Sam Carr  1926-2009
Major Works
- Jelly Roll Kings --Frank Frost, Sam Carr /
Audio CD / Released 1999
- Keep Yourself Together- Frank Frost, Sam Carr / Audio CD / Released 1996
- Rockin' the Juke Joint Down (1979)
- Off Yonder Wall
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Sam Carr: A Biography
By T.C. Hudson (SHS)
This blues man by the name of Sam Carr was born Samuel Lee
McCollum on April 17, 1926, in Friar's Point, Mississippi.
About a year and half after his birth, Sam’s mother, Mary
Griffin McCollum, left Sam in the care of the Carr family, who
adopted him and raised him on their farm near Dundee, Mississippi.
His natural father was the influential blues guitarist and vocalist
Robert Lee McCollum, who recorded under the names Robert Lee
McCoy and Robert Nighthawk. Sam did not meet his father until
he was seven years old.
Sam Carr's extensive and outrageous career of more than fifty
years began when he earned a spot in his father's band. Sam's
father, as Robert Nighthawk, often took Sam on his gigs. Sam
actually danced in front of the band and performed during breaks
as well when he was only eight or nine. Sam worked in
the early forties as a doorman and a chauffeur, but he also
played bass in his father's band in the early 1940's
 In
1946, when Sam Carr was 20, he married his wife Doris and they
began sharecropping in Arkansas. However, when they argued with
the agent on the plantation, they decided to go to Chicago.
After a short time, the Carrs moved to St. Louis to live with
Carr’s mother, and Carr began playing bass with harmonica
player Tree Top Slim. Sam then formed his own band, Little Sam
Carr and the Blue Kings. Interestingly, Nighhawk’s wife
Early Bea first played drums with this group before Sam Carr
became the drummer.
In 1956 in St. Louis, Carr began working regularly with Frank
Frost, who was playing both harmonica and guitar. Frost had
played previously in Carr's father's band. The pair backed Sonny
Boy Williamson II for a while, and continued to perform together
after they moved to Mississippi in the early 1960s. In Helena,
Arkansas they sometimes backed Williamson, Houston Stackhouse,
and Robert Nighthawk.
They started another band that included Little Willie Foster
on harmonica, and Carr played bass and guitar. In 1959 Carr
and Frost moved back to Mississippi. By now Carr was playing
the drums, and the band cut two albums. They had a recording
contract with the Chicago-based Earwig label, and they called
themselves the Jelly Roll Kings (The Big Book of Blues).
Photo right: Student researcher T. C. Hudson
Sam Carr and Frank Frost have spent more than forty years together
playing the blues. The two of them, Sam and Frank, persist in
their crazy blues. They first recorded in the sixties for Sam
Phillips' Phillips International Records but kept on recording
with each other for Evidence label. When the ordinary drum set
is not quite enough, they say that Sam plays walls, microphone
stands, guitarists' backs, even the seat he sits on or
anything he can hit. Sam's band had a song Rockin' the Juke
Joint Down in 1979. It was a big. This song made people
get interested in their band. It was rocking in all of the Delta
juke joints and concerts all over the country. Sam and
Frank recorded an album with Big Jack Johnson called Off
Yonder Wall with Fat Possum Records (www.bluesfestivals.com).
Sam and Frank were a team until Frank Frost died in 1999.
Carr then played with various regional artists. He last performed
in the summer 0f 2009 at Mother's Best Festival in Helena, Arkansas,
and at a celebration honoring him (Sam Carr Day) at Hopson Plantation
near Clarksdale, Mississippi, in August, 2009. Carr was known
as a master of a drum style known as the "Mississippi shuffle."
Sam Carr died September 21, 2009, of congestive heart failure
at the age of 83 in nursing home in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
In the last ten years, Carr’s talent received wide acclaim,
including annual nominations for best drummer for Handy Awards
(now Blues Music Awards). He was presented with the Heritage
Award by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and First Lady Marsha
Barbour during the 2007 Governor's Awards for Excellence in
the Arts program. He won multiple awards from Living
Blues magazine.
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Timeline
1926 - Sam Carr was born in Friars Point, Mississippi, on April
17
1940 - He began his career playing bass in his father's band.
1950 - Carr moved to St. Louis where he started a band that included Frank Frost on guitar and Willie Foster on harmonica.
1959 - The band stopped backing up Sonny Boy Williamson, and they
moved back to Mississippi.
1960 - The group first recorded for Sam Phillips' International Records.
1962 - Big Jack Johnson joined Sam's band and they cut two albums.
1970 - Everybody was interested in the band.
1978 - They signed a recording contract with the Chicago-based
Earwig label, now calling themselves the Jelly Roll Kings.
1979 - They released a song called Rockin' the Juke Joint
Down.
1999 -Carr is up for a Blues Instrumentalist of the Year
award.
2009- Sam Carr dies on September 21 at the age of 83
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Related Websites
Article
called Down Home in Helena with Frank Frost and Sam Carr.
Photograph
of Frank Frost and Sam Carr by Jeff Dunas
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Bibliography
Santelli, Robert. The Big Book of Blues 1993:. 81-83.
Stripling,kurt. http://www. kingbiscuitfest.org/kbbf97/franksam.html: SamCarr,web publishing 305 spin
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