This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And another mix of the best of Rhythm & Blues today, from the decades that came before Rock 'n Roll struck the nation. Those were the days when times were hard and music brought some light in your life - the roaring twenties, the rocking fifties and anything in between.
I'll play 'em today from very old to just a little less old, and I start in the twenties with one of these obscurest of blues singers. This lady had a release on the OKeh label around '25 and one on Grey Gull, a label that existed from 1919 to 1930. Here is from 1928 Louise De Vant with the Hit Me In The Nose Blues.
01 - Louise De Vant - Hit Me In The Nose Blues
02 - Blind Willie Dunn's Gin Bottle Four - Jet Black Blues
From '29 the band of Blind Willie Dunn, the Gin Bottle Four with the Jet Black Blues on the OKeh label. Blind Willie Dunn was one of the stage names for the influential guitarist Eddie Lang, and he used it when he played with black musicians to hide his race. The thing is, Eddie Lang was white and his real name wasn't Eddie Lang either, it was Salvatore Massaro and that sounds pretty Italian.
The Gin Bottle Four that also included guitarist Lonnie Johnson, King Oliver on the cornet and Hoagy Carmichael on the drums, and maybe their sessions didn't bring the top jazz recordings of the twenties, but just for being a mixed race ensemble, they drew attention. It's not too complicated, feelgood music and I love it.
And we stay with the OKeh label and the year 1929 with the band of Clarence Williams. Here he is with the Mississippi Blues.
03 - Clarence Williams - Mississippi Blues (Home Town Toddle)
04 - Paul Howard's Quality Serenaders - Harlem
(jingle)
05 - Charley West - Ethel May
06 - Floyd 'Dipper Boy' Council - Poor And Ain't Got A Dime
That was a whole lotta music - you got four in a row. Before the jingle that were two goodtime hot jazz goodies, first Clarence Williams with this Mississippi Blues, and then on the Victor label the Quality Serenaders of Paul 'Ox Blood' Howard, clarinettist and saxophonist and he put together his combo in '25. Now for some time it included a young Lionel Hampton on the drums, and the underrated saxophonist and clarinet player Charlie Lawrence - and he composed this little gem.
And after the jingle I switched to the blues, you got both from '37 on Bluebird Ethel May of Charley West and finally, also recorded in '37 for the ARC labels Dipper Boy Council with Poor And Ain't Got A Dime - in the Depression years a pretty normal state I guess. Floyd Council was from North Carolina and both alone and together with Blind Boy Fuller he busked the streets of the small town of Chapel Hill. He recorded twice for the ARC labels. A later attempt to record him in 1970 failed, due to a stroke a few years before, he wasn't able to sing good enough.
Floyd Council's name is said to have made up half of the name of the rock band Pink Floyd - the other half was from another Carolina bluesman, Pink Anderson. Band leader Syd Barrett had seen the names on the sleeve of an album with recordings of Blind Boy Fuller.
Next the great Cab Calloway with a 1937 recording for Vocalion - where he does the scat vocals. Here are the Bugle Blues.
07 - Cab Calloway - Bugle blues
08 - Mattie Hardy with Joe Williams & His Chicago Swingers - You Tore Up My Heart
Recorded in November of 1938 in the Columbia studio for the Bluebird label, this never made it to a record. The details of the rejected session list Mattie Hardy with Joe Williams & His Chicago Swingers and the title of this one was You Tore Up My Heart. Now Document Records did issue it - not leaving any details who these obscure musicians were. The name of the Chicago Swingers often comes with pianist John Oscar instead of this Joe Williams, and it's a name for a loose group of studio musicians accompanying blues singers.
And we stay in the studio of Columbia with Curtis Jones, and this was released on the flagship label Columbia itself in 1941. Here are the Bedside Blues.
09 - Curtis Jones - Bed Side Blues
10 - Josh White - Bad Housing Blues
Also from '41 on the Keynote label that was Josh White with the Bad Housing Blues. Now among blues singers Josh White has a very remarkable life story. At age seven he had to take care of himself, after his father was beat up and locked in a mental institution for throwing out a white bill collector. He guided blind musicians busking on the streets and that way he was earning a dollar or two in the week - and he learned to play the guitar in these years.
When he was thirteen years old, he guided Blind Joe Taggart to Chicago, and there his talents got recognized by J. Mayo Williams - he was the executive of the Paramount label. Williams let the boy play as a session guitarist, but the musicians he accompanied kept the session money. All of his early life White had to go barefoot, with ragged clothes and sleeping in horse stables or cotton fields.
From the early thirties his career went upwards, recording gospels as the Singing Christian and blues as Pinewood Tom for ARC. He worked his way up to New York's Cafe Society, by then having reached a status as a charismatic sex symbol. Rumors went that wealthy high-society women had affairs with him - but anyhow he was on speaking terms with the upper class clientele and that's how he met the Roosevelt family.
On Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration, Josh White performed and in '41 he also had a performance in the White House, including a long discussion with the President on segregation and discrimination in the South. The two stayed close friends until Roosevelt's death in '45.
White recorded several songs on poverty, segregation and discrimination, and this Bad Housing Blues was part of a 1941 album, in these days a box set of 78s, titled Southern Exposure, an album of Jim Crow Blues. It was banned in the South and brought under the attention of the President - but instead of falling out of favor, Roosevelt discussed the topic extensively with White in the private chambers of the White House.
Unfortunately his activism for human rights, they got him labeled as a communist in the fifties, and that caused him a lot of troubles. He got blacklisted and he could no longer work in America. He moved to London for a few years, and only in 1963 his blacklisting got broken. He got back in the spotlights and once more in presidential company, with John F. Kennedy on a CBS civil rights TV program titled Dinner with the President.
Next the first recording of T-Bone Walker's Mean Old World - backed by Freddie Slack on the piano on the Capitol label. Walker recorded it several times more, the next one was in '44 while he was playing the roof off the joint in the Chicago-based Rhumboogie club.
Here is the '42 Capitol version.
11 - T-Bone Walker - Mean Old World
12 - Charles Brown - Ooh! Ooh! Sugar
On the Aladdin label Charles Brown with Ooh! Ooh! Sugar and he recorded that in '48. Brown had left Johnny Moore and his Three Blazers, and he started his own Nat King Cole-modelled trio with bassist Eddie Williams and Charles Norris on the guitar. He signed with Aladdin and had his greatest hits there, including Get Yourself Another Fool, Trouble Blues and Black Night.
Next a nice instrumental of the band of Johnny Otis. It went unreleased after it was recorded in '49. Here is the Good Ole Blues.
13 - Good Ole Blues
14 - Lookin' For My Baby
From 1950 Cousin Joe with Lookin' For My Baby on the Decca label. By then he'd moved back to New Orleans after a succesful decade in St. Louis and New York, playing in the band of Sidney Bechet. In these years he recorded for several labels as Cousin Joe, Pleasant Joe, Smiling Joe and Brother Joshua.
For the next one a recording for the OKeh label of Hadda Brooks. Columbia had revived the label a year earlier and this incarnation would eventually become one of the leading labels in soul music. This is from 1952 - here is Hadda Brooks with Brooks Boogie.
15 - Hadda Brooks - Brooks' Boogie.wav
16 - The Royals - Fifth Street Blues
17 - Helen Humes - I'll Surrender Anytime.wav
From 1955 I'll Surrender Anytime of Helen Humes and that was recorded for the Dootone label but it didn't see daylight until much later. Then before that, on the Federal label from '52, the Royals with the Fifth Street Blues and that was the group that later changed its name into Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, to avoid confusion with the group the Five Royales.
And that was all for today. You got another hour of great stuff from the roaring twenties to the rocking fifties, and I hope you liked today's show. Of course you can let me know and send e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. All of what I told you today, including that remarkable story of Josh White, you can find it back on the website of my show, and easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. In that sheer endless list of episodes, look for show number 242 - that's this one.
Well I'm done for now, and you'll get more of me next week. So see you then, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!