“Joe Dean from Bowling Green” has long been a legendary figure to those enthusiasts lucky enough to have heard his unique record, and both Bowling Green, Ohio, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, as possible hometowns have exercised the imagination of researchers. Interviewed in 1977, Dean was long retired from music and the steel mill and blissfully unaware of the problems of blues researchers. Rev. Joseph Hensky Dean tended the flock at St. John’s United Church of Christ on N. Grand and lived quietly on the northeast side of St. Louis, the city where he was born and spent most of his life. A thin, alert, and intelligent man who looked younger than his sixty-nine years, Joe Dean received me with great old-fashioned courtesy and, unlike some bluesmen who turned to the church, was obviously happy to talk about his musical life as he answered questions carefully and painstakingly. Something of a child prodigy, he displayed his musical talent from an early age, and as he told his story with a justifiable pride, it was clear that one lone recording in 1930 was barely the tip of a full professional music career that spanned some twenty-five years.
—Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe
Blues Unlimited #127 (Nov./Dec. 1977)
Well, I was born here in the city of St. Louis 1908, April 25th.1 My mother was named Edna—Edna Goodwin. I derived the name Dean from my father, who was named Andrew Dean, so that made her Edna Dean, ya know. He died in … when I was infant. I never knew him, never got a chance to know what he looked like, how he looked. There were no pictures of him, ya know, only what my mother would tell me. I grew up as a fatherless child in a way, but stepfathers, ya know, on and off and … well, musical background. Well, it was a gift. I can imagine the Lord gives each one of us a gift, ya know. In my early days I was playing full scale “Chopsticks” at the age of five. My mother’s sister owned a piano. My family did not at that particular time and, uh, I used to get on her piano at the age of five and with one finger I’d play “Chopsticks,” ya know. It was amazing that I had no coaching. Probably I would have been an outstanding musician now, but my family background was poor. Mother had no money to school me.
Joe Dean.
So I just kept experiencing what my piano playing and after I reached an age about ten or twelve, well, I began to play with both hands. Now, my mother saw that I had the instinct and the gift to play well. She began to buy a piano, which she did and she began to give birthday parties. Her friends and relatives used to come around and they were amazed at a … child pianist. In those days they were … rare. That was an exception, ya know. And we had oodles of people. The rooms couldn’t hardly hold them, because they wanted to hear me and that early age I was mostly a copy box—the old-time Graphophones, ya know, and the old familiar songs. I would hear the records on the Graphophone which we had and I would copy that on the piano. And I … I became fluent with it and never read a note in my life, ’cause I never reached that stage and, ah, I begin to get older, ya know, in age, say fifteen or sixteen, the more fluent I became. I kept at it. Oh, I met numerous of older piano players who would sort of tutor me, ya know, show me the scales, see, finger movements. I don’t even remember who they were mostly, because they’re all dead about now. They were old people. Well, I wouldn’t say old then, but they were then, say, around, oh, thirty or forty then and that was, oh, that was real way back before I even got stretched out into music. I was nothing but a lad, ya know.
And a lot of these fellas used to come to my mother’s house. At that time we were living 1609 Franklin and that was very early, about 19—oh, I say 1917 or ’18. And they would come and play for parties and I would sit there at the piano, watch them how they did it, ya know, and as soon as they would leave I would get right on and I would start, and they would see that I had a gift and they would come back every now and then and show me how to play. And then when I really got up in age, say, eighteen or nineteen, oh, well, I was really stretched out then. Yeah, well, because every, every—at that time they had what you call ah, good-time houses, nightclubs—all sorts of places, ya know, cabarets, stuff like that. And my name began to ring a bell and they would come to my mother’s house seeking me, ya know, to play for a night … say eight to twelve, something like that and I was about seventeen, eighteen years old. And then, well—I worked in between. Now, this was not a continued thing then, ’cause was no one but me and my mother. And she done a little day work, laundry work, and I had to help be the breadwinner. But in the evenings, at night, I would play for these different places and very soon I found myself I was doing it practically every night!
They were regular—I wouldn’t say, ah, clubs or nothing like that. They were just like they give a pajama party, birthday party, Blue Monday parties—that sort. But they’d only be maybe three- or four-roomed house with living quarters. Not a certain club, ya know, but they would always have parties and we’d just go around like that. It was so numerous, ya know, if you were at one certain place or these two certain places over many-year period, then there’s no problem that you can memorize this. But if you go to house to house for—we’d be going to three houses in one block—house to house, they’d be next door to each other. Say, 17th and Franklin, 14th and O’Fallon, 23rd and Del Mar, Leffingwell and, well, it’s Morgan Street, I’ll say then … Leffingwell and Morgan and, ooh, boy! They were removed out west. On one, one occasion once we moved out west in about the 4100 block on W. Belle—now, all of these are house parties.
And East St. Louis—oh, many times! 3rd Street (laughs)—yeah, I used to play on 3rd Street. At that time I was playing with a friend of mine. He had a house on Carr Street then—2300 on Carr. Every night that we would finish there he had an automobile and he would drive us all over East St. Louis. We’d go down on 3rd Street, but I wasn’t professional then. Over there I was just much as a visitor. He just operated a house, but he would take us over there because he wanted to hear me. He wanted to take me with him. He wanted to exploit me in such a way, and we walk into a place there’d be a crowd, he’d say, “I brought my own piano player with me,” ya know, and I don’t care who would be sitting there, he make ’em get up!
Now, if you want to come up more now, to professional, then I’ll have to name these places, because they were at a higher standard than the what you call the good-time houses, ya know. Right, one place I can remember was the Lincoln Garden and they were on Leffingwell and Market Street at that time. And I forget the guy that runs it. I can’t think of names, I can’t remember names now. And I’ll say another one, Liberty Hall. Now, at these places here what I’m naming was mostly on a combo basis. See, I was with a five-piece combo. Yeah. I done solos mostly in the houses, but when it came to the cabarets and nightclubs it was mostly a combo. And I remember one place it was on Page. I can’t name that street now, ’cause it was under a viaduct where Waggoner Electric Company was—it was strictly white, strictly white. Well, in those days, these white nightclubs loved, ya know, colored, Negro players. But I soloed out there. Say their nights was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, say, from eight till one—they didn’t go over one o’clock in the morning. And then, a broader sense, I played what you call the Chauffeurs Club. That was 3100 on Lawton and Pythian Hall right next to Chauffeurs Club.
Then I can move here from St. Louis, I can go all the way to—before I get back to my records—I can take you down to Memphis, Tennessee. Now, at this point, I done solos. I went to Memphis twice to do solos. And I was so good then I was asked by the manager—what they called the Chicken Shack—it was a pretty wellto-do place, carried a crowd, ya know. They asked me didn’t I have instruments, ya know—somebody that—did I know anyone that would have a instrument where we could have a orchestra? Well, ah, not just playing piano. Sure, I knew numerous of them, ya know, like Henry Townsend, he would be with me sometime, and another one was Henry Spaulding. Yeah, he was with me a time or two, and Ike Rodgers, trombone player, he was with me a time or two. Oh, I could name a dozen. So I came back from Memphis to St. Louis and I got in touch with these guys and they all said sure they’d be glad. So I got about four or five of them together and, let’s see, our drummer was a boy none of us knew very well. He didn’t come up from the ranks, but we, ah, discovered him in a way. He lived in a big flat, but he would come down to a hall that we called—a song was written about it—Old Shanty Town! Oh, I can only remember a few, maybe a couple, I don’t know—Sam Board was one, he was a cornet player—and this drummer boy … can’t think of his name. He was a tall, stout fellow. He was young, about same age I was—about twenty, but I can’t recollect who those others were. I think one of them was a clarinet player I know. There was only about four guys. Anyway, I got these guys together.
At that time we had no fancy way to—had no automobiles. We had no transportation and, believe it or not, those that had instruments, ya know, they had to put them in their grips or whatever they had and we hoboed down to Memphis! (laughs) Well, I didn’t have any baggage—I had all my baggage up here, in my head! So we went down to this Chicken Shack and we played a whole week there. I think the address was about four or five blocks back from Beale Street, right where the railroad station … Poplar Street Station. This was on 15th and Poplar, the Chicken Shack. So they couldn’t stay open after one o’clock in the morning and somebody mentioned a place across the tracks—what they call “across the tracks,” ya know. Say, “Don’t go over there, ’cause it’s dangerous.” Said, “They’ll chop your head off. They’ll cut you to pieces over there.” I said, “No, they won’t.” So they wanted to bet us, ya know. “You can’t go over there. You guys from across town—you over here. They don’t allow us over there.” So we taken up the bet. I asked the other guys, “How many want to go with me?” See, if they were going to chicken out—they call it the Chicken Shack, so I put that little gibe in there. I say, “You guys gonna chicken out?” They said, “Oh, we’ll go.” Okay, we walk from Poplar Street, uh, it was about five blocks across the railroad tracks and then there’s a great big row of flats, and this was where you go up a long step—steps lead up on the second floor. And we cross the tracks again, a whole lot of guys was standing downstairs. Boy, they was looking at us real hard, real hard as if to say, “What are you guys doing here?” They didn’t know any one of us, ya know—only one guy I knew that went with us he wanted to show us where it was. He said, “I bet you’re going to get whupped before this night’s over!” We arrived there about two o’clock in the morning—we went upstairs to where the hall was, there was a great big piano sitting in the hall. I sat down, I started playing, and I think I played that record—I had that arrangement before I recorded that record “21 Years Old.” It was four or five people and they began to crowd around that piano and they watched me. In about fifteen minutes’ time there was about a hundred people in that club and they was all kinda crowded round me. And the guys that was with me with the horn and everything, they never blowed anything! They were—all they was gonna do was have a good time. They just laid their instruments down and just listened to me!
Anyway, I went to Memphis on these occasions, then I came back to St. Louis and got with my mother again. I played around with her at her place, ya know. And some news got out that they needed some piano players in Arkansas, ya know, Argenta, Arkansas. What they call Argenta—well, it’s right over a little viaduct—it’s right in, might as well say, Little Rock, but you just go over a little viaduct and they call that Argenta. “Arjady” they used to call it—a row of little houses in there. That time I soloed. I went by myself. I didn’t take anybody with me.
So I done all of my orchestrations with—here in St. Louis with the Calumet Club, Pythian Hall, Chauffeurs Club, and Lincoln Garden, Liberty Hall, such as that. Now, I finally broke up with them—least or they broke up with me, in other words—the combo did, because they wanted to branch out, and the trouble was that we didn’t have an agent, but I knew one fella who did have an agent and he’s still making records … what did they call him? He had a nickname—if I could call that nickname … Roosevelt Sykes, yeah! Okay, Jesse Johnson was an agent then for Brunswick Recording Company so, now, at that particular time Roosevelt had already engaged Jesse as his agent to record records—Roosevelt taken me over to see Jesse to talk with him to be my agent. But, believe you me, his terms didn’t sound quite up to me—the percentage, ya know? And records at that time were very cheap to be made—they didn’t pay you very much unless you were a real recording star like those really up there, like Mamie Smith and Bessie Smith—that’s where the money was. Little guys like us, the money wasn’t there. Jesse wanted fifty percent, ya know, of all the records that I record, so I asked Roosevelt, “Is he getting fifty percent from you?” He said, “Well, he was, but he ain’t now.” I said, “Well, he won’t come down on me any.” So I decided to go to Chicago myself.
I rode to Chicago and, uh, Roosevelt Sykes had already told me who to see in Chicago. After I arrived in Chicago I was supposed to see Williams Mayo—Mayo Williams, yeah, he was the head of the recording thing there. And I just walked in there boldly (laughs) after I got myself settled in Chicago—just walked in there boldly, I found out where it was, 666 Lake Shore Drive. So I had a quarter change in my pocket and I walked in there boldly and there was Mayo Williams sitting back with his legs crossed at the desk—no one there but me and him. I went in and, “Who are you?” I said, “The Honeydripper sent me.” That’s what they called Roosevelt Sykes. He said, “Oh, yeah, I know the Honeydripper. What can I do for you?” I said, “Well, he told me that I could record some records up here.” “What can you do?” I said, “Well, I play piano.” I say, “I’m not much of a singer, but I’ll try.” He said, “Well, there’s the piano.” One of them baby grands—oh, man! It sound like I don’t know what besides the ones I’d been playing on—I really went to town on them babies, ya know! And I sat down and I played that one song first, and it took him by storm—he didn’t ask me to do anything else.
So he got up out of his chair, said, “Oh, man!” I said, “You want me to try … ?” He said, “No.” So he gave me all the information, said, “We’re not ready to record today,” but he gave me a time set. I think it was once a month you could record one record, or if you got really into it, you could do it twice a month and so on. He was taken in by that [“21 Years Old”]. I only wasted two—two waxes was all I wasted. The first one he gave me as a playback, so I noticed that my treble on the bass was faster than my right hand, so he said, “Well, you’re gonna have to even that up, ya know.” And so I was pretty, well—well, I wasn’t too polluted, ’cause first thing Mayo gave me was a shot, trying to get my nerve up, courage and everything (laughs) and I guess that was real good stuff. I downed that and I was a little woozy there for a while and I got taken away with myself and, boy, that left hand was going (laughs) where … the right hand couldn’t keep up with the left! So he made it play back on the wax and said, “Well, try it over again.” And I was pretty well settled then—I broke the nerve, ya know. You do it the first time, you automatically break the nerve if you have to do it again. ’Cause you discovered your mistake … So, okay, I ruined two waxes on that and I only ruined one on “Mexico Bound.” I ruined one on that and he was satisfied with both, so we got along.
So I had a chance at my mother’s house to arrange my music. I wrote the lyrics of both songs, both records, and I played both music—nobody else did that. I was the lyricist on it. I wrote the words and the music. I had been out in Newton, Kansas—not Kansas City, Missouri, now, this is Newton, Kansas, in the state of Kansas, and I was playing for a—I would say a party. I was playing for some people there, I can’t remember. Anyway, I was sitting on the railroad tracks getting ready to go play and I always liked trains and I sat on the railroad watching the trains go by. When I went out there on the Missouri-Pacific and it was where the Santa Fe cross the Missouri-Pacific tracks, and the Santa Fe engine was pulling a string of freight cars, and as the train went back about I’d say the third or fourth car from the caboose it had on there initials “M. C.” Well, I knew it wasn’t Missouri-Pacific, ’cause it goes by “M. P.,” but right next to the other side of the car it had “Mexico” spelled out and I knew that the Santa Fe road ran into Mexico, so I said to myself, “This train must be going to Mexico or it’s Mexico bound.” And right then and there I conceived the idea for that song “Mexico Bound,” because that train must have been bound for Mexico. So I went and played for these people at the party. Next day I was by myself, then I practiced on it, got my words together and the music, and I put it together—“Mexico Bound.”
I will say, William Mayo [sic]—the manager, I’ll say, of the Brunswick Recording Company … he tutored me a lot of ways on how to make rhymes. So by that he gave me a scroll with different words like “blue” and “new,” and you picked one out to match either one that rhymed. So it was a lot of help to me.
William Mayo gave me that title “Joe Dean from Bowling Green”—he thought it would be a good gimmick, a catchy title. We were talking over the situation and he told me that I needed a gimmick—a title of some sort. Well, I couldn’t come up with any, ya know—fact of matter I had given him my full name when we had to make papers out, I gave him my full name, Joseph H. Dean. Well, that was too long a name. He say, “Everybody got a gimmick like Pinetop, Honeydripper, and different guys … so how about it?” I say, “How about what?” “How about we just label it ‘Joe Dean from Bowling Green’?” I said, “Well, I’m not from Bowling Green … everybody’ll think I’m from Bowling Green!” He say, “Well, it’s just a title—it don’t mean nothing. Nobody’ll sue you and you can’t sue nobody.” So he did eventually say there was a fellow by the name Joe Dean from Bowling Green, something like that. I say, “Well, suppose we get mixed up?” He say, “Well, I don’t think you have to worry about that.” So after I asked him, “Well, you think we might get mixed up? Somebody might think he’s me and I’m him … and piano playing in the music field …” He said, “No, this fellow doesn’t play piano.” So I said, “Okay, let it go at that.” So that’s how I came by the name of Joe Dean from Bowling Green.
But I had a little ill luck. I didn’t like the Brunswick setup either. They wanted to give me a percentage. “All right,” he says, “I’ll give you two choices: either I can pay you in full for the recording of the records or you get nothing unless it’s a hit and then we’ll pay you royalties.” Oh, boy! Well, ya know, taken back in them years it was almost in Depression times and you’re beat for cash, you’re beat for money, ya know, so I didn’t go along with the royalty deal, but now I wish I had. I think records at that time were about thirty-five dollars a side—yes. See, how much does it come up to now? What they get now? Oh, boy! Well, I sold it for what I could get, but where I made my mistake was he had given me a time set to come back and record again, but something happened at home. My mother became ill and I had to stay there with her and watch—well, I was twenty-one then. I made that song I was exactly twenty-one years old when I made it. That was a sort of a go-ahead kind of thing. I’m already twenty-one so I’m explaining through that song that I’m glad I’m twenty-one, and somebody else hears it and they’re glad they’re twenty-one. So I was twenty-one years old—my mother taken sick, very ill. I couldn’t get back to Chicago to finish my recording and I didn’t have any money for a long-distance call, but I could have sent a letter. But I was so distressed until I didn’t send him a letter, ya know, but he had my address and he wrote me a letter again, so and when he wrote me that letter why I didn’t come on that specific date, then I wrote back and told him the consequences. Oh, well, that kinda tore things apart, ’cause it wasn’t long then that she passed away, and I was only about twenty-one years old, twenty-two years old when she passed. But I didn’t quit my musical career, now, because of that, but I just didn’t go back to record, because I didn’t have the means to get back and forth to Chicago, no.
Then I started going out west. I’d been out in Colorado and I was in Newton, Kansas. I played in Newton, Kansas, for about a month and then I’ve been up to Springfield, Illinois. I played up there for about six months, just one place. It wasn’t a nightclub—it wasn’t a cabaret, it was sort of a cafeteria downstairs and big hall upstairs, might call it a good-time house, ya know, and the fella run that—he was a pretty good fella. I got my meals three times a day, I got my lodgings—it didn’t cost me nothing, and then I made on the average, ya know, I made a lot of tips like that. So I was soloing then. I played a long time for him until I got homesick and then I just up and left Springfield. In Springfield it was strictly colored. Then I had another place that was really white, was in Venice, Illinois, right across the river here, Venice. There was a nightclub there. Somehow or other someone mentioned my name and I think I got a ride. Automobiles was pretty well then, I was getting up maybe twentyfive or thirty years old—so they drove me over to this club to see the boss and it was a lady operating the place, I can’t remember their names, either. (laughs) Anyway, I played over there with them for about, oh, I’ll say about a month and then they decided they were going to close the place. So a musician’s life, he just moves from place to place, so that’s how I got into really the music. You’ll be surprised, though, how often it was—now, mentioning these places, no, it wasn’t time in-between. I had worked practically every night playing. I had done that for, oh, fifteen, twenty years, so I was well into it. I played popular music—I played any type of music that were written. Ah, the numbers that I played as my recording was something like … one I do remember, “Don’t Take My Blue Day Away,” and that was done in a blues complex, and the reason I discovered that one because every Monday they call “Blue Monday”—my mother wouldn’t wash, wouldn’t iron, wouldn’t do anything on, but just have a good time. They call Blue Monday, ya know, after you’ve been over Saturday, Sunday, you pretty well worn out, ya know, so “Blue Monday” the song that I made then was “Don’t Take My Blue Day Away,” and I used that in plenty of my halls wherever I would play. And another one, a friend of mine opened a hall by the name of Old Shanty Town and I played that number, oh, I guess about four or five years. It became a trademark, “Old Shanty Town,” and he opened his nightclub and he named it Shanty Town and this is where I met this drummer, ’cause he lived in the building that this club was in. The song was about, oh, I don’t know, how old it was then when I got hold to it, but anyway, that was our opening. Whenever he would open his club at eight o’clock that would be our opening, ya know. And then I played the number “Blue Heaven,” I played a lot of Ethel Waters songs, “Am I Blue?” … oh, I couldn’t go on, ’cause I had about a two hundred repertoire. By memory about a two hundred repertoire, and a lot of times I would just take it with me as part of a sheet music—no notes on it, just names of particular songs, but I would do this for requests. A lot of places I go and people ask a request for a certain song they wanted to hear and I would look in my repertoire (laughs)—I don’t know why I did this—say, “Yeah, I got it here,” and I started. So that’s the way I got in.
Now, getting back to the years with Henry—Henry Townsend, Henry Spaulding, and all these fellas—we would get together just unexpectedly, like. Ya know, I would play at a certain party or something. I’d be playing, then Henry would come in. Henry be playing at a party and I would come in and then we would play together, and then all these other places and fellas were like the same way. Henry Spaulding was a barber by trade. Yeah, eventually, I think, eventually opened his own shop there on Leffingwell and Franklin some years later, and he was a very popular guy with that guitar. The only actual piano players I actually knew were older fellows and then about three or four that came up along the same era that I did. Henry Brown, he came along the same time as I did. Pinetop [Sparks], I knew him, I mean, I knew him real good, ya know? We was friends. We moved around quite a bit from place to place and house to house, and every now and then we’d run into each other unexpectedly, like. Like I said before, someone would hire Pinetop to play for that night and I didn’t have no place to play, so I would visit this place there, Pinetop would be there and we would share back and forth, ya know. Give him a rest and I would play. Although he got paid, I’d give him a rest and he’d rest me and a lot of times I’d be playing at a certain place, he’d come in, it’d be the same thing. We’d help each other out that way.
I had places on Morgan Street, so to speak. It was Leffingwell and Morgan and ofttimes Pinetop would come into this place where I would be playing, ya know. There’s another—we wouldn’t say imposter, but he carries the same name—another Pinetop that they used to call Pinetop, but he played differently than the original Pinetop and there’s no way that he compare, compare what he was doing considered to the old Pinetop. At least he tried, he tried to get the finger movements, but it was a lot missing there. The original Pinetop was as steady as I was on that [“21 Years Old”] and nobody could get that style. Nobody could copy that style.
I got “Boogie Woogie” from Pinetop. He and I battled it out there one night—he wanted to see who was the best! (laughs) And I came right behind him and everybody just clapped their hands, “Go ahead, Joe, you got him!” We had this little shindig there on Morgan Street where we used to come all the time. We would meet there together and then we’d have it back and forth. And finally he’d start playing the “Boogie Woogie” and by the time he got through his number then, “All right, Joe Dean, I want to hear you,” and they say, “Hey, we can’t tell these guys apart, who’s the best?” (laughs) It was fun, it was really fun. And serious, too—in a manner each one of us, we took our music seriously.
One of the s’posed to be greatest at that particular time was a fellow by the name of Starkey. Surprisingly he had only—he had one defect. Now, he was … he was so good until what is this lady’s name, Louella Miller? They gave a piano recital at Booker Washington Theater, I think that was in the year ’29 or somewhere back there, and there was prizes to the winner, ya know. Louella and Starkey was the tops, they topped all the rest of them, ya know. Now, which one of the two would win the prize? And Louella won. But Starkey would have won it, but his defect was he ran his music, his songs together. If, like, if you say, if he starts off on “Stormy Weather,” his next song might be “Blue Heaven,” ya know, but he do it all in one section. But the judges didn’t take that, ya know? And that was his style. Now, he didn’t do that ordinarily—wherever he played he would do that—and I’d a little, little head over him as far as people were concerned, and he was considered a really smooth piano player. But wherever he would play or wherever I would approach if I came to that party, he would be there. They would tell him to get up, “Joe Dean is here. We want to hear him.” (laughs) Now, he didn’t get angry or nothing. He would get up and I would sit down and you’d be surprised how people would just gang around me. ’Cause I had a unique style. Those two you heard [the recordings]—that’s nothing to what I could really do—I could, oh, ya know, cross hands like that and like mice running over the keys, all kinds of dottios [musical tricks]! It wasn’t a—wasn’t too much like this fella Starkey. He had—most of his was comic stuff, ya know. He would play comical stuff, he’d jam all his songs into one. He’d hit the natural chords all right. It was interesting to hear him that he didn’t have to do it professional-wise. If you sit to listen to him you would enjoy it the way he’d do it, but when it comes to playing for a party or where people had to dance, see, he had to get away from that movement, ya know. People couldn’t dance to that movement, no. What his real name was I don’t think anyone knew. Even my mother didn’t know—she knew him very well. He was one of the old-timers in the music field, yeah.
I stopped playing about somewhere, I’ll say in the late ’50s, yeah. Oh, all the ’40s, in the whole ’40s I was still playing. I was still musically inclined in 1940s all the way up to the early ’50s, somewhere in there. And when I really quit was way up in the ’60s. I just, ya know—boom—I quit altogether and then I wasn’t playing at all—I had to work. I had to make a living and I saw no way through a musical career. So I said to myself, the best thing I could do now is look to the future. I’ve learned from a long time about the city where you are raised or you are born as too much success unless you move out in another area where people probably have heard of you but don’t know you. Then you can acquire an agent, and that was my biggest downfall in my musical career, is in getting an agent. And there wasn’t any here that I knew of, all except Jesse Johnson, ya know. So the higher agents was in a higher bracket, like Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith and all those. Well, I couldn’t reach that high, so I just had to smooth along like I was and I said, “Well, if I try to keep this musical thing going, I’m gonna starve to death.” Because it began to get a hold to us. If you could talk to the Honeydripper he’ll probably tell you the same thing that I’m going to tell you. It hurt us very much when they brought the, ah … machines in, jukeboxes, because there were many taverns that we were able to get work and they began to put these in these taverns. Then nightclubs began to get them. Well, now, where the Honeydripper outdone me, he had an agent in the beginning, where I had to seek one, see? That’s why he was so successful, see? So I just strolled along. I said, “Well, I’ll get me a regular job and I just can’t do my night work if I’m trying to hold a job.” What I mean by night work, like, if I work eight hours a day in a steel mill, it’ll be foolhardy to go out and play from eight till twelve o’clock and have to get up again at four or five in the morning. So I worked in a steel mill—Granite City Steel—about twenty-three years and I had enough age and enough seniority, enough everything to retire. I think it was ’72, 1972. I’ve been retired now six or seven years.
I would like to talk a little bit about the changeover like I did. And the changing of one’s ability or his gift. I say to myself, “Was it the Lord that did it or was I did it myself?” Well, I say this—I felt an uneasiness when I felt that the Lord had called me to be a minister. Well, this hasn’t been a long time ago, it’s just been a few years back, about say in ’71, but it sort of done something to me musically. I never was much hand in playing sacred music, never could, ya know, and all of mine was classical music, jazz and blues and I figured this … under the profession that I am now, I can’t mix it, ya know? So I say to myself, well, I have to give up one or the other. Which one am I going to give up? Well, I had long given up playing music, so why go back to it now after the Lord has called me? Like I said, I don’t know whether it was taken away from me by the Lord or whether I give it up, but I did mention that I didn’t think it was right, and then later on as I watch television, quite often you’d be surprised how many musical people, professional like, that are given in a life of Christ. But they still going with the mood. Well, each one of us have our beliefs, ya know, so I say to myself, what’s wrong with music, regardless of what kind? Then when I look in my Bible and I study the 66th Psalm, it says, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” What’s wrong with music? Nothing. It’s enjoyable, it soothes the body, it soothes the mind, it soothes the soul regardless of what music it is. But, now, I’d drawn away from it so long—too long, where I couldn’t get myself back into the rhythm, you see? Right now I can still make chords. I can still play chords on there, but I forgotten how to get to that A-minor, C-minor which I used to do … B-flats, A-flats, ya know. See, that’s really digging into music. Which all of that was a gift to me—that I know about. Not no one taught me. Lot of times I say to myself while I’m sitting here and I feel the Lord’s talking to me, “Why you sitting here like a goof? If you want to hit a note on the piano, go ahead. So if you want to pick up a guitar, go ahead. You’re the one holding yourself back.” So it’s just that simple. It’s just what I don’t want to do it, that’s why. It’s something I just don’t want to do. I get no more pleasure out of it, in other words. I can go to a piano and sit down and I don’t like what I’m doing myself … at this present time, but back then it was a joy, because I had full knowledge of what I was doing. All body, heart, soul, commitment was in it … it was a joy. So I … I thank God for that. Even though I haven’t made a success at recording or orchestrations—I’m not rich from anything. He has given me what every man should be satisfied with, is a home. I can’t have any more than that.
It was particularly sad to learn of the death of Joe Dean (on June 24, 1981) whom I’d rediscovered in 1977 and interviewed for this magazine (BU 127). Despite his entry into the church, Joe was very keen to talk about the old days and his part in the St. Louis piano scene, and he made a very helpful and willing informant. Articulate and intelligent, he was a real pleasure to talk to, and he was sufficiently interested to answer a letter with further questions in 1978. As a result I did a follow-up interview. What follows then as our tribute to a fine person and great, if much neglected musician, is Joe’s letter incorporated with the final interview.
Dear Mr. Rowe
Recieved your letter, with great joy I was very glad to hear from you. In regard, and answer to your questionaire’s.
I cannot remember any name’s at my mother’s house, because they would come and go, and, they were not realy professional.
Like I already said, they would come mostly for the enjoyment. Ah, she—she didn’t hire nobody to play. None of them places didn’t hire, they just had a piano there and just anybody come in could hit any note at all, well, “There it is, go ahead and play.” And they would come in and just for the enjoyment of it sit down, play, play and they be gone and maybe don’t see them anymore for a couple of months.
Sorry, I only ruined one wax on “21 Years Old. We remade it the same day. Recording is a closed session, I never had the chance to meet any others. I was playing for an aged couple, called Mom and Pops: I also stayed as my residence there, the address was 2628 So. La Salle St. I stayed about 7 months, got home sick came back to St. Louis my home.
No I never accompanyed any else on record’s.
I never even bothered to go in any of the places around Chicago. See, ’cause all my time was devoted to Mom and Pops—so I couldn’t get out at night. They were my boss, they were paying me, so I stayed every night to do for them. And every night was crowded. And they were sorry to see me go. But I had to go—when you got sickness … [I played] at nights, ya know? So I had all during the day to get my stuff together and they were the kind of people who never looked over my shoulder to see what I was doing, ya know. They all … either they’d be in the backyard (or) they’d be in they room. They’d be in the front and I’d be in on that piano and I’d be there some four or five hours with that one song. I could play any song you could name. I quoted myself about two hundred songs that I knew by heart, but I never even had to spend that much time. I fell in with that song because I was the same age that that song says I was—I was twenty-one years old. And that’s when everybody they was going wild on that song, because they was many youngsters who were twenty-one years old at that time. And that was the time just about jukeboxes were coming up and that was knocking a whole lot of piano playing in the head, ya know? It wasn’t bothering me too much, because I was in the record business and I was gonna follow it if I didn’t have tragedy at home. So anyway, let me get back to Mom and Pop. I played those two numbers. I rehearsed them and rehearsed them. So Honeydripper already gave me the address where to go. See, me and Jesse Johnson got so heated up then, he didn’t give me nothing to go by, ya know. But, uh, my buddy did, he gave me the address, told me how to find the place and I was fortunate that they were in the neighborhood—they were only about a couple of miles from the Loop—2628 La Salle—it’s not too far from the Loop. And then you have to take the State Street streetcar. Car fare was a dime. That was peanuts, so I got my stuff together, took me five minutes. Once you get off, you cross the Chicago River and just go about three blocks on the other side of the river. And you can see the building to the right before you ever get to it—big, tall building. So I got off the car and I walked all around. I guess it took me half hour before I went in the building, ’cause I never saw such beautiful sight of all them boats, ya know, docked, and I stood there and watched, just looked at them. The boats was swaying and what they call that long ramp they hook ’em on to? Pier, yeah, see I never seen that here in St. Louis. Then I stood down and looked over that lake. Boy, that was fascinating—see nothing but water, and I sometimes say why do people call this a lake? It look more like an ocean. (laughs) Oh, that’s a mighty big place. I never knew a city could be that big, Chicago.
Yes, I was very talented, with other varieties of music. In fact, I tried to persuade Mr. Williams to let me record them. But, as he said, I had a contract for recording the blues, so I settled for that. In fact, I was satisfied.
See, I was a writer as much as I was a piano player, ’cause those two sides that I played is all done by me. Written—words, the lyrics, music—nobody helped me. The only thing that helped me any, but I didn’t use it, ’cause I already had my layout when Williams gave me, the book of rhymes. See, I already had everything written. But he said eventually, if you need it, ya know, any other time this is a good book to go by, ya know. You can pick a word out and match it so it’ll rhyme. Already had my stuff made out when I went to the studio. Let me tell you how this is arranged. When you go to the studio you are in that studio alone. Now, maybe someone recording in another studio—see, those studios are soundproof. Once you get inside there’s nothing you hear outside—all the sound is in. Now, anyone could have been recording at the same day at the same time as I was, but I wouldn’t know it.
Mayo Williams had pictures of famous artists all around … See, we was told … if you’re not a star, we don’t fool with you. He showed me all the pictures of Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Clara Smith—all those old-timers back—I mean singers, ya know, that really recorded. Yeah, I used to be among the biggest—I mean, I used to be in their presence. Some I played with, some I didn’t. But most of those piano players I knew, they never tried to elevate theirselves. They never dug in to recording and stuff like that.
I met Charlie Creath when I was playing at Jazzland. I met him across the street where they had a joint where they gambled and play cards. He would always be there Monday nights. And one night he came over to Jazzland while me and my group was playing and he asked me, “Why don’t you come on the boat sometime?” I said, “Oh, well, when I have time,” ya know. So the best thing I did was make up my mind to go on the boat. And when he had his intermission he told everybody, “This is gonna be my intermission, man. You take over.” And believe me, buddy, I don’t know if they was spellbound, I don’t know (laughs), but I had more people on the dance floor than Charlie Creath did! Boy, they had ’em lights turned low and I was mostly blues, ya know, but I could play any number and, boy, you talking about a time! They was so thick they was bumping into each other. I only had about a fifteen-minute intermission, but I was proud even to be associated with him … a person like Charlie Creath.
Eddie Randall, Eddie Johnson, all them guys—I monkeyed around playing with. Eddie Randall, he out of the business now. He in the undertaker business. He’s out on Natural Bridge, him and I came along in that same area. He’s an old-time musician.”
Mike Rowe: What numbers would you play?
Joe Dean: No specific numbers. Any request somebody wanted to hear. “Dinah” was so popular in those days, “Blue Heaven”—all stuff like that was no problem. See, now we’re going back in the early, oh, early ’30s—’32 or ’33, somewhere along there. See, at that particular time, I was really in the music field. I’ve done nothing, but that some parts of my life. I used to haul coal, work on the railroad, done odd jobs anyway, but coming into the ’30s I was much older and then I really branched out … and I forget who that drummer’s name was. Did Henry [Brown] ever mention to you a guy named Eddie used to drum for him and, uh, Ike Rodgers? I can’t get his last name—he was real light-skinned. He carried Ike. He used to carry Ike all the time. Sam Boyd, he used to muck around like Ike Rodgers every now and then. When we had our combo we used to play at the Livery Hall together and—no, I can’t think of the guy’s last name to save my life. There’s too many Eddies at that time. (laughs)
M. R.: Did you know Eddie Miller?
J. D.: I got around to meeting him, but not to … like I said a musician’s life is all go, go, go. Might be here for a night and you gone somewhere else.
Charlie O’Brien: On the boats, did you tune into Fate Marable?
J. D.: Yeah, yeah.
C. O’B.: How about Armstrong?
J. D.: Henry—I mean Louis. I was unfortunate. I missed Louis’s playing. During that period of time I wasn’t even in town. Oh, I had gone maybe down in Memphis or Kansas City. I don’t think I mentioned Kansas City to you? That came on my mind, too. I used to play at the Orange Blossom, Kansas City. I never will forget the address—704 Independence, Kansas City, Missouri … call it the Orange Blossom. And it was a great big hall like Jazzland or some of those places. I was on my own—lone piano player—and I remember a fellow coming in with a clarinet and he helped me out. ’Course he didn’t get no pay, though, ’cause he wasn’t hired!
M. R.: Did you ever come across a piano player called Jabo Williams?
J. D.: Oh, Jab! Oh, sure! Yeah, Jab used to be down in that area with us. There were two Jabs. There was one Jab who operated a joint on Division Street, and there was another joint on Biddle Street about 1500 and that was where Jabo Williams used to hang out. [He was] oh, kinda slim. I wouldn’t say real dark, about mediumbrown skin. See, going back that far, uh, that’s when we wasn’t hardly allowed in the poolroom. But I do remember the poolroom was on the corner of 15th and Biddle and there was another one across the street on Blair and Biddle. But one on 15th and Biddle, they had a pool table and everything there, but they had a piano in there and they ran regular, well, dances. And Jab used to come in there practically every night. And they had a back place where they had another pool table where they play cards, they gamble or shoot dice. This was a great big fellow about the size of that door who operated that place!
The Calumet Club address is only skechy, but, somewhere in the twenty two hundred block of Market St. on the south side of Market St.
When I was playing across the tracks, that was the name. The address and the street was only the railroad right of way. The house sat back about fifty feet from the Frisco tracks. A rambling two story frame building. It was there, remember? That the title for Mexico Bound Blue’s came to me.
I wished for many a day that I would had a real good agent, manager—and I would still be in the field right now. I probably would’ve wound up now like Eubie Blake—still into it at the age I am. Well, see, uh, what’s his name, Johnson, that had that barbecue stand, had that record shop … Jesse. If it hadn’t been for Jesse I’d have been on my way. See, him and I talked about that, and the Honeydripper, Roosevelt Sykes, he’s the one introduced me to Jesse at that time and, like I said, man, he wanted half of what I make, fifty percent. So I called Honeydripper and asked, “How much is he getting off you?” I think he was getting ten or fifteen percent. Now he wants fifty percent. “Think I oughta take it or leave it?” “If I was you, son, no, not for that.” Well, Jesse Johnson was the only agent in that field in them days, and even right now the city of St. Louis is bad for all kinds of events to try to get agents and managers, ya know. It’s rough here—especially music. It’s nothing here.
I wrote the lyrics for a gospel song and that baby hasn’t been published yet, ’cause nobody would publish it. Every publisher I went to I had to pay him! (laughs) I said, “Look, buddy, I write music I want to make money off it. That’s my reason, ya know?” ’Cause I had a fellow in Chicago to—what you call it—complement for me. He wrote the music for it, ’cause, see, I wasn’t in gospel music. And I tried to get notes together on gospel songs. I just couldn’t do it, ’cause I was too much blues, waltz, popular music, and all stuff like that. So I had the other guy to do the complementing on it. That’s when Joe had his music store on Franklin Avenue down there—I had some two hundred copies made. I went down to Joe and talked to him about it and he went back on his shelf. He brought out a stack of songs like that—blew the dust off. He said, “You know who this is singing these songs?” I said, “No.” “Mahalia Jackson.” He said, “You know how much I’m getting for ’em?” I said, “No.” “Fifteen cents apiece.” (laughs) So he says, “Only thing I can do with yours is stick ’em on the shelf and if anybody comes in and mentions a title or looking for any type of music I might get chance to sell a couple, but the money would be slow.” That was way back in ’43, about ’43 or ’44. And I just couldn’t cut it. Now, one guy wanted to do it over here on Union Avenue, colored boy he was publishing. And he gave me a better break than any of ’em did, but what he wanted to do—he wanted to change the notes of the song, ya know, the piano notes. So we talked and talked and say, “Well, what’s going to be the climax of it? What’s in it for me?” He says, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. If you agree to change the notes, popularize the song a little bit … give me three bucks and I’ll be on my way.” Yeah, again I’m thinking, I’m paying, I keep paying, I keep paying. I said, “Well, how long is it going to take before it be publicized?” “Well, I don’t know how long it’s gonna take me to work on it.” I said, “No,” thought I’d get a better deal. I even went down to Ludwig’s and they had a musician there. He ran over that song and when he got through he said, “This is beautiful, really beautiful.” He says, “My advice to you would be if you can get you an agent and let him fight your battles. You running all over town or going here and there you gonna have a problem. This song’ll go, ’cause it’s a hit right off.” So this guy who played for Ludwig’s said there was nothing wrong with the notes, so the colored guy might’ve been (laughs)—he might’ve been pulling my leg or might’ve been trying to figure out something for hisself. So I went around with that song for about a year or more and I just put it down. “The Blessed Name of Jesus”—that was the title. And it was beautiful. I introduced it to the church. The soloist sang it one Sunday and it went over beautiful. But, like I said, nobody here, no agents, no nothing, you just out. So I dunno, I just gave up music. There’s a whole lot of peoples now just mixing their religious personalities along with their gifts. There’s nothing wrong with music, no, nothing wrong with playing music, or loving music—any type. Well, here I am. I give it up. ’Cause I didn’t feel like I would want to sit down and play blues, and somebody got a half pint over here, a case of beer over here and I’m playing the blues to make them happy. They get high, ya know (laughs), so I just couldn’t see it.
1. According to Bob Eagle’s Blues: A Regional Experience, Social Security Death Index records list Dean’s birth date as April 24, 1908.