New book celebrates early Mississippi Delta music scene

A Southeast Missouri native recently published a book following the early days of jazz, ragtime and blues music in the Mississippi River Delta.

The book -- "River Shows, Blues, Ragtime, Jazz and Country Music: It All Equals Rockabilly, Part One" -- is the first part of author Matt Chaney's exhaustive history of the Delta music scene from the early 1800s to just before World War II.

The book begins, essentially, where it ends, with the advent of rock 'n' roll. The first chapter follows Elvis Presley, just 25 years old in 1960, driving a Cadillac from St. Louis down Highway 61 through Southeast Missouri and into Arkansas on his way home to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.

Chaney used Presley's trip to point out cities and towns lost to musical history, which, Chaney wrote, "on appearance, seemed no place for artistic greatness to influence a civilization".

However, these unlikely places -- Cairo, Illinois; Paducah, Kentucky; and even Cape Girardeau -- were part of what Chaney called "the wellspring of American music".

Chaney wrote that "multiple genres were impacted", including folk, gospel and blues, as well as ragtime and jazz, leading all the way to rockabilly and Presley, the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" himself.

Chaney called his book a back story of generations of American song and dance that preceded and shaped entertainers such as Johnny Cash and the Beatles.

In fact, it was the Beatles who first inspired Chaney to write his book. Chaney said he learned a family friend, Bill English of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, once sang in a band, Bill Black Combo, which was the opening act during the Beatles American tour in 1964.

English told Chaney that in order to escape rioting fans, the Fab Four agreed to a getaway trip in the Missouri Ozarks and they invited English to join them.

Chaney said he thought that was a great idea for a book, but English disagreed.

"The story ain't the Beatles," English said. "The story is about us, the rockabillies down in the Delta."

Chaney said he started a "back down" process where the more he read, the further back in time he wanted to go.

Chaney's first volume covers almost 150 years in close to 400 pages.

One musician Chaney highlights is a piano player named Jesse Stacy who, as a young man of 16, would run down to the levee when riverboats docked at Cape Girardeau. Chaney wrote about Stacy hearing Louis Armstrong play his trumpet in a jazz band aboard the steamboat Capital. This was before Armstrong had reached his legendary status; however, Stacy said the music carried him away.

"When I heard that band, I said, 'That's what I want to be. I want to play on the riverboats,'" Stacy said.

Chaney wrote that Stacy went on to do just that and became a well-liked and respected piano player, performing in bands up and down the Mississippi River and making it all the way to Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Prominent Cape Girardeau citizens such as Louis Houck, R.F. "Peg" Meyer and William Shivelbine also make appearances in the book.

Chaney himself was born in Puxico, Missouri, and said he spent some of his formative years in Charleston, Missouri, and received his undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from Southeast Missouri State University in 1985. Chaney received a master's degree in communication from the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri, where he now resides.

Chaney is a freelance writer and has worked in print and broadcast journalism. He is the author of four other books, including two about Arnold Ryan, a basketball coach of the Puxico High School team in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Chaney said he hopes to have the second part of his history of the Mississippi Delta music scene finished by late 2025.

Chaney's books may be purchased at www.Amazon.com or through the author's website, www.fourwallspublishing.com.