where to find the book "Devil At The Confluence."

There have been lots of requests about where to find the book.

Devil At The Confluence is selling very quickly at the major bookstores, 

but it can always be ordered directly from the publisher at Virginia Publishing's website.

The book is also available in St Louis at the St Louis source for blues music: BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, and also at The Archive on Cherokee and at Chesterfield Arts.

But hurry.

Forgotten history: Walter Davis.

There are many errors and in blues music histories and biographies. Faulty and incomplete  research is one problem but the old concept that all blues came from the delta of the Mississippi river is often the reason for false assumptions.

For example, Walter Davis was one of the most successful blues pianomen of the 1930s. His career was one of the longest of the bluesmen spanning over twenty years and well over a hundred recording releases.

Davis made his home and career in St. Louis, Missouri. He hardly traveled beyond the area, except to the various studios for recording sessions. Although his entire career was in St. Louis, the Wikipedia entry says that after a stroke in the 1950s, "he settled in St. Louis." The biography continues to assume that Davis lived elsewhere until his death, saying, "The exact place of his death is uncertain, although it is thought to be St. Louis." 

There are a number of errors and assumptions about Davis in this bio, but the truth is that Walter Davis' music was a large part of the prime of the St. Louis blues and his work contributed to the sounds and styles from the city. Forty years after his death, ( yes, he died in the 1960s in St Louis and he is buried in St. Louis) he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Walter Davis is one of the many examples of St Louis' blues heritage of creativity, professionalism and popularity. And his inaccurate biography that remains is a prime example of the forgotten real blues and where it actually came from. The book Devil At The Confluence explores the overlooked and misunderstood music legacy of St Louis.

Current News, January 2010.

Devil At The Confluence is available at all major bookstores.

Online it can be found at  Virginia Publishing, Barnes & Noble, the Missouri History Museum, and Amazon.

The book is also available in Chicago at Delmark Records/Jazz Record Mart and in St Louis at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, Borders, Sue's News (Kirkwood), Subterranean Books (University City), Left Bank Books and Vintage Vinyl. 

Nomination by the ARCS.

Virginia Publishing has been informed that Devil At the Confluence: The Pre-war Blues Music of St. Louis, Missouri, by Kevin Belford has been nominated for an award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections.

Devil At The Confluence on St. Louis Public Radio 90.7 KWMU.

A discussion with Kevin Belford about his book examining the history of the blues music of St. Louis on Cityscape with Stephen Potter.

January 29, 2010 - Blues Music of St. Louis

Christmas night, St Louis, 1895.

114 years ago on this night, Henry Crump and Billy Lyons were at Curtis' Morgan Street bar in St Louis when Lee Shelton arrived around 10 o'clock and joined the two men standing in the barroom. It was a cold night and the rains that had flooded the rivers downstate had let up. Blanketed by clouds, the quarter moon was low on the western horizon.

Tom Scott and Frank Boyd were tending bar that night and the place was nearly full with a crowd of about twenty five men. A life size photo of Jake Kilrain and a framed woodcut of General Grant were hung side by side on the wall.

Shelton was thirty years old, Lyons a year older and both were regulars at the bar, dropping in just about every day. Barkeeper Scott had known "Stag" Shelton since he was a boy.

Some patrons said there was an argument and some said they were just playing, but Shelton drew a .44 Smith and Wesson. When Lyons reached for his knife, he was shot and killed.

This was one of eight violent assaults that Christmas night in the city of St Louis resulting in at least seven deaths. There are no songs about those other six or their murderers.