This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And for today a special around releases that came on the King and Queen labels but they were recorded by J. Mayo Williams, once the influential and important producer for labels like Paramount and Vocalion in the twenties, and Decca from 1936 to '44 - but his own independent enterprise that brought us the labels Ebony, Harlem, Chicago and Southern was struggling hard to get anything done. Or maybe better - struggling was not the word, it just didn't work out. Mayo Williams did quite some recording in 1945 and a lot less each subsequent year - and it's from these '45 and '46 masters that he traded some off to Syd Nathan of the King and Queen labels in Cincinnati.
I'll get you a lot of stories and information on how come, but first some music, after all that's what brought you to the radio. I'll start with two recordings of Slim Gaillard - the man who invented his own jive language that he dubbed Vout-O-Reenee. There was actually a record with that title.
This was recorded in September of '45 in Los Angeles. Now Mayo Williams never done any recording outside Chicago and New York, but it's pretty sure the masters must have been owned by Mayo Williams before they got to King and to the 20th Century label of Philadelphia, that Williams also had a deal with. It's lost to history how the masters got to Williams. Anyhow here is Slim Gaillard and his Boogiereeners with Vout Orenee.
00 - 4104 - Slim Gaillard - Vout Orenee
00 - 4105 - Slim Gaillard and his Boogie Reeners - Sightseeing Boogie
And another Slim Gaillard boogie and was traded to the King record company where it ended up as Queen 4105 - the Sightseeing Boogie. I'll tell you more about this Mayo Williams-King connection later, but first a little on this pianist, guitarist and saxophonist Slim Gaillard - and for sure he wasn't just an average musician. Maybe his life story, or at least how he told it, tells us best how excentric this man was.
Bulee Gaillard is thought to be born in 1916 in Detroit, but there's also an entry in the 1920 census listing him as Beuler Gillard in Pensacola, FL, that may have been him, and researchers have tracked this man down to some Theophilus Rothchild in Claiborne, AL, as the son of a succesful merchant.
But in interviews with Gaillard, he stated to be born in Cuba, and sailed the seas with his father when he accidently was left behind on a Greek island at the age of twelve. From there he worked on ships to the Middle-East and finally crossed the Atlantic again, thinking he was heading for Cuba but the ship sailed to New York instead. He didn't leave the ship that went on to Detroit - the final destination.
He was too young to work in the automobile industry, so he got employed with an Armenian store owner and he made some money as a prize fighter, worked in a slaughterhouse and he transported bootleg liquor for the infamous Purple Gang - in a hearse as legend has it. While with the mob, he learned to play the guitar and the piano. After he someway sneaked in to meet his idol Duke Ellington, he decided to dedicate his life to music in New York. His biggest hit ever was from 1938, together with Slam Stewart, A Flat Foot Floogie With A Floy Floy.
Gaillard spoke quite a few languages, including Greek and Arabic giving some credibility to the life story that he probably has made up - but he probably was good in leaning languages. His Armenian he probably picked up in his Detroit years, as well as his German, and Yiddish with the Purple Gang he worked for as a liquor transporter, and that was a mostly Jewish mob.
Next two recordings of a singer named Roebie Kirk, and he shows up in a few takes backed by Tab Smith. This is someone else than the Robie Kirk who under his own name of Winfield Scott, co-wrote the hit Return To Sender of Elvis, together with some more great hits of the sixties. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find any information on the Roebie Kirk in these Mayo Williams recordings.
Anyhow here he is with I Don't Want to Play In The Kitchen and Roebie's Blues.
03 - 4180 - Roebie Kirk - I Don't Want to Play In The Kitchen
04 - 4180 - Roebie Kirk - Roebie's Blues
(jingle)
05 - 4150 - Jimmie Gordon - Rock That Boogie
06 - 4191 - Jimmie Gordon - Jumpin' At The Club Blue Flame
Two of Jimmie Gordon and the Vip Vop Band that he used to be on Decca with, before the war, and its name has been updated to the Bip Bop Band - and it's got a more modern jump sound. You got Rock That Boogie and Jumpin' At The Club Blue Flame, both recorded in Chicago. Of course, Mayo Williams knew Gordon from his Decca years - Gordon had recorded exclusively for the label's race record division that Mayo Williams headed.
And the same is the matter with the next one, Johnny Temple - before the war he'd been recording with the Harlem Hamfats. You will get from him Baby Give Me Some Of That Yum Yum Yum, a re-recording of his pretty gritty version of it with the Hamfats.
07 - 4151 - Johnny Temple - (Baby Give Me Some Of That) Yum Yum Yum
08 - 0000 - Johnny Temple - Dixie Flyer
The Dixie Flyer of Johnnie Temple from the same session as the Yum Yum Yum song, and it was a very productive session but only the Yum Yum Yum was released backed by I Believe I Go Downtown again. Six of the eight others had to wait until 2005 when Proper records released a 4-CD box titled Broke Black and Blue, including them. The same had been the matter with Jimmie Gordon's session, that yielded eight tracks, half of it didn't see daylight until that CD box.
Saxophonist Tab Smith was another of the musicians that Mayo Williams knew from Decca. He'd been playing in Lucky Millinder's band and with Count Basie and in '44 he went out on his own. This is one of the rare records with Smith singing - here is the Morning Blues.
09 - 4135 - Tab Smith - Morning Blues
10 - 4171 - Tab Smith - Tab's Purple Heart
Tab's Purple Heart on Queen 4171 and that had before been on Mayo Williams' Harlem label. It must have gotten a much better distribution as the network of Williams, that was very weak. It got worse through the years, and in the early sixties, the Ebony label records were available in five Chicago record stores and at the tiny third floor office of Williams itself at 417 47th street - now you can hardly call that a professional business anymore.
The Purple Heart has somewhat become a classic for Tab Smith and that would never have been possible for a release on Harlem only. Tab done quite a few of these slow instrumentals and maybe they're not my favorites but they show off he's a good saxophonist.
Next David Green together with the trio of Melba Pope with the Jodie-Jodie blues recorded in '45 for Mayo Williams. In got its release on Queen number 4113.
11 - 4113 - David Green & Melba Pope's Trio - Jodie-Jodie Blues
12 - 4111 - Muriel Gaines & The Dixieaires - I Know We Will Never Meet Again
Muriel Gaines with a quartet named the Dixiaires - and for almost certain this is not the group that recorded gospel, spirituals and secular songs in the years '48 and '49 for a number of labels. That group was formed in late 47 by J.C. Ginyard, formerly of the Jubalaires. This recording was laid down two years before, in '45 for J. Mayo Williams. It may well be, that this record was done under this name by the Jubalaires that had specialized in gospel.
Muriel Gaines had been a dancer in the Cotton Club and in 1940 she started singing as a member of the Delta Rhythm Boys that her husband was a member of. Later she started singing calypso numbers - the first on the National label in '45 - and with them she got popular in Europe where she soon was dubbed the Queen of Calypso.
The next is a classic that in this original form, hit number 24 on the Billboard hit list. Bill Johnson, former singer with Erskine Hawkins, recorded Don't You Think I Oughta Know in 1946 - six years later it were the Orioles that made it a smash success. Here is the original of Bill Johnson & His Musical Notes.
13 - 4171 - Bill Johnson & His Musical Notes - Don't You Think I Oughta Know
14 - 4122 - Palmer Brothers With Teddy McRae's Zanzibar Orchestra - C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I
The Palmer Brothers - also known as the Cabaliers - backed by Teddy McRae's Zanzibar Orchestra with C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I spelled out letter by letter - somewhat as a coincidence as they were recorded with Mayo Williams unaware that their record would end up with a Cincinnati-based record label. Teddy McRae later found his moderate succes as Mr. Bear for RCA's Groove subsidiary in 1955.
Maybe there's something that I have to explain - that is that I tell about the King record company while most of these records were released on a Queen label. Well originally Syd Nathan launched his King label as a country music label - with the slogan 'if it's a hillbilly, it's a King'. He soon set up a race record subsidiary, that was dubbed Queen. In '47 he ended this Queen imprint and consolidated it to one name, King, while continuing the 4000 series numbering. Soon the King label would become one of the most important labels for Rhythm & Blues.
J. Mayo Williams had a one-time deal with King for the sale of a number of masters, and when they were filed with King, they stamped new matrix numbers on them. That way, it's very difficult to prove for some recordings that they indeed have been produced by Williams. I get my information from the Red Saunders Research Foundation and that is a very knowledgeable institute that documented all of the Chicago post-war Rhythm & Blues scene. Now the forties Mayo Williams operation was led from New York but it's also got some Chicago recordings in.
The researchers, for some recordings have made very likely assumptions based on Mayo Williams' network, combined with recording dates and incomplete files from his New York and Chicago operations, but sometimes they just can't be 100% sure. For instance, the assumption that the Los Angeles takes of Slim Gaillard, that I played earlier today, must have gone through the hands of Mayo Williams, is based both on the existing connection between Gaillard and Williams and the fact that the masters from this session showed up at two completely unrelated record companies, Syd Nathan's King and Irvin Ballen's 20th Century operations in Philadelphia, and Mayo Williams had a deal with both of them.
The odds that this is a coincidence are zero to none. But there's no documentation to be found how the masters got to New York - one can for instance, imagine that Slim Gaillard set the connection between the L.A. studio and Williams.
Next a man who was no stranger to Mayo Williams - he'd been saxophonist in the band of Louis Jordan, up to '39, when he was still on the Race series that was Mayo Williams' department with Decca. Lem Johnson also played with Decca swing bandleader Skeets Tolbert and he did recordings with Sammy Price. Here, he's billed as Deacon Lem Johnson but there's nothing religious in this song. Listen to Walkin' The Boogie.
15 - 4125 - Lem Johnson - Walkin' The Boogie
16 - 0000 - Lee Brown - Horse Shoe Boogie
The Horse Shoe Boogie of Lee Brown is the last one for today's show - that was all dedicated to J. Mayo Williams and his producing company and how these masters ended up in Cincinnati with the King label. And if you take some time to find out how many shows I already dedicated to this illustrous producer and his productions - and how much more information on him I gave in these numerous shows on the Decca label, well listeners, I have given this man ample footage, much to his status as an influential producer and talent scout, but at the same time as someone who completely failed to set up record businesses on his own.
One might nearly forget that there was that other important Chicago producer - Lester Melrose. And I promise you listeners, I'll get you a show on him soon.
Now I brought you a lot of information again and it's good to know that you can read back all of the story on the website of this program - 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. This is show 214 in the episodes list, but you can of course also watch for the title - the Mayo Williams King Connection.
And of course it's always possible - and greatly appreciated - if you provide feedback on my show. Just send e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com and I promise you to answer.
Next week there will be more Rhythm & Blues from your favorite program. Until then - don't get the blues. Be on the lookout for the next Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!