The Bullet label
Today's show features an independent label that was established just after the war, like so many, but it was one of the first of the South and definitely the first for Nashville. I'm talking about the Bullet label, and the owners were three men that had no experience in the recording insdustry at all, nor any feeling with Rhythm & Blues, but they managed to put some real quality R&B in the grooves of their records of the Race series, that was numbered 250 and up.
It sure was the home label of many obscurities, but you find great names on their roster too: Cecil Gant, Wynonie Harris, bluesman St. Louis Jimmy and of course B.B. King, who started his recording career at Bullet, when his fame was still to come - and back in the late forties, he wasn't just singing the blues, he was living them too.
Quite a lot of this label has been re-issued on numerous albums, and so even the obscurest of them are to be found. I'll play a selection of Bullet's race series, with both the great names and the obscurest of them all.
Playlist
- Cecil Gant - Nashville Jumps
- Cecil Gant - Loose As A Goose
- Wynonie Harris - Lightning Struck The Poorhouse
- Wynonie Harris - Dig This Boogie
- Rudy Greene - No Good Woman Blues
- Rudy Greene - Buzzard Pie
- Red Calhoun - Here Comes The Man With The Gin
- St. Louis Jimmy - Going Down Slow
- Sherman Williams - I'm Lucky With My Brown Gal
- Sherman Williams - Red Head Blues (My Flamin' Gal)
- St. Louis Jimmy - My Trouble
- Max 'Blues' Bailey Delinquency Blues
- Red Miller Trio - Nobility Boogie
- B.B. King - Miss Martha King
- B.B. King - When Your Baby Packs Up And Goes
- Tuff Green - I Love My Baby
- B.B. King - I Got The Blues
- Roosevelt Sykes - Candy Man Blues
- Wild Bill Moore Sextette - Bongo Bounce
- Kirk Kirkland - The Saxaphone Rag
- Cecil Gant - Rose Room
- Cecil Gant - Screwy Boogie
- Sherman Williams - Take A Ride