This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And well, I can't possibly dive deeper into the history of recorded African American music than today, when I take you to the early twenties with the Black Swan label, the first Black owned and operated record label ever. That also means that you're getting some real old stuff today, we're talking the years 1921 to '23.
I'll tell you more about that record business later, first one of the earliest recordings of the Black Swan label. On number 2003 of the label, here is Katie Crippen with Sing 'Em For Mamma, Play 'Em For Me.
00 - 2003 - Katie Crippen - Sing 'Em For Mamma, Play 'Em For Me
00 - 2008 - Alberta Hunter - How Long, Sweet Daddy, How Long
The great Alberta Hunter with her debut record How Long, Sweet Daddy, How Long on Black Swan number 2008, that I feature today, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Hunter had just arrived in New York and hooked up with the band of Fletcher Henderson, after her years in Chicago where she'd played the top night clubs that were controlled by the infamous gangster mobs of the early twenties.
Hunter had ran away from home in Memphis to Chicago at age twelve, and four years later she had her first start as a professional singer in a southside brothel, a place crowded with criminals and pimps. From that rough beginnings she'd worked herself up to the more upscale venues on South State Street, such as the Panama, the Deluxe and the Dreamland Ballroom.
Apart from a long break in the sixties and seventies, when she worked as a nurse until the age of 82 she has been on stage for all of her life since that early start in Chicago. From her last years, when she performed in the Cookery club in New York and on several jazz festivals, there's a few nice Youtube clips, a grand old lady in her late eighties performing her old hits with as much flair as she must have done in the old days.
For the next one another great of twenties blues - her is Ethel Waters with what became the first succesful record for Black Swan - Oh Daddy.
00 - 2010 - Ethel Waters - Oh Daddy
00 - 2017 - Georgia Gorham - Broadway Blues
(jingle)
00 - 2019 - Alberta Hunter - He's A Darn Good Man (To Have Hanging Around)
00 - 2021 - Ethel Waters - One Man Nan
A whole lotta music - After Ethel Water's Oh Daddy you got on Black Swan 2017 Georgia Gorham with the Broadway Blues. Then after the jingle another record of Alberta Hunter, that was He's A Darn Good Man (To Have Hanging Around) and finally another song of Ethel waters, the One Man Nan. Ethel Waters was the first bringing in the cash for Black Swan, but she'd recorded before on the Cardinal label. In the twenties she was quite popular, especially when she specialized on the more popular songs and the musical revues later in the twenties, leaving the blues behind.
The next brings us the house band of the Black Swan label, credited as the Henderson Dance Orchestra - led by pianist Fletcher Henderson. Here he is with My Oriental Rose.
00 - 2022 - Fletcher Henderson - My Oriental Rose
00 - 2026 - James P. Johnson - Harlem Strut
The Harlem Strut of James P. Johnson - one of the pioneers of the stride piano. Also for Johnson, the Black Swan recordings where his first. It was only a year before Black Swan started, that the first blues was recorded - the Crazy Blues of Mamie Smith on OKeh and it proved to be a smash success. In '21 the succesful businessman Harry Herbert Pace decided to start his recording company in New York, named after the 19th century Black singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield known as the Black Swan. Before, he had teamed up with W.C Handy, the great blues composer, to set up a music publishing company. Back in the tens and twenties of the 20th century music publishing was a thriving business, much larger than the recording industry.
Pace saw their published sheet music being recorded by white performers, and he decided to act upon it and specialize in recording of African-American musicians. It wasn't easy to find a pressing plant - New York plant owners refused to work with him in an attempt to keep him out of the business. Eventually he had to have the pressing done up in Port Washington, Wisconsin.
Fletcher Henderson was the pianist and recording manager for all of Black Swan's early recordings. The first records sold poorly, until Ethel Waters entered the studio for Black Swan, and hers sold half a million copies.
The competition soon became aware of that success, and within two years, Columbia, Paramount and OKeh had put Black Swan out of business - that is, together with a decline of record sales in general from 1923. Radio was becoming available for the general public, and that was the new thing. Musicians performing live for radio got a much better sound quality than these acoustical recordings, and it wasn't until '25 when the recording industry stroke back with the invention of electrical recording.
Next on Black Swan 2032, Lucille Hegamin, and she had recorded before for the Arto company. Her husband led a band, the Blue Flame Syncopators and that had brought her to Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.
Here is her Arkansas Blues.
00 - 2032 - Lucille Hegamin - Arkansas Blues
00 - 2034 - Fletcher Henderson - Aunt Hagar's Children Blues
The W.C. Handy composition Aunt Hagar's Children Blues done by Fletcher Henderson's Dance Orchestra as his band was billed on the Black Swan label.
Pianist Fletcher Henderson was from a middle-class African-American family in Georgia and in his childhood he was very much encouraged to learn to play the piano. Now he proved to be very talented but still he decided to study math and chemistry on the university of Atlanta and later when he moved to New York, he earned his masters degree in chemistry.
But for an African-American it was nearly impossible to find work in chemistry, and so he had to employ himself in his other talent, music. He shared a home with the pianist in the Riverboat Orchestra, and when he replaced his roommate when he was sick, he got a full time job offered and later a place as pianist and executive at Black Swan.
Next one more of Ethel Waters. Here is the Royal Garden Blues.
00 - 2035 - Ethel Waters - Royal Garden Blues
00 - 2039 - Trixie Smith - Trixie's Blues
Another blues woman who made her debut on Black Swan, Trixie Smith with her Trixie's Blues. She would record this and a few more of her earliest recordings again in the late thirties for Decca. On that one, she left out the intro verses that this version has, and made a whole record on what actually was the refrain of the original song. Somewhere in the early twenties it's become common to do so, and that shaped the blues as we know 'em now.
The next one is another typical example. Here are the original lyrics of Lem Fowler including the story of miss Minnie Lee from Tennessee who stole the men from Sadie Snow and Ludy Green - telling her victory with 'he may be your man but he comes to see me sometimes'. In later versions of this blues classic, it's the singer saying to her rival woman the same and the story of Minnie Lee is left out.
Listen to Lucille Hegamin with He May Be Your Man But He Comes To See Me Sometimes.
00 - 2049 - Lucille Hegamin - He May Be Your Man (But He Comes To See Me Sometimes)
00 - 2044 - Trixie Smith - You Missed A Good Women When You Picked All Over Me
Another one of Trixie Smith with You Missed A Good Women When You Picked All Over Me on Black Swan number 2044 and it's that early twenties label, the very first Black owned record label, that I feature today, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Now you can tell from the poor sound quality these are all acoustical recordings, and the technology had quite a few limitations. One of them was that in order to be picked up by the recording horn, the singers had to sing quite loud. Well none of the ladies you heard today showed a very sophisticated way of singing - only explained by the limitations of the technology.
I said ladies - cause you may have noticed that today only female blues singers came by, and all were accompanied by a band with horns. That is partly due to the success of that very first recording of Mamie Smith for OKeh, but also to the limitations of the acoustical technology. Bluesmen often brought their own guitar and the recording horn could hardly pick up that sound.
Next the Father of the Blues - W.C. Handy. Much of the blues style that already existed for decades in the rural delta areas, was in fact documented by Handy. But up to 1920, it were the white musicians in Northern urban settings playing the sheet music he published inspired on the blues of the hard working Blacks in the Missisippi delta. They were in for new things, where the African-American artists played safe, singing the popular songs.
Here is one of Handy's best known compositions. The St. Louis Blues start with a tango-like intro, a dance very much in fashion around 1914, to trick the dancers on the floor, and then it seamlessly changes into a beautiful blues. Here is W.C. Handy himself on the trumpet with the St. Louis Blues.
00 - 2053 - W.C. Handy - St. Louis Blues
And that was the St. Louis Blues done by W. C. Handy himself, composed in 1914, and this recording was from 1922 on the Black Swan label, that I featured today, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
The label was started to get African-Americans on record with the blues that were written by songwriters such as W.C. Handy, but the Black singers proved to be somewhat reluctant to record them, and the irony of the situation was, that white performers did show interest in them, trying to innovate themselves. But time would prove that the innovations in African-American music never came from sheet music.
Now after some time label owner Harry Pace eased his policy to only record African-Americans, and he got himself a lot of criticism for that. The catalog of the label features both Latin and white performers.
But it were the competition, seeing that there was a vast market for the blues, and changing circumstances where the sales of records got less for a few years, they killed Black Swan after only two years of operation. I hope listeners, that I made clear to you that for the urban blues these were important, formative years. Soon, and especially in the years '25-28, the recordings of urban blues got mature, both musically and in sound quality.
And I hope you liked my little history lesson, and of course you can let me know and send e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And for all of today's story go to the website of my little program, and easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will show up number one in the search results. Once you got there this is show number 240 in the episodes list - or just find the show on Black Swan.
Well time's up for today. I'll get to you next week with more great Rhythm & Blues, and not only these early twenties ones. So see you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!