This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And for this show number 101 an allsorts again. I took some tracks from CD's that I have, dusted off some 78s and blended that with the cracks in the grooves to a juicy and spicy mix - all yours to enjoy.
And I start with a promise that I did you some weeks ago when I played Viola Wells' version of Hey Lawdy Mama. I told you I'd play the original blues from 1934 titled Oh Lordy Mama by Buddy Moss. He did this song twice, a re-recording for the Perfect label, but here's the original on Okeh from 1934 - Buddy Moss.
01 - Buddy Moss - Oh Lordy Mama
02 - Roosevelt Sykes - Shoe Shiner's Moan
The Shoeshiner's Moan - from 1939 when the profession of shoe shiner still was pretty more common than nowadays. Some great names in African-American history started as shoe shiner - most notably James Brown and Malcolm X. This was Roosevelt Sykes and he recorded the song for Decca - billed on the label as the Honeydripper, that was his nick name.
Next a West Coast group named the Four Blazes, and that was another group than the Chicago outfit that made fame in the early fifties with their recordings for the United label. The groups have co-existed for quite some time, probably unaware of the other's existence. What helps confusing is that the West Coast outfit recorded a Chicago Boogie for the Melodisc label. For that same label you'll get Snoqualimie Jo Jo - referring to the towns of Wenatchee and Snoqualmie in the state of Washington. It seems the songwriter is responsible for the extra i in the name.
03 - George Crawford & The Four Blazes - Snoqualimie Jo Jo
04 - Dolly Cooper & the Hal Singer Orchestra - I Wanna Know
(jingle)
05 - Paul Williams - Waxey Maxie
06 - Louis Jordan - Flat Face
Flat face and this is one of the few instrumentals that Louis Jordan did. As always on Decca - this was from 1939 and this one clearly features the tympanies that his band, the Tympany Five, were named after.
Before that you got Paul Williams on the Savoy label with the Waxey Maxie and then before the jingle from the same label from 1953 Dolly Cooper backed up by Hal Singer and his band with I wanna know.
Next Monte Easter, a trumpeter and singer who - like so many Texas bluesmen - moved to Los Angeles and blended in the thriving jazz and Rhythm & Blues scene. He's mostly forgotten now, but he led several combo's including one that employed drummer Johnny Otis before he went out of his own. From 1946 you get Monte's Blues off the Sterling label.
07 - Monte Easter - Monte's Blues
08 - Buddy Johnson feat. Ella Johnson - It's About to Break My Heart in Two
Ella Johnson's voice sounds as fragile as the broken heart she sings of. It's About to Break My Heart in Two from 1955 on the Mercury label and what a combination of the great arrangement of her brother and Ella's singing - and I can keep on listening to this beautiful song.
The next one I found an a CD titled Lady Sings The Blues featuring Effie Smith. This apparently was taken straight from the Aladdin 78 that it was released on. Listen to Go Ahead With Your Lucky Self.
09 - Effie Smith - Go Ahead With Your Lucky Self
10 - Jo Jo Adams - Rebecca
The great blues shouter Doctor Jo Jo Adams, from 1953 on the Parrot label with Rebecca, backed up by Red Saunders and his combo and arranged by the excentric Sun Ra. Jo Jo Adams was famous in the Chicago scene where he did a Cab Calloway like show, had his own revue shows and played in the all-black revue movie Burlesque in Harlem. But his limited output, mostly on obscure local labels with no national distribution made that he didn't get the recognition that some other blues shouters with similar qualities did.
Next up the great trumpeter Hot Lips Page with Fish For Supper that was released on the Commodore label in 1944.
11 - Hot Lips Page - Fish For Supper
12 - Flora Washington & The Candy Makers - Broken Hearted
On the West Coast label United Artist, from 1946 Flora Washington and the Candy Makers with Broken Hearted. The Candy Makers were a local vocal group that had recorded for the Urban label before - one of the labels that in a big merger formed United Artist. The web site Vocalgroupharmony.com done a deep digging after Flora Washington, who seems to have played a role in a show movie Morocco back in 1931, that is, according to an article in the Afro American Newspaper that proudly stated that the latin girls had been replaced by "our girls" - that is African American - for being much better dancers. Then an ad from 1945 places her in Small's Paradise in Harlem, but a year later she is back in Los Angeles to record the song I played. That is - provided that this all concerns the same person, I really can't tell.
Next Alma Mondy with A Job for a Jockey, that seems to be an answer song to Joe Turner's My Gal's A Jockey recorded for the Mercury label.
13 - Alma 'The Lollipop Mama' Mondy - A Job for a Jockey
14 - Memphis Slim - Kilroy Has Been Here
Memphis Slim with Kilroy has been here - and when I was young just everywhere you could find these little drawings of a head peeping over a wall and the text Kilroy was here. The story of Kilroy - at least one of the stories explaining the expression - is about James J. Kilroy who was a shipyard inspector and he used the words - but without the doodle - to mark the ships he inspected, just before the war, putting it in places where no graffiti artist ever could have come, and soldiers who didn't know the origins started to believe it meant that the ship was well-inspected. The drawing existed even earlier and the two were combined by soldiers who left it on places they'd visited or conquered.
Well I don't see them Kilroys that much anymore and it looks liek and the younger generation has forgotten it.
The next one is a track that went unreleased by the time, for the Chicago-based Vitacoustic label. The reason was the chaos at Vitacoustic - it went bankrupt after financial mismanagement in early 1948. The masters stayed with the United Broadcasting Studio who sold them to the Sensation label, but they also never relased them, and when that folded, King records of Cincinatti aquired them, and then again they weren't used. And so I got them from an Ace CD that combined Sensation recordings for Todd Rhodes, titled Blues for the Red Boy. So here is Todd Rhodes with Louie Saunders on vocal with A Fool For You.
15 - Todd Rhodes feat. Louie Saunders - Fool For You
16 - Miss Rhapsody - Groovin' The Blues
On this, Viola Wells was credited with her moniker Miss Rhapsody. From 1944 on the Savoy label you heard her self-penned Groovin' The Blues and she was backed up by the band of June Cole. Now June Cole's name may sound like a woman's but *he* was a multi-instrumentalist and he started in McKinney's Cotton Pickers when he left for Europe as one of the earliest American jazz musicians to do so. He returned in 1941, so during the war, after a long illness in Paris, and settled in New York where he led his own band and owned a popular music store in Harlem.
There's time for one more so I'll finish today's show with Buck Clayton's orchestra and he backs up blues shouter James, or Jimmy Rushing in this tribute to New Orleans.
17 - James Rushing & Buck Clayton - New Orleans
And Jimmy Rushings tribute to the Crescent City marks the end of this episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. New Orleans is a city you should see as Rushing sings and I think he's right about that. I went there a few years ago in a long drive from my second home in Florida and for sure I'll return to that wonderful city.
And I hope you liked today's allsorts , and of course there's always the opportunity to let me know at my email address, that is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And if you want to read back everything that I told you today, review the playlist or find out what'll be on for next week, do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my website will show up first.
As for now time's up so have a rocking day. I hope to see you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!