This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And I take you today to the year 1934 - when the American Decca label was born. I'll play the very first issues of the label's famous 7000 series, the 'Race' series, marketed to African-Americans. I'll tell you more about the label later, but first some music.
The series starts at 7000 with a few recordings credited to the Alabama Jug Band, but that was the combo of Clarence Williams, and he'd led a leading jazz band in the twenties, that at some point included both Louis Armstrong and Sydney Bechet. Now those days maybe were gone, but Williams rode on the popularity of the jug bands. He still had a notable ensemble that had managed itself well through the deepest of the Depression. The first two records are for his band. So here are Ida Sweet As Apple Cider and I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.
7000 - Alabama Jug Band - Ida Sweet As Apple Cider
7001 - Alabama Jug Band - I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate
And one more of Clarence Williams' jug band under the name of Alabama Jug Band - you got I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, and that was a composition from as far back as 1915 of his then-partner in his first music publishing house, Armand Piron. Now Williams was not the very best of musicians - either on the piano, the jug or as a singer - but a great talent scout, an outstanding band leader and a succesful businessman. Among the greats he worked with, come names like Louis Armstrong, Sydney Bechet, Bubber Miley, Tricky Sam Nanton, King Oliver, Tommy Ladnier, Buster Bailey, Coleman Hawkins, Cyrus St. Clair - and his wife Eva Taylor. He also worked as A&R man for the Okeh label.
Next another of the surviving jazz acts of the Great Depression - the loose aggregation of studio musicians that on other labels went as the Washboard Rhythm Kings or similar names. On Decca they were credited as the Georgia Washboard Stompers. Here are three of their early Decca issues - starting with the classsic Everybody Loves My Baby, then Who Stole The Lock Of The Henhouse Door en then and After You've Gone.
7002 - Georgia Washboard Stompers - Everybody Loves My Baby
7004 - Georgia Washboard Stompers - Who Stole The Lock
(jingle)
7006 - Georgia Washboard Stompers - After You've Gone
7007 - Peetie Wheatstraw - Doin' The Best I Can
Doin' The Best I Can, that was Peetie Wheatstraw and that was on Decca number 7007, and today I feature the birth of the Decca 7000 series in 1934. Now my most faithful listeners may remember that I done numerous shows on this series up to about a year ago, especially on their issues from 1940 and on. It's been even much longer that I did my first show on this 7000 Race series of Decca - that was four years ago. In that show I jumped through four years of the catalog in one hour - and it's got so many highlights that I now made a resolution once more to spell out the 7000 series, now starting with the very beginnings of the label.
And you know listeners - today is a good moment for a new resolution - this is show number 250. It means that I'm almost to the fifth anniversary of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. I remember after 52 shows, one year, how would I ever come up with enough ideas for subjects for the show, and enough material to play? So silly, after five years I still discover the most wonderful music to play for you, my faithful listeners.
The next one is number 7008 in the catalog. Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy were still husband and wife, and it was years before, that a talent scout for Columbia found them on Memphis' Beale Street busking in front of a barber shop. After their years for the Vocalion label, they switched to Decca in '34. This is their first release on their new label. Here is Someday I'll Be In The Clay.
7008 - Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe - Someday I'll Be In The Clay
7009 - Joe McCoy - Meat cutter blues
More Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie with the Meat Cutter Blues and that was number 7009 of the Decca catalog.
And so at the first beginnings of this series, let me tell you a little about Decca's start in American recording history. We're talking 1934, in the deep of the Great Depression, when British Decca, a record company established in 1929, spread its wings to New York. They bought the Brunswick pressing plants that had been unused for three years, and put Jack Kapp in place as a general manager. Kapp was a good manager, and the decision to price the records at 35 cents, much cheaper than the competition, and to attract a few very popular pop artists, that jumpstarted the label.
J. Mayo Williams was hired to set up the Race series that he set up within a month. Williams was no newbie in the recording industry - he'd managed race records for Paramount and Brunswick / Vocalion until the Depression put him out of work - that is, he survived the years in between as a football coach. Williams had a knack for getting everyone to sign for him and that was just what Decca needed.
Williams owned the Chicago Music Publishing Company - he set that up to cash on the royalties that in fact belonged to the musicians. Rural bluesmen wrote their own songs, and they were unaware of their rights - and often not knowing what they signed, they waived their rights to Williams after a few drinks they got in the studio.
Now Williams may have been African-American - he had a condescending attitude towards the musicians as if he were white middle class - that is, of course, to how racial relations were in the thirties - and he found hostility with some of the bluesmen when he tried to teach them a better articulation in their singing. Still many bluesmen signed for him - an agreement for one take rather than long-lasting exclusive contracts. In the Great Depression, twenty dollars for a few hours playing in the studio was a small fortune - way much better than you could ever earn busking on the streets or playing on house parties or in juke joints.
Next on number 7010 on the label, the Poor Boy Blues of Willie 'Poor Boy' Lofton.
7010 - Willie 'Poor Boy' Lofton - Poor Boy Blues
7011 - Roosevelt Sykes - Ethel Mae Blues
The Ethel Mae Blues of Roosevelt Sykes. On the Bluebird label he had himself billed as The Honeydripper, and that was his nickname or stage name, but here on Decca his releases went by his own name. Sykes had worked in St. Louis for many years after years as a wandering bluesman, and he met Jimmy Oden - and together they moved to Chicago where he recorded for both labels.
Decca worked out of two cities - New York and Chicago and it looks like Mayo Williams, who headed the race music department, he must have divided his time between the two branches traveling back and forth. As for Chicago, Williams had to share the market with Bluebird and Vocalion and its producer Lester Melrose - generally seen as Chicago's most important blues producer and he worked for both labels. In New York the competition was similar but a strong person like Melrose wasn't there.
For the next one Mary Johnson - former wife of Lonnie Johnson - from the St. Louis blues scene. From St. Louis it was just a short train ride to Chicago, where the recording studios were, and that's how come the St. Louis scene has been well-covered in recording, much better than cities in the South.
Here is on Decca number 7012 Mary Johnson with Those Black Man Blues.
7012 - Mary Johnson - Those Black Man Blues
7013 - Barrelhouse Buck McFarland - Lamp Post Blues
The Lamp Post Blues of Barrelhouse Buck McFarland - another St. Louis bluesman and pianist. In his late twenties recordings he sang more quietly, the voice he does on here well matches his barrelhouse playing style and the rasping fiddle.
Next one more of Mary Johnson. On Decca 7014 here are the Deceitful Woman Blues.
7014 - Mary Johnson - Deceitful Woman Blues
7015 - Charley Jordan - It Ain't Clean
It Ain't Clean - another St. Louis bluesman, Charley Jordan and that was an apparent follow-up to his 1930 hit on the Vocalion label - Keep It Clean, full of suggestive lyrics. Jordan must have toured the South in the twenties, until he settled in St. Louis, and there he did not just sing the blues, he also worked in alcohol bootlegging - after all we're talking the Prohibition years. Somewhere in his illegal activities he got in a shooting where he got a serious spinal injury leaving him walking on crutches for the rest of his life.
Next the first recording of a blues classic - the Fourty Four blues. Little Brother Montgomery is said to have written the song, and he taught it to Lee Green. Of course the most famous version is done by Roosevelt Sykes and he'd learned it from Green.
Here is Lee Green's version, on Decca number 7016, of the Number 44 Blues.
7016 - Lee Green - Number 44 Blues
7017 - St. Louis Jimmy - Pipe Layin' Blues
Amd the Pipe Laying Blues of St. Louis Jimmy Oden end today's show - dedicated to the birth of Decca's 7000 Race series. This was show number 250 and I could have done some celebration show for that, but those kinda shows I done in the past - they weren't the best ones I think. So it's better to look forward and to know that I have a new subject for some future shows. A new old subject cause I done more shows spelling out the catalog of Decca, starting in 1940 - but there's some 6 years before that.
There's more labels to feature and more subjects to think of. So I keep on producing the shows as long as you, my faithful listeners, keep on listening. Let me know if you like the idea - the mail address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And a simple web search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman brings you to my website where you can learn more about the program and about this episode - that is, as I told you, number 250.
Next week there will be more hot Rhythm & Blues. Until then, don't get the blues. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!