How did Blind Blake die?

[pete1951]

I have just finished the first ‘Jack Reacher’ novel by Lee Child, it is a very violent page turner, (some very unnecessary mutations almost from the start) but the author must be a blues fan. Called ‘Killing Floor’ (after the Howling Wolf number ? ) our hero wanders into trouble looking for the place Blind Blake dies, there is a lot of blood and a smattering of blues references.
Pete



He does find out what happened to Blake in the end

[creolian]

Hello Pete, all

Coinkydinkally, I've been under the weather all week ... Read two Lee Child thrillers. "The Persuader" and one that I cannot remember the name of. I've read most of his books. Child is one of the better crime thriller "detective" writers imo... ( I could do without the graphic violence, but I do get a vicarious pleasure when Reacher regularly subdues multiple armed bad guys with his bare hands )

unfortunately the author uses a lot of cultural stereotypes and references to current events with a journalistic license that gives his work a realism that may or may not be factual. I read the account on Blakes demise and I cringed... who knows the truth, but I strongly suspect the book is a fabrication.



I got this from Wikipedia

Blake married Beatrice McGee around 1931. In the following year he made his final recording at the Paramount headquarters, in Grafton, Wisconsin, just before the label went out of business. For decades nothing was known of him after this point, and it was rumored that he met with a violent death; Reverend Gary Davis heard he had been hit by a streetcar in 1934. The research of van der Tuuk et al. suggests that Blake stayed in Wisconsin, living in Milwaukee's Brewer's Hill neighborhood, where Paramount boarded many of its artists. He seems not to have found work as a musician. In April 1933 he was hospitalized with pneumonia and never fully recovered. On December 1, 1934, after three weeks of decline, Beatrice Blake summoned an ambulance. He suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage and died on the way to the hospital. The cause of death was listed as pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried in Glen Oaks Cemetery, in Glendale, Wisconsin.

All best,

Jeffro