This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And in today's show I feature the independent labels that were owned by legendary producer J. Mayo Williams after he'd quit Decca as the head of the race music department. Music that is pretty hard to find as nearly none of it has ever been re-released, and his labels featured some real obscure artists that left no trace on any web site or any good book on Rhythm & Blues. There is, though, a great attempt for a discography on the Mayo Williams indies on the website of Robert Campbell and the Red Saunders Research Foundation, that I used as the basis for my show today.
Well enough talk for now, I'll start with a record of the Chicago label, the first label launched by Williams. As Chicago 102 a recording of the band of Horse Collar Williams fronted by one of my favorite blueswomen, Etta Jones. Here is You Ain't Nothin' Daddy.
01 - C102B - Horse Collar Williams feat. Etta Jones - You Ain't Nothin' Daddy
02 - C102A - Horse Collar Williams - How Ya Like That
More of Horse Collar Williams' band, a nice swing number titled How Ya Like That and that was the flip of the Etta Jones song that you got before.
Now the labels of the records of the Chicago label were to say the least, a bit odd. Apart from the name Chicago that fills the middle of the imprint, it also had "harlem series" in bold and "the southern record company" in small print. Williams had set up a company with that name on Lenox Avenue in Harlem and he did his record cutting in both Harlem and Chicago - he must have traveled a lot back and forth between these two cities, just like he did in his years for Decca. I don't know what was the reason to call the operation the Southern record company. It gets me somewhat the same feeling as with the Harlem Hamfats, the Decca studio band that he'd set up in Chicago, where no-one of the musicians, that came from all over the country, had any connection with Harlem.
Next, In memory of president Roosevelt a blues of James McCain and this must have been recorded shortly after his death on April 12 of 1945. Quite a few blues have been recorded in honor of the president who'd led America through the war, to die just months before the capitulation of Japan and the end of the war, and this label features three of them: apart from this one, the flip of it that is Big Joe Williams with His Spirit Lives On, and a double-sider Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt, an a-capella effort of the Evangelist Singers on Chicago 116. But here is James McCain with Good Mr. Roosevelt.
03 - C103B - James McCain - Good Mr. Roosevelt
04 - C104A - Lee Brown - Bobbie Town Boogie
(jingle)
05 - C113A - Mack Sisters - I Love That Carrying On
06 - C119 - Dossie Terry & Melba Pope's Trio - Whiskey Head Woman
Dossie Terry on Chicago number 119 backed by Melba Pope and his trio and a lot of shellac hiss. You heard the Whiskey Head Woman and before that you got the Mack sisters with I love that carrying on on Chicago 113, and they were pretty popular during the war years but on shellac they mostly did background vocals - especially for Buddy Johnson. It's likely that Mayo Williams who knew them from his time with Decca gave them the opportunity to record for themselves in that popular close harmony girl group style of the forties. The flip, a calypso style song titled Gin and Cocoanut water, well it immediately reminded me of the Andrews Sisters' song on that far more popular mix, Rum and Coca-cola, and apparently these girls did an unsuccesful attempt to cash on that great hit of the Andrews.
Then I have to account for what was before the jingle, well, that was the Bobby Town Boogie of Lee Brown on Chicago 104.
After this number, Mayo Williams changed the name of the label to Southern, continuing the numbering, actually the Whiskey Head Woman was also released as Southern 119.
And on soutern 122 we find the Little Four quartet, a male vocal group that was popular in the mid-forties and they did some soundies - say video clips that could be viewed on coin-operated movie machines. Billboard Magazine reviewed some of them, including one describing an imaginary land where gold flows like water and love grows on trees, and another one singing about red hot buttered crawfish and other delicacies of the seafood bar.
Here is the Little Four Quartet with Tee U Ee.
07 - S122 - Little Four Quartet - Tee U Eee
08 - S124 - Tab Smith - Joy At The Savoy
My apologies for the skipping grooves and the crappy digitalization - that's how I got it from the music service that I'm subscribed to, and I found out that other services like Amazon and Spotify all use the same music file. For some reason this song - Joy at the Savoy of Tab Smith - immediately caught me. It was released as Southern 124 in 1946.
Today I feature the independent labels of the J. Mayo Williams, and to know what made him such an influential producer, we should not look at these labels but what he'd been doing in the twenties and thirties. I featured his story before, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, but that was quite some time ago. Williams started in the twenties both as a professional in American football and as a producer and A&R man. Without any knowledge of the recording industry and just a liking for the blues he talked himself into a position of producer at Paramount in 1924. There he discovered and signed some of the most important of blues singers including Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Tampa Red and Papa Charlie Jackson.
In 1927 he started the legendary Black Patti label and though commercially this was a failure, he again got some greats for the microphone and recorded some of the most influential blues ever. After the label folded at the end of the year, he signed with with Brunswick for the Vocalion label, again as a talent scout and A&R man. The Wall Street crash though, also ended his job and for years he trained a football team in Atlanta.
In 1934 he was asked to start the race music department for the newly founded American branch of Decca and soon he turned that into the most succesful label for African American music. He stayed there for ten years, and while Decca just recovered from the 1942-44 recording ban, he retired himself. Like most record producers of his time, he hadn't been very fair with the musicians he'd contracted and most of the royalties went into his pockets instead of the musicians. But then, this was common practice these days.
You may wonder why such a succesful man didn't manage to make a success of his own record labels. His twenties label failed, and the labels that I feature today here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman were highly unsuccesful. Mayo Williams proved to be good in getting people to sign for him, but running a business requires more and I have the impression that he wasn't very good in marketing and setting up a distribution network. Established artists found their way to record companies that were more succesful, and new or aspiring artists weren't helped out with a record label without anything of a distribution network.
For the next record I go to Williams' third label - Harlem. Unlike with Southern, he started a new numbering and on number 1003 we find - well maybe one of the oddest of his entire catalog. The label credits Muriel 'Bea Booze' Nichols and the song is titled See See Rider. Now by this time the real Wee Bea Booze had a number one hit with this song. It's remains unclear why Williams did a rip-off of Bea Booze's version, with a voice that is a fair imitation of the real Bea, but with a much more uptempo pace. And either this was the only song they'd waxed or other material of Muriel Nichols was lost. The flip featured another singer, Betty Thornton. Information in the New York newspaper Amsterdam News reveals that in 1951, Muriel Nichols still was active in Rhythm & Blues - but I'm afraid that's it about this singer.
Listen to her version of See See Rider on Harlem 1003.
09 - H1003A - Muriel 'Bea Booze' Nichols - See See Rider
10 - H1024A - Tab Smith feat. Roebie Kirk - Don't Want To Play In The Kitchen (Let's Go Upstairs)
Robie Kirk fronts the band of Tab Smith with Let's Go Upstairs a.k.a Don't Want To Play In The Kitchen, issued as Harlem 1024A. The song got a second chance on the Queen subsidiary of King records of Cincinatti where Mayo Williams leased several of his masters.
The flip of it was Roebie's Blues. I found that song on a re-issue album of the Saxophonograph label stating that it was recorded in Los Angeles at the Bel-Tone studio, but this is probably incorrect as there was a studio named Beltone in New York as well. Now that is much more likely as all of Mayo Williams' material was recorded either in the Big Apple or in Chicago. Roebie's blues also made its way to Cincinatti for a re-release on the King label. Well here it is.
11 - H1024B - Tab Smith feat. Roebie Kirk - Roebie's Blues
12 - H1011A - Bill Johnson & His Musical Notes - Don't You Think I Oughta Know
Bill Johnson and his Musical Notes was that with Don't You Think I Oughta Know. The lead singer was Gus Gordon and Bill Johnson was the leader of the combo the Musical Notes. He'd been working for Erskine Hawkins from 1936 on the clarinet and the saxophone, but he made fame as an arranger and composer - he wrote the music of classica as Tuxedo Junction and Swinging on Lenox Avenue. The record they cut for Harlem was their second - they'd backed up a female singer Grace Smith on a double-sider If I Were An Itty Bitty Girl on the pretty obscure Alert label.
Don't You Think I Oughta Know soon got a re-recording on RCA Victor backed with a very nice version of Lucky Millinder's Shorty's Got To Go.
Next is Stick McGhee on Harlem 1018 with Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee. Now the word Spo-Dee-O-Dee replaced the M-word that I would get a loud beep over if I say it here on the radio, and apparently Mayo Williams had required another word. This song also got a re-recording, for Atlantic records, that got much wider attention, but here you get the version on Harlem.
13 - H1018A - Stick McGhee - Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee
14 - E3-1007B - Birmingham Junior and his Lover Boys - You're too bad
And with Birmingham Junior and his Lover Boys with You're too bad we got to Williams Ebony label and to the fifties. Williams' distribution network had gotten weaker and weaker and also for several years he he'd released very few titles. Now Ebony may be the best-known name of Mayo Williams indies - you don't see that in terms of the number of tracks re-issued. The struggling label had three incarnations, each with their own numbering starting at 1001. The office in New York was closed and a tiny place in Chicago had become his headquarters. It goes without saying that none ever even touched the R&B chart.
From the same third incarnation Ebony 1011, probably early 1954, a single of Freddy 'Bama Boy' Hall. The label states "Freddy Hall - Gadsden's gift to the girls" - apparently he was from Gadsden, AL, somewhere between Birmingham and Atlanta. Here is This Crooked World.
15 - E3-1011A - Freddie 'Bama Boy' Hall - This Crooked World
16 - E3-1014A - Eagle-Aires - My Number One Baby
17 - E3-1015B - Eagle-Aires - Money Honey
The Eagle-Aires with two songs - My Number One Baby and Money Honey. This is the only doowop group ever recording with Mayo Williams, and apart from their studio work there, they never seem to have recorded. One of the masters ended up at the J.O.B. label where it got a release. Still this is a top notch vocal group.
Well it shows again how many Rhythm & Blues artists never got a chance to get on record, and also how Mayo Williams' had lost touch with what was happening in Rhythm & Blues. It's somewhat of a sad ending that a producer who discovered the greats of the 20s and 30s, ended up recording such obscurites - that means also, never succeeded in giving these artists real exposure.
Williams continued his label into the early seventies, way beyond the interest of this program, and died in 1980, just before appointments were made to gather his life story my means of interview. Maybe it would have shone some light on this episode in his life and the choices he'd made.
Well my hour's done - leaves me to give you my email address in case you want to react on this program - that is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com and my website, where you can read back this story, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. As for now, have a rocking day and I hope to see you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!