About Me
Part of a large musical family, Armenter "Bo Carter" Chatmon and his siblings learned music from their father, ex-slave fiddler Henderson Chatmon. Their mother, Eliza, also sang and played guitar. Born March 21, 1893, by 1914 Carter owned a car and chauffeured people around, serenading them as well, and repaired phonographs and furniture. He also farmed, hunted, and performed solo and with his family band, The Mississippi Sheiks (which also included a non-relative, Walter Vincson). On the Sheiks' recordings, they are mostly a duo -- Vincson on guitar and vocals and Lonnie Chatmon on fiddle -- but in live performance Bo Carter often played with them. He also served as their manager and booking agent, as he did for several other acts in the area, since he drank less than most of his associates and thus was better suited to handle business matters.
Bo Carter and the Sheiks often played for whites, playing the pop hits of the day and white-oriented dance material, as well as for blacks, using a bluesier repertoire.
Carter made his recording debut in 1928, playing violin with singer Alec Johnson. He backed another singer, Mary Butler, and also recorded with Vincson and Charlie McCoy as the Jackson Blue Boys later that year. In 1930 he recorded with the Sheiks and also as Bo Carter for the first time. His Bo Carter recordings sold well, and he would return to the studio many times over the next decade, recording over 100 sides.
Carter went blind, or partly blind, sometime in the 1930s. He settled in Glen Allan, Miss., and, despite his vision problems, did some farming, but also continued to play music. He performed, sometimes with his brothers, in medicine shows and at dances, parties, picnics and hotels, and on the street.
Carter apparently moved to Memphis and worked outside music in the 1940s. But by about 1950 to 1955, he apparently was living in Jackson, Miss., and still trying to play music. He auditioned for Trumpet Records, but the company's owner declined to release any recordings by Carter, and destroyed the audition tapes.
Carter was living in Memphis in 1960, when British blues researcher Paul Oliver happened to meet and interview him. Oliver's photos and some transcripts from that interview are in his book Conversation With the Blues.
Carter suffered strokes and died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Shelby County Hospital, Memphis, on September 21, 1964.
Carter's music became somewhat known again after Yazoo Records began releasing compilations on LPs and then CDs, including one called Banana In Your Fruit Basket, featuring an illustration by underground cartoonist R. Crumb that was almost as suggestive as Carter's lyrics. Unfortunately the selection of songs on that compilation led many to label Carter as strictly a "party" or smutty singer. In recent decades, he has not been accorded the respect and appreciation that goes to some of his less-successful peers such as Robert Johnson. But Carter's music and lyrics are rich and varied. He was a master guitarist, facile in many different positions and tunings. His compositions reflect influence of his slave-fiddler father, pop and vaudeville, minstrel music as well as blues, all filtered through a unique creative talent.
