Rattlebrained

I was trying to find information on the web for Washboard Doc, see my Doc, Flash, Lucky & Red - Pretty Woman post, and was re-reading the Early Morning Blues liner notes when the following stood out: "His first recording was with bluesman Ralph Willis about 1950. About two years later he cut with Sonny Terry for a Folkways LP, playing washboards and spoons". So I whiped out my Sonny Terry's Washboard Band CD and once again went through the pdf file wondering if I missed anything…

It’s Sonny Terry’s first album, and he’s playing with a …washtub bass and percussion band backup… (http://guitarvideos.com/assets/pdf/13057dvd.pdf): washtub bass, washboard & *rhythm bones*(!) – but nowhere are the band member names are mentioned.

Frustrating, very frustrating…

The linked article say’s Sonny Terry’s Washboard Band was recorded in 1952 so it seems more than likely that Washboard Doc is playing on it, all the more since he was, it would seem, very much a studio musician (Spivey Records). But the LP that Smithsonian Folkways has a picture of in the album’s liner notes pdf file is copyrighted 1954…

And who is playing the washtub bass and the bones?

There’s actually a drawing of a hand playing bones on the album cover but before I knew about rhythm bones I thought it was some unknown washboard playing utensil and likewise couldn’t figure out how the washboard player was making those clicks and clacks… It is hard to hear because they always play at the same time but still…
:-)

Updated Oct 29th 201to add: The drawing of the washboard on the album cover is exactly like the Scrubboard that Washboard Doc plays. How dense of me not to notice the obvious… I also found this forum discussion on Sonny Terry which leads me to think the bone player is his nephew J.C.Burris