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 some tunes that were bycatch while fishing for the music that featured earlier shows. Like flip sides of records when I did some special on a record label or while searching for that one song or instrumental, it comes with an album that is was on. The next one for instance I had selected for my show some time ago on Decca releases on 1939, but I just had too much for the hour, so neither side of it made it to the show. And there's always an occasion to make up for that - so here it is. It's got clarinet accompaniment of John Robinson, Sam Price is on the piano; Lonnie Johnson does the guitar and the bass is plucked by John Lindsay. Here is Johnnie Temple with Down In Mississippi.
01 - Johnnie Temple - Down In Mississippi
02 - Mabel Scott - More Than That
And this was a promise that I did two weeks ago - when I played a song of Mabel Scott and told you something of her musical career and that included a few years in Europe when she toured together with pianist Bob Mosely. For the British Parlophone label she recorded this song More Than That in 1938. Well it came with the two CD's on the Classics series on her and most of them are storming boogies and among that this, well, you can say that it's completely different.
The war brought them back in Europe, and Mosely joined Jack McVea's band, and Scott became a regular performer in the clubs on LA's Central Avenue.
And next the homesickness for Georgia in the Georgia Georgia Blues with Tampa Red together with Big Maceo Merriweather on the piano and Ransom Knowling on the bass. Both Tampa Red and Big Maceo were from Georgia and had moved to Chicago where they recorded this for the Bluebird label in 1941.
Here's the Georgia Georgia Blues.
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03 - Tampa Red & Big Maceo - Georgia Georgia Blues
04 - Big Joe Turner - Crawdad Hole
(jingle)
05 - Dave Bartholomew - Girt Town Blues
06 - Helen Humes - Woojamacooja
Four in a row - After Tampa Red I played a '53 Atlantic release of Big Joe Turner and you heard the Crawdad Hole. Then after the jingle, from 1949 New Orleans legend Dave Bartholomew with the Girt Town Blues and I found that on a CD in the French Classics series - they make pretty complete anthologies on the recordings of their featured artists. And finally Woojamacooja - a floor stomper of Helen Humes and she recorded that in 1955 for the Dootone label and I found that on a CD on Dootone releases that I got myself for a blues of Roy Milton - both were in the afterdays of their career and in fact, these were the afterdays of Rhythm & Blues.
I seldomly play stuff younger than 1955, when Rock 'n Roll definitively took over. I got several reasons for that. First of all - I'm afraid on this show I'm constantly bothering you with my personal taste. And that's first of all the heydays of Rhythm & Blues - and I take 1947 as the quintessential year of the style, one of the most productive years too, as by the end of the year the record companies organized a recording frenzy that's never been seen again, to be able to survive the '48 recording strike of the American Federation of Musicians.
But also I have a weak spot for the depression blues and some of the jazz of the thirties, when the word Rhythm & Blues had never been heard of and jazz was still a highly segregated music style of the African American culture.
Then also - for music from the Rock 'n Roll era and later, there's literally thousands of radio programs, so what could I possibly add to that abundance of shows on doowop, rockabilly, soul and general oldies pop music, while there's just a handful of shows where Rhythm & Blues is played together with historical information on the artists, record labels and important people. Add the thirties African American music to that and as far as I know, I'm doing the only syndicated show on that. Well, the generation that knows this music from their youth, well hardly anyone of them is alive. I'm playing music of dead people, and I know of only a handful of the great names of the forties that are still alive, now in their nineties.
And I believe we lost the music that is the key for the development of all modern popular music from our collective memory. If it hadn't been for the blues and the jazz, we'd probably still been dancing the menuet. It's been - and it still is - the constant influence of African American music that evolves our popular music, be it the jazz and the blues that in the thirties brought us that first great crossover style, swing; Rhythm & Blues that evolved into rock 'n roll, and the later influences that soul and modern R&B brought to our popular music.
The stereotypes of African American culture in the eyes of the general public may not all be very positive - and I think there's still so much to gain in America - it always had a touch of cool too. Be it the hepcats of the thirties and forties, or the rappers of today, they always had a high appeal on the young people and this way, African American culture has always been major factor in general American culture - and western society worldwide.
Now I said I seldom play music later than 1955 and I also gave you the reasons for that. But sometimes there's something that I want to make an exception for. What I'm gonna play is a typical product of the folk revival that started about 1960 and brought us a renewed interest in the blues - not from the African American people that it was made by and made for, but for a new group of young white intellectuals that thought to hear a new originality in the old blues. Many bluesmen got a second career chance, no longer as poor musicians in smoky and noisy juke joints but as celebrities on large scale blues festivals that were crowded with white hippies. Blues lovers know that wonderful blues have been made in this new setting. And I stumbled upon this 1960 song that I have just one word for - impressive. It's still got the power of the old blues and it's great and grand as well. Listen to the Reverend Blind Gary Davis with Death Don't Have No Mercy In This Land.
07 - Rev. Blind Gary Davis - Death Don't Have No Mercy
08 - Grant 'Mr. Blues' Jones & Bob Call's Orchestra - Talking Baby Blues
From 1949 on the Coral label you heard Grant 'Mr. Blues' Jones backed by Bob Call and his band with the talking baby blues.
And next a joint effort of Sunnyland Slim and Muddy Waters from December 1947. For Muddy Waters his first recordings were on the Aristocrat label, Slim had done his first session just before, for Hy-Tone. The story is that Albert Luandrew - Sunnyland Slim's real name, needed some instrumental backup for the session and so he called a friend, delivery truck driver McKinley Morganfield, who'd played the electrical guitar from 1944 in the Chicago clubs under the name of Muddy Waters. On the label he's credited as Muddy Water without the S.
Here is She Ain't Nowhere.
09 - Sunnyland Slim - She Ain't Nowhere
10 - Chuck Higgins - Gamblin' Woman
From 1956 on the Dootone label Chuck Higgins and well I already played another goodie from the that CD on the label. Higgins is best remembered for his '52 single The Pachuko Hop where he mixed latin rhythms with Rhythm & Blues and it became an instant succes with the latinos in Los Angeles. The follow-up Wetback Hop was an unlucky shot though, not for the music that much, but for the derogatory title. This Gamblin' Woman did not have this latin influence and sounds pretty standard mid fifties Rhythm & Blues.
Next the flip of Memphis Slim's Motherless Child that he did for the Miracle label in 1947. Slim's band was the major act of the roster of Miracle - together with Sonny Thompson and Eddie Chamblee. Hear the Pacemaker Boogie.
11 - Memphis Slim - Pacemaker Boogie
12 - J.B. Lenoir - What Have I Done
J.B Lenoir and his What Have I Done that he recorded for the Parrot label. J.B. weren't his initials - they'd been registered as his given name, and some people pronounce his last name as "LeNwar". Now of course from the name it's clear that it's French by origin, but the man himself called himself "Lenor". Born in Mississippi he was one of those many bluesmen that moved to Chicago and he was a smash success in the local clubs in his flashy zebra striped costume. In the sixties his songs got political content protesting against racism and the Vietnam war.
And next - from 1945 Buster Bennett with Don't Worry About A Thing that he recorded for Columbia. Again in Chicago - there comes no end to the amounts of music that come from the Windy City. How Columbia got to market him as the Louis Jordan soundalike I don't understand. There's nothing in his raspy voice that's somewhat near Jordan's smooth sound. Also his style on the alto sax is pretty much different.
Well judge for yourself, here is Don't Worry About A Thing
13 - Buster Bennett - Don't Worry About A Thing
14 - Slim Gaillard with Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie - Popity Pop
Pop pop pop goes the motorsickle - you gotta be Slim Gaillard to be able to fill a record with just that one line of - well can you call them lyrics. Gaillard earned fame these years with his nonsense text, scat singing and what he named Vout-O-Renee - a complex of syllables that seemed pretty nonsensical until at the height of the hype Gaillard published his Vout-O-Renee dictionary, a booklet trying to give a meaning to these syllables.
This Popity Pop, he recorded it in 1945 and the band featured Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, two pioneers of the then experimental jazz style of bebop.
Next one's from 1939 on Decca - here is Rosetta Howard with Plain Lenox Avenue.
16 - Rosetta Howard - Plain Lenox Avenue
17 - Ida Cox - Lost Man Blues
And with Ida Cox we made a plunge back in the roaring twenties, this Lost Man Blues was from '27 on Paramount's race series. Well let's just say that I had to get the average age of the tunes back to normal after some mid to late fifties and even a 1960 song. Well you can't say today's set didn't had variety - and I hope you liked it. Send an e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com to let me know what you thought about today's set. And of course there's my web site where you can read all I told you today or see next week's playlist. A Google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman is the best way to find it.
Well time is up so have a rocking day and just don't get them blues. See you next time here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!