The music of the rails was born in small establishments in railroad towns across America. They were all the same, but all different – described with terms like juke joints and barrel houses. Shreveport was like other American cities in this regard. A bustling music scene developed in downtown Shreveport around Union Station, and the ghosts of the bluesmen that frequented the juke joints and barrel houses still linger.

Blue Goose sat in a long-forgotten area of downtown Shreveport called Crosstown, on the corner of Snow and Pickett streets. It was a small market and grocery with a bar in the back, so named because of a blue goose painted on the wall. The reason for the painted goose is unknown. Blue Goose is an oddity because, according to Shreveport blues aficionado Dan Garner, Blue Goose is not mentioned in any map, government document or official publication.

But it turns up in song. Shreveport bluesman Jesse “Babyface” Thomas wrote a song called “Blue Goose Blues.” He often sang at Blue Goose. In the song’s lyrics, Jesse mentions having two bits to lose, a gambling reference. He then justifies the gambling saying he can always go back to chauffeuring. Jesse recorded “Blue Goose Blues” in Dallas in 1929. Did he take a train from Shreveport to get there?

Like passenger rail travel, Crosstown was a victim of “progress.” Most of the neighborhood was bulldozed to make way for Interstate 20. The original Blue Goose building was eventually replaced with a brick structure in 1940. It survived the interstate’s construction and is still there today.

Musicians of the era were, by nature, itinerant. Both known and unknown blues musicians passed through Shreveport by train. We can only assume that if they stopped at Union Station in Shreveport, they quite possibly visited Blue Goose. After all, bluesmen were drawn to the music. Among the many notable blues musicians that passed through Shreveport by train was “Blind Lemon” Jefferson, a known contemporary of “Lead Belly” Ledbetter.

If you stand in front of Blue Goose today, its connection to the railway is self-evident. Shreveport’s bustling Union Station sat directly adjacent to the Crosstown neighborhood, making it an attractive spot for travelers to drop in. Much like early blues history, though, most itinerant blues musicians’ adventures were not well documented. We can only surmise from cryptic clues how they were connected.

A perfect case in point is the song by Shreveport bluesman Oscar “Buddy” Woods, who played a bottleneck slide on a steel guitar. He recorded a song with Ed Shaffer called “Flying Crow Blues” about a train that came through Shreveport called The Flying Crow. The train was so named because the line it traveled from Port Arthur was straight – as the crow flies.

Woods’ lyrics in the 1932 recording lamented the meaning of the red-and-blue lights on the back of the Flying Crow as it passed. A mere five years later, blues giant Robert Johnson recorded “Love in Vain,” where he sings lyrics that were almost identical to those of Woods: “When the train left the station there were two lights on behind/well, the blue light was my blues and the red light was my mind.”     

Source: The Forum