Page 72 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2025 Digital Edition

“I was way down on, well, the tracks one day [in one of the
low-rent clubs on Murdock St.] and I was standing up by the
jukebox and I was singing. Franklin [Mitchell] heard me and
went back and told Aunt Kat. See, they didn’t know Aunt Kat
was my sister. I’m going to tell you the exact words he said: ‘I
want you to go down on the tracks down there and get that
great big old Black woman, because she can really sing.’”
“Aunt Kat said, ‘What’s she look like?’ And when he was
telling, Kat said ‘That’s my sister.’”
“She came straight on down there and got me. I
moved in with Aunt Kat. After I had my oldest daughter,
we always stayed with Aunt Kat and Uncle Bob. And she
really gave me a start. She was our booking agent.” Aunt
Kat and Uncle Bob Smith booked bands throughout the
state in the 1950s.

Pastor Franklin Mitchell, bass and guitar
When he was a teen, “Kathryn and Bob Smith kind of took
to me. They adopted me as one of their own, along with 15 or
20 other musicians that just come out of Muskogee like Herbie
Welch, Donald Dunn, Willie Wright, Carl Wright and these
guys. It was all in a little one-bedroom house. We thought we
was doing good if we could make just enough to put some
jingle in our pocket then.”

Nationally Known Wichita Blues Musicians
Franklin Mitchell, a Wichita native, moved to Junction City
as a teen and soon was touring. “It used to be a carnival that
came through with an all-Black show, Harlem in Havana. It was
a stage show, like dance and show band. I got a chance to go
with them, left Junction City, went to Coco Beach, FL. And the
carnival went from Coco Beach all the way up to Anchorage,
AK. That’s where I got to meet a lot of name musicians, a lot of
studio musicians. And them older guys, they took to me.”
Later, Mitchell made his way to Chicago and worked
out of the city. “I started traveling around in Illinois, Iowa,
Wisconsin, Missouri. That’s when I come across Ike and
Tina Turner, B.B., Freddie King and Sam Cooke, did some
things. Not on the stage with Sam Cooke, but the front band. Jesse Anderson. Photo by Arthur Kenyon, Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi
Temptations. I played a show with Lou Rawls. We were Eddie
and the Finger Poppers. I played guitar. Over one year, I Jesse Anderson, saxophone, guitar and vocal
played 109 one-nighters. I played bass and guitar with the Ike Anderson also made his way to Chicago from Wichita. He
and Tina Review for about four months. Ike Turner was very was born in Arkansas and came to the city from Oklahoma in
hard to play with. He was temperamental.” the 1950s. He recorded for King Records with Willie Wright
“I was 20 or 21 when I played with Ike. Then we done and the Sparklers, originally from Muskogee. A few tracks of
some shows with B.B., Freddie King and a lot of musicians who both Jesse and the Sparklers are available on Welcome to the
never leave Chicago. Little Milton, I played with him. Bobby Club, Ace Records U.K. Anderson went on to Chess Records
Bland, played a show with him. Then I got into the studio field in Chicago where he wrote and recorded material.
where if a band come through and they needed a musician, Reflecting on working with Leonard Chess: “I say he treated
they would send me out. I signed with Ace Recording Studios. me fair for the simple reason is, back then if you could go in
So, when you go into the studios and do tracks, there’s a lot and do a session, pick up your $1200, $1500. Come around,
of songs I probably was on, and didn’t know whose track if you have a bad Monday down the road and you need $500
they was. They’d give me the chart and say ‘Heh, play this and make rent payment or something, you could go in there
track.’ I’d either play it on guitar or bass, and then I’m gone. and get it. Yeah, they treated you fair. Because that was the
I may not go to the studio for another week or so, but in the way they operated. They operated like that with Muddy, and
meantime, I played with different bands come through town.” Little Walter. You get it if you was a good beggar.”

70 Blues Festival Guide 2025