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 John Hammond had already established his reputation as the talent scout/
producer who discovered Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday and Count Basie when, in 1938, he floated the idea of presenting jazz, from its roots to its then-current form, for an audience of musical sophisticates at New York's Carnegie Hall. Calling it, "From Spirituals To Swing," it would include gospel singers, blues musicians and jazz big bands-all in one show.
Hammond arranged financing, booked Carnegie Hall for December 23, 1938, and headed south to find some appropriate deep-rooted blues musicians. His first stop was Durham, North Carolina, where he hoped to enlist Blind Boy Fuller, but the Piedmont guitarist was in jail when Hammond caught up with him. As it turned out, Fuller's next door neighbor, a blind harmonica player named Sonny Terry, proved to be exactly what Hammond was looking for.
Another country blues artist Hammond really wanted to track down was the elusive Delta performer, Robert Johnson. When he reached Johnson's home state of Mississippi, however, Hammond discovered that the mysterious musician had been murdered earlier in the year. Hammond hurriedly replaced Johnson in the lineup with Big Bill Broonzy, a Delta native who-d become prominent in Chicago's burgeoning new blues scene.
The country blues "replacements" became national stars with their performances at Carnegie Hall. Terry drew raves for his distinctive "whooping" harmonica style on "Fox Chase," and Broonzy fared even better. ?Bill, who farmed in Arkansas with a pair of mules, shuffled out and sang about a dream he-d had in which he sat in President Roosevelt's chair in the White House,? Hammond recalled in his biography, On The Record. "The audience screamed. It had never heard anything like this."
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