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A TOMBSTONE FOR TEXAS—TEXAS ALEXANDER AND THE
BLUES PIONEERS OF TEXAS

By Coy Prather

ISBN-13 : 979-8378722693

429 pages

Alger (Algernon) “Texas” Alexander, was born in Leon
County, Texas in 1900. The child of sharecroppers, who was
from his earliest days exposed to the field hollers and
churcified singing and songs that developed in and from the
backbreaking work of the cotton fields. Texas was
abandoned by his mother when he was in the third grade
(about 8 years of age) and little is known of the detail of his
early life, save that his father took no interest in him and
that he lived with his grandmother, Sally Beavers in
Richards, TX.

What is known is that from about age 10 to 27, ‘his life story
is total speculation-hearsay and myth’. However. after
making his way to Dallas in about 1923, Algie as he appears
to have been known by his friends, started to develop a
musical presence that was both powerful and influential.

Texas did not play an instrument, but habitually carried with
him a guitar to be used by anyone willing to accompany him.
Between 1927 and 1929 he recorded 42 songs and for a brief
time was hugely popular.

He was a fine, fine singer and managed to attract—perhaps because of the enthusiasm of his
record company OKEH, who were selling a lot of his records—some stellar accompanists. These
included Alonzo ‘Lonnie’ Johnson, Sammy Price, Eddie Lang, Eddie Hayward Sr., Joe ‘King’ Oliver,
Clarence Williams, George ‘Little Hat’ Jones, The Mississippi Sheiks, Carl Davis and Willie Reed,
Thomas Shaw, Marcellus Thomas, Melvin ‘Lil’ Son’ Jackson, Frankie Lee Sims, Edwin ‘Buster’
Pickins and J. T. Smith (’Funny Paper’ Smith) who was often Texas’ travelling companion. The
book contains short bios of all these artists and others.

Fine singer and impressive lyricist though he was, the problems of accompanying him were
neatly summed up by Lonnie Johnson who told Paul Oliver, “He was a very difficult singer to
accompany: he was liable to jump a bar, or five bars or anything. You had to be a fast thinker to
play for Texas Alexander.”

As a lyricist, Alexander was greatly affected by an air of misogyny, perhaps a result of maternal
abandonment. In his twelfth recording (with Lonnie Johnson) ‘West Texas Blues’ a distrustful
man stalks his woman. The opening line wonderfully belies the underlying theme. “Don’t the
moon look pretty as she shine down through the trees” (x2); “I can see my baby, but she can’t
see me.”

This is a cracking book, well worth getting, but one word of warning. It appears to have been
self-produced and there are some textual anomalies (eg., changes in font size in the middle of
pages) that you would not find in a book from a big publishing house. My advice: Ignore them!

Ian K. McKenzie