Robert Nighthawk
Robert Lee McCollum was born in Helena, Arkansas, and left home young to busk his way through the Delta under the names Robert Lee McCoy and, eventually, Robert Nighthawk — a handle borrowed from his own 1937 side 'Prowling Night-Hawk.' His cousin Houston Stackhouse taught him slide guitar in Mississippi in the 1930s, and he later absorbed Tampa Red's smoother, more melodic slide style off record, fusing both into an amplified electric tone that could cut through noisy Chicago and Helena clubs alike. His 1949 Aristocrat single pairing 'Black Angel Blues' with 'Annie Lee Blues' — itself an answer record to Tampa Red's earlier 'Anna Lou Blues' — became a modest hit and, unbeknownst to him at the time, the direct template for B.B. King's 'Sweet Little Angel.' Nighthawk drifted between recording dates and Helena radio work for decades before his death in 1967.
Nighthawk himself put it simply: 'I used to like his playing with that slide, so I just got an idea that I wanted to play with it,' describing how Tampa Red's smoother, more melodic slide guitar style pulled him toward a more refined, vocal-like electric slide tone than the rougher Delta approach he'd first learned from his cousin Houston Stackhouse. Nighthawk's own 'Annie Lee Blues' was a direct answer record to Tampa Red's earlier 'Anna Lou Blues.'
listen forCompare Tampa Red's 'Anna Lou Blues' with Nighthawk's 'Annie Lee Blues' — both ride a warm, singing slide line over a similar melodic frame, Nighthawk's amplified and slightly rawer than Tampa Red's acoustic original.