This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And so every now and then I play from my collection of re-issue albums that mostly are European pressings from the eighties, A collection that I still have to make a good listing from and catalog it like I do with all that I aquired from other sources. Well browsing through that stuff always gives me enough of the liner notes to read. That is, well, not for the first that I'm going to play. This is an Italian pressing of a Chess LP with recordings of J.B. Lenoir and the notes are translated to Italian. My Italian is as bad as probably your knowledge of Dutch, so no juicy stories from the notes, just the music. From that Chess LP a recording from 1957 done in Chicago. Here is Five Years.
01 - J.B. Lenoir - Five Years
02 - Joe Liggins - How Come
Joe Liggins with How Come from an album on the Swedish Jukebox Lil label from 1988. It's got an interview with Liggins on it where he tells how the whole family moved in a two-seat car from Oklahoma to California. His mother insisted on bringing the fruit she'd canned last summer, some 500 quarts they brought on a trailer hooked to that poor car. They ran out of money in Texas, so they sold the fruit for a dime a quart for money for gas.
When they arrived in San Diego, Liggins earned his money arranging music for bands. Later he moved to Los Angeles and that is where the story starts of the Honeydripper, the night-closer that Joe's band ended their gigs with before curfew time - we're talking 1942 and in California the lights went out at midnight, as a precaution in case Japanese bombers would attack. Record boss Leon Rene had to wait all evening to hear it and signed Liggins on the spot. The Honeydripper earned Liggins ten thousands of dollars and Rene's Executive label probably a lot more. After that came a string of hits more, and this How Come was one of them.
And from Joe Liggins we go to his younger brother Jimmy and he never achieved the success that Joe got. From the Route 66 label, also from Sweden I have an album and like with his brother Joe, it's got an interview and that tells of a lot of bad luck and stupid accidents that help explain for the lack of success compared to his elder brother. The music though is as good as his brother's. From this album a recording from 1947. Here is Jimmy Liggins with I Can't Stop It.
03 - Jimmy Liggins - I Can't Stop It
04 - Frank Culley - Fatback And Greens
(jingle)
05 - Griffin Brothers - The Teaser
06 - Buddy Tate - The Things You Done For Me Baby
That were four-in-a-row - after Jimmy Liggins you heard Fatback And Greens of the band of Frank 'Floorshow' Culley and and the LP I got this from is a re-issue on the Krazy Kat label of what originally was a 1955 album on the Baton label, titled Rock'n'Roll Instrumentals For Dancing The Lindy Hop. Now the liner notes are pretty short but they do tell us that saxophonist Culley earned his nickname Floorshow for his antics on stage - pretty much like other West Coast honkers. Also the story how they got stranded in Natchez, MS without money and arranged with a local movie theatre boss to do a stage show. Culley had a pretty unusual way to attract people for the show - he started playing in the streets of town and walking towards the theatre, and there he had a following large enough to fill the place to capacity. They stayed for weeks in Natchez playing for a full joint.
Then after the jingle came the Griffin Brothers with The Teaser, another instrumental and this one was recorded in 1951 and I found that on an album of the Ace label from 1985. And then finally you got Buddy Tate with a recording from December 1947 for the West Coast based Supreme label featuring vocals of Chas Q. Price who also did the saxophone in the band. The LP from 1972 on the Dutch Black Lion label tells in its liner notes that this combo actually was part of Count Basie's band and this was recorded in that hectic month before the start of the 1948 recording strike when record labels organized a recording frenzy to make sure not to run dry like they had done in the previous strike that was from 1942-44.
Next a track from a German album of the Bellaphon label and that's the Dominoes, featuring lead singer Clyde McPhatter with their very first number one hit, in 1953. Here is I'll be satisfied.
07 - Billy Ward & The Dominoes - I'd Be Satisfied
08 - Calvin Boze - Havin' A Ball
Calvin Boze with a song that was mistitled as Havin' a Ball, well that should have been Having a Time of course and according to the liner notes of the 1978 album of the Moonshine label, some Aladdin 78 do have that as the title on the label. Still the title of the album is the same as this mistitled song, Havin' a Ball. The notes emphasize the influence that Louis Jordan had on this singer, who faded into obscurity after his contract with Aladdin was not renewed in 1952.
Next from an album on the Danish Official label, Buddy Banks with a vocal group that remains unidentified on the sleeve notes. It's from 1945 and done for the Sterling label in Los Angeles. Here is the Groove Juice, a.k.a. I Need It Bad.
09 - Buddy Banks - I Need It Bad
10 - Buddy Johnson - You Can't Tell Who's Lovin' Who
From Buddy Banks to Buddy Johnson and his band with of course the velvet voice of his sister Ella doing this wonderful slow blues from '47 on a 1976 German pressing on the Telefunken-Decca label. You Can't Tell Who's Lovin' Who was that and the sleeve notes only got personnel data on each track but they forgot to list this one.
Next a recording from 1947 in Los Angeles of Jack McVea and his band that I took from an album from Sweden, on the Jukebox Lil label. The album is titled Open The Door Richard after the iconic hit of McVea that basically was an adaptation of a vaudeville sketch that he'd put on music. The notes on the sleeve are from an interview where he tells about his work on the road and in the studios. Now just last week I told you about a noted jazzman who ended up in the old-time dixieland band in New Orleans Sqare in Disneyland, well, Jack McVea's career made the same move. He had to learn to play the clarinet for that. I wonder what made him decide to that turn his career that way, but apparently Walt Disney did contract first-rate musicians for his attraction. McVea anyhow tells the interviewer that it's a fun job.
On the record no Disney Dixieland fortunately. From him No, No, You Can't Do Dot Mon
11 - Jack McVea - No, No, You Can't Do Dot Mon
12 - Big John Greer - You Played On My Piano
Big John Greer in a duet with Delores Brown - you heard You Played On My Piano - and apparently a lot of instruments more. The piano was done by Bill Doggett by the way and the rocking saxophone solo was Budd Johnson. The recording was done for RCA in 1951.
Next the typical voice of Walter Brown with Jay McShann's band. The record I have it on, on the British Affinity label, tells this was recorded in New York in 1942, after a great tour that started in Kansas City where the band originated, to Chicago and finally the Big Apple. It was the last time Charlie Parker played with the band - according to the sleeve notes he got fed up with the drug and alcohol abuse of Jay McShann. From that New York session, here is the Lonely Boy Blues.
13 - Jay McShann - Lonely Boy Blues
14 - Count Basie - Shorty George
From 1938 Shorty George of Count Basie, and I got that from an old fashioned music cassette on that same Affinity label from 1984. You would hardly forget these compact cassettes. The liner notes are useless nonsense, someone from the Count Basie Society trying to tell us in as many words as possible why Basie was better than Duke Ellington. So we have to do with what's in the grooves, or in this case on the tape.
Next from an album of the London-based Charly label Joe Lutcher, with liner notes of Chas White who documented the life of Little Richard. He got in contact with Joe Lutcher finding out whether the rumour that it was Lutcher who'd convinced Richard to turn to gospel at the height of his rock 'n roll career. The story isn't true but it gave the writer the opportunity to speak to Lutcher, who himself turned to gospel as well. Lutcher was pretty reluctant telling about the wild days when he played the music of the devil.
Recorded in November of 1947, here he is with Hit The Block.
15 - Joe Lutcher - Hit The Block
16 - Big Jim Wynn - Fat Meat
(jingle)
17 - Betty Hall Jones - Thrill Me
18 - H-Bomb Ferguson - My Brown Frame Baby
And that again were four without my talk in between. After Joe Lutcher you got Big Jim Wynn with Fat Meat, a recording from 1948 in Los Angeles and the vocals were Robert Sims. Again I got this on a Swedish pressing of the Mr. R&B group with the odd label name of Whiskey, Women and... and the notes tell about the honking fad that was on the West Coast and how Big Jay McNeely - fifteen year younger than Wynn - did similar tricks on stage and sounded the same.
From this honking to the fine piano playing of Betty Hall Jones and this goodie, recorded in '49, I got that on a French re-issue of an EMI album. They left the liner notes in English, and I'm happy about that. You heard Thrill me.
And I ended with H-Bomb Ferguson with My Brown Frame Baby, a recording from 1952 that I found on a musicassette titled Stompin' at the Savoy, re-issueing from the Savoy label. It got hardly no liner notes on it except that it was dedicated to Charlie Parker and Slim Gaillard - they both have a track on the tape too.
Listening to the music and reading the notes on these old re-issue albums is fun. An interview with an artist on the back of a record reads so much better than a pretty dry Wikipedia or Allmusic article, sources I often have to rely on. So every now and then I'll dedicate a show to these old albums and I hope to please you with that. Of course you can let me know if you dug the show, drop me a line at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Then on my website you can find what I told you today and see what's on the menu for next week. Easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. Once there, look for show number 131 - that's this one.
For now time's up so I wish you a rocking day. Don't get the blues - it's better to play them. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!