Sylvester Weaver (July 25, 1897 – April 4, 1960)
was an American
blues guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six string instrument, strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or Plucked string instrument, plucking the strings with the dominant hand, w ...
player and a pioneer of
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 ...
.
He was the son of Walter and Mattie (nee Embers or Embry) Weaver. Walter Weaver's 1952 Kentucky death certificate indicates that he was born in
Port Gibson, Mississippi
Port Gibson is a city in Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,567 at the 2010 census. Port Gibson is the county seat of Claiborne County, which is bordered on the west by the Mississippi River. It is the site of the ...
. That area's economy was heavily agricultural, relying on African American labor to produce a profitable cotton crop. After Walter Weaver migrated to
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
, Port Gibson would play a role in the preservation and dissemination of a blues tradition indigenous to the
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazo ...
. This tradition, in the form in which Walter Weaver experienced it, likely was a foundation upon which Sylvester Weaver built his unique performance style.
Biography
Weaver recorded "Longing for Daddy Blues" and "I've Got to Go and Leave My Daddy Behind" with the blues singer
Sara Martin
Sara Martin (June 18, 1884 – May 24, 1955) was an American blues singer, in her time one of the most popular of the classic blues singers. She was billed as "The Famous Moanin' Mama" and "The Colored Sophie Tucker". She made many recordings, ...
, probably on October 24, 1923, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
Two weeks later, as a soloist, he recorded "Guitar Blues" and "Guitar Rag", the first blues guitar instrumentals.
Both
recordings were released by
Okeh Records
Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...
.
They are the first recorded country blues,
and the first known recordings of a bottleneck-style
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 that ...
.
"Guitar Rag" (played on a
Guitjo) became a blues classic. A
cover version recorded by
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in the 1930s as "Steel Guitar Rag", became a
country music standard.
Louisville city directories published between 1916 and 1930 indicate that Weaver, like his parents, lived most of his life in the
Smoketown neighborhood and that he supported his music career with employment in various blue-collar jobs. These directories list his occupation as porter (1916–1920), packer (1925), apartment janitor (1928), and chauffeur (1930). The 1938 directory suggests financial hardship during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion ...
; it indicates that Weaver was living with his parents. By 1949, he and his wife, Dorothy, had moved to a better neighborhood, near Cherokee Park, where they lived in a basement apartment, probably a modest accommodation. His move from Smoketown is roughly contemporaneous with the construction of the Sheppard Square housing project, so he and his parents may have been displaced when the project absorbed his Roselane Court and their Clay Street residences.
Weaver recorded about 50 more songs, sometimes accompanied by Sara Martin, until November 1927.
On some recordings from 1927 he was accompanied by Walter Beasley and the singer
Helen Humes
Helen Humes (June 23, 1913 – September 9, 1981) was an American singer. Humes was a teenage blues singer, a vocalist with Count Basie's band, a saucy R&B diva, and a mature interpreter of the classic popular song.
Early life
She was born on ...
.
Weaver often played his guitar in a
bottleneck
Bottleneck literally refers to the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle near its opening, which limit the rate of outflow, and may describe any object of a similar shape. The literal neck of a bottle was originally used to play what is now known as ...
style, using a knife as a slide.
His recordings were successful, but in 1927 he retired and went back to Louisville, where he lived until his death, on April 4, 1960,
from carcinoma of the tongue. A revival of interest in the recordings of many country blues artists occurred from the 1950s on, but Weaver died almost forgotten.
A complete collection of his recordings was released on two CDs in 1992.
In the same year his hitherto unmarked grave received a headstone by engagement of the
Kentuckiana Blues Society
The Kentuckiana Blues Society (KBS) is a U.S. non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and perpetuation of blues music, founded in 1988 and based in Louisville, Kentucky. The KBS is an affiliate member of the Blues Foundat ...
, based in Louisville. Since 1989, the society has presented its Sylvester Weaver Award annually to honor those who have rendered outstanding services to blues music.
Compilation albums
*''Complete Recorded Works Vol. 1 (1923–1927)'', 1992,
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 Bl ...
*''Complete Recorded Works Vol. 2 (1927)'', 1992, Document Records
References
Some of the content of this article comes from
the equivalent German-language Wikipedia article (retrieved August 10, 2006).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weaver, Sylvester
1897 births
1960 deaths
African-American guitarists
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Musicians from Louisville, Kentucky
Slide guitarists
Country blues musicians
Blues musicians from Kentucky
20th-century American guitarists
Guitarists from Kentucky
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century African-American musicians