This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And a wonderful mix again of the best of Rhythm & Blues, great stuff that's been waiting in my collection to get to your ears. And I wanna start with Monkey Joe, a bluesman whose name popped up the first time with a few New Orleans recordings for the Bluebird label in 1935. A few years later he shows up in Chicago where he done more recordings for Bluebird, Vocalion and OKeh.
From 1939 on Vocalion here is Trouble Comin' On.
01 - Trouble Comin' On - Monkey Joe
02 - Lee Brown w Sam Price's Fly Cats - Moanin' Dove
Also from '39, on the Decca label Lee Brown backed by the piano of Sammy Price. Sammy Price and his Fly Cats, the label says, and the combo also included Teddy Bunn on guitar and O'Neill Spencer on drums - the trumpeter and clarinetist that were on this session, they remained silent in this blues.
Next from 1941 on Bluebird the Chicago based bluesman Peter Joe "Doctor" Clayton. He was born in Georgia and moved to St. Louis in '35, where he witnessed his whole family died in a fire. He then moved to the Windy City and there he recorded for Decca, Bluebird and OKeh.
The misfortune in life made him an excessive drinker and in the mid-forties he contracted tuberculosis - the cause of his death in '47.
Here he is with a '41 recording, Watch Out Mama.
03 - Watch Out Mama - Doctor Clayton
04 - Jump It But Don't Bump It - Sonny Boy Williams
(jingle)
05 - Clarence Profit - Times Square Blues
06 - Todd Rhodes - Flying Disc
Two completely different instrumentals were that - first the cocktail style trio of piano, bass and guitar much in the style of Nat King Cole's trio. You got the trio of Clarence Profit with the Time Square Blues from 1940 on Decca - and that versus that jumping Flying Disc of Todd Rhodes that he cut in 1947 for the Detroit based Sensation label but it got its release on Vitacoustic, a Chicago indie that had a jump start in '47 with a number one pop hit but it succumbed within months due to financial mismanagement.
The there was one before the jingle that I have to account for. Jump It But Don't Bump It by Sunny Williams on the Superdisc label from 1947 - and that was much like the Pinetop's Boogie Woogie, of Pinetop Smith, that gave the piano style its name back in 1928.
Sunny Williams or Sonny Boy Williams had recorded before for Decca and he had nothing to do with the two bluesmen and harpists Sonny Boy Williamson - he even didn't play the harmonica. This Enoch Williams as his real name was, sang and played the piano and well, some of his output is good boogie woogie, jazz or blues, but he did some real cheesy pop songs too and it something completely different from the harmonica blues of the two men calling themselves Sonny Boy Williamson.
Next saxophonist Gene Phipps with his only released record on the Regis label. Here is the After Hour Bounce.
07 - The After Hours Bounce - Gene Phipps
08 - Money Tree Blues - The Big Three Trio
The Big Three Trio with the Money Tree Blues, a recording from 1947 on the Columbia label. This was the group of bass player and singer Willy Dixon, together with Ollie Crawford on the guitar and pianist Leonard 'Baby Doo' Caston. A trio formed after the succesful Nat King Cole and there were hundreds of them, just a few stood out and this is one of them. I think the tight harmonies as in this one come much closer to the vocal doowop groups of the fifties than the cocktail bar style of Cole.
The trio recorded for Columbia and that was considered much more prestigious than most African-American artists that went on the subsidiary OKeh. That was, later, also the fate for the Big Three too, be it, that by then OKeh again had gotten more and more of a leading label for Rhythm & Blues.
Next a pianist and singer named Lillette Thomas and for the Sterling label and the Carlton Cocktail Lounge in Reno, NV she was billed as the Mistress of the Keyboard. The Billboard Musical Yearbook tell us she'd been overseas to entertain the troops and upon her return she became the regular appearance of that Reno club.
For the Sterling label, born out of the Juke Box label when record boss Al Middleman took it over from Art Rupe, this was its very first release. Here is Blues for my Daddy.
09 - Lillette Thomas - Blues For My Daddy
10 - Deryck Sampson - Basin Street Boogie
The obscure boogie woogie wizzkid Deryck Sampson with the Basin Street Boogie, straight from a 78 on the Joe Davis label from 1945. Sampson's only releases have been with the labels of Joe Davis, when he was still a teenager.
For the next one a woman who could more put her mark on the history of Rhythm & Blues - she was dubbed the queen of the blues but she did pop songs as well. Dinah Washington signed with Mercury after the Keynote label ended operations in '46. With Keynote she'd fronted the band of Lionel Hanpton - for Mercury she started a succesful solo career.
Here she is with a '47 recording - You Satisfy.
11 - Dinah Washington - You Satisfy
12 - Frank Culley & Harry Van Walls - Rhumboogie Jive
From 1949 the Rhumboogie jive on the Atlantic label - you got Frank 'Floorshow' Culley, the first house band leader for the label. Culley and his genius pianist Harry Van Walls backed up most of Atlantic's sessions until '51 and with his saxophone style he much helped shape the style of fifties Rhythm & Blues. I think he's much underrated for that. He got the nickname Floorshow after his hit Floorshow - but he did make a show of his live performances so it fit him well.
Next one of the earliest releases of the West Coast based RPM label, one of the labels of the Bihari Brothers. Here is from 1950 the Left Behind Blues of Gene Parrish.
13 - Gene Parrish Left Behind Blues
14 - Duke Ellington - East St. Louis Toodle-Oo
In the background you're hearing the 1927 version of this masterpiece of slow jazz. Duke Ellington recorded his East St. Louis Toodle-Oo numerous times, and this 1956 version is a classic in itself. Of course this is the ultimate showcase for every wizard with the trumpet to perform his antics - in this version Ray Nance, in the twenties versions that was of course the pioneer on what was called jungle style trumpeting - Bubber Miley.
Trombonist Tricky Sam - real name Joe Nanton - he could perform similar tricks on the trombone, but for this instrument the muting, wah-wahing, growling and plunging never got that popular. But it was Tricky Sam who taught Cootie Williams to do it after Miley left the Duke.
It's these two who made the sound of Ellington's band and they gave it the name to be the dirtiest of all jazz groups. And man, they created some exitement in the Cotton Club in Harlem, that, you must imagine, was whites-only at the main door - but blacks only at the artists entrance. One of the strangest, oddest outings of segregation, how these top bands and the best of stage dancers and entertainers, all African-Americans, created a feeling of ultimate sensation to that strictly white audience. All of these acts had to be sensational - and for sure Duke Ellington was.
By the time of this smooth version of the Toodle-Oo both Bubber Miley and Tricky Sam were dead, but their techniques had been picked up by most trumpeters. Still Tricky Sam could squeeze sounds out of his trombone that no-one ever has been able to since. I'm afraid he took the secrets how he did it with him into his grave.
After all this talk some music again. Here from 1951 is Skippy Brooks backed by the band of Sherman Williams with the Across the Country Blues on the Peacock label.
15 - Sherman Williams - Across the Country Blues
16 - Cleo Brown - Hole In The Wall
17 - Muddy Waters - Mean Red Spider
From '48 the Mean Red Spider of Muddy Waters on the Aristocrat label and before that, a bit of a distorted recording of Cleo Brown from 1951, well that's how this Hole in the Wall got on record folks, can't help it.
Now after that St. Louis Toodle-Oo that I played, earlier, there is something I wanna say, about the choices I make for the music. You know, listeners, often people ask what kinda music I play and I mostly refer to it as pre-Rock 'n Roll African-American music, which pretty much covers what I play, or just in short 'Rhythm & Blues' and, well, that doesn't. Rhythm & Blues as a word was coined in 1948 and the majority of what I play comes before that. So what to call it then? Blues? Jazz? Kinda, Sorta, that is, cause with blues most people think of yelling guitars and with jazz either of the smooth pop jazz from the seventies and onward, or the unintelligable, experimental modern jazz. You all know it's none of these three.
But I do play masterpieces of jazz like that East St. Louis Toodle-Oo of today. Masterpieces and classics of the blues too. Together with the obscurest of the obscure. I hope you like that blend, listeners, and well of course you can let me know - feedback is much appreciated. Mail me at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com.
Today's story and playlist, and what'll be on for next week, is on my web site, and easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. In the list of episodes, look for show number 210.
I'm done for now, and you'll get more of me next week. See you then, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!