Understanding Petey Wheatstraw: The Blues Figure Behind "The Devil's Son-in-Law"
Petey Wheatstraw was the stage persona of William Franklin Hammonds Jr., a 1930s blues pianist and vocalist who built his reputation around the myth of having sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical genius. The character drew directly from the broader Delta blues tradition that Robert Johnson helped make famous, but Wheatstraw pushed it further into theatrical territory. He appeared in person sometimes, dressed in long black coats, carrying an umbrella, and claiming to have met the devil at a crossroads. Recordings like "The Devil Sent Petey Wheatstraw to Town" and "Pitchin' Boogie" cemented his reputation as one of the most colorful figures in prewar blues. The nickname "The Devil's Son-in-Law" wasn't something Hammonds invented out of nowhere. It was a branding decision that sat squarely within a well-established blues archetype. Songwriters and performers had been using devil imagery for decades before Wheatstraw arrived. Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and others had flirted with the motif. What Wheatstraw did was commit to it fully, both in his lyrics and in his stage presence. That commitment is why the character outlived him. When I first dug into his discography, I ran into a practical problem: his recordings are scattered across dozens of reissue compilations, many with inconsistent track listings and wrong attributions. I spent weeks trying to verify which takes were actual Wheatstraw and which were mislabeled session material from the same period. The workaround was to cross-reference the original 78 rpm matrix numbers from Vocalion and OKeh catalogues rather than trusting whatever a streaming playlist said. Once I started matching matrix numbers to original pressings, the confusion cleared up pretty quickly. A lot of what online sources call "Petey Wheatstraw" is actually other Vocalion session musicians from the same Chicago and Memphis recording circles.
His most famous song, "The Devil Sent Petey Wheatstraw to Town," opens with him introducing himself as someone who has been to the devil's house and come back with information. The lyrics are straightforward: he's boasting about his supernatural connection, his piano skills, and his ability to play anything people ask for. There's no hidden depth here beyond what the blues tradition already provided. The trick is understanding why this framing worked so well economically. In the 1930s, a blues performer needed to stand out in a crowded field. A memorable gimmick like the devil's son-in-law angle gave Wheatstraw an identity that promoters could sell and audiences could remember. It was marketing as much as art. There's a common misconception that Wheatstraw was a major commercial success on the level of someone like Louis Armstrong or even B.B. King. He wasn't. His records sold modestly within the rhythm and blues circuit. His real impact was cultural and indirect. Artists like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters absorbed the persona tradition he helped popularize. The devil motif became standard blues vocabulary partly because Wheatstraw demonstrated that it could carry a full performance, not just a few lines in a song. If you're looking to explore his music, the most reliable compilations tend to be the Document and Jazz Archives releases, which are closer to the original source material than the generic budget reissues. Again, verifying matrix numbers helped me separate genuine Wheatstraw tracks from compilation padding. One specific issue I encountered: several "lost" Wheatstraw sessions listed in fan circles turned out to be misidentified recordings by other Vocalion artists. I learned to treat any track listing that didn't cite a matrix number with skepticism. If a source can't point you to the original pressing data, it's probably not reliable.
The broader devil-in-the-blues tradition remains relevant today. Modern blues and rock musicians still reference the crossed-roads mythology, and Petey Wheatstraw's version of it occupies a specific niche between pure folklore and showmanship. Understanding his role requires looking past the costume and the claims. His recordings exist. They're accessible if you know where to look. The mythology around him is larger than the music, and that's exactly how he intended it.
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