This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And again I'll spin some allsorts from the turntable, great Rhythm & Blues that spans the decades before rock 'n roll, as you're used from me. And I start with a goodie from 1940 of the great trumpeter Hot Lips Page and his band, a wonderful instrumental from Kansas City, titled Lafayette.
01 - Hot Lips Page & His Band - Lafayette
02 - The Ink Spots - That Cat Is High
Unmistakably the Ink Spots, from 1938 on Decca that was That Cat Is High. In the thirties, the Ink Spots had specialized in uptempo jive numbers until tenor Bill Kenny joined the group and he developed the extremely popular format that he called Top and Bottom, a ballad format where the lead tenor altered with the bass singer who talked rather than sang. This brought the group their If I Didn't Care that sold some 19 million copies. Well it was clear they'd found a golden format, but I prefer these jive style songs than the sirupy ballads they did later.
Next B.B. King with a recording from 1951. This is great rocking stuff that predates the days of rock 'n roll. Recorded in Memphis for the RPM label, here is She's Dynamite.
03 - B B King - She's Dynamite
04 - James Tisdom - Model T Boogie
(jingle)
05 - Erroll Garner - Bouncin' With Me
06 - Four Jumps Of Jive - It's Just The Blues
That's a whole lotta music - after B.B. King's rocker you got James Tisdom, a Texas bluesman who did a few sides for the obscure Follywood-based Universal Fox label. Now that name may sound like a big movie company, or actually two, Universal and 20th Century Fox, but the label was not connected to them. You heard the Model T Boogie and it's one of the many comparison songs between a woman and a car. She's not a Cadillac woman, she's rather a Model T Ford, she's got the shape allright but she can't carry a heavy load.
Then after the jingle two sides from the Mercury label - Erroll Garner with Bouncin' With Me and It's Just The Blues of the Four Jumps Of Jive. You know, listeners, some of the unthemed sets that I do come from failed attempts to do a set on a subject, in this case the 2000 series of the Mercury label. While trying to find the music with the discographies, it occurs to me that so much stuff is still waiting to be re-released, and when attempts to track down the tunes fail again and again, I know I don't have a set to do for you.
So I include another goodie from that label series, and that is Dinah Washington with the Joy Juice. According to Dinah, you should get your man drunk to make him a better lover. Now, I really doubt whether that will work.
07 - Dinah Washington - Joy Juice
08 - Big Charlie Bradix - Boogie Like You Wanna
The obscure Texas bluesman Big Charlie Bradix recorded this Boogie Like You Wanna for the Blue Bonnet label - a local label from Dallas that recorded hillbilly and a handful of blues artists.
Next from the JVB label, John Lee Hooker with the Boogie Rambler. JVB was one of the subsidiaries of the Califoria based Modern label of the Bihari Brothers. Now Hooker started with the Biharis but soon went to other labels and recorded there under a whole bunch of nicknames, like John Lee Booker, John Lee Cooker or just Johnny Lee, or Texas Slim or Birmingham Sam or Delta John and even the Little Pork Chops.
Here he is with the Boogie Rambler.
09 - John Lee Hooker - Boogie Rambler
10 - Bill Samuels & his Cats 'n Jammer Three - I'm Coming Home To Stay
I'm Coming Home To Stay - of the band that took its name from a comic strip series named the Katzenjammer Kids - Bill Samuels and his Cats 'n Jammer Three with a recording for Mercury titled I'm Coming Home To Stay. The little combo existed for only a few years but they made impression with their slow ballad I Cover The Waterfront. Most of their songs were uptempo jive numbers like this one.
Next from 1941 on the Bluebird label the Evil Blues of Washboard Sam, one of the 160 sides he done for the Bluebird and Vocalion labels - next to an even much greater number of appearances as a session musician. Here is his Evil Blues.
11 - Washboard Sam - Evil Blues
12 - Big Bill Broonzy - C.C. Rider
C.C. Rider, Big Bill Broonzy's version of the blues classic and that was released on three of the cheap labels of ARC, the American Record Corporation, Melotone, Perfect and Banner. He recorded it in 1934 and all of the releases credit just "Big Bill" without Broonzy. About 1915 he was working in Arkansas as a sharecropper and the legend goes that he was offered fifty dollars and a new violin if he would play at a local venue. His wife spent the money before he even had agreed to, so he had to play.
When he moved to Chicago in 1920 he traded his fiddle for the guitar and he started playing at rent parties together with other jobs to add to his income. For a time he was a Pullman porter but he also worked in a foundry. His early recordings for Paramount and Gennett didn't sell but after he moved to New York for a while, the records he did for these cheap labels went better. He later returned to Chicago and made fame in the local blues scene.
Next from 1936 Memphis Minnie who by then was a regular in the Chicago scene. In these years she recorded for three labels, Vocalion, Decca and Bluebird. From a session with Vocalion here is the Hoodoo Lady Blues
13 - Memphis Minnie - Hoodoo Lady Blues
14 - Lucille Bogan - Bogan Ways Blues
Lucille Bogan and her Bogan Ways Blues from 1934 and she did that for the same Banner label as the Big Bill Broonzy record that I played earlier. Now Bogan hasn't recorded after 1935, even though the second half of the decade the recording industry in New York had recovered from the worst years of the Depression.
For the next one I take a dive back into the twenties with Ada Brown. I played a forties soundie of her in last week's show and by then she was a middle-aged woman. Born in 1890, she was part of that first generation of recording blueswomen, and part of the thriving music scene of Kansas City and in 1926 she also recorded with Bennie Moten's jazz band. This was with another ensemble, Luis Russel's Hot Six. On Vocalion here is the Panama Limited Blues.
15 - Ada Brown - Panama Limited Blues
16 - Betty Hall Jones - Learn To Boogie
(jingle)
17 - Memphis Jimmy - Drifting
18 - T-Bone Walker - Strollin' with Bones
And these four end today's episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman with after Ada Brown's very oldie, Betty Hall Jones with Learn To Boogie and that was from 1946 on the Hollywood based Atomic label, a pretty rare and obscure label owned by trombonist Lyle Griffin - and apart from himself he most notably recorded Slim Gaillard and four sides of Betty Hall Jones.
Then came Memphis Jimmy with Drifting and this is the same man as James "Beale Street" Clark, the man who wrote and first recorded the blues classic Get Ready to Meet Your Man - that was the original title, but it's better known as Look on Yonder Wall as the version that Elmore James recorded in 1961, or Hand Me Down My Walking Cane of Arthur Crudup from 1950. The song is about a disabled man, not drafted for the war, who fools around with women until the war comes to an end and their husbands come home.
And I ended in style with a rollicking instrumental of T-bone Walker - you heard Strolling with Bones.
Like I said, this marks the end of yet another hour of Rhythm & Blues goodies and I hope you liked them. Well wether you did or not, well I can only get to know when you let me know so send me an e-mail and tell me your ideas, questions or whatever you want to let me know, to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Then on my web site you can find today's story and playlist and what's up for next week. Search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. To read back today's story, look for episode number 137 in that long list of shows that I done already.
As for now, time's up so have a rocking day. See you next time here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!