The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - episode 228

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.

Thank you, it's wonderful to be with you again here on the radio and ain't it a long time ago, a whole week I haven't been able to enjoy your presence. Well I hope to get you entertained and educated again with some of the best of Rhythm & Blues and our journey starts in the early fifties today with this killer of Varetta Dillard. On the Savoy label here she is with Hurry Up.

01 - Varetta Dillard - Hurry Up
02 - Cootie Williams - Gator Tail

From March of 1949 the band of Cootie Williams with a great instrumental double-sider - Gator Tail, much in the honking style that got popular these days. This one primarily spotlights a new sensation that recently had joined the band, a young saxophonist called Willis Jackson, and the trumpet maestro Cootie Williams took a step back. This was taken for the Mercury label.

Next one is from '51 and it's the band of veteran Tiny Bradshaw. Bradshaw is most remembered for his '51 recording The Train Kept A Rolling that later became a big hit for Johnny Burnette. Most people don't know that already in the mid-thirties he led a great swing band and he recorded 8 sides for Decca that have become favorites of mine. In fact, by the fifties Bradshaw had come to the end of his career when in '54 he was paralyzed by two strokes. He made a brief comeback in '58 but he died later that year at age 51.

Here he is on the King label with I'm A Hi-Ballin' Daddy.

03 - Tiny Bradshaw - I'm A Hi-Ballin' Daddy
04 - Milt Buckner - Lights Out

(jingle)

05 - Andrew Tibbs - The Holidays Are Over
06 - Crown Prince Waterford - L.A. Blues

For Capitol's Americana series that was the L.A. Blues blues shouter Crown Prince Waterford fronting the combo of Maxwell Davis - and that featured Pete Johnson on the piano. Solomon Charles Waterford done sessions for several labels, with Hy-Tone, Aladdin and Capitol, after his one-year affiliation with Jay McShann. It's with McShann that he done the Crown Prince Boogie, the song that gave him his moniker.

Waterford dropped out of the blues scene in the early sixties and he set up churches in Florida, but he made some kind of come-back at age 85 on a blues festival in 2002 in Jacksonville, and he cut an album. He died five years later at age 90.

You got more - before the Crown Prince that was Andrew Tibbs backed by Sax Mallard and his combo with The Holidays Are Over and that was released in December of 1948 on the Aristocrat label.

And then I have to account for what was before the jingle - that was from 1946 Milt Buckner with Lights Out - a great piece of piano work.

Next one of my favorite singers - Helen Humes. Here she is with the combo of Leonard Feather - when she did some of her best blues. Leonard Feather was an Englishman but he very well understood the atmosphere of the wartime New York jazz and rhythm & blues scene - as a pianist, leader of a combo and songwriter. He may have been most important as a jazz journalist and critic - but to me the songs he wrote - including Evil Gal Blues, Blowtop Blues and Long Long Journey, they stick most. This is a Leonard Feather composition too - here is Helen Humes with the Suspicious Blues.

07 - Helen Humes - Suspicious Blues
08 - Ella Fitzgerald - Holiday In Harlem

Classic swing with the band of Chick Webb backing a twenty-year old Ella Fizgerald - you got Holiday in Harlem. Chick Webb was the one who effectively had took her up from the streets of Harlem. At age fifteen her mother had died in a car accident and that upset the life of young Ella - the trauma changed her from a brilliant high school student into a homeless girl. In '34 she won a singing contest at the Apollo theatre, and that marked the way up. She got herself a one-week stint with Tiny Bradshaw when she was introduced to Chick Webb.

Next a recording of the band of trombonist Doc Wheeler. His Sunset orchestra was one of these bands that never really got in the spotlights and he's primarily eh.. say, not remembered for their version of Marie, cause soon that became a giant hit for Tommy Dorsey in a very similar arrangement that was done by Steve Washington - the singer in the Washboard Rhythm Kings.

You'll get Doc Wheeler's Sunset orchestra with their version of Who Threw The Whisky In The Well from 1942, that was actually the second time that song got recorded. And no, the first time was not Lucky Millinder, but Freddie 'Schnickelfritz' Fisher - really - that was a white comedy and vaudeville band. It wasn't until '45, three years later, that Millinder recorded it. Here is Doc Wheeler with Who Threw The Whisky In The Well.

09 - Doc Wheeler's Sunset Orchestra - Who Threw The Whisky In The Well
10 - Black Cats & The Kitten - Step It Up And Go

The Black Cats and the Kitten - an obscure jive group that seems to have done one session for the OKeh label in 1941 but definitely an enjoyable tune. It was revived on a CD set on the Document label titled Jazzin' The Blues and this pretty much defines what they done with the then popular hokum blues Step It Up or Bottle It Up and Go, that's been around from the thirties, with the first recording done by the Memphis Jug Band.

Next on Decca from 1947 Monette Moore and Sam Price - for the time somewhat old-fashioned, it got a strong pre-war feeling on it. Here is Please Mr. Blues.

11 - Monette Moore - Please Mr. Blues
12 - Buddy Moss - Struggle Buggie

Buddy Moss with the Struggle Buggie that was from 1941 on the OKeh label. It was his comeback year having served six years in prison for murdering his wife - the details of the incident never cleared up. He never got to achieve the success he had in the thirties, with the war and the 1942-44 recording strike coming up and the acoustic blues he played that got out of fashion. From the mid-forties he still performed but he had to rely on other jobs. It wasn't until late in the blues revival years thar he got some attention again.

And for the next one on the playlist I dive deep into the thirties with this Hungry Wolf Blues of J. T. Funny Paper Smith. Here he is on the Vocalion label.

13 - J.T. 'Funny Paper' Smith - Hungry Wolf
14 - Eva Taylor - West End Blues (Take C)

The West End Blues of Eva Taylor and we're talking 1929 then when this was taken for the Edison label. It's got Clarence Williams on the piano - husband and wife, the two were married in 1920 and stayed together until Williams' death. Taylor can be heard on the famous sessions of Clarence Williams Blue Five that recorded in 1924 and '25 with Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong.

Next on the Victor label the bluesman R.T. Hanen - he performed under various names, he seems to be the same person as Spider Carter, Ell-Zee Floyd, J.D. Short, Jelly Jaw Short or Joe Stone. Her he is with She's Got the Jordan River In Her Hips.

15 - R.T. Hanen - She's Got Jordan River In Her Hips

The Jordan river in her hips, and daddy's screaming to be baptized, now that's a way to run a bible theme into a dirty blues easily. You know double entendres are plentiful but so close tied to gospel themes you don't get 'em that often. This blues of R.T. Hanen, one of the aliases for Spider Carter was from 1931 recorded in Louisville for the Victor label.

Well I wanted to play another one but there's no time for it anymore so I'll leave that for another time. It's been a pleasure again compiling this radio program and I do hope that you enjoy listening as much as I enjoy producing it. Now of course you can let me know and send me e-mail - feedback is greatly appreciated at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And all of today's information is on the website of this program and easiest way to get there is to search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will pop up first. From there you go to the episodes list and you'll find this one as number 228.

It's a pity an hour is just too short and a week so long. Cause just next week I'll catch you again with more great rhythm & blues, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!