Barrelhouse Buck McFarland – Alton Blues
Before a train to Chicago replaced a riverboat to St. Louis as the main means of escape from the Mississippi Delta, the Gateway City was as big a blues center as existed north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But it was a piano city: Henry Brown and Peetie Wheatstraw and Roosevelt Sykes and other followers of ragtime icon Scott Joplin, who’d settled in East St. Louis after leaving his native Texarkana. Until now, I’d never heard of Buck McFarland, who recorded in the ’20s and ’30s, but he’s a prized discovery. McFarland hailed from Alton, Illinois, just north of the city, as did enough others to make up an Alton school of piano dubbed “St. Louis bass” by Bob Koester, whose Delmark label first released these sides in 1961. As Koester’s term suggests, McFarland had a thundering (and metronomic) left hand, while his right played simple but relentless melodies that sound improvised even when they aren’t. At his best, as on “Alton Blues”, “Charlie’s Stomp”, and “Barrelhouse Buck”, McFarland builds up a tremendous head of steam, paving the way for boogie-woogie, Otis Spann, Jerry Lee and other good stuff. And his rich, raspy voice is one of the most penetrating of all those men who made their name pounding the 88s. These sides represent the second — and last — session he did after his rediscovery; eight months later he was dead. Essential for everyone? Hardly. But he’s a revelation to blues piano fans.