"Alger "Texas" Alexander

Sep 12, 1900 - Apr 16, 1954 - was a blues singer from Jewett, Texas.

A short man with a big, deep voice, Alexander started his career performing on the streets and at local parties and picnics in the Brazos River bottomlands, where he sometimes worked with Blind Lemon Jefferson. In 1927 he began a recording career that continued into the 1930s, recording sides for the Okeh and Vocalion labels in New York, San Antonio, and Fort Worth. In November 1928, Alexander recorded what is believed to be the earliest version of "The House of the Rising Sun." Other songs he recorded include "Mama's Bad Luck Child," "Sittin' on a Log," "Texas Special," "Broken Yo Yo" and "Don't You Wish Your Baby was Built Up Like Mine?". His early records for Okeh are notable not only for the personal originality of his songs, but for the musical motifs against which they are set.

Alexander did not play an instrument himself, and over the years he worked with a number of other musicians, including King Oliver, Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson, Little Hat Jones, Eddie Lang, the Mississippi Sheiks, and his cousin, Lightnin' Hopkins. He sang in the free rhythm of work songs, such as the migrant cotton pickers he performed for might have sung, which posed a challenge for those accompanying him. Indeed, his singing is difficult to follow, and on his gramophone records his accompanists can often be heard resetting their watches to Alexander Time. His finest collaborator was Lonnie Johnson, who devised free-form guitar melodies in counterpoint to the vocal lines."