This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And once more some of the greatest obscurities, and some of the greatest of Rhythm & Blues in a blend of tunes that I'm sure will excite you as much as it does me. And remember last time I played a selection of minor key songs, and just today while making today's playlist I stumbled upon one that I'd overlooked for last time - as for sure I should have included it. So I'll start with that one - here is Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy with I Lost My Gal From Memphis.
01 - Andy Kirk & his Twelve Clouds of Joy - I Lost My Gal From Memphis
02 - Sister Rockaway With I.H. Smiley & His Rockateers - Young Women's Advice
I recently stumbled upon a rather obscure CD titled Midnight Blues Party volume two with some great and pretty rare Rhythm & Blues from the forties and one of the tracks was this song, titled the Young Woman's Advice by Sister Rockaway and I.H. Smiley and his Rockateers. Now it took me quite some time to find out who that were. A member of the ever-knowledgable ML 78 L mailing list helped me to track them down. This I.H. Smiley appears to be a misspelling of Isaah H. "Ike" Smalley who was often seen in Houston in the company of Arnett Cobb, Milt Larkin and Calvin Owens.
The song was the flip of Smalley's Jump and released on the Foto label, one of the subsidiaries Roy Milton's Miltone label. Now we're talking somewhere 1948 that this must have been released on 78, and the labels in the middle of the record were printed with a really cool cartoon, like most of the Miltone releases. On my web site I put a link to a web page showing all these wonderful and cool labels of the Miltone label and its subsidiaries - including this one.
Thanks to the information I got I could also track down this Sister Rockaway - that cartoon label says that is Inez Newell and her name pops up as an actor in the International Movies Database. She played in two low-budget all-black movies, as Mama Bridges in Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. from 1946 and as Louella 'Mama Lou' Holiday in Juke Joint from one year later. As far as I know she doesn't sing a note in either of them and that's a pity as in this record she shows off that she's got a powerful bluesy voice and a good gospelish delivery. Now as far as I can find out, she never recorded anything else but this great, but odd blues.
The track on that CD Midnight Blues Party obviously was taken straight from shellac with a serious groove skip in the intro. Fortunately the song was also included on a great CD box titled Houston Might Be Heaven and when you see the track listing of that, it may not surprise you that this one now features my CD cabinet - and that made, you got an undamaged version of the song.
It also features that Smalley's Jump so lets virtually flip the record over and play that one. Here is Isaah H "Ike" Smalley.
03 - I.H. Smalley - Smalley's Jump
04 - Buddy Johnson - Hey, Sweet Potato
(jingle)
05 - Velma Nelson - Something's Done Gone Wrong
06 - Calvin Boze - Good Time Sue
Four in a row - after Isaah Smalley's Jump you got Hey Sweet Potato - Buddy Johnson singing with his orchestra and this was recorded for Decca in January 1947. Then after the jingle you got the pretty obscure Velma Nelson straight from an Aladdin 78 from 1946 and the last one was Calvin Boze with Good Time Sue. That one was from '51 also on Aladdin.
Now should you have thought that you heard Louis Jordan, well, it's apparent that Boze closely copied his style. It brought him success in 1950 with Safronia B - trying to create his own classic character comparable to Jordan's Caldonia. These are his most succesful years - but by 1953 he quit the music scene and became a teacher and social worker.
Well let's just go to the master himself - Louis Jordan. This is still pretty early in his career, from '39. Sam Jones Done Snagged His Britches and for those who are not too familiar with that slang - well, he torn his pants.
07 - Louis Jordan - Sam Jones Done Snagged His Britches
08 - Four Blazes - Snag the Britches
Somebody done snag the britches - another song on the same subject of tearing your pants, and I like the phrase in this: airconditioning is the latest thing but that's for summer and this is spring. You heard the Chicago group the Four Blazes from 1952 or '53 and that wonderful saxophone work was done by Eddie Chamblee.
The Four Blazes had been around since the late thirties in a varying line-up - their name changing with the number of group members, and they were hot around Chicago, but it wasn't before tenor Tommy Braden joined the band that they recorded succesfully - and with their Mary Jo they got the number one on Billboard's R&B hit list in 1952. They tried several more blues that sounded very much like Mary Jo - actually, they re-used the same melody over and over again, including on their hilarious Perfect Woman, and in most cases it was Eddie Chamblees saxophone work that made the real difference. This Snag the Britches was one of the few songs that didn't use the Mary Jo melody line.
Some of the follow-ups did chart but by '55 their sound had become completely outdated in the Rock & Roll craze. That's when the group broke up - Tommy Braden died two years later.
There was also a Los Angeles outfit called the Four Blazes that should not be confused with this group. And it's easy to get confused, because at the same time the Chicago group recorded the Chicago Boogie, billed as the Five Blazes, the group from L.A. recorded a Chicago Blues - while they had no connection at all with the Windy City.
And from Chicago IL we go to Cleveland OH with the Cleveland Ohio Blues. Here is, on the Queen label from 1945, Cleveland native Bull Moose Jackson.
09 - Bull Moose Jackson - Cleveland Ohio Blues
10 - Big Mama Thornton With The Bill Harvey Band - Let Your Tears Fall Baby
Willie Mae Thornton, better known as Big Mama Thornton with her 1951 single Let Your Tears Fall Baby on the Peacock label. This was before she made her smash success with the Leiber and Stoller song Hound Dog. Now Big Mama wasn't really an exaggeration of miss Thornton's appearance. According to Jerry Leiber in an interview on the making of Hound dog, "she looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face". Apart from singing she played the drum and the harmonica.
From the same city - Houston TX - as Willie Mae Thornton is Lightning Hopkins and I'll play a blues that he did with Wilson Smith. That was in 1946 where they were brought together by Aladdin records. It's there where Sam John Hopkins got the nickname 'Lightnin' and Wilson Smith was named 'Thunder', made up by an Aladdin executive, to get a better selling names on the record - Lightnin' Hopkins & Thunder Smith.
Here is Can't Do Like You Used To.
11 - Lightnin' Hopkins & Thunder Smith - Can't Do Like You Used To
12 - Big Bill Broonzy - Summertime Blues
Big Bill Broonzy with the Summertime Blues, recorded in December of 1947 just before the start of the second recording ban of the American Federation of Music. He was in his fifties when he recorded this - that is if you take 1893 as his year of birth cause other sources say 1898 or 1903. The latter seems pretty unlikely to me as he was drafted into the army for serving in the Great War in 1917. Anyhow he was of that older generation of bluesmen who started as a fiddler with rural blues, moved to the big city - Chicago in his case - and gradually got a more urban style. Broonzy by the way has a son from a romance with a woman from my little country and that man still lives in Amsterdam. On the biography site broonzy.com there's a few pictures of Big Bill with his girlfriend and his son, still a little baby.
Next a great blues of Cecil Gant on the Four Star subsidiary of Gilt Edge records, where Gant started his recording career with his greatest succes, I Wonder. Here is his Special Delivery.
13 - Cecil Gant - Special Delivery
14 - Chuck Norris - What's Good for One's Good for All
From 1950 Chuck Norris - not the karate man - with What's Good for One's Good for All and that was from 1951 on Mercury. Chuck was a nickname - his given name was Charles and he was one of these many Kansas City musicians who ended up on the West Coast but he had had a detour in Chicago. He appeared on many sessions with the Hollywood record labels but he did a few under his own name too. This one's probably one of his best.
Next harpist Jimmy Rogers together with Little Walter. Here is the Little Store Blues.
15 - Jimmy Rogers & Little Walter - Little Store Blues
16 - Monte Easter - Ain'tcha Glad
17 - Googie Rene - Break It Up
You got, from 1946 Ain'tcha Glad, that was Monte Easter and his band on the New York based Sterling label and after that from '57 Googie Rene with Break it up on the Class label end that was the last one for today. Well it was a real mixed bag of tunes today and I hope you enjoyed them and if so - or if not - let me know and send me an e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or visit my web site, do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. There you'll find today's playlist and what will be on next, and you can read back all information that I told you today.
For now, time's up and so I wish you a rocking day and I hope to see you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.