This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And as Renee always says in her announcement, the music that I play on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman sunk into oblivion with the rise of Rock 'n Roll and today I want to shine a light on the question how come that Rhythm & Blues got to be forgotten that easy. It's tightly connected to the rise of Rock 'n Roll so I'm going to tell that story again. I found a very interesting insight on the web, Morgan Wright's HoyHoy.com that told a lot that I already knew but helped me putting the puzzle together.
And to illustrate my story with some music, let's begin with what probably has been the most ground breaking, influential record in the making of Rock 'n Roll. And I'll play it in two versions. Here is Roy Brown, and after that Wynonie Harris, with Good Rocking Tonight.
01 - Roy Brown - Good Rockin' Tonight
02 - Wynonie Harris - Good Rockin' Tonight
Good Rocking Tonight was meant to be a parody on gospel. Now the words Rock and Roll, were originally terms to describe the movements of a ship in the waves. The words had always been used in black gospel meaning a religious experience, as in Rock me in the cradle of Thy love. But also, at the same time, rock and roll were used in secular music for either dancing or plain sex - mostly the latter.
In Good Rocking Tonight, Roy Brown tells the story of Deacon Jones going rocking in the meaning of partying, dancing, and the person of Deacon Jones was taken from a song of Louis Jordan who already had ridiculed the clergy letting his deacon steal from the collection plate, get drunk from the sacramental wine and have sex with the women of the congregation. Also the first line 'Have you heard the news' was taken from the popular gospel catch phrase 'have you heard the news about Jesus'.
Now Roy Brown had offered the song to Wynonie Harris before, but he had turned Brown down initally, but when Roy Brown's version got some attention of the African-American public, Harris recorded it too and to add to the gospel parody he added the gospel-style handclapping. Harris' version of the song hit number one on the R&B list and it started a fad where every Rhythm & Blues artist wanted to rock harder than his colleages.
Now the gospel back beat style had been used in the blues way before, and it wasn't very innovative or new what Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris had done. The difference with earlier examples of this mix is that other artists picked it up and started a small revolution in Rhythm & Blues.
A very early song with that typical hard back beat is Joe Turner and Pete Johnson with their Roll 'em Pete. This was 10 years earlier - in 1938.
03 - Big Joe Turner & Pete Johnson - Roll 'Em Pete
04 - Paul Bascomb - Rock and Roll
Paul Bascomb with Rock and Roll and like Roll 'em Pete this was also from before that groundbreaking Good Rocking Tonight, though more recent - from 1947. So no - Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris hadn't invented the style change to emphasis the back beat. It was done before, but sometimes it takes one big hit and maybe a little coincidence to start something. And sure dit start something. An avalanche of rock records came off - it seems like everyone wanted to out-rock the others. Listen to Tommy Brown with the Atlanta Boogie and Jimmy Preston with Rock the Joint - both from 1949.
05 - Tommy Brown - Atlanta Boogie
06 - Jimmy Preston - Rock the Joint
Now some time before I've done a show on the distinction between Rhythm & Blues and Rock 'n Roll and it's there where I gave my own idea about it - Rock 'n Roll being the whitened, mass marketed version of the originally African American sounds of Rhythm 'n Blues. I'm still convinced that's a valid definition, though maybe a bit controversial, because it connects that distinction with racial discrimination and segregation - but that's what American society was in the fifties.
In that Morgan Wright story he calls the new fusion of blues and gospel that started with Good Rocking Tonight Rock and Roll. Well of course you can discuss about the labels, but that's not so very interesting. The fact is, that this had become the new direction of Rhythm & Blues in the late forties and early fifties and it was an exclusively African American thing.
07 - Joe Lutcher - Rock-ola
08 - Goree Carter - Rock Awhile
You heard Goree Carter with Rock Awhile and before that Joe Lutcher with Rock-ola - the famous juke box brand. Both were from 1949. More rocking rhythm & blues from Jimmy Smith, also from 1949 and two years later Piano Red with Diggin' the boogie.
09 - Jimmy Smith - Rock That Boogie
10 - Piano Red - Diggin' The Boogie
Now why was Rhythm & Blues completely forgotten after Rock 'n Roll swept the nation? There are several reasons. First of all, before 1952, R&B hardly got any airplay. That made it an exclusively black style, that the mainstream white audience was oblivious of.
But that year also marked the massal introduction of the 45 RPM record. These were so much easier to store and to handle, that radio stations threw the old 78s out, so if they had any R&B oldies, they ended up in the dumpster, instead of being played among the new Rock 'n Roll records.
From the mid-fifties, when Rock 'n Roll took off as a national craze, no-one was interested in the old Rhythm & Blues. The major record companies focused on marketing their white Rock 'n Roll artists and saw no profit in re-releasing Rhythm & Blues from the treasury of masters they had. The independent labels had to put up with that and followed the same strategy. Also the market had changed, it were the teenagers now who bought the music, and they weren't ready to listen to the adult-targeted gritty lyrics of the Rhythm & Blues.
And white Rock 'n Roll did without the saxophone - other than Rhythm & Blues where the sax was the signature instrument, it became guitar based. So when the great rock bands of the sixties started to dominate the popular music, they related to their great examples, the blues guitarists, and that did help a blues revival in the sixties, but there would never come a rhythm & blues revival.
11 - Erline Harris - Jump and Shout
12 - Freddie Mitchell feat. Honey Brown - Rockin' and Jumpin'
You heard two rocking ladies, Erline Harris with Jump and shout from 1950 and from 1951 Honey Brown backed up by Freddie Mitchell's band with Rocking and Jumping.
Of course we cannot do with Little Richard in a show like this. Get Rich Quick from 1951 and after that the great H-Bomb Ferguson with the Rock H-Bomb Rock, also from 51.
13 - Little Richard - Get Rich Quick
14 - H-Bomb Ferguson - Rock H-Bomb Rock
My son, a teenager, would never have been exposed to Rhythm & Blues if it hadn't been his dad's favourite music. He's a great fan of dirty house, techno and rap, all of them styles of today, but he's got a good feeling for music and he once said to me that my music should get greater exposure. It was one of the incentives for me to start this program.
The problem is, that no matter how influential Rhythm & Blues may have been to our popular music, it was a small market, only accessible for the African American. Most people carry in their heart the music of their teenage years and the generation that enjoyed forties and early fifties Rhythm & Blues just is dying out - and so are the artists. Only few of the legends of this program are still alive.
Now it's because there's a certain general interest for roots music, that the Rhythm & Blues survived time. There's been quite a lot of it been re-released on CD and if you want to, you can browse Youtube and find huge amount of clips. But the hits figures next to these clips tell it all. The greatest R&B hit of all times, Joe Liggins Honeydripper, was posted four times on Youtube with the most popular clip having some 6,000 hits. Most other clips don't exceed 200. Take any random rock 'n roll hit and you will find figures that are at least a thousand times higher. That's why my program is only on smallish radio stations like this, and that's why you won't find Rhythm & Blues on the mainstream radio stations.
15 - Fats Domino - The Fat Man
16 - Treniers - Rocking is our bizness
Well rocking is my business too, you heard the Treniers from 1952 and before that Fats Domino's classic the Fat Man from 49. More rock with Frank 'Fat Man' Humphries and The Four Notes with Lulubell Blues and Piney Brown with How About Rocking With Me.
17 - Frank 'Fat Man' Humphries with The Four Notes - Lulubell Blues
18 - Piney Brown - How About Rocking With Me
And with Piney Brown I end another episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. It sometimes gets me the blues seeing how little interest there is for the music that was so influential, that so much shaped all popular music that came after its existence. And so I have to thank you, listeners, to get to the radio for my show, hopefully spreading the word about my program and, much more important, about this wonderful music. Keep on playing those old records and keep the Rhythm & Blues alive.
And in support of that, or if you want to comment on my program or ask me something, you can always e-mail me at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or find my web site, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and it will show up first. And like I said, I took a lot of information on today's show from the website hoyhoy.com, that is h.o.y.h.o.y.com, and I can say it's recommended reading.
Time's up for now, so byebye and have a great, rocking day. See you next time, where I will get you more of that great Rhythm & Blues, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!