Representative Albums: "The Best of Kansas Joe, Vol. 1, 1929-1935," "Story of Kansas Joe 1929-1944," "One in a Hundred"
Representative Songs: "Look Who's Coming Down the Ro," "The World Is a Hard Place to," "One More Greasing"
Biography
Alongside his younger brother Charlie, Joe McCoy is enshrined among the greatest sidemen in blues history, his spartan slide style most notably preserved on the landmark recordings of his wife Memphis Minnie. Born in May 11, 1905 in Jackson, Mississippi, he was primarily known as Kansas Joe McCoy, but his laundry list of aliases includes appearances as the Hillbilly Plowboy, Mud Dauber Joe, Hamfoot Ham, the Georgia Pine Boy and Hallelujah Joe. A self-taught player, he relocated to Memphis during the mid-1920s, joining Jed Davenport's Beale Street Jug Band and meeting Memphis Minnie. McCoy later became her second husband, and during their six-year marriage accompanied her on such country-blues classics as "Bumble Bee" and "When the Levee Breaks"; the couple migrated to Chicago in 1930, where -- in the company of notables like Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red -- they helped modernize the country-blues sound to fit more comfortably into their new urban surroundings. With his eloquent, inventive guitar work and deep vocals, McCoy could well have risen to stardom in his own right, but he appeared to prefer his sideman role, and after his divorce from Minnie he and sibling Charlie formed the Harlem Hamfats, recording regularly between 1936 and 1939. Upon the group's demise, he founded Big Joe and His Washboard Band, which evolved into Big Joe and His Rhythm during the mid-1940s. McCoy died on January 28, 1950. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
McCoy played music under a variety of stage names but is best known as "Kansas Joe McCoy". Born in Raymond, Mississippi, he was the older brother of the blues accompanist Papa Charlie McCoy. As a young man, McCoy was drawn to the music scene in Memphis, Tennessee where he played guitar and sang vocals during the 1920s. He teamed up with future wife Lizzie Douglas, a guitarist better known as Memphis Minnie, and their 1929 recording of the song "Bumble Bee" on the Columbia Recordslabel was a hit.[2] In 1930, the couple moved to Chicago where they were an important part of the burgeoning blues scene. Following their divorce, McCoy teamed up with his brother to form a band known as the Harlem Hamfats that performed and recorded during the second half of the 1930s.
In 1936, the Harlem Hamfats released a record with the song "The Weed Smoker's Dream" on it. McCoy later refined the tune, changed the lyrics and titled the new song "Why Don't You Do Right?" for Lil Green, who recorded it in 1941. It was covered a year later by both Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee, becoming Lee's first hit single. "Why Don't You Do Right?" remains a jazz standard and is McCoy's most enduring composition.
At the outbreak of World War II Charlie McCoy entered the military, but a heart condition kept Joe McCoy from service. Out on his own, he created a band known as 'Big Joe and his Rhythm' that performed together throughout most of the 1940s. The band again included his brother Charlie on mandolin and Robert Nighthawk on harmonica.[3] In 1950, at the age of 44, McCoy died of heart disease in Chicago, only a few months before his brother Charlie. They are both buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant took his and Memphis Minnie's recording of "When the Levee Breaks," which was in his personal collection, and presented it to guitarist Jimmy Page, who revamped it and slightly altered it lyrically, and help record it on Led Zeppelin's 1971 album, Led Zeppelin IV.
McCoy also performed and recorded under the names Bill Wither, Georgia Pine Boy, Hallelujah Joe, Big Joe McCoy and His Washboard Band, and The Mississippi Mudder.[3] Other names he used from time to time included Hillbilly Plowboy, Mud Dauber Joe and Hamfoot Ham.[1]
