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 another dive into Decca's history with releases of its 8500 Sepia series from 1941. I done more shows on this series, that had music from African-American artists that according to the Decca executives had a potential to cross over to the popular market. It ran simultaneously with the 7000 'Race' series, the series that was primarily aimed at the market of African Americans.
The Sepia series brought us some great names of upcoming Rhythm & Blues and that includes the greatest on Decca's roster - Louis Jordan. We'll get him later today - first a fine pianist. Here is Erskine Butterfield with Blackberry Jam.
00 - 8543 - Erskine Butterfield - Blackberry Jam
00 - 8544 - Maurice Rocco - Java Jive
The love for coffee of Maurice Rocco with the Java Jive and well it's clear that on the sepia series of Decca that I feature today, the stuff is somewhat lighter than the blues that went on the Race series.
Maurice Rocco had the odd habit to play the piano standing - with bent knees in a real uncomfortable posture. On YouTube you'll find several clips of him standing and dancing at the piano, taken from soundies, that are short musical movie clips, say, some forty years before MTV brought them on television. These soundies, you could watch them in special coin machines that were just to be found everywhere where people had a few minutes - and a dime to spare.
The next one is number 8545 in the catalog, and a classic piece of swing. Here is the band of Al Cooper with Jackie Boy.
00 - 8545 - Al Cooper - Jackie Boy
00 - 8546 - Buddy Johnson - I'd be ever so grateful
(jingle)
00 - 8547 - Sam Price - The Goon Drag (Gone Wid De Goon)
00 - 8550 - Art Tatum - Indiana
A whole lotta music was that - after Al Cooper's Jackie Boy you got the sultry voice of a young Ella Johnson, with the band of her brother Buddy Johnson, and the two have been working together up into the sixties. Both in the fifties and later she done some solo work, but that never got anywhere near what she done together with Buddy.
Then after the jingle, that was the Goon Drag of the band of Sammy Price, the Texas Blusicians. Decca had hired Pricein the mid-thirties to play the piano on numerous recordings accompanying blues singers, and most of them went on the 7000 Race series, but as important has been his work with some of the best of New York's musicians in these Texas Blusicians. Now Sammy Price was from Dallas but the musicians in his band were not - they included Emmett Berry whose roots were in Georgia, and Don Stovall who came from St. Louis.
Then finally that piano solo was Art Tatum with Indiana. Tatum had been mostly blind from childhood, he grew up in Toledo, OH and at age 19 his fame had been so widespread that top band leaders such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson had stopped by in Toledo to hear the young man play - but it was Adelaide Hall taking him on tour for two years in '31 and 32.
In a contest in 1933 he outplayed greats such as James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith and Fats Waller and that marked the start of a very succesful time touring the midwest, and later in the top venues of Los Angeles and New York and a tour in England. This piano goodie you heard was one of his last solo recordings - in '43 he started a trio modeled after Nat King Cole's, together with Tiny Grimes and Slam Stewart.
And we'll stay with the pianists for a moment, with the numbers 8551 and 8552 in the catalog of Decca. Here is Erskine Butterfield again with You Might Have Belonged To Another and I Dreamt I Dwelt In Harlem.
00 - 8551 - Erskine Butterfield - You Might Have Belonged To Another
00 - 8552 - Erskine Butterfield - I Dreamt I Dwelt In Harlem
And after all this piano work, the next two releases of the Decca Sepia series are vocal groups. On number 8553 the pretty obscure group the Three Bits Of Rhythm and they did one session for Decca, and after the war we find them with a session that brought us the drinking song I Used To Work in Chicago and the Root Beer Sizzle Sazzle Sizzle.
Here they are with the Bronzeville Jump.
00 - 8553 - Three Bits Of Rhythm - Bronzeville Jump
00 - 8554 - Delta Rhythm Boys - The Things I Love
The Things I Love of the Delta Rhythm Boys - a quartet that was around from the mid-thirties amd survived until 1987 - with all of the time bass singer Lee Gaines and also from the early beginnings until his death in 1975, tenor Traverse Crawford. With that, the group had a less turbulent history in terms of membership changes than other long-lasting names such as the Ink Spots. By the mid-fifties they had built up a large fan base in Europe, especially in Sweden, and their success in America dried up, so they moved to where their fans were, in Scandinavia.
The group did gospel, spirituals and secular songs - perhaps their most remembered song is their fourth recording of Dem Bones, a spiritual on Ezekiels Valley of Dry Bones. The first three versions were done for this Decca sepia series.
For the next one also a re-recording - as Decca 8555 a new version of Please Mr. Johnson - the first also went on this Decca series, a year earlier. The vulnerable and sultry voice of Ella Johnson makes it as convincing as the first take. So listen and judge for yourself - here is the New Please Mr. Johnson.
00 - 8555 - Buddy Johnson - New Please Mr. Johnson
00 - 8556 - Nat King Cole - Scotchin' With The Soda
What a great jive - Scotchin' with the Soda - the trio of Nat King Cole. That was number 8556 of the catalog of Decca's Sepia series, that I feature today here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
And for the next one the voice of Yack Taylor backed by Sammy Price and his Texas Blusicians, and I already told you today that his band had the best of musicians from the New York scene - the line-up of this one includes Lester Young and Don Stovall on the saxophones. Here they are with Things 'Bout Coming My Way.
00 - 8557 - Sam Price and His Texas Blusicians - Things 'Bout Coming My Way
00 - 8559 - Jay McShann & Walter Brown - Confessin' The Blues
The first version of Jay McShann and Walter Brown's Confessin' The Blues - the second one came some seven months later with horns in it. Well I think this one is just a bit better. Jay McShann led a full size, Kansas City based big band, but just very few recordings were made with this outfit. Decca manager Jack Kapp saw more potential in Jay McShann for Rhythm & Blues than for swing, so most of the Decca recordings used just a small piece from the band.
Next the great rising star of Decca - Louis Jordan. As Decca launched the Sepia Series, Jordan was immediately brought there, where before he'd been on the Race Series that was under direction of J. Mayo Williams. Now if anyone has been instrumental in the rise of rhythm & Blues as we know it from the forties and fifties, it's been Louis Jordan, so taking him off the series aimed at African-Americans may seem odd. But for the moment, the happy mood easy going songs of Jordan definitely would be able to sell with the white public - and it appeared that his music could. So I guess it was the logical step for Decca to transfer him to the Sepia, and eventually to the popular series.
Here he is with Brotherly Love.
00 - 8560 - Louis Jordan - Brotherly Love
00 - 8562 - Buddy Johnson - Southern exposure
00 - 8563 - Art Tatum - Corrine, Corrina
And Corinne, Corrina of Art Tatum ends today's special on Decca's sepia series - that is, there was one that went before it, that great instrumental was Buddy Johnson and his band with the Southern Exposure.
Well it's been some time ago when I started this series on Decca's 8500 series after I concluded the 7000 Race series - both were somewhere around the 200th show. And I keep on playing from the Decca catalog every now and then, and well, I hope you like it. Now of course you can let me know and send feedback to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. It's greatly appreciated to hear from you, listeners.
And as usual you'll find the story I told you today on the website of this program - easiest way to get there is to search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will show up first. You might need the number of this show to easily look it up - its 238.
For now I'm done. Next week there will be more great Rhythm & Blues - and until then - don't get the blues. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!