At first glance, the life and times of Barrelhouse Pete seems to be the stuff of exciting, even scandalous music legend. His father was a Texas Ranger! He recorded a piano solo entitled Pussy which may have set the scene for an era of repressive musical censorship! There was no real Barrelhouse Pete, however. The famous pianist Art Gillham was behind this ruse, which was probably thought up by one of many enterprising record producers of the late '20s. And since the Gillham stature as a performer is so large, the official status of Barrelhouse Pete becomes that of just another blues pseudonym. It is not even considered worthy of being called Gillham's nickname, since the soft-spoken performer already had one of those: "The Whispering Pianist."

The recordings released under the Barrelhouse Pete name were done in the spring of 1928 in New Orleans, four titles exactly, few of which were actually released at the time due to the onset of the Depression. The sides were made at a contract session for Columbia, and fingers have pointed at Gillham due to his performing presence in New Orleans during the period. One of the regular numbers from his repertoire, Hesitation Blues, also happened to be one of the tunes cut by Barrelhouse Pete. Garnering much more attention were several tunes that had come from the Triangle publishing company, a big source for material used on classic blues sessions, particularly the raunchy ones. Pussy was a Triangle song, and somewhat over the top even by the standards of the often downright filthy classic blues material. This might have been reason enough for Gillham to hide behind an assumed name, but it is possible that this wasn't considered a sufficient disguise. To create an even more elaborate cache for Gillham's talents, the tracks were placed in the label's "Race 14000" series, the "race" usually not referring to the white race, which was the only one Gillham belonged to. Perhaps satisfied that the cover-up had been effective, or perhaps unhappy that he had missed out on a lot of renown the first time around, Gillham recorded Pussy under his own name for a Bluebird session in San Antonio, Texas, in 1934. This type of material was released with more and more hype as the LP became popular; the era of "party records" had begun, with puritanical censors waiting around the corner with indictments in their hands. Gillham avoided such trouble, however, keeping both the Barrelhouse Pete name and naughty blues songs at more than a stride pianist's arms length ever thereafter. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi