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's musical journey brings us to the year 1953 and the place is Chicago. In the thriving Rhythm & Blues scene of the Windy City a lot of independent record labels bring out their 78s and 45s and one of the men to give it a shot is local deejay Al Benson - he launches his Parrot label. This label is today's feature on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and I start with the first single in their main Rhythm & Blues series, that starts with the number of 1050, a number not coincidentally chosen and after the music I'll tell you how. Here is that number 1050, and that is Willie Mabon with I Don't Know.
01 - 1050 - Willie Mabon - I Don't Know
02 - 772 - Parrots - Weep Weep Weep
The vocal group that bore the same name as their label, the Parrots with Weep Weep Weep on Parrot 772, the first somewhat regularly numbered issue of Parrot. The group with that name left no trace in the Chicago scene, so it's likely that it was another - yet unidentified group.
Now I told you about the numbering of the earliest Parrot releases that started with 1050 and this subsequent release was 772. How come - well the first Parrot releases were parallel releases with the Checker label. Owner Al Benson had been doing free-lance recording in the years before, including for the Chess Brothers, and the first releases of Parrot had gotten the same numbering as the Checker releases. In the pretty chaotic numbering of Checker, this 772 seems to never have been issued and the same counts for the next one, that was Parrot 780.
Now when Al Benson started his Parrot label he certainly was no rookie in the Chicago recording business. He'd been doing freelance recording since the spring of 1948 - while the recoring ban of the American Federation of Musicians was in effect in full swing. It were tapes from a live session in the Pershing Ballroom that he sold to the Aristocrat label.
And then in 1949 he lent his DJ moniker the Old Swing Master, to the label with that name. That was an initiative of record producer and the owner of the Universal Broadcasting Studio, Egmont Sonderling. The year before one of his customers, the Vitacoustic label, had gone bankrupt and they'd left a large unpaid bill for Sonderling so he started to produce the records for his own, in an effort to at least get some money out of the masters that were still in his studio. Later he continued this business with also issuing unreleased masters from other labels that had recorded with him but stopped operation, and often they had unpaid bills - Rhumboogie, Marvel, Planet, and Sunbeam.
Al Benson was the front man, responsible for marketing of these Old Swing Master releases and of course being a popular DJ probably had been the main reason for Sonderling to ask him for that. Unfortunately the Old Swing Master label didn't get anywhere near succesful and it folded in early 1950. I did a show on the Old Swing Master label, full of extremely rare records, some time ago here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
Back to the Parrot label, here is number 780 of the catalog. It's Mabel Scott and she brings us with Mr. Fine, a cover of Camille Howard's hit that she had with Roy Milton and his Solid Senders. Now Mabel does a great effort and that also counts for Red Saunders and his band who for the occasion was joined by trumpeter King Kolax. Mabel Scott was a glamorous West Coast based singer and she did her Parrot recordings while on tour in Chicago where she was the star in the famous Club DeLisa. Here she is with Mr. Fine.
03 - 780 - Mabel Scott - Mr. Fine
04 - 781 - Chocolateers - Bartender Blues
(jingle)
05 - 782 - Curtis Jones - Cool Playing Blues
06 - 784 - Coleman Hawkins - I'll Follow My Sacred Heart
Coleman Hawkins with the jazz classic - well the label said I'll Follow My Sacred Heart - that should have been secret heart of course. The jazz giant was accompanied by an organist, either Lonnie Simmons or Les Strand, and an uncredited group of background singers. This was Parrot number 784 and right now in the background you hear number 783, another release of the Hawk.
Then before that you got pianist Curtis Jones with Cool playing Blues and he was accompanied by guitarist L. C. McKinley on this. And then that shouting before the jingle - that was a comedy trio called the Chocolateers with the Bartender's Blues - or Bartender's Ball as it was advertised in the Chicago Defender. The music behind it was again the band of Red Saunders together with King Kolax on the trumpet.
Next a single that Benson did not record himself but he'd leased it from the Swing Time label from Los Angeles. Swing Time owner Jack Lauderdale had no distribution in Chicago and this way he got a selling point for his records, promoted by a popular DJ. There were more out of this deal that I'll play today. Here is that first one, that is 785 in the numbering of Parrot, Alex 'Playboy' Thomas with No Doubt About It.
07 - 785 - Play Boy Thomas - No Doubt About It
08 - 786 - Marvin Phillips - Salty Dog
The Salty Dog of Marvin Phillips that also had been issued by Swing Time before. And the same counts for the next one of Lowell Fulson, one of the major stars of Swing Time that came out on Parrot as number 787. Here is the Juke Box shuffle.
09 - 787 - Lowell Fulson - Jukebox Shuffle
10 - 788 - Jo Jo Adams - Rebecca
This Rebecca is a great favorite of mine of blues shouter and comedian Jo Jo Adams with what would be his last session in the studio. The backing is - well, unusual, of maybe better, daring. That again was the band of Red Saunders but it's the man who did this remarkable arrangement who makes this really stand out. Sonny Blount was his name and he had had a long-time engagement at the famous Club DeLisa and he'd just changed his name into Sun Ra when he did this.
Well there's one thing you can say and that is that the Parrot label had a lot of variety. We seen top notch jazz, comedy, great blues and they also had doowop. Backed by Red Saunders' band is this vocal quartet that has a female lead, by the early fifties still pretty rare. Here is Love Nobody of the Rockettes.
11 - 789 - Rockettes - Love Nobody
12 - 791 - Ernest Lewis - West Coast Blues
The West Coast Blues on Parrot 791 of Ernest Lewis, also known as West Texas Slim, another side that Benson had leased from Swingtime, but on that label it never was released. We're talking January of 1954 now when this saw daylight for Parrot. With that I skipped Parot 790, a pretty cheesy instrumental of Lonnie Simmons, originally a saxophonist but he lost his heart to the Hammond organ. You're getting it in the background here.
And to the more jazzy side of Parrot releases definitely was the double-sider titled Jan, that was released as Parrot 792. Paul Bascomb was under contract with the States label but they weren't interested in this latin-flavored instrumental. They gave him permission to cut the record with Parrot. It didn't make much noise, that is, other than in the grooves of the record itself, and according to Benson it sold some 7,000 copies. In an interview that pianist Norman Simmons of the band gave in the year 2000, he complained that Benson hadn't given it enough promotion and at some time they ran out of copies and Benson didn't press any more of them.
Here's that record, Jan of Paul Bascomb.
13 - 792 - Paul Bascomb - Jan
14 - 793 - Pelicans - White Cliffs Of Dover
The pop classic White Cliffs of Dover of vocal group the Pelicans and with that we continued the latin flavor for a moment with that bongo rhythm style.
And next another song of the West Coast songthrush Mabel Scott from her session with Parrot while she gigged at the DeLisa. Here is Do The Thing.
15 - 794 - Mabel Scott - Do The Thing
16 - 795 - Marvin Phillips - Honey Baby
And today I only got sixteen numbers in my show, well of course you got that double sider Jan that actually makes for my average of seventeen - but excuse me, I did do a lot of talking too. Some shows are easier to produce than others and well though maybe Parrot wasn't the most succesful of record labels, its story is extremely well-documented thanks to the Red Saunders Research Foundation - a group of very well-informed people who maintain a web site devoted to the Chicago Rhythm & Blues scene of the forties and fifties and it's got a wealth of in-depth knowledge that I very often use for my show.
And also, this show is somewhat of a request of a friend of mine, who in his youth lived in the Windy City and he frequented the Club Delisa in the early fifties. Also he personally knew Al Benson, the DJ whose record label I featured today. This friend, who does a radio show himself on the Sunday afternoon on WSLR of Sarasota, FL, he asked me to help him aquire some music related to his friend Benson for his own program - and that show is one of a kind, where that 85 year old DJ who goes by the moniker of Dadee-O, plays old-time jazz from the twenties and beyond mixed with great memories. He's of Greek parents so he must have been one of the very few white guys to go out in the venues of Chicago's South Side.
Anyhow I turned his request into this show and for sure there'll be a follow up as there's much more to play from that label. I hope you enjoyed it - and you can let me know that and send me an e-mail - to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Now of course you can also ask me - like my friend - to feature a certain subject.
Today's story and playlist is on my web site should you want to read back something of what I told you. Search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. Once in, look for show number 140 - this one - in that long list of shows that I done.
For now my time's up so I wish you have a rocking day. See you next time on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!