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's show will be a mixed bag of goodies from the thirties, forties and fifties, as you're used to from me, an allsort from music that I still have to sort out, coming from CDs and records. And the first of them will be Andrew Tibbs, with his second release on the Aristocrat label. The first one was a political statement, a cynical lament on the death of the strongly racist senator and Missisippi governor Theodore Bilbo, and that caused some uproar when it came out. This second release titled Drinking Ink Splink is a more common style drinking song though you may wonder what kinda mix Ink Splink is.
01 - Andrew Tibbs - Drinkin' Ink Splink
02 - Skeets Tolbert & The Gentlemen Of Swing - W.P.A
From 1940 on Decca Skeets Tolbert and his Gentlemen of Swing with the W.P.A. He'd been in several bands before he started to lead his own band, that originally was Snub Mosley's until *he* left. He recorded for Decca from 1939 to '42 but he remained on the Race series instead of the main popular series of Decca where most swing bands went. After Tolbert graduated from Columbia University - at the age of 37 years old - he quit the scene and became a music teacher, later he worked for the American Federation of Musicians and he owned a music store.
And from a swing band to the rollicking sound of the boogie woogie piano. Williams became the pianist and arranger of Andy Kirk's Clouds Of Joy after her husband saxophonist John Williams had joined the band before. Her arrangements went further to the bands of Earl Fatha Hines, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. Later she got involved in the Catholic church and started to compose well-acclaimed music for worship, based on the blues, jazz and gospel.
But here her boogie woogie masterpiece, Roll 'Em from 1937.
03 - Mary Lou Williams - Roll Em
04 - Joe 'Papoose' Fritz - Better Wake Up Baby
(jingle)
05 - Lloyd Fatman - Where You Been
06 - Myra Taylor - Tell Your Best Friend Nothing
"A mediocre mating with race allure only" wrote Billboard Magazine in February 1947 on this little gem of Myra Taylor. The reviewer did like the originality of the lyrics that he called "top drawer" but the backing by Jimmy Keith's combo he judges as just so-so and outdated. Well by now the latter doesn't count anymore - all of the music I play is eh.. well, outdated. Tell Your Best Friend Nothing was released on Mercury and despite its lukewarm review it's become one of my favourites.
Before that you got Lloyd Fatman with Where You Been and that was on Okeh from 1956 and then before the jingle Joe Papoose Fritz and he recorded his Better Wake Up Baby for the Peacock label after he performed in the Bronze Peacock in Houston. It's no coincidence that the club and the label both were named Peacock - they had the same owner.
Next a lady with remarkable looks who showed up in the Rhythm & Blues scene of Philadelphia in the mid-fifties for, unfortunately, just a short while. From 1953 on the Savoy label and backed up by Hal Singer and his band, here is Dolly Cooper with I Wanna Know.
07 - Dolly Cooper & the Hal Singer Orchestra - I Wanna Know
08 - Marion Abernathy - Scroogli-Oli-Re-Bos
Paul Bascomb's band backs up the scat singing of Marion Abernathy with her Scroogli-Oli-Re-Bos recorded for King in August of 1947. The Blues Woman as she was advertised was one of the first artists to record for Art Rupe's Juke Box label, later renamed to Specialty, but in 1945 she'd already stepped to the Melodisc label. Many discographies on her and even the usually so comprehensive Document series missed this episode of her recording career, probably because the masters were lost in a fire that ended the operations of this little Hollywood label.
Next from 1949 Alma Mondy, nicknamed the Lollipop mama, after the comedian Lollypop Jones with whom she did a comedy show in the Club Desire in New Orleans 9th Ward as a support act for Fats Domino. Backed up by George Miller's Mid Driffs she did four cuts in a session for the Mercury label, and of them I'll play Miss Lollypop's Confession.
09 - Alma 'The Lollipop Mama' Mondy - Miss Lollypop's Confession
10 - Margie Day - Snatchin' It Back
On Decca from 1953 Margie Day with Paul Williams and his band with a self-penned song Snatchin' It Back and for sure that's a good one. Billboard wrote: Lots of zip and dash in the thrush's reading of this bright hunk of material - and that was in their issue of October 24 or 1953.
She was not much of a hit maker for Decca but she did pretty well while on tour with Williams. This was after her more succesful time with the Griffin Brothers with whom she did the great Little Red Rooster that bears no relationship to the 1961 blues standard with the same title by Willie Dixon, apart from maybe a line of lyrics.
And we're doing quite a few ladies today, this time we're making a jump back some twenty-two years with Blance Calloway - indeed, the sister of - and her Growling Dan on Victor. Now the label bills Blanche Calloway & Her Orchestra and by then this ambitious lady indeed had taken leadership over her own band the Joy Boys and with that she was the first female leader of a band that consisted of men only and with that she got a great response. Yet the disadvantage of being an African American woman made her remain a shadow of her younger brother for whom she was a great example and influence.
Blanche's story is full of discrimination, both racial as for her sex, and that included an inprisonment for disorderly conduct, just for using the ladies bathroom in a Mississippi gas station, where in the meanwhile a band member took off with the band's money, and she had to sell her Cadillac for some cash to get out of the state. In '38 she even went bankrupt after failure to find some profitable spots to perform and had to give up her band for some time.
This song features Minnie the Moocher taken from her brother's succesful 1931 song - and in that he'd borrowed the hi-de-hi-de-ho from an earlier song of Blanche titled Just a crazy song. Well listen to her Growling Dan from 1931 on Victor.
11 - Blanche Calloway - Growlin Dan
12 - Albinia Jones With Don Byas' Swing Seven - Albinia's Blues
From Blanche Calloway to Albinia Jones is a smaller step than it seems cause the two ladies toured together in 1945, the year this gem saw daylight. Backed up by the Swing Seven of Don Byas on the National label, this was Albinia's Blues and in these days she was promoted as the new Queen of the Blues. And what a line-up for the instrumental backing, that included Sammy Price on the guitar, Don Byas on the sax and nobody less than Dizzie Gillespie on the trumpet.
13 - Sonny Thompson - This Fool Has Learned
And that was Herman 'Junior' Denby with Sonny Thompson from 1954 on King. You heard This Fool Has Learned and this Junior Denby was the lead tenor of the famous vocal group the Swallows - but did this as a solo performance with Sonny Thompson. His voice has some similarity with Charles Brown but I think Brown's style is much mellower - actually it was his ability to imitate Brown that brought Denby to the group.
And then now for something completely different as they say - variety is the spice of life and of this program too. J.T. Brown, sometimes billing himself as Nature Boy or Big Boy Brown with My Gal Went Away.
14 - J.T. Brown - My Gal Went Away
15 - Duke Henderson - Lottery Blues
Duke Henderson with the Lottery Blues recorded in Los Angeles in December of 1945 for the Apollo label and it was Lucky Thompson who acccompanied him with his band. The Apollo sessions were Henderson's first recordings and, well he had several backing bands with good line-up like Jack McVea, Wild Bill Moore and Lucky Thompson, but the records didn't sell and his contract with Apollo ended in 1947. After that he stayed active in Rhythm & Blues until 1953 when he did his Hey Mr. Kinsey, a funny blues where he blames researcher McKinsey and their then-groundbreaking Kinsey report on human sexual behavior for the cheating of his woman.
Next Harrison 'Peppermint' Nelson whose name got mixed up by record boss Bob Chad of the Sittin' In label to Peppermint Harris - the name stuck and that's the name we know of him now. On this label, here is Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie.
16 - Peppermint Harris - Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie
17 - Terry Timmons - Please Don't Leave Me Now
On RCA Victor was that Terry Timmons with Please Don't Leave Me Now. She'd been discovered by Paul Gayten while singing in a nightclub with a style that bore some resemblance to Dinah Washington and later she went on with Memphis Slim and it was his band that backed her up in this song. In a review in February of 1953, Billboard thought it a bit too refined but still, first rate backing on a slick performance of the singer.
Billboard used a lot of words for female singers in their reviews - like thrush, chirp or just gal. The reviews often weren't longer than some 30 words. Now I guess that Billboard had strict limitations on the amount of space for their reviewers and that explains for the broken sentences and abbreviations in the columns. Then to make it just a little bit readable the reviewers had to spice it up with odd words.
Well - you may have heard it from the background tune - the hour's full and my time's up. I tried to bring you some interesting Rhythm & Blues to spice up your day and I just hope I succeeded. And whether you liked it or not, or if you have any comment to make, well just drop me a line, the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And to read back what I told you today, or to see what's on next week you can go to my website. Do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first in the results.
Then there's just time to wish you a nice and rocking day. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.