Music
One String Sam
· blues singer, diddley bow player
Detroit street musician who played a homemade one-string diddley bow and cut two haunting sides for Joe Von Battle in 1956.
- Birth name
- Sam Wilson
- Detroit years
- 1950s–1970s
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Sam Wilson was a street entertainer in Detroit who played the diddley bow, a single-string instrument of African American folk tradition, on a homemade version fitted with an electric guitar pickup. He slid an empty baby-food jar along the string and, while singing, also used the jar as a kind of echo chamber in front of the microphone. In 1956 he walked into Joe's Record Shop on Hastings Street, and Joe Von Battle recorded two songs, "I Need a Hundred Dollars" and "My Baby, Oooo," issued on a 10-inch JVB disc; later critics called them eerie and riveting. For years little else was known of him. Blues researchers tracked him down in the early 1970s, and he played the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in September 1973 and its 1974 edition, held in exile in Windsor, Ontario, as well as Ann Arbor's Hill Auditorium. A 2024 documentary shed new light on his family.
Highlights
- Played a homemade electric diddley bow with a baby-food-jar slide
- Recorded "I Need a Hundred Dollars" and "My Baby, Oooo" for JVB in 1956
- Performed at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in 1973 and 1974
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Recorded here · 1956
Joe's Record Shop (Hastings Street)
Demolished · 1945–1960
Where Joe Von Battle recorded his only two commercial sides in 1956.
Performed here · 1973–1974
Hill Auditorium
The University of Michigan's concert hall, one of the venues where he appeared after his rediscovery.