St. Louis Jimmy Oden

CTL-E-6120 · Person · musician · 1903–1977

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07336 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6120.

St. Louis Jimmy Oden, born James Burke Oden on June 26, 1903, in Nashville, Tennessee, was an American blues pianist, singer and songwriter. He moved to St. Louis in 1917, performed there and took his nickname from that city, developing his work alongside fellow pianist Roosevelt Sykes. He and Sykes moved to Chicago in the early 1930s — sources differ on the exact year — and Chicago became his home for a performing and recording career that lasted four decades. His best-known record is the 1941 Bluebird release 'Goin' Down Slow,' described by All About Jazz as a big blues hit and an enduring blues classic covered countless times. His most sustained success came as a postwar Chicago songwriter, supplying songs to artists including Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Otis Spann; Waters recorded his 'Take the Bitter with the Sweet' and 'Soon Forgotten.' In 1948 he released 'Florida Hurricane' on Aristocrat Records with Waters on guitar and Sunnyland Slim on piano, and in 1949 he partnered with Joe Brown to form J.O.B. Records. A 1957 car crash reduced his performing. He died December 30, 1977, in Chicago.

The record

• Also known as: James Burke Oden, St. Louis Jimmy

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 4 — 747 Program, Wave 11; fourth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no St. Louis Jimmy Oden entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias match + token containment; CLEAR). ID CTL-E-6120 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 3 packet ordered reserve, position 35 of 35 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #2050). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Chicago-anchored blues record from 1930s onward under MUSIC-001/PPL-001, within the Black Chicago first scope. Vital status: Deceased — born June 26, 1903, Nashville, Tennessee; died December 30, 1977, Chicago, Illinois, of bronchopneumonia (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16, citing Larkin and AllMusic; birth date corroborated by All About Jazz). STATISTICS — STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Born June 26, 1903; died December 30, 1977, aged 74 (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16; birth corroborated by All About Jazz). No sales figures are asserted — All About Jazz characterizes the 1941 Bluebird record qualitatively as a big hit. CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: Chicago move year — All About Jazz 1932, Wikipedia 1933, All About Blues Music (search result) 1934; the description therefore says 'early 1930s.' Song title spelling also varies: 'Going Down Slow' (All About Jazz) vs. 'Goin' Down Slow' (Wikipedia/Bluebird title as cited there). MEDIA: photo HELD ('Oden in 1959' photograph illustrated on the Wikipedia St. Louis Jimmy Oden article — for a later PHOTO-001 pass to verify creator, rights and credit; no license claimed. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6120-st-louis-jimmy-oden.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons carry no map in the packet standard.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged.) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged.)

Relationships

• Aristocrat Records — recorded for
  'Florida Hurricane' released on Aristocrat in 1948

Sources

• All About Jazz, "St. Louis Jimmy Oden" biography by James Nadal (accessed 2026-10-16) — born James Burke Oden June 26, 1903, Nashville; moved to St. Louis 1917 and picked up his name; moved to Chicago with Roosevelt Sykes in 1932 (as stated there); 'Going Down Slow' a big blues hit for Bluebird in 1941 and an enduring classic; postwar songwriter for Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Otis Spann; usually recorded as a singer accompanied by Sykes and Sunnyland Slim — https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/st-louis-jimmy-oden (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, "St. Louis Jimmy Oden" (accessed 2026-10-16) — dates June 26, 1903 – December 30, 1977; move to Chicago with Sykes in 1933 (as stated there); 1941 Bluebird 'Goin' Down Slow'; 'Florida Hurricane' (Aristocrat, 1948) with Waters and Sunnyland Slim; co-founded J.O.B. Records 1949; car crash 1957; died of bronchopneumonia in Chicago, interred Restvale Cemetery, Alsip — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Jimmy_Oden (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6120 · Combined Graph record U-07336 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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