This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And again a wonderful mix of the best of Rhythm & Blues from the twenties to the fifties, the days before Rock 'n Roll, when the music was great and times were hard. And for sure times were hard in the years of the Great Depression, and even harder for African-Americans - though recording industry started to recover from the worst of times in 1936 when the first one that I'm gonna play, was cut. Billed on the Vocalion label as Jane Lucas, this is the great Victoria Spivey with the Mr. Freddie Blues.
01 - Victoria Spivey - Mr. Freddie Blues
02 - Fats Waller & Alberta Hunter - Beale Street Blues
A historical recording of W.C. Handy's Beale Street Blues, with on the organ Fats Waller and that soprano voice was Alberta Hunter. This was recorded in 1927 in Camden, NJ, in the studio of Victor.
Now in 1918, the Victor Talking Machine Company had bought the Trinity Baptist Church, a small church in the town of Camden, to set up a recording studio. Initally, in the acoustic recording years, they had converted only the top floor to a studio. There was an important reason for that - the mechanism to drive the turntable, these days, could not be driven by a electrical motor, because of the instability of the electricity network. Instead, they used a grandfather's clock like mechanism with weights that had to be cranked up twelve feet after each three-minute recording.
In '26, when they had installed the new General Electric recording equipment, they'd converted the first floor to another studio. In the church was an organ, provided by the Estey Organ Company. It was not left behind when it still was a church - it seems that Victor has bought it, had it installed, and done several modifications through the years. When Fats Waller played the organ in '26, it was the first recording of a pipe organ in jazz or blues.
Now it all must have been quite a challenge. For the technicians, but also for Waller. You know listeners, a wind organ has an unpleasant feature, that is, that it begins to sound only a fraction of a second later than when you hit the keyboard. For a recording like this, the organ clearly is the leading instrument, and once you get used to that delay, it works and the singer joins in on the sounds of the organ. But Waller also played it with complete jazz bands - Morris’s Hot Babies and the Louisiana Sugar Babes - and in a complete band, you're definitely not in the lead as the organist. So Waller had to play that fraction of a second before the band - quite a hassle to keep time. Unlike on most of his recordings, Waller drank his gin only after the recording session, instead of in between the takes.
Now one thing's for sure - this Beale Street Blues is an absolute gem, and also well-preserved in these ninety years, and for its time of an wonderfully good recording quality - that is, on modern record playing equipment, cause it will have sounded much less on a twenties phonograph.
Well that's enough talk for the moment - let's get back to the music. Also on the Victor label, here is from 1928 the Jubilee Stomp of Duke Ellington.
03 - Duke Ellington - Jubilee Stomp
04 - Famous Hokum Boys - Where Did You Stay Last Night
(jingle)
05 - Washboard Rhythm Kings - Every Man For Himself
06 - Harlem Hamfats - Live And Die For You
Four in a row - racing through ten years of recording. After Duke Ellington's little gem, that was quite a contrast with the next one, the rowdy hokum of Papa Charlie Jackson and a woman billed as Hannah May or Jane Lucas - and you heard that name before today cause the first I played was also billed to Jane Lucas. There, she's been identified as Victoria Spivey, but this woman was someone else but no-one ever has found out who she was. You got Where Did You Stay Last Night, recorded for the ARC record company and released on the Champion label.
Then after the jingle Every Man For Himself of the Washboard Rhythm Kings, on the Victor label from 1931. The Washboard Rhythm Kings never existed as a band that you could book for a venue or party, it was a loose group of New York session musicians performing under different names for both RCA Victor and its competitor, the ARC and Columbia combination, and as the Georgia Washboard Stompers for Decca in its earliest year.
And then finally on the Decca label, that were the Harlem Hamfats with Live And Die For You - and also the Hamfats were a studio band, but they were a formation that didn't change through its existence. They were put together by Decca producer J. Mayo Williams, initially to back up Decca's blues singers, but they proved to be selling well in their own right.
For the next one I go to 1942 with the pianist Enoch Williams, credited as Sonny Boy Williams, not to be confused with the two bluesmen with that name. Also on Decca, here is a tribute to that popular dance venue of Harlem - the Savoy ballroom, the place to be for any hepcat. Located in Harlem most of the patrons were African-Americans, but there was a no-discrimination policy at the door and as a white guy you definitely could have the time of your life - that is, if you could dance. The Savoy was the birthplace of the famous Lindy Hop, the dance named after Charles Lindbergh, the first aviator to cross the Atlantic.
Here is the Savoy Is Jumping.
07 - Sonny Boy Williams - Savoy Is Jumpin'
08 - Deryck Sampson - Erin Go Boogie
The obscure pianist Deryck Sampson with the Erin Go Boogie and in the background you hear another goodie of him, the Table Top Boogie. During the war years, as a teenager or young man, he has recorded exclusively for the Joe Davis labels, and he laid down quite some good and original boogie-woogies - but after his time with Davis, no-one ever heard about him anymore.
The next one is from 1938 on the Decca label. Here is Peetie Wheatstraw Me No Lika You.
09 - Peetie Wheatstraw - Me No Lika You
10 - Buddy Johnson feat. Ella Johnson - It's the gold
It's The Gold - the sultry voice of Ella Johnson backed by the band of her brother Buddy Johnson. This is from 1941 on the Decca label and it was recorded in New York. By then they were one of the top attractions of the Savoy ballroom. Ella and Buddy worked together until in the sixties, and her later solo efforts never got the feeling that her recordings with her brother had.
Next on the Lenox label the Bus Station Blues of Champion Jack Dupree. The Lenox label started in 1948 but Dupree had recorded this for the Continental label in '45 - Lenox was somewhat of a subsidiary.
Here is the Bus Station Blues.
11 - Champion Jack Dupree - Bus Station Blues
12 - Lionel Hampton - Doublin' With Dublin
Doublin with Dublin - that was the band of Lionel Hampton and he recorded it in 1945. It didn't make it to a 78, it was first issued in 1969 on an LP. Now Hampton's energy on stage was famous - it just wasn't famous everywhere. I found an article on a performance Hamp done in 1956 in the posh Concert building in Amsterdam, in my little country, and to get you an idea, it is the place to be for a serious classical concert, in a baroque styled hall, and the best of symphony orchestras in the world play there.
It's in this place that the energetic Hampton got the audience dancing in the pathways and on the expensive pluche seats of the stately concert hall - and Hamp didn't stop as long as he had an enthousiastic audience. It were the police who put an end to the show - probably on request of the Concert Building management - and Hamp got arrested for public order disturbance. His show got very negative critics in the Dutch press - it was labeled as mass hysteria. Just to think there's so much decent jazz! My little country, in the mid-fifties, it was still like a decent, provincial small town.
By the fifies, Hamp mainly lived on his old successes from the forties, but his performances were a great show that drew audiences all over the world.
For the next one a recording on the Exclusive label of Joe Liggins. 1945 was the year Liggins had that monster hit The Honeydripper, and this is from the same year. Here is Doddle-Do-Da-Deet.
13 - Joe Liggins - Doddle-Do-Da-Deet
14 - Joe Lutcher - Toodle-Oo
And from Joe Liggins to Joe Lutcher, with Toodle-Oo, a nice jumper from 1947 on the Capitol label. Lutcher was signed to the Specialty label but owner Art Rupe wanted him to do slow blues only. On Capitol, the label where his sister Nellie recorded, he done his better stuff including this ditty.
Now the next one was on the Specialty label. Roy Milton recorded for the label many years, after his own label Miltone closed down. In fact, his R.M. Blues, he recorded it for the Juke Box label, the forerunner of Specialty, even before he'd started his Miltone label that was famous for its hep cartoons on the label. Record collectors still pay a fortune for them.
That same year 1945 he done three soundies with June Richmond, and you can look 'em up on YouTube, man, that was a tight band, and that big lady Richmond, she proves she can cut a rug.
Milton stayed with Specialty until 1955, then switched to Dootone and King, but he ran out of success - Rock 'n Roll had hit the nation and his music began to sound outdated. Now we don't care about that, all of our music sounds outdated, heavily outdated that is. That's why you're here, listeners, for one of the very few programs that brings the history of African American music, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
Well this is from 1952. Here is Believe Me Baby.
15 - Roy Milton - Believe Me Baby
16 - Paul 'Hucklebuck' Williams - Jockey Jump
The Jockey Jump, also known as Waxie Maxie, on the Savoy label in 1948 and it got to number 11 on the Rhythm & Blues hit list. It was recorded earlier that year in Detroit, and that must have been done under the radar of the musicians union - 1948 saw the second recording strike of the American Federation of Musicians.
And that was the show for today - a mixed bag of tunes and for me, the highlight was that wonderful recording of Fats Waller on the organ of the Victor studio in 1927 - that I played second in this show. The story of this recording, and everything more I told you today, you can find it back on the web site of my program, and easiest way to find that is to search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Once in, look for show 248 in the episodes list or use the search fuction on the homepage. On my site you'll also find what'll be on for next week, and how to provide feedback - that is a link to my e-mail address, rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com.
For now I'm done, and next week there will be more great Rhythm & Blues. See you then, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!