In the early years of the 21st century, with the heyday of blues recording approaching the very limits of living memory, and the "archaeological sites" of the music already so thoroughly dug over and sifted through in the finest detail, it's natural to assume that all the really interesting blues discoveries have already been made. But as the recent surfacing of previously uncollected Blind Joe Reynolds and Tommy Johnson 78s illustrates, there are still important vintage records to be unearthed.

The discovery of the otherwise-undocumented first appearance on record of Muddy Waters Band alumnus Jimmy Rogers may not be quite as exciting as the Johnson and Reynolds treasures, but no doubt it will still be greeted with surprise and joy among post-war Chicago blues enthusiasts for several reasons. Not only is it a prime example of the immediately-post-war Chicago sound, it is also the only recording of Rogers playing his first instrument, the harmonica - and on top of all that, it's a very good record.

A little history first: Jimmy Rogers was born James A. Lane in Ruleville, Mississippi in 1924. Like so many of his peers, he picked up the smallest and cheapest instrument in the bluesman's arsenal - the harmonica - at an early age, learning along with his school mate Snooky Pryor. Before long he also began learning guitar, and by the late 1930s was playing both instruments semi-professionally on his frequent travels throughout the Mississippi Delta region. By the early 1940s he followed the path of so many of his southern compatriots to Chicago, where he settled. In the mid '40s he met Muddy Waters and formed the nucleus of the band that would later go onto legendary success and acclaim. In their earliest times together they were joined by guitarist Claude "Blue Smitty" Smith, and with both Muddy and Smith on guitars, Jimmy usually played harmonica.

Eventually Smith dropped out of the band, and was replaced by Little Walter Jacobs, who legend has it, joined the band as a guitarist, leaving the harp duties to Jimmy. It quickly became obvious that Walter was better on harp than guitar, and conversely that Jimmy was better on guitar than harp, so they switched instruments, and the rest - eventually - was history.

Many years later, when Jimmy was interviewed about his early days, he often said that he'd started on the harmonica, mentioned the influence of John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, and added that he'd given it up after Walter began working with he and Muddy. No session or release featuring him on harp had been documented by researchers, and there was nothing on it in any discography. So in the absence of any clues, no one bothered to look for Jimmy's first appearance on record.

But Jimmy had in fact been featured on record accompanying his very distinctive vocals with his very skilled harmonica playing. Why did he never mention it? It's possible that he simply forgot about it. The song, "Round About Boogie", was done for a tiny independent Chicago label - one of talent scout J. Mayo Williams' pet projects called Harlem Records (not to be confused with the New York-based label of the same name), which by all indications pressed up only a bare minimum number of copies, and provided virtually no distribution. And the fact was that Jimmy Rogers' name didn't even appear on the label - it was issued under the somewhat confusing banner of "Memphis Slim & His House Rockers - Sunny Land Slim, Blues Singer". (More on this later.) The record was the furthest thing from a "hit" that a record can be - it seems to have vanished without a trace immediately upon release, leaving no career-related reason for Jimmy to give it another thought.

Or maybe Jimmy didn't talk about it simply because he embarrassed by it; his first attempt at recording leaving not a ripple on the pond of commercial success - perhaps he was even happy his name wasn't associated with it.

By the mid 1990s there were at least three copies of Harlem 1021A "Round About Boogie" by Memphis Slim & His House Rockers in the hands of collectors, although possibly unaware of the historical significance, none publicized the fact. A single listen by anyone who ever heard Jimmy Rogers very distinctive vocals can leave no doubt that it is he who is singing, and the harmonica accompaniment, falling as it does exactly between the vocal lines and nowhere else, confirms that he's also on harp. The flip side, Harlem 1021B, rather than another "Memphis Slim" song, is "Bobbie Town Woogie" by Lee Brown & His Orchestra. Lee Brown was a veteran pianist and singer who had a long-standing association with Mayo Williams, having recorded under his supervision for Decca since 1937. After his association with Decca ended, Williams launched a series of small independent labels in the mid 1940s, and utilized some of the talent he'd worked with at Decca, including Brown. It appears that Brown had already recorded "Bobbie Town Woogie" once before for Williams, c. 1946 for release on his "Chicago Records" imprint; this session seems to have taken place shortly thereafter. At this late date, with no eyewitnesses to call upon, it's difficult to know with absolute certainty the exact chain of events that led to the release of this misleadingly labeled two-artist single, but one element does seem relatively clear: both sides almost certainly were recorded at the same session. The backing accompaniment is for all practical purposes identical in instrumentation (piano, bass, drums, guitar, piano and alto saxophone), performance, "signature licks", sound mix, even tempo and key. Further, the matrix numbers assigned to the songs are separated by only one number on the labels: "Bobbie Town Woogie" is C-110, and "Round About Boogie" is C-112.

There's no real mystery about the Lee Brown side - Mayo Williams probably brought in one of his tried and true artists, and he recorded a side he'd done once before, which was used as the flip side "insurance", of a record by someone he was taking a chance on. But how is it that Jimmy Rogers' recording came to be issued under the confusing label "Memphis Slim & His House Rockers", who probably didn't play on the record, and why was this amended with "Sunny Land Slim - Blues Singer", a label addition traditionally used to indicate the name of the vocalist on records where he's not the band leader? One can only speculate, but one possible scenario is that it's simply a mistake - either the wrong label was printed up, or the wrong master was pressed, onto the other side of the correctly credited Lee Brown side. And since neither Sunnyland Slim nor Jimmy Rogers were then known recording artists, Williams may have figured it just didn't matter enough to re-print or re-press. Adding credence to this theory is the fact that the words "Round About Boogie" do not appear anywhere within the song. Another possibility might be that Sunnyland Slim was at the studio along with Rogers, and both recorded vocals that day, but that Williams confused the two when assigning credit.

Since the record went nowhere, Rogers may have just written the whole episode off for many years, but it did eventually come back to haunt him. While on a tour of Scotland in 1995, he was presented with a partial tape dub of "Round About Boogie". At the time Rogers reportedly expressed no interest in even hearing it. But when this writer called Rogers on the phone later and asked about it, he confirmed that he had in fact recorded such a session. His brief and somewhat dismissive responses to my inquiries ("What do you care about that old stuff for? That's almost 50 years ago!"), rather than clearing the waters, actually muddied them a bit (so to speak). When asked if he'd recorded on harp on a Memphis Slim session, he said he had (contrary to the aural evidence that suggests Lee Brown as pianist).

When asked about personnel, he mentioned only that Memphis Slim was there, along with "King" and "Smitty". One might jump to the conclusion that "Smitty" was Claude "Blue Smitty" Smith, except that the aural evidence suggests Leroy Foster on guitar, a suggestion that is more-or-less confirmed by Lee Brown's exclamation of "Look out, Leroy boy, man!" immediately before the guitar and sax break on the flip side. Maybe Smith actually was present at the studio that day - along with Sunnyland, Memphis Slim, and the mysterious "King" - but they were on the sidelines when these two tracks were recorded. Who knows? It's all speculation at this point.

There is one thing that's certain though: Jimmy Rogers was a hell of a harp player. His playing is crisp, clean and accurate, and over a somewhat busy accompaniment, he shows that he'd listened well to John Lee Williamson. But he may have also had an ear on the young Little Walter - Jimmy throws in a few very nice, syncopated accents that were not typical of Williamson's style, adding a distinctly swinging feel that looks forward to some of the stylistic trademarks Walter would later become known for.

It's a shame that Rogers never recorded on harp again, since he clearly possessed a talent for it that would have put him in the top echelon of players of that era. And of course it's also a shame no one was taking notes when this session took place!

Scott Dirks, Chicago 2002

Sources: Tony Burke's liner notes to "Philadelphia Boogie", Collectables CD-5334
Blues And Gospel Records 1890-1943 - Dixon, Godrich And Rye
Blues Records 1943-1970 - Leadbitter And Slaven
Scott Dirks phone conversation with Jimmy Rogers c. 1995
Living Blues #14 (1973) - Jimmy Rogers interview by Jim O'Neal and Bill Greensmith
"Blues With A Feeling - The Little Walter Story" by Tony Glover, Scott Dirks and Ward Gaines. To be published by Garland Press (a division of Routledge, a member of the Taylor And Francis Group) in August of 2002. Advance orders are now being accepted at amazon.com and routledge.com
Thanks to Tony Russell and Bob Eagle