Kokomo Arnold

From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.

Kokomo Arnold (15 February 1901 - 8 November 1968) was a popular early blues musician. Born James Arnold in Lovejoys Station, Georgia, Arnold received his nickname in 1934 after releasing "Old Original Kokomo Blues" for the Decca label, a cover of the Francis Blackwell blues song about the "Kokomo" brand of coffee. A left handed slide guitarist, his intense slide style of playing and rapid fire vocal style set him apart from his contemporaries.

Having learned the basics of the guitar from his cousin John Wiggs, Kokomo Arnold began playing in the early 1920s as a sideline while he worked as a farmhand in Buffalo, New York and a steelworker in Pittsburgh. In 1929, he moved to Chicago and set up a bootlegging business, an activity he continued thoughout Prohibition. In 1930 Arnold moved south briefly, and made his first recording under the handle "Gitfiddle Jim" in Memphis, before moving back to Chicago and the center of bootlegging in the United States, though he was forced to make as living as a musician after the end of Prohibition.

From his first recording for Decca on 10 September 1934 until his last on 12 May 1938, Arnold made 88 sides, seven of which remain lost. Along with Peetie Wheatstraw and Amos Eaton, he was a dominant figure in Chicago blues circles. His major effect upon modern music is through his influence, along with Peetie Wheatstraw, upon the seminal mid-century Delta blues artist Robert Johnson. Johnson turned "Old Original Kokomo Blues" into "Sweet Home Chicago", while another Arnold song "Milk Cow Blues" would become "Milkcow Calf's Blues" and be performed by Elvis Presley.

In 1938, Kokomo Arnold quit the music business and began to work in a Chicago factory. Refound by blues researchers in 1962, he showed no enthusiasm for taking music up again and taking advantage of the explosion of interest in the blues among young white audiences. He died of a heart attack at age 67 in Chicago.