Willie B. Thomas & Butch Cage
Willie B. Thomas & Butch Cage
Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas
About Willie B. Thomas & Butch Cage
Willie B. Thomas (May 25, 1912 - November 23, 1977) was an American blues guitarist and kazoo player and James Cage (March 16, 1894 - September, 1975) was an American blues fiddler and singer. Willie B. Thomas (born in Lobdell, Mississippi, USA; died in Belmont, Louisiana, USA) was disabled by a back injury he received in his early teens during his family’s migration to Louisiana. He partnered the fiddler James ‘Butch’ Cage (born in Hamburg, Mississippi, USA; died in Zachary, Louisiana, USA) on kazoo for 10 years before taking up the guitar. They were recorded after their discovery in 1959 as Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas. The old time black southern string band tradition had rarely been recorded and by the 1960’s had almost died out. When in 1959 folklorist Harry Oster “discovered” Butch Cage and Willie B. Thomas, in Zachary Louisiana, they had been supplying the dance music at house parties and dances as well at church services for their back-country neighbors. Their broad repertoire of old time fiddle tunes blues pop and gospel music is a rare glimpse into a world that has all but vanished from America’s musical landscape. Harry Oster sought to capture a record of the fast-vanishing tradition of string bands who played dance and worship music for parties and church services. Primitive-sounding yet compelling, Cage and Thomas's versions of rarely heard ancient country blues songs like "I Had a Dream Last Night" and "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" are a window into a bygone age, while their performance of "The Dirty Dozen" brings to light a song that, like the blues itself, has been constantly evolving for generations.
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