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 the most important producer in Chicago's pre-war blues scene - Lester Melrose. I'd promised you some time ago to do so, and well here it goes. You'll get the story of his life, what made him so important and also - I'll compare him to that other important producer, J. Mayo Williams.
And I'll start with the production that was his first great success. We're talking 1928 then, and Melrose cut this for the Vocalion label. Here are Georgia Tom and Tampa Red with It's Tight Like That.
01 - Tampa Red & Georgia Tom - Its Tight Like That
02 - King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - Dipper Mouth Blues
Today I spotlight producer Lester Melrose here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and his professional career in music started in 1922. Before, he'd set up a grocery store, but in 1918 he was drafted for the Great War, to serve on the front in France and that was the end of his first little business. In '22 he started a music store together with his brother, and by then, that meant some records and a lot of sheet music, and musical instruments. Soon they got requests to publish sheet music, especially from the black community and so they took a shot on publishing blues.
This Dipper Mouth Blues was from the Melrose brothers' publishing house and you heard King Oliver with a 1923 recording for the Gennett label. King Oliver had come from New Orleans and Louis Armstrong still played the second cornet in the band.
Also Jelly Roll Morton - the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz - found his way to the Melrose Brother's store and Lester got involved in recording. Like in this next one - the Wolverine Blues in its first recording for Jelly Roll Morton and that also was released on the Gennett label. Morton later re-recorded it for Victor, but that was much later. Here is the '23 version.
03 - Jelly Roll Morton - Wolverine Blues
04 - Hokum Boys - Beedle Um Bum
(jingle)
05 - Big Bill Broonzy - Big Bill Blues
06 - Hokum Boys - Gambler's Blues
You got four in a row - after Jelly Roll Morton that were the Hokum Boys with Beedle Um Dum on the Paramount label, Big Bill Broonzy with the Big Bill Blues on Gennett and finally one more of the Hokum Boys - the Gambler's Blues and in that you'll have recognized the famous St. James Infirmary - indicating that Tom Dorsey and Tampa Red could well do serious songs as well.
These three mark a new episode in the career of Lester Melrose. In '26 he decided to quit his brother's business and start out on his own as a freelance producer. He recorded Broonzy for Gennett and the Hokum Boys for Paramount and in 1930, the ARC company - that had a series of store brand labels for different companies - they sent him to New York with the Hokum Boys and Broonzy to record more material.
Now the Hokum Boys seem pretty much connected to Lester Melrose but they didn't have something like an exclusive agreement. I know that in these same years, also J. Mayo Williams, and later when Williams stepped out of his own business, his former secretary Aletha Dickerson also recorded them for Paramount.
1932 and '33 saw hard days for Melrose as much as it were for the recording industry. So in '34, when Melrose saw joints re-open, featuring a jukebox, he decided to give it a try and he wrote letters to RCA Victor and Columbia, offering his services to record blues talent. Now it was a long shot and he didn't have very high expectations of this attempt to find work, but much to his surprise he got immediate response with telegrams and long distance phone calls. Within short time, Melrose became the main producer for both companies - with subsidiaries as Vocalion, OKeh and Bluebird specializing in blues or at least having a substantial amount in their catalog.
Now working for two competing companies, Melrose never became an employee of either of them. He remained doing what he always did - freelance producing.
Now according to Lester Melrose's recollection - I got this from an interview with him - it was March '34 when he started working for Victor and Columbia. The Online 78 Discographical Project dates the next one just a little earlier - December of '33 - but it's for sure that Melrose brought Roosevelt Sykes in. Here he is on the Bluebird label with the New 44 Blues.
07 - Roosevelt Sykes- New 44 Blues
08 - Washboard Sam - My Bucket's Got A Hole In It
Washboard Sam on the RCA Victor label with My Bucket's Got A Hole In It recorded in '38. Today's story, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman is about Lester Melrose, and from '34 he was full-time producing blues artists for Columbia and Victor. Most were released on Columbia's subsidiary OKeh and Victor's Bluebird label. The blues he produced developed some style, often named the Lester Melrose sound, but that much resembles the style produced with the competitor, on the Decca label by J. Mayo Williams.
Now the two didn't work together, but both were active in Chicago's blues scene and they were fishing in the same pond of musicians. And for sure, as they had all of Chicago's blues market, they set a standard of blues that missed out on the rawest edges.
But there were other styles too. The next that I play is a typical jive group from the end of the thirties, a cool hepcat's jazzy style, and also produced by Melrose. From '39 on the Bluebird label here are the Cats And The Fiddle with the Killin' Jive.
09 - Cats And The Fiddle - Killin' Jive
10 - Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup - That's All Right
That's Allright of Arthur Crudup - a song that got Lester Melrose a lot of money after Elvis covered it, and that shines another light on this producer. OK, it was common practice these days that the bluesmen just got paid per session, and they had to waive the copyrights of their song to the producer. Lester Melrose is credited for thousands of songs even though he couldn't play or sing a single note. Arthur Crudup never saw a penny of the three blues of him, that Elvis covered. It wasn't after Crudups death, while Melrose had retired in sunny Florida, that the heirs got a settlement for the royalties that Crudup never received.
Next from 1940 on Columbia's subsidiary OKeh, Merline Johnson billed as the Yas Yas Girl, with the Black Gypsy Blues.
11 - Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson) - Black Gypsy Blues
12 - Sonny Boy Williamson I - I Been Dealing With The Devil
Sonny Boy Williamson, and then I'm talking about the Chicago bluesman, with a 1940 recording on the Bluebird label, I Been Dealing With The Devil.
Now I alreay told you, Lester Melrose had to share the market of Chicago blues musicians with that other important producer - J. Mayo Williams. There are some interesting differences between the two, and a lot that they got in common. Now Lester Melrose was a white businessman and J. Mayo Williams was black - but that didn't mean that Williams was in some way closer to the musicians he produced. Not at all - he very much looked down upon these illiterate bluesmen and kept quite a distance from them - much more than Melrose did.
Both were - at least in the twenties - freelance producers but Melrose worked for several competing companies, where Williams always kept to one. And Williams twice tried to start his own record business - both with very little success. From '34 Williams worked for Decca, in two locations - New York and Chicago. At that time New York got most of his attention, and the vast majority of Chicago blues artists worked for Melrose.
Here's another of the bluesmen from Melrose's stable. Memphis Slim with the Grinder Man Blues.
13 - Memphis Slim - Grinder Man Blues
14 - Bumble Bee Slim - Worrisome Woman Blues
15 - Lil Green - If You Want To Share Your Love
On the Bluebird label from 1934 Bumble Bee Slim with the Worrisome Woman Blues and after that, If You Want To Share Your Love of Lil Green, also on Bluebird, recorded in 1942 - and these two years pretty much mark the time Lester Melrose's most important time, when he worked for both Victor and Columbia.
Well we know Lester Melrose primarily for his influential pre-war work in Chicago blues. After the war, his influence was done. Just like anything else in the recording industry, the 1942-44 strike had rocked and upset the world for Lester Melrose. The two major companies that he done business with - Columbia and Victor - they were the last ones to sign an agreement with the musicians union, and all the blues talent had gone to Decca and to the independent labels, that had signed a year before. Victor dropped the Bluebird imprint and Columbia mothballed OKeh and neither company played a role of any importance in the rapidly changing world of post-war Rhythm & Blues.
Best indication for that, is the Columbia race series that was started in 1944. Where every record company had grown tired of re-issuing pre-war material during the strike, most of Columbia's releases were old OKeh masters that Melrose had produced and just a handful new releases were done. One of the very few top notch acts that Columbia managed to get on their label was Willie Dixon and his Big Three Trio and it still was Lester Melrose producing them. Here they are - with No More Sweet Potatoes.
16 - Big Three Trio - No More Sweet Potatoes
And that ends today's show dedicated to the important producer Lester Melrose. There's not so much time left so I hope you liked the show and well of course you can always let me know and send e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And if you want to read back all that I told you, well you can on my web site, and easiest way to get there is to search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it'll show up first. This was show 229 but on the episodes list just looking for the name Lester Melrose of course also works.
That's it for today - and I hope to see you next week. Catch you then, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!