The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - episode 151

Legends Mix

This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.

And in today's mix of tunes a surprising amount of twenties en thirties stuff and some really special things today. And I want to start with one, of a man who'd seen prison from inside quite often, for sure he wasn't a nice guy with convictions for murder and for attempt to. Folk and blues singer Lead Belly, his full name was Huddie Ledbetter, with an old folk song that got international fame in 1977 when the hard rock band Ram Jam recorded it. On the musicraft label, from 1939, here is Black Betty.

01 - Leadbelly - Black Betty
02 - Fats Waller - Everybody loves my baby

Comedian, pianist and jazz and blues singer Fats Waller with a popular tune of the time, Everybody Loves My Baby and I have quite a few great versions of this, including a recording from the acoustic era of Trixie Smith and a just wonderful version of the Georgia Wahsboard Stompers that I played some time ago here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. This was on Bluebird from 1940.

For the next one I go back to 1927 with a young Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra. It features Bubber Miley on the trumpet with an early example of what was called 'jungle style' trumpet playing - making growling and other exciting noises with the trumpet.

Here is the East St. Louis Toodle-Oo.

03 - Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra - East St. Louis Toodle-Oo
04 - Victoria Spivey & Lonnie Johnson - New Black Snake Blues

And we stayed in the twenties with a 1928 re-recording of the Black Snake Blues of Victoria Spivey and Lonnie Johnson - a double-sider on the OKeh label. This blues was written by Spivey and by far one of her most well known compositions. Next to the blues, she performed in movies and in vaudeville shows, with her husband, dancer Billy Adams. Lonnie Johnson was one of her regular partners in music - but she also worked with Red Allen, King Oliver and Louis Armstrong.

Next, from 1927 on Victor, bluesman Luke Jordan with the Cocaine Blues.

05 - Luke Jordan - Cocaine Blues
06 - Jay McShann - Swingmatism

And with that we moved to 1941 - the band of Jay McShann with Swingmatism and in fact this is just one of the few occasions that we hear McShann's outfit in full. In the early forties he led a full-size big band but on most of his recordings we only hear a fraction of it. The reason was, that Decca executive Jack Kapp saw more potential in him for 'race' records, that is, aimed at the African-American public. For that, he got blues to play with mostly just a rhythm section. After the war and the 1942-44 recording strike of the American Federation of Musicians, the time for big bands was over and McShann teamed up with Jimmy Witherspoon in much smaller combos.

McShann's band had a few of the greats of jazz on board - including Ben Webster and Charlie Parker - who left in '42 to play in Earl Hines' band together with Dizzy Gillespie and soon laid the foundation of bebop - the music "they" couldn't play according to bebop pianist Thelonious Monk, and "they" were the white jazz musicians who had taken over the swing scene.

Next from 1945 on the Globe label, you get Jimmy McCracklin with Miss Mattie Left Me.

08 - Jimmy Mccracklin - Miss Mattie Left Me
09 - Wee Bea Booze - Uncle Sam Come And Get Him

And that brought us to the year 1942 with Bea Booze on the Decca with Uncle Sam Come And Get Him - a plea to draft her no-good mistreating man into the army. He's been to mean to her, so he'll be mean to the enemy and win the war before 1943. The war brought a new subject to the blues, women complaining the men being taken away from them. This is not only a very early example of these Uncle Sam blues - but also an original one 'cause the singer regards it as a way to get rid of her man.

Next from '46 on the Hy-Tone label Memphis Slim with Now I Got The Blues.

10 - Memphis Slim - Now I Got The Blues
11 - Harlem Hamfats - Ooh-wee Baby

The Harlem Hamfats were that was Ooh-Wee Baby - of course on the Decca label where they were the house band backing up the bluesmen and women of the Decca roster, but when in 1936 they got a hit with a song in their own right, Oh Red, Decca producer J. Mayo Williams signed them for fifty sides and this was one of them.

And with that we returned to the thirties and I got a few more of them for you today. Next is the Sloppy Drunk Blues of Bumble Bee Slim that he recorded for Decca but it remained unreleased until later issues of blues compilations and the CD of the Document series on him, that, as usual, covers all of his recordings.

12 - Bumble Bee Slim - Sloppy Drunk Blues
13 - State Street Ramblers - Some Do and Some Don't

From back in 1928 the State Street Ramblers with Some Do and Some Don't and that was straight from a 78 on the, somewhat used, Gennett label. Well these 78s are over 85 years old and then I guess they may sound like an old man, cracky and imperfect.

Heart of the State Street Ramblers was pianist Jimmy Blythe and for the recording sessions that were attributed to this group, they used a variety of session musicians from the South Side of Chicago. On other labels related to Gennett, the sessions were billed under other names, like Chicago Stompers, Blythe's Blue Boys and the Down Home Serenaders, you got them on Paramount as the Johnny Dodds Four - clarinetist Johnny Dodds appeared on a lot of the recordings - and on Decca's 7000 race series some late issues have been done under the name of the Blue Jay Boys. By then, Jimmy Blythe was already dead - he died at the young age of 30 of meningitis, that was in '31, three years before the American branch of Decca started.

Next bluesman Jelly Roll Anderson with a recording he done in the studios of either Gennett in Chicago, or Paramount in Richmond IN, but the master was traded to the small Herwin label that released it in '27. Here is the Good Time Blues.

14 - Jelly Roll Anderson - Good Time Blues
15 - Oscar's Chicago Swingers - Try Some Of That

Kokomo Arnold was that backed up by a combo named Oscar's Chicago Swingers and that was from '36 on Decca, where Arnold recorded 88 sides. Arnold had been playing blues alongside bootlegging liquor throughout Prohibition, and after that ended he had to make his living playing music. It was Kansas Joe McCoy who introduced him to J. Mayo Williams, the head of Decca's race recording department. Arnold quit music in '38 and went working as a factory laborer. Attempts of blues enthousiasts to revive his career with the blues revival failed, he just showed no interest in a come-back.

And for the next one we go back to 1930 with the famous blues duo Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell. On Vocalion here is their Alabama Woman Blues

16 - Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - Alabama Woman Blues
17 - Washboard Rhythm Kings - Blue Drag

And this Blue Drag is just one of these tunes that I love to play loud on my headphone or in my car and that I can lose myself to. Wonderful feelgood depression swing in minor key - and I love that. The Washboard Rhythm Kings were a loose combo, through time with various musicians of good standing. This was from 1932 and also on the Vocalion label.

It sets the end of today's show that had a lot of pre-war goodies in it and I hope you like me playing that old stuff, well please let me know and send me an e-mail, the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And today's story and playlist is on my web site, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and my site will show up first. In that long, long list of episodes that you find there, this was show number 151. Of course you can also take a peek on what'll be on for next week.

For now I'm done so have a rocking day. For your weekly shot of Rhythm & Blues tune in next week on this station, for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!