Biography
Little is documented regarding One String Sam, the singular street performer who entered Joe’s Record Shop on Detroit’s Hastings Street during 1956 and cut the singular pair “I Need a Hundred Dollars” and “My Baby Ooo.” Both selections were captured on a homemade, fretless one-string device—a length of piano wire fastened between nails on a wooden plank and fitted with an electric-guitar pickup—that functioned as a diddley bow. Sam Wilson, the musician’s given name, stopped the wire with a baby-food jar; positioning the same jar beside the vocal microphone produced an impromptu echo. The resulting sound was an unsettling, magnetic strain of country blues. After busking on Detroit sidewalks for several years, he disappeared from view until 1973, when he was located in nearby Inkster and invited to the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival. There he performed “I Need a Hundred Dollars” and “I Got to Go,” only to recede once more from the historical record. His complete discography comprises the two 1956 sides—first issued on JVB Records and later included on Document’s Rural Blues, Vol. 1—together with the two festival recordings that appear on Motor City Blues, released by Total Energy Records in 1998.