Tampa Red

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Tampa Red

1904(?)-1981

Blues vocalist, musician

Although his name is rarely mentioned today among the pantheon of blues greats, Tampa Red was one of the most influential musicians in the history of the blues. He was one of the first bluesmen to migrate to Chicago, and he played a key role in the city's blues music scene for many years. "It's Tight Like That" and his other entertaining "hokum"-style hits recorded with pianist "Georgia Tom" Dorsey were important milestones in the transformation of the blues from a rural folk music to a form of modern urban entertainment. And he was the first African-American musician to record using a resonator-type Hawaiian steel guitar, introducing a new musical vocabulary to blues instrumental work. Tampa Red's importance was recognized by African-American audiences in his own time—he recorded some 335 78 rpm records, more than any other blues artist. Reissues have helped illuminate his recorded legacy, but he remains a blues artist ripe for rediscovery.

Tampa Red was born Hudson Woodbridge in Smithville, Georgia, probably on January 8, 1904; he himself gave various birthdates to investigators. His parents, John and Elizabeth Woodbridge, died when he was young, and he and his brother Eddie were sent to live with a grandmother with a surname of Whittaker in Tampa, Florida. He took her family name for official purposes. The nickname that stuck once he went on the road came from the city of his upbringing combined with his light skin or the red hair some recalled (surviving black-and-white photographs seem to show him with dark hair). Tampa Red had his first lessons on the guitar from his brother, a local performer, and he picked up some pointers from a street musician named Piccolo Pete.

When blues recordings by Mamie Smith and Gertrude "Ma" Rainey began to hit the market in the early 1920s, Tampa Red, who could play guitar, piano, and kazoo, added more licks to his style and began to play in honky-tonks around Florida, going as far afield as St. Augustine. By the mid-1920s he had moved north to Chicago, anticipating a massive migration of blues musicians to the city's South Side. Soon he was performing on the streets and in the new bars that were springing up to serve blacks who had found work in Chicago's rail yards, slaughterhouses, and steel mills. He met another musician from the Southeast, pianist Tom Dorsey (unconnected with bandleader Tommy Dorsey), who called himself Georgia Tom. Dorsey had begun accompanying Rainey and other female blues artists on recordings, and he steered similar work toward Tampa Red.

In 1928 the pair was signed to the Paramount label by its canny talent scout, J. Mayo Williams, and the two immediately hit paydirt with the 78 rpm single "It's Tight Like That." The sound of the recording was something new in the world of the blues, distinct from either the raw emotion of the rural Southern guitar blues or the regal power of Bessie Smith and the other queens of the urban stage. Tampa Red's vocals were smooth, sly, and almost half-spoken as he rendered the song's mildly raunchy lyrics, put together from a slang expression of the day and bits of various earlier blues songs.

The record reputedly sold five million copies, and between 1928 and 1932 Tampa Red and Georgia Tom frequently toured and reentered the studio to record similar material such as "Sellin' That Stuff" and "No Matter How She Done It." The upbeat new style soon had its own name, hokum, and the pair sometimes recorded under the name of the Hokum Boys. Tampa Red himself enjoyed a varied performing and recording career, sometimes using other names such as Jimmy Eager or Honey Boy Smith. Some called him, "the guitar wizard," and blues historian Gérard Herzhaft opined in the Encyclopedia of the Blues that "when one listens again to his best recordings of 1928, their modernism is striking." His National-brand steel guitar was as influential as his vocals, and a host of other bluesmen, including Son House, Bukka (Booker) White, Bo Carter, Blind Boy Fuller (Fulton Allen), Peetie Wheatstraw, and Scrapper (Francis Hillman) Blackwell, took up the instrument in the wake of his success.

Recording companies slashed their release schedules during the economic depression of the early 1930s, putting an end to the high-flying career of Tampa Red and Georgia Tom. Dorsey, in the wake of personal tragedy, renounced secular music and went on to a gospel career as Thomas A. Dorsey, composing "Peace in the Valley," "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," and other classic religious numbers. But Tampa Red bounced back in the blues field, signing with the budget-priced Bluebird label in 1934. With black record buyers suffering the effects of the depression, Tampa Red's 35-cent Bluebird discs (as opposed to 75 cents for a mainline RCA-label release) caught on fast. He branched out from straight blues, such as his standard "Anna Lou Blues," into swing, boogie, and other related styles.

Settling into a durable gig at Chicago's C&T Club in the late 1930s, Tampa Red played in various combinations with guitarist Big Bill Broonzy and pianist Big Maceo (Maceo Merriweather), among other up-and-coming blues musicians. The home of Tampa Red and his wife, Frances (for many years located near the corner of State and 35th streets in the heart of the South Side), was a frequent stop for aspiring blues musicians, especially because of his friendship with key blues producer Lester Melrose; the house also served as temporary lodging and rehearsal space for the up-and-comers who made Chicago blues a household phrase.

Tampa Red's popularity flowered anew after World War II as he worked with a new generation of young players, including pianist Sunnyland Slim (Albert Luandrew), at such clubs as the Purple Cat. In 1945 he signed with the RCA Victor label, an association that lasted through 1953. A new wave of influence from Tampa Red spread through the blues repertory as his 1949 hit "When Things Go Wrong for You (It Hurts Me Too)," a harbinger of a new emotional complexity in the blues, was famously covered by guitarist Elmore James. Other rising stars, including B.B. King and Robert Nighthawk, also covered Tampa Red's songs.

In 1953 Tampa Red's wife, Frances, died. He was hit hard emotionally, and his career suffered—she had also served as his business manager. His struggles with alcohol worsened, and several times in the late 1950s he was hospitalized several times. In the early 1960s he reemerged with a trio of albums on Chicago's Bluesville label, but the polish that had propelled his career for so long worked against him in the authenticity-prizing musical atmosphere of the 1960s. Living on the South Side, he eventually drifted out of music completely, and in 1974 he was placed in Chicago's Sacred Heart Nursing Home. He died penniless on March 19, 1981, in Chicago, and was buried in nearby Glenwood. Posthumous honors included induction into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and reissue of his complete recordings on Austria's Document label, but his contributions to the blues tradition remain imperfectly understood.

At a Glance …

Born Hudson Woodbridge on January 8, 1904 (an approximate date, as Woodbridge offered various dates) in Smithville, GA; married Frances; died on March, 19, 1981, in Chicago, IL.

Career: Street and club musician, Chicago, mid-1920s; teamed with Tom Dorsey as Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, 1928; Paramount label, recording artist, 1928; Vocalion label, recording artist, 1928-32; Bluebird label, recording artist, 1934; RCA Victor label, recording artist, 1945; odds jobs mostly outside of music industry, 1953-60; Bluesville label, recording artist, 1960.

Awards: Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, inducted 1981.