This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And dig that sound today as I'll play minor key music only, and an overwhealming majority of Rhythm & Blues is in major key so it took me some time to get this list together. But it's filled with some spine-chilling songs and the very first of this list is one of them. Well this song is a true sad maker. Here is, back from December 1928, Louis Armstrong with his sublime version of what originally was a major key folk song, but Armstrong converted in one of the most sensitive songs of his era. And he had some great names in the combo, with Earl 'Fatha' Hines on the piano and Jimmy Strong both on sax and clarinet, and of course the master on the trumpet and on vocals. Here is St. James Infirmery.
01 - Louis Armstrong - St. James Infirmary
02 - Cab Calloway - Minnie The Moocher
From 1931 on Brunswick, Cab Calloway and his band. A song filled with drugs about Minnie the Moocher who was brought to Chinatown to kick the gong around - meaning smoking opium - by her coke-addicted boyfriend Smokey. Now the trip brings her to dreams about the King of Sweden who gets her everything she's needing, but ends sad with the words 'Poor Min, poor Min' - maybe indicating that Minnie did not survive her trip. Cab Calloway used the characters of Minnie and Smokey in several of his other songs.
The 'Hidehidehi' call-and-response scat singing, for this recording the band does the response, but in live performances Calloway let the audience do it, and he made the phrases increasingly complicated and that got the crowd bursting out in laughter where they failed to repeat him.
Now the song was based on a vaudeville classic from the earliest 1900s - Willie the Weeper, the chimney sweeper, recorded by various artists throught the twenties - among them Frankie 'Half Pint' Jaxon and Louis Armstrong.
And we'll stay in the thirties with two songs that I featured earlier here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Both are Decca recordings, one from 1934 when the label just had landed in America, the other from the house band of Decca, the very first of its kind. You'll get the Georgia Washboard Stompers with Everybody Loves My Baby and after that
Root Hog Or Die from one of my favourite combos of the thirties, the Harlem Hamfats.
03 - Georgia Washboard Stompers - Everybody Loves My Baby
04 - Harlem Hamfats - Root Hog Or Die
(jingle)
05 - Lil Green - Why Don't You Do Right
06 - Julia Lee - Lotus Blossom
Julia Lee with Lotus Blossom - again a drugs-related song, but not a happy one on getting high but a remorseful, deeply sad blues full of regret and melancholy - the minor key and the backing of Tommy Douglas and his band, a small and cosy arrangement, are just perfectly right for this song. And Julia Lee's singing has an intensity that shows off she could meet with the greatest of blues singers. She recorded this for Mercury in 1947 in Kansas City.
Before that you got another classic, Why Don't You Do Right and that of course was Lil Green. The song became a classic women's blues when Peggy Lee did it with Benny Goodman, but for me the original is much intenser. It was written by Kansas Joe McCoy who'd reworked it from a late thirties song that he'd recorded with the Harlem Hamfats - the Weed Smokers Dream. For some reason a lot of drugs songs were in minor key.
Next from 1945 on the Philo label Helen Humes with He don't love me anymore. Now the backing band was billed on the label as her All-stars but actually it's the band of Lester Young.
07 - Lester Young & Helen Humes - He Don't Love Me Any More
08 - Joe Liggins - Going Back to New Orleans
Joe Liggins was that on the Specialty label from 1950 - going back to New Orleans and this has a bit of a latin touch over it. Now though there is a full scale of minor key blues chords most blues are in major key but I don have a lot of examples where Rhythm & Blues artists want to get a bit of latin flavor over their music, they switch to a minor key.
Now major key music tends to sound more happy than minor. It's a common misunderstanding that the blues are a sad genre. They're not. They may not be overly happy, but they're mostly about dealing with everyday's troubles in a somewhat positive, and often humorous way. For that, the typical blue note in the blues - the use of one half-tone lower notes that gives somewhat of a minor key effect for the moment, pretty much reflects this typical mood in the blues. Blue notes exists in the minor key blues as well and they increase the mood of the minor key.
Next - Charles Brown who did several songs in minor key. You'll get two of them. First from 1946 you'll get him as lead of Johnny Moore's Three Blazers on the Exclusive label with It Aint Gonna Be Like That and after that, from 1951 when he'd gone solo, Black Night and that was on Aladdin.
09 - Charles Brown & Johnny Moore's Three Blazers - It Aint Gonna Be Like That
10 - Charles Brown - Black Night
Charles Brown with Black Night and it's stunning how much early recordings of Ray Charles sound like Brown. Ray Charles always said that in his Seattle days he tried to sound like Nat King Cole, but I think he had more similarity like Brown - for as far as he didn't just sound like himself.
Of course Charles Brown himself was influenced by Cole but his blues were deeper and more troublesome than Cole's.
We're moving to another Brown - Walter Brown and from him, backed up by Jay McShann and his band, the ABC Blues from 1951 on the Peacock label.
11 - Walter Brown - ABC Blues
12 - Jesse Thomas - When You Say I Love You
And that was Jesse 'babyface' Thomas recorded for Specialty in 1951. By then he had a good twenty-five years of blues career behind him and another thirty-five to go, appearing at the age of 83 at the '94 Long Beach Blues Festival. He made his most noted song though at the age of 18, for Victor, back in 1929 - the Blue Goose Blues.
From that same year you'll get Mel Walker backed by Johnny Otis and his band with Gee Baby.
13 - Johnny Otis feat. Mel Walker - Gee Baby
14 - Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I put a spell on you
A greater contrast between voices is hardly imaginable - the smooth voice of Mel Walker and the grunting of Screaming Jay Hawkins. I put a spell on you was meant as a sentimental ballad but Hawkins and his his band members were blind drunk when they showed up at the recording session. Hawkins later didn't remember anything of it but it still became a memorable recording of what soon was to be a classic.
Next - stomping blues from the same year as what I just played - 1956 and this was on the Chess label. Muddy Waters with Forty Days Forty Nights.
15 - Muddy Waters - Forty Days Forty Nights
16 - Pauline Rogers - I'm Just A Woman
17 - Wynonie Harris - Tell A Whale Of A Tale
A Whale Of A Tale and that was Wynonie Harris far in the end of his career. 1956 was that and he recorded it for the Atco label - the subsidiary of Atlantic, and before that you got Pauline Rogers on the New York-based Flair-X label with I'm Just A Woman and with that the end of this show has begun.
Minor key Rhythm & Blues is rare and I love it. I hope you enjoyed today's selection too and if so, or if not of course, let me know and send me an e-mail to 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. On the web site you'll find today's playlist and what will be on next, and you can read back all information that I told you today.
As for now, I have a wonderful, rocking day and I hope to see you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!