Among the many unsung heroes of Detroit’s blues, Baby Boy Warren would rank very highly. Robert H. Warren’s blues revealed a consummate craftsman whose attention to lyrics made him stand out among his contemporaries and showed that he learned his trade well from his major influence, Little Buddy Doyle, in Memphis. With unjustly only a local popularity and only one record on a label with more than just local distribution, Blue Lake, Baby Boy resigned himself to steady work in the bars and clubs until the problems of holding a group together became just too much. Then in the ’70s he reemerged for a trip to Europe with Boogie Woogie Red in 1972 and appearances at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival the next year, which promised a successful twilight career with a new college and worldwide audience. Sadly, this was only to last a few years, for he died on July 1, 1977. This is his story.
—Mike Rowe
I Was the Baby Boy: Baby Boy Warren Interview
Mike Rowe and Mike Leadbitter
Blues Unlimited #96–98 (Nov. 1972–Jan. 1973)
I never knew what my father looked like … See, I was the baby boy and when my father passed they say I was only eight months old. All I can go by is what my older brothers and sisters tell me.
Robert Henry Warren, a large, affable, and articulate man, was born on August 13, 1919, at Lake Providence, Louisiana, the youngest son of Lee and Beulah Warren. He was one of eight children. Around November 1919 the family left Louisiana, moving north to Memphis, and here Lee died of the dropsy in March 1920, leaving “baby boy” to be raised by his widow and the eldest daughter, Hattie, who was then married to a Louis Armstrong. For almost 17 years the Warrens were to live at 620 Mill Street in North Memphis.
Two of my eldest brothers were musicians, but they never did get as far as I did, and become recording artists. But they was very popular in those days for playing parties and all around. So I’ll never forget when I was a little boy. I would watch them and my older brother would say, “You better not fool with my guitar,” but as soon as his back was turned I’d get a box, can, or chair and I’d (climb up and) get that guitar. Before you know, I could tune a guitar good as he could. It was a gift to me—it was in me to learn how to play a guitar. I must have been between eight and nine years old when I started to play.
I’ll never forget when I was twelve years old, there was a fellow who ran an open roadhouse. I was staying with my older brother then and this fellow came and asked my brother, say he would take care of me. He wanted to take me over to play before the audience. And he gave me three or four dollars and a lot of pop. I thought I did a great thing, you know. This fellow’s name was Slick Collins. He ran Slick Collins’ Road House in Arkansas across the bridge (from Memphis) in West Memphis. I remember when West Memphis was nothing but Johnson’s Garage, a little used-car lot, and A. P. Nichols had a little sawmill, and that was just about all there was to West Memphis.
Baby Boy learned much from his brothers, Jack and Willie Warren, both of whom sang and played guitar. Willie was the best, but bone disease affected one of his fingers in 1933, ruining any career he might have had in the future. Through them he was to meet a pianist called Willie “61” Blackwell, who became a lifelong friend. Willie “61” made records in the ’30s and is still around today. And then there was the mysterious “Black Bubba.”
Baby Boy Warren, early 1950s.
We started to playing in Church’s Park (later renamed Handy’s Park). That’s in Memphis right on Beale Street. It’s a big park there where all the farmers came. I’ve started out with myself, Howlin’ Wolf, and Robert Jr. Lockwood. And there used to be another boy—this will amaze you—I don’t think he ever recorded, but that was the guitar pickinest man I ever seen. They called him “Black Bubble [sic].” He was dark. I guess he was the color of my shoe. He was tall and his fingers was about an inch longer than mine. He’s the only man I’ve seen in my life who could play the old “44 Blues” on a guitar and run a bass line at the same time. He’s in Chicago now—I forget his real name. And Willie Blackwell—you know how “61” started to learn how to play a guitar? On my older brother’s (Jack’s) guitar, and I’m the one who used to tune it for him! I was a little bitty fellow when “61” came in—about seven or eight years old. He used to be a piano man.
When Baby Boy was old enough, he left school and found himself a day job. He confined his musical activities to the weekends, when he would hang around Church’s Park busking or spend seventy cents on a Helena train ticket. At the time, a branch line of the Missouri-Pacific ran through Arkansas to Helena. The journey only took one and one-half hours, and it was worth the time and expense to visit towns like Hughes, Marianna, and Helena, as good money could be earned by a popular musician whether he played alone or with friends. Baby Boy never went into northern Mississippi and had no contact with the older Memphis bluesmen. His circle of friends were all active in Arkansas—men like Sonny Boy (Rice Miller), Wolf, Robert Jr., Johnny Shines, Peck Curtis, Willie Love, and Calvin Frazier.
When I first met Wolf it was around 1938. I’ll never forget how we’d go out through Arkansas, around those little country towns in the fall of the year when they’d be gathering in the cotton. We’d hit those little towns on Saturdays—we’d clean up! Make a little money, those guys get to drinking and those women start to braggin’ on Howlin’ Wolf. Throw him a dollar or two and he’d get down to start slidin’ or crawlin’. Wolf used to live at Hughes in the ’30s. That’s where I met Johnny Shines—he was playing guitar then, too. One of his favorite songs the people used to love to hear him sing was this “Terraplane Blues” that Robert Johnson put out. He could clown and sing with it, get on his knees and all that. He had another song of his own about, “I’m that old wolf that everybody try to find out why in the world I prowl; say they never gets to see me, but they always hear me when I howl …”
Baby Boy used to make a habit of playing dance halls or roadhouses operated by plantation owners to keep workers happy. He still vividly remembers the drunks, “big-time gamblers,” and the women who frequented the “low-life joints.” He usually worked from West Memphis to Forrest City and then down to Helena, via Hughes and Marianna, but at various times would try towns in northern Arkansas like Parkin or Blytheville, or visit Caruthersville, over the border in Missouri. He recalled the two main dance halls in Helena, the Busy Bee and one operated by a certain “Bug Mouth,” once a bouncer for Memphis gangsters like Red Lawrence or Jim Moorcraft, and famous for the big diamond in his teeth. He also made many appearances at the Little Brown Jug, housed on West Memphis’ lively 8th Street and in the capacity as guest only on King Biscuit Time. Though he was so involved in the Arkansas blues scene, he still credits Memphis with supplying the major musical influence of his life.
When I was a little kid, the man I most admired was a midget fellow. They called him Little Buddy Doyle. I got most of my style from him. I admired him so much. He had a great big head, and when he walked off with his wife it looked like a mother leading her son someplace. He was just about this tall (indicates a height of about four feet). I met him in the park—he went blind before he passed; it must have been about 1958. I know one particular record he made—“Let’s Renew Love,” that was an original.
The other musician I admired was a woman, Memphis Minnie. I knew her when she come to Memphis and she started playing at the North Memphis Cafe up there on North Main. Proctor, Arkansas—that’s where she came (to Memphis) from. She wasn’t doing too good when she come to Detroit … she stayed in Detroit about three years with some friends of mine. She come from Chicago and I went to see her. She was ageable.
Baby Boy went on to talk of a lasting acquaintanceship with Sonny Boy Williamson.
I first met Sonny Boy and Peck in 1937, out in Helena, Arkansas. Helena—I wasn’t just dependent on music, because it wasn’t just established enough then for a person to make a straight-out living. It was mostly just weekend entertainment. You could get out, get you ten, fifteen dollars (playing music), and you’d made a lot of money in them days. I used to park cars for the Peabody Hotel for nine dollars a week! Back in those days you could run a whole house for eight, twelve dollars a month!
They used to have some good times around Helena. It used to be a good-time town. Forrest City was a big-time town. They used to have those big dance halls. Sonny Boy would shoot dice, drink whiskey, all kinds of stuff. Around ’40 there was Willie Love, Sonny Boy, Peck and Dudlow, Robert Jr.1 Sonny Boy couldn’t get along with anyone too long. He was a hard guy to get along with; that’s why Robert Jr. pulled out. Robert Johnson, he married Robert Jr.’s mother. Lockwood’s stepfather. This is true. When I met Robert Jr. they was living in Marianna.
Willie Love come out from Greenville. He’d come to visit us in Helena. He even come to see me in Detroit at the Harlem Inn about three months before he got poisoned to death on whiskey. He come to visit and did a couple of shows for me. That’s when he had that “Nelson Street Blues.” This boy Peck, he used to play drums on the King Biscuit Hour. Well, Peck used to play a washboard behind me before he knowed how to hit a drum! He had him a washboard, cowbells, skillets, tin cans—it was very exciting for people to see him hitting all those things!
Sometimes we’d travel (to Helena) on a Friday night to be there on Saturday for those Saturday night dances. We’d all start to jamming together, playing those bells together. Me and Peck and Sonny Boy. Well, I’ll tell you why they called Sonny Boy “Footsie.” I don’t care how much he paid for his shoes or how large he’d got ’em, he still gonna cut ’em. I never seen him with a shoe yet that he didn’t cut. I don’t care how soft it was, he’d still cut it. That’s why they called him “Footsie.”2 He’d wear the big belt with the harmonicas, and when he’d get to blowing he’d have a big bath towel tied round his head … he’d perspire so much.
Elmore James, Robert Nighthawk, Pinetop Perkins, and Bobby Parker were just a few of the people that Baby Boy never ever met. He was also unaware that people like Forrest City Joe existed, and it is obvious that they were only “just coming up” when he left the South.
In the South there’s a lot of guys who own big plantations; thousands and thousands of acres. They used to have what you call a roadhouse, you know, and we played there. I used to play for this Miller Lumber Company who owned a lot of land in Arkansas. This was out from Hughes; one of the big plantations out there. The people that worked (for the company) got paid daily. They had boardinghouses for them. A fellow called Little Tom Payne was managing it (the plantation) for them.
So this was back in ’37, ’38. I used to play out there on Saturday night. Only cost me 26 cents to get out there on the little train. He’d pay me for my train ticket, give me a place to sleep, all my drinks was free and food. Then I’d play (on Saturday) … and Sunday from 12 to 6 (pm). They’d cut down on Sunday evening at 6:00 to get the fellows to bed; they wanted them up for work Monday morning. And he’d give me a five-dollar bill. You know, I could do almost more with that than I do with seventy-five dollars today.
It was in this same roadhouse that Pete (the houseman) was blown across Baby Boy’s lap by a shotgun blast through the window—the act of a drunk who had been ejected earlier. Similar scenes took place most weekends at the plantations and lumber camps. Baby Boy wondered why he was risking his life for a few dollars and in January 1944 moved to Detroit to join the members of his family who were already there. He found work with General Motors, staying with them to this day. However, he still wanted to play music. A meeting with Willie “61” Blackwell started him out.
Willie Blackwell used to come from Flint, and he and I used to go out on Hastings (Street) and we would just go and start walking and people would pay us on the street. And then we’d stop in the bars—the people would know us and have the barman shut the jukebox off, and we’d play so many numbers and they’d pay us. Finally they just set up a little bandstand and we started in the bar. I started up a little combo, ’cause I had a lots of fans.
The local branch of the A.F.M. [American Federation of Musicians] in Detroit, in contrast with those in Chicago or New Orleans, was very active in the forties and fifties. They did all they could to kill off non-union recording sessions, and would stop people playing live music if they were not fully paid-up members. This may explain why the Detroit music scene never really developed at the time. The first time Baby Boy got on stage with a combo he was in trouble. His dues were taken out of the money he was being paid for the gig and he was forced to register his band on the Monday following.
The first band I got was in 1949. That was the start of me recording and playing in an all-union nightclub. George V. Clancy, president of the A.F.M. local, threatened to pull me off the stage if I didn’t go down Monday morning and put my whole band in the union. This was at the Brown Derby on John R. and Elliott. I had a fellow called Charley Mills on the piano and a drummer by the name of Curtis Foster. Just a small combo. Charley Mills, that guy could play a lot of piano, but he got sick.
This combo became very popular, attracting attention from local record producer Idessa Malone, who operated a record distributing firm on East Vernor Highway and was owner of the Staff label. Her big artists were Bobbie Caston and Red Miller, both of whom sang in the jazz ballad style that everyone liked then. Idessa also wanted blues.
Idessa Malone, somehow or other, she caught on and she got in touch with me and wanted me to come down to her place. She had a little recording studio down on 604–8 East Vernor Highway. She was going with a fellow who owned a record shop called Sam Taylor—Sam’s Record Shop on Hastings.3 I had several sessions with her and she beat me out of a lot of royalties. Red Miller recorded this number “Bewildered (and Confused).” He did that number for Idessa and I’ll tell you what she did for him. This number was making a nationwide hit and she couldn’t process it fast enough. Then Gotham Records out of Philadelphia—she sold it to them ’cause they could handle it. And then she turned right around and sold the master number to King Records in Cleveland. They (both) running a lawsuit and sued her. Closed her place down.
Baby Boy stated that his name was changed to Johnny Williams on record labels to prevent him from suing for royalties. Whatever his brush with records and recording wasn’t very profitable, but it did help bookings. Mills and Foster stuck with him for five years before things went wrong. Mills got tangled up with a jealous widow and had to quit, and Foster got on dope and ran off with the drum kit. Undaunted, Baby Boy signed Boogie Woogie Red and a drummer called Henry Nickson to take over, duly signing them in at the union. Nickson stayed until his wife started pulling him offstage halfway through a show, and Baby Boy gave up trying to run a regular band. There were too many headaches. He just carried on alone, using pickup combos where necessary:
I signed a recording contract with three companies out of all my career. The rest of them (records) came up on different labels and I don’t know how they came about. I signed my first contract with Staff. My second was with Cadet—it used to be Pan-American and Cadet, but Cadet pulled out and the next was Parrot.
Cadet Music was operated by Iz and Harry Liggett (?), who leased many masters to De Luxe in 1952 (the C2 matrix series) before they just vanished. Baby Boy also recorded for them in 1952, but the resultant masters eventually appeared on Sampson and Drummond.
I cut for Cadet at United Sound. I didn’t cut that in no small place. Had Johnny Hooks on sax—one of ’em was “Stop Breaking Down.” I got messed up and screwed around and, see, my records changed around. I’ve had some tough luck!
Baby Boy went to the studios for the last time when Al Benson signed him to Parrot. A mammoth session took place at Joe Von Battle Studios, but Benson only issued one record, on Blue Lake, before his company was blackballed by the union and closed down. Battle, left with several masters on hand, issued them himself or leased them to others. Baby Boy, despite spending time in Chicago trying to see Benson, and writing letters to Petrillo, the union boss, never was paid for his work. Feeling disgusted about the whole business, Baby Boy Warren never recorded again.
Well, see, Joe Von Battle cut them, but we was recording in Detroit for Parrot. Al Benson would come to Detroit and when he wanted a master he’d just have Joe send it to him. That’s what happened to ’em. I cut “Mattie Mae” in Detroit at Joe’s place. I had Sonny Boy on harp, and I was using Washboard Willie on washboard, Calvin Frazier on guitar.4
In spite of bad luck with records, Warren was kept busy with live appearances. Among the many clubs he regularly appeared at were Mary’s Bar on Hastings; the Casba on Fairey and Russell; the Tavern Lounge at Lafayette and Elmwood, owned by Mrs. Smith, an aunt of Joe Louis; the Rage Show Bar at 14th and Davidson, owned by Joe Green; the Plantation; Sandy’s Bar on Pennsylvania and McCullum; the Prince Royal Club on Gresham and McDougall; a forgotten place on the corner of Hastings and Garfield that featured female impersonators; the Flame Show Bar; and the Paradise.
He also played at the Black Velvet, a big club at Mt. Clemens, Michigan, for a long spell, witnessing one of the worst fights of his career when soldiers from a nearby base and regulars battled over women. The struggle left five dead, many wounded, and Baby Boy cowering behind the piano. Another high spot in Baby Boy Warren’s career was a booking on the Roy Hamilton Show at Chicago’s Trianon, a very big black nightclub on Cottage Grove, when his Blue Lake record was selling quite well. On the show with him were LaVern Baker, Jimmy Reed, Johnny Moore, Big Maybelle, the Spaniels, Eldorados, and Counts. When he wasn’t working, Baby Boy would visit the Zanzibar to see Robert Jr. and Little Walter. Walter was not able to play, as he’d just come out of hospital, but a young man in his twenties was sitting in on harp.5 He was also impressed by the Four Aces, then playing at the 708, with a lineup of three guitars and drums. Then there were the times when Sonny Boy came north to see his old friends.
Sonny Boy was a roamer. He didn’t like to stay in one place too long. The first time he come up to Detroit was in 1945. He and another boy—he brought a guitar player with him called Joe Willie (Wilkins). That boy played nice guitar. But he didn’t stay long, just a few weeks. They were down there on Lafayette Street, staying with a friend.
Then he came back in the early part of ’54. I hired him, gave him a job. He was hunting work and nobody knew anything about him. So he found me—I was playing then for Joe Louis’s aunt—the Tavern Lounge. I let him sit in and gave him a few dollars out of my pocket and then everybody started to coming in. They liked the way he was blowin’. Mrs. Smith liked him personally and put his name on the payroll. We had people lined up for two blocks! They had hired policemen on the door to let so many in as they let so many out.
Sonny Boy work with me in ’54, then stayed until about the fall of ’55. Then we had a little conflict. Sonny Boy’s never satisfied. He think you should always do more. So, argue with him, I left the Tavern Lounge from under him and took a new band to the Prince Royal. Before he left Detroit (he lost the job), he had to come to me to apologize and ask for money to buy food. He come back to see me in ’64, just before he died. He come to spend a week with me and he say, “You livin’ in too nice a place for me,” … ’cause he liked to use that profane language, you know.
In recent years Baby Boy has concentrated more on looking after his wife, Carrie, and seeing his seven children through school. He has done well at his job, managing to move out to the Detroit suburbs in an attempt to escape the violence and conflict. He continues to do the odd gig. In fact, he had just finished a two-week stint with Calvin Frazier before he came to Europe and he has never lost his interest in music. He is understandably proud of his brief recording career and the way he gave many newcomers a start. John Lee Hooker, Eddie Burns, and Little Sonny are all people who owe something to Baby Boy’s benevolence.
Baby Boy Warren. London, May 1972. (Photo Bill Greensmith)
Today he has proved to us that he is still a major bluesman, and we wish him every success in the future. He did all he could to make our very long interview easy, often thinking hard after questions to make sure he had his facts right, and for this we thank him. He added much to our knowledge of the Delta and Detroit.
1. This was the lineup for the King Biscuit Show in 1941.
2. Slitting the sides of shoes to make them more comfortable is an old country habit.
3. This was the address of the Sampson label, which issued one of Baby Boy’s recordings.
4. This refers to the JVB version of “Mattie Mae”; Sonny Boy was not present on the Blue Lake recording.
5. Perhaps Henry Strong, a friend of Little Walter.