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Roosevelt Sykes – Raining In My Heart
Delmark DE 642 – [United Series]
Compact Disc (1987)

Roosevelt Sykes was a primary creator of the modern blues piano style, a tremendous singer/songwriter and master entertainer. Sykes recorded his first record, “44 Blues”, for Okeh in 1929. Its success elevated Sykes’ popularity and he recorded continuously until 1954, once by four different record companies under four different names. Sykes is also best remembered for his songs “Nighttime Is The Right Time” and “Driving Wheel”. Raining In My Heart is the first album to contain all the songs Sykes recorded for the United label.

Roosevelt Sykes
Raining In My Heart
Delmark DE-642

*1. Fine And Brown (alternate) (1001-1) 2:55
2. Lucky Blues (1002-1) 2:40
3. Raining In My Heart (1003-5) 3:00
4. Heavy Heart (1004-2) 2:36
5. 4:00 Blues (1129-12) 3:04
6. Too Hot To Handle (Hot Boogie) (1130-9) 2:48
7. Tell Me True (1293-7) 3:09
8. Ruthie Lee (1292-3) 2:31
9. Something Like That (1131-4) 2:58
10. Security Blues (1132-3) 2:45
11. Boogie Sykes (1295-3) 2:31
12. Listen To My Song (She’s The One For Me) (1133-17) 2:21
13. Toy Piano Blues (1131-9) 3:01
*14. Been Through The Mill (1291-1) 2:49
15. Walkin’ This Boogie (1128-4) 2:25
+16. Come Back Baby (1290-3) 2:36
*17. 44 Blues (1294-5) 3:07
*18. 4:00 Blues (alternate) (1129-4) 2:55
19. Fine And Brown (1001-2) 2:52
*20. Listen To My Song (She’s The One For Me) (alternate) (1133-2) 2:38

*previously unissued
+unavailable since the original 78 rpm issue

Roosevelt Sykes, vocals, piano
except 13 where he plays celeste
accompanied by:
1001 - 1004: Robert "Sax" Crowder, tenor sax; Oett "Sax" Mallard, alto sax; Ransom Knowling, bass; Jump Jackson, drums. Possibly Robert Nighthawk, guitar
July 12, 1951

1128 - 1133: Remo Biondi, violin; John "Schoolboy" Porter, guitar; Ransom Knowling, bass; probably Jump Jackson, drums; unknown vocal group on 1132 and 1133.
August 21, 1952

1290 - 1295: J.T. Brown, tenor sax; unknown, guitar; Ernest "Big" Crawford, bass; Fred Below, drums.
March 19, 1953

Recorded at Universal Recording Studios, Chicago

Sykes was indeed a master entertainer, but more importantly, he was a primary creator of the blues piano style. Sykes recorded his first record, "44 Blues," for Okeh, a subsidiary of Columbia in 1929. The success of "44 Blues" elevated Sykes’ popularity with black audiences and he managed to be recorded continuously during the Depression years. From 1930 to 1935, he recorded for four different record companies under four different names. Sykes is also best remembered for his songs "Nighttime Is The Right Time" and "Driving Wheel." This CD is the first album to contain all the songs Sykes recorded for the United label.

United Records was the first successful black-owned record company. Operated by Leonard Allen, tailor, retired policeman and obviously one of exceptionally wide taste in music, the two labels (United and States) issued some of the best performances in the jazz, blues, gospel and R&B idioms between 1951 and ’57. Delmark is proud to release this important body of masters, including many previously unissued, recorded in studios which pioneered high fidelity recording in the ’50s.

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Roosevelt Sykes, professionally known as the "Honeydripper," died in New Orleans on July 17, 1983. His death at the age of 77 marked the passing of one of the founding fathers and pioneers of the urban blues piano style in American music. During a musical career that spanned some 54 years; when times were hard, he worked as a taxi driver, short order cook, night club owner; but he will always be remembered best for his blues compositions, "44 Blues," "Nighttime Is the Right Time," " Driving Wheel," and the sexually suggestive "Dirty Mother for You" and "Ice Cream Freezer." "You know, I don’t know why they let me up on this stage. All I do is a lot ’a hollerin,’" Sykes said jokingly, while buffing a robust Optimo cigar before performing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. "I guess it’s just cause I’m an antique. There’s not another one around like me.
He was born Roosevelt Sykes Bey, January 31, 1906, in Helena, Arkansas. Orphaned at an early age, Sykes lived with his grandfather, a preacher and school teacher. It was during these early years that he acquired his nickname and first musical experience. " You see those girls would come around when I was young," Sykes said with a smile, "and I’d be messin’ around with my grandfather’s organ, and they’d call me 'Honeydripper' cause I was sweet. So I was this Roosevelt to the boys, and the 'Honeydripper' to the girls. You see?"
Besides the organ and his exposure to Sunday church music, the musical sounds emanating from the Pinchback Saloon also attracted his attention. As an adolescent, he would station himself at the door nightly, holding it open for patrons just long enough to allow himself to hear a taste of the forbidden fruits inside. There in the corner of a smoke-filled room behind the dice table sat a hard-driving blues piano player. "I could look in on that boy playing piano. He drank a lot of whiskey and his eyes were red. He was called 'Red Eye' Jesse Bell, and he could play the Blues," Sykes recalled years later. "So I took a little piece from him and a little piece from another and I made up my own style.
By age 15, Sykes left Helena and took to the free-wheeling life of freight train riding, traveling the blues axis to Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago and back.
By his late teens, Sykes’ playing was good enough. He began working gin joints, saloons, and dance halls for a dollar and a half a night when he could get it. Soon his talents came to the attention of St. Louis record shop owner Jesse Johnson, a self- proclaimed talent scout who took Sykes to New York City in the summer of 1929 to record his first record, "44 Blues," for Okeh, a subsidiary of Columbia. Okeh considered Sykes their analog to Vocallion Records’ sepia blues star Leroy Carr.
The success of the "44 Blues" elevated Sykes’ popularity with black audiences and he managed to be recorded continuously during the Depression years. From 1930 to 1935, he recorded for four different record companies under four different names: Roosevelt Sykes on Okeh, "Willie Kelly" on Victor, "Easy Papa Johnson" on Brunswick’s Melotone label, and "Dobby Bragg" for Paramount. In 1935, Sykes signed with Decca under the direction of legendary A&R man J. Mayo Williams. As "The Honeydripper," Sykes’ photo credit in the 1936 Decca catalog, he recorded two of his best known titles, "Driving Wheel" and "Nighttime Is the Right Time," both considered standards in the blues field. By World War II, Sykes returned to Victor on their low-priced Bluebird label and produced a No. 7 race chart hit in 1945 with a love ballad, "I Wonder."
In the early 1950s, the rhythm and blues and later the rock ’n’ roll explosion inundated the blues and pop charts across the country and worldwide. While Sykes has no "hits" to speak of, his influence as a blues stylist could be heard clearly on hundreds of records during this period. Artists like B.B. King, pianists Memphis Slim, Otis Spann, Detroit Junior, New Orleanians Fats Domino, James Booker and Dr. John - all fell under Sykes’ musical spell. The recordings by Sykes contained on this album were originally recorded and released on the United label between 1951 and 1953. Unfortunately, only one song, "Security Blues, attained any commercial success with the "Rhythm and Blues" audience.
It was not until the late 1960s that Sykes became a New Orleans resident, settling in the City’s 9th Ward on Louisa Street. He first came to the city in 1945 to record "This Tavern Boogie" for the Black & White label. He later returned in 1951 and landed a job at the Club Slipper on Bourbon Street. "When I came to New Orleans, they didn’t want no Blues," Sykes recalls. "So the first thing I went to playin’ jazz. After a couple of nights, then I got to stompin’ on the Blues." In 1954, under the direction of New Orleans bandleader Dave Bartholomew, Sykes recorded for the Imperial label, marking his last recordings for the contemporary "Rhythm and Blues" market.
In the years after his move to New Orleans, Sykes became a regular at clubs like the Court of Two Sisters and Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop." He toured Europe yearly, became a permanent fixture at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and was in constant demand at college campuses around the country. He continued to perform until a few months before his death.
Watching and listening to Sykes perform was the ultimate blues experience. An energetic and expressive entertainer, his hands sometimes flew high in the air before landing on the keyboard. His face moved wildly illustrating the mood of the lyrics and the progression of the music. While playing solos, he cheered himself on with loud shouts and hollers. All of this was accompanied by a steady, strong footbeat. Sykes was indeed a master entertainer, but more importantly, he was a primary creator of the blues piano style. As Sykes once put it, "See all those other blues pianists, they’re just the margarine. When you hear me, I’m the butter. I am the Butter."
--Tad Jones

1. Fine And Brown (alternate) 2:55
2. Lucky Blues (Roosevelt Sykes) 2:40
3. Raining In My Heart
(Simpkins/Sykes, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 3:00
4. Heavy Heart
(Lew Simpkins, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:36
5. 4:00 Blues
(Roosevelt Sykes, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 3:04
6. Too Hot To Handle (Hot Boogie)
(Roosevelt Sykes, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:48
7. Tell Me True
(Roosevelt Sykes, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 3:09
8. Ruthie Lee 2:31
9. Something Like That 2:58
10. Security Blues
(Roosevelt Sykes, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:45
11. Boogie Sykes 2:31
12. Listen To My Song (She’s The One For Me) 2:21
13. Toy Piano Blues 3:01
14. Been Through The Mill 2:49
15. Walkin’ This Boogie
(Roosevelt Sykes, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:25
16. Come Back Baby
(Roosevelt Sykes, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:36
17. 44 Blues (Roosevelt Sykes, P.D.) 3:07
18. 4:00 Blues (alternate) 2:55
19. Fine And Brown (Roosevelt Sykes) 2:52
20. Listen To My Song (She’s The One For Me)
(alternate) 2:38

Album Production: Robert G. Koester
CD Production: Steve Wagner
Recording Supervsion: Lew Simpkins & Leonard Allen
Recording: Bill Putnam, Universal Recording Studio
Cover Illustration and Design: Andrew Epstein
CD Design: Kate Hodinott

Special thanks to Victor Pearlin and George Paulus for providing information from original 78s.

Other Delmark albums containing United masters include:
Junior Wells, Blues Hit Big Town (640) with Muddy Waters,
Elmore James, Otis Spann...
Robert Nighthawk, Bricks In My Pillow (711)
Big Walter Horton/Alfred "Blues King" Harris, Blues Harmonica Kings (712)
Long Man Blues (717) with Eddie Boyd, Harold Burrage, Arbee Stidham...
Jump ’n’ Shout (715) with Dave Bartholomew, Ernie K-Doe, Larry Darnell,
Erline Harris, Annie Laurie, Chubby "Hip Shakin" Newsome
Honkers & Bar Walkers, Volume One (438) with Jimmy Forrest,
Tab Smith, Doc Sausage...
The Four Blazes, Mary Jo (704) with Tommy Braden, Floyd McDaniel
Working The Road - The Golden Age of Chicago Gospel (702) with
Robert Anderson & The Caravans, Lucy Smith Singers...
The Danderliers & Other Great Groups on States, Chop Chop Boom
(703) featuring Chicago doowop groups
J.T. Brown, Windy City Boogie (714)
Morris Pejoe/Arthur "Big Boy" Spires, Wrapped In My Baby (716)
Memphis Slim & His House Rockers featuring Matt "Guitar" Murphy,
Memphis Slim U.S.A. (710)
Jimmy Forrest, Night Train (435)
Tab Smith, Top 'n' Bottom (499)
Ace High (455)
Jump Time (447)
Paul Bascomb, Bad Bascomb (431)