Hi Richie, 'Salty Dog Blues' and 'Bow Wow Blues were recorded on 7 April 1927 in Atlanta. They were issued back-to-back as the Allen Brothers first record - Columbia 15175-D. The record sold 18,426 copies which Russell indicates was 'about average in the Columbia old-time catalogue' [Tony Russell - 'The Allen Brothers Record Sales - Old Time Music No 44 Winter 1987/88 p10).

In his notes to 'Allen Brothers Vol I' Document DOCD-8023, Russell comments: 'But Peer and the Allens interpreted "blues" liberally. Some of the numbers so titled were like "Salty Dog Blues", rag songs. Conventional 12-bar pieces with AAB rhyme scheme don't account for a larger proportion of their repertoire. Here, as so often in the hillbilly music of the 20s and 30s, "blues" seems to be inserted into a song title not to denote a structure but to imply informality, spontaneity and sometimes topicality'.

'A New Salty Dog' was recorded in Memphis on 22 November 1930 and issued back-to-back with 'Preacher Blues' as Victor 23514. You may be interested in Russell's notes to 'Allen Brothers Vol II' Document DOCD-8034:

Towards the end of their November 1930 session in Memphis, the Allen Brothers reached back for the song they had first recorded three and a half years before, revised it a little and offered it as 'A New Salty Dog'. It became the number for which they are best remembered.

'What does the term "salty dog" mean?' Charles Wolfe asked Lee Allen almost 50 years later. 'Somebody that was just a little low-down, not too much', Lee responded. 'They just wanted to have a good time, maybe at the expense of someone else, but all the same they didn't do any harm that I know of. They were drinking people and that's about all they had on their mind'.

One suspects there may have been more to it than that, but Papa Charlie Jackson's 1924 'Salty Dog Blues' (DOCD-5087), which is where this song-line appears to begin, is more revealing. Jackson applies the term both to himself and to the woman he intermittently addresses. Perhaps it was a phrase in vogue that he simply threw into his refrain for non-specific colour.

At any rate, the Allens' Victor issue of 'A New Salty Dog' sold some 6500, a later Mongomery Ward did even better, and the Bluebird release must have gone into 5 figures for it stayed in catalogue until the 40s (assisted, it's true, by being coupled with the Delmore Brothers' much-loved 'Brown's Ferry Blues').

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Zeke and Home didn't record their version - 'Let Me Be Your Salty Dog' - until 1938.

The present home of JEMF is the University of North Carolina. You could try contacting the folklife library there re the Nelson article. The full reference is Donald Lee Nelson 'The Allen Brothers' JEMF Quarterly VII: 4, no 24 (Winter 1971).

I hope the above is of some use to you.

--Stewie.