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 as always, the obscure and the obvious as you're used from me, and let me not waste time with talk and just start that juke box. Well OK - I produce my radio programs from the computer so that's just so to speak - or virtual as you want it. But the music is all the same, so on the Federal label from 1952 here is Dorothy Ellis with He's Gone.
01 - Dorothy Ellis - He's Gone
02 - Wynonie Harris - Here Comes The Blues
Here Comes the Blues - the great Wynonie Harris and though we know him most from his uptempo party music, this actually was his style - the blues. Harris was called a blues shouter for his singing style - he could easily take his voice unamplified over the band and a noisy crowd. Well that was what this way of singing came from, to be able to sing in joints with no or hardly no equipment - pretty similar situation to opera singing techniques that were developed to be audible to the public over the orchestra. Harris was a master in shouting the blues - together with Big Joe Turner, Eddie Vinson, Roy Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon and many others.
Pretty much a contrast with the controlled way of singing of Charles Brown. Here you hear him as a member of Johnny Moore's Three Blazers with the New Orleans Blues on the Exclusive label from 1947.
03 - Johnny Moore's Three Blazers - New Orleans Blues
04 - Louis Jordan - Don't Burn the Candle at Both Ends
(jingle)
05 - Paul Gayten - Hey Little Girl
06 - Ebbtones - Danny's Blues
Sublime late 50s vocal group blues - the Ebbtones with Danny's Blues. I found this on a CD titled the Ebb records story and it must be somewhere between 1957 and '59, but it's not listed in the discography of Ebb records - so I guess it must have remained unreleased at the time. Unfortunately I can't find the CD itself to verify.
Before that you got Paul Gayten with Hey Little Girl and that was the flip of I Love You Yes I Do, from 1947 on the DeLuxe label, and then before the jingle, that was Louis Jordan with Don't Burn the Candle at Both Ends, also from 1947 and that of course was on Decca.
Next a great blues of St. Louis Jimmy Oden - the Florida Hurricane. James Burke Oden had come to Chicago in 1933 where he got his nickname - he wasn't born in St. Louis but he'd lived and played music there from somewhere around 1917. The Florida Hurricane is from 1948 on the Aristocrat label, and you hear Sunnyland Slim on the piano and the guitar work is a young Muddy Waters - from a whole new generation of bluesmen. St. Louis Jimmy was in his mid-forties when he recorded this but he stayed active in the blues scene until the mid sixties.
07 - St. Louis Jimmy & Muddy Waters - Florida Hurricane
08 - Memphis Slim - Mother Earth
Mother Earth - the classic of Memphis Slim and his House Rockers from 1950 on the Chicago based Premium label, the label that was the follow-up of Miracle records, that had folded earlier that year. Now Premium didn't last for long - one of the founders started United records, and the masters were sold to Chess. Mother earth got a lukewarm welcome in Billboard Magazine, a Blues moralizer, on the tedious side as the review said. Well for that he hit number 7 on the R&B chart so that's for what the opinion of the critics is worth.
Next from 1946 on the Bullet label Loose as a Goose by Cecil Gant - the first release of that label.
09 - Cecil Gant - Loose As A Goose
10 - Baby Face Lewis - Grandma and Grandpa
From the Savoy label in 1947 Grandma and Grandpa - that was Jimmy Baby Face Lewis, one of these musicians that it's really difficult to find any info on. There's some minimal information on a compilation CD on Blue Moon. No city and birth of date or when he died, it's mainly a list of labels and years and musicians that he worked with. Apparently he arrived in New York in 1947 after been seen in Chicago and Canada, since he did his recording from then for New York labels only, most notably for Atlantic from 1949 to '55.
Next Jack McVea and his band with the Inflation Blues and that was released in 1948 on the Exclusive label. The song was revived for those who play video games - it was included on the game Mafia II.
11 - Jack McVea - Inflation Blues
12 - Camille Howard Trio - I'm Blue
From 1950 Camille Howard on the Specialty label. Now Camille was the pianist and every now and then vocalist in Roy Milton's Solid Senders but she did some occasional under her own name, but these were still in close cooperation with Roy Milton and his band.
Next up John William Henderson better known as Homesick James. I found an obituary of him from the British newspaper the Guardian and he must have been quite a man. One thing is that it's pretty hard to find out whom he'd worked with and who not, as he claimed to have played with about everyone, several of them probably true, others certainly untrue. Elmore James, whom he did work with, a lot and for a long time, is supposed to be his cousin but that's not at all sure. And he claimed to be born in 1905, 1910, which is, according to the newspaper, most likely, or 1914, and his file at the musicians union even says 1924. He died in 2007, at the respectable age of 96, that is, for whatever year of birth you choose. It might as well have been a hundred and one - and he'd stayed active until his death.
Recorded in 1953 for the Chance label, but never issued until they dusted off the masters for a Japanese vinyl album proably from the 80s that I'd laid my hands on recently. Here is Homesick James with Dirty Rat.
13 - Homesick James Williamson - Dirty rat
14 - Little Miss Cornshucks - Cornshuck's Blues
Little Miss Cornshucks - a long time forgotten blues singer who'd made a deep impression on Ahmet Ertegun back in 1943, and he says that she was the inspiration for him to found the Atlantic label. Mildred Cummings, as her real name was, never recorded for Atlantic though, as Ertegun was unable to track her down once he'd settled with his record company. But the private recordings he'd made of Miss Cornshucks were a great inspiration for two of Ertegun's proteges - Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker.
For her recordings between 1947 and '52 she nowadays is regarded by insiders as one of the great blueswomen. But when she died, in 1999, it was in complete and utter obscurity.
Cornshuck's blues was recorded somewhere during the 1948 recording ban for Roy Milton's Miltone label and on the label credited as The Blenders.
Next from 1949 - and the label says Walter Brown with Jay McShann's Kaycee Stompers. On Capitol here is Let's Love Awhile.
15 - Jay Mcshann - Let's Love Awhile
16 - Claude Thornhill feat. Maxine Sullivan - Stop! You're Breaking My Heart
Maxine Sullivan was that with Stop! You're Breaking My Heart and the band that backed her up was led by pianist Claude Thornhill. This was recorded in June 1937 as her very first single for Vocalion. That was before her recording of Loch Lomond, a scottish folk song that led to a whole range of folk tunes backed by the swing orchestra of Thornhill.
Maxine was one of those few female African American singers that got the opportunity to work with a white band leader, and thus taken into the mainstream music. Later singers like Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan would follow. Etta Jones, who in 1944 teamed up with Barney Bigard and Georgie Auld, though, stuck to the blues, and actually very good blues, accompanied with these two white musicians.
The swing type of jazz had crossed over to the mainstream audience and from the mid-thirties, starting with band leaders like Benny Goodman successfully played by white bands too. And for a while the stylistic differences between the big bands consisting of African Americans and the white bands was minimal - if they existed at all. It's much easier to tell the similarities than the differences between African-American bands like Lionel Hampton's, Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy or Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cootie Williams on the one side, and Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James or Glenn Miller on the other side. But the music may have been about the same - America was segregated and generally, so were the bands and their possibilities to rise to stardom.
The end of the big band era was also the end of the crossover. The new emerging jump blues, Rhythm & Blues were an exclusive African American thing that grew a new distance with mainstream popular music, and a new era of fusion would come with the emerge of Rock 'n Roll.
Next to the swing, you had the blues, the real blues, and they stayed black as they were. Most thirties blues sang of the harsh everyday life of African Americans during the Great Depression and - as they were never played on radio and never got to the ears of the greater white public, lyrics were uncompromised and they told of poverty, abuse, drinking, gambling and a whole lotta sex.
So next up is - well you may call her the queen of the dirty blues. A lot of her songs are completely unsuitable to be played on a decent radio station like this. Well, this one is somewhat milder. Here is Lucille Bogan with the Coffee Grindin' Blues.
17 - Lucille Bogan - Coffee Grindin' Blues
And Lucille Bogan ends today mixed bag of tunes here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. The Coffee Grindin' Blues was one of her milder songs, much milder than Till The Cows Come Home or Shave 'Em Dry that have explicit sexual lyrics - more than many a rap CD with a parental advice sticker on it. Today's music had a lot of history and stories with them and I'll keep bringing both of 'em with the music. You can give your opinion on it too of course, send me an e-mail at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com and for sure you'll get a reply from me. Or visit me on the web, do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. Today's show is over, so have a rocking day and join me again next time on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!