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 as always, great legends and obscure legends, and a great mix of tunes that I took from recently ripped CDs. And to start with one of the greatest of them all, a man who does't need an introduction anymore. Here is, from 1947 on Decca, the great Louis Jordan with the Barnyard Boogie.
01 - Louis Jordan - Barnyard Boogie
02 - Laura Rucker - Cryin' The Blues
Laura Rucker, one of those forgotten blues ladies singing Cryin' the blues, and according to her biography on Allmusic, the fact that she worked under several pseudonyms didn't help her establish her name. Back in the twenties and thirties, that was pretty common and it's in this time that she was a well-known appearance in the Kansas City and later the Chicago clubs. Back in 1931 she recorded with Georgia Tom Dorsey for Paramount, and later, in the mid-thirties for Vocalion and Decca. And Peggy Lee credited her as as an influence for her style.
This Cryin' the blues sounds later, post-war, and I found it on the CD The Chess Story 1947-75.
More ladies blues with Dinah Washington. From 1947 from the Mercury label, here is the West Side Baby. After that you'll get from the same year Eddie Vinson with his orchestra with the oil man blues.
03 - Dinah Washington - West Side Baby
04 - Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Oil Man Blues
(jingle)
05 - Jimmy Liggins - Cadillac Boogie
06 - Gatemouth Moore - Hey, Mr Gatemouth
From 1948 on the King label that was Hey Mr. Gatemouth by Gatemouth Moore. His R&B career was pretty short when in January 1949 he decided to switch to gospel. According to a web page on the Aristocrat label, he was performing his signature song 'I ain't mad at you pretty baby' when halfway he switched into a gospel song. A few months later he was a minister and had his own congregation, but he still recorded for the Aristocrat label, gospel.
Before that you got Jimmy Liggins, the brother of Joe Liggins, with his influential Caddilac Boogie that is said to have been the inspiration for Jackie Brenston's Rocket 88 - that famous, Rock & Roll defining song.
More great jump blues with Clarence Samuels singing his pretty risqué Lollipop Mama.
07 - Clarence Samuels - Lollipop Mama
08 - Roy Brown - Whose Hat Is That
Roy Brown with Whose Hat Is That and that is from a Miltone 78 number 3154 but it was also released on Deluxe 1154.
And we're making a little jump back to 1945 with Julia Lee backed up by Thomas Doglas and his band with If it's good released on Mercury.
09 - Julia Lee - If It's Good
10 - Count Basie feat. Joe Williams - Every Day I Have The Blues
From the 1956 album Count Basie swings, Joe Williams Sings comes this long track titled Every Day I Have The Blues that originally was a 1935 blues written by Pinetop and Marion Sparks, but it was Memphis Slim who made it a blues standard.
Next up is a recording of May, 1944 of the Five Red Caps. They were primarily a vocal group that came from various other bands and in 1943, in the middle of the recording ban of the American Federation of Musicians, they tried to use that name as a cover-up since they all were union members. The trick didn't work, and they got fined by the union, but they kept the name. Listen to the Boogie Woogie On A Saturday Night.
11 - Five Red Caps - Boogie Woogie On A Saturday Night
12 - Nellie Lutcher - Come and Get It, Honey
From 1948 on Capitol the great singer and piano player Nellie Lutcher with Come and get it honey and that of course was on the height of her musical career, that lasted much longer than the short spell in the late forties and early fifties that we know her from. Her first appearance on stage was when she was twelve years old when she played the piano with Ma Rainey standing in for the regular piano man who'd been ill. Two years later she started in her father's jazz band and from the mid thirties she landed in Los Angeles playing in small combos. Yet she didn't rise to fame until she entered a talent show in 1947 at the age of 35 and signed with Capitol. This song was just a year after that.
From 1947 straight from an Imperial 78 here is Lloyd Glenn with the Rampart Street Jump.
13 - Lloyd Glenn - Rampart Street jump
14 - Andrew Tibbs - Bilbo Is Dead
Bilbo is dead on the Aristocrat label from 1947, that was Andrew Tibbs on his first single for that label. The song was written by him and 'Texas' Tom Archia, and caused controversy because it was a cynical outright political statement against the strongly racist democrat Missisippi senator Theodore Bilbo who died that year. A cynical lament on the death of whom he calls in this song his best friend, and after the instrumental break come the words:
"Well you've been livin' in the big city,
broke and had to get along
But you can hurry back to Mississippi,
cause Bilbo is dead and gone"
Well anti-racism songs were very rare in the forties and hardly ever recorded, so this made a little noise back then.
From the same year on Mercury, Albert Ammons with the Tuxedo Boogie.
15 - Albert Ammons - Tuxedo Boogie
16 - Buster Bennett - Three Different Women
17 - Sam Taylor - Oo-Wee
Sam Taylor with Oo-Wee was that and before that you got Buster Bennett with Three Different Women and a lesson to learn that a man should never marry more than twice. Caldonia and Sweet Georgia Brown were no good as a wife so now it's good old Katy Mae.
And that puts an end to another episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman where most of the music was from 1947 or around - a great year for the Rhythm & Blues. And I hope you liked them as much as I did - so let me know on my e-mail address rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com.
And if you want to read back what I told you today or review the playlist, go to my web site, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will show up first. As for now, byebye and have a rocking day. See you next time here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!