Music
Calvin Frazier
1915–1972 · blues guitarist, singer, songwriter
Arkansas-born guitarist, a companion of Robert Johnson and Johnny Shines, whose 1938 Library of Congress recordings are early documents of Detroit blues.
- Born
Osceola, Arkansas- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 57- Birth name
- Calvin H. Frazier
- Detroit years
- 1930s–1972
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Frazier met Johnny Shines and Robert Johnson as a young musician in Arkansas, and after a violent 1935 dispute in Memphis in which his brother was killed, he left the South. He came to Detroit with his wife and children, and Johnson and Shines traveled there with him for a time; the group sang hymns on local radio. In 1938 folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Frazier in Detroit for the Library of Congress, capturing songs such as "Lily Mae" and his own takes on Johnson's material, among the earliest recordings of the city's blues. His commercial records came between 1949 and 1956, when he played with T. J. Fowler's band and alongside Alberta Adams, Baby Boy Warren and Boogie Woogie Red. Hits never came, but he kept playing Detroit bars until he died of cancer in 1972. In 2009 the Detroit Blues Society raised money to put a headstone on his unmarked grave.
Highlights
- Associate of Robert Johnson and Johnny Shines in the 1930s
- Recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in Detroit, 1938
- Recorded with T. J. Fowler, Alberta Adams and Baby Boy Warren (1949–1956)
- Headstone placed by the Detroit Blues Society in 2009