This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And once more I'm taking you to 1940, to the Decca studios, like I did some weeks ago, for a few records that were released in the spring of that year. Most were recorded just recently, others had laid on the shelf for some time, but there's really so much great blues and a little bit of swing in that short time in the Race series of Decca, that I can easily put that short a spell in a show. Guess I got material for years of shows should I just record-by-record dig the discography of that 7000 series of Decca - well it was of course the leading label for Rhythm & Blues in these years, be it that the word Rhythm & Blues, no-one had heard of it by then.
And to start here's a blues of Georgia White that was recorded on April 18 of 1940. Her Sensation Blues was the flip of You ought to be ashamed of yourself - equally good so that one I'll save for some day later. Here is the Sensation Blues on Decca 7754.
01 - 7754 - Georgia White - Sensation Blues
02 - 7756 - George Davis - Radio Brown Blues
The obscure bluesman George Davis and he did only four sides for Decca. You heard the Radio Brown Blues. And the next record in the catalog of Decca is of trumpeter and band leader Hot Lips Page. After playing in several bands including Bennie Moten's and Count Basie's, he decided in 1936 to leave Kansas City for New York and start out on his own. He didn't succeed though in keeping a big band together, during the thirties and forties he's been the head of as many as thirteen bands.
On Decca 7757 we find him with a version of the popular song A Porter's Love Song To A Chambermaid, backed by this instrumental, titled Walk It To Me.
03 - 7757 - Hot Lips Page - Walk It To Me
04 - 7760 - Leroy's Buddy - Big Time Town Woman
Bill Gaither, on the label billed as Leroy's Buddy with the Big Time Town Woman. His stage name was in honor of his good friend Leroy Carr who died in 1935. Gaither did three tributes to his friend who died young of his alcohol addiction, The Life of Leroy Carr, the Leroy Carr Blues, and After the Sun's Gone Down. Gaither did over a hundred sides both for OKeh and Decca.
Next Ollie Shepard who by 1940 had embraced the new emerging jump blues. This Jitterbugs Broke It Down is in style ahead of what Louis Jordan did in 1940 and I could well have placed it in the mid-forties instead of January of 1940 when this was recorded. Listen for yourself. Here is Ollie Shepard.
05 - 7761 - Ollie Shepard - Jitterbugs Broke It Down
06 - 7762 - Charlie Pickett - Crazy 'Bout My Black Gal
Crazy 'Bout My Black Gal - you heard Charlie Pickett, a pretty obscure bluesman. He was from Brownsville, TN and moved to St Louis and later to Chicago somewhere in the thirties where he played on the streets with Sleepy John Estes who probably was his cousin. He did a few sides including this one for Decca in 1937 so by 1940 this was some three years old. He also played guitar on recordings of Sleepy John Estes.
Decca number 7763 is a somewhat extraordinary record as it pairs two different artists both singing on one theme - the fire in the Rhythm Club in Natchez, MS, on April 23 of 1940, one of the deadliest in American history. The fire killed over 200 people including most members of the jazz band of Walter Barnes. The club was decorated with Spanish Moss that was impregnated with a flammable insecticide and all windows and fire doors were boarded up so the 300 people were trapped inside.
On the flip Leonard 'Baby Doo' Caston remembers Water Barnes, but for now bluesman Gene Gilmore with The Natchez Fire.
07 - 7763 - Gene Gilmore - The Natchez Fire
08 - 7764 - Jimmie Gordon - Nobody Knows The Trouble I See
A song well inspired by the famous spiritual, you heard Jimmie Gordon with Nobody Knows The Trouble I See. Now like so many of the pre-war bluesmen most information on him is lost and many legends have been created around him - like that he was the brother of Peetie Wheatstraw. He wasn't; it was a marketing gimmick of Decca on the label of a record where Gordon and Wheatstraw were combined on the two sides. Side A was billed Peetie Wheatstraw, the Devil's Son-In-Law, side B billed as Jimmie Gordon, Peetie Wheatstraw's Brother.
Next up is Sleepy John Estes. His biography on Wikipedia tells that during the blues revival of the sixties, he was often overlooked by the people trying to track down the old blues legends because even on his earliest records he sounds like an old man - they thought he should be dead. Now Estes did belong to an older generation of bluesmen, being born in 1899, but he was well alive though blind and living in poverty when he was found back in 1962. Some accounts on his life say that he earned his nickname to narcolepsy but that's another of these stories that may well have been made up.
From him, on Decca 7766, Tell Me How About It,
09 - 7766 - Sleepy John Estes - Tell Me How About It
10 - 7768 - Snub Mosley - Ol' Man River
Trombonist Snub Mosley with the standard Ol' Man River that he recorded for Decca in March of 1940. Snub Mosley had led his own band that later became the Gentlemen Of Swing of Skeets Tolbert and on here he plays with a smaller outfit. About 1940 he also recorded The Man With The Funny Little Horn, where he plays on a pretty odd instrument, a slide saxophone, some hybrid instrument that had a sax mouthpiece and the slide mechanism of a trombone. I'm still after this oddity, it has been re-released on a Swedish re-issue LP and I have quite a few of them, but not this one.
From the swing of Snub Mosley to the piano blues of Roosevelt Sykes. He billed himself as the Honeydripper, way before the monster hit with that name of Joe Liggins in 1945. Actually Mr. Sykes was not amused seeing his name taken by the biggest Rhythm & Blues hit in history and he recorded his own cover - that was forgotten in the blink of an eye. A honeydripper, by the way, is a smooth talking romantic lover.
Well here is Honeydripper Roosevelt Sykes with the Essie Mae Blues.
11 - 7769 - Roosevelt Sykes - Essie Mae Blues
12 - 7770 - Blue Lu Barker - I don't dig you Jack
Blue Lu Barker on Decca #7770 with I don't Dig You Jack. Barker was one of the greats of thirties blues, much helped by her husband Danny Barker whom she'd married at the age of thirteen, after she ran away from home. Now that may well be a recipe for a soon divorce, but not in this case, she stayed with her man until his death in 1994. Danny Barker worked as a guitarist and banjo player for some of the great names of 30s and 40s swing, including Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter.
Next Johnnie Temple, a great bluesman from the Chicago scene - he'd moved to the Windy City from Mississippi in the early thirties and easily got himself a place in the thriving blues and jazz clubs in town. He did a lot of recordings with Decca, together with the Harlem Hamfats, the studio band that Decca's A&R man J. Mayo Williams had put together and that included his long time friend Joe McCoy.
From him, here is the magnificent I'm Cutting Out.
13 - 7772 - Johnnie Temple - I'm Cuttin' Out
14 - 7773 - Leonard 'Baby Doo' Caston - I'm Gonna Walk Your Log
Leonard 'Baby Doo' Caston and if that name doesn't ring a bell for you, he was the pianist in the Big Three trio of Willie Dixon. Now that was after the war - as a young man of 21 years old he'd moved to Chicago and was picked up by J. Mayo Williams to record for Decca. And Just like Decca number 7763 - I played it earlier this show, the song about the Natchez fire - this issue 7773 pairs him with Gene Gilmore on the other side. You got I'm Gonna Walk Your Log recorded in that same session of june 1940.
Now I just mentioned the name of J. Mayo 'Ink' Williams just for the second time today - well he was, already since the start of the US branch of Decca back in 1934, the head of the race music department and just like in the twenties with Paramount and Vocalion, he was very succesful in scouting and signing talent and for Decca he did that both in Chicago and New York - he must have traveled a lot back and forth. For these two cities he soon had made Decca the most important label for African-American music. His success as an A&R man for the record labels is a big contrast with his own independent labels that commercially were a failure. We nowadays value the records of Black Patti from the late twenties very highly, and the same is for his own forties labels Harlem, Chicago, Southern and Ebony, but the fact that they're so extremely rare pretty much boosts the value of the 78s.
Well for now, we're making a little jump to issue number 7776 where we find Doc Sausage and his Five Pork Chops.
15 - 7776 - Doctor Sausage & His Five Pork Chops - Birthday Party
16 - 7777 - Louis Jordan - Never Let Your Left Hand Know
And this Decca 7777 brought us one of the major stars of Decca, Louis Jordan with Never Let Your Left Hand Know. Jordan had first recorded for Decca in 1938 but already he was a hit maker and many of his songs weren't released on the race series anymore - this 7000's series - but on the sepia series, that featured African American artists that were promising for cross-over hits, and even on the popular series, where he was released among greats as the Andrews sisters, Bing Crosby, Woody Herman and Louis Armstrong. He had signed for J. Mayo Williams, while he was still a regular act for the Elks Rendezvous club in Harlem doing novelty songs and, well, soon the Decca staff was convinced that his music had far more potential than the down home blues of Baby Doo Caston or Sleepy John Estes. And history proved that they were right.
Louis Jordan also closes for today's show where I featured a few months of Decca's releases in 1940, Decca that had become the major label for Rhythm & Blues especially in the two cities where they worked from - Chicago and New York. You can also say that the presence of Decca made that many bluesmen were recorded extensively where in many other cities, and in the rural south, there were much less chances for African-American musicians.
I hope you liked the show and of course, feedback is very much appreciated. You can leave your comments, questions or whatever you want to say or ask at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Today's story, like all the others, is documented on my web site where you can also preview for what's on next week. Search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will show up first.
Well for now, byebye and have a rocking day. See you next time, where I'll play more of the best of Rhythm & Blues, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!