This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And what a legend for today, as I feature the great and influential record producer and A&R man - and football player and coach Jay Mayo "Ink" Williams and as for the music, I zoom in on the eleven years that he worked for Decca, and you can surely say that he made Decca the leading label for what was then called race music, music made by and aimed for African Americans. I'm talking about the pre-war and wartime years and by that time indeed no record label issued such an consistent amount and quality of African American music as Decca did.
You will get a full biography of this man, but there's also a lot of music. Actually I had to make choices as I could easily fill many hours with the music that he produced. So let me start with one of these great artists of the thirties, that Williams brought to Decca. Here is Alberta Hunter with Someday Sweetheart.
01 - Alberta Hunter - Someday Sweetheart
02 - Bumble Bee Slim - Ease Me Down
From 1936 on Decca Bumble Bee Slim, whose real name was Amos Easton with Ease Me Down and he was one of the many artists that were brought to Decca by Jay Mayo 'Ink' Williams, the important and influential record producer of the pre-war black music. He got his nickname Ink for his knack to get so many African-American artists to sign for him.
He was born in 1894 and he was a top player in the American Football league for the Hammond Pros and several other teams until 1926. In 1924, while still being a football professional, he started his career in the recording industry for Paramount records as a talent scout and session supervisor in Chicago. He brought Ma Rainey to the recording microphone and many others, such as Papa Charlie Jackson, King Oliver, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tampa Red, Thomas Dorsey and Ida Cox.
In '27 he started his own label called Black Patti, but that failed within a few months, and soon he got himself a job with Brunswick records for its Vocalion subsidiary. Then the 1929 Wall Street crash came and the sales of records fell. Williams had to find himself another occupation and that was as a football coach for a the Atlanta-based Morehouse College.
In 1934 Decca USA started as the American branch of the British Decca and it's for this new company that Williams was hired to manage the race records department. And today, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, I'm presenting you some of the music that he produced, mostly in these pre-war years, for Decca.
03 - Georgia White - If You Can't Get Five Take Two
04 - Georgia White - Honey Dripper Blues
Recorded in July 1935 for Decca you heard the Honey Dripper Blues and before that from '36 a song about prostitution, If You Can't Get Five Take Two - both were great blues of Georgia White.
More findings of Jay Mayo Williams - Peetie Wheatstraw with Good Home Blues and Bill Gaither with Old Coals Will Kindle. Both are taken from CD issues of the Document records series that feature the complete recordings of these artists. And well, you put on a CD but what you get is the authentic shellac sound, often from well-used records and often not too good recording technology. I guess it was the only material they could get. Well in this show I've never been afraid of a crack in the grooves.
Here is Peetie Wheatstraw.
05 - Peetie Wheatstraw - Good Home Blues
06 - Bill Gaither - Old Coals Will Kindle
(jingle)
07 - Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Drop Down Mama
08 - Sleepy John Estes - Fire Department Blues
You heard two blues of 'Sleepy' John Estes. The Fire department blues from 1938 and before that Drop Down mama from 1935 and the harmonica on that was Hammie Nixon who's been a lifelong friend of Estes. His nickname referred to his habit to fall asleep in public, not sure whether he had some form of narcolepsy or not.
Blues conaisseurs think his pre-war output is best, and from 1941 to 1952 he didn't record at all until a brief and pretty much unnoticed return to Sam Phillips' Sun studios. When the blues revival came he was tracked down in 1962 living in poverty and completely blind, but he returned succesfully on the blues stages.
Another man that J. Mayo Williams contracted for Decca - Bill Gaither who was also known as Leroy's Buddy. He may not have been very famous but for his work as a songwriter and musician he is mentioned as an important and influential bluesman by musicologists - well for whatever that is worth. I think it's just good blues. Listen to his New Pains In My Heart.
09 - Bill Gaither - New Pains In My Heart
10 - Blind Boy Fuller - If You See My Pigmeat
The great Blind Boy Fuller with If You See My Pigmeat and he recorded only a few songs for Decca, his home label was Columbia. Like so many blind bluesmen he had started singing and playing the guitar out of necessity, not being able to work because of his handicap. He had become immensely popular in the late thirties, but he was also a short-tempered man and an excessive drinker. We lost him in 1941 at the age of 33 to several drink related diseases.
Today I feature the important record producer J. Mayo Williams here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and apart from a music man he played an important role in the just-new National Football League. He'd been an outstanding athlete in high school, winning Illinois state championships for the 50 and 100 yard dash. He attended Brown university in Providence, Rhode Island where he graduated in 1921 with a major in philosophy and then tried his luck in the fledgling National Football League where he played for the Hammond Pros of Hammond, IN, being one of the only three black players in the league. Next to football he had to find himself other occupations. He reportedly has transported bootleg alcohol for a while, wrote a sports column in an African-American newspaper and helped out a friend who owned a small record label.
And that's what brought him into the music industry. With no knowledge at all about either the recording industry or the music itself, he talked himself into the Paramount company and he proved to be succesful, signing Ma Rainey, for whom he produced "See See Rider" in 1924, with a young New Orleans cat on the trumpet - some Louis Armstrong. Other discoveries of him were Papa Charlie Jackson, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Ida Cox.
We'll get to more about this remarkable man later. Now it's time for some more music that he produced for Decca.
12 - Sister Rosetta Tharpe - My Man And I
13 - Trixie Smith - Trixie Blues
Trixie Smith with a re-recording of her Trixie Blues, that she did for Decca in 1938 and before that you got Sister Rosetta Tharpe, known for her gospels but this may be still very much in gospel style, it is about the love for her man. You heard My Man and I, and both were also important artists that signed for J. Mayo Williams.
Now what kind of man was this J. Mayo Williams? From the different biographies that are on the web, well, pretty easily you get an idea. First of all, no matter how important Williams was for African-American music, I don't think he did that out of a vision, from an idealistic viewpoint, from a notion that he should promote the music of his fellow African Americans.
He was first of all a good businessman and probably a very smooth talker, being able to talk himself into the job of an executive in the music industry with no experience in it, and his talking will have been his knack to sign any black artist for him. Someone who was a fast learner too, since despite his lack of experience he did succeed. And probably very intelligent and with a good sense for business.
But as usual as it was in the business, he didn't treat the black artists with any more respect and he didn't pay them better than others did. Musicians were often paid off with some twenty or thirty dollars, and often he credited himself for the songwriting to get the royalties. As I said, that was pretty common practice in these years, especially where it were illiterate, black country musicians.
He also had acquired himself white middle-class manners - and to the musicians that surely didn't make him 'one of us'. It puzzled several of them, like, back in 1927, Little Brother Montgomery, who initially refused to sign, thinking that black man that said to be an executive, was fooling him. J. Mayo Williams didn't socialize with his musicians - he kept his distance like white executives did.
More music from the artists that he managed - here is Alberta Hunter with the Yelping Blues.
14 - Alberta Hunter - Yelping Blues
15 - Harlem Hamfats - You Can't Win In Here
J. Mayo Williams' contribution to the development of Rhythm & Blues is enormous, and one of the things that caused that is that he often did things different from others. Now take the group that I just played - the Harlem Hamfats. First of all this wasn't an existing combo, Williams just put a few musicians from all over the country together with the sole purpose of to record. No-one ever had done that before. And that group that he made proved to be new recipe for race music when, during the war, the big bands lost their influence. The sound of small combos had everything in it to become popular - and it did. The Harlem Hamfats were an important inspiration of yet another discovery that J. Mayo Williams brought to Decca - Louis Jordan. Well, we do know the success story of him, and this way, the sound of the Hamfats provided the DNA for jump blues and rock 'n roll.
Mister Williams left Decca in 1945 and ran several record labels in New York and Chicago including the Ebony label that lasted into the seventies. In 1980 plans were made to get his life story from the first hand - by means of interviews - but that year he died in a nursing home in Chicago.
16 - Louis Jordan - Mop Mop
17 - Rosetta Howard & the Harlem Hamfats - Stay Away From My Door
You heard first Louis Jordan with Mop Mop, one of the many songs that J. Mayo Williams copyrighted for himself and after that the Harlem Hamfats with Rosetta Howard singing Stay Away From My Door. Both were in their respect very important musicians that were brought to Decca by Williams. And I must say the Harlem Hamfats stole my heart with their downright songs about the harsh life of African Americans in the Great Depression.
Well that was a neat little hour of history lesson and I hope you don't mind that I do them every now and then, and that you don't object me not just playing 40s and 50s Rhythm & Blues but also exploring their roots and their history. Well - you can always let me know what you thought of it, send me an e-mail at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com or find me on the web with a google search on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. As for now, byebye and have a rocking day. See you next time on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!