Bo Carter

Born Armenter Chatmon in 1893 in Bolton, Mississippi (died 1964 in Memphis, Tennessee), Bo Carter was a prolific pre-war country blues guitarist and singer. He was a prominent member of the musical Chatmon family, frequently playing with and managing the highly successful string band, the Mississippi Sheiks. However, as a solo artist recording for Okeh and Bluebird throughout the 1930s, Carter specialized heavily in "hokum" blues: lighthearted, syncopated songs built around extended sexual double entendres, such as "Banana in Your Fruit Basket" and "Please Warm My Weiner." Beyond his commercial novelty hits, Carter was an exceptionally skilled acoustic guitarist who utilized a wide variety of alternate tunings, sharing the sophisticated, multi-genre string band tradition common to the Mississippi-area ensembles of his era.