Henry Townsend
Born 10/27/1909 Shelby MI
"Our mother raised us til the age of nine then me and two other brothers stayed with Grandparents. We lived with Grandparents all in a house in Cairo. I left home at age 9 reason for that I intended to play a trick on my cousin, and it was going to backfire. I was blowing snuff out of the can, and my cousin was blowing in the other end of the cane. It came back at me and got all in my face and eyes. My father got mad. Didn't like the attitude I took toward him. Never got whippins but was always afraid of them. The threat of a whippin, I couldn't handle that. I thought that punishment was too severe.
That's when I came to St. Louis. I stayed around about Jefferson and Market. stayed with Earl Keys, who's parents were wealthy, was a doctor. He was the only black man in St. Louis to own a Rolls Royce. His son I stayed with. Then I stayed over on Eugene street with some people named Watts for about eight months.
At age thrteen or fourteen, caught up with David Perchfield. I met him in Cairo. David showed me how to handle the guitar and started teaching me tunes, how to tune it up and all that. We started playing standards, blues, and eventually we started playing tunes that David and myself wrote. We practiced anywhere people could stand for me to make my noises. Later on of course it wasn't a long a deal that I was run off.. When I started getting a dime or 15 cents, I knew then that something was happening.
I found my way being able to sit in with guys who made it and were respected as a musician. Henry Brown, Ike Rogers... Aaron Sparks, "Pinetop".. we played a lot of speakeasys over the city. There wasn't no reknowned clubs at that time. Occasionally every 5 or 6 months the blues musicians would come through. But no real blues goin on in St. Louis, this was the top of the twenties and thirties. We kept crowds going, and we played what we called the house rent parties.. people were being evicted. We would raise money so they could pay the rent. We would have fish fries, serve alcohol and water.
You couldn't buy whiskey legal, but you could buy corn whiskey all bootleg. There were several places around town, every body knew it but they were hardly bothered. Hush money, hush mouth money. Don't see me money. That lasted until it was opened back up for whiskey . You could buy charters for private clubs. but couldn't buy alcohol. That was always that under table. They warned of raids in advance, you see, so there was plenty of warning and they would get raided but they admitted nothing. Sometimes they would be arrested, everybody in the club. Owner of the club would pay bail, then pay everyone double when they came back to work. The clubs that were generous to the customers and employees were the most popular. When alcohol was legal more clubs opened and there were more opportunities to play.
Around 29 or 30, I started recording. First recording was for Columbia Records.. In Chicago, 66 Lake Shore Drive. A scout negotiated a deal through Sam Wolf who owned a music store on Biddle Street. There was a verbal contract between Sam and myself, but Sam had a written contract. It was for 4 songs, 2 '78's. One was "Long Ago" another was "Henry's Worried Blues" the other one "Mean Mistreater". Record sold good, but I was not compensated. Just three hundred dollars and a hotel room. spent that three hundred dollar before I got back. They wanted me to go back and record, but that was when the bottom fell out.