Sam Collins (possibly August 11, 1887possibly October 20, 1949), sometimes known as Crying Sam Collins, was an early American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

singer and guitarist. His style has been described as "South Mississippi", rather than

Delta blues Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the s ...

and "The Jail House Blues" is his best-known recording.

Biography

Collins was born in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and grew up in

McComb, Mississippi McComb is a city in Pike County, Mississippi, United States. The city is approximately south of Jackson. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 12,790. It is the principal city of the McComb, Mississippi Micropolitan Statist ...

, just across the state line. By 1924, he was performing in local barrelhouses, often with King Solomon Hill; both of them sang

falsetto ''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous ed ...

parts and played

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...

. Collins's first recording in 1927 was "Yellow Dog Blues", made for

Gennett Records Gennett (pronounced "jennett") was an American record company and label in Richmond, Indiana, United States, which flourished in the 1920s. Gennett produced some of the earliest recordings by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, and H ...

and recorded in

Richmond, Indiana Richmond is a city in eastern Wayne County, Indiana. Bordering the state of Ohio, it is the county seat of Wayne County and is part of the Dayton, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 36,812. Situa ...

. His bottleneck guitar was referred to as a "git-fiddle" on record labels of the time, and blues historian Robert Palmer noted that his guitar "seemed to literally weep". Collins recorded again in 1931; some of his later recordings appeared under different pseudonyms, such as Jim Foster, Jelly Roll Hunter, Big Boy Woods, Bunny Carter, and Salty Dog Sam. His rural bottleneck guitar pieces were among the first to be compiled on LP. In the late 1930s, Collins relocated to Chicago, where he died from heart disease in October 1949, at the age of 62.

Discography

Compilations

*''14 Rare Country Blues by Sam Collins & 2 Surprises by King Solomon Hill'' (Origin Jazz Library, 1965) *''Jailhouse Blues'' (Yazoo, 1990) *''King of the Blues Vol. 11'' (P-Vine, 1992) *''Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order 1927–1931'' (Document, 1992)

Songs

1927, Richmond, Indiana * "The Jailhouse Blues" * "I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart" * "Yellow Dog Blues" * "Loving Lady Blues" * "Riverside Blues" * "Devil in the Lion's Den" * "Dark Cloudy Blues" * "Pork Chop Blues" * "Lead Me All the Way" * "Midnight Special Blues" * "Do That Thing" * "Hesitation Blues" * "It Won't Be Long Now" * "The Worried Man Blues" * "The Moanin' Blues" 1931, New York City * "Lonesome Road Blues" * "Slow Mama Slow" * "My Road Is Rough and Rocky" * "New Salty Dog" * "Graveyard Digger's Blues" * "Signifying Blues" * "I'm Still Sitting on Top of the World"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Sam African-American guitarists American blues guitarists American male guitarists American blues singers Gennett Records artists Singers from Chicago Singers from Louisiana People from McComb, Mississippi Guitarists from Chicago Guitarists from Louisiana 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century African-American male singers