"Deep Morgan Blues" - Henry Brown - St. Louis, MO
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 38° 37.855 W 090° 11.130
15S E 744995 N 4279578
Biddle St., known as Deep Morgan, 3th Police Ward, was once called "Kerry Patch: when this was ethnic Irish enclave, turned black and became "Deep Morgan", and also called the "Bloody 3rd Ward." Blues Bars filled the area of Morgan St. & Biddle St.
Waymark Code: WM10G70
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 05/03/2019
Views: 4
County of site: St. Louis Independent City
Location of site: Morgan St & Biddle St., St. Louis
Composer: Henry Brown
Artist: Henry Brown
Released: 1929
"The area known as Deep Morgan appears elsewhere on this list of songs, either in spirit or in location. Located on Biddle Street in what was known as north St. Louis' "Bloody 3rd Ward" at the turn of the century, Deep Morgan was where "Stack" Lee Shelton shot William Lyons, but it was also a red-light district that was home to the city's music clubs. As such, the neighborhood offered fertile ground for the evolution of ragtime, blues and jazz, and it's that history that piano player Henry Brown channels in "Deep Morgan Blues." The Tennessee-born Brown moved to St. Louis at age twelve and came to be known as a barrelhouse piano player with few peers; you can hear him exemplify the form on this track, with its stately walking bass line keeping time for Brown's more emphatic right hand. Listen closely and you can hear elements of Deep Morgan's musical contributions to American music in this three-minute rag. - Christian Schaeffer, Riverfront Times
Henry Brown
1906, Tennessee – 1981, St. Louis, Missouri
Brown moved to St. Louis around 1918, and apart from army service (as a musician) in
World War II, he spent his entire musical life there. His economical but highly inventive
piano playing usually featured a bouncy, four-to-the-bar chordal bass, and he was heard
on record both solo and behind a number of St. Louis artists in the 1920s and ‘30s,
including Mary Johnson, Alice Moore and the "gutbucket" trombonist Ike Rodgers. He
recorded a superb album in 1960 for Paul Oliver. Thereafter, he was recorded
sporadically, but less successfully, until 1974. He had been in declining health for some
time before his death in June 1981. Drastically under-recorded, Don Kent calls Brown
“one of the pinnacles of St. Louis musicianship...Brown is one of the greatest singers of
the ‘20s.”" ~ St. Louis and The Blues
There are no lyrics to this blues song...only piano. Please listen: U-Yube