The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - episode 192

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.

Thank you Lola for your great introduction as always, and welcome listeners to the hour that brings you the widest variety of African American secular music that you can think of - the wonderful world of Rhtyhm & Blues. And to kick off the hour - here is a great goodie of Gatemouth Moore on the King label from 1948. That was pretty close to the end of his blues career.

Cause somewhere in January of '49, while singing his signature song I Ain't Mad at You Pretty Baby for a packed Club DeLisa in Chicago, he must have suddenly seen Jesus as he switched into a gospel song. His decision to devote his talents to the Almighty was announced in the Chicago Defender of May 14 of 1949, that he had become a minister and he signed with the Aristocrat label to record gospels. He also did a gospel show on the legendery WDIA radio station of Memphis, TN. He did keep his blues nickname Gatemouth though.

But here he is in his last blues year with Hey, Mr Gatemouth.

01 - Gatemouth Moore - Hey, Mr Gatemouth
02 - Jimmie Lunceford & the Delta Rhythm Boys - The Honeydripper

One of the many covers of Joe Liggins' Honeydripper that popped up in 1945 after the smash success of Liggins' original. Liggins was signed to the pretty small Exclusive label that saw hard times meeting the massive demand. This was Jimmie Lunceford's version of the song with vocals of the Delta Rhythm Boys, both signed with Decca that had a much better organized distribution. And well, there's nothing wrong with this version, but then there's just one Joe Liggins.

For the next one we go to a vocal group that became popular in the forties with their smoothly delivered early doowop but I like their thirties jive stuff much better. They already got popular in the mid-thirties when they had a booking at the Apollo in Harlem and a tour in England where they were the sensation of a program that also included the swing orchestra of Jack Hylton.

The Ink Spots started recording for Victor in 1935 and that is the year this goodie comes from. Here they are with Swingin' On The Strings.

03 - Ink Spots - Swingin' On The Strings
04 - Orioles - See See Rider

(jingle)

05 - Four Vagabonds - Murder He Says
06 - Four Clefs - The Jive Is Jumpin

And that were four in a row - a whole lot of vocal power with after the Ink Spots, the Orioles with their cover of the blues classic See See Rider from 1952 on the Jubilee label. See See Rider is a blues traditional that has its roots way before its first recorded version, of Ma Rainey in 1924 and the see see rider is a synonym for the easy rider, either a prostitute or a woman with - well for the time - liberal sexual behavior.

This version of ladykiller Sonny Til and his Orioles has a distinctive Rock 'n Roll flavor in it - the song seemed versatile enough to last for many decades.

You got more - after the jingle came the Four Vagabonds with a song that never made it to a record - they cut the song together with some fifty more for Standard Transcriptions to be distributed to radio stations. It would sound like the group was in the studio, the only thing the radio station had to do is to add a Master of Ceremonies-like speaker to announce them.

This Murder He Says, a popular tune of the day, was cut in 1943 in the middle of the 1942-44 recording ban. The ban was for instrumental musicians, so apart from the guitar, a recording like this one would have been perfectly legal. That is, listeners, I wonder if it occurred to you that the muted trumpets, trombones and slap bass on this goodie was mimicked by the singers - well it was, and like the Mills brothers, who became famous for it, they were very good and convincing at it. A group like the Four Vagabonds were a great asset for a recording company these days, being able to completely work around the limitations of the AFM.

Then finally I have to account for the last one, that were the Four Clefs with the Jive Is Jumpin' from 1939.

And after all this vocal group delight, time for something completely different. Some blues of St. Louis Jimmy Oden - with Sunnyland Slim on the piano. Here is The Girl I Love.

07 - St. Louis Jimmy - The Girl I Love
08 - Leadbelly - Don't You Love Your Daddy No More

Blues and folk legend Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, with Don't You Love Your Daddy No More and that was recorded in 1940 for the Bluebird label, one of the songs that didn't make it to the compilation of Bluebird records that I done two weeks ago.

For the next one we go to Ollie Shepard, a bluesman most known for his late thirties recordings with Decca. From the name of his accompanying band billed on his Decca sides, the Kentucky Boys, some assume he was some country blues singer, but Shepard has a more urban style. These Kentucky Boys were a varying set of studio musicians and not an actual group Shepard went on the road with.

All of Shepards Decca sides and a session he did for OKeh are covered by two CDs on the Document label but he has recorded more in the forties and fifties for several record labels. Now these tracks are very difficult to find and it's for a reason, that the Allmusic bio on Ollie Shepard nearly cries for a third CD containing his postwar recordings.

From 1937 here he is with Honey Bee.

09 - Ollie Shepard - Honey Bee
10 - Ethel Waters - I've Found a New Baby

And a dive into the twenties with this goodie from 1926 - the great Ethel Waters and her Ebony Four released on Columbia. This song made it number 11 on the US hit list - that is, the hot 100, not the Rhythm & Blues list, cause that wasn't around until 1942.

While with Columbia, she got releases on both the popular series where she introduced quite a few standards and did popular tunes of the day such as this one, and on the race series with her blues. She also featured the '33 musical short Rufus Jones for President, as the mother of the 7-year old kid that got elected for President. That kid was played by Sammy Davis Jr. Seeing the movie now, you'd realize it's drenced with racism, but that was pretty normal in these days. Anyhow we had to wait until 2009 for a Black man being elected President of the United States - an event that neither Ethel Waters nor Sammy Davis would witness.

For the next one I'll play the flip of what I had in my show on the Bluebird label, two weeks ago. I played the obscure bluesman Ernest Blunt who went by the stage name of the Florida Kid with his Hitler blues. Here is the flip Teena Girl Blues.

11 - Florida Kid - Teena Girl Blues
12 - Jay McShann - Hootie Blues

Jay 'Hootie' McShann with his signature song the Hootie Blues, sung by Walter Brown, and this got most attention for the brief solo of Charlie Parker, that is, later when he got his bebop fame. It was recorded for Decca in 1941 just before the breakthrough of the new style, and actually it has a strong traditional swing feeling rather than the wild new sounds of bebop.

Next up from 1949 on the King label the band of Sonny Thompson with one of his typical instrumentals - here is Sugar Cane.

13 - Sonny Thompson - Sugar Cane
14 - Johnny Hodges - That's The Blues Old Man

From 1940 Johnny Hodges and his band with That's The Blues Old Man, recorded for the Bluebird label. If you got the fifties classic Night Train on your mind after this, now that's well right, the melody was taken from this great but forgotten swing number.

And I continue with a wonderful blues of Julia Lee, not the happy double entendre style she's best known for, but a song full of remorse and regret, more in the style of her delicious song Lotus Blossom. From 1947 on the Capitol label this is one of her most beautiful songs. Here is I Was Wrong.

15 - Julia Lee - I Was Wrong
16 - Joe Houston - Way Cross Mama
17 - Slim Tinsley - 606 Blues

And this three-in-a-row ends today's mix of great Rhythm & Blues - you got, after that really wonderful Julia Lee song, Joe Houston and his band with Way Cross Mama. The band was fronted by Julius Stewart and that was recorded for the Houston-based Freedom label.

Then I ended with the 606 blues and that really is an obscurity - some Slim Tinsley and I found that goodie on a CD titled Midnite Blues Party - it has more very rare stuff on it. Well that is one of the essences of my show, rare material like this, of course blended with the more obvious and the artist that tell a good story. And I hope you like the formula - I done it for nearly two hundred shows already. Well you can let me know and send an e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com - any feedback is much appreciated.

And should you have missed something that I told you today, you will find it back on the website of my little radio program and easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - it will show up first. This is show number 192 in that long list of episodes that you find on the site.

For now I'm done - next week I'll treat you with more Rhythm & Blues. Be on the lookout for more Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!