This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
With for today recordings done in Sam Phillips Studio in Memphis before he set up his legendary Sun label. From 1950 the Memphis Recording Service started recording local bluesmen for different labels, like 4 Star, Gilt-Edge, RPM, Modern, Chess, Duke and Trumpet, and that one recording he issued himself on a label named It's The Phillips. It brought us great Rhytm and Blues and that's what I'm gonna play for you today.
And there's way too much to play in one show, so I just start and see where it ends, and I already promise you that there'll be more in a next show.
So let's start with the first recording, for the Four Star label of Hollywood. Here is Lost John Hunter and his Blind Bats with Cool Down Mama.
01 - Lost John Hunter - Cool Down Mama.mp3
02 - Joe Hill Louis - Boogie In The Park.mp3
Boogie in the Park, that was guitarist, drummer, harmonica player and one-man-band Joe Hill Louis. Yeah, he plays them all himself like a one man band should. There's not so many one man bands that made it to record - they just do better live amazing the public that one man plays all these instruments. Apart from the knowledge that all this noise comes from one man, the stomping sound of the electrical guitar, heavily distorted, stands out in this one.
This was released on Sam Phillips own label named It's The Phillips, the very only issue that bears that name. Only three hundred copies were pressed at the Plastic Products plant on August 30 of 1950, numbered 9001 titled Gotta Let You Go and 9002 for the flip with this stomper.
The next one is another issue of the 4 Star label with Lost John Hunter. Here he is with the Y M and V Blues.
03 - Lost John Hunter & The Blind Bats - Y M and V blues
04 - B.B. King - B.B. Boogie
(jingle)
05 - Joe Hill Louis - I Feel Like A Million.wav
06 - B.B. King - Don't You Want A Man Like Me.mp3
Two of B.B. King in this four in a row, you got the B.B. Boogie before the jingle and the one I just played was Don't You Want A Man Like Me. Recorded in Sam Phillips studio in Memphis, but it was released on the West Coast RPM label. The Singing Star of WDIA Memphis, the label proudly introduces King on the B.B. Boogie. In between you got another one of Joe Hill Louis who'd moved on to the Modern label of the Bihari Brothers. Now of course also the RPM label was owned by the Biharis and B.B. King stayed with them somewhat too long, when the quality of the issues of their labels got worse and worse through the years.
Today I feature recordings done in the studio of Sam Phillips in the years before he started his Sun label, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and also the next one is done for the Bihari's Modern label. Big Walter Horton, on the label credited as Mumbles, with Now Tell Me Baby.
07 - Big Walter Horton - Now Tell Me Baby
08 - Joe Hill Louis - Cold Chills.mp3
And the third one today for Joe Hill Louis, the one man band. This was released on the Modern label and it was backed with a re-release of Boogie In The Park that I played earlier this hour.
Now the studio of Sam Phillips served as a launching pad for many a great musician. Rosco Gordon was in his early twenties when he entered the Memphis Recording Service and laid down his Roscoe Boogie, with that typical of-beat piano rhythm that is said to be of great influence on Jamaican pianist Theophilus Beckford and with that, on the emerge of ska and later reggae.
Here is that Roscoe Boogie.
09 - Rosco Gordon - Roscoe's Boogie
11 - B.B. King - She's Dynamite.mp3
B.B. King, with She's Dynamite and also for King Sam Phillips' studio was the launching point for his career. Now other than Rosco Gordon, King had been put on record before, for the Nashville-based Bullet label, with his debut single Miss Martha King. These Bullet issues didn't make much noise, the RPM records did. His first number one hit, Three O'Clock Blues wasn't recorded with Phillips though.
I just missed out on a copy of a CD of King, signed by the master himself. My son in law does VIP transportation as a job, and he would drive King when he visited Holland for the annual North Sea Jazz Festival, where he was a steady appearance. Among these guys, B.B. King was considered the main prize of all jazz and blues celebreties, as he was known as a very nice and friendly man. And my son-in-law, he knows what music I like so he bought me a CD of King that he would have signed by him. But last-minute it was decided that he would get Herbie Hancock instead. That was the last time King performed in Rotterdam, his health started failing him and he died in May of 2015, being one of the very last surviving musicians of the forties Rhythm & Blues.
Next up another one of Rosco Gordon. On this one, you can that typical Rosco boogie that is said to be of influence on Theophilus Beckford, the great Jamaican pianist who was so important on the making of ska.
Here he is with Ouch pretty Baby.
12 - Rosco Gordon - Ouch pretty Baby.mp3
14 - Willie Nix - Try Me One More Time
Another bluesman for whom the studio of Sam Phillips brought him his recording debut. Willie Nix was that with Try Me One More Time. Nix was a well-known appearance in the clubs on Memphis' Beale Street when he entered the studio. It was released on the RPM label. And on that same label is Big Walter Horton, on the label credited as Mumbles. Here is the Black Gal.
18 - Big Walter Horton - Black Gal.mp3
22 - Jackie Brenston & his Delta Cats - Rocket '88'.wav
One of these songs that defined Rock 'n Roll before anyone had heard of it as a kind of music. Rocket '88' was about a car - the latest Oldsmobile model and actually a trend breaker for the brand - they were known for their conservative models that appealed to older people. Now the '88' model, soon the be called Rocket 88 for the name of the engine, appealed to the young folks - it was fast and hot.
The single was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, much to the chagrin of Ike Turner - it was just Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm. Jackie Brenston was singer and saxophonist of Ike's group and did the vocals on this one. The guitar work of course is Ike Turner and well, the sound wasn't what it was meant to be. Somewhere on the road the speaker of the amp was damaged - accounts on how come vary from fallen off the truck or got wet in the rain. Anyhow it explains for the flat and distorted sound, but it did well on the track and Sam Phillips liked it. No-one could think then that it would set a standard in rock 'n roll.
Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm was an offshoot of a Memphis big band named the Top Hatters that guitarist Turner had joined in his teens. It split in two in the late forties, a dance band act named the Dukes of Swing and the Kings of Rhythm led by Ike Turner.
Now the success of Rocket '88' and the billing to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats caused the Kings of Rhythm to split up. Brenston thought he'd become the star and signed with the King label against Turner's will and so he left for a solo career taking part of the group with him. Young guys, big egos and sudden success just don't mix together. Turner completed his outfit with a few new musicians to go up north to St. Louis and he maintained a stict discipline in the group.
Now that was all much later, in the mid-fifties. The next one was probably from the same session as Rocket 88 but billed as Ike Turner and The Kings Of Rhythm. Here is Heartbroken and Worried.
23 - Ike Turner and The Kings Of Rhythm - Heartbroken and Worried.wav
24 - Lou Sargent - Ridin' The Boogie.mp3
Riding the boogie - credited to Lou Sargent and his orchestra and that was a combo consisting of Luther M. Steinberg on trumpet, pianist Phineas Newborn, Tot Randolph on the saxophone and the drums are Jeff Geyer. The band was the regular gig of the West Memphis Plantation Inn and also the combo that backed up B.B. King on his first session with the Bullet label in Nashville.
And we got time for one more, and that's anoter artist from that local Memphis scene. Rufus Thomas, as a middle-aged man, got a star in the sixties with his funky music on that famous soul label from Memphis, Stax, for himself and his daughter Carla Thomas, soon dubbed as the Memphis Queen of Soul. But he had been active in music from the mid-thirties as a member of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and at age 35 he started recording at Phillips studio for the Chess label. And here he is with Why Did You Deegee.
25 - Rufus Thomas - Why Did You Deegee
And that ends today's show dedicated to the recordings in Sam Phillips' studio in Memphis, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. I didn't even get halfway with the output before he set up his own Sun label, so I promise you listeners, someday in a later show I'll get you more of this.
The studio set for a lot of history of American popular music, being career launcher for many Rhythm & Blues artist, and later, of course for the discovery of Elvis Presley and a lot of subsequent Rock 'n Roll artists. Memphis was a hotbed of talent and Phillips filled a gap where there were just way too little recording facilities in the Deep South.
So another time more, and well in the meanwhile you can send your comments and ideas on the show to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com or visit my website, where you can read back all that I told today or take a peek on the show for next week. Do a web search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my show will be first in the results. Once in, this is show 165 in that long list of episodes.
As for now, you'll have to wait for your next portion of Rhythm & Blues. So don't get the blues while I'm gone - just have rocking days. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!