This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And welcome, welcome again to my show where I'll get you some of the best of Rhythm & Blues and again today I have a wonderful mix of great tunes from anywhere between the roaring twenties and the rocking fifties. And today I start in the middle - this is recorded in 1944 in Chicago for the Session label. The tune is over four minutes long so it didn't fit on a standard 78 - it was a 12 incher.
Richard M. Jones had recorded it before - in 1923 for the Gennett label - and well, you still can hear that twenties rag style on it. Here is the Jazzin' Babies Blues.
01 - Richard M. Jones - Jazzin' Babies Blues
02 - Blanche Calloway - You Ain't Living Right
From '35 on the Vocalion label, You Ain't Living Right of Blanche Calloway - indeed, the sister of, and the female leader of an all-male band, the Joy Boys. Blanche is said to have been as flamboyant as her younger brother, but by far not as succesful, and music historians agree that has nothing to do with her talent - just with being a woman in an male-dominated industry. The first half of the thirties would still get her her bookings, but while her brother rose to stardom, she found it harder and harder to find work - still with a top notch band. In '38 she went bankrupt, and she had to dismantle her orchestra. She tried again in 1940 and set up an all-female band, but that was short-lived.
Next one of my favorite depression time tunes, the Blue Drag, from an obscure jazz combo from Hot Springs, AK, or at least that's where they done their only recording session, on March 5 of 1937 for Vocalion. The Original Yellow Jackets as the band was named, well, using the word Original in their name, they must have foreseen that in the eighties an jazz band would form with the name of the Yellowjackets.
There's many versions out there of the Blue Drag, and all of 'em sound great. Here are the Original Yellow Jackets.
03 - Original Yellow Jackets - Blue Drag
04 - Louis Armstrong - Basin St Blues
(jingle)
05 - Victoria Spivey - How Do They Do It That Way
06 - Sam Collins - Do That Thing
Back from 1927 on the Gennett label that was Do That Thing of Sam Collins - one of the earlier Delta bluesmen to get on record, even before Charlie Patton. Collins also recorded under the name of Jim Foster.
Before that you got Victoria Spivey with How Do They Do It That Way and she recorded that for the Victor label. The band is Henry 'Red' Allen's, and the recording was done in 1929 for the Victor Talking Machine Company - as the official name for the Victor label was.
Then you got one before the jingle that I have to account for - well the trumpet work and scat vocals on that goodie, who else can that be but Louis Armstrong. That was the Basin Street Blues and the recording, for Vocalion, it was done in 1928.
The next one definitely goes in the category of dirty blues. The meows in it must give you the impression that this is about with cats - but everyone knows better. Recorded in 1930 for the ARC label family, here are Hannah May & Bonny Thomas with Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat.
07 - Hannah May & Bonny Thomas - Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat
08 - Lil Johnson - When Your Troubles Are Like Mine
On the Vocalion label that was Lil Johnson with When Your Troubles Are Like Mine and that is from 1937. Johnson is best remembered for her hokum blues Hot Nuts, a.k.a. Get Them From The Peanut Man and Press My Button (Ring My Bell), with the suggestive lyrics Come on baby, let's have some fun / Just put your hot dog in my bun.
After her last session in '37, she disappeared off the radar.
And we stay with the Vocalion label, with this goodie of Memphis Minnie that she cut in the summer of '38. Here she is with I'd Rather See Him Dead.
09 - Memphis Minnie - I'd Rather See Him Dead
10 - Peetie Wheatstraw - Doin' The Best I Can
From 1934 on the Decca label that was Peetie Wheatstraw with Doin' The Best I Can. With catalog number 7007 this is one of the earliest releases of Decca's Race series that was headed by J. Mayo Williams. The record was backed with the Bed Spring Blues of Jimmie Gordon.
Wheatstraw already recorded for the Vocalion and Bluebird labels before he added Decca to the list - it wasn't something like an exclusive contract back then. He is one of the few bluesmen who kept on recording through the hardest years of the Great Depression, the early thirties, but the record sales were low, like they were for everyone.
For the next one we make a jump into the fifties with a recording of Big Joe Turner. On the Swingtime label, this is the Radar Blues.
11 - Big Joe Turner - Radar Blues
12 - Jack McVea - Lonesome Blues
From 1946 on the Black & White label that was Jack McVea with the Lonesome Blues. This was just before his monster hit Open The Door Richard that was based on a popular comedy sketch - but in the years just following the war Jack McVea already was going strong on Los Angeles' Central Avenue - the strip of nightclubs and venues of L.A.
Like so many stars of the Rhythm & Blues era, McVea did not make it when Rock 'n Roll hit the nation and for some time he had to gather scrap metal for a living - until the Disney corporation asked him to play the clarinet in the dixieland band that had it's place in the French Quarter area of Anaheim's Disneyland. It meant he had to learn to play the clarinet overnight but it secured him a job for 25 years and a retirement pension. It may sound a bit of a sad end of a career - but with that, he done much better than many musicians of the 1940s Rhythm & Blues.
Next a recording of John Peek's Blues Caravan with Zilla Mays. Mays had started recording in 1950 at age 19 for the Savoy label. This Blues Caravan had started out as the All Stars of her brother Roy 'Willie' Mays and later got John Peek as the leader. Mays continued to record during the fifties for Coral, Mercury and Groove, and she had a popular radio show on Atlanta's WAOK. In the sixties she gradually turned to gospel.
Here she is on the Coral label with Triple Eight.
13 - Zilla Mays & John Peek - Triple Eight
14 - Milt Trenier - Straighten Up Baby
Milt Trenier backed up by Gene Gilbeaux and his band with Straighten Up Baby. Milt was one of the Trenier brothers that made up for the popular group the Treniers, and they were an important group in the transition from Rhythm & Blues to Rock 'n Roll - with hits such as It Rocks! It Rolls! It Swings! and Rockin' Is Our Bizness.
This Straighten Up Baby was from 1954 on the Groove label, the not-so-succesful fifties Rhythm & Blues subsidiary of RCA.
For the next one we'll leave the fifties and go back to 1947 with vocal group the Velvetones. On the Sonora label, here is It Just Ain't Right.
15 - Velvetones - It Just Ain't Right
16 - Todd Rhodes - (Oo-Wee) Walkie Talkie
17 - Harlan Leonard - Skee
And this great swing number from 1940 on the Bluebird label ends today's show - that is, I have to account for what was before that and I got to tell you some things. First - before Harlan Leonard came Todd Rhodes with Oo Wee Walkie Talkie, and he cut that for the Detroit based Sensation label in 1947, with Louie Sanders singing, and this Sanders was a waiter at the Sensation Club in Detroit with musical aspirations.
Then I have to tell you the usual stuff about where to provide feedback - and feedback is greatly appreciated - you can mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Then there's the website of the program, that you can visit to find the information that I told you today, and see what'll be on for next week. Easiest way to find my site is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - Google will lead you. This was show number 232 - you're gonna need that number to find it back in the list of episodes.
That was it for today. There will be another show next week, and until then, have a rocking time. See you again, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!