This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And another great mix of the best of Rhythm & Blues today, spanning several decades like you're used from me. And that starts with a great instrumental from 1956 of Bill Doggett that he recorded in Cincinatti for the King label. Here is his Number Three.
01 - Bill Doggett - Number Three
02 - Roy Brown - Brown Angel
The Brown Angel of Roy Brown, that he recorded for the DeLuxe label in 1952. That was the year Brown won a lawsuit against King records, and DeLuxe was a subsidiary of King, for unpaid royalties. Now such lawsuits were pretty common but not for African-Americans to be the plaintiff. Many speculate that it caused Brown to be blacklisted - it coincides with a lack of success in the next years.
Now of course we know him from his Good Rocking Tonight, a song he'd written in '46 and that he first presented to his idol Wynonie Harris - but Harris wasn't interested. It was Cecil Gant who saw the potential of it and he introduced Brown to Jules Braun of DeLuxe records. Legend has it that Brown had to sing it over the phone at 4 o'clock in the morning. It secured him a recording contract with DeLuxe for years. But it was Wynonie Harris, the man who'd first rejected the song, who made it into a nationwide major hit and the start of a fad in Rhythm & Blues where everything should be about rocking and rolling. And we all know what that led to.
Next a recording of Johnny Otis and his band. According to the imprint on the label, it was Johnny Otis himself on the microphone and the backing vocal group is credited as the Peacocks. Well this was on the Houston-based Peacock label so that makes sense. Here is, from 1953, Young Girl.
03 - The Johnny Otis Orchestra - Young Girl
04 - Joe 'Papoose' Fritz - Summer's Coming on
(jingle)
05 - Ravens - Gotta Find My Baby
06 - George Crawford & the Four Blazes - Oh Boy That's Where My Money Goes
Four in a row - after Johnny Otis, we stayed with the Peacock label with Houston local Joe 'Papoose' Fritz, a name so odd that I can't get it out of my head. Now he may have been a local celebrity, he didn't make a real permanent mark on the history of Rhythm & Blues. Fritz's slow blues was titled Summer's Coming On and it's from 1951.
Then after the jingle you got the Ravens, and I suppose you will have recognized them by the bass voice of Jimmy Ricks. His delivery was unique and served for an example for a whole new generation of bass singers. Putting forward the bass singer as a first voice was pretty uncommon - in the groups that had inspired the Ravens, such as the Ink Spots or the Mills Brothers, there was always a tenor to lead. Apart from that, the Ravens also started a fad for birds' names for vocal groups - such as the Orioles, the Larks and the Robins. The song you heard was from 1950 and released on the Columbia label.
And finally you got the Hollywood Four Blazes with lead singer George Crawford with Oh Boy That's Where My Money Goes, a recording from 1947 they did for the AFRS Jubilee show, the radio show aimed at African-Americans in the armed services during and in the aftermath of the war.
The Four Blazes from Hollywood have known recordings from 1944 to '48 but their last record was a cut for the obscure Lamplighter label in early 1946. From after '46, a few transcriptions of radio shows survived, in a single surviving copy of a 16'' record, and then these the Jubilee shows where they were featured six times. The Jubilee recordings made it to several re-issues on various labels.
Pianist and lead singer George Crawford and bass player LaGrand Mason had been members of Johnny Moore's Three Blazers and forming a combo like this was just a likely thing to do. Moore's outfit didn't have a steady line-up, you can say that, and many of the former members took part in spin-off combos, that got their own sound, growing different from Johnny Moore's. Charles Brown got deeper into the blues, Willie Dixon more grew to the jump blues style, and these Four Blazes got a more hep jive style.
There also was a Chicago group with the same name, that made it into the fifties with a number one hit, titled Mary Jo, and there's always a lot of confusion between the two, not in the least because the Hollywood group recorded a Chicago boogie on the West Coast label Melodisc.
Next a track that remained unissued at the time. Recorded for the Mercury label somewhere in 1951 here is Ike Lloyd with I Only Want Your Love.
07 - Ike Lloyd - I Only Want Your Love
08 - Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Didn't Reach My Goal
The great guitar work of Clarence Gatemouth Brown with Didn't Reach My Goal, the first issue of the Houston based Peacock label - a label primarily founded to showcase Gatemouth's talent, started by nightclub owner Don Robey. Brown wasn't just a great guitarist, in fact he could play anything that had strings and on stage he often played the fiddle. It wasn't before 1959 though that a fiddling Gatemouth has been recorded on vinyl.
Next on the Groove label, that was a subsidiary of RCA, I Need A Good Woman of Big Tiny Kennedy.
09 - Big Tiny Kennedy - I Need A Good Woman
10 - Jimmie Gordon - I Believe I Been Hoodooed
A dive back into 1937 with this goodie of Jimmie Gordon and his Vip Vop band. I Believe I Been Hoodooed was that and it was released on Decca in its famous 7000 Race series. The Vip Vop Band was a loose combination of Decca artists who recorded in their own right or in other combos as well - such as Scrapper Blackwell and Joe and Charlie McCoy. Just judging from its whining sound, the clarinet on this one may well have been Odell Rand, like the McCoy brothers, he also played in the Harlem Hamfats.
For the next one I dive even deeper in the thirties, with a recording from 1930 on the Brunswick label. I Done Caught That Rascal Now is the obvious follow-up of You Rascal You, the famous song of Lovin' Sam Theard from 1929 where he makes death threats to his friend who repaid his hospitality with running off with his wife. In this one, he catches the two, live in the act.
11 - Lovin' Sam Theard - I Done Caught That Rascal Now
12 - Barrel House Annie - If It Don't Fit (Don't Force It)
From 1937 that was If it don't fit don't force it of blues woman Aletha Dickerson under the name of Barrelhouse Annie. There's not so many recordings of her but her name does pop up as the songwriter of many a song recorded for the Paramount label in the late twenties. Aletha Dickerson used to be the secretary of J. Mayo Williams - somewhat the recording director of the company's race music department and when he left, first to try as an independent producer for his famous Black Patti label and later to work with Vocalion, she had to take over his duties. Not that anyone had told her so, she just had to find out. After all, Williams never had an official position with Paramount, he brought in the artists and helped market the records and he apparently could live from that. A weird situation that she had to take care of, but she managed and became of much importance for the company - the race music department was the only profitable part of Paramount.
Anyhow, it's not sure whether she really wrote songs or just took credits, just like Mayo Williams had done. In the mid-thities, when the Depression had hit her hardest, she did take a job for a hack songwriters bureau, putting often awful lyrics from wannabe songwriters on melodies that all seemed to be the same. That was much to her disgust, not in the least because she knew these desparate songwriters stood no chance to have a hit with the crappy songs that they put all their savings in. But hey, this was the Depression and it did pay some money.
She later rejoined J. Mayo Williams as his secretary when he got to work for Decca, ending nearly a decade of troubles and hardship surviving the Depression.
13 - Earl 'Fatha' Hines - Blue Drag
14 - Big Boy Teddy Edwards - Run Away Blues
The Run Away Blues of Big Boy Teddy Edwards - one of these bluesmen that no more is known of than the music he made. Edwards played guitar and the tiple, a ten-string small-size guitar originally from South America, but from 1911 also been produced by the American guitar manufacturer C.F. Martin & Co.
And I hadn't anounced the record I played before that, well that was an instrumental version of the popular thirties song Blue Drag done by the band of Earl 'Fatha' Hines in July of 1932.
For the next one I go to 1941 with a blues of Robert Petway. Of this obscure bluesman only eight records survived, all on the Bluebird label, but his style has been a great influence to later blues players. The only picture that's left of him is a publicity photograph where he holds a large resonator guitar, and that's exactly what it sounds like in this great blues. So listen for yourself - here is his Catfish Blues. O yeah, pay attention to the end of this song, as it's the first record ever where fade-out is used at the end, instead of the ususal final cold note.
15 - Robert Petway - Catfish Blues
16 - Lazy Bill Lucas - She got me walkin'
17 - Walter Davis - Stop That Train In Harlem
And these three in a row ends this show for today. After the Catfish Blues you got Lazy Bill Lucas with She got me walkin' recorded in Chicago in 1953 on the Chance label, and the last one was bluesman Walter Davis in one of his last sessions, in 1950 with the Nashville-based Bullet label. That was Stop That Train In Harlem.
Time's nearly up listeners, I got just time to mention my website, where you can read back what I told you today, and easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Once in, go to the episodes section and find number 164, this show. And fanmail or any other kinda feedback is gladly received in my mailbox rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Next week there'll be another shot of Rhythm & Blues and until then, have rocking days. See you again next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!