Oscar Buddy Woods

Oscar "Buddy" Woods was a Louisiana street musician known as "The Lone Wolf" and a pioneer in the style of lap steel bottleneck blues slide guitar; some experts believe he may have been the primary force behind the creation of this whole genre. Woods was born in the area around Natchitoches, Louisiana, and his unknown birth date is variously listed as having been anywhere from 1892 to 1900. About 1925 he is known to have re-settled in Shreveport, Louisiana, working as a musician and "street-rustler". It is said that Woods developed his bottleneck slide approach to playing blues guitar after seeing a touring Hawaiian troupe of musical entertainers in the early 1920s.



Not long after arriving in Shreveport, Woods began a long association with guitarist Ed Schaffer, and together they performed as the Shreveport Home Wreckers, often appearing at The Blue Goose Grocery and Market, a notorious Shreveport establishment said to be an after hours speakeasy. Woods and Schaffer made their first two recordings as the Shreveport Home Wreckers for Victor in Memphis on May 31, 1930. For someone whose handle was "The Lone Wolf", Woods was extraordinarily lucky in terms of the number of recording dates he was able to secure in connection with other artists. From this first session up until his last, a field recording for the Library of Congress made on October 8, 1940, Oscar "Buddy" Woods was involved in the making of no less than 35 sides.



On May 27 and 28 1931, Ed Schaffer was in Charlotte, North Carolina recording six sides headed by white country artist (and future Governor of Louisiana) Jimmie Davis along with New Orleans-based jazz guitarist Ed "Snoozer" Quinn. Nearly a year later in Dallas, Texas (on February 8, 1932) Davis made four sides with the Shreveport Home Wreckers as accompanists, and then the Home Wreckers made another pair of sides on their own, issued this time on Victor as by "Eddie and Oscar". These sides are of key sociological importance as they are the first known Southern-made records of country blues made by a "mixed race" group. Needless to say, Victor did not go out of their way to publiscise this aspect upon the initial release of these sides, which occurred during the worst year in the history of the record market. However, some old timers recalled that the association between Jimmie Davis and the Shreveport Home Wreckers didn't just end at the recording studio door- amazingly, they also toured together.