Bluesman who played
piano and wrote several blues standards. Born in
Nashville in 1905, Carr spent his youth in
Indianapolis. He started playing out in his teens, and soon hooked up with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. From 1932-1934 the pair recorded several oft covered Carr tunes including
Mean Mistreatin Mama,
How Long Blues and
Blues Before Sunrise.
Carr's barrelhouse piano style and Blackwell's single string guitar style make their music sound throughly modern. With a better recording you couldn't tell whether these guys were laying the blues down in 1920's or 1990's.
But it was the early 30's. Carr drank himself to death in 1935 at the age of 30 -- as he predicted he would in Corn Licker Blues. Blackwell found work in a Pittsburg steel mill and didn't record again until shortly before his death in 1963.