I can still recall the experience as if it happened yesterday.  It was in the late 1980s, and I had originally made the hour and a half drive west to Chicago from my north central Indiana home with a blues loving friend to see Son Seals at Wise Fools Pub on N. Lincoln Ave.  But upon arriving, the club’s doorman was in an especially foul mood, informing us that the place would clear the music room after each of Seals’ sets to allow a new audience inside.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the goal was nothing but a money grab from a new influx of cover charges, so we decided to leave and reconsider our blues thrill for the evening.

At that time, The Chicago Reader’s music pages and the buzz around Bob Koester’s Jazz Record Mart were our sources for knowing what was happening on the city’s vibrant blues scene.  While we weighed upon our blues show choices for the evening (and at that time the options were still very substantial), I couldn’t draw back into the forefront of my consciousness who was playing at the now-defunct B.L.U.E.S. etcetera on W. Belmont.  The reason for my thought was I remember being particularly intrigued by the club’s blues entertainment offering that night, but the area around the venue wasn’t as lively as on Chicago’s pulsating Lincoln Ave. area, so the choice to head to Wise Fools Pub seemed to align better with our “big night out” desires.

Nonetheless, after a few minutes, and upon me voicing my curiosity at who was at B.L.U.E.S. etcetera, plus the fact that we were going to have to commit soon to be able to both get in to see Son Seals’ first set and establish a parking option on Chicago’s busy northside, we decided to head over to W. Belmont on the leap of faith that my belief that something special was happening there.  It was a decision I’ve never regretted.

We found parking around the corner from the club in a residential area, taking a flyer that we wouldn’t get a ticket, or worse, be towed, because we obviously didn’t have the required city parking permit.  It was a gamble taken previously when attending shows at B.L.U.E.S. etcetera, one that had never yielded a significant parking fine, or worse, a trip to the city’s impound lot.  Walking around the corner to the front door of the club, we began to hear the rumble and rhythm of the blues being played, and my companion and I exchanged glances because I believe at the same time, we realized that this was something different, that the blues cadence coming from inside the joint was not the classic modern Chicago blues sound.  Rather, it was more primal and country-ish, if that makes sense.  And also, at just about the same time we saw the sign on the door announcing the evening’s blues artists: The Jellyroll Kings.  We had inadvertently stumbled upon vocalist, harmonica player, and organist Frank Frost, vocalist and guitarist Big Jack Johnson, and drummer Sam Carr. 

Hurriedly paying our cover charges, we were immediately greeted to an environment the likes of which I had never before experienced at the club, and truthfully, never did again.  There was a joyous, raucous, unrestrained atmosphere about the place, and oddly, the majority of the blues-loving patrons were out of their seats standing near the front of the stage circling the tiny dancefloor area.  The rumble of the downhome blues being performed hit hard in the chest with a deafening pulsating effect.  Making our way near the front of the collective audience we witnessed a sight that I can still see these roughly 35 years later.

There, Frank Frost, in a brown leisure suit and hat, big shirt collars out over his suit’s lapels, hunched over his harmonica with his hands cupped around the instrument, playing a solo that had him and everyone near him in total hysteria.  In this moment, he was shadowy mysterious blues prophet, with the lighting and cigarette smoke about him only adding to the idyllic blues backdrop.

On-stage, Bog Jack Johnson was rearing back and providing icy guitar fills in support of Frost’s raging harmonica journey, his big glasses, gleaming hairdo, and sheer size adding immeasurably to the animated scene.  And behind a modest three-piece drum kit was Sam Carr, expertly providing the rhythmic backbone of the tune, while abandoning his kit altogether for stanzas on end playing the wall beside him to provide the beat as capably as with his drums. 

Needless to say, we didn’t leave B.L.U.E.S. etcetera until the wee hours, and that initial viewing of the spectacular event that we experienced upon entering the club, and the ensuing hours of Delta blues ecstasy, remain some of my fondest blues memories.

For all I took away from that night so many years ago, and for all the recognition that was heaped upon both Frost and Johnson, I’ve always been somewhat intrigued by Carr, this rather slight man with the impish nature, big smile, and fedora and short-sleeved button-up shirt whose presence on the bandstand that evening in Chicago played something of a counter-point to the serious blues that both Frost and Johnson sang about.  It’s not that he was their comic relief; no, but his charisma certainly provided a more relaxed, good-timey charm, yet, there had to be much more behind his bright beaming eyes.

The man the blues world knew as Sam Carr came into the word in mid-April, 1926 as Samuel Lee McCollum in Marvell, Arkansas, a locale in Phillips County, an area in the northwestern portion of the state.  His father was none other than blues royalty Robert Nighthawk (his performing and recording name – his given name was Robert Le McCollum), the man whose electric slide guitar prowess continues to influence many to this day.  However, as these things sometimes go, Carr didn’t meet his birth father until seven years after his birth.  Carr’s mother was named Mary Griffin McCollum, and roughly a year-and-a-half after Carr’s birth, she abandoned the young child to a family with the surname Carr.  Eventually, the family adopted the young boy, and his surname too became Carr.  As a result of his adoption, Carr was then raised in Dundee, Mississippi, a town in Tunica County in the far northwestern part of the state.  The Carr family had a farm there.

Interestingly, Carr’s first musical interest was the harmonica, which he taught himself to play, as the prevalence of the instrument was all around him in Mississippi, and he picked up tips and quick lessons upon it whenever and wherever he could.  Moving into his teen years, Carr made a major decision at the age of 16 to move to Helena, Arkansas to live with his biological father, and found himself acting as both a chauffeur and doorman for his father at his shows.  It was also during this period that Carr taught himself to play the bass guitar, and he eventually played in his father’s band.  Helena was a booming area, being a river city area, and there were many clubs offering “live” blues.

Roughly four years later, Carr was united in marriage to his wife Doris, and to support his family he began sharecropping in Arkansas.  However, an unfortunate dispute with the landowners led the Carr family to leave their home, originally with the intent of heading northward to Chicago.  However, they only made it as far as St. Louis, Missouri where they established residence with Carr’s adoptive mother.  Once in St. Louis, Carr continued his blues aspirations playing the bass guitar with a local harmonicist named Treetop Slim.  Soon, though, Carr wanted to stablish his own blues aggregation, so he formed his first band named Little Sam Carr and the Blue Kings.  On an interesting note, the drummer in his band was Nighthawk’s wife, Early Bea, but eventually Carr replaced her in that capacity.  Again, Carr had taught himself to play drums, accounting for his lifelong choice of using a minimal drum set on the bandstand; he learned upon minimal equipment.

St. Louis provided many opportunities to play the blues, but as would be expected, the majority of these venues were rough and tumble joints.  By 1956, Carr had aligned himself with Frank Frost (who at that time was playing both guitar and harmonica while also singing), and together, they played behind many of the noted blues names of the day including blues harmonica giant Sonny Boy Williamson II, Nighthawk, and blues guitarist and vocalist Houston Stackhouse.  The early 1960s brought about yet another change of addresses, as Carr and Frost moved to Mississippi together.

Once in Mississippi, Carr and Frost united with Big Jack Johnson, a Clarksdale resident.  For a number of years, the new band was fronted on vocals by none other than Carr’s wife Doris.  Then in 1962, Carr, Frost, and Johnson had the opportunity to record for the famed Memphis, Tennessee producer Sam Phillips under the band name Frank Frost and the Night Hawks.  The album collection was released on the Phillips International label under the title Hey, Boss Man (by the way, an original copy of this album is highly sought after by collectors, and in good condition, can bring a pretty penny.)  As fate would have it, one of the tunes on this freshman album was titled “Jelly Roll King,” leading to the name the group eventually adopted as their own.

The band continued to perform, and they returned to the recording studio again in 1966, this time in Nashville, Tennessee for the Jewel Records label.  All the selections cut were made under Frost’s name exclusively.  At the time, interest in swamp blues was just beginning to wane, but swamp blues king Slim Harpo’s influence and popularity was still high.  He had achieved a major hit with his “Baby, Scratch My Back” for the Excello label, and one of the cuts Frost and company cut was “My Back Scratcher,” a song that made a bit of noise on the charts, one that was modeled after Harpo’s record.  While Frost was a very accomplished and respected blues harmonicist, interestingly, Arthur Lee Williams played the instrument on this song.  This is a little-known fact to most die-hard blues fans.

This would prove to be the last time that the band, now fully known as The Jelly Roll Kings, would record for roughly ten years.  While they did regularly play together, all had jobs and got by outside of music, and in Carr’s case, he drove a tractor in and around his then home base in Lulu, Mississippi in Coahoma County.  Johnson drove a truck for an oil company during this period, leading years later to the title of an Earwig Music label album Johnson would release (i.e., The Oil Man.)  It is difficult to chronicle what Frost did during this period for money, as it has been said repeatedly that he was not of high energy or initiative employment-wise.

Now finding Carr and his associates in the mid-1970s, a young man named Michael Frank (he of the Earwig Music label), was in attendance at a Jelly Roll Kings show at a joint owned by Johnson, and was so taken by their individual and collective talents that he offered them the opportunity to record a full-length record under the Jelly Roll Kings band name.  Earwig’s first release was the fantastic Jelly Roll Kings’ Rockin’ The Juke Joint Down, and while the 1978 album is astounding for its breadth of talent and originality displayed, along with the astonishing individual attributes of Frost, Johnson, and Carr, and for providing the first glimpse of this amazing blues aggregation to the greater blues market, it did little to further the band’s awareness or keep the group organized on a regular basis.

As an aside, on the album’s front cover, the mysterious face peering out of the juke joint window in the background of Frost’s, Johnson’s, and Carr’s photo is the stuff of blues mystery: Who was that person?

In that late 1970s, Forst had moved on because of the group’s continued lack of appreciation, plying his trade with bluesmen such as T-Model Ford and Willie Foster from his home base in Greenville, Mississippi, and at times Carr played drums behind Frost and his associates.  Carr continued to reside in Lula, with Johnson continuing to play in the greater Clarksdale region and owning various nightclubs, and Carr too regularly played with him.  

In 1986, the blues-themed movie entitled Corssroads featured both Frost and Carr performing on the film’s soundtrack with American musician Ry Cooder.

As the years moved forward, Carr continued to drive a tractor for a living and play music when the opportunities presented themselves.  Plus, he continued to record with Frost and Johnson.  In 1988, a decade after the Jelly Roll Kings’ release on Earwig Music, Carr was included on Frost’s Midnight Prowler collection for Earwig Music, plus he contributed to Johnson’s 1991 Earwig Music release Daddy, When Is Momma Comin’ Home.  Carr was again called to the front when five years later in 1996 he appeared in the documentary entitled River Of Song, a PBS production. 

Carr was further called upon in 1996 to lend his percussion skills on a new Jelly Roll Kings collection entitled Off Yonder Wall, a set that saw the light of day on the Fat Possum Records imprint. 

Two years later, Carr was again in the recording studio with Frost to lay down the tracks for the HMG Records label offering entitled Jelly Roll Kings.  Not to sit idle, Carr was also called upon to contribute his drumming skills on recordings for the likes of Lonnie Shields, Paul “Wine” Jones, T-Model Ford, Asie Payton, Floyd Lee & His Mean Blues Band, and Robert “Bilbo” Walker. 

1999 was a difficult year for Carr, as his long-time collaborator Frank Frost passed away.  However, it in no way slowed Carr down.  He continued to play “live.” Backing numerous bands, and he also was in the recording studio with blues artists such as the acclaimed Buddy Guy on his Sweet Tea outing.  Plus, Carr was fronting his own band appropriately named The Delta Jukes, one that included guitarist and vocalist Dave Riley.  The band recorded three collections together, in 2002, 2004, and 2007 for the Black Magic, Bluesland, and Blue Label imprints, respectively.

In 2003, Carr was included in a Mississippi blue documentary entitled The Blues: Feel Like Going Home (a Martin Scorsese production), and in 2008 on a film production entitled Full Moon Lightnin’.

Carr’s genial ways, endless energy, sparse-yet-completely idyllic drumming capabilities (using only snare and bass drums along with a high-hat cymbal), ones that always found the deep groove, exploited it, yet never in any way seemed over-the-top, combined with his natural spunky showmanship and versatility, were always the backbones behind his musicality, dependability, and demand.  He played with enthusiasm and conviction, doing so in a manner that always drove the music of whoever he was backing to its best heights, with a childlike sense of fun for good measure.

Finally in his later years (as is so often the unfortunate case), Carr’s broad competencies were being recognized.  He was regaling in yearly nominations at The Handy Awards for the best blues drummer, the State of Mississippi bestowed upon him the illustrious Governor’s Award For Excellence In The Arts in 2007, and he achieved numerous recognitions from Living Blues magazine’s annual blues awards initiative.  Carr is also cited in numerous Mississippi Blues Trail markers.

In 2009, in a Clarksdale nursing facility, Carr passed away due to congestive heart failure at the age of 83.  His wife Doris had passed away roughly one year prior.  They had no children.

I will never forget watching Carr in total fascination that long ago evening in Chicago.  What a night!