This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And today I spotlight some some releases of the Columbia label, the 30000 Rhytm & Blues series that started in 1945. I done a show on that series over a year ago - time flies - and well I just continue where I left you then as if it were yesterday. I'll tell you more about the start of that series, the circumstances and the choices that were made, but first some music. On Columbia 30037 a reissue of a '41 recording of Roosevelt Sykes, it had been on Columbia's subsidiary OKeh before. Here is Keep Your Hands Off Her.
00 - 30037 - Roosevelt Sykes - Keep Your Hands Off Her
00 - 30038 - Yas Yas Girl - Two By Four Blues
Merline Johnson - a.k.a. the Yas Yas Girl with a '41 recording that had been laying on the shelf for four years - the Two By Four Blues on Columbia 30038 - and it's their Rhythm & Blues series that they started in 1945 that I spotlight today here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
Let me just tell you what the circumstances were when Columbia started this series. The war was just ended and Columbia had severly been hit by the 1942-44 recording strike of the American Federation of Musicians. Columbia had been one of the major companies that had hoped to win from the union instead of having to settle, but the front of the recording industry had been broken already a year before, when first Decca and Capitol, and later all independent record companies had signed an agreement with the Union. It wasn't until the end of '44 that Columbia and RCA Victor signed, simply because they had no choice - the competition already had been able to record for a year.
With that in mind, one would assume that Columbia was eager to record and issue new material. But Columbia had not just lost its market share in sales to the companies that had signed with the union a year before, but also the roster of artists, that for Rhythm & Blues had been on their OKeh subsidiary.
Columbia chose to not continue OKeh but instead start a Race series on their flagship label. Perhaps they hoped that it would help attract new artists. But in the meanwhile, they had to do what they must have been fed up with - issuing from old masters, either previously unreleased material or re-issuing old OKeh hits. So the flagship label had a bad restart - and for sure the public's taste in Rhythm & Blues had changed and these pre-war blues sounded old-fashioned to the record buyers' ears. And just compare the blues you heard with what was by '45 on labels like Aladdin or Apollo, and you'll get the picture. There was little interest in these pre-war blues anymore now a new time had started.
Fortunately nowadays all of the music I play is old-fashioned whether it's pre-war or post-war. So I hope you still enjoy the music I play.
The next one also was from an old OKeh session - this is Curtis Jones, recorded in 1941. Here is Don't leave me baby.
00 - 30039 - Curtis Jones - Don't Leave Me Baby
00 - 30040 - Roosevelt Sykes - Roll On Blues
(jingle)
00 - 30041 - Big Bill Broonzy - Rising Sun Shine On
00 - 30051 - Big Bill Broonzy - I can fix it
I can fix it - the first recording today that was done after the war. You got Big Bill Broonzy, on the label billed as 'Big Bill and Rhythm Band'. There's quite a difference between this more jump style blues and the Rising Sun Shine On from 1941 that you got before this one and that's been on OKeh before - but it's also Big Bill Broonzy.
Well I also have to account for what was before the jingle and that was another one of Roosevelt Sykes, also a re-release of a pre-war OKeh single - you got the Roll On Blues.
Now just like the last one I played, the next is actually recorded for this Columbia series. Here is on number 30052 of the catalog, Buster Bennett with Don't Worry About A Thing.
00 - 30052 - Buster Bennett - Don't Worry About A Thing
00 - 30053 - Rosetta Howard & the Big Three Trio - When I Been Drinking
When I Been Drinking - that was the Big Three Trio together with Rosetta Howard, recorded in 1947 and it's cover of a Big Bill Broonzy blues from 1941 on OKeh, that was rereleased just a few numbers earlier in the Columbia catalog as 30041, the flip of Rising Sun Shine On that I just played. I think it's odd to nearly simultaneously release two different versions of the same song, as this far more modern sounding version may probably be competing with Broonzy's version.
But then, with Buster Bennett and Floyd Dixon and his Big Three Trio Columbia finally had signed two top Rhythm & Blues acts. Together with two veterans of the scene, Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie - that pretty much was it for the Rhythm & Blues series of the Columbia label and for the remainder it rather had become a re-issue label, in a time when every record label was done with re-issuing, they'd been doing so for two years during the AFM strike.
For the next one you'll get a '46 recording of Memphis Minnie. On number 30054 of the catalog, here she is with Lean Meat Won't Fry.
00 - 30054 - Memphis Minnie - Lean Meat Won't Fry
00 - 30055 - Big Three Trio - Money Tree Blues
The Money Tree Blues of the Big Three Trio - Willie Dixon, Baby Doo Caston and Ollie Crawford, recorded in 1947 - one of the top acts for the Columbia label.
And about the same time a studio band was formed led by drummer Armand 'Jump' Jackson. It had Sax Mallard and Eddie 'Sugarman' Penigar on saxophone, pianist Bill Owens, guitarist Elmer Swing and bass man Roscoe 'Bali' Beach and vocalist and trumpeter Johnny Morton - all regulars in the Chicago scene. They got two sessions for Columbia with slightly different personnel. On mumber 30056 of the Race series here are the Chicago All Stars with Green Light.
00 - 30056 - Chicago All Stars - Green Light
00 - 30057 - Clarence Williams - Beer Garden Blues
And that was an oldie - Clarence Williams with the Beer Garden Blues from 1933 - previously released on OKeh. Williams - band leader and songwriter - he for sure was one of the greats of the jazz but whether the targeted audience of Columbia's Rhythm & Blues series would be excited by a re-release like this - I highly doubt.
All of the releases in this Rhythm & Blues series, also got a release number in the main series - and that's something more that puzzles me, why the records got in two series. It's convenient for me, I must say, cause from a general list I have to filter out all that's not Rhythm & Blues. But it don't make sense to me.
Now putting in a '33 old-time jazz tune is one, the next one is even older - from 1930. This is Lonnie Johnson and Spencer Williams with the Monkey and the Baboon.
00 - 30058 - Lonnie Johnson - Monkey And The Baboon
00 - 30059 - Lil Johnson - Two Timin' Man
Hokum blues from '36 with Lil Johnson - another oldie that got re-issued somewhere in '47 from the vaults of Columbia. Lil Johnson is another of these blues singers of whom life before and after she recorded is unknown - her last recordings were in '37 and she just disappeared off the radar.
The 88s are done by the mysterious ragtime pianist Black Bob - his real name has been lost to history - and Memphis Minnie says in a letter that she'd recorded with him up to 1954 in her recordings I Made You Cry, her re-recording of Me and My Chauffeur and Kissing in the Dark. Apart from this information of Memphis Minnie no-one ever heard from Black Bob after '42 when he did his last documented recording.
For the next two recordings of Blind Boy Fuller - and Columbia re-released a good dozen of records of this bluesman who died in 1941. Here are Big Leg Woman Gets My Pay and You've Got Something There - on Columbia 30060 and 61.
00 - 30060 - Blind Boy Fuller - Big Leg Woman Gets My Pay
00 - 30061 - Blind Boy Fuller - You've Got Something There
00 - 30062 - Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson) - I Got To Have It Daddy
And one more of the Yas Yas Girl titled I Got To Have It Daddy, on Columbia 30062. Now I told you that all of these releases also went on the main series of Columbia - and here she is billed as Merline Johnson, with the same recording of course.
I done a lot of specials on record labels here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and quite a few of them tell a story of lack of success - but I can easily say that for a major record label, this is just too odd and the complete lack of success - in sales, but also in the ability to recruit talent - was appalling for a record company with the size of Columbia.
Well, let's say in general, major record companies and post-war Rhythm & Blues didn't blend well and if any label shows off, Columbia does. It wasn't until in the fifties, when Columbia re-installed the OKeh label, that the company began to play a role of any importance again in Rhythm & Blues. At some point, African-American record stores had even started to boycott Columbia for their roster being too white.
You can give your ideas, views and opinion on the matter - or any kind of feedback - to the mail address of this program - that is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And all of today's story is to be found on my website, and that's easy to find when you search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. This show, number 216, on the Columbia 30000 series, you will find it in the list of episodes on there.
For now time's up. But don't worry - I will get to you next week. So be on the lookout for another episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!