[Dixielandjazz] WylieAvenueBlues/HalfwayHouse-question

[r h r]

I have 2 questions about Wylie Avenue Blues by the
Halfway House Orch of New Orleans, 1928, and by blues
singer Martha Copeland and her Smokey City Trio, 1927.
These are the only 2 of this (those) song(s) in Rust.

  1) Are they the same song? I have the Halfway House
version. I never heard the Copeland.
      Composer credits are different - Abbie Brunies
and 2 others for the Halfway, someone different, I 
recall, for the Copeland. (I couldn't find that info
today, but I'm pretty sure I found a different
composer credit once before.)

  2) My main reason for this interest is Wylie Ave.
Where is the Wylie Ave of the song(s)???

    I grew up in Pittsburgh, a half block off Wylie
ave. On Wylie Ave is the famous ( to Pgh-ers anyway)
Crawford Grill, a hotbed for jazz thru the years. All
the greats played there, including Armstrong and Ella
together once, when they came thru Pgh. It is still
there and still a jazz spot (not OKOM now, of course).
Besides the Crawford Grill, Wylie Ave, which ran thru
the heart of the city's biggest black neighborhood,
had many other music venues and hotspots. Much jazz
was played on and around Wylie Ave thru the years,
including the 20s.
Here is an excerpt from an article about Pgh-er, Mary
Lou Williams who was born in 1910, and left to begin
touring c1924.

    *****         The family moved on to the East
Liberty section of Pittsburgh, where Williams'
prodigious talents became widely recognized. Before
she started
 school, she was earning money for her family by
playing at events and joints all over town......  Said
Williams later: "I began visiting Wylie Avenue to jam
with the musicians there. Wylie Avenue was a place
that any decent person would not visit even during the
day." The
street was full of bars and gambling joints and music
clubs. 
   But Pittsburgh couldn't hold this girl with perfect
   pitch and a powerful, rollicking piano style. By
age
 14, she was on the road with a vaudeville
troupe....***

    I could find no reference to a Wylie Ave in New
Orleans, the obvious place for an 'avenue' song by the
Halfway House. Did they travel much? Could they have
been to Pittsburgh? Could they have taken composer
credit for Martha Copeland's song recorded a year
earlier. Google yields very few Wylie Avenues other
than in Pgh.  I could find little by Googling Martha
Copeland. I found no connection of her to Pittsburgh. 
But, I found no connection of her to anywhere. The
name of her group that recorded her version intrigues
me - Smokey City Trio. Of course, Pittsburgh was once
the "Smoky City". I guess I want there to be an okom
treasure named for a Pgh street. New Orleans has
enough street name songs.

   Any historians/researchers out there?? Thanks for
any help you can give.

   If you never heard the Halfway House version, have
a listen on www.redhotjazz.com. It's great. Maybe your
band should add it to your playlist. 

  I just realized I have not submitted my bio. This is
getting too long, so what's above will suffice for now
-- grew up near Wylie Ave in Pgh. More later,
Bob Rubin

           

   

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