Robert Wilkins:  1896 - 1987

For those who’ve ever enjoyed the song “Prodigal Son” by the Rolling Stones, think again. The real treat and genuine version is Robert Wilkins’ “That’s No Way to Get Along.” Wilkins was one of those rare blues musicians whose songs didn’t fit the standard blues formula. His cache of styles included ragtime, blues, minstrel songs, and gospel, all played with equal aplomb. Though this lack of a singular style most likely impeded widespread popularity, it allowed for more ambitious song structures, melodies, and lyrical themes. In addition to being a skilled song designer, Wilkins’ gentle, vibrato-laced voice and rolling, hypnotic guitar playing make for very ear-pleasing country blues.

Robert Timothy Wilkins was born on January 16, 1896 in Hernando, Mississippi, a stone’s throw south of Memphis. His real father was run out of the state for bootlegging and his mother remarried a musician named Tim Oliver soon afterwards. The youngster was surrounded by the strains of Delta blues from the start. His stepfather’s friend, Hernando bluesman Jim Jackson, dropped in regularly, as did other migrant musicians for jam sessions. Oliver was also keen to pass on what he knew to the boy. Robert began learning guitar when he was about eight. By his teens he was imitating the guitar picking of another local guitarist named Aaron (Buddy) Taylor.

In 1915 Robert moved to Memphis with his mother and began assimilating the rich medicine show and jug band traditions that the bigger city was known for. After serving in World War I he returned to Memphis and made a concerted effort to be a professional musician. He developed a loyal following playing the Beale Street scene and occasionally shared billing with such contemporaries as Furry Lewis, Jim Jackson, Charley Patton, and Son House. Wilkins also claimed to have tutored Memphis Minnie on guitar in the late 20s.

Wilkins developed a diverse repertoire of song styles, taking whatever gigs came his way. With Memphis being a cauldron of transient musicians a man had to be versatile to keep earning. Wilkins’ diverse approach stemmed from stints in jug bands, vaudeville and minstrel shows, and local festivals in addition to saloons and clubs. His reputation was also boosted by an appearance on a Memphis radio station in 1927, unheard of for a black artist in those days.

When Victor talent scout Ralph Peer wandered into Memphis in September of 1928 he offered Wilkins a chance to record four sides including the eerie sounding “Rolling Stone,” a title which would inspire more than one artist in later years. In the competitive flurry for race recordings Vocalian located Wilkins a year later and captured his most famous and unique song “That’s No Way To Get Along” plus seven other tracks. Most likely due to the instability of the recording industry record sales never took off and Wilkin’s popularity didn’t spread outside of the Memphis/Hernando region.

By his fourth recording session in 1935 his grab bag of styles, tunings, and phrasings were fully evident, enriched with a second guitar and the bounciness of spoons. The outcome was part blues, part rags with unusually catchy melodies. The stand out was a nostalgic, upbeat rag-style song, “Old Jim Canan’s,” about a Beale Street barrelhouse that closed its doors in 1916. These tracks would be his last for more than thirty years. Despondent over his wife’s serious illness and the violence of a house party brawl where he was performing, Wilkins turned his back on secular music. He became a sanctified minister and practitioner of herbal medicine, resigned to playing blues-tinged gospel music.

Wilkins may have switched to gospel, but it in no way hindered his approach to sounding bluesy. When he was rediscovered in 1964 young folk audiences found his playing to be as gripping as ever. The Reverend Wilkins recorded several splendid albums of traditional and sacred music during the 60s and played festivals well into his 80s. He died in 1987 at the age of 91. By Tim Kirker

Click here to purchase Robert Wilkins or other great artists MP3 packages.