This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And we're taking a dive deep into the thirties today with blues and jazz that was released on what was maybe the most succesful label for African American music - Decca. I made a selection from the legendary 7000 series of this label, their so-called race series, and let's just start with number 7000, the very first issue, and that was the Alabama Jug Band with Ida Sweet As Apple Cider.
7000 - Alabama Jug Band - Ida Sweet As Apple Cider
7002 - Georgia Washboard Stompers - Everybody Loves My Baby
Everybody Loves My Baby - that were the Georgia Washboard Stompers, another band that had their origin in jug-and-washboard instruments but most instruments on here sound pretty much regular to me. They were among the very first to be recorded on Decca's Race series - race music then being the usual way to denominate African-American music in the widely segregated society that America was. The term Rhythm & Blues wasn't coined until the late forties.
Decca USA was started as the American branch of the British Decca, a pretty risky business to be set up in the deepest of the Great Depression. They bought the defunct Brunswick pressing plants and got succesful immediately with plain good management and a roster of the best musicians of the nation - both in popular music as in the race music department.
For the latter they hired J. Mayo "Ink" Williams, a talent scout who'd proven to be extremely succesful in the twenties, but he'd fallen out of the music business due to the depression and had got himself a job as trainer for a university football team in Atlanta. I've done a special on him a few months ago but I'll tell some more on this man later in this show.
First it's time for some more music. From Decca 7007 from 1934 you'll get Jimmie Gordon with the Bed Spring Blues and after that Alice Moore with the Black Evil Blues issued as number 7028 on Decca.
7007 - Jimmie Gordon - Bed Spring Blues
7028 - Alice Moore - Black Evil Blues
(jingle)
7048 - Memphis Minnie - Dirty Mother For You
7064 - Richard M. Jones' Jazz Wizards - I'm Gonna Run You Down
The legendary Memphis Minnie with A Dirty Mother For You and with that we've gone to the year 1935 and catalog number 7048 and after that you got Richard M. Jones' Jazz Wizards with I'm Gonna Run You Down as Decca number 7064.
Head of the Decca race department was J. Mayo "Ink" Williams and he had earned his nickname in the twenties for his knack to sign anyone for him. He'd started as a sportsman as one of the first black players in the National Football League for the Hammond Pros of Hammond, IN.
He started his career in music by talking himself into Paramount records without any knowledge of the recording industry and not more than a liking for the blues. But he did record Ma Rainey with her influential blues See See rider, featuring Louis Armstrong on the trumpet, and many other important bluesmen and women. His own record company, Black Patti, failed but it brought us some historically very valuable recordings.
In 1927 he got to work with Brunswick for the Vocalion subsidiary but the wall street crash of '29 made the sales of records fall and Williams had to find himself another job, that was as a football coach in Atlanta.
And as said, when Decca started operations in America he was asked to do the race department and he did that very succesfully.
For the next bit of music we'll make a jump to catalog number 7122 and that is Georgia White with the Honey Dripper Blues.
7122 - Georgia White - Honey Dripper Blues
7171 - Red Nelson - Streamline Train
You heard Red Nelson accompanied by Cripple Clarence Lofton on the piano. Both were settled in Chicago where Decca had signed a lot of musicians. You heard the Streamline Train, issued as Decca 7171, the flip of his immortal 'Crying Mother Blues'.
And we're making just a very small step in Decca's catalog with number 7173 where we have Roosevelt Sykes and his D.B.A. Blues.
7173 - Roosevelt Sykes - D.B.A. Blues
7207 - Mississippi Mudder - Sweet Jelly Rollin'
Jimmie Gordon, on the label billed as The Missisippi Mudder with Sweet Jelly Rollin' and this was recorded in April of 1936 for Decca and issued as number 7207. Now in all other Decca releases Gordon used his own name, and The Missisippi Mudder was one of the aliases for Kansas Joe McCoy, so I suppose the label has been misprinted. Both in a Youtube clip as in the Decca page of the website of the On-line 78 rpm discographical project, Gordon is credited for the song.
We'll get some more of Kansas Joe McCoy later, but first another artist that worked under a pseudonym, Bill Gaither. Here billed as Leroy's Buddy, here is Decca number 7258, Tired of your line of jive.
7258 - Leroy's Buddy - Tired Of Your Line Of Jive
7299 - Harlem Hamfats - Hallelujah Joe Ain't Preachin' No More
The Harlem Hamfats with a great self-mockery song. Hallelujah Joe Ain't Preachin' No More is about one of their own band members, Kansas Joe McCoy who under the name of Hallelujah Joe recorded some gospels for Decca in 1934.
The Harlem Hamfats were put together by producer J. Mayo Williams as the Decca studio band to back up singers on the label, such as Frankie Halfpint Jaxon, Rosetta Howard and Johnny Temple but they grew out into a great success of their own. A studio band was a completely new phenomenon; no record label before had put musicians together with the sole purpose of recording. The musicians came from all over the country, New Orleans, Chicago and Mississippi, and they were based in Chicago and had nothing to do with Harlem despite the name of the group. Their style pretty much reflected this diversity - it had elements of New Orleans blues, dixieland and swing. Band leader Herb Morand helped give the group its distinctive sound with his growling trumpet and raspy voice.
The legacy of this group is often overlooked but significant. First of all, their 1936 hit Weed Smoker's Dream that was a composition of Joe McCoy and he rewrote it to one of the greatest all-time women's blues classics "Why Don't You Do Right?" sung in 1941 by Lil Green and made famous by Peggy Lee with Benny Goodman's orchestra.
But probably more important, this new small-combo sound was a great inspiration for the most succesful African American artist on Decca, Louis Jordan and helped establish the new jump blues sound, one of the cornerstones of rock 'n roll.
Next - Georgia Tom, nickname of Thomas Dorsey, who recorded both blues and gospel at the same time. You don't see that too often - in most cases musicians decide to leave the blues for the gospel or the other way around. The blues were generally seen as the music of the devil so especially singers who switched from gospel to blues were often heavily criticized. From Georgia Tom the Levee Bound Blues issued as Decca 7362.
7362 - Georgia Tom - Levee Bound Blues
7364 - Arthur McKay - Somebody's Been Ridin' My Black Gal
Somebody's been riding my black gal - and without the addition 'all over town', this is a pretty strong suggestive title. Dirty blues were pretty common and recorded without any problem for the Decca race series.
Next trumpeter and singer Hot Lips Page, who'd moved in 1936 from Kansas to New York and that was one of the cities where Decca was very active, next to Chicago. From him you'll get Down on the levee that was released as Decca 7433 in 1938.
7433 - Hot Lips Page - Down On The Levee
7489 - Trixie Smith - Freight Train Blues
Trixie Smith with her Freight Train Blues. In a session on May 26 of 1938 she re-recorded some of her successes of the twenties for Decca. Her popularity had gone down and the re-recordings commercially went nowhere but they're highly valued nowadays - not in the least for the great clarinet work of Sidney Bechet.
And with that we've come to the end of this hour with a small selection of goodies of the 7000 series of Decca, actually from the first 500 of it, running from 1934 to '38. Decca had reserved this sequence as their "race" series, the African-American music, but it didn't include the black swing bands, or big bands. For instance Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds Of Joy, a medium-sized swing band, got on their regular numbering, and so did the Ink Spots, they were probably seen as marketable for the greater white audience.
Now the swing jazz had crossed over to the white bands and the white public somewhere in the mid-thirties, and soon became the most popular kind of American music - not only in America, but internationally. Instead, the blues and the jug bands like I played today, stayed in the niche market of the juke joints and the African American public. It would eventually grow out to Rhythm & Blues as we know it from the late forties and early fifties, when a new, and undisputably the most significant crossover moment came - Rock 'n Roll.
With that the music I played today may well be considered the DNA of Rock 'n Roll and all subsequent styles of popular music. And that's the reason that I sometimes dig into this important roots music and I hope you like to listen to it. Well of course you may let me know and send me an e-mail at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And you can review today's playlist or read back all the talk that I did today, at my website that you can find by doing a google search on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. As for now, have a rocking day and I hope to see you next time here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!