*(1977) CR 30127 A-1 ''Party Line Blues'' Jimmy DeBerry

STUDIO SESSION FOR JIMMY DEBERRY AT THE MEMPHIS RECORDING SERVICE FOR SUN RECORDS 1953 SUN RECORDING STUDIO 706 UNION AVENUE, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE SUN SESSION: SATURDAY MAY 16, 1953 SESSION HOURS: UNKNOWN PRODUCER AND RECORDING ENGINEER - SAM C. PHILLIPS ''PARTY LINE BLUES'' Composer: - Jimmy DeBerry Publisher: - B.M.I. - Hi-Lo Music Incorporated Matrix number: - None - Previously Unissued (3:06) Recorded: - May 16, 1953 Released: - August 1977 First appearance: - Charly Records (LP) 33rpm CR 30127-A-1 mono THE ROOTS OF ROCK - VOLUME 12 - UNION AVENUE BREAKDOWN Reissued: - 1996 Charly Records (CD) 500/200rpm CDSUNBOX 7-5/5 mono SUN RECORDS - THE BLUES YEARS 1950 - 1958 Sam Phillips brought Jimmy DeBerry back into the studio to cut a solo single. For the benefit of younger listeners, party lines weren't sexual hook-up call-in numbers, but a fact of life, especially in rural communities. Two or more telephone subscribers were on the same loop and could hear each other's calls, even though every subscriber had an individual ring tone. Billy Murray satirized them on 1917 Edison cylinder as did Hank Williams on his 1949 hit ''Mind Your Own Business'' (''The woman on our party line's a nosy thing/She picks up her receiver when she knows it's my ring''). Over Mose Vinson's jangly piano, DeBerry lays down a very spare and soulful performance, and it's more effective when Vinson lays out, leaving DeBerry alone. DeBerry had a true blues voice, even it it was more of a pre-War blues voice: mellow and wracked with emotion. We should have heard more from him. Name (Or. No. Of Instruments) Jimmy DeBerry - Vocal and Guitar Mose Vinson - Piano Raymond Jones – Drums Jimmy DeBerry - Long time associate of Walter Horton, recorded in 1939 for Vocalion. Although an important member of the Memphis blues scene little known of him bar the fact that he only had one leg on Sun Records. Jimmy DeBerry was born in Gumwood, Arkansas, on November 11, 1917, the youngest of three sons of Savannah Ford and Albert DeBerry Sr. Deberry spent most of his pre-teen years just south of Memphis in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He always wanted to be a musician, an achievement made easier when in 1926 he moved to Memphis to live with his aunt Leola. He took up the ukule and hung around Will Shade and various members of the Memphis Jug Band, as well as Jack Kelly, leader of the rival South Memphis Band, and Frank Stokes, one of the patriarchs of Memphis blues. In the spring of 1934, while staying with his brother Albert, he lost his lower right leg in a train accident. When he returned to Memphis, he took up the banjo and studied music with violinist Lilly McAdoo, whilst holding down jobs as a porter and dishwasher at the Peabody Hotel. That may have been the location of the recordings he made for the American Record Company (ARC) in July 1939 as Jimmy DeBerry and his Memphis Playboys after Deberry became friends with Jack Kelly and Little Buddy Doyle. Exempted from war service, DeBerry gigged around Memphis with Lilly McAdoo and even played hillbilly music for Memphis's Boss Crump before he moved to St. Louis in 1942 and remained there until the early 1950s, when he relocated to Jackson, Tennessee. He became one of a number of musicians who broadcasting over WDIA and KWEM as a member of Willie Nix's band. Presumably, it was this work that brought him to Sam Phillips' notice. He and Walter Horton, accompanied by Houston Stokes on drums, recorded "Easy"/"Before Long" (SUN 180) in February 1953. Sam Phillips recorded DeBerry again the following May with pianist Mose Vinson and drummer Raymond Jones, from which "Take A Little Chance"/"Time Has Made A Chance" were issued on SUN 185. For the rest of the 1950s, DeBerry moved around the country before settling in Sikeston, Missouri in 1960 where he did field work. After a year-long search, Steve LaVere located him there in 1972 and brought him to Memphis for some festival appearances, and he and Walter Horton recorded together once again. The results were issued on two Crosscut albums in 1989. Jimmy DeBerry returned to Sikeston, where he died on January 17, 1985. His total recorded output amounted to five-and-a-half singles, and three unissued songs, all of them with the low-key plaintive charm that has almost disappeared from the blues. (CE) © - 706 UNION AVENUE SESSIONS - ©