James Crutchfield

James Crutchfield
James Crutchfield - St. Louis 1992
Background information
Born	May 25, 1912 Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Died	December 7, 2001(2001-12-07) (aged 89) St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Genres	Blues, boogie-woogie
Occupation(s)	Songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, piano
Years active	1920s–2001

James Crutchfield (May 25, 1912 – December 7, 2001) was a St. Louis barrelhouse blues singer, piano player and songwriter whose career spanned seven decades. His repertoire consisted of original and classic blues and boogie-woogie and depression-era popular songs.

Known as the "King of Barrelhouse Blues;" his better-known songs include "I Believe You Need a Shot" and "My Baby Cooks My Breakfast".

There is no record of James Crutchfield's birth: "My mama never know'd what day it was, she never know'd what month it was, but she always know'd what year it was. 'Lotta folks back in them days never even know'd that much, but my mama always did. She told me I was born in '12, in Baton Rouge, when the high water was highest." Crutchfield said his mother, Sarah, was a "Geechee" - a descendant of slaves of the Georgia/Carolina sea islands and said he much resembled her. His father, Tom Crutchfield, he described as a large copper-colored man from southwestern Mississippi, whom he had never met until he was eight years old and with whom he maintained a cordial relationship thereafter. An only child, James and his mother, a farm worker, migrated through Louisiana and East Texas with the cotton and sugarcane seasons, moving often and sometimes living in tents. His earliest memories were of the "boys" coming home from World War I and the silent westerns of William S. Hart, whom he idolized.

Around 1920, his mother married and settled in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In his early teens, while employed as the janitor in a theater, Crutchfield began to teach himself to play on the house piano. Also around this time, curious about the exact day of his birth, he went to the Baton Rouge library and told the story his mother had told him to an intrigued librarian. Together they looked through the 1912 newspapers and found that indeed, there had been a flood then, which crested on May 25. From that time on, he considered that date as his birthday.