Alger 'Texas' Alexander was an East Texas blues singer whose recording career, running from 1927 into the early 1930s for OKeh and Vocalion, captured one of the last living links to the field hollers and work songs of turn-of-the-century Black Texas farm labor. He never played an instrument himself, instead singing in a free, unmetered rhythm that his backing musicians nicknamed 'Alexander time' — a cadence so untethered from a fixed beat that guitarists like Lonnie Johnson had to invent counter-melodies just to keep up with him.

the sound in question

1927

Levee Camp Moan BluesTexas Alexander