This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And so every now and then, I get to an unsorted part of my music collection - a pile of re-issue records from the eighties, most come from the collection of a friend. But I start with an album that a colleague of me gave me this week to digitalize - and that has a collection of female blues from the thirties to the fifties. It's on a series called Women's Heritage on a New York label named Rosetta Records. Sweet Petunias gives us the blues of strong and independent women and that pretty much fits my colleague.
So here is Stella Johnson with Don't Come Over.
01 - Stella Johnson - Don't Come Over
02 - Lil Hardin Armstrong - Baby Daddy
Lil Armstrong with Baby Daddy from an album named Brown Gal on the British Krazy Kat label, and that was essentially a re-release from the vaults of the Gotham label, be it, that Gotham had aquired the masters of Roy Milton's Miltone label, so it's got some Miltone releases as well.
Lil Hardin Armstrong was the former spouse of Louis Armstrong but when this was recorded, the two had been divorced long time before. The liner notes of the album Brown Gal suggest J. Mayo Williams' involvement in this recording, and that may well be be as she also had recorded her for his Ebony label, and Williams had traded more masters off to the Gotham label. But in the pretty comprehensive discography of the Ebony label on the Red Saunders Research Foundation's web page, that also includes the trade-offs to other labels, this one is not mentioned.
Next a recording of Cootie Williams and his band, on an album on the British Affinity label spotlighting the great trumpeter and the album is titled Echos of Harlem. From that album their version of Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby, the Louis Jordan classic and it's sung by Eddie Vinson - in a singing style that is pretty much different from what we're used from him.
Here is Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby.
03 - Cootie Williams - Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby
04 - Lionel Hampton - The Pencil Broke
(jingle)
05 - Chick Webb - Don't Be That Way
06 - Lucky Millinder - Let Me Off Uptown
Four goodies from the great era of swing - after Cootie Williams you got Lionel Hampton's band - with the master himself on the vibes - and that was a recording from 1946 done in Los Angeles - and on the sleeve of the record on the British Affinity label the whole personnel for the take is listed - that is, except it doesn't tell who the singer is.
You got more from that same label, in a series that is titled Big Band Bounce & Boogie, after the jingle that was the orchestra of drummer Chick Webb with a 1934 recording done in New York. The title of this goodie was Don't Be That Way - an arrangement of the saxophonist of the band, Edgar Sampson.
Then finally Lucky Millinder and his band with a 1941 recording titled Let Me Off Uptown and the vocals was Trevor Bacon. You may notice that most of the track is instrumental but for a pretty short vocal refrain - pretty common in thirties and forties swing. For these records, the labels often even didn't mention the vocalist.
Now Millinder had more appealing vocalists on board - Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Wynonie Harris and Annisteen Allen rather rose to stardom than this Trevor Bacon.
Today I play from a collection of mostly European re-release albums from the eighties - and the next one comes from a record on the Swedish Jukebox Lil label titled the Honeydripper - featuring Joe Liggins. This was recorded in 1946, the year after his monster hit the Honeydripper. Now Liggins never doubled that succes but his records, all on the Exclusive label, were highly in demand.
Here are Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers with Some Of These Days.
07 - Joe Liggins - Some Of These Days
08 - Memphis Slim - Letter Home
Memphis Slim was that with the Letter Home, on an album titled Messing Around With The Blues on the Gusto label from Nashville. The liner notes on the back provide little information, they're rather written to promote the two-platter album that also contains tracks of Pete 'Guitar' Lewis and Little Willie Littlefield.
And I'll play one more from this album - here is Pete 'Guitar' Lewis with the Raggedy Blues.
09 - Pete 'Guitar' Lewis - Raggedy Blues
10 - Champion Jack Dupree - Drunk Again
Champion Jack Dupree with Drunk Again, from an album packed with booze songs titled Drink Up. My friend only provided me with a front scan that gimme no clues on what this album comes from - so I gotta ask him some day.
Next from an album on the English Krazy Kat label, titled Nashville Jumps with some re-releases from the Bullet label - by 1945 when it started the first record label in Nashville and only one of the few in the South. B.B. King made did his first session in the studio, by then a disc jockey on a Memphis radio station and he played the blues in the worst of joints.
King rose to fame after he got released on the West Coast based RPM label from recordings done in the studio of Sam Phillips in his home town Memphis - far more convenient of course than Nashville, still a 500 miles farther up the road.
Here is B.B. King with Take A Swing With Me.
11 - B.B. King - Take A Swing With Me
12 - Joe Houston - Rockin' 'n' Boppin'
And with that we made a jump to 1955 with the honking sax of Joe Houston. This was recorded in Los Angeles and I found it on an album on the Saxophonograph label from Sweden. It's got a detailed biograpahy on Joe Houston, a lot of pictures and even more noise from Joe's tenor sax with recordings from 1949 to the early sixties.
And from this honker to another saxophonist and one of great standing - Dexter Gordon. The album I got is on the RCA label in a German pressing, and it features recordings he done for the Savoy label. This is recorded in 1945 - Blow Mr. Dexter.
13 - Dexter Gordon - Blow Mr Dexter
14 - Earl Bostic - Midnight To Dawn
And we stay with the tenor saxophone with Earl Bostic on an album on the King label, titled After Hours - and the whole record is packed with the slow, bluesy jam session like instrumentals that were played after the regular dance date is over. It also got sides of Sonny Thompson, Ace Harris, Bill Jennings, Pete 'Guitar' Lewis, Jimmy Nolen, Bill Doggett, Todd Rhodes and that only full-band session of Washboard Sam.
Just a little faster is the next one - from an album titled Screaming Saxophones and the liner notes tell how the honking and screaming style got popular and also was seen as a disgrace to the jazz styles. The style got popular with the young audience on the West Coast and it pushed the tenor sax to the prominence it got in the fifties.
Here is Joe Thomas with Tearing Hair.
15 - Joe Thomas - Tearing Hair
16 - Tiny Bradshaw - Newspaper Boy Blues
(jingle)
17 - Lionel Hampton - Rockin' In Rhythm
You got a whole lotta music more from me - after Joe Thomas' honker that was the Newspaper Boy Blues of Tiny Bradshaw from an album titled Stomoing Room Only with a compilation of Bradshaw's after-war recordings - only few people know that he led a band in the thirties and two great recordings remain of that outfit.
And then finally a double-sider of Lionel Hampton and his band titled Rockin' In Rhythm. With that, the end of today's show is here, listeners, I just have little time to tell you about my web site where you can find all of today's story and playlist and what will be on for the next week. Get there with a search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - Google won't ever let you down. And of couse, if you dug the show, why don't you let me know and write me an e-mail - the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com.
Time's up - be on the lookout for the next show. See you again, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!