Memphis, Tennessee and its northern Mississippi environs produced and attracted an abundance of southern African-American music talent for record makers. Victor Talking Machine Company producer Ralph Peer visited Memphis regularly in 1927-30 to capture new and old music for the company’s active race and country catalogues. Robert Wilkins was one of the now celebrated performers whose music Peer preserved in 1928, but it was not until Mayo “Ink” Williams came to town in 1929 and 1930 on behalf of Brunswick Records that Wilkins’ best records were made. His stark, emotional performances vividly reflected the tragedies, frustrations and limitations of racially divided southern society, and Guido van Rijn’s illuminating study includes lengthy excerpts from interviews with Rev. Wilkins, including my own from 1964.

Louisa Spottswood and I had the good fortune to be involved with the music, artistry, and friendship of Nehemiah “Skip” James, “Mississippi” John Hurt and Rev. Robert Wilkins in the mid-1960s, who each performed at the Newport Folk Festival in its peak years, 1963-4. Ironically, John Hurt, whose music and sunny demeanor won him many friends, never had a song from his extensive repertoire become a moneymaker. The cancer that would overtake Skip James in 1969 was in remission at the time, and he lived to see his “I’m So Glad” become a hit for Eric Clapton and Cream on records from 1966 and 1968. Income from the royalties helped sustain Skip until his death in 1969.

As a pastor of the Church of God in Christ, and because of honoring his pledge to God to abstain from the blues, Rev. Wilkins was largely overlooked at Newport except by those who knew his original music. His well-deserved good fortune came instead from the Rolling Stones’ abbreviated 1968 cover of “The Prodigal Son,” Rev. Wilkins’ Christian narrative based on “That’s No Way to Get Along” from 1929, sustained his long life and still pays royalties to his descendants.

The CD that accompanies this book reissues all surviving Wilkins performances from 1928-1935 in newly restored sound. His 1964 collection Prodigal Son is available in an expanded edition, Bear Family BCD16629.

Among Memphis blues performers, whose music still commands our attention nearly a century after their defining music was first preserved, Robert Wilkins’ Brunswick and Vocalion records are all here, and still in a class of their own. Likewise, the remembered, retrofitted blues that inspired the Pentecostal music created for his fellow worshippers in the Church of God in Christ are no less inspired and worthy. Thanks to Guido van Rijn, the rewarding music and the story of Robert Wilkins’ exemplary life that you hold in your hand will serve as a reliable guide.

From the Foreword by Dick Spottswood

Product Details:

Format:                       Hardback

Publication Date:       December 2025

Price:                          €35 / €40 CD Included

Publisher:                   Agram Blues Books