ROBERT NIGHTHAWK ( II )

 

Dedicamos un segundo post a uno de nuestros bluesmen preferidos ROBERT NIGHTHAWK , para nosotros un grande , indiscutible de voz absolutamente personal y que para nosotros define lo que es el Blues en esencia. Si añadimos a ello un gran slide con su guitarra con un toque característico inimitable tenemos un hombre de culto . 

Robert Lee McCollum (November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967)[1] was an American blues musician who played and recorded under the pseudonyms Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk. He was the father of the blues musician Sam Carr. Nighthawk was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983.

McCollum was born in Helena, Arkansas. He left home at an early age and became a busking musician. After a period traveling through southern Mississippi, he settled for a time in Memphis, Tennessee, where he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band. A particular influence during this period was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learned to play slide guitar and with whom he performed on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi.

After further travels through Mississippi, he found it advisable to take his mother's name and, as Robert Lee McCoy, moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in the mid-1930s. Local musicians with whom he played included Henry Townsend, Big Joe Williams, and Sonny Boy Williamson. This led to two recording dates in 1937, the four musicians recording together at the Victor Records studio in Aurora, Illinois, as well as recordings under his own name, including "Prowling Night-Hawk" (recorded 5 May 1937), from which he was to take his later pseudonym.These sessions led to Chicago blues careers for the other musicians, though not for McCoy, who continued his rambling life, playing and recording (for Victor/Bluebird Records and Decca Records) solo and with various other musicians, under various names. Kansas City Red was his drummer from the early 1940s to around 1946. He recorded Kansas City Red’s song "The Moon Is Rising".

McCoy became a familiar voice on local radio stations including WROX. A teenaged Ike Turner joined his band as a roadie in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Then Robert Lee McCoy disappeared. Within a few years, he resurfaced in 1948 as the electric slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk and began recording for Aristocrat and Chess Records, the latter of which was also Muddy Waters' label. In 1949 and 1950, Nighthawk and Waters' styles were close enough that they were in competition for promotional activity. Waters was the more marketable commodity, being more reliable and a more confident stage communicator, and thus received the attention.

In 1949, Nighthawk released the single "Annie Lee Blues"/"Black Angel Blues" on Aristocrat. The single was released under the name The Nighthawks, who were Nighthawk, pianist Ernest Lane, and bassist Willie Dixon. "Annie Lee Blues" reached #13 on the Billboard R&B chart on December 31, 1949. Nighthawk recorded his final session for Chess (formerly Aristocrat) in 1950.He continued to perform and record, taking up with United Records and States Records 1951 and 1952, but did not achieve great commercial success.

In 1963, Nighthawk was rediscovered busking in Chicago, and this led to further recording sessions and club dates and to his return to Arkansas, where he performed on the radio program King Biscuit Time, on KFFA. He continued giving live performances on Chicago's Maxwell Street until 1964.

He had a stroke followed by a heart attack and died of heart failure at his home in Helena. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, in Helena.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Robert Nighthawk among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Legacy

Nighthawk was elected into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983.

In 2007, The Mississippi Blues Commission honored Nighthawk with a historical marker in Friars Point, Mississippi, on the Mississippi Blues Trail. The marker was placed at Friars Point because Nighthawk called the town his home at various times in his itinerant career. He recorded the song "Friars Point Blues" in 1940.

Recordings

Bricks in My Pillow, 1977, Delmark reissue of 1951 and 1952 United recordings

Robert Nighthawk: Prowling with the Nighthawk (Document), 26 sides recorded for Bluebird, Decca, Aristocrat, and United from 1937 to 1952, including "My Sweet Lovin' Woman" (which he wrote under his given name, Robert McCollum)

Ramblin' Bob (Saga), 24 tracks recorded for Victor, Decca, Chess, and United from 1937 to 1952

Live on Maxwell Street (1964), as Robert Nighthawk and his Flames of Rhythm (reissued by Rounder Records, 1980, 1991; some versions include an extended interview with Nighthawk)

Robert Nighthawk: Sweet Black Angel (1948)

The Aristocrat of the Blues, MCA/Chess CHD2-9387

Robert Nighthawk, Houston Stackhouse, Peck Curtis, Powell, MS, April, 1967

(photo by George Mitchell)

While Nighthawk recorded prolifically as a session musician before the war his postwar period finds him mostly as a leader. His session work is confined to some work in 1964 and some in 1967 the year he died. There is speculation that nighthawk appears as session guitarist on four tracks from Roosevelt Sykes' July 12, 1951 session for United Records as well. Blues Discography 1943-1970 lists Nighthawk as the guitarist but this can not be totally confirmed so I will list this session as probable. During the Roosevelt Sykes Regal session he recorded two numbers backing vocalist Essie Sykes. In THE ROBERT NIGHTHAWK HISTORY 

Must go and know it !