This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And a mixed set again today of great Rhythm & Blues of the decades that came before Rock 'n Roll. And that mostly means that I explore my collection for gems that I still haven't played on this show and I'm glad to tell you that that still is most that I have.
And where I often dig up the obscurest, I should not forget that great music is still to be played from the artists that immediately come in mind when you ask about Rhythm & Blues. So here is one of these greats. From 1952 on the King label - Wynonie Harris with Do It Again, Please.
01 - Wynonie Harris - Do It Again, Please
02 - Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson - Home Boy
And I stayed with the King label with the man who earned his nickname for the damage done to his head by a hair straightener. Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson and this was Home Boy from 1951. Cleanhead's vocal capacities and his typical vocal tricks were discovered by Cootie Williams in 1942 when he played as a saxophonist in Milt Larkin's band. He started his own band from 1945 working in New York until 1954.
Next one of the many singers from the emerging Rhythm & Blues scene of Los Angeles, Effie Smith. Apart from the labels of her husband John Criner - Gem and G&G - she recorded for Miltone, Modern, Aladdin and Decca but just one of her songs got anywhere near succesful - her Sugar Mama Blues on the label of her husband and later re-released for Miltone, that was picked up on the West Coast. It was in the sixties that she made some uproar with a remake of her Telephone Blues with lyrics that were, for the time, pretty... adult oriented. Well we seen rougher lyrics in later and in earlier times.
But for now I stay with the forties and a song titled Root'lie Voot.
03 - Effie Smith - Root-Lie-Voot
04 - Babs Gonzales - House Rent Party
(jingle)
05 - Zola Taylor - Make love to me
06 - Vivian Greene - Bowlegged Boogie
And that were the four-in-a-row that feature most shows of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. After Effie Smith's Root'lie Voot you got from the King label, the House Rent Party of Babs Gonzales. Now for that name you may expect a Latino - but his real name was Lee Brown, Babs was his childhood nickname and he adopted the name of Gonzales after he used that name trying to get a room in a hotel, in the forties still a challenge for a black man.
Then that vocal group with female lead was Zola Taylor backed up by the Meadowlarks with her very first single. She recorded this for the RPM label in 1954 even before she joined Shirley Gunter and her Queens. Of course we know Zola for her work with the Platters starting in '55.
And finally you got pianist and singer Vivian Greene with her Bowlegged Boogie that she did for Mercury in 1948. From 1947 to 55 she did some great stuff for several labels but her name has faded since. There's a good compilation album on her in the famous Classics series that I found this little gem on.
And then for a song that I cherish for a long time already and I just found out that I never played it on here. So here it goes. Backed up by Barney Bigard here is the Blow Top Blues of Etta Jones and that was on the Black & White label from 1944.
07 - Etta Jones - Blow Top Blues
08 - Floyd Hunt Quartette - Harlem Breakdown
The Harlem Breakdown of Floyd Hunt - with Gladys Palmer on the piano. This was an early release of the Miracle label recorded in December of 1947 in a studio session where Palmer was hardly able to sing - as she suffered from laryngitis.
Next one of those rare recordings of J. Mayo Williams for his own Ebony label. I did a show on his independent labels somewhat like a year ago and I didn't get to play this one - simply 'cause there wasn't enough time. This record got a second chance on the Chance label and that's what I have it from. Here is Freddie Hall with Knock Me Out Baby.
09 - Freddie Hall - Knock Me Out
10 - Four Blackamoors - Break It Up Charlie
From 1940 on Decca the Four Blackamoors with Break It Up Charlie. A blackamoor is a stylized statue of an African man often holding the main object in its hands, like a clock or a candle holder and as such in fashion in European art from the seventeenth century and later. Well on the combo that you heard is little more to say than that, and that apart from a few releases in their own right, they backed up blues singer Mabel Robinson on one Decca release. All of them feature that pretty good violin player and together with some cuts that I assume they have never been issued before were on a CD of the Document series titled Jazzin' The Blues, and that also featured the output of a few other Decca obscurities from around 1940 - Creole George Gueston, The Grooveneers, and a girl group named the Bandanna Girls.
And then a great trumpeter named Wingy Carpenter with a combo named his Wingies, and from him you'll get Team Up, that was released on Decca in 1940.
11 - Wingy Carpenter - Team Up
12 - Clara Smith - It's Tight Like That
One of the three great female blues singers of the twenties named Smith - this was Clara Smith and It's Tight Like That from early 1929. Born in South Carolina she came to New York in '23 and recorded with Columbia until 1932. She died young, in '35 at the age of forty but in her short life she'd recorded over 120 songs and she'd toured all of the country.
And we'll stay in that same time with a recording of Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. Gus Cannon was a great promotor of the jug band - the poor men's band band made out of traditional makeshift instruments, like self-made banjos, washboards, the washtub bass, the comb-and-tissue, the stovepipe and of course the jug. The bands had a long tradition and especially 'round Memphis they were pretty popular. Now you'd think they would regain popularity in the Great Depression but that was the decade that most homemade instruments disappeared from the bands. Washboards though have been around into the forties.
With the folk and blues revival, the interest for the jug band renewed in the sixties and that brought 76-year old Cannon in 1963 to the Stax studio in Memphis for a well-appraised album.
Back to the thirties, Gus Cannon's band remained popular during the decade but his last recording was in 1930 for Victor. The Depression severely hit the recording industry - that may well have been the reason. From his band, Bring It With You When You Come.
13 - Cannon's Jug Stompers - Bring It With You When You Come
14 - Arthur McKay & Roosevelt Sykes - She Squeezed My Lemon
Roosevelt Sykes on the piano and Arthur McKay singing She Squeezed My Lemon recorded for Decca in 1937. It doesn't tell who was on the clarinet but judging from the style I think that was Odell Rand, the clarinettist in the Harlem Hamfats. And speaking of that group, here they are with Move Your Hand.
15 - Harlem Hamfats - Move Your Hand
16 - Big Son Tillis - When I Come In This House Woman
Recorded in '53 in Los Angeles for the obscure Elko label this was Texas bluesman Big Son Tillis with When I Come In This House Woman. Earlier recordings he did for the same label seem to have been lost and from this session three singles were released. He got some more exposure with re-releases and previously unreleased material on albums in Britain and Japan.
Well there's time for one more and that will be Willie Mabon with the Monday Woman that he did for Chess, also in 1953.
17 - Willie Mabon - Monday Woman
And Willie Mabon closed today's mixed bag of goodies here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Willie Mabon had had his big hit a year before with I Don't Know that thanks to the airplay he got on Alan Freed's Moondog show, sold well to the white audiences, just before Rock 'n Roll struck the nation and the golden era of Rhythm blues was over, an era most people place between say, '47 and '55.
As you're used from me I don't just stick with that short spell and I play them from the earliest recorded blues and with that I try to showcase widely forgotten music that is part of the African American musical heritage and that is the DNA of popular music ever since. I'll keep on saying that, as I think we should not forget or neglect the roots of our music. Well it's what this program is made of and I hope you like what I play, of course you can let me know and mail me at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Today's story and playlist and what'll be on for next week is on my web site, and easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - my site will show up first. This was show number 141 in case you want to read back what I told you today.
For now, time's up so have a rocking day. See you next time, here where I play the best of pre-Rock 'n Roll Rhythm & Blues, on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!