Big Maceo (Major Merriweather) was simply the most important blues pianist of the ’40s and the greatest influence on Chicago’s postwar blues. His legacy can be traced directly through the music of Little Johnny Jones, Henry Gray, and Otis Spann, particularly, but the echoes can be heard through the blues bands of the ’50s. Maceo’s singing was beautiful; his plaintive smoky-brown voice, soft and sad, seemed at odds with the power of his piano playing, and the combination proved irresistible. “Worried Life Blues,” his first record, used the chorus of Sleepy John Estes’s “Someday Baby” and propelled Maceo into a recording career of fame, if little fortune. Despite his popularity, little was known about Maceo. The first scant details came in 1955 in Yannick Bruynoghe’s groundbreaking biography of Big Bill Broonzy, but it wasn’t until 1973 when this writer, acting on a tip from Boogie Woogie Red, sought out his family and acquaintances. With some added information and important corrections to the original BU 106 article, this is the authentic story of one of the blues’ greatest talents.
This article is based on interviews with Mrs. Rossell Marshall (Hattie Bell Merriweather) and Boogie Woogie Red that I conducted in August 1973. The photographs and extracts from personal correspondence were also supplied by Mrs. Marshall, with further information and photos from Maceo’s sister, Mrs. Lucy Kate Brown, and brother, Rev. Roy Merriweather, from 1974. Memories of the Specialty session came from Art Rupe.
—Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe
Blues Unlimited #106 (Feb./March 1974)
According to his common-law wife, Rossell (Hattie Bell) Merriweather, who furnished the details for the death certificate, Big Maceo was born Major Merriweather in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 31, 1905, the son of Kit Merriweather and an unknown mother.1 Raised in Atlanta itself,2 he learned to play piano as a youth in the time-honored manner. [As Rossell recalled]: “He started playing just in somebody’s home. Started playing for a lady named Roxy and he’d work for her so she’d let him play, ya know.”
When, in 1922, the head of the family, Christopher, was hit by a car and died from his injuries, most of the family thought about moving north and following sister Odessa and brother Lee, who’d settled in Detroit. About 1923, Maceo joined Lee and family at 1904 Antietam and kept up his piano playing and learning—his only teacher seemed to be a Mr. Dubois, but the piano lessons probably didn’t last long. He was proficient enough to play at house parties: “He went around and played for houses, ya know, where people sell whiskey and stuff like that.”
Big Maceo, early 1940s.
Rossell had such a house—upstairs at 980 Alfred Street, between Rivard and Hastings.3 “And that’s where I met him. He used to come to my house all the time and I’d give him money and the rest used to give him whiskey. And I told him don’t take no whiskey, don’t play yourself cheap. Don’t bring no whiskey or no wine, ’cause you soon be a whiskey-head or wine-head and you won’t get no place. He didn’t know nothing about nothing and he’d have womens just to go around with, but when I got him I put him on records. When I married to him I put him on records. When I married Maceo I was quite a kid.4 Long before he was working on the WPA, he was the man that walked the track, and when times was bad he was a handyman, when times was good he worked everywhere—he always kept a job. He worked at Fords and he worked all over.”5
“Maceo” is a childhood corruption of “Major,” but the addition of “Big,” however, is easier to understand—he was six feet tall and weighed 245 pounds. [Maceo’s sister] Kate adds when he played the Arcade Theater between Vernor Highway and Napoleon they billed him as “Big” Maceo. So it was as Big Maceo that he cut his first records, and Rossell recalls: “I sent him to Chicago and when he went to Chicago he met Tampa Red and Big Bill [Broonzy], and Tampa Red found Melrose.”
Big Maceo with niece Leola and her daughter Madeline.
Maceo wrote from Tampa’s house at 3432 S. State Street:
My dear loving wife,
I arrive in Chicago at 3pm and arrive safely. Baby we will record tuesday Melrose said and dont you worry Just be a good girl because I am a good boy listen baby I reall have mis you it look like I have bin here 2 weeks allready listen darling Mis Tampa and all said just take it easy everything is going to be allright and tampa said it wont be long now So baby Dont think hard of me for not writing more but we are so busy I and Tampa untill I am worn out. So you just be sweet until your husburn come home it is from the one who love you your husburn. M. Merriweather
P. S. Write soon and let me no just how you are getting along your baby M. M.
The trip to Chicago was a gamble and very much a joint family enterprise, according to Kate: “Hattie, she pawned her rings, my sister pawned her rings, I pawned my watch and, ya know, I have quite a few sisters here—Lily Belle, Odessa, Ornice, and myself. It was four of us here …” They’d all contributed. That following Tuesday, June 24th, Maceo accompanied Tampa Red on eight sides and recorded six titles under his own name for RCA-Bluebird, including the classic “Worried Life Blues.”6
Clearly the Bluebird date was a successful debut and Maceo was to become a valuable addition to Lester Melrose’s roster of artists. “Melrose was as crazy about them as he could be, because they made his living,” commented Rossell.
Maceo was soon in great demand, recording regularly up to the Petrillo (union) recording ban of 1942. There were a further six sides made in December 1941. He again accompanied Tampa on eight sides in February 1942 and another four on July 28th, 1942, the day he cut his own last sides before the studio shutters came down.
He lived with Rossell in Detroit during those years, but made regular trips to Chicago, where he played at the H & T on State Street and at Gatewood’s famous joint on the West Side at Lake and S. Campbell. Big Bill Broonzy took Maceo with him to Gatewood’s: “The first night we played Big Maceo rocked the house and I didn’t have to sing but one or two songs.”
In Detroit, “he played all through Black Bottom, but his regular haunts were the Post at Warren Avenue on the West Side; Brown’s Bar and the Crystal Bar on Hastings; and a beer garden, El Vido’s, at Mack and Russell. Sometimes guys played guitar and all kinds of tooty-horns and then he had girls singing—one girl’s dead, a girl named Maud.”
Ted’s Tavern on Hastings Street.
One evening at El Vido’s when Erskine Hawkins was in the house was significant. Kate takes up the story: “Maceo was playing the ‘Midnight Blues,’ I think it was, and he wrote that on the collar of his shirt and Maceo hadn’t recorded it, and Erskine Hawkins … he took it away from him just like that. And that was at El Vido’s bar. That’s where he was at—he was playing so that night and everybody was in up-roar … and Erskine Hawkins did it just like that. I saw him doing it. I didn’t think he could write it all on his cuff. He had a nice cuff (laughs), and he just wrote it down like that, and when Maceo heard it, it was what he played. It was his music, and Maceo said, ‘That’s my record. I played that at El Vido’s bar.’ And I said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t have played it ’cause you hadn’t recorded it,’ ya know. And so he taken that away from him.”7
The Arcade Theatre.
Maceo still played house parties and according to Rossell, “Well, he’s at my house and I took the kitty, ya know, the kitty-box and I carried it around and when I carried it around they filled that thing so full, and from then on he went to using a kittybox.8 I would go around writing everybody’s song what couldn’t get a turn, ’cause there’s so many people there. And I’d go around and ask who want to hear this, who want to hear that. They be hollerin’, ‘Play so-and-so, Maceo.’ Play this, that, and the other. And they’d say, ‘Mis Maceo, Mis Maceo, have Big Maceo play my piece,’ and I’d go around taking everybody’s names, everybody’s piece they wanted played, and carry them to him. And he wouldn’t play all way through. There was so many people wanted ‘Worried Life’ he just play it once or twice. And he made money like that. And peoples done paid … fifty more people done told him to play ‘Worried Life’ and he just played it once or twice.”
Maceo’s popularity was such that, inevitably, he inspired a host of imitators—“There used to be a whole lot of Maceos, Maceo Charles and Maceo this-that-and-the-other right here in Detroit.” Then there was Robert Merriweather (possibly no relation), who rejoices under the name of Cowboy Bill and was still living in the city, and Bob Merriweather, actually Maceo’s brother, Little Maceo (R. Z.), who even “played better piano than Big Maceo and he could sing, too. He was six years old and he could play every piece Maceo played. He could play better than Maceo. Maceo he was kinda funny. Bob could have been on records, but Maceo wouldn’t put Bob on records and he wouldn’t take him to Melrose. He didn’t want nobody to get up there with him.”
Big Maceo, Rose Allen Broonzy, Big Bill Broonzy, Lil Green, unknown, Lucille Merriweather, Tyrell Dixon.
Little Maceo could be seen around the streets of Detroit pushing a cart and dropping in to play at house parties. Sadly, he, too, has passed on, but the Merriweathers were clearly a talented family. There is still a nephew living in Dayton, Ohio, who, again, is alleged to play better piano than Maceo.9
But where did Big Maceo get his style? According to Rossell, “He just picked it up hisself. Why, he was a teacher—he taught people. People would come and he would teach ’em how to play. He could play it any way, couldn’t he? Play it backward, cross his hands over—he could play a piano. And he really made money.”
Boogie Woogie Red remembers Maceo, his idol: “I used to sit right there and look at his mouth when he played the piano, and I have my elbow on the piano. And I wanted to play with him so bad. He took an interest in me, ’cause I was interested in him. See, I was too young to go on the piano, but Maceo say, ‘No, look, this is my nephew. Let him get up there.’”
Broonzy would recall, in Big Bill Blues, Maceo’s grasp of musical theory, and one of the pianists who learned a lot from him was Little Johnnie Jones. Those were the best years: work was plentiful and it seemed as though the good times would continue. Then Maceo returned to Chicago, leaving Rossell in Detroit to look after her house.
In April 1944, Maceo wrote from 2218 W. Washington, where he was staying with Big Bill, to say he’d just got back off the road after a tour of Tennessee and was soon off to Atlanta for two weeks. At the time he was on his own, not working with Tampa, and from May 1944 onward his letters make depressing reading as troubles piled up. Mostly he requested money, which Rossell would send, but apart from unpaid bills were problems with jealous relatives: “Listen Hattie (Rossell) I Don’t here from my people anymore But that all wright if they dont care to write me anymore it allwright I will get along … I have got my coat stolden since I bin back to Chicago but dont worry about it when I come to Detroit I want my people to know that I aint no tramp.”
Things picked up a little when Maceo started back to work, but July found him staying at Tampa’s, out of work again, and still worrying about his clothes: “My sister told someone to stop by to see was I ragged and had gone down like they heard.”
Maceo wouldn’t return to Detroit until he looked the part of the successful bluesman: “I did want to get me a overcoat before I come home listen Baby give me tim to get some of my thing I want to be fix just right.”
In August he’d “been kinda sick,” but the most harrowing letter came on September 12th, 1944:
I love you more than the world but I am in a mess I dont need no money or nothing like that and Dont think that I want to keep you in suspense you know Darling I bought me a suit an a few other things and to I bin trying to wait until they start recording … am a poter on a train from Chicago to san francisco cal and I cant quit at present … whenever I get a chance I am comming home to you and will never leave you again Dont think hard of me Baby for not coming when I tould you I am just in a mess that I will hafter clear up myself But as fare as my welfair and health I am all wright.
The significant phrase is “until they start recording,” for the bluesmen were impatient for the ending of the musicians union ban. Many, like Maceo, had to find alternative work, and it doesn’t seem to have had the required effect of safeguarding their livelihoods. Petrillo, like a latter-day Canute, failed to stem the tide of “canned music” and by the end of the year the dispute was over.
Tampa had a session in December 1944 and Maceo started recording again in February 1945, accompanying Big Bill Broonzy. Things were to improve, but, sadly, 1945 was to be the last good year.10
A few days later, Maceo recorded under his own name and it was obvious that the inactivity of preceding years had not affected his prowess. “Kid Man Blues” was a fine start to a second career, and further sessions in July and October 1945 produced Maceo’s “32-20”; the incomparable “Chicago Breakdown,” a boogie-woogie solo of immense power; “Winter Time Blues”; and “Big Road Blues.”
He then went on the road, but soon rejoined Tampa Red (working at the Flame Club) and recorded with him. He also accompanied Sonny Boy Williamson on one date and backed Tampa again in February 1946, but this was to be the last session. After less than two years of renewed success, Maceo suffered the cruelest blow of all. During May 1946 he suffered a stroke in Milwaukee and was admitted to the People’s Hospital.11 It was only a matter of a month or so later on December 1, 1946, that Lucille and Maceo’s daughter, Sandra Majorette, was born.
Big Maceo ad from Chicago Defender, May 25, 1946.
Lucille [his wife], who worked as an elevator operator in a department store, tried to care for Maceo and the new baby, but had to send them to live with Aunt Kate in Detroit.
The resultant paralysis of his right side virtually ended his piano-playing days, though he was to struggle on for some seven years. At home with Kate, Maceo partially recovered and returned to Chicago. He was still popular enough to warrant one further recording session in February 1947 with Eddie Boyd taking over the piano stool, but after that RCA dropped him.
Back in Chicago Maceo’s letters to Hattie give an idea of his pitiful existence. March 10, 1948:
I am as well as you expect But Baby I want you to send me 20 dollars to get me a Ray Lamp … the Doctor say I had to have a Ray Lamp.
Back in the hospital in May and trying to get sick pay:
hattie the company say I would hafter to get my Badge. Before I can get any money. Will you please sin it to me rataway … I am in the Hospital in taking treatment … I am trying to get well But pleast sind my Badge the ONE with the picture in it.
Then in April ’48 came some good fortune in the form of Art Rupe of Specialty, who’d come into town to record Roosevelt Sykes, having been assured by Sykes’s manager that the RCA contract had expired. This wasn’t so, and Rupe, looking around for other talent, was directed to Maceo, whom he discovered sick in bed. Maceo, desperate for money, struggled up to do the session with Johnnie Jones (who had been under Maceo’s wing since about January 1945, soon after his arrival in Chicago and who played piano in a passable imitation of his teacher), Tampa Red, Ransom Knowling, and Odie Payne, and in spite of his physical condition, sang four songs beautifully in that soft, warm, smoky-brown voice.
But by May he was again writing to Hattie for $10, and June, after money had been sent, saw the most poignant letter of all: “I got a little job trying to get my hand and legs like they was I am praying for them to get well so I can be Big Maceo again.”
September was worse—although there were hopes of his playing again, a department store in Detroit was threatening him with jail over an unpaid bill of $24.30. But at least some of Maceo’s prayers must have been answered, for incredibly, he was actually back on the road at the beginning of January 1950. The 18th of that month found him in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on his way to Knoxville, Tennessee, and by February 10 he was in New Orleans.
Back in Chicago in August, it was the same old story, with Maceo finding just enough work to pay his rent until about 1951 or ’52, when he teamed up with guitarist John Brim and harmonica player Grace Brim, the husband-and-wife team, and they took off for Detroit, where Maceo cut his last records for Fortune. Another pianist, James Watkins, helped out, playing the right hand while Maceo played the left, and though six sides have now been issued, there are probably others in the can. The session was crude and the results were sad—by no stretch of the imagination was he “Big Maceo again.” The recording quality was poor, even by Fortune’s standards, and possibly the masters were purchased. Maceo was also recorded extensively at home by a small-time hustler called Keeno, who also worked as a bar photographer. “Keeno came to our house every Sunday,” said Rossell, but he later died from a stroke and presumably his recordings are lost forever. Unless, of course, they actually were the Fortune sides.12
Maceo’s reputation as a blues artist was secure from his first recording, but what was he like as a person? It’s clear that he was very popular and much loved by all. Rossell ends by saying: “Everybody liked him—all the policemens—he was a good condition person. He was very nice—he wasn’t a person to raise sand, fight, or nothing.” He did, of course, drink heavily and she continues: “I think he’d have been well, but he didn’t stop drinking—I kept after him about drinking and he could drink an awful lot. Ya know, I couldn’t make him live. He tried to put the lights out in Detroit and then he went on to Chicago and tried to put the lights out.”
The lights finally did go out, for Big Maceo died on February 26, 1953, at 7:15 a.m., when he suffered a final heart attack at 4706 S. Parkway in Chicago. His body was shipped to Detroit for burial on March 3rd, and until now, his life had been a mystery to us all.
1. Actually, Ora Merriweather (née Wright). Described as widow of Chris in 1926/7, she was living at 2250 Chestnut.
2. The family lived at Newnan, Georgia, where Maceo was born, and moved to College Park, a suburb of Atlanta.
3. Rossell sold whiskey in Indianapolis from houses on Yandee Street, Lewis, Wandell, and 13th and 15th Streets. Leroy Carr used to play for her. She was still only nineteen when she moved to Detroit.
4. It was about 1935 that Maceo and Rossell got together.
5. Along with the house parties Maceo played the bars like the Silver Grill, [a bar at] Theodore and Hastings, Sam’s (an Italian-owned bar) on St. Antoine, the Bluebird, Black Hawk, and the better-known Flame, El Vido on Mack and Russell, Ted’s Tavern, [a bar at] Brewster and Hastings, and Dago Hill in Inkster.
6. [“Worried Life” is obviously based on Sleepy John Estes’s “Someday Baby Blues,” which was issued in 1935, and Maceo must have immediately started playing it or working on it if Kate’s recollection is correct. She maintained that the song was the result of a love affair gone disastrously wrong. Zelma Meadows was the lady’s name, and Kate tells how terrified they all were as Maceo “walked the street with his pistol—we prayed he’d let her go.” To their immense relief, nothing came of it and soon after, Maceo met Rossell.]
7. This would be “After Hours,” which Hawkins recorded in 1944.
8. Kate hotly denied that Maceo ever had a “kitty-box” and said that he was always paid by the organizer of the house party. She also denied that Little Maceo ever pushed a cart.
9. Roy Merriweather Jr. is a respected modern jazz pianist.
10. Probably in 1945 Maceo had met Lucille Moultrie in Chicago and they married.
11. The Chicago Defender, May 18, 1946, carried an advertisement for a Maceo date at the Flame, but the May 25 paper apologized “to all our friends who were disappointed because Big Maceo was unable to be with us as advertised. He suffered a stroke and is now recuperating at home.”
12. The Blues Discography lists a final unissued and previously unknown session for Mercury in 1952.