Gennett 6122 (1927)
Papa Harvey Hull and Long "Cleve" Reed (credited as "Daddy Moon Hayes and His Boys")
6122-A "Two Little Tommies Blues" (12691- )
Also issued as Black Patti 8001-B
6122-B: "Gang Of Brown Skin Women" (12689- )
Also issued as Black Patti 8002-B
Harvey Hull, voc; Long 'Cleve' Reed, voc, g; Sunny Wilson, g
rec. c. April 3, 1927 in Chicago, Ill.
Most likely by Orlando Marsh at Marsh Laboratories
7th floor of Lyon and Healy Building at 243 S. Wabash.
Papa Harvey Hull
b. August 5, 1887 in the Zilpha Township, Mississippi
date and location of death unknown
Long "Cleve" Reed
date and location of birth unknown
date and location of death unknown
http://www.wirz.de/music/hullpfrm.htm
From http://blindman.fr.yuku.com/topic/40697/Harvey-Hull-amp-Cleve-Reed
"Well, using this as a starting place, and with my wife’s help, we looked on Ancestry.com and indeed found a Harvey Hull in Attala County, Mississippi. Probably the best documentation we found on him was a 1917 draft card. According to it, he was black, born on August 5, 1889, and his home address was Kosciusko, MS. He was listed as a ‘farmer’ (but virtually all black people in MS were listed as ‘farmers’ back then from what I can tell), with a wife and one child (no names given) -- it even has his signature!
He’s also given in 3 censuses: 1900, 1910, and 1920. (We looked and looked and could NOT find him in the 1930 census.) According to the 1900 census, he was living in the town of Zilpha, Attala County, MS, was born in 1887, and his parents were given as John and Julia Hull.
According to the 1910 census, he was 21 years old (thus born ~1889), he’s again in Attala County, his parents are given as John and MARY Hull, and he’s again listed as a ‘farmer’.
The 1920 census gives a lot more info. By then, he’s listed as only 27 years old (thus born ~1893, presumably a mistake), married to an Onie Hull (23 years old), AGAIN listed as a ‘farmer’, and had 3 daughters: Fredlee Hull, Roslee Hull, & Mamielee Hull, ages 6, 4, and 2 respectively. That means Fredlee would have been the child he was listed as having on the 1917 draft card. All 5 family members are listed as born in Mississippi, and living in Kosciusko, Attala County, MS. Both Harvey and Onie are listed as literate.
And in case you’re wondering, yes, we tried tracking down Fredlee, Roslee, Mamielee, and Onie Hull, but couldn’t find any trace of them anywhere except in the 1920 census. And yes, we tried looking in the Illinois records, in case Harvey had moved to Chicago by 1930, but no black Harvey Hulls appear in Illinois anywhere.
As I said, there’s no trace of this Harvey Hull in the 1930 census. The only time he appears after 1920 is in the Social Security Death Index: that source has him born on August 5, 1888 (note, same birthday but 1 year older than the draft card says), it says he got his SS card in Mississippi before 1951 (so he probably stayed in that state), and that he died (doesn’t say where) on August 1962.
As an aside, Gayle mentioned that in 2 of his songs, Hull (or Reed?) sings "Tell me how far Jackson to McComb". I found no black people named Hull in that part of Mississippi, which is not near Attala County.
We also found a possible son of Hull’s, a Harvey W. Hull born in August 6, 1922, and who died in, wait for it, 2008. He seems to have been living in Biloxi, MS when he died, as he appears in a whole bunch of phone book listings for that city in the 1980s and thereafter. We didn’t pursue the leads on that guy as far as we could have, so we don’t know where he was born, or who his parents were. He was certainly the right age to be Harvey’s son.
Now this isn’t bad for our Harvey Hull, and it’s definitely the Harvey Hull that Gayle heard was living in Attala County, but I couldn’t find anything to cinch that he was THE Harvey Hull who made those wonderful records in 1927.
Then, I tried looking for ‘Cleve Reed’, who is listed as a bandmate of Hull’s. We didn’t find anywhere near as much. We found a 1917 draft card for a black ‘Cleveland Reed’ living in Guntown, Lee County, Mississippi (about 4 counties north of Attala County, just north of Tupelo). It claims he was born in Guin, Alabama (not far to the east of Lee County). He is of course listed as a ‘farmer’, and it says he was born in 1894. This may or may not be significant, but the draft card was signed on the exact same day as Hull’s: June 5th, 1917.
Reed pops up in fewer census records than Hull: I only found him in the 1920 one, listed as ‘Cleaveland Reed’, again listed as a farmer in Guntown, MS. His age is listed as 26, which gives him a birth year of 1894 (agreeing with the draft card). It again says he was born in Alabama, and says he was married to a woman named ‘Willie Reed’. It says he was illiterate.
After that, Cleveland Reed disappears until December 22, 1937, when someone of that name is listed as getting married to a Delia Higgenbotham in Kemper County, MS (which is not in the same part of Mississippi as Guntown). After that, nothing at all. No 1930 census, no death record. (But it was getting late, so we didn’t look as hard as we looked for Hull.)
So: the challenge is to find out {a} if this Cleveland Reed is connected in any way to Harvey Hull, and {b} whether either of these guys are the same people who made the records in 1927. The ONLY possible hint I found linking them was the fact that the draft cards for both people were signed on the same day, June 5th, 1917, even tho they were filled out in two totally separate counties (Lee and Attala, around 4 counties away from each other). This may not mean anything: June 5th, 1917 might have been the day when the government demanded that all able-bodied black men in MS register for the draft. We didn’t do this, but if someone dug around and found a bunch of other people in different counties who also all registered for the draft that same day in Mississippi, that would indicate that the matching dates aren't important. And neither Hull nor Reed were listed as musicians, but I don't think that means much at all.
On the other hand, in support of the idea that these ARE the right guys, the searches we did brought up very few people with the relevant names. There were LOTS of people in the United States named ‘Harvey Hull’, but almost all of them were white, and not even living in the South. And I can attest from our search, there are/were dozens and dozens of black people named ‘Hull’ concentrated in and around Attala County, especially in the hamlet of Zilpha. (There must have been some white guy named Hull in that county who owned a LOT of slaves back in the mid-1800s.) We didn’t find any black Harvey Hulls in other states. The guy we found born around 1889 living in Attala is far and away the only black Harvey Hull we found who’s the right age, right race, and living in the right part of the country.
I’m less certain that the Cleveland Reed in Guntown is our guy. He seems to have been the only black Cleveland Reed in MS born around the right time. He was probably named after President Grover Cleveland, as there are lots of people (black and white) named Grover Cleveland Whatever born around the early 1890s in the south. It’s conceivable that THE ‘Cleve Reed’ who made records was really called Grover Cleveland Reed, and that this ain’t the guy.
Anyway, that’s what I was able to come up with. The only thing I can think of doing to recheck this tonight is we might try redoing all the searches with Alabama given as the state, and seeing whether any black Harvey Hulls appear there. And we might be able to shake the tree a little harder on Reed. But if I had to bet money on it, I think it’s the right Harvey Hull. This would put him as ~38 years old when he made records, older than most black people who made records at the time, but that fits the heavy pre-blues cast to his material. If Hull was born in 1889, his musical sensibilities would have already been forming by 1900, a time when blues probably hadn’t really solidified in the Mississippi Hill Country.
Dave"