Yank Rachell
Birth Name: James Rachell
Genre: Blues
Instruments: Vocals, Mandolin, Harmonica, Guitar
Biography
James "Yank" Rachell was the primary exponent of blues mandolin,
although he also played guitar, violin, harp and sang expertly well. Born on a
farm outside Brownsville, Tennessee, Yank Rachell picked up the mandolin at the
age of eight, mainly teaching himself; an early encounter with "Hambone"
Willie Newbern early ed him as well. Rachell began to work dances
with singer and guitarist Sleepy
John Estes in the early '20s. In early 1929, he co-formed the Three J's Jug
Band with Estes
and pianist Jab Jones. The Three J's Jug Band were an instant hit and managed to
work the dances during the lucrative jug-band craze in Memphis and traveled
often to Paducah, Kentucky. The group recorded 14 sides credited jointly to Estes
and Rachell for Victor for 1929 and 1930.
After the record business was flattened by the depression, the Three J's broke
up. Estes
and harmonica player Hammie
Nixon went on to Chicago to seek their fortune in the nightclubs, but Yank
Rachell decided to try his hand at farming and also worked for the L&N
Railroad. Ironically, it was Rachell who was next to record -- during a stopover
in New York Rachell teamed up with guitarist Dan Smith and laid down 25 titles
for ARC in just three days, though only six of them were issued.
Shortly before the ARC date, Yank Rachell had discovered a kid harmonica player
that he believed had real talent, John
Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson. They worked together at the Blue Flame
Club in Jackson, Tennessee starting in 1933. In 1934 Williamson
went north to Chicago. With the success of Williamson's
first Bluebird dates of 1937, Rachell decided to join Sonny
Boy in Chicago for sessions in March and June of 1938. Yank Rachell also
contributed four sides of his own to each session, and then 16 more in 1941 with
Sonny
Boy backing him up. Some of the 1941 tracks are among his best: "It
Seem Like a Dream," "Biscuit Baking Woman," and "Peach Tree
Blues" were all successes for both Rachell and Bluebird.
But in 1938, while working in St. Louis with Peetie
Wheatstraw, Yank Rachell had married and started to raise a family. During
the peak of his musical career, Rachell kept his day job and did not lead
"the life," at least not the same one that claimed his friend Sonny
Boy Williamson on June 1, 1948. After Williamson's
murder, Rachell drifted away from music and relied solely on straight jobs to
make his living, settling permanently in Indianapolis in 1958. His wife passed
away in 1961, and afterward he began to resume performing. In 1962, Rachell was
re-united with Nixon
and Estes,
and the three of them began tearing up the college and coffeehouse circuit,
recording for Delmark as Yank Rachell's Tennessee Jug Busters. Estes
died in 1977, and from that time Rachell worked mainly as a solo act. Yank
Rachell was a long-time regular at the Slippery Noodle in Indianapolis, and
recorded only sporadically in his last years. Nonetheless, he was working on a
new album when he died at age 87. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide
Born:
Mar 16, 1910 in Brownsville, Tennessee
Died: Apr 09, 1997 in
Indianapolis, Indiana
Grave
Location: New Crown Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana USA
