Lyr Add: The Songs of Jack Neville

Subject: Lyr Add: The Songs of Jack Neville
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Apr 19 - 02:18 PM

Father of the Mississippi Delta Blues???

Exploring the prehistory of the Delta blues myth and finding the label much older and not particularly bluesy by mythical metrics:

All with Jimmie Rodgers:

Jimmie The Kid (Parts of the Life of Rodgers)
Lyr Add: MISSISSIPPI DELTA BLUES (Neville, Rodgers)
Mother, Queen Of My Heart
Lyr Req: Sweet Mama Hurry Home (Jimmie Rodgers)
What's It?

Couldn't find the other two on the first pass. More to follow:

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Songs of Jack Neville
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Apr 19 - 02:20 PM

The various Jimmie Rodgers sources all reference:

Offbeat Ex-Bookie, Showman, Now 86, Recalls Good, Bad Old Days
[By Sam Kindrick]

It was a raw and blustery afternoon and old Jack Neville was wearing an overcoat as he worked his way slowly toward the Coffee Break Lounge on Alamo Street. "My bones are chilled," Jack grinned, tapping his walking stick on the curbing. "I've been mighty sick, and I just cant take the cold anymore." Jack wasn't on a coffee break, but he proved amenable to the idea of entering the tavern for a short beer and a long talk about the good old days and the bad old days. The big fellow with the gap-toothed smile was 6-feet-l when he booked horse bets out of his hat band and hopped all over the country with his "Mimic Whirl" vaudeville show. A total of 86 summers have bent him to an even 6 feet, but the years have done nothing to dim his keen wit and acute memory.

FUMBLING IN HIS coat pocket, Jack produced a yellowed clipping from a 1919 New York newspaper. The article was about Neville's black face comedy routine, titled "Somewhere in the Frozen North." It went on to note that a kid known as Ben Benny was appearing on the same bill. "That was Jack Benny," Neville said. "He worked under the name of Ben at that time." Neville came here from Connecticut when he was two years old. He started his comedy routine after the Spanish American War, traveled through every state in the union with 42 actors and dancers, then shut down the show in 1933.

WHEN ALAMO DOWNS was flourishing here, Jack was one of the biggest bookmakers in San Antonio. "The town was wide open then," he recalls. "I kept all of my bet records inside my hat band. Booked a lot of horse races and prize fights in those days, but no football. The sport wasn't popular enough then." Venerable Jack, who now lives on Social Security in the Worth Hotel, was once contacted by a New York agent to write songs for a singing brakeman known as Jimmy Rogers. Jack hailed the waitress and went on: "I wrote 'Jimmy The Kid' for him, 'When The Cactus Are In Bloom,' 'What's It,' and 'The Mississippi Delta Blues,' which was the last song he did before he died."

AL GEORGES, OWNER of the Esquire Lounge here and an avid fan of Rodgers, dusted off some of his old platters to confirm that Neville's name was right there with the blue yodeler's. An avid sports fan, Jack now spends his time watching football on television, but says he takes no more bets. As for show business, he says it's a lost art. “There's no way to train an actor now,” he said. “I wouldn't watch these TV shows they bill as variety programs. When vaudeville died, the variety died with it They can't sing, they can't dance and their comedy routines are about as funny as the stock market crash.” Old Jack's only wife died more than 50 years ago. He has no children, but claims that he is never lonely.

“I'M NOT A religious man,” he said, “but I know Someone up there has had his arm around me. I can read without eye glasses, and I reckon my health is just fine considering I'm 86. I've even got some of my teeth left.” Digging deep in his wallet, Neville produced a withered photograph of a tall, handsome fellow standing with a large group of people around a long 1930 Studebaker bus. “That's me in the middle.” he said. “The others are the cast of Jack Neville's Mimic Whirl Road Show.” It must have been a pretty good outfit, because Jack lost a cool $147,000 when the old City Central Bank of San Antonio went busted and closed down during the depression. “Wiped me out,” Jack said, lighting a cigarette and sipping on his beer. “I've got more friends than money, and I'll take the friends any old day.”
[San Antonio Express-News, Sunday, 17 Nov. 1968, p.96]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Songs of Jack Neville
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Apr 19 - 02:22 PM

“The article was about Neville's black face comedy routine, titled "Somewhere in the Frozen North."”
[ibid]

It ran for so long it evolved from ship to aeroship to airplane. In 1921 a copyright for New York to Nome a blackface comedy novelty based on the U.S. aero flight to Alaska” was issued to Jackson Clifford Neville of New York.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Songs of Jack Neville
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Apr 19 - 09:27 AM

Jimmie The Kid (Parts Of The Life Of Rodgers)
(Rodgers-Neville)

I'll [G] tell you a story of JIMMIE THE KID
He's a [C] brakeman you all [G] know
He was [C] born in Mississippi, a-[G] way down [Em] south
And he [A7] flagged on the [D7] T. and N. [G] O.

He yodeled to fame on the Boston Main
The Wabash and the T. P.
>From the old Grand Trunk to the cotton belt
He yodeled on the Santa Fe.

YODEL (G/D7/G)

On the Lehigh Valley, he yodeled awhile
Then he went to the Nickel Plate
>From the old Lake Shore and the Erie Line
He yodeled to a Cadillac Eight.

YODEL (G/D7/G)

He yodeled his way to the C. & A.
The Lackawanna and I. C.
He rode a rattler called the Cannon Ball
Then he yodeled on the M. K. & T.

YODEL (G/D7/G)

Now the story goes that JIMMIE THE KID
Has a yodeling mama so sweet
They go "Cadillac-ing" every night
And they yodel up and down the street.

YODEL (G/D7/G)

He rode freight trains from East to West
He's fixed himself up nice
He's got a beautiful home, all of his own
It's the yodeler's paradise.

YODEL (G/D7/G)

They've treated him good, they've treated him bad
He never done any wrong
He yodels a yodel that ever'body knows
Is the yodeling brakeman's song.

YODEL (G/D7/G)

SOURCE: The Legendary Jimmie Rodgers; Vol. 1
[From: Cowboylyrics.com ]

Victor ?23549, 10", 78rpm, 1931, Side B, (recorded 31 January 1931, Texas Hotel, San Antonio, TX)
Uncredited:
Bass - Mike Cordova
Guitar - M.T. Salazar
Steel Guitar- Charles Kama

YT: Jimmie Rodgers

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Songs of Jack Neville
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 07:43 PM

What's It?*
(J.Rodgers – J.Neville)

I've got a gal, oh what a gal!
She weighs two hundred pounds;
But she is just my kinda gal,
The best one I have found.

Can she pet? Oh how she pets!
Why, each night in the park
I take my corn-fed momma out,
And neck where it is dark.

Oh, she takes a little whatsit where she goes,
Her little funny whatsit always shows.
But when she struts down the street,
Her little whatsit can't be beat.
'Cause she's not too fat, she's not too thin,
But where she sticks out she should cave in.

She takes a little whatsit where she goes,
And her whatsit never grows.
But when she struts right down the street,
Her little whatsit can't be beat.
But she's my gal, my dog-faced gal,
From Nashville, Tennessee.

[yodel]

Oh she has feet, and oh what feet!
She wears a number nine.
Her feet are big and she is strong,
This dog-faced gal of mine;
And when we walk, we always go
To places she likes best.
I walk awhile, then she sets down
To let her whatsit rest.

Oh, she takes a little whatsit where she goes,
Her little whatsit never grows.
When she struts right down the street,
Her little whatsit can't be beat.
But she's my gal, my dog-faced gal,
From Nashville, Tennessee.

[yodel]

Transcribed from: YT: Jimmie Rodgers, Whats It, 1930

Victor 23609, 10", 78rpm, Side A, 4 Dec., 1931, (recorded 15 June 1931, Louisville, KY)
Uncredited, piano: Ruth Ann Moore

*Rodgers is supposed to have retitled Neville's original (My) Dog-Faced Gal but I haven't found the older one in the usual sources.