This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And welcome back my faithful listeners, welcome back to the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and as usual I'll get you the greats from the roaring twenties to the rocking fifties. And just last time, I told you, in these unthemed shows like today's where I just play a mixed bag of tunes, a lot of it comes from previous shows where I wasn't able to play all recordings of the label that I featured. So as a leftover from last show is the first one for today. Here is from 1944 on the Session label the Canal Street Blues of Richard M. Jones.
01 - Richard M. Jones - Canal Street Blues
02 - Pete Brown - Pete Brown's Boogie (P.B. Boogie)
And another source of what I play here, on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman is, when I hunt for tracks on a show on a label, they come with a whole album that I didn't have yet. So last week I played Jim's Idea of Pete Brown, and I found that on the Classics CD on him, and that also had this goodie - Pete Brown's Boogie and that was from 1944 on the Savoy label.
Saxophonist Pete Brown was a sideman in great demand and during the thirties he worked with virtually everyone of name and standing. In '39 he started leading bands, under his own name but also he led the jump band of Louis Jordan for a while.
For the next one, and that's a leftover from a show that I done on the Jax subsidiary of the more known Sittin' In With label, you'll get Rufus Beacham and his Tampa Toppers in what was the first release of the label. Here is Do You Know How To Boogie.
03 - Rufus Beacham & His Tampa Toppers - Do You Know How To Boogie
04 - Jay McShann - Have You Ever Loved A Woman
(jingle)
05 - Amos Milburn - Walkin' Blues
06 - Julia Lee - Don't Come Too Soon
And that were four in a row - after Rufus Beacham that was Jimmy Witherspoon fronting the band of Jay McShann with Have You Ever Loved A Woman on the Mercury label from 1946.
Witherspoon had learned to sing in the church choir as a kid, and his mother always had disapproved of the blues. When he was sixteen years old, he took the train to California and got work as a dishwasher, later cook. But by then, he had decided that he wanted to sing the blues for a profession. Soon he sat in with Art Tatum and Slam Stewart singing the blues at Lovejoy's - a joint on Los Angeles Central Avenue.
In '44 Jay McShann saw him shouting the blues in Vallejo, CA - and Witherspoon never would have thought to get to work with such a great band leader. It brought him into the spotlights as one of the greatest blues shouter of his time.
You gor more - after the jingle you got the Walkin' Blues of Amos Milburn and he recorded that for Aladdin in 1949. By then the band that accompanied him was billed as the Chicken Shackers after Milburn's earlier hit Chicken Shack.
And then finally that was Don't Come Too Soon of Julia Lee, also from 1949 and that was on the Capitol label. By then she was a middle-aged woman, and just enjoying the first taste of success with her playful and sometimes a bit dirty blues. Most do not know that she already recorded in the late twenties with the band of her brother George E. Lee, and she'd fronted his band from 1920 when she was some 18 years old, up to 1934 when the band broke up. In jazz hotbed Kansas City she always found work, and I suppose it's mainly the limited recording opportunities in her hometown that caused that she wasn't recorded more often before her breakthrough in 1944 with her contract for the then brand new Capitol label.
Next a recording of Slim Gaillard on the Okeh label - but the real star of this Bassology is of course his bassman, Slam Stewart. He got that immediately recognizable gimmick playing the upright bass with the bow and simultaneously humming or scat singing an octave higher.
Here is from 1941 Bassology.
07 - Slim Gaillard - Bassology
08 - Deek Watson & The Brown Dots - Long Legged Lizzie
Deek Watson and his Brown Dots with Long Legged Lizzie on the Manor label released in December of 1946, after the vocal group with that name had already disbanded - that is, the group went on as the Sentimentalists and left their founder and leader behind.
Watson before had been a member of the Ink Spots and left after a dispute on who was the leader of the band. Initially he'd started a new group also named the Ink Spots and when he was forced no longer to use the name, he named it the Brown Dots announcing a whole new formula and sound to start with. Well that new sound was a copy of the Ink Spots sound, and that Yeaaah in the intro - he done it in recordings of the Ink Spots before.
Now the Sentimentalists - and they were famous for their songs with Savannah Churchill - they went on succesfully as the Four Tunes. In the meanwhile Deek Watson kept on trying to get and keep together vocal groups, often again with the name of the Ink Spots, and often again getting in trouble with the real Ink Spots for the use of their name.
Next a 1941 recording of pianist Erskine Butterfield with his combo, probably meant for radio broadcast, and it was released on record in 1983. Here is Something's Bound to Happen.
09 - Erskine Butterfield - Something's Bound to Happen
10 - Jesse James - Sweet Petunia
Sweet Petunia of thirties blues singer Jesse James and that was an unreleased song at the time. Now outlaw and bank robber with confederate sympathies Jesse James someway made it to a legendary figure, as a rebel against the new times of the late 19th century, and even as a Robin Hood-like hero. Many singers took his name, including this obscure bluesman.
Next a recording of Bee Turner backed by Roosevelt Sykes and with that we make a dive back to 1930. On the Paramount label, here is Rough Treatin' Daddy.
11 - Roosevelt Sykes with Bee Turner - Rough Treatin' Daddy
12 - Mary Johnson - Friendless Gal Blues
On the Brunswick label The Friendless Gal Blues of Mary Johnson, and with that we stayed in the year 1930. Mary Johnson was the wife of Lonnie Johnson - researchers are not sure about her maiden name. In 1915 she moved to St. Louis and got into the local blues scene and she sang the blues there until the mid-forties. Later she gave up the blues for religion and work in a hospital. In 1960 she was tracked down and interviewed by blues historian Paul Oliver. By then she lived in poverty with her mother.
Next from 1925 on the Columbia label Bessie Smith with her version of the jazz classic I Ain't Got Nobody And Nobody Cares For Me. And as usual, Bessie shows off she deserves the billing Empress of the blues that Columbia gave her - and that her voice is powerful enough to sound strong on an acoustical recording.
The song was published in 1916 as a composition of Spencer Williams with lyrics of Roger A. Graham - but two versions had been copyrighted before, an unpublished version in 1914 and one published in 1911 by the St. Louis musicians Clarence Brandon and Billy Smythe.
Here is Bessie Smith with I Ain't Got Nobody.
13 - Bessie Smith - I Ain't Got Nobody
14 - Duke Ellington - Awful Sad
And we stay in the roaring twenties with this goodie of Duke Ellington. It was recorded in October of 1928 for the Brunswick label. Now it's not one of the tunes he recorded over and over again, and not so much filled with the antics of Bubber Miley and Tricky Sam Nanton that so much defined the sound of Ellington - but it is 100% Ellington style. And well, there have been a few, but just a few rare attempts to copy his style, but despite his vast influence, his style remained unique during the twenties and early thirties.
Next another of the greatest of jazz - Louis Armstrong shows his trumpet skills again on here with his Hot Five. The music is a composition of Spencer Williams - the same composer who did I Ain't Got Nobody that I played before Duke Ellington. Williams is known for many standards, most of them written in the 1910s or twenties. From 1925 he spent most of his time in Europe. He composed the songs for Josephine Baker when she was the star of the Folies Bergere in Paris.
This Skip the Gutter is also his. Here is Louis Armstrong.
15 - Louis Armstrong - Skip the Gutter
16 - Trixie Smith - Desperate Blues
And this Desperate Blues of Trixie Smith ends another hour with the greats from the roaring twenties to the rocking fifties. This one was from 1921 or '22 and released on the Black Swan label, the first African-American owned label in history. Black Swan was started to bring records of African American artists doing the blues - but that start was pretty reluctant, because most black musicians wanted to stay on the safe side and do popular songs, and in the meanwhile white combos tried out the new waves of the blues that were, since the mid-1910s, available on sheet music.
The blues, essentially they were a regional style from the Delta, and by publishing own compositions in that style, men like W.C. Handy in effect, they introduced a new phenomenon - the urban blues. Now with the migration of workers from the South the blues came up North anyhow, but they were preceded by these songs published as sheet music.
Well it's all about the history of the blues and the early jazz that I bring you on here, listeners, and you can let me know what you think about it. Feedback is greatly appreciated, and the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And all of today's story is to be found on the website of my show, and easiest way to find that is to search Google for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - it will show up first in the search results. Once in, this is show 273 in the episodes list and you're gonna need that number 273 to easily find it. Of course you can also find out all about this show and take a peek on what's on the menu for next week.
Cause that's how long you're gonna have to wait again, my faithful listeners, so be sure to tune in next week on this radio station, for more Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!