Victoria Spivey: A Big Blues

Folks that performed during the initial period of blues, back in the teens and twenties, most frequently left music during the depression as a result of the industry being brought to its knees after a basic lack in materials being available and carrying hefty prices. And while Victoria Spivey began performing during the late teens, she didn’t stop performing – and only for a short time – until the fifties. She’s not generally thought of in the same context as Bessie Smith or others that could have performed at Carnegie Hall if not for the color or their skin, but the plain, well conceived deliveries that Spivey’s catalog is made up of clearly sets it along side some of those greats.

Beginning in 1918 Spivey found work in a movie theater around the Houston area. Soon she would parlay that gig into performances at bars, whorehouses and other assorted joints of ill repute sometimes alongside Blind Lemon Jefferson or Lonnie Johnson. Those two names wouldn’t be the only top tier performers, though, that Spivey would work with. And at the age of twenty, the singer and pianist gambled on St. Louis and made her way there in order to record for Okeh in 1926. Spivey’s immediate recording of “Black Snake Moan” would be an auspicious opening salvo in her career, one that would carry on through the next several decades.

And while the Depression would lessen the opportunities that she would have, director King Vidor would feature Spivey as "Missy Rose" in the film Hallelujah! – released in 1929. That showcasing of her talents might have been just the beginning of work in theater and on stage, but by the ‘50s, Spivey decided to eschew popular performances and work solely in the church, playing organ and leading a choir. It was a move that a number of old tyme blues players would get into, but not too many of them would return in the same fashion as Spivey.

As the cusp of the folk and blues revival spurred countless acts in returning to the fold, Spivey, who had seemingly mastered the business end of music, helmed her own record imprint. And in ’62 as she recorded some new music, a young Bob Dylan, fresh from his self titled release from the previous year, contributing to Spivey’s album. That historical caveat may have served to enliven the story of Spivey’s rebirth, but her older work still maintains a great deal of individuality.

Straddling the lines between country and city blues as well as jazz and blues, Spivey’s back catalog of music sounds eerily familiar while not being the most popular out of that stable of musicians from the ‘20s. Songs like “TB Blues” and “Dopehead Blues” touch on topics that weren’t removed from the genre, but could have received more gentile renderings in the hands of another performer. That latter track has even been referred to as the first song to speak on the subject of cocaine abuse. While that remains to be substantiated, it doesn’t make the song or Spivey’s recordings any less entertaining.