Saturday, January 20, 2018

Dirty Blues Sunday #2 - Lucille Bogan

I found that Dirty Blues is a music genre all its own just poking around on the net last Sunday. And then I went looking for the music and songs. And I am finding such treasure.

Lucille Bogan 
April 1, 1897 – August 10, 1948

Mrs. Lucille Bogan is an American blues singer, among the first to be recorded. She also recorded under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson. She was born Lucille Anderson in Amory, Mississippi.

The music critic Ernest Borneman said Bogan was one of "the big three of the blues", along with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Reference: Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books. p. 94. List of songs written by Lucille Bogan. 

Released under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson. B.D. stands for bulldagger or bulldyke, colloquial terms of the era that meant lesbian. The term bulldyke has unfortunately survived to the present day among the sexually frightened.


Piggly Wiggly, the Southern grocery chain's imaginative name, becomes a pseudonym for brothel in sly Dirty Blues. Double entendre is the name of the game. We will be learning more together every Sunday. 


Banner Records - Song Recorded 3-5-1935 In Chicago, Illinois. Written by Lucille Bogan.


Last but not least, a song about marijuana. Great Grandpa and Grandma were not the old fogies you might think they were. Reefer Blues, Vintage Songs about Marijuana Volume 2. 



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