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James Crutchfield (May 25, 1912 – December 7, 2001) was an American St. Louis barrelhouse blues singer, piano player and songwriter whose career spanned seven decades. His repertoire consisted of original and classic blues and boogie-woogie and depression-era popular songs.〔Larkin, Colin ed.; ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', Vol. 2; London 1998 p.1319〕 Known as the 'King of Barrelhouse Blues'; Crutchfield's better known songs include "I Believe You Need A Shot" and "My Baby Cooks My Breakfast".〔(Thedeadrockstarsclub.com ) - accessed November 10, 2011〕 ==Childhood== There is no record of James Crutchfield's birth: "My mama never know'd what day it was, she never know'd what month it was, but she always know'd what year it was. 'Lotta folks back in them days never even know'd that much, but my mama always did. She told me I was born in '12, in Baton Rouge, when the high water was highest." James Crutchfield said his mother Sarah was a "Geechee" - a descendent of slaves of the Georgia/Carolina sea islands and said he much resembled her. His father, Tom Crutchfield, he described as a large copper-colored man from southwestern Mississippi, whom he'd never met until he was eight years old and with whom he maintained a cordial relationship with thereafter. An only child, James and his mother, a farm worker, migrated through Louisiana and East Texas with the cotton and sugarcane seasons, moving often and sometimes living in tents. His earliest memories were of the boys coming home from World War I and the silent westerns of William S. Hart, whom he idolized.〔Rio, Johnny; Ain't Nothin' But A House Party; ''The Soulard Renaissance''; XIII-4 Fall 1988〕 Around 1920, his mother married and settled in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In his early teens, while employed as the janitor in a theater, Crutchfield began to teach himself to play on the house piano.〔James Crutchfield interview; www.stlblues.net; accessed March 2011〕 Also around this time, curious about the exact day of his birth, he went to the Baton Rouge library and told the story his mother had told him to an intrigued librarian. Together they looked through the 1912 newspapers and found that indeed, there had been a flood then, which crested on May 25. From that time on, he used that date as his birthday.〔Rio〕 In 1927, working as an under-age employee for a local railroad, James Crutchfield lost his left leg below the knee in a coupling accident. The railroad settled out of court for twenty-thousand dollars. Part of the money was used to buy his mother a house in Baton Rouge and the rest, considering his now diminished employment opportunities, was used to subsidize his fledgling musical career.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Crutchfield」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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