Biography
Among the rarest aggregations in country blues, this ensemble bore a handle that might have been dreamed up by an announcer introducing an old-time string band on the earliest Grand Ole Opry broadcasts. Its sides appeared on Atlanta’s QRS imprint and gathered several of the city’s strongest country blues performers, musicians who more often pooled their talents while busking on sidewalks than inside any recording studio. Robert Hicks, widely known as Barbecue Bob, brought his brother Charlie Hicks into the lineup, which also featured two exceptional harmonica specialists, Eddie Mapp and Buddy Moss; the latter artist additionally cut tracks as guitarist and singer. Ace blues guitarist Curley Weaver completed the roster. Their output later resurfaced on the Document label’s Georgia Blues anthology. Contemporary listeners responded favorably within limits, yet QRS suffered from weak national reach, and the sessions ranked among the final blues dates captured before the Depression effectively ended most such activity. Membership suffered a severe blow in 1931 when, inside a single month, Barbecue Bob died suddenly and Eddie Mapp was fatally stabbed on a street corner. Because the name itself seemed better suited to country music, another Georgia Cotton Pickers formed in the following decade, this time a country outfit directed by Paul Howard whose principal distinction lay in the presence of guitarist Hank Garland, one of the scant few instrumentalists equally assured in country and jazz settings.