The Story of The Stools

Popular legend, or at least Boris Scilley writing in Cadenza Magazine, has it that in the spring of 1952 a half bright guitar player named Elvin Anderson went down to the crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, grip and guitar in hand, and waited. It was the same spot where, some 21 years earlier, Robert Johnson had made a deal with a rakish devil named Ike Zinnerman to learn how to play the blues.

It is said that, first Elvin, following the vodun tradition, boiled a cat until nothing was left except for the bones. These bones were then placed in a running creek. One of the bones from the cat’s left front leg, with a blatant disregard for the laws of physics, floated upstream, away from the other less rebellious bones. This was the bone that held the power to cast spells. This was the bone that would give the bearer fame, love or fortune. This was the bone that, it is said, Elvin would take to the crossroads to summon the devil Ike Zinnerman.

Of course, there are several problems with this legend, least of which is that Elvin Anderson was allergic to cats and it is highly unlikely that he would boil one for its bones. There is also the problem that Ike Zinnerman was actually Ike Zimmerman, and he wasn’t from Clarksdale, but Beauregard, Mississippi. And who can over-look the fact that if Elvin did make deal with the devil, he got ripped off because he never really did get fame, love or fortune and, in fact: doesn’t really play the guitar all that well.

We do know, for a fact, that in early 1952 legendary R&B guitarist and now crestfallen used-to-be Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown was back to playing dive bars in Texas, on those same sawdust floors he had first started out on with T-Booker in the days just after WWII. Although Brown’s “Mary Is Fine” had been a Top Ten R&B hit for him, that was a long three years ago and the crowd on this one particular night was more interested in booze whipping their troubles into submission and maybe hooking up with something warm for the night, than listening to what was going on up on the make-shift stage.

All of them that is, except for a young Elvin Anderson, a husky fella who was often mistaken for being much older and the only white guy in the bar. Elvin was transfixed as the lanky “Gatemouth” blew all comers away. As was the custom, young players would often jump up on stage and trade licks with the master, until, inevitably, “Gatemouth” put them to shame with his breakneck picking.

Steeling his nerves with the last of his Rock & Rye (which burned his throat and made his eyes water, but he had heard his father order them and they sounded cool) young Anderson picked up his acoustic guitar (a ten year old, spruce top Gibson LG-1) and stepped out of the crowd. While “Gatemouth’s” backing band continued their vamp, a hush fell over the now attentive roadhouse as the lily white Anderson’s guitar screamed to life like a sanctified preacher in holy paroxysms.

“Gatemouth”, running his dried-out tongue across the few rotted teeth he had left, rose to the challenge and in a short five minutes it was over. Anderson lay a wreck on the woodchip and vomit specked floor. “Gatemouth” hadn’t even broken a sweat. Humbled, the white pup retreated to the corner where they kept the coats piled up to lick his wounds and was soon forgotten by everyone, but “Gatemouth”, who would occasionally look over at the boy, roll up the crannies of his freakishly huge mouth and laugh.

Around 2:00 that morning a knife fight broke out in the parking lot which allowed Elvin Anderson to sneak away unnoticed, but not before he stole three dollars from the drummer’s jacket pocket and took a crap in a hat that belonged to Don Robey, “Gatemouth’s” manager and the owner of Peacock Records. It certainly wouldn’t be the last time Elvin would crap in the hat of a record label owner.

Two months later Elvin had made is way to the corner of Rt. 61 and 49 in Mississippi, picking up nickels and dimes along the way playing on street corners. While it is lost to history if he had the cat bone in his hand or was waiting for the devil, but we do know from newspaper accounts that a truck hauling R.C. Cola and Moon Pies lost a rocker arm and pulled sharply to the right, slamming into Anderson, throwing him into a ditch, breaking the neck of his guitar and shattering his right leg. An injury from which neither he nor the guitar would ever full recover.

The dreams and hopes of this young troubadour were put on hold for almost a year as he recovered at the hospital in Morgan City. A pale green hospital room, who’s small, greasy plastic window overlooked the graveyard of the Zion Church just off Highway 7. The graveyard where Robert Johnson was buried.

He had thought about sending a postcard to someone, anyone, to brag about his great view, but there wasn’t anyone, someone, who really gave a rat’s ass where Elvin Anderson had gotten himself off to this time.

One of the biggest influences on The Stools, or at least the lonely from birth Elvin Anderson, was Mitchell "Mitch" Miller. It wasn't Miller's work as a conductor, or an A&R Man or producer at Columbia Records. It wasn't Miller's hundreds of recordings or his TV show on NBC, Sing Along With Mitch. It wasn't even his self-proclaimed reputation as a swordsman among the strumpets of New York that made their mark on Anderson. It was Mitch Miller's beard.

In the 1950's you simply did not wear a beard unless you were an Austrian Field Marshall, an academic or a religious zealot, and yet, here was Miller, a musician; an oboist no less, openly flounting a beard.

Anderson would sport a beard on and off for the rest of his natural life. Even after he became disenchanted with Mitch Miller. Miller had rejected Anderson's demo recording that he had sent to Columbia. The song was Alligator Arms, which had been specifically crafted to appeal to Miller's Middle of the Road taste.

Back in the early 50's everyone wanted to be Dean Martin. Certainly, Elvin Anderson did, and Alligator Arms was his attempt to do just that. Many people warned him not to, but he sent the demo to Columbia anyways and took it pretty hard when Miller turned him down.

Mitch Miller and his hate for all things Rock and Roll (or at least all things Stools) would rear its head again later when he got Antonio Moretti tossed off the film Senior Prom in 1958.

Mitch Miller grudge against The Stools was the stuff a legend. Not too long after the demo debacle, Miller was playing a pivotal role in one of those late 50's teen exploitation films that Columbia was making called Senior Prom and Antonio had been cast in the small role of Carter Breed III. Miller had Antonio kicked off the film for no good reason at all and they replaced him with the actor Tom Laughlin. Laughlin, of course, would go on to fame as Billy Jack in the eponymously named film franchise, and Moretti, perhaps rightfully so, felt that those Billy Jack films should have been his, and if not for Mitch Miller, he would have been a medium talented action star instead of Laughlin. A slight Antonio would never forget…

It's my understanding that after the rejection of his demo tape from Mitch Miller, Elvin Anderson went to the crossroads and made his deal with the devil: but I would think, if someone actually sold their soul to the devil they would have become bigger stars than The Stools became. I mean, they've had a nice career, but none of the stardom that you think of when you think of selling your soul.

Then again, you can't trust the devil, can you? After all, he is the devil. Who knows what he might have promised Elvin for his soul and if he kept said promise…

The deal with the devil might be myth making, but we do know that Elvin Anderson's life was changed at a crossroad in Mississippi when he was hit by a RC Cola Truck and landed in the hospital.

As luck would have it, Cosmo Ditmar was also in the same hospital at the same time, recovering from adult onset, syphilitic insanity, and Antonio Moretti had just taken a job as a male nurse in their ward. One thing led to another, and before long the three of them were holding informal jam sessions as Elvin and Cosmo recovered.

Ray Beeze, in his Stools Samples book, has it that Al Floss was visiting his first wife in the hospital at the time, heard the trio jamming and signed them to his Dutchco Records on the spot. Of course, It didn't happen as quickly as all that, but it makes for a good story, so, sure, that's the way it happened.

While they were in the hospital, Moretti taught the other two how to get drunk on Vanilla Extract, but Elvin Anderson found it sickly sweet and raised some real booze money by selling a song for 25 bucks to fellow patient Don Graves, who in turn would be transferred to the US Navy Hospital in Virginia where he would become roommates with one Vincent Eugene Craddock.

Elvin says he sold the song as a joke. It was just a reworking of the lyrics of an old Helen Hume's song, Be Baba Leba, set to the music of the Drifter's song Money Honey.

Graves, in turn, sold the song to Craddock and his manager, the local DJ Sheriff Tex Davis, for 50 bucks. Vincent Eugene Craddock turned out to become Gene Vincent, of Gene Vincent and The Blue Caps fame, and that song turned out to be Be Bop A Lula. Elvin might have wanted to stick with drinking Vanilla and held on to that song.

At the time, 78s were the preferred album of the day, but the 45 was starting to take off and record labels were beating the bushes for artist that could cut good singles. However he met them, Al Floss eventually told Elvin, Cosmo and Antonio to crank songs out as quick as they could and he would make them all rich.

Rather than write something new, Elvin gave Floss his demo of Alligator Arms, and the Anderson solo track became The Stools first single.