Following on from our review of ‘Naptown Blues‘, the latest single from Christopher Wyze and the Tellers, we caught up with Christopher Wyze and asked him about his music, and his self-imposed mission.
Why did you want to tell Carr and Blackwell’s story?
Because I couldn’t believe how little I knew about it myself.
Here were two blues musicians who had been enormously successful nearly a century ago, who lived and recorded in Indianapolis — where I’ve lived most of my life — and I really didn’t know their story.
Once I started researching them, I got hooked. The more I learned, the stranger it seemed that their names had faded so badly, especially in their own hometown. So what began as curiosity eventually turned into NAPTOWN BLUES.
I wanted people to hear their songs again, but I also wanted them to know something about the two men who made them.
Why do you think their music isn’t better known today?
Time is certainly part of it. Leroy died very young in 1935. Scrapper eventually stepped away from music for roughly two decades before being rediscovered.
I also think the way we tell blues history has something to do with it. We naturally hear a lot about Mississippi, Memphis and Chicago. Indianapolis doesn’t jump immediately to mind when somebody says “the blues.”
But Carr and Blackwell were part of the transition toward a more sophisticated, urban blues sound. Their influence didn’t disappear just because their names became less familiar. You can hear pieces of what they were doing in music that came later.
What was the most interesting thing you discovered during your research?
One of the most interesting things has actually been discovering how difficult it is to discover things.
Leroy and Scrapper were major recording artists in their day, yet surprisingly little documentation about their lives survives. They were Black musicians recording what the industry then marketed as “race records,” and they weren’t getting the kind of mainstream newspaper and publicity coverage that would’ve given us a much better idea of the life these two guys lived. There are only a few known photographs of them from those years.
At the same time, so much of what we can find leads right back to Indianapolis — where they lived, where they first recorded, people who knew them, places they played, and ultimately where both men are buried.
That combination has turned the project into detective work. And I’ve become pretty addicted to it.
What stood out to you about ‘I’m Going Back to Tennessee’?
Leroy’s economy with words.
There’s heartbreak in the song, but he doesn’t turn it into some gigantic tragedy. The guy has been turned away, he’s had enough and he’s going home. “Gonna pack my trunk and go back to Tennessee.” You immediately understand the situation.
I spent most of my professional life writing, and I’ve always admired people who can say a lot without using a lot of words. Leroy could do that remarkably well.
How did you make the song your own?
Mostly by not trying too hard to make it our own.
John Boyle III, Gerry Murphy and I stripped everything down and played the song the way it felt natural for us to play it. Acoustic bass, guitars, harmonica and one vocal. No drums or percussion.
We kept the bones of the song intact, but John isn’t trying to be Scrapper Blackwell and I’m certainly not trying to be Leroy Carr. Nearly 100 years separate the two recordings. We wanted that difference to be heard.
What was it like recording at Postal Recording?
Recording this album anywhere other than Indianapolis would have felt wrong.
I’ve been fortunate to record in some wonderful music cities — Muscle Shoals, Clarksdale, Memphis and Nashville among them. Each has its own history and its own feeling. But this time the history was in my own backyard.
Postal Recording is a terrific studio inside a wonderful old Indianapolis building – an old Post Office – and we were recording the music of two Indianapolis bluesmen only a short distance from where Carr and Blackwell made their first records in 1928.
There was something very satisfying about that. We weren’t traveling somewhere else to borrow a famous musical history. We were recording in our hometown and digging into a musical history that belongs to Indianapolis.
What inspired the look of the lyric video?
We wanted the video to take people backward in time without becoming a history lesson.
HIP Video Productions used imagery and footage from the 1920s and 30s and presented a lot of it through an old television screen. It has that fuzzy, imperfect, almost found-footage feeling.
That seemed right for the song. We’re asking somebody in 2026 to spend a few minutes inside a world from nearly 100 years ago. The visuals help make that trip.
What do you hope listeners get from hearing their music through your band?
I hope they enjoy our record first. It still has to work as music.
But then I hope curiosity takes over.
Who was Leroy Carr? Who was Scrapper Blackwell? What did their original recording sound like? What else did they record? Why have so many musicians been influenced by them?
If our music causes somebody to type their names into a search box and start listening to the originals, we’ve accomplished something beyond making another album.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about Carr and Blackwell?
One of the things I find moving is how physically close their story still is to us here in Indianapolis.
Leroy is buried at Floral Park Cemetery. Scrapper is buried at New Crown Cemetery. We’ve gone to both places, stood at their graves, and filmed there.
These aren’t just names printed underneath songs on an old record label anymore. The more I’ve researched them, the more they’ve become real people to me — tremendously talented people whose story deserves to stay alive.
Before we go, what else would you like to share with your listeners?
‘NAPTOWN BLUES’ comes out October 2, and the entire 11-song album is devoted to the music and story of Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell.
We’re also creating a YouTube video series that folks can sign up for on our website. I take people around Indianapolis and into some of the places connected to them and explain the history of what we’re showing on camera. So, this project has become more than an album for me. It’s music, history, and a bit of detective work all rolled together.
And I’ll repeat what I probably hope for most: listen to our record — but then go listen to Leroy and Scrapper. They’re the reason we made it.
Watch the music video for ‘Naptown Blues’ below, and find out more about Christopher Wyze and the Tellers online on their officialwebsite,YouTube,Facebook,Instagram.
