Biography
The Allen Brothers—consisting of Lee and his elder sibling Austin—ranked among the earliest sibling acts to gain traction as the 1920s gave way to the 1930s. Their repertoire featured brisk, high-spirited numbers shaped by both blues and old-time traditions, delivered with bawdy exuberance, wry wit, and Lee’s signature kazoo flourishes. This approach yielded a blues-rooted style that stood apart from the prevailing country-blues model established by Jimmie Rodgers. Between 1926 and 1934 the duo, often billed as the “Chattanooga Boys,” committed 89 titles to disc and scored multiple successes.
Born five years apart near the turn of the century on Monteagle Mountain some fifty miles north of Chattanooga, the pair grew up with a sawyer father and a mother who played violin. Their early years exposed them to a mix of current and vernacular sounds. By roughly 1923 they were working the regional circuit, drawing strong audiences in remote coal camps. While on the road they gathered local traditional pieces; soon afterward they began composing original material that referenced their mountain surroundings and the Chattanooga vicinity. Along the way they immersed themselves in blues—frequently the variant laced with sexual innuendo—more deeply than any later brother act would manage. Their first Columbia session took place in 1926 and yielded “Bow Wow Blues,” a reworking of “Salty Dog Blues” that enjoyed solid sales. When the label placed the follow-up “Laughin’ and Cryin’ Blues” in its 14,000 “Race” series rather than the 15,000 “Old-Time” series, the brothers objected strenuously and threatened legal action unless the discs were withdrawn. The misclassification may have been inadvertent, for certain Allen recordings bore a close resemblance to those of small Southeastern African-American hokum groups. The pair subsequently signed with Victor, where they encountered Ralph Peer, already capitalizing on Jimmie Rodgers’s success and eager to explore additional white blues talent. Although their live sets mixed fast and slow numbers, Peer pressed them to record only the former; they stayed with the label through 1933 anyway, producing such successes as “Skippin’ and Flyin’” (1928) and “Jake Walk Blues” (1930), the latter inspired by that year’s widely reported Jamaican-ginger poisoning outbreak.
Even as the Depression deepened, the Allens kept recording, yet steady popularity proved insufficient to sustain their households. In 1933 Austin relocated with his family to New York and took up radio announcing, while Lee remained in Tennessee and found work in construction. The brothers reunited briefly for a stage production titled Bushwhacker and attempted one last commercial venture with a 1934 ARC session that revisited earlier hits. Those sides failed to generate enough interest to lure them back into music full time. Austin later worked as a construction engineer and died in Williamston, South Carolina, in 1959. Rediscovery arrived in the late 1960s, prompting several LP reissues of their 78s and coaxing Lee back onstage for occasional local appearances around his Lebanon, Tennessee, home until his death in 1981. The brothers’ complete recorded output finally appeared on three compact discs issued by Austria’s Document label during the 1990s.
Born five years apart near the turn of the century on Monteagle Mountain some fifty miles north of Chattanooga, the pair grew up with a sawyer father and a mother who played violin. Their early years exposed them to a mix of current and vernacular sounds. By roughly 1923 they were working the regional circuit, drawing strong audiences in remote coal camps. While on the road they gathered local traditional pieces; soon afterward they began composing original material that referenced their mountain surroundings and the Chattanooga vicinity. Along the way they immersed themselves in blues—frequently the variant laced with sexual innuendo—more deeply than any later brother act would manage. Their first Columbia session took place in 1926 and yielded “Bow Wow Blues,” a reworking of “Salty Dog Blues” that enjoyed solid sales. When the label placed the follow-up “Laughin’ and Cryin’ Blues” in its 14,000 “Race” series rather than the 15,000 “Old-Time” series, the brothers objected strenuously and threatened legal action unless the discs were withdrawn. The misclassification may have been inadvertent, for certain Allen recordings bore a close resemblance to those of small Southeastern African-American hokum groups. The pair subsequently signed with Victor, where they encountered Ralph Peer, already capitalizing on Jimmie Rodgers’s success and eager to explore additional white blues talent. Although their live sets mixed fast and slow numbers, Peer pressed them to record only the former; they stayed with the label through 1933 anyway, producing such successes as “Skippin’ and Flyin’” (1928) and “Jake Walk Blues” (1930), the latter inspired by that year’s widely reported Jamaican-ginger poisoning outbreak.
Even as the Depression deepened, the Allens kept recording, yet steady popularity proved insufficient to sustain their households. In 1933 Austin relocated with his family to New York and took up radio announcing, while Lee remained in Tennessee and found work in construction. The brothers reunited briefly for a stage production titled Bushwhacker and attempted one last commercial venture with a 1934 ARC session that revisited earlier hits. Those sides failed to generate enough interest to lure them back into music full time. Austin later worked as a construction engineer and died in Williamston, South Carolina, in 1959. Rediscovery arrived in the late 1960s, prompting several LP reissues of their 78s and coaxing Lee back onstage for occasional local appearances around his Lebanon, Tennessee, home until his death in 1981. The brothers’ complete recorded output finally appeared on three compact discs issued by Austria’s Document label during the 1990s.
Albums
