The Bayou label
Today's spotlight on the Bayou label, an initiative of Franklin Kort, formerly a producer of several other West Coast labels - Recorded In Hollywood, Exclusive and Swing Time. It existed only a few months in 1953 until it was sold to Imperial. In this short time it brought us 18 records, among them several re-releases and remixes - indeed, though not very sophisticated, on several titles fragments of other records were joined together and some dubbed over with crowd noise. With instrumental honkers like Big Jay McNeely it's not difficult to understand that that was possible with the limited technology of the early fifties, neither with blues of Joe Turner, that consisted of loosely consistent classic blues verses.
With that, Bayou was a quite unusual label for the time and also pretty low-level. Unfortunately for mister Kort, the records failed to sell and his label folded after a few months.
Playlist
- Red Callender & The Sextet - The Honey Jump Pt.1 (Bayou 001)
- Red Callendar - Soldiers Blues (002)
- Mercy Dee Walton - Please Understand (All Over) (003)
- Joe Houston - Sabre Jet (004)
- Dave Bartholomew - Country Gal (005)
- Jimmy Gil - Gather Round (006)
- L.C. Williams - I Want My Baby Back (008)
- Clarence Samuels - Low Top Inn (010)
- Goree Carter - Drunk Or Sober (010)
- Jesse Allen - Take It Easy (011)
- Joe Houston - Chitlun's Twist Aka Chittlin (012)
- Mercy Dee - Happy Bachelor (013)
- Big Jay McNeely - Hometown Jamboree (014)
- Big Joe Turner - Blues Jumped the Rabbit (015)
- Big Joe Turner - The Sun Is Shining (015)
- Fats Matthews - Going Down (016)
- Fats Matthews - I'm Thankful (016)
- Joe Houston - Scramble (017)
- Big Jay McNeely - Calamity (018)
Outtro:
- Wild Bill Moore Sextette - Bongo Bounce
- Kirk Kirkland - The Saxaphone Rag
- Big Jay McNeely - Blow Blow Blow
- Big Jay McNeely - Catastrophe
- Big Jay McNeely - Teen Age Hop
- Joe Houston - Moody