This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And your week of waiting for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman has been worth it, 'cause again you're gonna get more of the best of Rhythm & Blues from the twenties to the fifties today.
And I wanna start with what in fact pretty much is a historical record - it's the very first recording featuring an electrically amplified guitar. Eddie Durham had experimented with resonators and megaphones to enhance the sound of his guitar ever from 1929, and in '35 he got the chance to get his guitar on record with the band of Jimmie Lunceford.
Well it doesn't sound like we're used from electrical guitars but for '35 this sound was pretty sensational.
The next year Charlie Christian took up the electrical guitar and he made fame with it, in the band of Benny Goodman.
Hittin' the bottle didn't make the noise it made later when it was recognized as that first recording of the electrical guitar. But beside that - it's a great song. Here it is, Jimmy Lunceford with Eddie Durham on the guitar - Hittin' The Bottle.
01 - Jimmy Lunceford feat. Eddie Durham - Hittin' The Bottle
02 - King Mutt and his Tennessee Thumpers - Mississippi Stomp (Blythe's Stomp)
Punch Miller on the cornet in this Mississippi Stomp - a composition of Jimmy Blythe and you heard King Mutt and his Tennessee Thumpers and then we're talking 1928 or '29 when this was recorded. Punch Miller was a sideman in many bands but he never was recorded leading one. He was from New Orleans but in '26 he moved to Chicago and there he tooted his trumpet with Al Wynn, Tiny Parham and Jelly Roll Morton. He never got great recognition but there is a CD on the Document label out there that gathered all the twenties recordings he was involved in.
Next one of my favorite jazz standards, a composition of Spencer Williams and Jack Palmer, Everybody Loves My Baby. I played sereral versions of it before, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and that included the famous take of Clarence Williams featuring a young Louis Armstrong.
Here is the version of Earl 'Fatha' Hines.
03 - Earl Hines and his Orchestra - Everybody Loves My Baby
04 - Pinetop Smith - Big Boy They Can't Do That - vocalion 1929
(jingle)
05 - Buddy Moss - Bye Bye Mama
06 - Cripple Clarence Lofton - Sixes And Sevens
From 1939 pianist Cripple Clarence Lofton with Sixes And Sevens, a recording he done for the Solo Art label in 1939 but it remained unreleased at the time. And his nickname cripple indeed was for some disability but that didn't keep him from starting as a professional tap dancer. But the boogie woogie was his trademark and he made his fame in Chicago with the other piano greats already active before the big boogie woogie craze of the late thirties - such as Made Lux Lewis, Pinetop Smith and Jimmy Yancey.
You got more - before that piano outburst that was on the Vocalion label from 1933 Bye Bye Mama of Buddy Moss and then before the jingle, also on Vocalion, you got Pinetop Smith with Big Boy They Can't Do That and that was from 1929. Now Pinetop Smith may be best known for his Pinetop's Boogie Woogie, that gave the long-present piano style its name, but he actually recorded a lot of these piano-and-talk tracks that have nothing to do with boogie-woogie.
Next bluesman Jessie Coleman - better known as Monkey Joe, another bluesman from the Chicago scene and born probably in Mississippi. In the early thirties he wandered around in the South, in places like Jackson, MS and in '35 he did a recording session with Little Brother Montgomery in New Orleans. He surfaced in the Windy City later in the decade to become one of Lester Melrose's bluesmen. He also recorded as Jack Newman and George Jefferson, and the next one as Monkey Joe and his Music Grinders. Well here he is with Just Give Some Away.
07 - Monkey Joe - Just Give Some Away
08 - Lewis Bronzeville Five - Low Down Gal Blues
From 1940 on the Bluebird label the Low Down Gal Blues of Lewis Bronzeville Five, an obscure vocal group most remembered for doing a song on the Natchez fire - the fire in the Rhythm Club of Natchez MS that killed over two hundred people including most of the members of the band of Walter Barnes.
And we're staying with that Bluebird label with a 1941 recording of Johnny Temple. Most of his recordings have been with Decca and his connection with Decca's producer J. Mayo Williams gave him recording opportunities until the late forties. He just didn't exclusively record for the label - and so this was on Bluebird. Here is his Sundown Blues.
09 - Johnnie Temple - Sundown Blues
10 - Jimmie Hudson - Rum River Blues
The Rum River Blues of Jimmie Hudson - and it seems he done only one session for the Exclusive label and that brought us this goodie and two pretty bland pop songs - one on the flip and one paired with a boogie of Gene Phillips.
And for the next one we go to the year 1951 with a recording of Todd Rhodes and his regular frontwoman Kitty Stevenson. They had recorded from 1947 for the Detroit based Sensation label and these masters went from hand to hand before they eventually got released. Via the Vitacoustic and the Old Swing Master labels some got to the Chance label where they were never released, until on an 80s Japanese album.
But this was recorded for King, where Rhodes had signed after the Sensation label ended operations. It was short before Stevenson's death in 1952. Here they are with Make It Good.
11 - Kitty Stevenson & Todd Rhodes & his Toddlers - Make It Good
12 - Big Three Trio - Come Here Baby
Willie Dixon, Baby Doo Caston and Ollie Crawford - as the Big Three trio with a 1952 recording for the OKeh label - Come Here Baby. Willie Dixon had met Leonard Caston at the gym of the boxing school - Dixon had won the Illinois State Golden Gloves for the heavyweight class in '37. In this trio, Dixon slapped the upright bass - and sang the bass voice in their vocal harmonies. After the trio split up later in '52 Dixon found his way with the Chess label as a session bassman and songwriter and later, he started his Blues Heaven Foundation that fought for getting blues musicians their royalties. As Dixon said - The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues.
And he's right listeners, we should not forget that all of our popular music owes the blues and the jazz for being their main ingredients. And with the pre-rock 'n roll era so long ago and those who made the music and who listened to it in the days, well most if not all of them are dead now, so it takes a radio show like mine should keep these roots alive. And a program like the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman is very hard to find - I know of just one more long-lasting syndicated radio show but that has its interest much more limited to the postwar era up to the late fifties.
Next from 1948 on the Decca label Sammy Price with the Low Down Blues. We know him most for his pre-war and wartime work backing blues singers and with his band the Texas Blusicians. But after the forties he still was the pianist on a solid number of recordings way into the Rock 'n Roll era.
Here he is with a great after-hours instrumental - the Low Down Blues.
13 - Sammy Price - Low Down Blues
14 - Johnny Otis - Fool's Gold
From 1951 Fool's Gold of Johnny Otis and his band and that voice, who else can that be but Mel Walker. Johnny Otis was born out of Greek parents and they had a grocery store in a Black neighborhood in Berkeley, CA. He mostly had African-Americans around him, and he chose to be part of their community. Otis was the drummer and later also vibraphonist in his own band, that he started in '45 as a big band, but soon he cut down on the size of it. His version of Harlem Nocturne was a smash hit with the full-size outfit.
We know Johnny Otis for the many artists he discovered - such as Mel Walker, Esther Phillips, the Robins, saxophone honker Big Jay McNeely, Etta James and Big Mama Thornton. Otis died just a few years ago, three days after Etta James, in January of 2012.
Next saxophonist Jimmy Coe and his Gay Cats of Rhythm - remember that gay got its current meaning much later. You'll get his Raid On The After Hours Joint - a follow-up of his After Hours Joint that he recorded earlier in 1953 both for the States subsidiary of the United label. Here he is.
15 - Jimmy Coe & His Gay Cats of Rhythm - Raid On The After Hours Joint
16 - Sonny Knight - But Officer
And more troubles with the law - after the raid on the joint, Sonny Knight gets arrested apparently for no clear reason - nowadays both police actions, we would have called that ethnic profiling, a humiliation that African-Americans still have to endure, especially young men and that tells us we still got a long way to go before that one most important article in our constitution, that we are all equal, really comes to effect.
The history of Rhythm & Blues, and how African American music not just infuenced, but in fact made all of our popular music, it is drenched with the history of racism and segregation that, to some extent, still goes on. Great music came out of it but that doesn't make it just a bit right and it takes, I think, a significant change in our society to no longer suffer the division in skin colors, as if anything under it differs. Politics, all of American society but for sure also the African American community can and will make a change, if we all just want to.
I know that's easier said than done, especially from the viewpoint of just a music geek in a remote part of this world, but it needs to be done. I'm no politician but if you're with me, or have anything to say on my viewpoint - just let me know and mail me at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And then, all of today's show including the thunder speech I just did, you can read it back on my website and easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. This was show number 208 in that big amount of episodes that you'll find listed there.
For now, time's up and that means you'll have to wait a week more for another shot of Rhythm & Blues. Until the, don't get the blues. Be on the lookout for more Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!