The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - episode 40

The Bullet label

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

And the legends of today are all from one record label, Bullet records - today I feature this Nashville-based label and some of the best Rhythm & Blues that came from it. It's pretty much overlooked, but Bullet brought out some of the great names like Cecil Gant and Wynonie Harris, and it was the place where the recording career began of one of the greatest bluesmen ever - B.B. King.

But let's not waste time talking, after all I know you came here for the music and not for my voice. Let's just start with Bullet number 250 where the Race series began. From 1946 is here Cecil Gant with Nashville Jumps.

01 - Cecil Gant - Nashville Jumps
02 - Cecil Gant - Loose As A Goose

Loose as a goose was the flip of Nashville jumps on Bullet 250.

The bullet label was founded in 1946 when, just after the war, a lot of small independent record companies were born. But for the south it was one of the first and it was definitely the first indie for Nashville. It were a hillbilly singer, Wally Fowler, a coin machine dealer, C.V. Hitchcock and a promotion man Jim Bulleit who jumped into the business without any experience, starting with hillbilly and blues, and mainly by the lack of competition they managed to get it working. Their jump into the race music market was also without any knowledge of the field. Yet with Cecil Gant they had a strong musician, and on the sleeve notes of a re-issue album on the British Krazy Kat label, Jim Bulleit is interviewed and he recalls Gant doing his songs mainly out of improvisation with a bottle of booze on the piano.

Now certainly a strong Rhythm & Blues singer for Bullet was Wynonie Harris, who cut four sides for the label when he was in town for a gig. Unfortunately for Bullet they didn't have Harris under contract - in the same month he recorded for Apollo and Hamp-Tone too. Listen to his Lightning Struck The Poorhouse that was released in April, 1946 as the flip of Dig This Boogie that you will get after that.

03 - Wynonie Harris - Lightning Struck The Poorhouse
04 - Wynonie Harris - Dig This Boogie

(jingle)

06 - Rudy Greene - Buzzard Pie
05 - Rudy Greene - No Good Woman Blues

Rudy Greene with two sides that he recorded for the Bullet label, Buzzard Pie and the No Good Woman Blues, records that went pretty much unnoticed for the time. His fame came much later, in 1956, with his immortal Jucy Fruit that was released by the Ember label.

Next - Red Calhoun and his band the Dallas Swingers with Here Comes The Man With The Gin that was released as Bullet 262. Though his name sounds so familiar with me, and I do have a few tracks from him on various albums it's pretty hard to find information on him. He held court - as someone wrote in an answer to a clip on YouTube - in the Rose Room in Dallas, and that clip shows a well-sized big band under the name of the name of Royal Swing Band.

I've been watching another clip of this band uploaded by the same user, a fragment of what appears to be the same music movie titled 'The woman's a fool to think her man is all her own' that is an all-black comedy movie. There's another movie around and still on DVD featuring this obscure orchestra, titled Juke Joint. Guess I'll have to look that up on Amazon. Anyhow for Bullet this was the only record for Calhoun's orchestra. Listen to Here Comes The Man With The Gin.

07 - Red Calhoun - Here Comes The Man With The Gin
08 - St. Louis Jimmy - Going Down Slow

That was St. Louis Jimmy with Going Down Slow which was a re-recording of his 1941 classic, and where the original didn't have a guitar in it, this one did. We'll get to him later in this show.

Next - a recording of local saxophonist Sherman Williams and he formed a Nshville-based band in 1940. In 1947 they recorded for Bullet and that yielded four records of which I will play two sides. First listen to I'm Lucky with my Brown Gal that was released as the flip of Bullet 277.

09 - Sherman Williams - I'm Lucky With My Brown Gal
10 - Sherman Williams - Red Head Blues (My Flamin' Gal)

More Sherman Williams with the Red Head Blues a.k.a. My Flamin' Gal that was released on Bullet 283. And we're going on with a somewhat cracky Bullet number 278 with St. Louis Jimmy. Though most people might never heard of him, he is the original artist of some of the most classic blues, such as Going Down Slow that was covered my numerous blues artists and the sublime Florida Hurricane, that features a young Muddy Waters on guitar and Sunnyland Slim on Piano. For Bullet he did three singles, including the re-recording of Going Down Slow that you heard before, and My Trouble that you're gonna hear now.

11 - St. Louis Jimmy - My Trouble
12 - Max 'Blues' Bailey - Delinquency Blues

Max 'Blues' Bailey with the Delinquency Blues, another of these bluesmen that don't ring a bell for the greater public and that information is pretty hard to find on. Max did two singles for Bullet and this was number 306.

Next - the flip of one of the most succesful records for Bullet - it hit number one in December of 1948. I'm talking about Red Miller's Bewildered - an altered cover of the 1938 hit of Tommy Dorsey. I played that just recently so for today I'l go for the other side - here is the Nobility Boogie.

13 - Red Miller Trio - Nobility Boogie
14 - B.B. King - Miss Martha King

B.B. King with his first recording - Miss Martha King. Well nowadays B.B. King is considered one of the greatest bluesmen who still tours the world - he's a regular appearance on the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam, here in that little country of mine. But back in the late forties, he wasn't just singing the blues - he was living them, playing the juke joints around and desperately trying to get himself recorded. The boss of the radio station where he worked finally got him to Bullet, some 500 miles away from Memphis and Miss Martha King is a yielding of that first studio session.

And I do wanna play the flip of it too. Listen to When Your Baby Packs Up And Goes.

15 - B.B. King - When Your Baby Packs Up And Goes
16 - Tuff Green - I Love My Baby

Tuff Green's orchestra with I love my baby and I do wonder who's the lady that does the vocals. You had heard Tuff green before - he does the bass on the B.B. King record I played before that and also on the next one - once more B.B. King. Here is I got the blues.

17 - B.B. King - I Got The Blues
18 - Roosevelt Sykes - Candy Man Blues

And with the Candy Man of Roosevelt Sykes another show of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman has come to an end. And I hope you agree that that little record label Bullet put some real neat Rhythm & Blues in the grooves of their records. The Candy Man Blues were from 1949 and that was the year that Jim Bulleit left the label. He was involved later in the JB label.

Bullet folded in 1953 and left a legacy of great tracks, many to be reissued on all kinds of albums, in blues, Rhythm & Blues but also country music - in these days they called that Hillbilly. I couldn't play all of them, actually not even half of the R&B of Bullet, in this hour.

So I hope you liked the selection I made, and if so, or if not, or if you have anything to ask or comment om my show, do drop me an e-mail at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or find me on the web, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first in the search results.

As for now, my hour is full so I have to say byebye, and have a wonderful and rocking day. and I hope to see you next time on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!