This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And today we'll be shouting the blues with some great Rhythm & Blues. Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon, Duke Henderson and Jimmy Rushing are in today's pocket - indeed the great blues shouters of the forties and fifties. So why not start with maybe the greatest of them all. Here is Big Joe Turner with My Gal's A Jockey.
01 - Big Joe Turner - My Gal's A Jockey
02 - Big Joe Turner - Johnson and Turner Blues
More Joe Turner with the Johnson and Turner Blues and Johnson here of course is pianist Pete Johnson with whom Turner teamed up for a long time. Their 1938 hit Roll 'em Pete is considered an important and very early forerunner of Rock 'n Roll, unique for the time with the heavy back beat that we didn't see until some nine years later.
Next Jimmy - or James Rushing from 1953 with Mr. Five by Five on the Parrot label and these numbers tell about his own physique - five feet tall and five feet wide and that was pretty much what he looked like.
03 - Jimmy Rushing - Mr. Five by Five
04 - Count Basie feat. James Rushing - Blues in the dark
From 1938 Count Basie and his band and the vocals were the same James Rushing as the Mr. Five By Five you heard before that. Rushing is considered one of the greatest blues shouters and indeed he was able to sing over the horn section of the big band. From 1929 he sang with Bennie Moten's orchestra and when Moten died in 1935 Count Basie took over most of the musicians - including Rushing, and he stayed until the break-up of Count Basie's band in 1950.
Next Duke Henderson with the San Quentin Quail that he recorded in 1946 for the United Artist label, a short lived record label based in Hollywood.
05 - Duke Henderson - San Quentin Quail
06 - Duke Henderson - Lucy Brown
More Duke Henderson with Lucy Brown on the Specialty label. From 1945 Henderson had recorded with quite a few labels, including Apollo, Modern, Down Beat, Swing Time, Specialty, Imperial and Flair, when he ended his Rhythm & Blues career in the mid-fifties to become a gospel DJ, a preacher and co-owner of a gospel record label.
I want to go on with Wynonie Harris, and the next song is a good example of how to shout the blues. Listen to Papa Tree Top.
07 - Wynonie Harris - Papa Tree Top
08 - Wynonie Harris - Lollipop Mama
Wynonie Harris at his best with a dirty blues. Lollipop mama was that and I found that on the same album titled Playful baby, as the song that I played before. The biography of him on Wikipedia tells of a coulorful life, that included two children with two different girls as a teenager and marrying a sixteen year old girl at the age of 20 himself. That was before his breakthrough with Lucky Millinder's band with whom he did his famous Who Threw the Whisky In the Well for Decca in 1944. But due to a short on shellac during the war, that song was released a year later when Harris already had broken up with Millinder after a falling-out over payments. It became immensely popular, also with the white audience and that was a pretty unique achievement in the forties. It helped Harris find a record company to sign with, as he wasn't under a contract with Decca without Millinder, and that was the brand new Philo label, the label that later was renamed to Alladin, and here he played with another great name of the big band scene - Johnny Otis.
Well let's just play this famous song he did with Millinder in '44. Here is Who Threw the Whisky In the Well.
09 - Lucky Millinder feat. Wynonie Harris - Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well
10 - Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Alimony Blues
And that was Eddie Vinson with the alimony blues that he recorded for Mercury in December 1947 - one of these many sides taken in the last month before the second recording ban of '48. The damage a hair straightener product containing caustic soda did brought him the nickname Cleanhead. This was with his own band that he'd formed in 1946 after leaving Cootie Williams' band. Apart from shouting the blues he also played the saxophone.
From a few months earlier you'll get his Oil Man Blues.
11 - Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Oil Man Blues
12 - Al 'Cake' Wichard Sextette & Jimmy Witherspoon - Grandma Grandpa
And we moved on to Jimmy Witherspoon, here backed up by Al 'Cake' Wichard's sextet and recorded - again - in that last month of 1947. This was done for the Modern label.
Jimmy Witherspoon was discovered in the war while singing in the band of Teddy Weatherford performing for radio broadcasts in Calcutta, India, for the armed forces. Back in America he recorded with Jay McShann, and as in the song I just played, with Al Wichard whose sextet was somewhat the house band of Modern records of Hollywood.
You'll get some more of him with his Geneva Blues that he also did for the Modern label in '47.
13 - Jimmy Witherspoon - Geneva Blues
14 - Roy Brown - Miss Fanny Brown
Miss Fanny Brown - Roy Brown singing about the middle aged woman that left him to take the morning train. Fanny Brown was one of these characters that went around in the blues verses of different singers. Roy Brown himself did a follow-up with Fanny Brown Got Married in 1954 and Wynonie Harris also did a song on this lady.
More of him with the Wrong Woman Blues. I took both of these songs of a King vinyl album titled Battle of the Blues of which there were four volumes featuring Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris, Eddie Vinson and Jimmy Witherspoon. But now - the Wrong Woman Blues.
15 - Roy Brown - Wrong Woman Blues
16 - Sonny Parker & Gladys Hampton's Blue Boys - Worried Life Blues
From 1951 Sonny Parker and Gladys Hampton's Blue Boys with the worried life blues. Gladys Hampton was the wife and manager of Lionel Hampton and the Blue Boys were a combo that included guitarist Wes Montgomery, keyboard player Milt Buckner and Al Grey on the trombone. I couldn't find what Gladys' involvement in this little group was.
Parker himself joined Lionel Hampton's band in 1949 after he'd played with King Kolax, and he stayed with Hamp until he suffered a stroke during a concert while on tour in France in 1955. He died two years later of another stroke at the early age of 32 years old.
Next from 1951 on King Tiny Bradshaw with The Blues Came Pouring Down.
17 - Tiny Bradshaw - The Blues Came Pouring Down
18 - Smiley Lewis - Low Down
Smiley Lewis with Low Down and that concludes today's show on the Blues shouters. A singing technique that you can hardly call sophisticated, but these men were able to sing unamplified over the band and a crowdy and noisy joint - just like singing techniques were developed for opera, when the orchestras grew bigger and singers had to out-sing the whole philharmonic.
And as always, I tried to teach and entertain you and I hope you enjoyed today's selection. So why don't you let me know and send an e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or find me on the web, where you can review today's playlist and read back what I told you. Easiest way to find me is a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. As for now, time's up to have a great and rocking day. Hope to see you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!