Track 12: How They Do it That Way?

Posted by Benson

Victoria Spivey was an interesting character in the world of early jazz and blues artists.  Like many that we have already discussed, Spivey was introduced to music at a young age.  When she was twelve years old she started her musical career by playing the piano in a movie theatre in Houston, Texas.  Spivey was born shortly after the turn of the century, so at twelve years old, playing piano at a movie theater meant playing live music to accompany silent films.

Films with synchronized soundtracks, or “talkies” as they came to be called, were not a practical reality until the audio amplifier tube was perfected and the Vitaphone system was introduced.  This didn’t happen until the late 1920s, and Spivey started her piano playing career back in 1918.  By then, of course, Houston had already become a thriving metropolis and the most populous city in Texas.  Movie houses in such large cities often had organs, musical ensembles, or even large theatre organs that could produce a wide range of sound effects.

Spivey played piano at the Lincoln Theatre, which opened in 1916 and was Houston’s first black owned and operated theatre.  Sadly, the Lincoln theatre doesn’t survive today.  At first, Spivey played to help her family earn money after her father died.  While still in her teens, Spivey began playing in saloons and gambling houses, as well as playing for parties.

 

Balcony at the Lincoln Theatre

In 1926, at the age of twenty, she moved to St. Louis in an effort to start a recording career.  She brought with her two self-composed songs and worked to convince Okeh Records to let her make a recording.  The resulting record, featuring Black Snake Blues and Dirty Woman Blues, was a success that swiftly catapulted Spivey to fame.  She began a lively career, playing with renowned artists such as Louis Armstrong, Louis Russell, and King Oliver.  Spivey was extremely prolific, recording a new record almost monthly in her first two years. 

In 1929 Spivey appeared in the MGM film Hallelujah!.  Hallelujah! was one of the first all-black films by a major studio.  Interestingly, it was also the first talkie film by the acclaimed director King Vidor.  Little more than ten years after Spivey was playing live piano for silent films, she was performing in a film with a synchronized soundtrack!

Spivey is also an interesting figure in the history of blues and jazz because unlike many artists, she was able to remain relatively successful through the decline of the genre.  Spivey expanded her performances to the vaudeville stage, and sang numerous one night stands to maintain her career in music.  Spivey left show business by the 1950’s, but she actually restarted her career in the 1960’s, even opening her own record company, Spivey Records.

“I think one of the best records that I’ve ever been a part of was the record made with Big Joe Williams and Victoria Spivey.  Now that’s a record that I hear from time to time and I don’t mind listening to it.  It amazes me that I was there and had done that.”

Bob Dylan , Rolling Stone Magazine, November 22, 2001

Spivey recorded How They Do it That Way? in 1929.  The story goes that the idea for the song came as Spivey and her husband, Ruben Floyd, sat on their back porch in St. Louis watching a rooster chase a hen.

How They Do it That Way?

Have you ever had a feeling that someone would come out leadin' you?
If you had it's not so bad unless you found that it is all untrue
Take a good girl to keep her man, some can't do it, others can
I'm no chump but I would jump if I could find someone that's not unlike me too
Oh when the river runs, flowers are bloomin' in May
And if you get good business, how do you do it that way?
Streetwalkin' women, they are happy and gay
But I'm never happy, how do you get that way?
I want a man to be near, because he bring good care
But the men don't like me, they don't seem to care
Now they can come and go, to and fro every day
But I can't make 'em like me, how do you do it that way?
Now if you want somethin' good, you mustn't knock on wood
Just get a good man to look up under your hood
And when the rooster and the hen go to the barn to play
Oh the hen has chickens, how do they do it that way?