Elijah Wald – Jelly Roll Blues errata

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Jelly Roll Blues: errata

I run an errata page for each of my books, where I list the corrections readers provide, with hopes I can correct them in future printings.

p.18: Steve Goldfield suggested the lyric "Pretty little gal wid a josey on" deserved some explanation in a book that deals so much with the meanings of words, archaic and otherwise. Josey was a variant of Joseph, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "A long cloak, worn chiefly by women in the eighteenth century when riding, and on other occasions; it was buttoned all the way down the front and had a small cape." The earliest citation if from 1659, and the best guess is that it was named after the "coat of many colors" Joseph wore in the Bible story.

p.42: Karl Gert zur Heide noted that the pianist whose name I gave as Red Caillou consistently spelled his last name Cayou, at least in later years, and I find that spelling was more common in New Orleans. He also corrects the name of a pianist mentioned on p.41 as "Gus Pevsner," writing: "This spelling appears in Paul Oliver's 1965 book Conversation with the Blues (pp. 10 and 62). Oliver misheard Little Brother Montgomery, who remembered this pianist as "Gus Pelmer". I later found out that this was Gus Perryman, and Montgomery confirmed my identification. I recorded Perryman in St. Louis in 1972 - check my Agram box Deep South Piano. There is also a chapter on him on page 80 of my 1970 book Deep South Piano."

p.113: Lynn Abbott notes that the violinist mentioned as Charles Edgar should be Charles Elgar.

p308, fn51: Lynn Abbott notes that for some reason in this instance I referred to Lincoln Park as Lincoln Gardens. I have no idea how that happened.