This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And another great mix of African American music from before Rock 'n Roll struck the nation, a mix that will span several decades again. And not to start with the earliest releases first, I want to begin the show with Ray Charles. Now most of his pre-Atlantic releases were gloomy blues much in the style of Charles Brown, but this goodie from 1952 gets you much more a feeling like his later songs on Atlantic. From 1952 here is Kissa Me Baby.
01 - Ray Charles - Kissa Me Baby
02 - Lightnin' Hopkins - Policy Game
The Policy game of Lightnin' Hopkins from 1952 and I just read a great biography of him that tells the story of a bluesman lacking anything like sophistication. He was a good drinker and a worse gambler, and he recorded for anyone who'd wave a fifty-dollar bill for him, about his time on the chain gang, about poverty, picking cotton, whiskey, bad women and the hardships of the rural South. Sam Hopkins got his nickname from an Alladin record boss, who'd paired him with Wilson 'Thunder' Smith on a record billed as Thunder and Lightnin'.
As he grew older he started creating his own legends, telling stories in interviews about his earlier life that were partly made up, partly true. Well one thing that was true is that he hated traveling, he hated large crowds and was afraid of flying and that he felt best alone in his room in that boardhouse on Dowling street in Houston's Third Ward. To the Houston Cronicle he explained: 'Here I can be broke and hungry and walk out and someone will buy me dinner'.
Where Sam Hopkins was being himself, the white audience that embraced him in the sixties saw in him everything that a bluesman should be. The thing is, that as a child of the Jim Crow era Hopkins didn't trust anyone white, and especially not record boss white people. Well actually he didn't trust anyone. He preferred to be the lonely man.
Well after that story, a ballad from 1955 of Richard Berry. It was one of the first that I used to play the saxophone with, playing the bass line that sounds pretty much like a doowop song. On the Flair label here is Richard Berry with Please Tell Me.
03 - Richard Berry - Please Tell Me
04 - Art Tatum & His Swingsters - Body and Soul
(jingle)
05 - Oscar's Chicago Swingers feat. Lovin' Sam Theard - New Rubbin' On the Darned Old Thing
06 - Rosetta Howard & The Harlem Hamfats - Delta Bound
Four in a row - after that '55 song of Richard Berry we made a plunge two decades back - you got Art Tatum from 1937 on the Decca label with Body and Soul. Then after the jingle, also on Decca, Lovin' Sam Theard with the New Rubbin' On the Darned Old Thing, a re-recording of a song he'd done in '34 with pianist Albert Ammons on the same label. This version was backed up by a combo named Oscar's Chicago Swingers.
In the thirties it was pretty common to re-record a song, even for the same label, and put the word 'new' before the title. Lovin' Sam Theard was an active songwriter doing songs for Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris and Hal Singer. His best known song though is from 1931, You Rascal You, a.k.a. I'll Be Glad When You're Dead that he recorded with Tampa Red and Cow Cow Davenport and it was covered by many greats including Cab Calloway, Woody Herman, Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong, who did it as the soundtrack over a Betty Boop cartoon.
Then the last of the bunch, that was Rosetta Howard with her beautiful blues Delta Bound backed up by the Harlem Hamfats - despite their name they were based in Chicago. And that made for the third Decca release in a row, this was from 1938.
And we stay in the Windy City with a recording from 1941 on Bluebird of Lil Green. The blues lady who made fame with her immortal version of the women's blues classic Why Don't You Do Right, well here she is with Let's Be Friends.
07 - Lil Green - Let's Be Friends
08 - Robert Ketchum - Stockade
Some artists make their songs just sound too much like others. You may have thought you listened to an early blues of Ray Charles, or maybe Charles Brown. Well Brown was the main example for Ray Charles, and then Brown had his career started with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers trying to impersonate Nat King Cole. Well none of them were on this song - it was the obscure bluesman Robert Ketchum who recorded this little gem titled Stockade for the Houston based Peacock label.
Now wannabe soundalikes of Charles Brown, there have been more of them - I played an attempt of Floyd Dixon to continue Brown's sound in Johnny Moore's combo just two weeks ago. I think it's obvious that Ketchum held either Brown or Ray Charles as an example when he recorded this.
Now sometimes the similarity to other artists can be conincidental. Next you'll get Saunders King, a bluesman whose style could change like a chameleon and this one sounds pretty much like an obscure band from New Jersey, The Ray-O-Vacs, who had a very distinctive sound with their saxophonist Leo Chink Kinney. Well listen to Get Yourself Another Fool of Saunders King.
09 - Saunders King - Get Yourself Another Fool
10 - Ray-O-Vacs - Lonesome Lover
Then I thought I could as well play them Ray-O-Vacs themselves. Lonesome Lover was that and I love that saxophone work of Chink Kinney - he very much contributed to the typical sound of the group. You heard the Lonesome Lover.
Next the typical high-pitched vocals of J.B. Lenoir with the Slow Down Woman. Now Lenoir has most been remembered for his sixties political songs but already had gotten in troubles before in 1954 with his Eisenhower Blues.
Listen to Slow Down Woman.
11 - J.B. Lenore - Slow down woman
12 - J.T. Brown - Rock 'Em
Saxophonist J.T. 'Nature Boy' Brown with a rollicking instrumental titled Rock 'Em. Quite a lot of his music is released on a CD in the French Classics series but that unfortunetely omitted his back-up work for J. Mayo Williams' Harlem label in 1949 and '50.
Next from 1951 the Blues at Sunrise of Ivory Joe Hunter. He recorded that for the Dot label just after his two big hits Almost Lost My Mind and I Need You So, that had made Hunter a top of the bill act.
So here is his Blues for Sunrise.
13 - Ivory Joe Hunter - Blues at Sunrise
14 - Mabel Scott - Subway Blues
From 1950 the Subway Blues of Mabel Scott that she did for the King label in 1950. She already had a whole career behind her, starting at the age of 17 with Cab Calloway and a few years in Europe with pianist Bob Mosley in the late thirties. When the war broke out she returned to the USA and made the West Coast her home - and here she married the great bluesman Charles Brown. It was a short marriage - they divorced only two years later. Now most of her music are these kinda stormy boogies but I promise to play some blues from her short time in England where she recorded for the Parlophone label, in a later show.
Next some piano pounding from 1952 with Piano Red on RCA Victor - here is his Bouncing With Red.
15 - Piano Red - Bouncin' With Red
16 - Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - I'm Going Back To Tennessee
And Leroy Carr - the influential bluesman together with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell with I'm Going Back To Tennessee ends this episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Like so many of these bluesmen also Leroy Carr had his own story and that's one of a life ended way too early - he was an alcoholic and he died just after he got thirty years old.
Still his impact was big, his often crooning style - not on this one - served as an example for Nat King Cole and his style was typically urban, much more than most Chicago bluesmen of the twenties and early thirties. After his death, his long-time friend Bill Gaither took up the stage name of Leroy's Buddy for several years in honor of Carr, and he recorded three tributes to him.
Well it's been a varied set today again and I hope you enjoyed it. Of course you can let me know and provide feedback at my mail address rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And today's stories and playlist are to be found on my website, that you can easily find doing a web search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. And if you're curious what will be on the menu for next week, well, you can find it there too.
For now there's no more to say than that I wish you a pleasant and before all, a rocking day. See you next week when I'm back, with more Rhythm & Blues, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.