Biography Daddy Stovepipe

Johnny "Daddy Stovepipe" Watson (1867–1963) grew up in Mobile, Alabama where he first learned to play harmonica and later took up twelve-string guitar. As a young man, he traveled minstrel and medicine shows, sporting a stovepipe hat that earned him the nickname "Daddy Stovepipe". Watson's recording debut, for Gennett, occurred in 1924.

While living in Greenville, Mississippi in the 1930s, Watson and his wife, "Mississippi Sarah", recorded for Vocalion and Bluebird. "The Spasm" is their raucous version of popular "(I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You", written by Sam Theard in 1931, and covered by such prominent artists as Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway.

After Sarah died in 1937, Johnny settled in Chicago where he became a fixture of Maxwell Street, playing his blues and hokum songs for tips, and still wearing his trademark top hat.

Watson lived to be 96; his long life began during the heyday of minstrelsy and ended on the eve of Beatlemania.

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