Smokey Hogg
Encyclopedia
- For the English association footballer for Malta, Pietà Hotspurs, and Valletta, see Andrew HoggAndrew HoggAndrew James Hogg is a professional footballer currently playing for Maltese Premier League side Valletta, where he plays as a goalkeeper. He has also played as a goalkeeper for the Malta national football team.-External links:*...
Andrew 'Smokey' Hogg (January 27, 1914 - May 1, 1960) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
post-war
Post-war
A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...
Texas
Texas blues
Texas blues is a subgenre of blues. It has had various style variations but typically has been played with more swing than other blues styles....
and country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
.
Life and career
Hogg was born near Westconnie, TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and grew up on the farm and was taught to play guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
by his father Frank Hogg. While still in his teens
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
he teamed up with a the slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
ist and vocalist, B.K. Turner aka Black Ace
Black Ace
Black Ace was the most frequently used stage name of the American Texas blues musician, Babe Kyro Lemon Turner , who was also known as B.K...
and the pair travelled together playing the turpentine and logging camp circuit of country dance halls and juke joints that surrounded Kilgore
Kilgore, Texas
Kilgore is a city in Gregg and Rusk Counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the home of Kilgore College, and was also the childhood home of famous classical pianist Van Cliburn...
, Tyler
Tyler, Texas
Tyler is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Texas, in the United States. It takes its name from President John Tyler . The city had a population of 109,000 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau...
, Greenville
Greenville, Texas
Greenville is the county seat, and the largest city, of Hunt County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 25,557....
and Palestine
Palestine, Texas
Palestine is a city in Anderson County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 17,598, and 18,458 in the 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Anderson County and is situated in East Texas...
in East Texas
East Texas
East Texas is a distinct geographic and ecological area in the U.S. state of Texas.According to the Handbook of Texas, the East Texas area "may be separated from the rest of Texas roughly by a line extending from the Red River in north central Lamar County southwestward to east central Limestone...
.
In 1937 Smokey and Black Ace were brought to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
by Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
to record
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
, and Smokey had his first gramophone record
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
("Family Trouble Blues"/"Kind Hearted Blues") released, as by Andrew Hogg. It was an isolated occurrence - he did not make it back into a recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
for over a decade. By the early 1940s Hogg was married and making a good living busking
Busking
Street performance or busking is the practice of performing in public places, for gratuities, which are generally in the form of money and edibles...
around the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
.
Hogg was drafted
Conscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
in the mid 1940s and after a brief spell with the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
military, he continued working in the Dallas area where he was becoming well known. In 1947 he came to the attention of Herbert T. Rippa Sr, boss of the Dallas based record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, Bluebonnet Records, who recorded several sides with him and leased the masters to Modern Records
Modern Records
Modern Records was an American record label formed in 1945 in Los Angeles by the Bihari brothers. In the 1960s, Modern Records went bankrupt and ceased operations, but the catalogue went with the management into what became Kent Records. This back catalogue was eventually licensed to the UK label...
.
The first release on Modern was the Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
"Too Many Drivers", and this racked up sufficient sales to encourage Modern Records to bring Hogg out to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to cut more sides with their team of studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
musicians
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
. These songs included his two biggest hits
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
, "Long Tall Mama" in 1949 and another Broonzy tune "Little School Girl
Good Morning, School Girl
"Good Morning, School Girl" or "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" is a blues standard that has been "covered countless times across the decades"...
" (#9 U.S. R&B
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...
chart
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
) in 1950.
Some blues fans
Fan (person)
A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...
tend to revere his two-part "Penitentiary Blues" (1952), which was a remake of the prison song, "Ain't No More Cane on the Brazos".
Hogg's country blues style, influenced by Broonzy, Peetie Wheatstraw
Peetie Wheatstraw
Peetie Wheatstraw was the name adopted by the singer William Bunch, an influential figure among 1930s blues singers...
and Black Ace was popular with record buyers in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He continued to work and record until the end of the 1950s, but died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, or possibly a ruptured ulcer
Peptic ulcer
A peptic ulcer, also known as PUD or peptic ulcer disease, is the most common ulcer of an area of the gastrointestinal tract that is usually acidic and thus extremely painful. It is defined as mucosal erosions equal to or greater than 0.5 cm...
, in McKinney, Texas
McKinney, Texas
McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas, United States, and the second in population to Plano. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 131,117 The Census Bureau listed McKinney as the nation's fastest growing city from 2000 to 2003 and again in...
in 1960.
Relations and confusion
Smokey's cousinCousin
In kinship terminology, a cousin is a relative with whom one shares one or more common ancestors. The term is rarely used when referring to a relative in one's immediate family where there is a more specific term . The term "blood relative" can be used synonymously and establishes the existence of...
, John Hogg, also played the blues, recording for Mercury
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
in 1951.
Smokey was reputed to be a cousin of Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins
Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...
, and distantly related to Alger "Texas" Alexander, although both claims are ambiguous.
He is not to be confused with Willie "Smokey" Hogg, an imposter who was based in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and recorded mostly after 1960, taking the name of "Smokey" after Andrew had died. He recorded mostly for Spivey Records
Spivey Records
Spivey Records was a specialist blues record label founded by blues singer Victoria Spivey and jazz historian Len Kunstadt in 1961. Spivey Records released a series of blues and jazz albums between 1961 and 1985.- History of Spivey Records :...
, and his work is primarily a poor imitation of Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom...
. Although Andrew was the younger man, his sound represented an older style in Texas blues.