This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And legends is what you're gonna get from me, as well as some obscurities. Prepare yourself for a full hour of honkin' saxes, hollering singers and plonking guitars - on today's theme, humorous and saucy lyrics in rhythm and blues. But before I do the blabbering, let's start with some great music. Here's Joe Turner and his Blues Kings with the classic Shake, Rattle and Roll.
01 - Joe Turner & His Blues Kings - Shake Rattle and Roll
Shake Rattle & Roll from 1954, on the Atlantic label.
The blues didn't have a very good name in the eyes of fifties, white, middle-class America. They reflected the grittiness of life of African American's working - or unemployed - class where discrimination, segregation, exploitation, bad paid jobs, crime, social disintegration and poverty ruled everyday life - and of course they served as ingredients in the blues. Until the mid-fifties music was as segregated as all American life back then, and the average "race record", since the late fourties called Rhythm & Blues, didn't stand a chance to make it to the white audience. So no-one was offended when themes reflecting the burden of everyday black man and woman's life slid into the lyrics. Preferrably with some good humour and cynicism of course.
Shake Rattle and Roll is on one of the most popular themes in the blues, the no-good woman. As you all know this was a big hit for Bill Haley and his Comets. But to be sung by a white band, targeted at a white audience, the reference to a shine-through dress had to be skipped and you won't hear these words in Bill Haleys version - it was on Joe Turners:
Way you wear those dresses the sun comes shining through
I can't believe my eyes all this mess belongs to you
Bill Haley made of that
Wearing those dresses your hair done up so nice
You look so warm but your heart is cold as ice
The same happened to Joe Turner's description of the evil of his woman: 'I believe to the soul you're the devil' where Bill Haley doesn't get farther than 'I believe you are doing me wrong'.
Today no-one will have a problem with Joe Turner's lyrics, and they were pretty average for fifties blues. So let's hear another one on the relationship between men and woman. The following song was originally a male version, with a message of utterly, total disrespect for women. Funny thing is that nowadays women's emancipation makes a song like this an absolute no-no. In 1951 Mabel Scott just turned things around and showed off the disrespect is mutual. Here is 'Catch 'Em Young, Treat 'Em Rough and Never Tell 'Em Nothin'.
02 - Mabel Scott - Catch 'Em Young, Treat 'Em Rough, Tell 'Em Nothin' - Coral 1951
03 - Wynonie Harris - Adam Come Get Your Rib
There are many ways for men to say that women are no-good creatures. That was Wynonie 'Mr. Blues' Harris suggesting Adam takes his rib back and puts a lock and chain around it. Adam come get your rib.
Ok. One more, now on no-good men. Ella Johnson got a voice that sounds so sweet and vulnerable and the composition and arrangement of this song stresses that so much, that it's nearly a shock when she sings:
Devils like you should be in the electric chair
For bringing your other girls into the home that we share
Now she made her point I guess. Here's Buddy Johnson and his orchestra with his sister Ella on lead, singing Any day now.
04 - Buddy Johnson Orch. feat. Ella Johnson - Any Day Now
Wonderful song, great orchestration, I love this song. It's one of my all-time favourites.
The bad habits of drinking and gambling are another recurring subject of the rhythm and blues. Amos Milburn did a whole series on what the booze does to someone who can't resist it. Bad Bad wiskey, that I will play next, started the series in 1950 on Aladdin Records, and topped #1 in the R&B list. He repeated that with songs like 'good good whiskey' and 'vicious vicious vodka' and 'One Scotch, One Bourbon, one beer'. And the gambling made Roy Brown run out of luck and deprived him of his last penny, his belongings and his family in Queen of Diamonds, from 1955. >> It was the flip of Fannie Brown Got Married.
These are the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, your program on fourties and fifties Rhythm and Blues.
05 - Amos Milburn - Bad Bad Whiskey
06 - Roy Brown - Queen Of Diamonds
Some good humour always does it in the blues. How about this one:
I got a gal that can't be beat
She'd be real pretty if she'd got some teeth
This is once more the Buddy Johnson Orchestra with a great shouter - Rock On from 1957 on Mercury. On the label the band name was the Bee-Jays, but Buddy Johnson apparently didn't keep that name. Rock on was the flipside, and it proves once more that it pays off to explore the B-sides of records.
07 - Buddy Johnson Orch - Rock On!
08 - Four Blazes - Perfect Woman
From Chicago on the United Label, The Four Blazes with Perfect Woman. And apparently she was as perfect as half of the zoo, with a mouth like an alligator, a back like a camel and walking like a kangaroo. Man I'd love to see that woman.
Big fat women are another recurring subject of the blues. Sometimes just because men like 'em that way, sometimes because that is all they can get or because all these skinny girls won't be true because there is so much competition for them.
Hear Bull Moose Jackson sing:
Hey, sister, grow that double chin
Cause the big fat mama's are back in style again.
After that Peppermint Harris with the Fat Girl boogie.
08 - Bull Moose Jackson - Big Fat Mamas Are Back In Style Again
09 - Peppermint Harris - Fat Girl Boogie
Now all these lyrics are quite explicit in their subject. But even in the blues there was a limit when it comes to sexual content. It didn't matter what you sang in the juke joint, but you wouldn't get your record cut on shellac or vinyl if it contained the F-word or other explicit descriptions. But when targeted at a black audience, it was pretty much OK to use metaphors that left little to imagination. These are the risky blues, as they are called, and sometimes they seem to be a how-far-can-I-go game, and with no exception they are done with a lot of humour.
So definitely, Wynonie Harris didn't mean working on a farm when he sings Keep on churning till the butter comes. It was from 1952 on the King label.
10 - Wynonie Harris - Keep On Churnin'
In 1954 Hank Ballard and his Midnighters had a big hit with his song Work with me Annie. Now he didn't mean a professional relationship with that work. The outcome of it is clear in the follow-up song Annie had a baby, >> also on Federal in 1954. Everytime we start to work, she has to stop and walk the baby cross the floor. That's what happens when the gettin' gets good!
In Billy Ward & the Dominoes' Sixty-minute man the singer boasts about his prowess as a lover:
There'll be fifteen minutes of kissing, then you'll holler 'Don't stop!'
and
'I'll rock 'em, roll 'em, all night long, I'm the sixty-minute man. These were the songs that didn't get airplay on mainstream radio back in the fifties, but they did play well on the jukebox and on radio stations targeted at a black audience. You'll hear them now on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
11 - Hank Ballard & The Midnighters - Annie Had A Baby
12 - Billy Ward & The Dominoes - 60-Minute Man
The sixty minute man, Billy Ward and his Dominoes. You're listening to the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, your program on the rhythm 'n blues from the fifties, and today we feature the more saucy lyrics in rhythm 'n blues. Earlier I played a few tunes on big fat women, so now it's about time for a skinny girl. The Swallows sing about a girl so doggone thin that - as the singer says - she wraps around me like a rubber band. It ain't the meat, it's the motion. Most Swallows songs featured Lawrence Coxson who was the tenor, but I suppose it must have been Norris "Bunky" Mack's bass voice that we hear on here.
After that you will get Wynonie Harris, who knows a whole lot of naughty games to play with his woman in Wasn't That Good.
14 - Wynonie Harris - Wasn't That Good
Now wasn't that good, mr. wynonie Harris.
Another singer who was famous - or infamous - for spicy song texts was Bull Moose Jackson, whom I featured on this show before with the big fat mamas back in style again. I'll play two of his most risque tunes. >> In the first one, the Big 10 inch record from 1952, he describes how he gets his woman all excited with his kisses and then she begs for his big ten inch. Mind you, that is about a record of the band that plays the blues - says Mr. Jackson himself. After that Nosey Joe, from the same year, who sticks his big nose in every woman's business.
15 - Bull Moose Jackson - Big 10 inch record
16 - Bull Moose Jackson - Nosey Joe
That's Nosey Joe - the nosiest man I know. Bull Moose Jackson at his best. My last tune is from that very respecable lady of jazz - I mean Dinah Washington. Now she has a nice way of telling how she misses her daddy the trombone player. And the guitar man definitely was no good as a replacement:
He took his amplifier and he hitched it in my plug
he planked it and he plonked it but it just wasn't good enough
I want my daddy with that big long sliding thing.
Of course she means the trombone. Here's Dinah Washington.
17 - Dinah Washington - Big Long Slidin' Thing
That was Dinah Washington with that big long sliding thing - a standard when it comes to the dirty blues.
Now I'm afraid that there's some stuff out there that I absolutely can't include on a show like this. Like I said before, it really didn't matter what you sang in the juke joint, but hardly anything of the most explicit stuff was recorded. If you're in for some really raunchy stuff I suggest you do a youtube search on Lucille Bogan. She was a blues lady from the thirties of whom a few songs have been recorded that would make Eminem blush. Watch for Till the Cows Come Home or Shave 'em Dry. It's also fun reading the numerous comments, of often young people, being shocked that this existed as long back as in the thirties. So unfortunately none of this material on this show - but anyway, my time's up.
I hope you have enjoyed the show and if so - or if not - please don't hesitate to drop a line to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And for now - byebye and have a great day. No - have a rocking day. See you again in two weeks, same time same place, when I'll play more of that great music from the fourties and fifties - on the next episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
I hope you have enjoyed the show and if so - or if not - please don't hesitate to drop a line to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. I'm also on the web, just do a google search on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will pop up first.
And for now - byebye and have a great day. No - have a rocking day. See you again next week, same time same place, when I'll play more of that great music from the fourties and fifties - on the next episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.