“Devils son-in-law”

Recorded by in St. Louis, Missouri in 1932 featuring Peetie Wheatstraw (guitar & vocals).

Revered figure of the St. Louis blues scene during the ’20s and ’30s William Bunch was a guitar player, limited pianist, and most importantly a singer with an infectious widely imitated style. He could often be found preforming at club “Lovejoy” in East St. Louis and if not there at a juke on West Biddle St. located above a barbershop.

Upon moving to St. Louis in the late 1920s he reinvented himself taking the name Pettie Wheatstraw and projected a boastfully demonic persona becoming known as ‘The Devil’s Son-in-Law’ and ‘The High Sheriff from Hell’.

Wheatstraw was so popular in fact that he continued to record from his 1930 debut through the worst years of the great depression unaffected by the economic dilemma. Like Leroy Carr, he was among the earliest blues singing pianists.

On December 21, 1941 on his thirty-ninth birthday Peetie and some friend went for a casual drive to pick up friend and fellow bluesman Teddy Darby. Everyone was in the jovial mood of celebration, luckly for Darby his wife wouldn’t let him go. Peetie was a rear passenger when the Buick he was riding in struck a freight train that had stopped on the tracks, instantly killing the drive and other passenger. He was ejected from the vehicle and suffered massive head trauma, resulting in his death hours later.

Eerily the songs Peetie recorded on November 25, 1941 at his final session “Mister Livingood” and “Bring Me Flowers While I’m Living” seemed to predict his untimely demise. Full reports of the incident dominated the headlines of St. Louis newspapers and obituaries and were also documented in the national music press.

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