St. Louis Jimmy Oden

Few blues songs have stood the test of Father Time as enduringly as "Goin' Down Slow." Its composer, St. Louis Jimmy Oden, endured rather impressively himself -- he recorded during the early '30s and was still at it more than three decades later. If not for a fortuitous move to St. Louis circa 1917, Oden might have been known as "Nashville Jimmy". He fell in with pianist Roosevelt Sykes on the 1920s Gateway City blues circuit (the two remained frequent musical partners throughout the ensuing decades). Oden enjoyed a fairly prolific recording career during the '30s and '40s, ...