The other evening, I was enjoying the great LP on the French Black & Blues label entitled Bad Luck Blues, a collection by Cousin Joe.  I hadn’t pulled it from my album rack in quite some time, and after I had listened to both sides, I vowed I would not again wait so long between listenings.  The LP came together on a foreign tour in 1971 with the unlikeliest of contributors.  Given that Cousin Joe hailed from Louisiana and was profoundly impacted by the various styles of music found in New Orleans, his teaming with west side Chicago guitarist Jimmy Dawkins, American singer and multi-instrumentalist Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Chicago bassist Mac Thompson, and Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers’ drumming great Ted Harvey seems unconventional, at best.  However, the album’s 1973 release showed just how much of a joyous synthesis could be realized by these most improbable of musical partners, with the LP’s 12 tracks being wholly substantial, with the outing infused by Cousin Joe’s elated enthusiasm, strong songwriting, confident vocals, and pleasing piano efforts.  To this writer, the album’s “Box Car Shorty,” “Railroad Porter Blues,” and “Life Is A One Way Ticket” are highlights of the collection, though there isn’t a misstep amongst all the titles. 

Cousin Joe is not a name that routinely rolls forth from the mouths of many blues fans the world over, and even the most devoted enthusiast probably doesn’t turn to his music often or bring him up in conversation.  To be fair, like many artists who operated on the fringes of the blues, not a lot of information about Cousin Joe is available.  Nonetheless, after listening to Bad Luck Blues I feel duty-bound to present a brief overview of his existence and career from my understanding of his life’s arc.

Cousin Joe the entertainer was born Pleasant Joseph in late December, 1907 in Wallace, Louisiana, a town in St. John the Baptist Parish, an area roughly 50 miles northwest of New Orleans.  Therefore, it is reasonable to accept that the greater region’s varying musical styles impacted the young Cousin Joe. 

By all accounts, Cousin Joe was raised within a Baptist religious framework.  The story goes that around the age of seven, the pastor would amuse the young man by allowing him to come to the front of the congregation and perform his various entertaining rigamaroles a bit, and then hold a second offering to provide the lad some currency for his theatric efforts.  By all reports, this went on for about a year or so, but was abruptly stopped when the young man refused to align himself formally with the church. 

It is also known that while a young chap, Cousin Joe worked at the well-known Whitney Plantation.

At the young age of 12, Cousin Joe relocated to New Orleans when his family moved there.  Now, the various Louisiana musical styles were directly and plentifully all around him. 

New Orleans provided a young Cousin Joe access to the almost innumerable musical clubs that the city was and remains known for, and he was identified as a familiar face straining to garner a peak at the sights and sounds oozing from the joints, which at that time were mostly jazz-oriented, but there certainly was blues, as well.

Study has determined that Cousin Joe’s initial musical instrumental choices were the ukelele and guitar, which he worked hard upon to master, but the accounts of how he came to be so proficient on the piano, as well, remain a mystery.  And this is not to discount the formidable vocal expertise he worked to polish.    

Throughout the entirety of his performing career, Cousin Joe also enjoyed other stage names including Smiling Joe, Pleasant Joe, and Brother Joshua. 

By the time he was 17, Cousin Joe, under whatever performing name he was using at the time (most likely Smiling Joe), was playing the rural parties and fish fries, his guitar playing and singing providing the blues musical tapestry of the event.  Like most Southern celebrations among Black people, the blues was the soundtrack of the happenings at which they gathered.

When he was 21 years of age, Cousin Joe was known to be busking on the streets with his ukelele and vocals, accompanied by two dancing partners in an aggregation said to be named Hats, Coats & Greens, an act that proved to be wildly popular and quite a money-making endeavor.  None other than the then-young future New Orleans musical legend Louis Prima was a big fan of their schtick.

Through the 1930s it is known that Cousin Joe supported himself on the myriad riverboats that cruised the New Orleans area utilizing his string instrument skill set, and those of his piano playing side, as well. 

By 1941, Cousin Joe had moved northward to the musically vibrant big city of St. Louis, Missouri, making this move to play piano in the band of famed clarinetist and saxophonist Sidney Bechet, he one of the most revered founding fathers of the New Orleans jazz brand.  To be included in Bechet’s band was an honor and highly coveted.

Cousin Joe stayed with Bechet and his musical troupe for three years, gaining an education in all things related to the music business.  However, after those three years he yet again transplanted himself far eastward to New York. 

Cousin Joe’s piano and vocal skills were very well developed by this time, and the move to New York proved to be the beginning of his greatest productive period.  The period between 1945-1953 saw Cousin Joe record songs as a named artist or as a sideman for myriad imprints including Gotham, Decca, Signature, Savoy, Aladdin, and Philo with the likes of Leonard Feather’s Hiptet, Pete Brown’s Brooklyn Blues Blowers, The Al Casey Quartette, Dickie Wells’ Blues Seven, the Sam Price Trio, and Earl Bostic’s Gotham Sextet.

Cousin Joe’s New York period found him influenced to a great degree by the grand city’s astounding jazz scene, though his blues frameworks never really left his piano or guitar contexts and playing, nor his singing.  Also, it was in New York that Cousin Joe officially took “Cousin Joe” as his remaining life stage name when a player in Cab Calloway’s great outfit called him “Cos,” which is short for “cousin.”  Though he had been Smiling Joe longer than other of his performing names, the name Cousin Joe would end up being his most long-lived.

It was also in New York where Cousin Joe once and for all put both his ukelele and guitar behind him.  He felt that the great string players he was seeing in New York were so elevated in their playing compared to him that he should focus only on his singing and piano playing.

It was also in New York where Cousin Joe came whisker close to realizing an amazing opportunity.  He had the possible chance to become a member of the amazing vocal group the Ink Spots as a replacement for member Derek Watson.  However, the singing group’s management just didn’t see Cousin Joe as ideally fitting the aggregation’s aura.

In the early 1970s, Cousin Joe returned to his roots in New Orleans.  He was a constant performer in the clubs, and even toured the European continent as a solo performer and as an artist associated with the American Blues Legends packaged show in 1974.  This early 1970s period was a busy recording period for Cousin Joe (as shown at the end of this writing), seeing his return to his blues and boisterous New Orleans roots. 

It was in the mid-1970s that Cousin Joe all but hung up his performing shoes, only making the occasional appearance and recording session.  Cousin Joe had, by this time, achieved an amazing number of goals in his musical career, one that saw him start with the blues, veer into jazz, and bring it back home to the blues and other of his adopted hometown of New Orleans’ musical varieties.

One thing that I haven’t stressed, but must be emphasized at this late stage of this writing, is that Cousin Joe’s vocal work was considered by many in-the-know and by his peers as perhaps the best in the blues before the ascension of B.B. King as the pillar of blues singing.  Such was the eminent ranking of Cousin Joe’s vocal expertise.

At the age of 81, Cousin Joe passed away in New Orleans, leaving behind his wife, son, and grandchildren, along with a rich blues, jazz, and New Orleans musical legacy he made uniquely his own.

Below are Cousin Joe recordings that I think will be of great interest to readers of Curt’s Blues Blog.  Seek them out; I am confident that you will be highly satisfied by any and all of them.

Recommended Cousin Joe Recordings

• Bad Luck Blues – Black & Blue label 33.035 – Released in 1973
• Cousin Joe Of New Orleans – Bluesway label BLS-6078 – Released in 1973
• “Gospel-Wailing Jazz-Playing Rock ‘n’ Rolling Soul Shouting Tap-Dancing Bluesman From New Orleans” – Big Bear Records label BEAR 3 – Released in 1974
• Joseph From New Orleans – Riverboat label 900.265 – Released in 1975
• “Relaxin’ In New Orleans” – Great Southern Records label GS 11011 – Released in 1985

*Cousin Joe also appears on various compilations and one other under his name solely.  Various resources can assist in finding those recordings.