Sugar Underwood has the distinction in the field of ragtime and early jazz piano of having had the shortest recording career (one day) that has resulted in perhaps one of the more lasting impacts on the genre. Usually this author would say "Until now we knew virtually nothing about him, however..." Unfortunately, in this instance, virtually nothing is still known about his career, but a few additional glimpses into his identity are of enough substance to warrant a biography that will hopefully jump-start other efforts into collecting more information on this evasive pianist.

He was born in Jacksonville, Florida as Mathew Emanuel Underwood (sometimes seen as Matthew) in 1898 to laborer James Underwood and his wife Fanny (Simons) Underwood, both Georgia natives. Mathew's houseful of siblings included Donnie (09/1881), Anthony (09/85), Jessie (08/87), Isaac (04/1890), and Charles Simons (06/1875) from his mother's previous marriage. James was listed as a laborer in Jacksonville as early as 1894 in city directories. In the 1901 directory he was listed as a hackman, indicating perhaps a turn as a cab driver.

As was the case with many poor black families in the American South, public record keeping by the city or the newspapers was very scant, including for the Underwood family. A church may have records on them somewhere, and hopefully these will be revealed someday. So nothing is known about his schooling or when Mathew became attached to the piano. However, by 1910, the height of the ragtime era, ragtime was highly popular in the South, and most families found some way to have a piano in their home if one of their children desired it. As of the 1910 census there was definitely some income to support this. Fanny was widowed by this time, but Anthony and Isaac were respectively working as a wholesale grocer and butcher, both fairly good livings at that time.

During his teens Mathew evidently became adept enough at performance that he made the decision to become a professional musician. A surprising find that seemed suspect, but actually checked out, was that he was married at age 15 to Lucile Jones, some four years older than Mathew. Two different marriage records indicate that the couple inflated his age to 21 in order to complete the union. His 1918 draft record showed him working as a musician at what appears to be the Gattsburg Inn (or a variation thereof) for Hattie Richmond in Jacksonville. It also showed him as still married to Lucile. This evidently did not last much longer, and by the early 1920s Underwood was once again single, working as an itinerant musician playing around the Deep South. Few specific news items or advertisements have been found on him, so even though Mathew was based in Jacksonville, he was likely taking short-term gigs in road houses or even hotels throughout the southern United States.

In the early 1920s it appears that Mathew, like many other players with some reputation, had acquired an identifying nickname, in this case "Sugar." In the mid-1920s he joined with Charles Frazier and Lester Pratt to form the Jacksonville Harmony Trio, with Charles singing tenor, Lester singing baritone, and Sugar accompanying them. It was in this group that Sugar made his bit of recording history through happenstance.

In 1927 Victor sent an electrical mobile recording unit into the field to add content to their race series, and capture the sounds of talented musicians around the country who could not or would not make it to one of the large metropolitan areas like Chicago or New York to record. Having started in Bristol, Virginia and it's counterpart across the border, Bristol, Tennessee, early in the year, they made their way through Tennessee and the Carolinas looking for local talent throughout the summer. By August the crew had made it to Savannah, Georgia. The Jacksonville Trio happened to be in town performing, along with other talented black musicians such as singer Ruby Houston and the Ross De Luxe Syncopators band led by Jacksonville native Alonzo Ross.

On August 23, the day after the Ross De Luxe Syncopators had laid down some tracks, the Jacksonville Harmony Trio cut four sides with Sugar at the piano, including a very nice cut of Them Piano Blues and Underwood's own Jacksonville Blues, a sixteen-bar song with a twelve-bar blues interlude. The acoustics present on the trio recordings plus Underwood's solos make it sound as if the session took place in a fairly large dance hall, but it was actually a tobacco warehouse. The finger repetition further makes it likely that a well regulated concert grand piano was used. Whether it was planned or off the cuff (the entire operation was running to some extent on extemporaneous decision making), Sugar was asked to do a couple of sides, and in a matter of a few minutes and three known takes, he laid down two tracks that, as one historian put it, proved that he knew virtually all there was to know about playing stomps and blues.

First came Davis Street Blues, lightly tinged with a boogie bass in sections, and handled with great subtlety, including some difficult arrhythmic right hand passages against a very steady bass. There were also left hand solos, variances in the bass patterns, and a strain with cross-hand playing by the left hand. The second take was released in 1928. Davis Street is a north-south main thoroughfare running north from Water Street through downtown Jacksonville near the railroad yards, and there are remnants still there that suggest drinking or performance establishments near the river. In a 1928 interview Underwood noted that his Jacksonville Blues was a "white folks' song," and that Davis Street Blues was "written for Jacksonville negroes."^[1]

Then Sugar launched into Dew Drop Alley Stomp, in which five minutes of playing were compressed into an impressive 3:25 (played at the proper pitch). After an opening section that echoes shades of the more famous That's A Plenty, Underwood launches into six iterations of a trio based on a 32 bar jazz progression that would later be emulated in Ray Bauduc's Bourbon Street Parade. This impressive barrage of repeated themes is relatively cleanly played and full of meaningful variations. Dew Drop Alley was an east-west street also shown to be downtown in early Jacksonville directories, and it appears to have intersected or ended close to Davis Street. Addresses for Underwood in the 1910s and 1920s are in this approximate area on Jefferson Street or nearby. Dew Drop Street still exists today as a remnant of Dew Drop Alley, most of which succumbed to progress and development.

Before he left the session, Sugar accompanied singer Ruby Houston on the aptly-named Lost Man Blues, which was later deemed less than worthy for a commercial release. Then as soon as it started it ended, and Sugar Underwood went back under the radar. In the book Red River Blues by Bruce Basin (1986), clarinetist Ed Hall of Ross Deluxe Syncopators was quoted as having rather cursorily dismissed [Underwood] as a "black-key piano player," indicating some lack of skill or ability to negotiate multiple keys. Yet Davis Street Blues was performed in C and Dew Drop Alley Stomp in D minor and Bb, with a seemingly deliberate exploitation of the unique timbres of those keys.

Little can be found on Underwood's later years, but pieces of the puzzle do give some clues. Sugar seems to have remarried around 1924 to Lottie Nash of Jacksonville, at least six years his senior. She had originally married at age 14, and by the time of the 1930 census was 37 to his 31, and her son Charles Nash, who was 21, was living with the couple. Sugar was working as a club musician, and Lottie and Charley as restaurant cooks. Starting in 1927 Sugar, as Mathew, appeared regularly in Jacksonville directories at various addresses. The 1935 Florida State census showed the couple living in Duval County, likely just oustide of Jacksonville, with Mathew working as a musician and Lottie as a housewife, and Charles still residing in their home. It is noteworthy, and also evidentiary toward identity, that in the 1937 and 1938 Jacksonville city directories he is listed as Sugar Underwood, a listing that would not be repeated in that book.

As of the late 1930s Sugar and Lottie were separated and listed at different addresses, with Lottie living in a rooming house on W. Ashley, and Sugar on Jefferson. In the 1940 census, he again used the name Sugar Underwood, and is shown living with boarding house cook Earlean Underwood, listed as his wife, and her two daughters, Rosa L. and Elizabeth. It is possible Mathew was working as a teacher, because he is listed as a musician with what appears to be "public schools." That same year a notice about a high school prom appeared in the Daytona Beach Morning Journal on May 18, 1940: "Seabreeze Prom is Gay Feature in Technicolor... Music was furnished by Sugar Underwood's negro orchestra from Jacksonville." Whether this was a regularly featured group or a pickup orchestra is uncertain. Other appearances from 1939 to 1941 were noted in regional newspaper advertisements with Underwood as an orchestra leader, so there was likely a core group that he played with.

Over the next four years Sugar was either traveling or lived just outside of Jacksonville, as no Mathew Underwood appears in the 1941-1944 city directories. His 1942 draft record both listed him and was signed as Sugar Matthew [sic] Underwood, living alone at 533½ State Street, not far from the original Dew Drop Alley, and with a Forrest C. Woods as his employer of the time, likely a nightclub owner. Mathew "Sugar" Underwood died in Duval County, likely in Jacksonville, in the fall of 1944, but no precise date was readily available. He did not have any children with Lottie or Earlean, so direct descendants, if any, are difficult to trace

The somewhat perplexing and even sad case of Underwood is indicative of the fate of many talented black musicians of the early to mid-20th century, in that they could thrive on opportunity, but only if they pursued it with due diligence. This often included relocating to recording or performance centers such as New York or Chicago, a move that Underwood apparently did not feel the need to make, or perhaps was not confident enough about his prospects to pursue the dream. Based on his few surviving tracks, talent was not an obstacle - environment and the tone of the times may have been. For what little remains, and what is yet to be found, it can hoped that the recognition of his single stellar day as a "recording artist," perhaps one of the most exciting events of his life, would pay at least some proper homage to his legacy.