This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And another show today on a legendary record label from the Windy City - today the story of the Chicago-based Miracle label. A label whose story that starts in the late summer of 1946 with an odd release of Rudy Richardson - to remain silent again for months apart from a teaser ad in Billboard Magazine.
A label, also, that brought us some of the greats of Rhythm & Blues and one of them is Memphis Slim and with him I'll start today. With Miracle #103 the company finally had got into some more regular releasing - we're talking May of 1947 already where the recording had been done in October of the year before. Well here is Memphis Slim with the song that lent its name to the House Rockers, the combo that consisted of two saxes and a bass. Here is Rocking the House.
01 - 103 - Memphis Slim - Rockin' the House
02 - 104 - Gladys Palmer & the Floyd Hunt Quartette - Fool that I am
On Miracle 104 Gladys Palmer with Fool that I am and that was Miracle's first national hit peaking number three on Billboards Race records chart. This was a second take - the first one was so slow that it lasted four minutes, too long to press on a 78, so a second, shorter version had to be made. Palmer was discovered by J. Mayo Williams in his Decca years and on and off for longer periods she worked and lived in Chicago. Palmer was a good singer *and* pianist - and you'll get some of that later - but her voice failed her in these important sessions later in 1947 - stockpiling masters before B-day, the start of the second recording ban of the American Federation of Musicians. Palmer suffered from laryngitis. The '47 sessions where her last ones for Miracle, many of them never got released.
Next tenor sax player Dick Davis as the lead man of a combo that apparently was put together for a session for Miracle. The sextette included three tenor saxophonists, apart from Davis that were the great Eddie Chamblee and Tommy "Madman" Jones - a notable honker who played the Blue Heaven lounge with his Flames of Joy. Here's Miracle 109 - the Memphis Train.
03 - 109 - Dick Davis - Memphis Train
04 - 110 - Memphis Slim - Motherless Child
Another side of Memphis Slim - the Motherless Child and that was the flip of the Pacemaker Boogie that you hear in the background now.
And the next - on Miracle 119 - well, he's one of the more troublesome artists of the Miracle roster. And it's not for the band that backs him - Eddie Chamblee and his band are top notch musicians and Eddies tasty sax break is way too short - but what to think of this tenor crooner. Browley Guy got numerous recordings for Miracle and most of them are lugubrious attempts. Well - it was for a reason that many of them never got released or even were rejected but you may wonder why he was brought to the studio anyhow. Still given the amount of effort that Miracle put in him, he needs to be played - he's part of the history of the Miracle label. Listen to his syrupy delivery backed by his vocal group the Skyscrapers in one of his best efforts - a Certain Other Someone.
05 - 119 - Eddie Chamblee feat. Browley Guy & The Skyscrapers - Certain Other Someone
06 - 123 - Gladys Palmer - Palmer's Boogie
Gladys Plamer once more, now with a nice demonstration of her skills on the piano, together with the combo of Sonny Thompson. Palmer's Boogie was credited on the label as miss Palmer on the piano but it does sound like she shared the keyboard with Sonny.
The next one also is an instrumental - Miracle recorded quite a few of them. Sonny Thompson here is billed together with the Sharps & Flats that do the string and rhythm section. Actually the Sharps & Flats were a vocal group but Miracle apparently wasn't interested in their vocal skills so they only served as instrumentalists.
Listen to Just Boogie.
07 - 127 - Sonny Thompson - Just boogie
08 - 129 - Lillie Mae Kirkman - Lonesome
Backed up by Memphis Slim's band the House Rockers that was Lillie Mae Kirkman - on the label just billed as Lillie Mae. This was recorded a few days before Christmas of 1947 in that frenzy of recording before the upcoming second recording ban of the AFM and it was released nearly a year later.
The next one was recorded in the summer of 1948. The recording ban was still in effect and musicians and record labels did risk fines, but suddenly everywhere in Chicago recording had resumed, be it on a relatively low level compared to the last quarter of '47. St. Louis Jimmy Oden cut only two sides for Miracle, just enough for one single. Of that you hear I'm Sorry Now, accompanied by his long-time friend Roosevelt Sykes on the guitar and Alvin Garrett from the Sharps & Flats on the guitar. Here is I'm Sorry Now.
09 - 134 - St. Louis Jimmy Oden - I'm Sorry Now
10 - 136 - Memphis Slim - Help Me Some
Help Me Some and with that we heard Memphis Slim for the third time today - he was the most recorded artist for the Miracle label. This was from July 1949 and by this time Miracle had become a good running business - Miracle boss Lee Egalnick announced to release every ten days. One of the newly signed groups were the Four Vagabonds, a vocal group that already was around in the mid-thirties, popular for the three-times-a-week live radio broadcasts that they'd done for a solid then ten full years on the Don McNeil Breakfast Club radio show. It was their last recording, that is, under their own name as they did some background vocal work later.
Listen to their Mighty Hard To Go Through Life Alone.
11 - 141 - Four Vagabonds - Mighty Hard To Go Through Life Alone
12 - 146 - Sonny Thompson - Backyard Affair
The Back Yard Affair - another great laid-back instrumental of Sonny Thompson. And we'll stay with the instrumentals on the mellow side - here is Eddie Chamblee with Cradle Rock.
13 - 150 - Eddie Chamblee - Cradle Rock
14 - 152 - Bill Samuels Trio - New Jockey Blues
Bill Samuels with a remake of his Jockey Blues that was the flip of his first song for Mercury - I cover the waterfront that was a huge hit in 1945. His Miracle recording was simply named the New Jockey Blues and it was recorded in the early days of 1950.
That year turned out to be the last one for Miracle. Sonny Thompson left, succes eluded the label and way too many recordings remained unissued. Now issuing so little of their recordings was a problem from the very beginning of this label, and the studio fees still had to be paid, released or not. Several Sonny Thompson masters were sold to the Signature label, where eventually none of them ever were released. Ten Memphis Slim recordings were traded off to Egmond Sonderling, the owner of the Universal Broadcasting Studio's where all of Miracle's recording had been done. A few of these recordings were released on Sonderling's Old Swing-Master label, the others stayed in the vaults and never made it to the ears of whom they were intended for.
In May of 1950 Lee Egalnick, the man who had started the business, left the sinking ship for his companion, A&R man Lew Simpkins who closed down the operation a month later when it was filed for bankruptcy. The King label bought 165 masters and some 50,000 pressed discs from the IRS, and it later got all of Miracle's masters. A limited amount of them were released on King or their subsidiary Federal, and a few were traded off once more, to the British Esquire label.
When you see the discography of all that's been recorded for Miracle - and that is listed in one of these great web pages of Robert Campbell - well the number of recordings that have the word unissued in the table is upsetting. Of course, you have alternative takes that didn't make it, but there's much more songs and instrumentals that never got on disc - of any type - and it tickles my curiosity. There must be a lot of great material among that, together with a lot of junk, like all these recordings of Browley Guy who'd better never come to the studio. That is, if the judgment of Robert Campbell and Robert Pruter who did that elaborate web page on the Miracle label is right, cause I never got to hear them. But I'm curious to hear these unissued sides of Rudy Richardson, Piney Brown, Gladys Palmer, Sonny Thompson, Bill Samuels and that one vocal recording of the Sharps & Flats.
Well I continue with a song of Eddie Chamblee and it's one of the few occasions that we hear the saxophone master show his vocal qualities - and he does a great jumping style of singing. Listen to Miracle 155 - Jump for Joy.
15 - 155 - Eddie Chamblee - Jump For Joy
16 - 156 - Johnny Temple - Sit Right On It
An oddity in the Miracle catalog - for sure this is. Johnny Temple's Sit Right On It wasn't recorded for Miracle in the studio of United Broadcasting. Miracle got them from J. Mayo Williams, and his Ebony label that I featured last time here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, well, say it was on vacation for a long time - between 1949 and '52 Williams didn't release any of his records himself. Why Lee Egalnick bought masters from Williams while he didn't release so much of his own catalog that he hardly could afford recording - I don't know.
Now the recording was done in a studio that wasn't familiar to J. Mayo Williams either so it will remain unclear what exactly brought these two recordings to Miracle. It was released as number 156 - with just one release to go before the closing of the business. That 157 was a recording from 1949 - the Scamon Boogie of Tommy Dean and his band.
17 - 157 - Tommy Dean - Scamon Boogie
You heard Nathaniel "Pee Wee" Jernigan sing on this recording of pianist Tommy Dean and his band. Dean originated from Louisiana and from 1937 he upgraded from playing in carnivals and circuses to a St. Louis swing band, Eddie Randle and the Seven Blue Devils. Later he toured all of the midwest and even Mexico on his own and that's how he ended up in Chicago. The session that this comes from was done in the summer of 1949 in the United Broadcasting studio and the release came about a year later. And as I told you, with that one - number 157 - Miracle's story ended - the label went bankrupt. Through its existence it had become a significant label, especially for the recordings of Sonny Thompson, Eddie Chamblee and Memphis Slim.
But there was more enjoyable music from the label here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and if you liked it or you want to comment on the story, feel free to send me an e-mail at rockingducthman@rocketmail.com. And all of this story, the playlist and what's on next week is on my web site, do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will show up first. For now, time's up so have a rocking day. Hope to see you next time, for more of that exciting rhythm and blues, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!