The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - episode 107

Aladdin releases 1946/47

This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.

And today I take you to the West Coast of the nation with one of the leading labels of Rhythm & Blues, Aladdin. I did a show on this label earlier, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and there I featured their issues 127 to 165 so today you'll get the remainder of their 100 series, that is up to number 212.

And I start with a great blues of Lightnin' Hopkins. This Houston bluesman had been taken to Los Angeles by Aladdin talent scout Lola Anne Cullum to record with Wilson Smith - and it was there that he was dubbed Lightning and Smith as Thunder. From one of these sessions you'll get Katie Mae.

167 - Lightnin' Hopkins - Katie Mae
170 - Bobbie Robinson & his Tympani Six - Disagreeable Woman Blues

Now Aladdin may be home of the great names in the Rhythm & Blues scene, that doesn't count for all of its artists. This Bobbie Robinson is pretty much of an obscurity. He recorded five sides for Aladdin of which one, Operation Blues, was never released. The name of his band, the Tympany Six can't be anything but a pretty blunt kinda copy of the name of Louis Jordan's band.

From him, that was Aladdin number 170 - the Disagreeable Woman Blues.

Next Wynonie Harris who was one of the first artists for Aladdin, with his Whiskey And Jelly Roll Blues.

171 - Wynonie Harris - Whiskey And Jelly Roll Blues
174 - Amos Milburn - Cinch Blues

(jingle)

177 - George 'The Blues Man' Vann - The Howling Blues
180 - Illinois Jacquet - Big Dog

Sax honker Illinois Jacquet with his pretty big sounding band playing Big Dog. His honking style was first heard in Lionel Hampton's Flying Home - a cover of Benny Goodman's original that also featured Hamp. Well Aladdin's sides were pretty much on the jazzy side and this one surely shows that.

Before that the band of Jack McVea fronted by George 'The Blues Man' Vann. On Aladdin 177 that were the Howling Blues. And then before the jingle, that was the Cinch Blues of Amos Milburn. Milburn had been taken to the Aladdin studio by the same Lola Ann Cullum that also had scouted Lightnin' Hopkins - both from Houston. This was from his first session with Aladdin - a session that also yielded After Midnight, Down the Road Apiece and Operation Boogie - the other side of this record.

For the next one we go to the typical after hours cocktail bar style of Johnny Moore's Three Blazers - and of course their fabulous singer Charles Brown. It's all very much in the style of Nat King Cole - Brown developed his typical style of mellow and troublesome blues mostly after he quit Johnny Moore. That was in '48 out of frustration for the lack of recognition - and money - he got from Johnny Moore where he was the star of the group.

On Aladdin 184 here is Baby Don't You Cry.

184 - Johnny Moore's Three Blazers - Baby Don't You Cry
189 - Crown Prince Waterford - The Prince Strikes Back

Crown Prince Waterford was that with the Prince Strikes Back. Solomon Charles Waterford started his career with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy and by '45 he had got himself a place in the band of Jay McShann to replace Walter Brown - by then billing himself as the Crown Prince of the Blues. He stayed with McShann for only one year. This was recorded with the band of Gerald Wilson. He stayed in favor with the public until the King label dropped him in 1950. After that he had only a few recordings and finally left the blues for the gospel in the early 60s.

Next Red Nelson who recorded under the name of Dirty Red for Aladdin with James Clark on the piano. The Mother Fuyer... well that's a corruption to get the word that I'm not allowed to say on this G-rated program past the censorship. I still have to finish a book about the history of what the writer called the mother of all curses, a very readable book with lots of knowledge on the history of African American culture since the start of the 20th century. It mentions this song together with Memphis Minnie's Dirty Mother Fuyer as some of the best blues using the M-word.

So here's Dirty Red with the Mother Fuyer.

194 - Dirty Red - Mother Fuyer
196 - Wynonie Harris - Big City Blues

A bit of a sudden end to Aladdin 196 and that brought us Wynonie Harris showing his blues shouting qualities at his best with the Big City Blues. The years when he recorded for Aladdin and later King were his most succesful years with fifteen top ten hits.

Now I featured the Aladdin label twice before, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, that is, the first time for the name it all started with in 1945, that was Philo. Philo was short for the Philharmonic Music Shop, the name of the store that the Mesner brothers owned. Now the Philo label bore a drawing of an Aladdin's lamp and out of the smoke from it, the word Philo formed. When in Febrary of 1946 the Philco company wanted to start a record division, the brothers were forced to change the name and at first they had the name Medlee in mind - M for Mesner and Ed and Lee the first names of the two brothers. They even advertized in Billboard and other papers, but then they changed their minds and made it Aladdin - the owner of the lamp that had featured the Philo releases.

There were more record labels that were started from a music store, but Aladdin was by far the most succesful of them. During the second half of the forties Aladdin became one of the strongest labels in Rhythm & Blues and West Coast jazz. Also one of the first R&B labels to issue 45's and ten-inch microgroove LP's in the earliest fifties. These LP's didn't sell in large amounts - the African American market was pretty exclusively 78's, most just couldn't afford new equipment to play microgroove vinyl. Nowadays they're among the rarest and hardest to find albums.

Next a recording of blues veteran Lonnie Johnson. Already in 1917 he had joined a revue that toured in England, and when he returned in 1919 all of his family but his brother had died of the Spanish Flu outbreak of the last year. The brothers moved to St. Louis where Lonnie married blues singer Mary Williams who made name for herself as Mary Johnson. From '25 he recorded some 130 sides for the OKeh label - a contract he'd won in a blues contest, and later in the thirties he joined Decca in Chicago and subsequently Bluebird, where he did his first recording with an electrical guitar.

Well by '47 he'd landed at Aladdin and on number 197 is Love is the answer. Here it goes.

197 - Lonnie Johnson - Love Is The Answer
198 - Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown - Gatemouth Boogie

The Gatemouth Boogie of Clarence Gatemouth Brown who was still early in his career with this great blues, that was born out of an improvisation he did at the Peacock club where T-Bone Walker was supposed to play but he was ill.

The owner of the Peacock club later founded the record label with the same name where Brown had some of his greatest successes including Mary is Fine and the Okie Dokie Stomp - both showcasing his talents as a great guitarist.

But this was on Aladdin 198 - and we continue with release number 200 of Lester Young with Jumpin' At The Woodside. He'd played it together with Count Basie in '44 and that version is still much like the Count's original of 1938, but here in the version that he recorded for Aladdin in '47 I'm somewhat losing the connection with the original. Well it's typical for the growing distinction between the Rhythm & Blues that would eventually feed Rock 'n Roll, and the beboppers that modernized jazz, and that was the direction that Young chose.

So here is his Jumpin' At the Woodside.

200 - Lester Young - Jumpin' At the Woodside
202 - Amos Milburn - Sad And Blue

Sad and Blue and that's pretty much the mood of this gloomy blues of Amos Milburn that featured Aladdin's release number 202.

And from Milburn I go to the guitar of Lightnin' Hopkins with the Fast Mail Rambler, on Aladdin number 204. And Hopkins shows off - it just takes a man and his guitar to make a great blues.

204 - Lightnin' Hopkins - Fast Mail Rambler
205 - Tina 'Lady Blues' Dixon and her Allstars - Hello Baby

The Bombshell Of The Blues as she was advertised in the 1944 edition of Billboard's music yearbook when she sang for Jimmie Lunceford in New York night clubs, but two years later we find this Detroit born lady in the West Coast scene. Tina Dixon recorded this for Aladdin as Lady Blues and her Allstars and the title was Hello Baby,

And on number 207 we find Red Nelson once more, under the name of Dirty Red with You Done Me Wrong.

207 - Dirty Red - You Done Me Wrong

And with Dirty Red I have to end this third show on Aladdin's releases in the 100 series. That series discontinued within a few more releases and the numbering system changed to 3000 and up that made it to 1961, be it that in their last years Aladdin just brought out very few singles anymore. By then the label was just a shade of what it had been in their glory days that were from 1945, just when it all started as Philo records, to the mid-fifties. Well pretty much the glory days of the Rhythm & Blues before the Rock 'n Roll craze shook the nation.

Leaves me to tell you that you can review the playlist, read back what I told you today, and see what'll be on for next week on my web site, that you can find with a Google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and if you want to provide feedback of course you can e-mail me, the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Time's up for now so have a great and rocking day. See you back next time, here on the radio program that showcases the Rhythm & Blues up to the Rock 'n Roll era - the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!