That was the Crescent City [New Orleans] in them days, full of bars, honky-tonks, and barrel houses. A barrel house was just a piano in a hall. There was always a piano player working. When I was a kid, I'd go into a barrel house and play 'long with them piano players 'til early in the mornin'. We used to play nothin' but the blues.

I knew Mamie Desdoumes real well. Played many a concert with her singing those same blues. She was pretty good-looking, quite fair, with a nice head of hair. She was a hustlin' woman. A blues-singing poor gal. Used to play pretty passable piano around them dance halls on Perdido Street.

When Hattie Rogers or Lulu White would put it out that Mamie was going to be singing in their place, the whie men would turn out in bunches and them whores would clean up.