This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And for today I'll take you back to the years 1938 and '39 with some releases of the Race series of Decca. I featured this series earlier, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, with a small selection from the first five hundred singles, released by Decca from 1934 to '38. Today a much shorter time span, but enough worthwhile to listen to. You'll get some of the greatest names of thirties blues together with a few utmost obscurities. And I'll start with Decca number 7506, New Orleans blueswoman Louise Barker, better known als Blue Lu Barker with a wonderful blues, titled He caught the B & O.
7506 - Blue Lu Barker - He caught the B & O
7508 - Ollie Shepard - Little Pigmeat
Bluesman and pianist Ollie Shepard with the Little Pigmeat and that was on Decca 7508. The sound quality is not too good on this, well that is how you get them when you spend your good money on a CD of the Document label. I guess they didn't have anything better available. According to Allmusic's biography on this take, it was trumpeter Frankie Newton and sax player Edgar Saucier on this and the guitar was the great Lonnie Johnson. This versatile New Orleans guitarist was already a veteran in the jazz and blues scene when he arrived in Chicago in 1938 - he'd done some 130 recordings from the mid-twenties, and teamed up with Eddie Lang producing some groundbreaking guitar work and performed with Louis Armstrong and in Duke Ellington's band.
From him you'll get the next song. On Decca 7509 here is I Ain't Gonna Be Your Fool.
7509 - Lonnie Johnson - I Ain't Gonna Be Your Fool
7510 - Kokomo Arnold - Midnight Blues
Left-handed guitarist Kokomo Arnold with the Midnight Blues - and like all I play today on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, this was on Decca from 1938. Arnold had recorded some 88 sides for Decca, the last session in May of '38 when he quit the music scene and went to work in a factory in Chicago. Some of his blues turned into real classics, including Kokomo's blues that gave him his nickname and Milk Cow Blues that was covered by Elvis Presley.
Now 88 recordings for one label may sound much - Georgia White did some more than a hundred of 'em after she signed with Decca producer J Mayo Williams. Listen to her Holding My Own, released as Decca 7521 and accompanied on the piano by Richard M. Jones and on guitar - again - Lonnie Johnson. Here is Georgia White.
7521 - Georgia White - Holding My Own
7523 - Frankie 'Half-Pint' Jaxon - I Knocks Myself Out
Frankie 'Half-Pint' Jaxon backed by the Harlem Hamfats singing I Knocks Myself Out and this was Decca 7523 recorded in April of 1938. Frankie Jaxon had a succesful vaudeville show where he often did a female impersonation and that earned him a page on a website titled QueerMusicHeritage.com. He grew up as an orphan in Kansas City and most of his professional life as a musician was in Chicago. That musical career included working with some of the top jazz and blues musicians of his time, including Bennie Moten, King Oliver, Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters.
In 1941 he quit music and show and worked in Washington D.C. for the Federal government for a while. Somewhere in '44 he must have moved to Los Angeles and there the story ends. Either he died that year, or he has lived there anonymously. Allmusic at some time said he died in 1970 but now there's nothing in his biography claiming that; and a military veteran headstone exists with the name of Frank Devera Jackson that may be his grave. In that case he died in 1953.
Next the Savoy Sultans of sax player Al Cooper - a small combo that played in the famous Savoy of Harlem from 1937 to '46. At that point the group that had a varying line-up disbanded. In the mid-seventies a follow-up jazz band with the same name was started that included the sax player of the old combo, George Kelly.
Listen to Decca number 7525, the Savoy Sultans with The Thing.
7525 - Al Cooper & His Savoy Sultans - The Thing
7526 - Shorty Bob Parker - So Cold In China
Decca 7526 - that was the obscure Shorty Bob Parker singing So Cold In China and Kid Prince Moore did the guitar. Parker did one session with Decca in New York from which Ridin' Dirty Motorsickle is most known. Whether he has recorded more under other names or the name Shorty Bob Parker is a pseudonym for a more known bluesman unfortunately remains undocumented.
Next Trixie Smith whose career was pretty much gone when she recorded this. Of course we know her from her successes of the twenties, and in the late thirties she re-recorded some of her most famous songs for Decca. Nowadays they're highly valued - not in the least for the band that accompanies her, and that includes Sydney Bechet on the clarinet.
Here is Jack I'm Mellow.
7528 - Trixie Smith - Jack Im Mellow
7532 - Johnnie Temple & The Harlem Hamfats - Stavin' Chain
Johnny Temple backed up by the Harlem Hamfats with Stavin' Chain. Temple was one of those many artists that moved to Chicago in the great migration of southern African Americans up north. There he met Joe McCoy who later was part of Decca's pre-war house band, the Harlem Hamfats. Temple had a long-lasting connection with J Mayo Williams, that helped him getting recording opportunities up to the late forties.
Next Bea Foote with with one of these typical female risky blues of the Depression. Backed up by the band of Sammy Price here is Try and Get It.
7535 - Bea Foote - Try and Get It
7536 - Jimmie Gordon and his Vip Vop Band - Number Runner's Blues
Jimmie Gordon and his Vip Vop Band with the Number Runner's Blues. As is the case with so many bluesmen from this era there's little known of his origins and after his recording career he disappeared back into obscurity. So we only know of his time with Decca where he had a hit with I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water in 1936. This Vip Vop Band that is billed on this record actually was not an existing combo but varying session musicians that included for whatever was needed for the occasion, like some members of the Harlem Hamfats, Charlie McCoy, Scrapper Blackwell and Sam Price.
Later, in '46 he cut four sides for the Queen and King labels and there his backing musicians were called the Bip Bop band. From there, nothing is known of his whereabouts and his fate.
Next, as Decca 7539, Piedmont bluesman Kid Prince Moore with a song about a woman with the bad habit of dipping snuff. Here is Talkin' 'Bout The Snuff.
7539 - Kid Prince Moore - Talkin' 'Bout The Snuff
7544 - Peetie Wheatstraw - Me No Lika You
Influential bluesman Peetie Wheatstraw with Me No Like You and that was released on Decca 7544 in 1938. Born William Bunch he adopted his nickname when he moved to St. Louis and played the Lovejoy club and a juke joint on W. Biddle St. On most of his recordings he is billed as Peetie Wheatstraw, The Devil's Son-in-Law or the High Sheriff from Hell. He had an attitude that much resembles modern-day rap artists, hardened and self-centered and his bad boy manners definitely were part of his professional personality. Writer Ralph Ellison used the name of Peetie Wheatstraw and his demonic character for one of his characters in The Invisible Man.
Next one of the greatest of Decca's artists. Louis Jordan had his debut with Decca with a pretty odd song, Barnacle Bill The Sailor. Jordan and his band played the Elks Rendezvous in Harlem after he was fired by Chick Webb where he'd played for two years, for trying to convince band members including Ella Fitzgerald, to start a new band. For the recording session Jordan changed the name of the band from Louie Jordan's Elks Rendez-vous Band - Louie spelled without the S to prevent people calling him "Lewis" - into Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five, after the tympany drums that drummer Walter Martin often used.
Barnacle Bill The Sailor and the flip Honey in the Bee Ball were the only two songs he recorded in that session under his own name, where he also backed up singer Rodney Sturgis - that yielded two singles that were issued as Decca 7550 and 7579.
For now, here are Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five with his very first single - Barnacle Bill The Sailor.
7556 - Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five - Barnacle Bill The Sailor
7557 - Bandanna Girls - Part Time Papa
7563 - Leroy's Buddy - Old Model A Blues
Trying to cash on the succes of close-harmony girl groups you heard Mozelle France and May Hopkins as the Bandanna Girls with the Part Time Papa, recorded in New York in January of 1939. Well the ladies didn't really make their mark on the history of Rhythm & Blues I'm afraid. I found Mozelle France as a songwriter for two songs, So Little and What Will I Do With Myself, both from 1940, but no hint whoever recorded a song with that name in the early forties. The name of the Bandanna Girls may be related to the Bandanna Babies, a show from 1930 featuring Ma Rainey.
After that you got Bill Gaither billed as Leroy's Buddy with a song about a car - the Old Model A Blues.
And well, you may have heard it from the closing tune of my show - time's up. You got a full hour of records from the Decca race series with recordings from 1938 and a bit of '39. The background music behind my talking by the way, also were on Decca but from their main series. The race series hardly had instrumental music - you heard one on this show. The larger swing orchestras - whether white or African-American - were probably seen as marketable to the greater audience and therefore issued in their main series. And in a black vocal group like the Ink Spots they probably seen the same potential.
I hope you liked today's selection and if so or if you have anything to say, ask or comment, let me know and send an e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And you can review today's playlist or find out what's on next week on my web site. Do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - that's the easiest way to find it. As for now, byebye and have a rocking day. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!