This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And once more the best of Rhythm & Blues for you today, great music from lost times that defined all of our popular music of today. And when I say Rhythm & Blues, listeners, maybe perhaps I'm not always using the right word 'cause it wasn't before 1948 that the world got to know the name for the kinda music that they loved for so long - it was Jerry Wexler, the soon-to-be executive of the newborn Atlantic label, who coined the name in Billboard Magazine.
And so I start with a recording that already existed for over two decades when that word Rthythm & Blues was born. We're going back all the way to 1926 with one of the earlier electrical recordings of the great Ethel Waters. The song already was a popular tune of the day, written by Jack Palmer and Spencer Williams. Here she is with I've Found a New Baby.
01 - Ethel Waters - I've Found a New Baby
02 - Duke Ellington - Rockin' In Rhythm
Rockin' In Rhythm of Duke Ellington from 1931, a great instrumental from the very difficult time that the early thirties were, with the depression at its deepest. This was on the Brunswick label. Ellington that year quit being the regular appearance of the famous Cotton Club in Harlem, and started to tour the country.
For the next one I go to the band of Andy Kirk and this Twelve Clouds Of Joy. With his band he'd had successes in the late twenties in Kansas City, by then a hotbed of jazz, but from 1931 to '36 - the deepest of the Depression - they haven't recorded. When the band showed up in New York in 1936 it got itself a contract with Decca.
Andy Kirk himself played the tuba, not the most forefront instrument of the band, and it were always the other members who did the solos. He was said though to be an excellent band leader.
This was on Decca's popular series, meaning that it was marketed to the general audience rather than to the African American market. Here is I'se A-Muggin'.
03 - Andy Kirk & his Twelve Clouds of Joy - I'se A-Muggin'
04 - Victoria Spivey - How Do They Do It That Way
(jingle)
05 - Charlie Burse & His Memphis Mudcats - Radio Blues
06 - Sam Price & His Texas Blusicians - Do You Dig My Jive
That were for greats in a row - after Andy Kirk you got How Do They Do It That Way of Victoria Spivey with the band of Red Allen and the trumpet on this one was Louis Armstrong. It was recorded in 1929 for the Victor label.
Then the Radio Blues of Charlie Burse & His Memphis Mudcats - a recording that I found on a CD series on the Document label, featuring many tracks that never made it to an earlier issue of the label. The title for the series "Too Late Too Late - newly discovered titles and alternate takes", it suggests that access to records and masters came after the projects that they were intended for, had ended and the CD had been released. Highly recommendable stuff - for sure.
And with the last one we jumped into the early forties with Sam Price and his Texas Blusicians with a 1941 recording on Decca - Do You Dig My Jive. The label had hired Sam Price as a session pianist in 1938 but he also got some recordings in his own right. The Texas Blusicians included saxophonist Don Stovall and trumpeter Emmett Berry.
For the next one I wanna go to Dinah Washington, with one of her down to earth blues that she did in the second half of the forties, together with pop ballads. This is a top notch slow ballad recorded for the Mercury label on December 30 of 1947 and these wild sounds on the trumpet - who else can that be but Cootie Williams. Listen to the Resolution Blues.
07 - Dinah Washington - Resolution Blues
08 - Helen Humes - Did You Ever Love a Man
From 1945 on the Philo label Did You Ever Love a Man of Helen Humes - and with her sultry voice she's on her best in this slow troubled blues. Humes had landed in Los Angeles in 1944 after years being on the road with Count Basie and a break in her hometown Louisville KY and she found her way to the many clubs on Central Avenue and the studios of Philo - later the Aladdin label.
And from this wonderful blues to a raging boogie woogie with the Big Three Trio. He pianist is Leonard 'Baby Doo' Caston and Bernardo Dennis does the guitar but most famous of the three was Willie Dixon, vocalist on most of their outings but here just playing the bass. Here they are with the 88 boogie.
09 - Big Three Trio - 88 Boogie
10 - Dirty Red - Home Last Night
Dirty Red with Home Last Night, the flip of his notorious Dirty Mother Fuyer that only was titled that way because the word he meant to sing wasn't appropriate on record and neither can I use it on a G-rated radio program like this one. Red Nelson, or actually Nelson Wilborn as his real name was, did not play the piano as often said, and the 88s where done here by James Clark. Apart from his recordings for Aladdin in 1947 he'd done some sides for Decca more than a decade before, in cooperation with Cripple Clarence Lofton.
For the next one we go to Houston and the tiny Macy's label where local blues shouter Hubert Robinson stomps out a blues about his old lady. Here is, from 1950, the Old Woman Boogie.
11 - Hubert Robinson - Old Woman Boogie
12 - Zuzu Bollin - Cry, Cry, Cry
From 1952 on a Houston-based label named Torch the Texan bluesman Zuzu Bollin. Now for his fifties recordings he might well have been forgotten. It's no more than four sides, two singles, for that obscure label that never released anything else than that. But in 1988 he got rediscovered and he cut an album for the Dallas Blues society - just one year before his death. The record got a re-release on CD that included the four sides on the Torch label.
His nickname Zuzu is believed to come from the Zu Zu ginger snap cookies, a cookie that was popular in these days and that have been produced until the early eighties.
Next a recording of Ray Charles that he did in Tampa, FL in 1952 for the Miami-based Rockin' label. It existed less than a year when the masters were bought by the King label and added to the catalog of their DeLuxe subsidiary. Ray Charles had returned to the Sunshine State where he'd grown up, while on a tour through the country, after a long stay in Seattle. His sides for the Rockin' label were just before he met Ahmet Ertegün of the Atlantic label, where he rose to national fame.
Here he is with Walkin' and Talkin' To Myself.
13 - Ray Charles - Walkin' and Talkin' (To Myself)
14 - Iona Wade - Why Don't You Tell Me So
Iona Wade with a recording of about '48 backed up by Sherman Williams and his band - that was Why Don't You Tell Me So and that was on the Houston-based Gold Star label. Iona Wade - a.k.a. Iona Harlin - was born in Indianapolis, apparently landed in Houston at some time, and she also recorded for the Peacock label with the band of Eric von Schlitz and Jay McShann. I also found a 1962 single of her on the Vistone label - but I'm afraid that's about it I can tell about this obscure lady.
Next from 1947 on the Specialty label Roy Milton and his Solid Senders with a wise advice - and that is to Keep a dollar in your pocket.
15 - Roy Milton - Keep a dollar in your pocket
16 - Five Breezes - Just A Jitterbug
17 - Savannah Churchill & Her All-Star Seven - Tell Me Your Blues
Savannah Churchill backed up by Jimmy Lytell and his all-star seven with Tell Me Your Blues and this great gem from 1942 on the Beacon label ends today's show of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Savannah did a lot of work with vocal groups and that's what made her famous - the million-selling I Want To Be Loved - but to me these blues that she did with Jimmy Lytell's combo are superior.
Before that you got Just A Jitterbug of the Five Breezes and that was from 1940 on the Bluebird label.
And like I said, that was all for today. Got just time to mention my e-mail address in case you want to provide me with any kind of feedback - be it questions, comments or whatever, it's always greatly appreciated - even plain fan mail. And today's story and playlist, it's all on my web site where you can also take a peek for what'll be on next week. A web search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman is by far the easiest way to get there - far more better than that I had to spell out the web site's address for you, that contains my name and I assure you listeners, that's an unpronounceable name for Americans - I can't help it. So on here I think it's better stick with my moniker.
Well next week there'll be more great Rhythm & Blues. See you then, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!