ARTHUR "Big Boy" CRUDUP *Blues 78 RCA VICTOR #20-2659
  $   55

 


$ 55 Sold For
Jan 13, 2009 Sold Date
Jan 6, 2009 Start Date
$   20 Start price
13   Number Of Bids
  USA Country Of Seller
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Description

What a great ARTHUR "BIG BOY" CRUDUP blues 78. On the RCA VICTOR Record label. The record # is: 20-2659 and features the hit song "Mean Old Frisco Blues" on Side a.) and on Side b.) is: "I'm In The Mood". The record is in Flawless condition. I would grade this at E to E+ Condition (visually & play graded). There are no scratches. No graying areas. It still maintains a beautiful high gloss finish. The labels are in Mint condition, with no writing, stickers or any wear. There are no edge chips. I have just made a major purchase of ultra rare rock, jazz & blues albums! They were from Radio Station Promotion Manager Lester "Len" Miller and are from his personal collection.

Born in Forest, Mississippi and living and working in throughout the South and Midwest as a migrant worker for a time, he and his family returned to Mississippi in 1926. He sang gospel, then began his career as a blues singer around Clarksdale, Mississippi. He visited Chicago as member of the Harmonizing Four in 1939 and stayed there to work as a solo musician, but barely made a living as a street singer. Record producer, Lester Melrose allegedly found him while he was living in a packing crate, introduced him to Tampa Red and signed him to a recording contract with RCA Victor's Bluebird label.

He recorded with RCA in the late 1940s and with Ace Records, Checker Records and Trumpet Records in the early 1950s and toured throughout the country, specifically Black establshments in the South, with Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James (around 1948). He also recorded under the names Elmer James and Percy Lee Crudup.

Crudup stopped recording in the 1950s, however, after further battles over royalties. His last Chicago session was in 1951, his 1952-54 recording sessions for Victor were held at radio station WGST in Atlanta. He returned to recording with Fire Records and Delmark Records and touring in the 1960s, sometimes labeled "The Father of Rock and Roll", a title which he accepted with some bemusement. Throughout this time Crudup worked as a laborer to augment the small wages he received as a singer and non-existent royalties. Crudup returned to Mississippi after a dispute with Melrose over royalties, then went into bootlegging, and later moved to Virginia where he had lived and worked as a musician and laborer. In the early 1970s, two local Virginia activists, Celia Santiago and Margaret Carter, both assisted him in attempting to gain royalties he felt he were due, to little gain.

From the mid 1960s, Crudup returned to bootlegging and working as an agricultural laborer, chiefly in Virginia, where he lived with his family including three sons and several of his own siblings. On the Eastern Shore of Virginia, while he lived in relative poverty as a field laborer, he occasionally sang and supplied moonshine to a number of drinking establishments, including one called the Dew Drop Inn, in Accomack County for some time prior to his eventual death, due to complications from heart disease and diabetes.

There was some confusion as to his actual date of death because of his use of several names, including those of his siblings. He died in the Nassawadox hospital in Northampton County, Virginia in 1976.

It's time to for this old collector to empty the vaults if you will!! I Am Selling Most Of My Sealed and Autographed Albums. Most Are From My Very Own Personal Collection Which I Have Saved and Stored Very Carefully For A Long Time. So Check Back Often As I Will Be Selling Most Of My 70's & 80"s Autographs In The Coming Months. It's All Going!

What A Great Addition To Any Serious "Classic Rock" Collection.




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