The Boy From Seller's Hall

From The Great Outdoor Fight

Entertainment at the 1943 Great Outdoor Fight and likely father of Fight legend Rodney Leonard Stubbs, with an anonymous fighting woman. While the fear of Japanese attack that lead to 1942's change in venue had died down, the War made it extremely difficult to find capable men for the Fight. The biggest impact of this was in actual fighters - but at the same time, access to entertainment was limited as well. The practice by the Ruling Body of inviting a single entertainer over a year in advance had never backfired before - but in 1942 it nearly had. As preparations were being finalized for the 1943 Fight, insult was added to injury when the Ruling Body discovered that the singer they had invited - a one-eyed guitarist of great skill but little renown, known to history only as Hard-Love Hal Logan - had been killed in North Africa.

The only performer available on such short notice - the fight announcements were to be printed within weeks - was well-known bluesman Rustmouth. The Zoot Suit Riots tearing through California at the time convinced the Ruling Body that a well-known blues singer performing at the Fight could well push the already chaotic atmosphere at the Acres past the breaking point, and - loath to turn the only real respite in fighting into a race riot - urged Rustmouth to perform under a pseudonym. The Boy From Seller's Hall thus played entertainment in 1943. While his set comprised entirely his lesser-known work and old standards, he still earned the grudging respect of a crowd that would almost certainly have turned on a lesser bluesman.

The resurgent interest in Fight history has revealed a tantalizing connection: Rodney Leonard Stubbs, known to have been born to a mother who abandoned him to the father and his wife, would have been concieved on or around February 16, 1943, furthering claims made of So-Rod's descent from the legendary Rustmouth.

Rustmouth himself acknowledged the pseudonym only as he approached the end of his days, finally ending the mystery of the mysterious Man From Seller's Hall - whose entire known history comprised only concerts that would have crowned any normal singer's career.