Alabama bluesman Robert McCoy was far from a big name in the blues world; the obscure singer/barrelhouse pianist only recorded sporadically, and many blues enthusiasts have never even heard of him. Nonetheless, he was a deserving and likable artist along the lines of Leroy Carr. McCoy was born in the small town of Aliceville, AL, in 1910 but moved to Birmingham when he was only a baby and ended up spending the rest of his life there. McCoy, whose parents had been tenant farmers, had two older brothers who were both interested in barrelhouse piano. Johnny and Willie McCoy, the Alabaman's brothers, did a lot to encourage his interest in barrelhouse playing, and in the '20s, he was greatly influenced by the well-known Leroy Carr. By the late '20s, McCoy was being hired to perform at dances and in African-American jook joints around Birmingham. McCoy's first recordings as a leader came in the '30s, a decade that found him working with Jaybird Coleman and Guitar Slim as well as James Sherell, aka Peanut the Kidnapper. But McCoy had a hard time earning a living as a singer/musician, and he ended up paying his bills and supporting his family with non-musical "day gigs" (including construction work). However, he continued to sing and play the piano on the side in the '40s and '50s. It wasn't until the early '60s that the Birmingham resident returned to professional recording.

In 1961, McCoy came to the attention of Patrick Cather, an aspiring blues producer who also lived in Birmingham. Cather was only a teenager (he was 40 years younger than McCoy), but he knew that he wanted to start a label and produce blues records -- and Birmingham saxophonist Frank Adams felt that McCoy would be a good person for him to work with. At the time, Birmingham was still extremely segregated, and racist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan were quite willing to resort to violence to combat racial integration and the civil rights movement. But Cather (who is white and gay) had no use for racism or segregationist jim crow laws (the southern U.S.' version of the apartheid laws that once plagued South Africa) and quickly became good friends with McCoy (an African-American). In 1962, Cather produced McCoy's first full-length LP, Barrellhouse Blues, which was released on Cather's own Vulcan Records. About 400 copies were pressed. The following year, Cather produced McCoy's sophomore album, Blues and Boogie Classics, also released on Vulcan; that rare, little-known LP only sold about 100 copies. Both albums found McCoy (who did his share of songwriting) accompanying himself on acoustic piano. After Blues and Boogie Classics, McCoy didn't record any more albums, although he did record a few informal duets with drummer Clarence Curry in the mid-'60s (none of which were released commercially until 2002). McCoy hoped to do some more work with Cather, but, sadly, Cather's demons often got the best of him in the '60s and '70s -- the producer was plagued by severe depression, and he turned to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to cope. In 1978, Cather was hospitalized for substance abuse; after conquering his addiction and getting sober, he was sad to learn that McCoy had died in February of 1978.

In 1983, McCoy (who was in his late sixties when he died) was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and, in 1991, Cather was also inducted (partly because of his desire to document McCoy). The late singer/pianist wasn't really a jazz artist, but his barrelhouse piano playing did contain jazz elements. In 2002, Chicago's independent Delmark label reissued the little-known recordings that Cather had produced for McCoy in 1962 and 1963 on a CD titled Bye Bye Baby. Delmark president Bob Koester hired Cather to write the liner notes, and seven bonus tracks were added (including some crudely done recordings from 1958 and the previously unreleased mid-'60s duets with drummer Curry). ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi