Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell: How Long-How Long Blues

Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell comprised one of the most influential musical partnerships in the history of the blues. Singer and pianist Carr teamed up with the brilliant guitarist Blackwell Carr was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1905. Blackwell was born in Syracuse, South Carolina, in 1903. After both men had worked for several years as accompanists for other performers, they formed a duo in 1928 and made their first recordings for Vocalion records that year.

The duo’s first recording, “How Long-How Long Blues,” was a smash hit and a million-seller that ushered in a more polished urban sound for blues recordings. The money that the duo made from the song allowed Scrapper Blackwell to quit his bootlegging activities, but provided Leroy Carr with the means to exacerbate his already serious alcoholism.

Carr and Blackwell recorded several more classic sides between 1928 and 1935, including “Midnight Hour Blues,” “Mean Mistreater Mama,” “Blues before Sunrise,” and the song that seemed to foretell Carr’s early demise, “Six Cold Feet in the Ground.”

By 1935, Carr’s drinking had resulted in kidney failure and entire recording sessions were scrapped as a result. Carr died later that year of nephritis at the age of thirty.

Carr and Blackwell’s classic sides can be found on the following compilation albums: “Blues before Sunrise” (1962), “(1929-1935)” (2000), and “Naptown Blues” (1996),