The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - episode 33

Legends Mix #9

This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.

And legends is what you're gonna get today, a mix of leftovers of previous shows, but I immedialtey want to say, that doesn't mean that you get the stuff that wasn't good enough, it just didn't fit in earlier. Like with food, leftover day is a recipe for a varied dish and today it's not different. So let's start with Louis Jordan, with a song that sounds like food but it isn't - that chick's too young to fry is of course about a girl that's to young to love. On Decca, from 1946, here is Louis Jordan.

01 - Louis Jordan & his Tympany Five - That Chick's Too Young To Fry
02 - Lil Hardin Armstrong - Brown Gal

Brown Gal from 1936, that was Lil Hardin Armstrong, the then ex of Louis Armstrong whom she'd married in 1924. Hardin was born in 1898 in Memphis and grew up with her grandmother who'd been a slave in Oxford, MS, and her mother in a deeply religious household that considered the blues sinful. She met Louis Armstrong in the early years on his career in the orchestra of King Oliver in Chicago, and she made this New Orleans country boy fashionable for the big city. Later she started a course in tailoring in order to get a career in that but she found out that she'd always be in music business. Still a friend of Louis Armstrong, she sew his tuxedo for her graduation project. She died in 1971 shortly after Louis Armstrong after she collapsed while doing a memorial TV concert for him.

Brown Gal was covered by the New York-based vocal group Jive Bombers three times. Their most famous version was titled Bad Boy, originally Little Bad Boy, for the Savoy label in 1956 and became a big hit the year after. In this version lead singer Clarence Palmer had exploited his typical scatting style that made the record famous, but he'd recorded it twice before, in 1949 for the Coral label as Al Sears and the Sparrows and in 1952 as the Jive Bombers for Citation records. You'll hear this 1952 version now.

03 - Jive Bombers - Brown Boy
04 - Johnny Moore's Three Blazers - Drifting Blues

Johnny Moore's Three Blazers with the Drifting Blues - you heard the voice of Charles Brown who was the lead, and actually the star of Johnny Moore's band, but unfortunately Moore didn't want to credit Brown for that, and that's why he left the group for a succesful solo career. If you know early blues of Ray Charles from his years with the Down Beat and Swingtime labels, it's obvious how much Ray Charles was influenced by Brown.

So let's hear such a Ray Charles song. On Swingtime 178 the How Long Blues.

05 - Ray Charles - How Long, How Long Blues
06 - Lightnin' Hopkins - They Wonder Who I Am

From 1955 - Lightning Hopkins on a... somewhat used Herald 78, pretty rough blues and fantastic guitar work. More blues classics - what Hopkins does on the guitar is the piano for Memphis Slim. He recorded on the Bluebird label, a subsidiary of RCA Victor that had an impressive roster of blues musicians. This is from 1940 - the Grinder Man Blues.

07 - Memphis Slim - Grinder Man Blues
08 - Lowell Fulson - San Francisco Blues

More piano-backed blues with Lowell Fulson - and a guitar and a bass. Great mid forties music - the San Francisco Blues on Swingtime 112, the flip of Fulson's blues.

We're going even some more back in the forties blues with a 1940 recording of Champion Jack Dupree with the Black Woman Swing. Dupree had just traded his succesful boxing career for the blues when he recorded this for the Okeh label. Listen to the Black Woman Swing.

09 - Champion Jack Dupree - Black Woman Swing
10 - Helen Humes - Flippity Flop Flop

Now that's something completely different from these bare blues of Jack Dupree - Helen Humes backed up by the orchestra of Buck Clayton singing Flippety Flop Flop. It was on Mercury from 1948 and the flip of Mad about You.

Next Oh Babe by Jimmy Preston from 1950 and that's a cover of Louis Prima who did it earlier that year. Well there's quite a list on secondhandsongs.com of cover versions, all from the same year, and that include Benny Goodman, Roy Milton, Larry Darnell, Wynonie Harris with Lucky Millinder and his orchestra and Lionel Hampton. Here's Jimmie Preston's version.

11 - Jimmie Preston - Oh Babe!
12 - Nellie Lutcher - He's a Real Gone Guy

He's a real gone guy - that was Nellie Lutcher and she recorded that in 1947 for Capitol and I love that scat break in the middle. It got to number 2 on the R&B chart and though she was around in the music scene from the age of 14 in the mid-twenties, this was just her second hit.

I want to go on with a song that I played some time ago on a radio show where I did a geust appearance on WSLR of Sarasota, FL. It's a pretty rough text and it's from 1948 on the Exclusive label. Here is Joe Swift with That's Your Last Boogie.

13 - Joe Swift - That's Your Last Boogie
14 - Joe Morris feat. Laurie Tate - Anytime, Any Place, Anywhere

From an Atlantic 78 that was Laurie Tate with her very first single Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere backed up by the band of Joe Morris. She had been scouted by Atlantic co-founder Herb Abramson in Richmand, VA and it shot straight to the #1 spot in November 1950, and it was the first Atlantic release that also was pressed on that new 45 RPM format.

The song was also part of some legal action against Atlantic because of the similarity in lyrics to a song from 1933 titled Any Time, Any Day, Anywhere, and it was settled out of court that the song would be re-recorded with slightly altered lyrics. I can't say whether this was the first or the second take. Her later records were quite succesful too, but soon she decided to quit the music business, because she found that life on the road was too heavy for her.

Well the next song has been on this program before, but I want to play it again - it's a great classic. Fats Domino's first hit - the Fat Man, is considered one of the great forerunners of Rock 'n Roll, recorded in December 1949 for Imperial.

15 - Fats Domino - The Fat Man
16 - Joe Turner & Pete Johnson - Roll 'Em Pete

Roll 'em Pete - another influential record that helped shape Rock 'n Roll. You'd hardly imagine that this is actually pre-war music - Joe Turner and Pete Johnson recorded it in 1938 for the Vocalion label. Now Joe Turner recorded this quite a few more times with different artists in the fifties, in the Rock 'n roll era, but it proved that the sounds of rock 'n roll were there long before the craze began.

Next Lonnie Johnson, who had been an influential blues guitar player in the twenties and thirties but still remained pretty succesful after the war. Listen to his million-selling Tomorrow Night on King from 1948.

17 - Lonnie Johnson - Tomorrow Night
18 - Lloyd Glenn - Old Time Shuffle

And with Lloyd Glenn's Old Time Shuffle I've come to the end of another episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. I hope to have pleased you again with this mixed bag of goodies - well at least it's always fun to produce them. So if you liked them, or if you want to comment on my show just write me at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or find me on the web, simply do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my web site will show up first. For now, time's up so byebye and have a sunny and rocking day. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, for more of that hot Rhythm & Blues!