Casey Bill Weldon

By Manfred Curinckx

Casey Bill Weldon, the Enigmatic Blues and Slide Guitar Marvel a.k.a The Hawaiian Guitar Wizard

For this month’s article I will be stepping away from the early blues of the Southern States, putting the spotlight on an early, but to some extent forgotten, star of the blues who mainly performed and recorded in Chicago in the 1930’s.

An in depth study into Casey Bill was made by blues researcher Jim O’Neal, founder of the Living Blues Magazine. In number 228 from dec 2018/jan 2019, he provides us with a lot of information. His great work will be the basis for most of the following on Casey Bill Weldon’s life.Life and persona of Casey Bill Weldon:
Piecing together the life and music of Casey Bill Weldon is not an easy task. Although he was an enormously skilled and succesful musician who played and performed with many greats of his time, not much official documentation is at hand. There is a lot of contradiction and ambiguity in the data, mainly due to his double name, use of different names during his career and also stories and mistaken recollections from fellow musicians with whom he played.
Let’s start with the name. ‘Casey’ is believed to be a performing and recording name. It indicaties his link to Kansas City, also known as K.C. His official name is thought to have been Nathan – William Weldon – Hammond. This can be assumed as correct by a registration card from Chicago, stating his residence on State Street. His signature is on the bottom of the card. It also shows his birth date as Feb. 2nd 1903 in Springfield, Arkansas. A birth certificate found, shows his birth name and date as William Weldon, born Feb. 2nd 1901, in Morrilton Arkansas, only about 10 miles south west of Springfield. His father and mother are mentioned as Jacob Weldon and Caroline Hamilton.

Jim O’Neal looked up the Social Security Death Index entry for William Weldon. William applied for social security in Illinois, with a last address in Kansas City. In the application, Weldon gave his birth date as February 1, 1902 and the place as Schenute, which is probably Chanute, Kansas. Chanute is a town at the junction of two railroads, one of which is the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Line, also known as the Katy. Casey mentions a train called ‘Katy’ in his song ‘Big Katy Adam’, recorded for Vocalion in 1936 with Black Bob on piano and probably Big Bill Broonzy on second guitar (info Stefan Wirz). On the social security application, his parents are again entered as Jacob Weldon and Caroline Hamilton and his wife as Luetta Johnson. Casey Bill Weldon is sometimes said to have been married to Geeshie Wiley, but this is not proven to this date as far as I know.

On top of all this, William Weldon is often confused with Will Weldon, the guitarist who was with the Memphis Jug Band. Will Weldon was believed to have been briefly married to and played with Memphis Minnie in Memphis, Tennessee. No marriage record was found however. Will Weldon was a lot younger than Casey Bill. Will Weldon died in Memphis in 1934, when Casey Bill Weldon was in Chicago. When Casey Bill Weldon’s records were put on Vinyl, Will Weldon’s photo was regurlarly used, adding more to confusion.

Casey Bill did know Memphis Minnie though. He played on a recording session with her in Chicago on Oct 31, 1935. These recordings were for Bluebird, one of the songs being ‘When the Sun Goes Down’, one of Memphis Minnie’s most well known Chicago recordings.

The Kansas City connection for Casey Bill is quite strong, not only because of the ‘Casey’ and the fact that he died there eventually, but also because a lot of his family moved to Kansas City. The Kansas City music of that time had a big influence of his music and guitar style. The city had a bustling scene with swing and jazz/blues orchestras in the 1910’s and 1920’s that popularized the use of the hawaiian steel guitar since electric guitars were not around yet.
Casey Bill Weldon and Tampa Red are known to have used plugged in steel guitars for recording sessions at the Leland Hotel in Aurora, Illinois in 1938, so they can be seen as true pioneers of electric blues guitar. The same can be said for Memphis Minnie.

There is only one authenticated known photo of William Casey Bill Weldon. It comes from the Chicago Defender, date Jan 11, 1941. It shows guitarist Charles Church, next to Casey Bill Weldon advertising them playing at the Spot Tavern, 734 East 43rd Street Chicago on Sunday afternoons at 4.30 cocktail hour.

William Weldon passed away September 28, 1972 in Kansas City. A local paper, the Kansas City Call, published the obituary. Contact with the funeral chapel and cemetary by Jim O’Neal led him to a nephew of William Weldon, named Charles Hammond. This brought the Hammond name forward again and shed light on some of the confusion. Charles revealed that they used two names for Casey Bill, being both William Weldon and Nathan Hammond. His State of Missouri death certificate verifies that ‘Nathan Hammond, a.k.a William Weldon, was a retired musician who died at General Hospital of undetermined, apparantly natural causes.’ Charles Hammond said William’s parents were named Jacob Hammond and Caroline (no last name mentioned).

The Chicago Years and His Music

What we also know for sure is that Casey Bill Weldon moved to Chicago where he played and recorded extensively. He cut more than 60 slides solo as Casey Bill and played guitar with Tampa Red, Georgia Tom and others as the Hokum Boys. He can also be heard as mentioned before on some Memphis Minnie records. He also recorded with Peetie Wheatstraw, Teddy Darby, Washboard Sam (as The Washboard Rhythm Kings), Charlie McCoy and Big Bill Broonzy. In 1937 and 1938 he was the guitarist for The Brown Bombers of Swing (with Big Bill Broonzy and others).

His original ‘78 recordings date from 1935 until 1938 for Vocalion and a few for Bluebird. In 1945 he played guitar for Cecil Gant on 2 songs : Little Girl You’re Running Wild and Solitude, recorded March 1945 in Los Angeles.

There are a lot of Casey Bill Weldon vinyl records available released from 1965 to the present, offering all his music. He also appears on various blues and slide guitar compilations and as a guitar player of records of the artists above. Casey Bill Weldon wrote lots of typical 12 bar blues songs, singing about hardship, love and personal struggles such as W.P.A blues, I Believe I’ll Make a Change, Two Timin’ Woman, As the Clock Struck Four, I’m a Stranger in Your Town... but he ventured far outside that style too.  A lot of swing/jazz influence can also be found in his work. Upbeat swing rhythm songs with at times the jazzy I-vi-ii-V turnarounds are abundant, e.g. Arlena, Guitar Swing, Do You Think That’s Right, Red Hot Blues, Did You Mean What You Said, The Big Boat,You Shouldn’t Do That…

He introduced a beautiful Hawaiian sound and feel into his blues. His unique sound and beautiful, clear voice make him easy to recognise. He is often said to have played lap style slide guitar on National Resonator guitars like many Hawaiian Guitarist. He used various tunings. Michael Messer explained some of them: Low G :DGDGBD, High G: GBDGBD, Low F: CFCFAC, High F: FACFAC, Vestapol C: CGCEGC. He would often base himself around the 7th fret for the root chord. I haven’t tried these tunings for his songs yet but Michael studied his music extensively and can certainly be trusted for it.

Casey Bill Weldon was a virtuoso musician, managing to expertly solo over blues as well as jazz progressions, articulating the notes perfectly but never overdoing it. His slide work and timing as well as his voice and songwriting were astonishing. It needs stating that his blues singing matches the skill of his guitar playing and fitting in a band setting.

Apart from the standard blues songs and jazzy swing songs, he also did a lot of fun Hokum songs like the great bouncy ''You Just As Well Let Her Go'', the hilarious ''Back Door Blues, Round and Round…'' These songs were pure fun blues, sometimes explicit in their content but never vulgar or really dirty.

Some of his songs like ''Somebody Changed the Lock on my Door'' and ''I’m Gonna Move (to the Outskirts of Town)'' would later be popularized by Louis Jordan, Count Basie, B.B. King, James Brown, Willie Nelson, The Allman Brothers...