The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - episode 205

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.

With a whole lotta music again today, like you're used from me, only the best of Rhythm & Blues from the decades before Rock 'n Roll struck the nation. Times were hard and the music was great in the juke joints or, in a more urban setting, the clubs of Los Angeles' Central Avenue, in Harlem or on the South Side of Chicago. And it's there, in the Windy City where I wanna start with a promise I did you last week.

You may remember that I had a special on the United label and I featured the great hit of Jimmy Forrest - the Night Train and well, the composition wasn't entirely his but he did get the songwriters credits - be it that record boss Lew Simpkins took a share by writing some pretty bland lyrics on it. It were the Four Blazes, one of the top acts on the United label who did the first vocalese version of this classic. And here it is - the Night Train.

01 - Four Blazes - Night Train
02 - Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Boogie Rambler

From 1949 on the Peacock label the Boogie Rambler of Clarence Gatemouth Brown - guitarist , blues shouter and multi instrumentalist - as long as it had strings he would play it. He was a wonderful fiddler but on his recordings up to '59 the fiddle never was featured. Now he may be best known as a bluesman but he done more, and especially in the 70s and later he done an old-time fiddling country number as easily as an urban sounding electric blues.

And for the next one of this pretty varied set, a small outfit led by saxophonist Bobby Smith, and that consisted entirely of musicians from Erskine Hawkins band. The combo backed a lot of the sessions of the Apollo label and they did some recordings as Bobby Smith and his orchestra. One of them is the next instrumental from 1950. Here is the Dash Hound Boogie.

03 - Bobby Smith - Dash Hound Boogie
04 - Sonny Boy Williamson II - I Cross My Heart

(jingle)

05 - Champion Jack Dupree - Clog Dance (Stomping Blues)
06 - Doctor Clayton - Copper Colored Mama

A whole lotta music again, four in a row and after Bobby Smith's instrumental you got Sonny Boy Williamson II on the Trumpet label in a recording from 1951 and later, in the late fifties it was issued again on the Checker label.

Then from 1944 that piano pounding instrumental that came after the jingle, that was Champion Jack Dupree in a recording for the Asch label that went unreleased and didn't see daylight until 1967.

Jack Dupree grew up in an orphanage in New Orleans after his parents died in a fire, that according to one legend Dupree has spread himself, would have been set by the Ku Klux Klan. It was the same orphanage that Louis Armstrong was in - somewhere in the poorest and most violent part of town. Duprees nickname he earned for his boxing career before he resumed his work as a barrelhouse style pianist with his first recordings in 1940 for the OKeh label.

Next the obscure Ruth Ladson with a recording from 1941 that she did for the OKeh label - but this one stayed in the vaults. I found it on a CD on the Document label titled Chicago Blues volume 2. Here she is with What Do you Bet.

07 - Ruth Ladson - What Do you Bet
08 - Three Peppers - Three Foot Skipper Jones

For the Decca label the Three Foot Skipper Jones of vocal group the Three Peppers from 1939. The group was quite hot in Philadelphia though they seem to have their origins in St. Louis - and in the war they toured California together with appearances on the silver screen. After the war, they got pretty much forgotten when a new generation of vocal groups took over. They may have not made as much noise as the Ink Spots or the Mills Brothers, but them re-issue programs focus so much on the blues singers and the swing combos that this genre is pretty much forgotten.

And more vocal jive style music from a quartet named the Cats 'n Jammer Three. By 1947 they must have been somewhat old-fashioned but very versatile, with smooth ballads, raunchy songs, and great instrumentals, that you also found with these thirties jive groups. The group made it just a few years but they were fairly succesful - especially with their versions of the ballad I Cover The Waterfront and the comical act Open The Door Richard.

Here they are with a 1947 recording for the Mercury label - Stompin' These Blues Away.

09 - Bill Samuels - Stompin' These Blues Away
10 - Cootie Williams - Red Blues

The band of Cootie Williams fronted by Eddie Cleanhead Vinson with the Red Blues - as displayed on the 78 of the Hit label. Vinson re-recorded it later as Cherry Red with his own outfit. The Hit label mostly did pop music, but there's a few great takes of Cootie Williams' band in their catalog. And let's face it - just few could wah-wah the trumpet like Williams - a feature he'd learnt in the band of Duke Ellington where he was hired in '29 to replace Bubber Miley - somewhat the inventor of the jungle style trumpet. It was 'Tricky' Sam Nanton, trombonist with the Duke, who taught Williams the tricks.

For the next one the high-pitched voice of Cleo Brown. On the Decca label from 1935 Mama Don’t Want No Peas An' Rice An' Cocoanut Oil.

11 - Cleo Brown - Mama Don’t Want No Peas An' Rice An' Cocoanut Oil
12 - Lucille Bogan - Whiskey Selling Woman

Lucille Bogan with a recording from 1930 on the Brunswick label - the Whiskey Selling Woman. She was one of the big three of the early female blues singers - together with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and many of her songs have become blues classics - such as Sweet Petunias, the Sloppy Drunk Blues and Coffee Grindin' Blues.

She often sang about prostitution, sex, drinking and for the time controversial subjects, such as lesbian women in her B.D. Blues - B.D. stands for Bull Dyke. Then there's an alternate take of her blues Shave 'em Dry on Youtube, with very explicit sexual lyrics and they give a nice insight of what blues women sang in after-hour performances in juke joints. The take probably was done for the fun of the people in the studio or maybe for distribution under-the-counter as a party record. Now one of the Youtube clips apparenty is taken from a worn-out 78 so it may well be that some really made it to a record.

Bogan also did a song on the Piggly Wiggly stores - the inventors of the self-service supermarket. Her version was an adaptation of a song of Charlie 'Specks' McFadden. I played it a few times here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and here is the original. Charlie 'Specks' McFadden with the Groceries on the Shelf.

13 - Charlie 'Specks' McFadden - Groceries on the Shelf
14 - Buddy Moss - Jinx Man Blues

The Jinx Man Blues of Buddy Moss from 1934 released on OKeh and the ARC labels family - such as Perfect, Melotone, and Banner. This was in his glory days. He was based in Atlanta but travelled back and forth to New York for recording sessions, some with Curley Weaver, Blind Willie McTell and Josh White.

But in 1935 Moss was convicted for shooting his wife, and he served his time in prison until '41, when he came out on parole and recorded a few songs more for the OKeh label. His acoustical blues by then were out of fashion, and he dropped out of music, only to be discovered again in the middle of the sixties blues revival when he attended a concert of his old friend Josh White and the fans, they found out they had another blues legend in their middle.

Next from 1941 the Glamour And Glory Blues of Curtis Jones, that was released both on the Columbia label and on its subsidiary OKeh.

15 - Curtis Jones - Glamour And Glory Blues
16 - Monkey Joe - Mountain Baby Blues
17 - Robert Johnson - Phonograph Blues

And Robert Johnson ended this episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman with the Phonograph blues, recorded for Columbia probably for their Vocalion catalog, but it never got released by the time.

Before that you got the Mountain Baby Blues of Monkey Joe from 1939, also for Vocalion and well, these background vocals and saxophone make it something special, must have sounded somewhat strange for the time.

And that was it for today, folks. Hope you liked it, and of course you can let me know and drop an e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And if you want to read back the stories I told you today, or find out what's on the menu for next time, go to my website and easiest way to get there is to search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and look for show number 205.

You will get more hot Rhythm & Blues next week. See you again, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!