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 from me, a great potpourri again of the best Rhythm & Blues and once more I'll show you what variety there is in that. And as always, there are some great stories that come with the music, but for now let me just shut up for a moment and play the first record. And that will be a number one hit for Louis Jordan and his Tympany five in 1947, the Boogie Woogie Blue Plate.
01 - Louis Jordan - Boogie Woogie Blue Plate
02 - Harlem Hamfats - We Gonna Pitch A Boogie Woogie
Going back all the way to 1936 with the Harlem Hamfats and their We Gonna Pitch A Boogie Woogie. The Harlem Hamfats weren't from Harlem but from Chicago, and they were put together by the pioneering and succesful record producer Jay Mayo "Ink" Williams who'd earned his nickname Ink for his knack to get the signatures of so many talented African American artists on recording contracts, and from 1934 he'd become an A&R man for Decca's Race records department.
This way, the Harlem Hamfats actually were formed as a band with the primary purpose of to make records. Well nowadays that is pretty common but this may have been the first group to be created that way - and to succesfully grow out into an act that was popular in Chicago and surroundings.
The musicians in the band came from different parts of America - Chicago, New Orleans and Mississippi and in their music you can hear elements of dixieland, blues and swing. They backed up singers like Rosetta Howard and Frankie Half-Pint Jaxon and they had recordings of their own with the vocals of "Kansas" Joe McCoy and the raspy voice of trumpetist Herb Morand.
Their first record Oh Red became a hit instantly and that brought them a contract with Decca for fifty sides. Among them other important songs like the one that I just played, and that has elements of the rhythms of Rock 'n Roll, and of course Joe McCoy's composition the Weed Smokers Dream, that he later, when the Hamfats were disbanded, re-wrote to the women's blues classic Why don't you do right, that was a hit for Lil Green and made famous by Benny Goodman's orchestra with a young Peggy Lee who adored Lil Green and loved this song so much, that Goodman made an arrangement on it for her to sing.
Now the subjects of the songs of the Harlem Hamfats were mainly sex, drugs and alcohol and that made their music unavailable outside the black community, but still this group has had an important influence on the making of Rhythm & Blues. That small group sound and their riff-based style served as an example for jump blues pioneer Louis Jordan, whose success and importance was overwhealming.
And you know - I have something with pioneering musicians that proved to be important precursors of Rhythm & Blues. So I'm gonna bother you with another song of the Hamfats and this one - with its minor key and that wonderful percussion in the piano break - is probably my favourite. And you know - my neighbours had to find out too because I love to play the theme on my saxophone. So here are once more the Harlem Hamfats with Root Hog or Die.
03 - Harlem Hamfats - Root Hog Or Die
04 - Sil Austin - Green Blazer
(jingle)
05 - Cathy Ryan with Lucky Millinder - It's A Sad, Sad Feeling
06 - Savannah Churchill - My Memories Of You
The great Savannah Churchill with My memories of you from 1954 on Decca. Before that you got Lucky Millinder's orchestra featuring the voice of Cathy Ryan singing It's A Sad, Sad Feeling and then I have to account for that great instrumental that you got before the jingle, well, that was Sil Austin with the Green Blazer.
And I want to continue with ... well actually it's an instrumental with some sparse talking in it. It tells, in a funny way, the story of a guy being arrested though it's not clear why. It was released on the Okeh label and I found it on a compilation CD of fifties Okeh Rhythm & Blues. here is Cliff 'King' Solomon with But Officer!
07 - Cliff 'King' Solomon - But Officer!
08 - Big John & The Buzzards - Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash
Woh what a voice - from that same album on Okeh releases that was Big John & the Buzzards with Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash.
And then now - as they say - for something completely different. And for that we go back to the year 1942, when in August the first strike of the American Federation of Musicians had started. In October of the same year, Billboard Magazine had started their Harlem Hit Parade, a list of music that was best sold with the African-American audience - or as they called it in these days, in the Race music market. The very first number one on it was Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy with Take it and Git. The version that I'm going to play now, by the Four Clefs, was released in 1943 but it's pretty hard to say whether this was recorded after the version of Andy Kirk or before and I don't know either how long the song had existed before.
There's another version around, also from 1943 by the Andrew Sisters. They recorded it as part of movie and that will probably have been their way to avoid the ban on recording that was in effect until the end of 1943 for Decca and the independent record labels, and even to mid-'44 for the major record companies.
The movie itself, titled How's about it, featured the Andrew Sisters as elevator operators at a music company "who break out singing at every opportunity", according to a review on the International Movie Database, that also says that it's "An okay world war II musical with a loose plot" and described as "lightly entertaining, peppy fun" - well, just what the nation needed during the war.
But I'm not putting you up with the Andrew Sisters. Here are the Four Clefs with Take It and Git
09 - Four Clefs - Take It and Git
10 - Ravens - Leave My Gal Alone
On the National label from 1949 that were the Ravens with Leave My Gal Alone. It's the bass voice of Jimmy Ricks of course that gives this vocal group its unique sound.
And I'm going on with a ballad of Varetta Dillard. This is a recording of July 1953 and that wonderful trumpet work is Bobby Johnson.
11 - Varetta Dillard - I Love You Just The Same
12 - Annisteen Allen - Pardon Me
A pretty light ditty of Annisteen Allen - Pardon Me and that was the flip of the much heavier Rough Lover that was released on Decca in 1957.
Next the Sh-Booms with Short Skirts - the flip of their version of Blue Moon, that is considered a doowop classic now, but it was from their very last studio session at Atlantic before they disbanded. By then they hadn't had a succesful single for years. Of course we remember this group under their name of the Chords with their immortal song Sh-Boom that later gave the group its name. Here is their Short Skirts from 1960.
13 - Sh-Booms - Short Skirts
14 - Texas Red & Jimmy - Comin' Home
Coming Home from 1957, and on the flip of the Bullseye 45 that this comes from, it is billed as Texas Red & Jimmy. Now it took some work to find out who that were. I stumbled upon a site somewhere in the backwaters of the web, by the name of wangdangdula.com - really - and that has a discography page on a guy named Sax Kari where the single is listed. It turns out that Isaac Saxton Kari Toombs - so the Sax in his name is not a nickname referring to a saxophone - he also performed under the names of "Dirty Red" Morgan and probaby Texas Red. The story leaves open who Jimmy was. The A-side BTW bills Texas Red & The Contours.
Now there's another page devoted to Sax Kari on the promotional web site of a book written by Preston Lauterbach titled "the Chitlin' Circuit and the road to rock 'n roll" and it turns out that Sax Kari had worked for the controversial Indianapolis night club boss Denver Ferguson who, in the thirties, had transformed Indiana Avenue into a neon-lit night club street where every African-American top act was to be enjoyed every day - and that against the odds of the great depression of the thirties and the Prohibition.
Sax Kari apparently has lead a big band, and actually he has worked in any kind of black music and entertainment from swing to hiphop and stand up comedy and he even composed the soundtrack for a movie in what they call the Blaxploitation genre - seventies, stereotype all-black movies - with a title with the N-word in it and I'm afraid it didn't make it to a classic of the movie industry. According to the International movie database it was a 1978 action comedy and there even existed a soundtrack LP of the movie music.
Well - it didn't make Kari rich - he lived his old age in a beaten down trailer in South Florida.
Well enough story for now - let's return to the music. Here is Memphis Slim with the Five O'Clock Blues.
15 - Memphis Slim - Five O'Clock Blues
16 - Big Joe Turner - Well All Right
And that was Big Joe Turner with Well All Right. And there's just enough time to squeeze two more in this hour, so let's continue to the next one, from 1957 on the Luniverse label, Buddy Lucas with Bo-Lee.
17 - Buddy Lucas - Bo-Lee
18 - Wild Bill Moore Sextette - South Parkway Hop
Wild Bill Moore was that with the South parkway Hop, the same Wild Bill Moore that provides for the outtro tune of each show of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and that goes uncredited every time, so let me just tell you, the instrumental that you hear now is titled the Bongo Bounce.
Well I did a lot of storytelling today, the music scene of the Rhythm & Blues is a colourful one and I hope you enjoyed both the blabla and the music. So why don't you let me know and send me an e_mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or visit my site, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and you'll find my site on top of the search results. Time's up for now so byebye and have a real rocking day. See you next time on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!