I want to take you somewhere. Let's go to a specific
coordinate in space and time. Okay, I'm with
you. We're in the Buckhead area of North Atlanta,
but I want you to just erase the image you might
have of it today. No luxury shopping malls, no
high -rise condos. Hmm, not even close. No. It's
the mid -1920s. You're looking at, well, mostly
woods, dirt roads, a few scattered roadhouses.
A totally different world. And we're walking
up to this place called Tidwell's Barbecue. And
the air is just thick. It's not just the Georgia
summer humidity, but it's that really specific,
sharp smell of hickory smoke and roasting pork.
You can almost taste it. And, you know, you have
to remember the social context here, too. This
is the Jim Crow South. The dining room is segregated.
Every single interaction is codified by these
really rigid social rules. Right. There's a tension
in the air. But there's a sound that's cutting
through all of that. You're not just there for
a sandwich. You're hearing this massive driving
rhythm coming from the back, maybe from a stool
near the kitchen, maybe out by the pits. And
then you see him. And the image is just unforgettable.
A man in his full chef's white, the tall stiff
hat, the long clean white apron. But he's not
flipping a rack of ribs. He's wrestling with
this massive guitar. And it's not just any guitar.
It's a 12 -string. I mean, that's a literal cannon
of an instrument. It's huge. And this is Robert
Hicks. But the world and, you know, history would
come to know him as Barbecue Bob. And I think
what's so compelling about this deep dive, for
me anyway, is that we're not just looking at
a musician. We are looking at one of the earliest
and one of the most successful examples of branding
in music history. That's a great way to put it.
It really is. We're looking at a man who, in
a career that lasted, what, barely four years,
helped define the entire Atlanta sound. It's
a story that touches on so many different things.
You've got the raw mechanics of the music business
in the 1920s. You've got the evolution of guitar
technique. And then you have the brutal reality
of health and life expectancy for black men in
the South during the Depression. Yeah, we've
got a massive stack of notes for this one. We're
pulling from... Columbia Records session logs,
a ton of biographical research, and some really
fascinating analysis on the Piedmont blues tradition.
A lot to unpack. So let's get into the red clay.
We need to understand where this sound actually
came from. Because Robert Hicks didn't just appear
in a puff of barbecue smoke. No, not at all.
He was a product of a very, very specific environment.
He was born September 11, 1902, in Walnut Grove,
Georgia. His parents... Charlie and Mary Hicks
were sharecroppers. And I think we need to pause
on that term, sharecroppers, because it gets
thrown around a lot in Blue's biographies, almost
like it's just a background detail. Like it's
just a job title. Right, like accountant or plumber.
But it was a system. It was a system of entrapment.
Precisely. In the post -Reconstruction South,
sharecropping was essentially a way to maintain
a Libra force without paying actual wages. You
worked land you didn't own, using tools you had
to buy on credit. from the landowner to grow
crops that you then had to split with that same
owner. It was designed to be a cycle of perpetual
debt. So if the crop failed, you were even further
in the hole. And if the crop was good, somehow
the books were cooked. So you just broke even
at best. It was impossible situation. And in
that kind of environment, music isn't just a
hobby. It's a lifeline. It's a psychological
release valve. It's a way to reclaim some piece
of your life, some agency on a Saturday night.
The Hicks family eventually moved to Newton County.
And this is where the story really pivots from
agricultural labor to musical education. And
this part of the research really surprised me.
Specifically, who the teacher was. Savannah Dipweaver.
Which is, first of all, an incredible name. It
is. But her role is even more incredible. You
know, in the history of the blues, we almost
always hear about the old wise bluesmen teaching
the young kid on a porch. It's almost always
this male -dominated lineage. But here, the architect
of this sound is a woman. It's such a vital correction
to the historical record. Savannah Weaver wasn't
just strumming a few chords on the side. She
was a matriarch of the Piedmont style. She taught
Robert Hicks and his brother Charlie Lincoln
how to play. And she didn't just teach them.
She taught her own son. Her own son, Curly Weaver.
And for anyone who listens to pre -war blues,
Curly Weaver is a giant. He's up there with Blind
Willie McTell. So what you have is this kind
of kitchen table conservatory happening in Newton
County. It creates a musical DNA. I mean, think
about it. These guys, Robert, his brother Charlie,
their friend Curly, they all learned from the
exact same source. They developed this locked
in musical language. It's why when you hear their
later recordings together, the interplay feels
telepathic. They aren't guessing where the beat
is going to fall. They were raised on the same
beat from the same teacher. So let's talk about
that beat or maybe the instrument that drove
it. Because when Hicks makes the move to Atlanta
in 1924, something fundamental changes in his
setup. A huge change. He leaves the country,
he hits the big city, and he swaps his standard
six -string guitar for a 12 -string. And this
wasn't just a whim. This was a deliberate tactical
choice. We have to look at the sonic environment
of Atlanta. in the mid -20s. Right. This is not
a quiet rural porch anymore. No. Atlanta was
a booming industrial hub. It was noisy. You've
got streetcars clanging, early automobiles, construction,
crowds of people talking and shouting. So if
you're a street performer, which is how a lot
of these guys made their daily bread. Exactly.
A standard acoustic guitar just disappears in
that mix. It gets swallowed up. You need volume.
You need to cut through. And physics comes into
play here. A 12 -string guitar has the strings
paired up. The lower four pairs are usually tuned
an octave apart. So when you hit the low E string,
you aren't just hearing one low note. You're
hearing two. You're hearing the low note and
a high chiming note at the same time. Yeah. It
literally doubles the sound pressure. It creates
this natural chorus effect. Yeah. It's a wall
of sound coming from one instrument. It's essentially
acoustic amplification. You're maximizing the
frequencies you can produce to cut through all
that ambient noise on a busy street corner on
Decatur Street. Precisely. And that choice, that
specific choice, is what defined the Atlanta
style. When musicologists talk about the Atlanta
blues of the 1920s, they're almost strictly talking
about that massive, ringing, 12 -string sound.
It's so different from the Mississippi Delta
sound. Totally different. The Delta was often
more sparse, more percussive, usually on a 6
-string. The Atlanta sound was, I mean, almost
orchestral in its density by comparison. So Hicks
is in Atlanta. He's got this cannon of a guitar,
but he's not famous yet. He's working odd jobs,
and eventually he lands at Tidwell's. And this
brings us right back to that opening image. He's
the singing cook. Which is a great gig. If you
can get it, he's getting a regular wage, he's
probably getting tips, and he's building a local
fan base every single day. He's got a captive
audience. But the pivotal moment comes when a
guy named Dan Hornsby walks in. Mmm, the talent
scout. Dan Hornsby was a talent scout for Columbia
Records. And this is where the deep dive gets
really interesting, I think, when you look at
the industry side of things. Hornsby hears Hicks
play. He realizes the guy has talent, but he
doesn't just sign Robert Hicks, guitar player.
No, he sees a hook. He sees a marketing angle.
Exactly. Hornsby was a savvy operator. You have
to understand the state of the race records market
in 1927. And race records was the industry term
for music recorded by black artists for black
audiences. And it was a booming market. It was
booming, but it was also getting saturated. You
had Blind Lemon Jefferson selling huge numbers
for Paramount. You had Bessie Smith, who was
just dominating for Columbia. To break a new
male guitarist, you needed an angle. You needed
something to make him stand out. Being just another
guy in a suit with a guitar wasn't going to cut
it. No. So Hornsby looks at Hicks, he looks at
the apron, he looks at the whole scene, and the
light bulb goes off. Barbecue Bob. It's so simple.
It's brilliant. It's brilliant in its simplicity.
It anchors the artist in this relatable working
class identity. It makes him instantly memorable.
But what really fascinates me is how they leaned
into the visual branding of it all. Oh, the photos
are iconic. I was looking at the promo shots
that Columbia sent out. Most bluesmen of that
era, you think of, like Blind Blake or Lonnie
Johnson, they dress to the nines. Suits, fedoras,
polished shoes. They wanted to project sophistication,
professionalism. Right. They were trying to distance
themselves from the stereotype of the rural worker.
They were professional entertainers and they
wanted to look the part. But Hicks, they put
him in the full uniform. The two cat is like
a foot tall. The apron is spotless. He's holding
the guitar like he's about to serve it to you
on a platter. It was a gimmick, no question.
Of course. But it was a gimmick that signaled.
a kind of authenticity to a very specific audience.
It said, I'm one of you, I work for a living,
and I play the blues on the side. It completely
differentiated him from the more polished, vaudeville
-style blues singers. And the numbers suggest
it worked. I mean, it really worked. We're talking
about a career that starts in March of 1927.
Right. Between then and December of 1930, he
records 68 songs. 68 signs. That is an insane
work rate. It's prolific, and the sales match
the output. He became one of the top -selling
artists in Columbia's entire race series. The
only people outselling him were absolute superstars.
Yeah, you're talking about Bessie Smith, Ethel
Waters, Blind Willie Johnson. That's the top
tier. And his debut record, Barbecue Blues, it
sold 15 ,000 copies. Now, in the age of streaming,
where we're looking for millions of plays, 15
,000 might sound small. But in 1927... It's a
massive hit. A record cost 75 cents back then.
That's not cheap, especially for the demographic
that was buying these records. That's a real
expense. It is. To sell 15 ,000 units meant people
were prioritizing this music over other necessities.
It just proved that the BBQ Bob persona and that
specific Atlanta sound had tapped into a real
hunger in the market. So we've established the
look and the brand. Let's get a little more technical
on the sound. We've mentioned the 12 string,
but it's not just what he played. It's how he
played it. The term that always comes up with
Barbecue Bob is frailing. Yes. And if you're
a banjo player, you know exactly what that means.
But for guitar players, it's been unusual. OK,
so break it down for us, because when I listen
to his records, it doesn't sound like the intricate
finger picking of someone like, say, Mississippi
John Hurt. It sounds. Heavier. More powerful.
That's the key word. Heavier. Finger picking
usually involves the thumb playing a steady bass
line while the other fingers pluck these intricate
melodies on the treble strings. It's an up and
down motion. Very precise. Frailing, which comes
from the claw hammer banjo tradition, is completely
different. It's based on a downward stroke. So
he's actually striking down on the strings with
the back of his fingernail? Exactly. You strike
down across the strings with the back of your
nail. usually the index or middle finger, and
then your thumb kind of catches the high string
on the way back up. It creates this driving,
rhythmic, bum -diddy, bum -diddy feel. It's incredibly
percussive. You aren't just plucking a note,
you're whacking the string. And when you do that
on a 12 -string, which already has all those
extra strings vibrating... It creates a wall
of rhythm. It's almost hypnotic. And then, just
to make it even more distinctive, he combined
that frailing technique... with a bottleneck
slide. Right, the slide. That's what gives it
that vocal singing quality. He'd keep the guitar
in an open tuning, usually open G or open A,
which means if you strum all the strings open
without touching the fretboard, it already plays
a major chord. Ah, okay. This allows the slide
to just glide up and down the neck, creating
those whining, crying notes that so perfectly
mimic the human voice. So you have this percussive...
banjo like thumping coming from his right hand
and at the same time the smooth crying slide
from his left hand. It's a contrast that creates
a lot of tension and release in the music. It's
a very very specific texture. It's aggressive
but it's also melodic. It's loud but it's also
soulful. You know it reminds me a little bit
of Charlie Patton over in the Delta who also
played with that kind of rhythmic ferocity. Sure.
Hicks had that shimmering ring from the 12 -string
that was just unique to Atlanta. And on top of
all that, we can't ignore the voice itself. No,
absolutely not. He had a strong, clear, declamatory
voice. But he was a stylist. He wasn't just singing.
He used growls. He used falsetto. He would jump
up an octave to emphasize a word or a line. He
wasn't just singing the melody. He was dramatizing
the lyrics. Speaking of lyrics, this is where
I think Barbecue Bob becomes more than just an
entertainer. He becomes, in a way, a historian,
a chronicler. Because when you look at his discography,
he's covering the major events of his time in
real time. This is the blues man as reporter
function. And it's so important. In an era where
black communities were often completely ignored
by mainstream newspapers or the coverage was
incredibly biased, Blue's record served as a
form of community news and editorial. And the
biggest example of that has to be the Great Mississippi
Flood of 1927. Oh, a truly catastrophic event.
The Mississippi River just swelled, levees broke
all over, and it devastated the Delta. Hundreds
of thousands of people were displaced. And the
relief efforts were notoriously racist. Absolutely.
With black refugees being forced into labor camps
at gunpoint to rebuild the levees, it was horrific.
So Hicks records Mississippi Heavy Water Blues
in June of 1927. The flood is basically still
happening. He's up in New York City recording
this. And the lyrics are just so vivid. He captures
the panic, the loss of home, the separation of
families. That song resonated so powerfully because
it was reflecting the immediate trauma of his
audience. It wasn't some abstract song about
sadness. It was about that water, that levee
right now. It was so popular he actually released
a sequel. He did. Mississippi Low Levee Blues.
The next year. Like a serialized news report
set to music. But he didn't just stop with natural
disasters. When the financial world collapsed,
he was right there too. The Great Depression.
In April 1930, he recorded We Sure Got Hard Times
Now. The title alone is a thesis statement. It
really is. And the lyrics are just bleak. He
talks about landlords turning people out onto
the street, about the lack of food, about the
general feeling of hopelessness. And this is
significant because, you know, we often think
of the roaring 20s crashing into the Depression.
But for the demographic Hicks represented, the
hard times started a lot earlier and hit a lot
harder. So the song validates the suffering of
the listener. It's saying, I see you. I see what
you're going through. Exactly. It's heavy stuff.
But I don't want to paint him as purely a merchant
of doom and gloom. There's a lot of joy and humor
in his catalog, too, especially when he teams
up with his brother. Ah, yes. The sessions with
Charlie Lincoln, who is also known as Laughing
Charlie. They recorded It Won't Be Long Now.
in november of 27. and what i love about this
track is the crosstalk they're just chatting
away right in the middle of the song it completely
breaks the fourth wall it sounds like two brothers
just sitting on a porch cracking jokes egging
each other on you hear them shouting play it
boy and i hear you it captures the spontaneity
of the music it reminds us that before this was
a commercial product on a record it was a communal
activity it was music for parties for drinking
for dancing It was alive. And he also kept one
foot firmly in the church. That duality is so
central to the blues experience, the Saturday
night sin and the Sunday morning redemption.
Hicks recorded spirituals like, When the saints
go marching in and Jesus' blood can make me whole.
Which shows his versatility. He could play the
barbecue joint, he could play the street corner,
and he could play the church picnic. He had the
repertoire for all of it. And he treated all
the material with equal respect. The technique?
The slide, the 12 string, the frailing, it all
remained consistent, whether he was singing about
a cheating lover or about divine salvation. So
we move into the 1930s. Hicks is an established
star at this point. He's making good money for
the time. And in December of 1930, he forms what
we would call today, I guess, a super group.
The Georgia Cotton Pickers. And the lineup is
stacked. You have Barbecue Bob on guitar and
vocals. You have his old friend Curly Weaver
also on guitar. And you have a young up and coming
harmonica player named Buddy Moss. And Buddy
Moss is really important here because he represents
the next generation. He was deeply influenced
by Hicks, but he would go on to help define the
sound of the 1930s blues scene in his own right.
In this group, they were adapting current hits.
They did Diddle Da Diddle, which was basically
a take on a Blind A Blake song. Mm -hmm. Diddy
Why Diddy. Right. And I'm On My Way Down Home,
which was their version of the Mississippi Chic's
massive hit, Sitting on Top of the World. It
shows they were listening. They're listening
to the competition, to what was popular. They
were taking these melodies of the day and just
putting that heavy Atlanta 12 -string stamp all
over them. It's a real moment of musical synthesis.
You can just hear the camaraderie in those recordings.
But there's a shadow hanging over these sessions.
Because as vibrant and exciting as they sound,
these are the final chapters of Robert Hicks'
life. Yes. We're in December of 1930. The clock
is ticking very, very fast. The tragedy of his
death isn't just that he died so young. It's
how he died. It feels like a systemic failure.
He passed away on October 21, 1931, in Lithonia,
Georgia. He was only 29 years old. 29. The same
age as Hank Williams. I mean, he was just a kid,
really. And the official cause of death was a
cascade of illnesses. It started with influenza,
a simple flu. Then that developed into pneumonia.
But the underlying condition that made him so
vulnerable was tuberculosis. TB. It was the scourge
of the era. It was. And we have to look at this
through the lens of 1931 health care for black
Americans in the South. Tuberculosis thrives
in poor living conditions with poor nutrition.
And treatment was often completely inaccessible
or strictly segregated. So his chances were slim
from the start. If you were a black man in Georgia
in 1931. Your access to a sanitarium or to advanced
medical care was severely, severely limited compared
to a white patient. There's no question about
it. So he catches the flu, which his body might
have fought off under normal circumstances. But
because he has this untreated TB, his immune
system is already compromised. Then pneumonia
sets in and it's over. It's just a brutal reminder
of the fragility of life for these artists. And
we celebrate their genius, but they were living
on the absolute razor's edge of survival every
single day. There's a really poignant detail
about his funeral that I read. Yes. At his graveside,
they played his record. They played his recording
of Mississippi Heavy Water Blues. That image
just haunts me. A group of mourners standing
in the Georgia dirt. And instead of a choir or
an organ, there's a wind -up gramophone playing
that scratchy 78 RPM record. The voice is alive,
it's loud, it's clear, while the man himself
is being lowered into the ground. It speaks to
the immortality of the recording, doesn't it?
the barbecue bob persona, the brand, the voice
that survived the man. For decades, though, the
man himself was somewhat lost to history. His
grave in Walnut Grove was unmarked for a long,
long time. Which is a common tragedy for so many
early blues musicians. But this story has a bit
of a resolution, thankfully. In 2017, the Killer
Blues Headstone Project finally placed a proper
headstone for him. That's good to hear. So he
finally has the recognition he deserves at his
final resting place. Now I want to pivot to his
legacy. Because usually when a major artist dies,
their style becomes the dominant thing for a
while. Everyone tries to copy them. But with
Barbecue Bob, something kind of strange happened.
You're right. His style, that heavy, frailing
strumming technique on the 12 -string, it didn't
really survive him. In fact, you could argue
it almost died with him. And why is that? He
was selling thousands and thousands of records.
You'd think every kid in Atlanta would be buying
a 12 -string and banging on it. A few factors
were at play. First, let's be honest, the 12
-string is hard to play, it's physically demanding
on your hands, but more importantly, musical
tastes were shifting very quickly. The Piedmont
blues that came to dominate the 1930s was defined
by that intricate, ragtime -influenced fingerpicking
we mentioned earlier. The style of guys like
Blind Boy Fuller, Reverend Gary Davis. And Curly
Weaver. And this is the great irony. Curly Weaver,
who started out frailing just like Bob, he adapted.
He moved toward the fingerpicking style because
that's what the market began to favor. It was
seen as more melodic, maybe a bit more sophisticated.
So the heavy, percussive, frailing style began
to sound old -fashioned almost overnight. In
a way, yeah. It's a strange thing to think about.
Barbecue Bob was the absolute peak of a specific
mountain. But then, almost immediately, everybody
else decided to go climb a different one. So
he really is the definitive example of that specific
1920s Atlanta sound. It starts and effectively
it ends with him in his immediate circle. But
he didn't disappear from the consciousness of
musicians. He just sort of went dormant for a
few decades until the folk revival. Right. The
1960s brought this massive rediscovery of pre
-war blues. And one of the biggest names to pick
up the torch was, of course, Eric Clapton. Right.
Clapton covered motherless child blues. He did.
And Clapton, like so many of the British rockers,
was just digging through these old record crates,
looking for authentic material. By covering Hicks,
he introduced that songwriting to a global audience
that had likely never even heard of a 1920s barbecue
cook from Georgia. And then we have to talk about
John Fahey. This is one of my favorite weird
side stories in all of music history. John Fahey,
the father of what's called American primitive
guitar. Yeah. He was a brilliant, brilliant musician,
but also a bit of a prankster and a myth maker.
A big time myth maker. So in 1979, Fahey releases
a book of guitar tablature. And in it. He includes
a transcription of Poor Boy, A Long Way From
Home, which is a Barbecue Bob song. But Fahey
doesn't want to just say, here's a great Barbecue
Bob song. That would be too simple. Very easy.
He attributes it to a character he invented named
Blind Joe Death. Right. A totally fictional blues
man. Exactly. But here's the best part. In the
liner notes, in the explanation, Fahey writes
that his character, Blind Joe Death, learned
the song from listening to an old Barbecue Bob
record, and he even gives a catalog number. Columbia
14246D that belonged to the death household.
It's so wonderfully meta. He creates a fictional
blues man, but he gives him this realistic backstory
that involves listening to a real Barbecue Bob
record. It's Faye having fun, for sure, but it
also underscores a really important truth. The
old oral tradition had, by then, become a recorded
tradition. Even in his fake story, the ultimate
source of the knowledge was that spinning shellac
disc. It's an acknowledgment that Bar - Barbecue
Bob's records were the textbooks for future generations,
even the imaginary ones. We've covered a lot
of ground here. I mean, from the smell of a barbecue
pit in 1925 to the physics of a 12 -string guitar,
from the marketing genius of a chef's hat to
the tragedy of an unmarked grave. It's a dense
story. There's a lot to it. If you had to distill
the Barbecue Bob phenomenon down to its absolute
core, what is it for you? I think, I think for
me, it's the perfect collision of talent and
opportunity. Robert Hicks had this immense, raw,
driving talent. But without the specific context
of 1920s Atlanta, the street noise that required
the 12 -string, the recording industry that was
looking for a character, the musical community
fostered by Savannah Weaver, he might have just
been a brilliant guy playing on a porch that
nobody ever heard. Instead, all those things
came together, and he became a voice that documented
his entire era. He's a chronicler of the floods,
the depressions, and the hard times. He made
the invisible visible through his music. And
he did it with a sound and a style that was so
powerfully and entirely his own. Absolutely.
Before we sign off, I want to leave her with
one final what if. We talked about how his frailing
style kind of vanished in favor of finger picking
after he died. Right. It just faded away. So
here's the thought experiment. What if Robert
Hicks hadn't died at 29? If he had lived to be
50 or 60, would he have been able to keep that
style alive? He was such a star. Could his sheer
force of personality and his popularity have
kept the frailing sound in the mainstream, battling
it out against the finger pickers through the
30s and 40s? That is a fascinating alternative
history to think about. Yeah. I mean, imagine
a 1940s or 50s where the electric guitar comes
in and Barbecue Bob is there to plug in his 12
string. Can you imagine what that percussive
style would sound like? And of Savannah Weaver.
And of Savannah Weaver. Thanks for taking this
deep dive with us. Keep listening. We'll see
you in the next one.