Barbecue Bob: Chocolate to the Bone

Growing up with his brother, Barbecue Bob (bka Robert Hicks) got into music to pas the time, but eventually ran into Savannah "Dip" Weaver and her son from whom they learned guitar. It’s not an inauspicious beginning, but it’s also not too dissimilar from a vast many other stories floating around about blues players. After obtaining a decent songbook from playing around other folks, Barbecue Bob eventually pursued work in an Atlanta suburb where he was a chef – you guessed it – at a BBQ joint. It wasn’t the beginning or the end of Bob’s day jobs, but it would eventually serve as a good way by which to market the performer.

Don Hornsby, a talent scout from some destination north, was sent to dig up some folks to record for the burgeoning ‘race record’ market. Coming across Barbecue Bob and figuring a proper marketing scheme Hornsby coerced the guitarist and singer to record a few sides in Atlanta during March of 1927. And while those efforts didn’t wind up making Bob a star, Hornsby saw enough promise in Bob to invite him to New York – and that session would fortunately end up impacting the record buying public.

It wasn’t the early days of folk recordings or blues, but what was a pretty pervasive style of writing a tune was to examine the daily occurrences in one’s life – or the newspaper – and compose a song that discussed what had just transpired. Utilizing this approach, Barbecue Bob scratched out “Mississippi Heavy Water Blues.” That side, recorded during Bob’s rather early trip to New York in June of ’27, discussed the flooding that had ravaged portions of the south. It can’t be said to contain the greatest guitar picking or singing, but each was more than ample. Coupling that with a topical subject did, though, make for a good selling 78.

In addition to his topical work, Bob included a number of well known traditional songs – or songs that would, in the future, become something akin to standards. “Poor Boy A Long Ways From Home,”         a version of “Going Up the County” and his own “Motherless Chile Blues” comprised a surprisingly varied clutch of songs to carry around. That last track has been covered by countless folks including a Brit guitar player that might be familiar to a few folks by the name of Eric Clapton.

The remainder of Barbecue Bob’s record work – which in total includes between sixty and seventy sides – was set down to record in Atlanta during the years ’27 through ’30. A bit after a late December date in 1930, Bob contracted some mixture of tuberculosis, pneumonia and the flu – not a good combo. His death at the age of 29 obviously cut short a career that could have brought him a bit of fame prior to the depression during which time the recording industry ostensibly ceased to function. What he’s left behind, spread out over three discs from Document, might not represent the most stunning work, but it’s more than enjoyable and at times his guitar playing is nothing other than surprising.