This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And it's been a week again since we seen each other, my faithful listeners, so here I am again with a great mix of the best of Rhythm & Blues from a time spanning the roaring twenties to the rocking fifties. And they start in 1927 with an early recording of Lucille Bogan. She'd recorded some vaudeville songs three years before for OKeh, but these were her first blues recordings, that she done for the legendary Paramount in the label's hearquarters in the tiny town of Grafton, WI.
Here she is with the Kind Stella Blues.
01 - Lucille Bogan - Kind Stella Blues
02 - Jimmy Wade & His Dixielanders feat. Punch Miller - Gates Blues
From '28 on the Brunswick label that was Punch Miller backed by Jimmy Wade and his Dixielanders with the Gates Blues. Trumpeter Punch Miller was one of the many New Orleans musicians that went up to Chicago. He was seen in the bands of Jelly Roll Morton and Tiny Parham and the obscure combo King Mutt and his Tennesee Thumpers. Here he does the vocals with the band of Jimmy Wade, also a trumpeter and band leader in Chicago since 1916.
And we stay with the Brunswick label with someone whose versatility and influence is largely forgotten - singer, actor, comedian and songwriter Sam Theard. When he recorded his self-penned I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You, he already had some years working in circuses and nightclubs behind him. You Rascal You would be covered by a number of great musicians - including Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams.
He wrote more songs - most of them in the forties and fifties, including a number of Louis Jordan's hits. In the thirties and forties he had a comedy show in the Apollo in Harlem and in the last years of his life, he appeared in TV series such as Little House on the Prarie and Sanford and Son.
Here he is with a '29 recording on the Brunswick label, She's Givin' It Away.
03 - Lovin' Sam Theard - She's Givin' It Away
04 - Fats Waller - Harlem Fuss
(jingle)
05 - Charley Patton - Mississippi Boll Weavil Blues
06 - Little Hat Jones - Cherry Street Blues
From 1930 on the OKeh label that was Little Hat Jones with the Cherry Street Blues. Jones got his nickname for the ragged hat he wore while on a construction job. He done only ten recordings in his own name, all of them in 1929 and 1930, and nine accompanying Texas Alexander, one of the musicians he used to team up with in juke joints and on fish fries. In the thirties he was found in various jobs, apparently he'd quit professional music. His rediscovery was after he died when music researchers started to explore the Okeh catalog.
You got more that I have to account for - before Little Hat Jones that was Charley Patton with the Mississippi Boll Weavil Blues - and Patton is seen as one of the great Delta bluesmen. Patton most likely was born in the early 1890s and that makes him part of the older generation of bluesmen. He must have been of mixed African-American, Native American and white ancestry and in one of his blues he referred to the Cherokee Nation and the Indian Territory, now a part of Oklahoma. Patton was a Southerner - he lived all of his life in Mississippi. This Mississippi Boll Weavil Blues was done, like all of his recordings, for the Paramount label. For his recordings - four sessions in 1929 and 1930 - he travelled to the studios in either Richmond, IN or Grafton, WI.
Then there's the instrumental that was before the jingle - you got Fats Waller and his Buddies with the Harlem Fuss - and these buddies were an interracial band featuring great names like Jack Teagarden and Henry Red Allen. Like all of Waller's early output this was released on the Victor label.
For the next one we go to the year 1930 with J.T. Funny Paper Smith. His nickname was probably a misspelling of Funny Papa and during the twenties and thirties he played at fairs and dances in Dallas. His recordings have been done in Chicago. In the early thirties he spent some years in prison for killing a man in a fight that was either about a woman or gambling. The songs he recorded in 1935 for Vocalion never saw daylight. He died in 1940, he must have been somewhere between 45 and 55 years old, cause his year of birth is believed to be somewhere between the mid-1880s and 1896.
On Vocalion here is the Good Coffee Blues.
07 - J.T. 'Funny Paper' Smith - Good Coffee Blues
08 - Clarence Williams - Jungle Crawl
And we stay with the Vocalion label with the Jungle Crawl of Clarence Williams from 1934, done for Vocalion. Now most of the recordings he done in the mid-thirties are goodtime danceable washboard-and-jug backed tunes, but on this one he shows he can an apparently Duke Ellington inspired goodie too. Now of course - Williams is associated with the greats of the jazz, most notably Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong, but that was in the mid-twenties and through the thirties his repertoire had become, say, a lot more simple.
Next on Decca I'll Keep Sittin' On It of Georgia White - a sexually charged song backed by Richard M. Jones on the piano. It's about a woman selling a chair only for the right price - but the double entendre is obvious, and it's both a song about prostitution and on female self confidence. The flip is the classic Trouble In Mind, that was written by the pianist on this goodie, and that saw its first recording twelve years before, in 1924. For Georgia White it became her signature song.
But here is I'll Keep Sittin' On It.
09 - Georgia White - I'll Keep Sittin' On It
10 - Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson - Ever-Ready Blues
From 1947 on the Mercury label that was Eddie Cleanhead Vinson with the Ever Ready Blues. Vinson had been in the band of Cootie Williams as a singer and saxophonist, when he started his own big band, and on Mercury he had his hit Old Maid Boogie. When Rhythm & Blues got out of fashion, he made a comeback in the jazz scene of the sixties and seventies - first with Cannonball Adderley and later with Johnny Otis, Count Basie and Arnett Cobb.
Many of his forties blues were with lyrics that were too suggestive to be on radio, and this Ever-Ready Blues is no exception.
For the next one we go to the year 1949, with Mabel Scott on the Exclusive label. Here she is with That Ain't The Way To Love.
11 - Mabel Scott - That Ain't The Way To Love
12 - Lil Hardin Armstrong - Joogie Boogie
The Joogie Boogie of Lil Hardin Armstrong and she recorded that for J. Mayo Williams. Williams knew her of course from his Decca years, and in the forties she'd become a regular in the Chicago scene. After Mayo Willians started out for his own, with his commercially very unsuccesful Ebony label, she must have recorded twice for him - in 1949 and '59. The masters of both occasions ended up on other labels, the '59 session on Trend, and the '49 session was traded to Ivan Ballen, and he owned the Philadelphia-based 20th Century label. The Joogie Boogie that I just played, made it to the Gotham label, one of Ballen's subsidiary labels.
And we stay in the year 1949 with Ivory Joe Hunter. On the King label, this is the All States Boogie.
13 - Ivory Joe Hunter - All States Boogie
14 - Blind Willie McTell as Pig 'N' Whistle Red - A To Z Blues
Recorded for the Regal label in 1950, but unreleased at the time, that was Blind Willie McTell with the A to Z Blues. It was first released in 1962 on an LP titled Livin' With the Blues on the Savoy label, credited to Peg 'n Whistle Red. Now Pig 'n Whistle Red was one of the names that McTell used - named after the barbecue joint in Atlanta where McTell used to busk on the parking lot of the place. The recordings he done for the Regal label have been gathered on a CD with the name Pig 'n Whistle Red.
Next from 1951, recorded in Los Angeles, Mr. Big Head of Red Mack. Mack grew up in Los Angeles and started playing the piano, later switching to trumpet, and later in his career he also played the organ and the drums. In the thirties he worked with Les Hite, Lionel Hampton and Lorenzo Flennoy, and in the early forties with the all-white band of Will Osborne, that gave him a lot of troubles while touring the South.
Around 1950 he recorded for the Gold Seal label. This didn't make it to a release. Here is Red Mack with Mr. Big Head.
15 - Red Mack - Mr Big Head
16 - Titus Turner - What'cha Gonna Do for Me
17 - Orioles - Barfly
And some vocal delight of the Orioles ends today's episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - ladykiller Sonny Til was extremely popular with the girls in their following. You got a nice blues, the Barfly, something different from the sweet lovesongs that got so popular with the vocal groups, and this was released on the Jubilee label - that they had their greatest hits on.
Before that, on the Okeh label from 1951 Titus Turner with What'cha Gonna Do for Me.
And that was it for today, listeners, and I hope you enjoyed it. Of course let me know - feedback is much appreciated. You can send e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And all of today's story, you can find it on my website, and you can also find out more about this show and what'll be on for next week. Just do a Google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will show up top of the results. Once in - watch for show number 254 in the list of episodes - that's this one.
Next week I'll be back with more of the hottest of Rhythm & Blues. See you then, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!