Helen Baxter

Helen Baxter, a classic blues singer from the 1920s kept pretty busy, not only recording under her own name but also cutting sides as both Ellen Coleman and Mamie Spencer. Her artistic peak was reached while recording sessions with medium-sized bands under the leadership of blues pianist Lem Fowler, a hotshot keyboard man who had come up in the business creating dozens of piano rolls, then went on to record for Columbia in the mid-'20s under the name of Lem Fowler's Washboard Wonders and Fowler's Favorites. Baxter and Fowler created tasty blues with a thick, sometimes even orchestral band sound for Columbia, Okeh, Edison and Banner. The first two of these labels pressed records using the credits "Helen Baxter, accompanied by Lemuel Fowler," while Edison put out the material under the Ellen Coleman name, but with Fowler boldly providing accompaniment without similar protection of a pseudonym. For Banner, Fowler made up for this possible inequity by appearing uncredited; these sides were issued simply as Helen Baxter material. Meanwhile, Baxter backdoored into another studio setting for the Oriole label, cutting different material as Mamie Spencer. This time, Fowler was not invited at all. All of these tracks, including songs such as the ominous "Cruel Back Bitin' Blues (A Heart Aching Chant)," the inviting "Daddy Ease It to Me" and the clean-sounding "Scrubbin' Blues," were some of the earliest examples of "race" recordings or material aimed at the Afro-American public. In the case of Baxter, some of the pseudonyms she used were not created for the usual reason of dodging recording contract restrictions, but in order to market her as both a "race" and "non-race" artist. That color lines were being drawn in the sand by recording moguls sniffing around at the periphery of the action is more than apparent from some of the promotional material of the time. When producer Joe Davis recorded Baxter as Coleman in the summer of 1923, the original advertisements announced "...another blues song sung by Ellen Coleman, only this time we accompanied her with our own orchestra instead of the colored orchestra." The latter outfit thus classified by pigment was the Fowler group, including players such as harmonica and kazoo champ Robert Cooksey, clarinetist Percy Glascoe, guitarist Bobby Leecan and pianist Phil Worde. A note that was retrieved from one of the original Edison session files, and memorialized for posterity in Bruce Bastin's Never Sell a Copyright: Joe Davis and His Role in the New York Music Scene, 1916-1978, enthusiastically describes the proceedings: "Here's what the coons say is the REAL stuff! Do you think we could sell it?" The answer was yes, if not the first time around then certainly in the form of later blues anthologies and reissues. Baxter's recordings have been mined in particular by the excellent Document label. She has been anthologized as a female blues and vaudeville singer, and her material is also part of the program in retrospectives of the work of both Fowler and the interesting playing partnership of Leecan and Cooksey. ~ Eugene Chadbourne