Biography
Johnny Watson was the birth name of Daddy Stovepipe, who also answered to the names Jimmy Watson and the Rev. Alfred Pitts across his extended lifetime. Mobile, Alabama, welcomed him into the world in 1867, positioning him as possibly the earliest-born blues artist ever to commit performances to disc. Around 1900 his professional path opened in Mexico, where he played twelve-string guitar inside the first mariachi ensembles. He later secured steady work as a performer with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, the roaming southern tent show that likewise launched the careers of Ma Rainey, Jaybird Coleman, Brownie McGhee, Louis Jordan, Jim Jackson, and additional artists. Once he adopted the format of a one-man band, Daddy Stovepipe traveled as a street musician whose activities centered on Chicago’s Maxwell Street. On 10 May 1924 he traveled to Richmond, Indiana, and produced the initial pair of the sixteen sides he would cut during the 78-rpm period; among them, “Sundown Blues” stands out for its primitive character and its jaunty 6/8 meter. Gennett’s mobile crew captured him again in July 1927, this time in Birmingham, Alabama, alongside an otherwise undocumented whistler billed as Whistlin’ Pete; the resulting titles appeared under the pseudonym Sunny Jim and Whistlin’ Joe.
ARC’s mobile unit documented Daddy Stovepipe once more in Chicago in 1931 for Vocalion’s race series, now accompanied by Mississippi Sarah—Sarah Watson in private life and Mrs. Daddy Stovepipe. An able singer and skilled jug player, she traded humorous remarks with her husband across the dozen recordings they completed together; eight of those titles originated in Chicago in 1931, while the remaining four were made for Bluebird in 1935. The couple thereafter retired to Greenville, Mississippi, where Daddy Stovepipe took non-musical employment until Sarah Watson’s sudden death in 1937 returned him to the road. Subsequent travels took him through the American Southwest and Mexico; during the 1940s he performed with zydeco groups in Louisiana and Texas, and by 1948 he had returned to Maxwell Street, the site of his rediscovery. He stepped in front of a microphone once more in 1960 to record versions of “Tennessee Waltz” and the jump number “Monkey and the Baboon,” by which time he had reached the age of ninety-three and no longer sounded at his peak. Three years afterward, complications from gall-bladder surgery—bronchial pneumonia—ended his life; born at the outset of Reconstruction, he died in the same month as President John F. Kennedy.
Johnny “Daddy Stovepipe” Watson must be distinguished from Cincinnati one-man-band Sam Jones, who recorded as Stovepipe No. 1, and from McKinley Peebles, who recorded as Sweet Papa Stovepipe.
ARC’s mobile unit documented Daddy Stovepipe once more in Chicago in 1931 for Vocalion’s race series, now accompanied by Mississippi Sarah—Sarah Watson in private life and Mrs. Daddy Stovepipe. An able singer and skilled jug player, she traded humorous remarks with her husband across the dozen recordings they completed together; eight of those titles originated in Chicago in 1931, while the remaining four were made for Bluebird in 1935. The couple thereafter retired to Greenville, Mississippi, where Daddy Stovepipe took non-musical employment until Sarah Watson’s sudden death in 1937 returned him to the road. Subsequent travels took him through the American Southwest and Mexico; during the 1940s he performed with zydeco groups in Louisiana and Texas, and by 1948 he had returned to Maxwell Street, the site of his rediscovery. He stepped in front of a microphone once more in 1960 to record versions of “Tennessee Waltz” and the jump number “Monkey and the Baboon,” by which time he had reached the age of ninety-three and no longer sounded at his peak. Three years afterward, complications from gall-bladder surgery—bronchial pneumonia—ended his life; born at the outset of Reconstruction, he died in the same month as President John F. Kennedy.
Johnny “Daddy Stovepipe” Watson must be distinguished from Cincinnati one-man-band Sam Jones, who recorded as Stovepipe No. 1, and from McKinley Peebles, who recorded as Sweet Papa Stovepipe.