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 mix time again, a blend of the best of Rhythm & Blues that I selected by picking some stuff that I recently added to the little database that I try to keep to be able to find my way through my music collection - but silly enough there seems no getting through it, and whatever I'm looking for I can't seem to find. You know, sometimes I wonder if a cardbox file really was less efficient than this.
But browsing around for a thirty minutes gets me enough to do a new show so hey, it's not that bad. And let me begin with one of these great combos of the forties, Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers. Here they have Herb Jeffries singing. Listen to Left a good deal in Mobile.
01 - Herb Jeffries & Joe Liggins' Honeydrippers - Left a good deal in Mobile
02 - Cats 'N Jammer Three - I Cover The Water Front
The Cats 'n Jammer Three and in spite of their name they were a quartet. They'd taken their name from a comic strip the Katzenjammer Kids, created back in 1897 for the American Humorist, and it still runs in fifty magazines and newspapers. Bill Samuels was the lead singer and the group was one of the first to sign for the newborn Mercury label in 1945. Somewhere during the 1948 recording ban the group seems no longer to exist.
From 1943, next, a recording of Louis Jordan. Listen to The Things I Want I Can't Get At Home.
03 - Louis Jordan - The Things I Want I Can't Get At Home
04 - Duke Ellington - Johnny Come Lately
(jingle)
05 - Dinah Washington - Evil Gal Blues
06 - Lil Green - What's The Matter With Love
More wartime stuff on here, you heard Lil Green with What's the matter with love on the Bluebird label, and this came from the same recording session as her classic Why don't you do right, done in Chicago on the 23rd of April in 1941.
Before that I played Dinah Washington with her Evil Gal Blues was released on the Keynote label in 1943 and later re-released on Mercury in 1947. And that great big band stuff before the jingle, that was Duke Ellington with Johnny Come Lately and that was from 1942 on RCA Victor.
We're making a small jump to the end of the forties. From 1949 on Apollo, great Chicago blues of Willie Mabon, on the label credited as Big Willie, with It Keeps Raining.
07 - Willie Mabon - It Keeps Raining
08 - Five Blazes - Chicago Boogie
The Five Blazes with Ernie Harper on lead and the Chicago boogie from 1947. This is the same group as the four Blazes and that formed in the late thirties but apart from a session with Aristrocrat that this one came from, they didn't record until the early fifties when they had their big hit with Mary Jo. For a few years they had incorporated a pianist in the group and that's when they changed the four in their name to five, and later they had to change it back. Well that's what happens when you put the number of band members in the group name, pretty common though.
From the same year is Roy Milton's Keep a dollar in your pocket - straigth from Specialty 78.
09 - Roy Milton - Keep a dollar in your pocket
10 - Sil Austin - He's A Real Gone Guy
A nice instrumental of Nelly Lutcher's standard He's A Real Gone Guy. You heard Sil Austin and this was from 1957 on Mercury. Through the years Austin recorded some thirty albums and of course he's most known of his version of the pop standard Danny Boy - the song that played when he entered a talent show in St. Petersburg, FL in 1945 that brought him to Mercury records - and to New York.
Next a most remarkable duet - between a singer and a saxophone. The singer is Etta James and the sax player Plas Johnson, and both stand for great delivery. Off the Modern label here is the Pick-up.
11 - Etta James - The Pick-Up
12 - Little Sylvia - I Found Somebody To Love
Little Sylvia Vanderpool was that from 1952 backed up by Buddy Lucas and his band. It was the flip of the second release of I went to your wedding on Jubilee, the first one was backed by Drive daddy Drive. She was still a teenager when she recorded with Jubilee. Her breakthrough came when she signed with Atlantic and she was placed on the Cat subsidiary. There she met Mickey Baker who taught her to play guitar. Their work with Atlantic was quite short and they moved on to various record labes. As a duo they recorded for years, and of course their Love is strange on the Vik label was their greatest hit.
Silvia Robinson, as she named herself while she was married, later went in the music business and started Sugarhill records and later the Bon Ami label and there and did a lot of pioneering work for funk and hiphop. On Sugarhill she co-wrote and produced Grandmaster Flash's The Message, often seen as the first important socially engaged rap, telling of life in poverty in the inner city and how the individual struggles with that - since then a popular theme in rap music. For her work for the genre she's often called the Mother of Hiphop.
13 - Lowell Fulson - Low Society Blues
14 - Griffin Brothers feat. Margie Day - Little Red Rooster
You heard first the Low Society Blues of Lowell Fulson and after that on the Dot label from 1950 the Little Red Rooster. Now this is entirely another song as the blues by the same name of Willie Dixon. Margie Day was that and she was backed up by the Griffin brothers, a group formed by two brothers but the other members were unrelated. With the Little Red Rooster they got to number 5 on the R&B hitlist in early 1951. They had some more success with Margie Day a few months earlier and with singer Tommy Brown later that year. But just after that success failed on them and the band split up.
Buddy Griffin had a small hit in 1955 with his wife Claudia with I Wanna Hug Ya, Kiss Ya, Squeeze Ya for the Chess label. More songs of them were released, backed up by the Moonglows, but these failed to chart.
As for Margie Day, we see her later with an unsuccesful release on Atlantic's Cat subsidiary and in the sixties two albums of pop standards, that were as they call it "critically acclaimed" and comparisons were made to Billy Holiday and Dinah Washington but they didn't sell well.
15 - Hollywood's Four Flames - Wine
(jingle)
16 - Wynonie Harris - Wynonie's Blues
17 - Oscar McLollie & His Honey Jumpers - The Honey Jump
And Oscar McLollie marks the end of yet another episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. The Honey Jump was that - a great double-sider and I just hope I did them right in sequence. I found it on several complilation CDs, but they don't agree on what was part one and part two - and a little search at these on-line music services didn't clear that up for me. So I chose the instrumental version to be first; just tell me if I'm wrong. Before that you got Wynonies Blues and well it was easy to hear that the 78 that I have this one on, has seen better times. It was on Apollo from 1945 and then before the jingle you got got the Hollywood Four Flames with Wine and that was from 1951 on the Fidelity label.
And as I said, that'll be all for today so I have to say good-bye for today. Let me know whether you liked the show and send me an e-mail - the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or find me on the web, do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. For now, have a great and rocking day. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!