Christopher Wyze & The Tellers

Naptown Blues: Songs of Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell

Big Radio Records

Naptown Blues includes a 24-page booklet that tells the story. J.E. Guernsey owned the local record store and decided he wanted to record pianist Leroy Carr with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. When Scrapper first heard Carr, he remarked, “sounds like the blues.” Guernsey wanted the pair to record for Vocalion Records in Chicago, but Scrapper told him he couldn’t go, as he was selling his corn bootleg liquor. At some point Guernsey bought all the alcohol and put Scrapper out of business.

Guernsey asked Scrapper: if he could get a recording machine from the local radio station, WFBM, brought down to record them, would Scrapper agree to record? And so Vocalion brought the portable recording machine, and sessions took place at the WFBM radio station in the Indianapolis Athletic Club Building at 350 North Meridian Street. The building, built in 1924, still stands today and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Leroy Carr passed away in April 1935; he was thirty years old. Scrapper Blackwell died in October 1962; he was fifty-nine.

Following the success of Christopher Wyze & the Tellers’ debut album, Stuck in the Mud, Wyze was awarded a “One to Watch” songwriter award by the Nashville Songwriters Association International. His creative journey ignited his reputation, as listeners enjoyed his vivid narratives about the universal emotions of love, struggle, disappointment, hope, and perseverance.

Christopher Wyze & the Tellers kick off the album with “I’m Going Back to Tennessee,” first recorded in 1929, as Wyze sings, “Ain’t got nobody, to care for me. Gonna pack my trunk and go back to Tennessee. Ain’t got nobody, to care for me, gonna pack my trunk and go back to Tennessee. Now I wonder why my baby wants to treat me so, every time I knock up on her front door…I’m going away baby, and time ain’t long, count the days, baby, count the days, I’m gone.”

On the title track, “Naptown Blues,” Wyze chimes, “Nobody knows old Naptown, baby, like I do, do. If you stop and listen, I will tell you a thing or two, two. When you get lonesome and want to have some fun, fun, grab a train and try old Naptown some, some…I would rather be in Naptown than any place I know, I know…I can get me a ticket and stop by the Walker, show show.” The song references the Walker Theatre at 617 Indiana Avenue, a 1,500-seat cultural hub for the city’s Black community.

“How Long – How Long Blues,” first recorded in 1928, became Carr and Blackwell’s breakthrough record and one of the defining blues releases of the 1920s. On Wyze’s version he chants, “How long, baby how long, has that evening train been gone, how long, how long, baby how long? Stood at the station, watched my baby leaving town, blue and disgusted, no peace could be found…and if I could holler like a mountain jack I’d go up the mountain, call my baby back, but for how long, how, how long, baby how long?” The song has been covered by many artists including Tampa Red, Count Basie, Big Joe Turner, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, and B.B. King.

On “The Truth About the Thing,” Carr’s philosophical lyrics lay out a streetwise principle: when money is gone, friends vanish. Wyze cries out, “When your in trouble, your best friend will slow you down, when you got plenty of money, then your friend will come around…In your pocket you have not one dime, then you wonder why your friend won’t pay you no mind.”

“My Own Lonesome Blues” features Wyze as he moans, “Did you ever wake up in the morning, your mind going two different ways? One mind to leave you baby, and one mind to stay. Yeah, and it’s killing me baby, what can I do to change your mind? Now tell me baby, what can I do to change your mind? Lord I could learn to love you baby if you would only treat me nice and kind.”

On “Midnight Hour Blues,” Wyze groans, “In the wee midnight hour long before the break of day. When the blues creep up on you and carry your mind away. While I lay in my bed and cannot go to sleep, why my heart’s in trouble and my mind is thinking deep. My mind was running back to days of long ago, and the one I love I don’t see her any more. Blues, why do you worry me? Why do you stay so long? You come to me yesterday, been with me all night long.” The song has been covered by other notables including Champion Jack Dupree, Eric Clapton, John Hammond Jr., Elvin Bishop, and Charlie Musselwhite.

“Kokomo Blues” was written and sung by guitarist Blackwell. The song, later re-envisioned in lyrics and styling by Robert Johnson, became Johnson’s now classic 1937 “Sweet Home Chicago.” Wyze belts, “Baby, don’t you want to go? Baby, don’t you want to go? Pack your little suitcase, papa’s going to Kokomo…I can tell, mama, there’s something going on wrong, Baby, you don’t know, you don’t know. Papa’s all ready, going back to Kokomo. And me and my baby had a falling out last night, somehow or other, my babe won’t treat me right. Baby, what’s the matter now?…my train is ready and I’m going to Kokomo.” Notable covers include Mississippi Fred McDowell and Rory Block.

On “Tired of Your Low Down Ways,” originally written by pianist Carr, Wyze pleads, “Listen do you think I’m going to be your dog all my life? You caused me to leave my happy home and wife, and I got tired of your lowdown dirty ways, and when I leave you baby, I’m going away to stay…I gave you my money, you left me cold in hand, you took my money, give it to your other man, and I got tired of your lowdown dirty ways. And when I leave you baby, I’m going away to stay.”

“You Got to Reap What You Sow” was recorded in Chicago at the Vocalion label–owned Brunswick studio operation at 623 S. Wabash; today the building functions as part of the Wabash campus of Chicago’s Columbia College. On the song, Wyze declares, “I hear something baby, I want you to know. You’ve got to reap baby, just what you sow, after all I’ve done for you, you told me baby, that you was through, but you want for me baby, when I won’t want you, you’ve got to reap just what, what you sow.”

On “Prison Bound Blues,” one of six Carr/Blackwell songs that deal with incarceration, Wyze bursts, “Early one morning, the blues came falling down, early one morning, the blues kept falling down, all locked up in jail and prison bound. All last night I, sat in my cell alone, all last night, I sat in my cell alone, thinking about my baby and my happy home. Baby, you will never see my smiling face again, baby you will never see my smiling face again, but always remember, your daddy has been your friend. Sometimes I wonder, why don’t you write to me. If I have been a bad fellow, I did not intend to be, when I had my trial, baby, you could not be found, so it’s too late now, mistreating mama, I’m prison bound.”

“Birthday in Jail” was written by Christopher Wyze & the Tellers, inspired by Carr and Blackwell’s “Christmas in Jail – Ain’t That a Pain” and “Prison Cell Blues,” the latter written by Floyd Thompson and J.E. Guernsey and sung by Leroy Carr, piano and vocal, with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. The re-imagined version was released in 2025, recorded in Memphis at Royal Studios by Boo Mitchell with the Hi Rhythm Section, as Wyze croons, “The blues come fallin’, they fall like drops of rain, the blues come fallin’, they fall like drops of rain, I’ve got to spend my birthday, locked up in jail again.”

Few modern blues artists have taken a path like Christopher Wyze. After spending years as a writer before stepping onto a stage as a blues frontman, he gradually evolved into an acclaimed songwriter whose storytelling has become the hallmark of his music. This album pays tribute to two of Indianapolis’ greatest blues pioneers, Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, whose groundbreaking recordings helped shape the course of American blues nearly a century ago. Christopher Wyze & the Tellers recorded the album in their hometown of Indianapolis, at a downtown studio located 2.5 miles from where Carr and Blackwell first recorded in June 1928. This is a great historical album.

Richard Ludmerer

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