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 show again because today I'll have to congratulate myself. This is the fifty-second regular show and together with a Christmas special, that means that this day, I'm a full year on your radio station. My first anniversary and I want to take the opportunity to look back on that first year of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and present you some highlights that I'm really proud of.
Through that year I've done all kinds of categories of subjects for my show. One of them were the number one hits of the Harlem Hitparade, the Race music chart or the Rhythm & Blues list as Billboard magazine called them subsequently. So let's start with the very first number one hit that was on this list ever. It was in the middle of the recording ban of the American Federation of Musicians. We're talking October 24 of 1942 and here is that very first number one hit. Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy with Take It And Git.
01 - Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy - Take It And Git
02 - Louis Jordan - Choo Choo Ch'Boogie
There were two records that qualify for the biggest Rhythm & Blues hit ever. This - Louis Jordan with his Choo Choo Ch'Boogie was one of them. It stayed 18 weeks on number one in 1946, and it shares that amazing achievement with the Honeydripper of Joe Liggins, just one year before.
And both were outstanding in their own respect, but Liggins had the disadvantage of a small record label being overwhealmed with the demand for this disc. And also - this great cool double-sider just sticks better with me. So let's hear that one. Joe Liggins and the Honedripper.
03 - Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers - The Honeydripper pt. 1 + 2
Six minutes of one of the coolest songs around in the mid-forties. It hit number one week after the war was over - the first big hit of the new era. America was facing the biggest economic boom ever, where Europe had to struggle itself out of the devastation of the war, with a short on just everything you could imagine. It was that year that my father went to study in Amsterdam, and more than once he has told me of the poverty and hunger of that first year in university. In that show I told you a very personal story on how he experienced these post-war days and how he never got to hear this exciting music from America.
I did a few one-artist sets also. Actually, they're easy to produce, you take some good songs and tell some stories from a biography that you find on the web. You know - I stopped producing them. That had a reason that had everything to do with some of the radio stations that air my show, and their licenses do not allow for more than three tracks of one artist per hour. For them, I had to produce alternative shows. Now producing one show of an hour takes me some six to eight hours of work - and I don't have unlimited time to work on this. I have a family who demand my time - and a job, you know, this radio work doesn't do it for me financially I'm afraid. So I wasn't very keen on double work.
Let's just hear a few songs of the artists that I have done a show on. That was on Eddie Chamblee, my favourite saxophonist, on Ray Charles' first years in Seattle, and on a very obscure group oddly named after a battery brand - the Ray-O-Vacs. Listen to the great saxophone licks on their version of what originally was a Mexican pop standard. Here is Besame Mucho.
04 - Ray-O-Vacs - Besame Mucho
05 - Ray Charles - I'm Wondering And Wondering
The Maxin Trio - as Ray Charles had called his little combo with whom he recorded his very first songs for the Down Beat label. I'm Wondering And Wondering is one of these gloomy blues that were inspired on the music of Nat King Cole and Charles Brown - but they were first of all very Ray Charles.
I did two sets on the way R&B inspired great artists. One was Elvis - and that included the story how bad his first session for Sun records was, until he took his guitar and began to sing an old blues of Arthur Big Boy Crudup - That's Allright. Another one was about how the blues of the thirties and forties inspired one of the greatest rock bands ever - the Rolling Stones - and with that they were very important for the sixties blues revival. Listen to what they made of Walter Brown's Confessin' The Blues, that he had recorded back in 1941 with Jay McShann's orchestra. Here are, from 1964, the Rolling Stones and after that you'll get Elvis' first release on Sun records - That's All Right Mama.
06 - Rolling Stones - Confessin' The Blues
07 - Elvis Presley - Thats All Right Mama
I also did a few shows on records labels. And before I started them I thought that they would be easy to produce - but that was a bit too optimistic. You have to have all the issues of the labels or at least most of them, and then I had to find out that that only works if I either had them myself, or they were re-issued on CD or made available somewhere else.
It gave me a pretty hard time to collect all tracks that I didn't have myself and there are still a a few of these sets that are waiting for one or two songs to track down somewhere where I don't know yet where. And also here, I got trapped by that requirement of not to put more than three tracks of one artist into one show.
Now maybe I didn't take the most obvious of record labels. But I had made a few requirements for myself. The output should be enough for one show but not too much - it makes no sense to do a show on the Atlantic label, their output is way too much. But its subsidiary Cat did go for a show - and that was a pretty easy one. I had more work on the Bullet and Freedom labels and the Gotham-500 series. Blues connaisseurs should know that Gotham series - that series was packed with the best of blues. One was credited as Johnny Williams, but in fact that was John Lee Hooker. Here are his Wandering Blues.
08 - Johnny Williams a.k.a. John Lee Hooker - Wandering Blues
09 - Goree Carter - Let's Rock
And that was one of the songs from my show on the Freedon label. Goree Carter was tht with Let's Rock and that was one of those typical records that mark the short time that in Rhythm & Blues a craze began, that started off Rock 'n Roll. Between 1948 and '52 R&B artists simply wanted to out-rock each other with songs that had a typical back beat and were all about partying, about rocking and rolling. I had two shows dedicated to the history of the transition of that R&B to Rock & Roll.
And in both of these shows I stated that from my point of view, it was when this pre-rock 'n roll was commercialized by the big record companies and the white Rock 'n Roll bands, Rock 'n Roll started.
In one of them I also played a record that was some ten years older than that pre-Rock 'n Roll R&B - its time way ahead. In the middle of clarinet-accompanied blues and the swing of the big bands, this was an overlooked record. Listen to Joe Turner & Pete Johnson with their Roll 'Em Pete and you might easily forget that this is pre-war stuff.
10 - Joe Turner & Pete Johnson - Roll 'Em Pete
11 - Harlem Hamfats - You Can't Win In Here
And this was just about the same time as Roll 'em Pete - Harlem Hamfats with You Can't Win In Here. And I played that pretty recently in a show that was dedicated to J. Mayo Ink Williams, and I call this man sometimes the godfather of R&B for his influential and innovative way that he produced African American music back in the twenties and thirties.
And that was just one of the history lessons you got here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Another one that I'm very proud of was the show on the 1942-44 recording ban of the American Federation of Musicians, that caused a revolution in the history of popular music, deminishing the influence of the big bands, emphasizing the role of vocalists and that gave a jump start to independent record labels. From this show a record, a special V-disc edition of Duke Ellington's Things Ain't What They Used To Be especially for the armed forces overseas.
12 - Duke Ellington & his Orchestra - Things Ain't What They Used To Be
13 - Bull Moose Jackson - Nosey Joe
I did several show on themes in lyrics - and my very first show was such a theme episode. It was about the saucy lyrics in the Rhythm & Blues and Bull Moose Jackson's Nosey Joe was just one of 'em. They were typical for the blues until the mid-fifties, when teenage and white audience oriented, pretty naive love songs took over.
Some of the theme shows were just about a certain subject, like my Christmas special, or a show about food, about drinking or poverty. Or the train. I did two specials on the choo-choo and there's enough blues on them to do a lot more. This is from one of my first shows. Here is Mabel Scott with the Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train
14 - Mabel Scott - Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train
15 - Julia Lee & Her Boyfriends - King Size Papa
And one thing that I was never afraid of was the sound of shellac here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. A little hiss or some cracks in the grooves served as spice in my shows. This was from one of the many either loosely themed shows, or no theme at all, titled legend mix and they were always full of great music and stories that went with the artists.
When I started the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman I had set my goal for that moment to do one year, 52 shows and I'd left undecided whether I would continue them for another year. That moment to decide came last week, and this show is the proof that I signed for another year. The Legends of the Rocking Dutchman continue, listeners.
So what can you expect for the forthcoming year? Well one of the things is that I sort of ran out of subjects. With the one-artists shows out of reach because of the 3-track per artist limit for some radio stations, I often have been breaking my head for show subjects. Last year I did one unthemed episode, a Legends Mix, every five shows. For the forthcoming year most shows will be unthemed, just potpouris of great music, and a theme every now and then. What I will continue is the stories, the anecdotes and the history lessons that come with what I think is the best music of the previous century.
And if you agree with how wonderful the Rhythm & Blues is, then keep on listening to this show. And provide me with feedback, and drop me an e-mail at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or visit me on the web, just do a Google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. This anniversary show is over, so byebye and have a rocking day. See you next time on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!