This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And it's legends time again here on your favourite radio station. The best of Rhythm & Blues like every week from the fifties, the forties and occasionally also from the thirties and today I packed a few of these pre-war blues 78s in today's bundle of records so why not just start with one. Here is the brilliant clarinettist Sidney Bechet with a wonderful instrumental from November 1938 on the Vocalion label. Listen to Chant in the Night.
01 - Sidney Bechet - Chant in the Night
02 - Grant & Wilson - Toot It Brother Armstrong
And we stayed in the thirties with Toot It Brother Armstrong - that were Coot Grant & Wesley 'Kid' Wilson and unfortunately that wasn't Louis Armstrong himself tooting the trumpet. Wilson apparently wrote it in admiration of the great trumpeter and he has recorded with Armstrong in the early thirties but never this song.
Grant and Wilson were husband and wife who'd succesfully toured the black vaudeville circuit from the 1910s. In the thirties their blues act had grown out of fashion, though they still recorded, they wrote numerous songs and Wilson even set up a the King Jazz record label in '46, the couple fell in poverty in the early fifties and totally disappeared off the radar after that - of Coot Grant, whose real name was Leola B. Pettigrew, we don't even know when she died.
Well we won't stay in the thirties today, the next song up is from 1956 on Veejay. Here is Camille Howard with the Business Woman.
03 - Camille Howard - Business Woman
04 - Dee Williams & His California Playboys - Double Trouble Hop
(jingle)
05 - Erline Harris - Jump and Shout
06 - Big Joe Turner - Morning Glories
The 1956 re-recording of his '49 song Morning Glory. Big Joe Turner was that and before that you got Erline Harris on the Deluxe label with Jump and Shout, her second single for the label and together with her Rock 'n Roll Blues that came before, she had immediately added her name to the list of late forties jump blues shouters that embraced that new direction of Rhythm & Blues that defined the Rock 'n Roll.
That saxophone on this was new Orleans session man Plas Johnson, one of the greatest session saxophonists of the fifties and sixties. His most notable work must have been in Henry Mancini's orcestra playing the theme of the Pink Panther movie.
And then I have to account for what was before the jingle - that was Devonia Williams on the piano, better known as Dee Williams, with her band The California Playboys and what a wonderful dirty sounds comes from that baritone sax. Before she'd worked with Johnny Otis for years.
Next a grand lady of the Rhythm & Blues - Big Mama Thornton from 1951 on her second single for the Peacock label, Let Your Tears Fall Baby.
07 - Big Mama Thornton With The Bill Harvey Band - Let Your Tears Fall Baby
08 - Nellie Lutcher - Baby What's Your Alibi
And a greater contrast in women's voices is hardly thinkable. Nellie Lutcher with Baby What's Your Alibi. And we'll stay with the ladies with Etta Jones. The title of this song is a play on a popular song from the mid-forties I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful) - and that was reversed to I May Be Wonderful But Baby I Think You're Wrong. A wonderful uptempo blues featuring Hot Lips Page and Budd Johnson.
Now Etta Jones is often confused with Etta James, who came in sight a decade later and who developed to soul music. In the sixties, Etta Jones specialized in a classy jazz style and many jazz fans will know her from that.
And I just mentioned Budd Johnson, the saxophone and clarinet player who worked with Earl Hines for many years, and that is someone else than Buddy Johnson, who played the piano and led his own band often featuring the vocals of his sister Ella. You will get a song from them just after the Etta Jones song that as I said, features the saxophone of Budd Johnson and the trumpet of Hot Lips Page. Here is I May Be Wonderful (But Baby I Think You're Wrong)
09 - Etta Jones - I May Be Wonderful
10 - Buddy Johnson feat. Ella Johnson - You'll Get Them Blues
11 - Laura Rucker - Cryin' The Blues
Two more ladies - Laura Rucker with Cryin' The Blues and before that Ella Johnson singing You'll Get Them Blues and as always she was accompanied by the big band of her brother Buddy Johnson.
And - as they say - now for something completely different. The Ravens on the National label with Write me a letter.
12 - Ravens - Write Me a Letter
13 - T-Bone Walker - Sail On Boogie
Off the rare Rhumboogie label from 1945 T-Bone Walker with the Sail On Boogie and he was backed up with Marl Young's orchestra. Of course he is regarded as one of the greatest blues guitar men but he also played the piano, the violin and several guitar-like instruments like the ukelele, the banjo and the mandolin. His nickname is a corruption of his middle name Thibeaux and he took that when he recorded for the first time, back in 1929 for Columbia, as Oak Cliff T-bone. He developed his typcial style in the early forties when he recorded for Capitol.
And we go back to 1941 with Jay Mc Shann with the Hootie Blues. Hootie was Jay McShann's nickname and the vocals on this one are done by Walter Brown. McShann was heavily influenced by Earl Fatha Hines and set up his own big band in the late thirties. In 1944 he was drafted into the army and after his return the big band era was over and he wasn't able to restart a large band. Instead he started working with Jimmy Witherspoon and they had considerable succes with their 1949 version of Ain't Nobody's Business.
Here is from '41, the Hootie Blues.
14 - Jay McShann - Hootie Blues
15 - Joe Gregory - Smack That Mess
From late 1944 Smack That Mess - you heard the vocals of Joe Gregory and he was backed up by Clyde Hart’s Hot Seven and we find Budd Johnson again on this one on the saxophone. It's listed as Savoy 542 in two discographies though the one on jazzdisco.org doubts whether this was ever released. I found this on a cassette tape of a friend of mine, who'd taped it from vinyl somewhere in the eighties so I'm afraid I don't know in what re-released it has ended up.
And for a great contrast you'll get a honking instrumental. It's titled Hollering and Screaming but you won't get much of that, rather it's honking and tooting on this record. Here are Eddie Lockjaw Davis and his Be-Boppers.
16 - Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis and his Be Boppers - Hollerin' And Screamin'
17 - Cootie Williams - Mercenary Papa
18 - Jimmy Yancey - I Received A Letter
And after that honking Mercenary Papa of Cootie Williams and his orchestra with Eddie Mack on lead - you got the great and influential boogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey with I received a letter. And that made the finale of today's show. Well we got a great mix of Rhythm & Blues again today here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. And I sure hope you liked them too and if so, or if not, or should you have anything to comment on the show, why don't you drop me a line at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. You can also find me on the web, do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site 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!