Jesse "Monkey Joe" Coleman (January 26, 1906 - November 16, 1967)
was an American
country blues
Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...
pianist and singer, who recorded sporadically from the 1930s into the 1970s.
Coleman was born in
Shelby County, Tennessee. He worked locally in
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, along with Raymond. The city had a population of 153,701 at t ...
in
juke joint
Juke joint (also jukejoint, jook house, jook, or juke) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. A juke joint ...
s in the 1930s, and recorded with
Little Brother Montgomery
Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery (April 18, 1906 – September 6, 1985) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communi ...
in 1935 on
Bluebird Records
Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...
.
He began using the
moniker "Monkey Joe" during that decade. Late in the 1930s he worked as a
session musician for
Lester Melrose
Lester Franklin Melrose (December 14, 1891 – April 12, 1968) was a talent scout who was one of the first American producers of Chicago blues records.
Career
Lester Franklin Melrose was born in Sumner, Illinois, the second of six children ...
, and recorded under his own name with
Charlie McCoy
Charles Ray McCoy (born March 28, 1941) is a Grammy-winning American session musician, harmonica player, and multi-instrumentalist. In 2009, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Based in Nashville, McCoy's playing is heard on r ...
,
Fred Williams,
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy (born Lee Conley Bradley; June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African American audiences. In the 1930s ...
, and
Buster Bennett
James Joseph "Buster" Bennett (March 19, 1914 – July 3, 1980) was an American blues saxophonist and blues shouter. His nickname was "Leap Frog". At various times in his career, he played the soprano saxophone, the alto, and the tenor. H ...
as backing musicians. Coleman also appears to have worked under several other names, such as "Jack Newman" at
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is an American record company and label.
History
The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...
and "George Jefferson" as an accompanist on recordings for
Lulu Scott. He also recorded on
Okeh Records for a time.
Little is known of Coleman's whereabouts, aside from recording credits, from before the 1960s. He worked often in
Chicago blues
Chicago blues is a form of blues music developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth cent ...
clubs in the 1960s, and he became the subject of some interest due to the blues revival in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He worked again with Little Brother Montgomery in the 1970s on an album entitled ''Crescent City Blues''.
His date of death is unknown.
Document Records
Document Records is an independent record label, founded in Austria and now based in Scotland, that specializes in reissuing vintage blues and jazz. The company has been recognised by The Blues Foundation, being honoured with a Keeping the ...
released a two-volume CD set of Monkey Joe's works in 1996.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joe, Monkey
Year of death unknown
Blues musicians from Mississippi
American blues pianists
American male pianists
American blues singers
Singers from Mississippi
Country blues musicians
1906 births