urreal "Little Brother" Montgomery was born in the lumber town of Kentwood, LA.  He heard piano players with names like "Rip Top" and "Papa Lord God" perform in his father's barrelhouse while he was growing up. Little Brother became a virtual encyclopedia of blues piano styles, and knew the piano pieces with "eight-to-the-bar" boogie-woogie style bass patterns as "Dudlow Joes."  Willie Dixon, another Vicksburg blues legend, said Boogie-Woogie piano players themselves were known as "Dudlow Joes."

Around 1919 or 1920 Little Brother Montgomery and two other barrelhouse piano players, Dehlco Robert and Long Tall Friday, were in Faraday, Louisiana, across the river from Natchez.  They worked on variations of a popular delta piano theme.  What they created is called "The Forty Fours."  It's a difficult piece.  Louisiana and Mississippi players used this tune to check out each others piano playing abilities.

In 1929 Little Brother Montgomery recorded his definitive version of this theme known as "Vicksburg Blues."

Days were getting noticeably longer by the time we recorded in Vicksburg.  Coming into town late we thought we might run out of daylight, but there was plenty.  The wind picked up blowing stead off the Mississippi River as we located a small park on the northern end of Levee Street.  It looked the perfect spot to record Vicksburg Blues.  Downtown is up on the hill from there.

Leaving the piano at home we recorded just the vocal on location.  Our solution to the wind was to have Eddie stand close to a huge oak tree and hold an umbrella upwind of the microphone.  This worked so well that it surprised us both.   Wind did sneak its way around our improvised shield once and awhile, and then there was the time we sat down to take a break and the wind blew over the stand with our practically new microphone attached.

If you discount my continually yelling, "WHAT!" to every question Eddie asked for the rest of the day, I'd have to say recording went rather well after that… Just kidding… Never happened.

There was still time left, after we finished recording, to view  a Vicksburg sunset and look around the interesting city streets.  We ate at the Burger Village downtown which has this interesting terrazzo tile floor left over from the days when it was a bank.  The safe is still visible in the back, and yes, the burgers are great too.

Vicksburg stands like a sentinel at the southern end of the delta of the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers.  We've made many journeys here during our musical quests and have only begun to scratch the surface of the town's hauntingly rich mix of histories and cultures.