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{{short description|American blues musician}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Blind Roosevelt Graves
| birth_name = Le Moise Roosevelt Graves
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1909|12|9}}
| birth_place = [[Rose Hill, Jasper County, Mississippi|Rose Hill]]<ref name="AMG">{{cite web |url={{AllMusic|class=artist|id=p33977/biography|pure_url=yes}}|title=Blind Roosevelt Graves|author=Ron Wynn |publisher=[[Allmusic]] |accessdate=November 9, 2011}}</ref><ref name="Blind Roosevelt Graves">{{Cite web |title=Blind Roosevelt Graves |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095904540 |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=oxfordreference.com}}</ref> or Summerland,<ref name="bare"/> [[Mississippi]], U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1962|12|30|1909|12|9}}
| death_place = [[Gulfport, Mississippi|Gulfport]], Mississippi, U.S.
| genre = [[Blues]]
| occupation = Musician
| instrument = {{flatlist|
* [[Vocal]]
* [[Guitar]]
}}
| years_active = 1920s - 1930s<ref name="AMG"/>
}}

{{use mdy dates|date=August 2022}}
'''Le Moise Roosevelt Graves'''<ref name="bare"/> (December 9, 1909 – December 30, 1962),<ref name="AMG"/> credited as '''Blind Roosevelt Graves''', was an American [[blues]] guitarist and singer, who recorded both sacred and secular music in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref name="AMG"/>

==Biography==
Roosevelt Graves was born in either [[Rose Hill, Jasper County, Mississippi|Rose Hill]]<ref name="AMG">{{cite web |url={{AllMusic|class=artist|id=p33977/biography|pure_url=yes}}|title=Blind Roosevelt Graves|author=Ron Wynn |publisher=[[Allmusic]] |accessdate=November 9, 2011}}</ref><ref name="Blind Roosevelt Graves">{{Cite web |title=Blind Roosevelt Graves |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095904540 |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=oxfordreference.com}}</ref> or Summerland,<ref name="bare"/> [[Mississippi]]. On all his [[Sound recording and reproduction|recordings]], he played with his brother '''Uaroy Graves''' ({{circa|1912}}–{{circa|1959}}),<ref name="bare">{{cite book| first1= Bob| last1= Eagle| first2= Eric S.| last2= LeBlanc| year= 2013| title= Blues - A Regional Experience| publisher= Praeger Publishers| location= Santa Barbara| pages=115 | isbn= 978-0313344237}}</ref> who was also nearly blind and played the [[tambourine]]. They were credited as "Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother". Their first recordings were made in 1929 for [[Paramount Records]]. Theirs is the earliest version recorded of "[[Guitar Boogie (song)|Guitar Boogie]]", and they exemplified the best in [[Gospel music|gospel]] singing with "I'll Be Rested". Blues researcher [[Gayle Dean Wardlow]] has suggested that their 1929 recording "[[Crazy About My Baby]]" "could be considered the first rock 'n' roll recording."<ref>[[Gayle Dean Wardlow]], ''Chasin' That Devil Music'', 1998</ref>

In July 1936, they were located by the talent broker [[H. C. Speir]], who arranged for them to record in [[Hattiesburg, Mississippi]], according to some sources at the [[Hattiesburg (Amtrak station)|train station]], although Speir later told Wardlow that the recordings took place in a temporary studio, in the Hotel Hattiesburg, at Mobile Street and Pine Street. For the session they were joined by the local piano player Cooney Vaughn,<ref name="AMG"/> who performed weekly on radio station WCOC in Meridian prior to [[World War II]]. The trio were billed on record as the '''Mississippi Jook Band'''.<ref name="AMG"/> In all, they recorded four tracks at Hattiesburg for the [[American Record Corporation]]<ref name="AMG"/> - "Barbecue Bust", "Hittin' The Bottle Stomp", "Dangerous Woman" and "Skippy Whippy". According to the ''[[Rolling Stone]] Illustrated History of Rock and Roll'', these "...featured fully formed rock & roll guitar riffs and a stomping rock & roll beat".

The Graves Brothers did not record again.<ref name="AMG"/> After the war, Roosevelt Graves is thought to have moved to [[Gulfport, Mississippi]]. Following a heart attack, Graves died December 30, 1962, at age 54 in Gulfport Memorial Hospital and was interred without a headstone in the [[Mississippi City, Mississippi#Mississippi City cemetery|old Mississippi City Cemetery]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 13, 2017 |title=Historians looking to memorialize blues musician |url=https://www.wlox.com/story/36587430/historians-looking-to-memorialize-blues-musician |access-date=2022-08-17 |website=wlox.com |language=en}}</ref>

For a number of years, the subject of Uaroy's identity was disputed. In several books, magazine articles, and album liner notes that mentioned the Graves brothers, the names "Aaron" or "Leroy" were substituted for Uaroy, on the assumption that the otherwise unknown name Uaroy must have arisen due to the poor penmanship of a recording company employee whose handwritten notes were misinterpreted. This controversy was put to rest in 2004, when photographic copies of the Paramount files were posted to the internet, and it could clearly be seen that the person who wrote up the recording session notes had written in a careful, almost printed hand, "Uaroy Graves."{{Citation needed|date=November 2011}}

In October 2008, the recordings by the Graves brothers and the Mississippi Jook Band, and others who recorded in Hattiesburg, were commemorated by a marker on the [[Mississippi Blues Trail]], established to preserve the state's musical heritage.<ref>[http://www.visitmississippi.org/press_news/20081014-RootsRockRoll.pdf Press release - ''Roots of Rock and Roll to be honored with Blues Trail Marker]{{dead link|date=November 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110502121318/http://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/archives/blind.htm The Graves Brothers – The University of Southern Mississippi McCain Library and Archives]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=AOJI86r-R88C&pg=PA191 ''Chasin' That Devil Music'']
* [https://archive.today/20130201115316/http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/blind_roosevelt_graves ''Blind Roosevelt Graves'']#
*''Barrelhouse, Boogie & Bottlenecks: The Hattiesburg Blues Connection'' WDAM TV-7 documentary by Charles Herrington, aired October 21, 1995
*Chapter "Juke Town" from ''All off for Gordon's Station: A History of the Early Hattiesburg, Mississippi Area''; By Andrew R. English, Gateway Press, Baltimore (2000)

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graves, Roosevelt}}
[[Category:1909 births]]
[[Category:1962 deaths]]
[[Category:American blues guitarists]]
[[Category:American male guitarists]]
[[Category:American blues singers]]
[[Category:Blind musicians]]
[[Category:American gospel singers]]
[[Category:African-American guitarists]]
[[Category:Musicians from Meridian, Mississippi]]
[[Category:Blues musicians from Mississippi]]
[[Category:Gospel blues musicians]]
[[Category:Paramount Records artists]]
[[Category:20th-century American guitarists]]
[[Category:Guitarists from Mississippi]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American male singers]]
[[Category:20th-century American male singers]]
[[Category:20th-century American singers]]
[[Category:American blind people]]
[[Category:American musicians with disabilities]]

Blind Roosevelt Graves - Revision history

imported>Chuckiesdad: Fix incorrect Wikilink