Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Lightnin’ Hopkins, Berkley, CA, mid-1960′s. Photo by Chris Strachwitz

Today’s program is our second devoted to Lightnin’ Hopkins. The first, Lightnin’ Hopkins & Pals, featured mainly singles Hopkins waxed for black audiences between 1946 and 1954 plus cuts by many of his musical buddies. Today the spotlight is on Hopkins alone as we spin records by him from the 40′s up through the 60′s, when he was cutting a staggering number of albums, mostly geared to the folk and blues revival audience. We also celebrate the release of the first Hopkins’ biography, Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues, by noted writer Alan Govenar who I’ve interviewed for today’s show. Govenar’s book is a superb portrait of a true blues giant, from his early years running with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander to his brilliant singles in the 40′s and 50′s for a slew of small labels to worldwide acclaim in the 60′s and 70′s. Hopkins was one of the most recorded bluesmen of all time so assembling a show devoted to him is always a daunting task. On today’s program I’ve pulled together a wide range of well known and lesser known gems from the 40′s through the 60′s that will hopefully give a good portrait of Hopkins’ talent and his tremendous appeal with both white and black audiences. Today’s notes are primarily drawn from the new book including the following from the introduction.

“Sam Lightnin Hopkins, at the time of his death in 1982,may have been the most frequently recorded blues artist in history. He was a singular voice in the history of Texas blues, exemplifying its country roots but at the same time reflecting its urban directions in the years after world War II. His music epitomized the hardships and aspirations of his own generation of African Americans, but it was also emblematic of the folk revival and its profound impact on a white audience.

Lightnin’ Hopkins, Gold Star Publicity Photo

What distinguished Lightnin Hopkins was his virtuosity as a performer. He soaked up what was around him and put it all into his blues. He rambled on about anything that came to his mind: chuckholes in the road, gossip on the street, his rheumatism, his women, and the good times and bad men he met along the way. In his songs he could be irascible, but in the next verse he might be self-effacing. He prided himself on his individuality, even if it meant he was full of inconsistencies. He often poured out his feeling in his songs with a heart wrenching pathos, but it could be hard to tell if he was truly sincere. He peppered his lyrics with few actual details of his own life, but he was at once raw, mocking, extroverted, sarcastic and deadly serious. Most of the time, Lightnin’ appeared to trust no one, yet he knew how to endear himself to the audience. While he voiced the hardships, yearnings, and foibles of African Americans in the gritty bump and grind of the juke joints of Third Ward Houston, he could be cocky and brash in his performances for white crowds at the Matrix in San Francisco, or at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, or at a concert hall in Europe, where he was in complete control and adored. …At its best, his blues were a seamless dialogue  between words and guitar, a largely improvised conversation not only between him  and his instrument, but also between him and those who were listening.”

Hopkins career began in the 1920’s and stretched all the way into the 1980’s. His earliest blues influence was the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson who he met around 1920, of whom Hopkins recalled “When I was just a little boy I went to hanging around Buffalo, Texas Blind Lemon he’d come and I’d just get alongside and start playing .” Throughout the ’20s and ’30s he traveled around Texas, usually in the company of recording star Texas Alexander. The pair was playing in Houston’s Third Ward in 1946 when talent scout Lola Anne Cullum came across them. She cut Alexander out of the deal and paired Hopkins with pianist Wilson “Thunder” Smith, getting the duo a recording contract for the Los Angles based Aladdin label. They recorded as “Thunder and Lightnin’”, a nickname Sam was to use for the rest of his life. A load of other labels recorded Hopkins after Aladdin, both in a solo context and with a small rhythm section: Modern/RPM (his “Tim Moore’s Farm” was an R&B hit in 1949); Gold Star (where he hit with “T-Model Blues” that same year); Sittin’ in With (“Give Me Central 209″ and “Coffee Blues” were national chart hits in 1952) and its Jax subsidiary; the major labels Mercury and Decca; and, in 1954, some of his finest sides for the New York based Herald label. During this period Hopkins cut close to 200. Hopkins’ stopped recording for a five year stint in the late 50’s although singles by him were still being released. Fortunately, folklorist Sam Charters and Mack McCormick rediscovered the guitarist, who they presented as a folk-blues artist. Pioneering musicologist Sam Charters produced Hopkins in a solo context for Folkways Records in 1959, cutting an entire LP in Hopkins’ tiny apartment (on a borrowed guitar). The results helped introduced his music to an entirely new audience.

Lightnin’ Hopkins at Sierra Sound,  Berkley, CA, 1961. Photo by William Carter

By the early 1960’s Hopkins went from gigging at back-alley gin joints to starring at collegiate coffeehouses, appearing on TV programs, and touring Europe. He was recording more prolifically then ever, laying down albums for World Pacific, Vee-Jay, Bluesville, Bobby Robinson’s Fire label, Candid, Arhoolie, Verve and, in 1965, the first of several LP’s for Stan Lewis’ Shreveport-based Jewel logo. During the 70′s his recording activity slowed, cutting just a handful of sessions for verve and Sonet with several live collections issued. He was still touring widely and made trips to Mexico, Japan and Germany.  After a final gig at Tramps in New York in November 1981 he returned to Houston where his health declined rapidly. He passed January 30, 1982.

As Govenar sums up: “In the end, regardless of the myths, and the inevitable mix of fact and fiction, Lightnin’ was happy that his music had reached such a wide audience.” And as Lightnin’ close friend David Benson related: “I don’t think that in his younger days he even imagined that there would be so many young people, so many white people,  who would have such a genuine appreciation of his sound.  He thought it was naive, but it was genuine. …he knew that the people who bought his records and came to hear him play genuinely cared.” And as Govenar concludes: “When asked once about what made him different than anyone else, Lightnin’ replied, ‘A bluesman is just different from any other man that walks the earth. The blues is something that is hard to get acquainted with. Just like death. The blues dwell with you everyday and everywhere.’”

-Listen to the Alan Govenar interview (edited, MP3, 29 min.)

-Read an excerpt from the Lightnin’ Hopkins biography

-Lightnin’ Hopkins Obituary (New Musical Express, Alan Balfour, 1982)

Show Notes:

Sam Goody launched the Gotham label in 1946. Focusing on blues, spirituals, and jazz, Goody’s most successful artist was Eal Bostic. In 1948, Goody sold Gotham along with Bostic’s contract to Irvin Ballen of Philadelphia. Ballen’s two labels, Apex and 20th Century had been moderately successful, but he hoped Bostic could deliver a national hit. Instead, the breakthrough came from Gotham’s gospel series, a 1949 release “Touch Me Lord Jesus” by the Angelic Gospel Singers. With that success, Ballen continued releasing Gotham and 20th Century sides from both local artists and catalogs acquired by other labels. Ballen’s roster included doo-wop, R&B, blues and gospel. Among the label’s blues artists were Dan Pickett, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry, Champion Jack Dupree and Cousin Joe among others. By the late 50’s Gotham and 20^th Century were phased out as Ballen turned his attention to the record-pressing end of the business. The Gotham label has been well served on the reissue front, first as a series of reissue albums in the 1980′s on the Krazy Kat label, with these issued on CD with the same track listing and notes on the Collectables label.

The Gotham label issued some very fine down-home blues in the late 1940′s and early 1950′s. One of the label’s most intriguing artists was the brilliant and mysterious Dan Pickett. Back in the 1960′s some of the most highly prized 78′s among blues collectors were the rare Gotham records of Dan Pickett. These were valued, not only for their rarity but for the fact that they were among the finest commercial recordings of country blues in the post war era. His real, James Founty, was confirmed on a signature from an August 1949 contract with Gotham. Pickett was born and died in Alabama and field trips in the early 90’s have solved most mysteries although most of the research remains unpublished. He recorded five singles for Gotham plus four unreleased tracks in 1949. Pickett’s repertoire was derived almost exclusively from 1930’s race recordings, synthesizing the styles of Tampa Red, Blind boy Fuller, Buddy Moss and others  into a unique sound of his own.

Other down-home artists featured today include Wright Holmes, Stick Horse Hammond, Sonny Boy Johnson, David “Pete” Mckinley, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry and Dave Quattlebaum. Wright Holmes, who cut six sides in Houston in 1947, had an serpentine, unorthodox boogie style showcased most arrestingly on his “Good Road Blues”, one of two songs we play by him today. He was rediscovered and interviewed by Blues Unlimited magazine but had turned to religion and was no longer playing blues. John Lee Hooker was never one to pass up a recording deal even if he was under contract to another label. He cut a handful of superb sides for Gotham in 1950-51 under the name Johnny Williams. Sonny Boy Johnson, heard here in on our selection,”Quinsella,” was very obviously a devotee of John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, and not a bad singer in his own right. He waxed eight sides between 1947 and 1948. Harmonica player and vocalist Sonny Terry cut some stunning material for Gotham in 1952. Some of it was issued, and much of it wasn’t. This material is collected on the CD Sonny Terry – Gotham Records Sessions. Doug Quattlebaum cut three sides for Gotham in 1953, cut some sides for Testament in 1961 and the same year cut the excellent LP Softee Man Blues for Bluesville.

For the most part Gotham specialized in R&B and jump blues. The label employed a number of fine vocalists propelled by swinging bands including Charlie Gonzalez, Harry “Fats” Crafton, T.N.T. Tribble, Great Gates, Len McCall,  Cousin Joe and female singers like Daisey Mae and Thelma Cooper. Not much is known about Charlie Gonzalez except that he was a fine Blues shouter who could also handle Blues ballads with equal aplomb. He also recorded as Charles Prince and Bobby Prince.

Harry “Fats” Crafton was a fine guitarists and singer who’s s career was varied; he joined Gotham as an artist, became a songwriter, and then led bands of his own – The Jivetones (later known as The Craft Tones) and The Sonotones. He cut a dozen sides for Gotham in 1949 and 1950.

Drummer and singer T.N.T. Tribble first came to fame in 1951 and soon after began recording for Gotham. He often recorded with the exciting trumpet great Frank Motley and even led his own eclectic band, T.N.T. Tribble and His Crew. Tribble also was a much in-demand session man. He recorded as the drummer with Ike and Tina Turner in the early ’60s on “A Fool In Love” and “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.”

Edward Gates White aka “The Great Gates” enjoyed a recording career as an R&B vocalist from 1949 to 1955, before changing to recording jazz organ instrumentals. He continually shifted between various small West Coast labels such as Selective, Kappa and Miltone (issued on Gotham as well).

Growing up in New Orleans, Cousin Joe began singing in church before crossing over to the blues. He picked up the piano instead, playing Crescent City clubs and riverboats. He moved to New York in 1942, gaining entry into the city’s thriving jazz scene. He recorded for King, Gotham, Philo, Savoy, and Decca along the way and after returning to New Orleans in 1948, he recorded for DeLuxe and Imperial in 1954.

Len McCall was a smooth, big voiced singer who’s legacy consists of a lone 78 cut for the label in 1947, the B-side “Philadelphia Boogie” gives today’s show its title.

Thelma Cooper was a Gotham recording artist in the late ’40s; her ‘girlie’ voice and undeniably suggestive and sexy lyrics were considered ahead of their time. Daisey Mae cut a handful of sides for Gotham in 1955 and 1956.

Gotham’s roster featured a couple of notable sax men including Jimmy Preston and Earl Bostic. Alto sax player Jimmy Preston was one of the fathers of the Rock and Roll sound. He recorded his best work in the late 1940′s for Gotham Records in Philadelphia. He cut over two-dozen sides for Gotham between 1948 and 1950. After the war, alto sax man Bostic formed his own band. He switched to the Gotham label, where he had a Top 10 R&B hit with a cover of  ”Temptation.” Two years latter, Syd Nathan lured him away to his Cincinnati-based label, King, and Bostic remained one of King’s featured artists until his death. He died after suffering a second heart attack while playing a hotel opening  in Rochester, New York.

Gotham’s roster contained two outstanding guitarists, Bill Jennings and Tiny Grimes. Jennings started playing the ukulele at an early age and switched to guitar since he wanted to be taken seriously. A long-time member of Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five, Jenning’s versatility made him an in-demand recording artist. He recorded a handful of sides under his own name for Gotham in the 1950’s. Tiny Grimes was one of the earliest jazz electric guitarists to be influenced by Charlie Christian, and he developed his own swinging style. In 1938, he started playing electric guitar, and two years later he was playing in the Cats and the Fiddle. During 1943-1944, Grimes was part of a classic Art Tatum Trio, which also included Slam Stewart. In September 1944, he led his first record date, using Charlie Parker. Grimes played in the jive group The Cats And The Fiddle and was part of the classic Art Tatum Trio before he put together his own group in the late 1940′s. Called The Rockin’ Highlanders, the group featured Grimes’ electric guitar playing as well as the tenor of Red Prysock. Grimes cut over a dozen sides for Gotham between 1949 and 1950.

Show Notes:

Around the mid-30’s the big bands were all the rage and most of the bands had a big voiced blues and ballad singer who could be heard over the band. Big Joe Turner was the archetype of the blues shouter who’s lengthy recording career spanned from the late 30’s through shortly before his death in the 80’s. The blues shouters period lasted just up until the dawn of rock and roll when it became too expensive to maintain the big bands and there was increasing competition from jukeboxes and small combos. Artists like Jimmy Witherspoon, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Jimmy Rushing where able to have successful careers after the big band period while many others faded into obscurity. In the immediate post-war era blues shouters like Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown dominated the charts for several years. In part one of our look at the blues shouters we spotlight big names like Big Joe Turner, Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown plus a slew of fine lesser known singers.

Big Joe Turner was born in Kansas City and first discovered his love of music through involvement in the church. Turner’s father was killed in a train accident when Joe was only four years old. He began singing on street corners for money, leaving school at age fourteen to begin working in Kansas City’s nightclub scene, first as a cook, and later as a singing bartender. He eventually became known as The Singing Barman, and worked in such venues as The Kingfish Club and The Sunset, where he and his piano playing partner Pete Johnson became resident performers. His partnership with boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson proved fruitful. Together they headed to New York City in 1936, where they appeared on a bill with Benny Goodman, but as Turner recounts, “After our show with Goodman, we auditioned at several places, but New York wasn’t ready for us yet, so we headed back to K.C.”. Eventually they were spotted by the talent scout, John H. Hammond in 1938, who invited them back to New York to appear in one of his “From Spirituals to Swing” concerts at Carnegie Hall. Due in part to their appearance at Carnegie Hall, Turner and Johnson scored a major hit with “Roll ‘Em Pete”. As 1938 came to a close, Turner and Johnson waxed “Roll ‘Em Pete” for Vocalion. a song Turner would re-record many times over the decades. In 1940 Turner shouter moved over to Decca where he stayed until 1944.Turner ventured out to the West Coast during the war years, building quite a following on the L.A. circuit. In 1945, he signed on with National Records and cut some fine small combo sides where he remained through 1947. There were also sessions for Aladdin that year that included a wild vocal duel with one of Turner’s rival, Wynonie Harris, on the  two-part “Battle of the Blues.” The shouter bounced from RPM to Down Beat/Swing Time to MGM to Texas-based Freedom to Imperial in 1950. Atlantic Records signed him to a recording contract, where he scored a drove of R&B hits, staying with the label until 1959.

Born in New Orleans, Roy Brown conjured up “Good Rockin’ Tonight” while fronting a band in Galveston, TX. Ironically, Harris wanted no part of the song when Brown first tried to hand it to him. When pianist Cecil Gant heard Brown’s knockout rendition of the tune in New Orleans, he had Brown sing it over the phone to a DeLuxe boss, Jules Braun, in the wee hours of the morning. Though Brown’s original waxing (with Bob Ogden’s band in support) was a solid hit, Wynonie Harris’ cover beat him out for top chart honors.Roy Brown didn’t have to wait long to dominate the R&B lists himself. He scored 15 hits from mid-1948 to late 1951 for DeLuxe. Brown was unable to cash in on the rock & roll era, though he briefly rejuvenated his commercial fortunes at Imperial Records in 1957. Working with New Orleans producer Dave Bartholomew, Brown returned to the charts with the original version of “Let the Four Winds Blow” (later a hit for Fats Domino). He briefly returned to King in 1959.After a long dry spell, Brown’s acclaimed performance as part of Johnny Otis’ troupe at the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival and a 1973 LP for ABC-BluesWay began to rebuild his long-lost momentum. Brown died of a heart attack in 1981 at age 56.

Billboard Magazine May 6, 1944

Wynonie Harris was already a seasoned dancer, drummer, and singer when he left Omaha for L.A. in 1940. He found plenty of work singing and appearing as an emcee on Central Avenue. Harris’ reputation was spreading fast — he was appearing in Chicago at the Rhumboogie Club in 1944 when bandleader Lucky Millinder hired him as his band’s new singer. With Millinder’s orchestra, Harris made his debut on “Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well” that same year for Decca. By the time it hit in mid-1945, Harris left Millinder’s band. He debuted on wax under his own name in July of 1945 at an L.A. date. A month later, he signed on with Apollo Records, an association that provided him with two huge hits in 1946: “Wynonie’s Blues” and “Playful Baby.” After scattered dates for Hamp-Tone, Bullet, and Aladdin, Harris joined the star-studded roster of Cincinnati’s King Records in 1947. Few records made a stronger impact than Harris’ 1948 chart-topper “Good Rockin’ Tonight.” After that, Harris was rarely absent from the R&B charts for the next four years. Harris’ hit streak came to a halt in 1952. Harris cut sides for Atco in 1956, King in 1957, and Roulette in 1960. The touring slowed accordingly. In 1963 Harris moved back to L.A., scraping up low-paying local gigs whenever he could. Chess gave him a three-song session in 1964, but sat on the results. Throat cancer silenced him for good in 1969.

Less than a week after Walter Brown began singing with Jay McShann’s orchestra, the band traveled from Kansas City to a recording studio in Brown’s hometown of Dallas, TX, where McShann and his rhythm section backed the singer on “Confessin’ the Blues” which included young alto saxist Charlie Parker). It became one of the best-selling records of 1941 and would ultimately define Brown’s entire career. Brown remained with McShann from 1941 to ’45 before going solo with less successful results.

Gatemouth Moore’s heyday as a blues career was short lived, cutting a couple of dozen sides between 1945 and 1947 that saw release on Gilmore’s Chez Paree, Savoy, National with his final records cut for King at the very end of 1947. His most famous number was the immortal “Did You Ever Love A Woman” although his output was consistently high cutting fine sides backed by swinging big bands featuring top flight jazz musicians such as Budd Johnson, Jimmy Hamilton, Harry Carney, Tiny Grimes, and John Hardee. His blues career came to a close in 1949 when he had a religious conversion on stage at Chicago’s Club DeLisa.He passed in 2004 at the age of 90.

After wartime service Calvin Boze settled in Los Angeles and, as singer and trumpet player, heavily influenced by Louis Jordan. Boze first recorded in 1945, but his biggest successes came with Aladdin Records after 1949. In May 1950 he released “Safronia B”, which made it to made #9 on the Billboard R&B chart in June 1950.

In the late 1930s, King Perry attended Storr College in West Virginia to study piano and arrangement, and by the early 1940s he had formed his own band and was playing in Detroit and Chicago. The band made their debut for the Melodisc label.Further sessions were recorded for Excelsior, United Artists, De Luxe, Specialty, Dot, RPM, Lucky, Hollywood, Specialty and a number of smaller West Coast indies.

Billboard Magazine January 19, 1946

Tiny Bradshaw really had a two-part career, in the 1930′s in swing and from the mid-’40s on as a best-selling R&B artist. In 1934, he put together his own orchestra and they recorded for Decca later that year. A decade of struggle lie ahead and, when Bradshaw’s big band recorded again, in 1944, the music was more R&B and jump-oriented. The majority of Bradshaw’s recordings were cut during 1950-1954, although there would be one session apiece made in 1955 and 1958. All of his post-1947 output was made for King including the seminal “Train Kept A-Rollin’” in 1951.

Eddie Mack was part of the Brooklyn blues scene in the late 40’s and early 50’s but his subsequent career is a mystery. He fronted various groups by Cootie Williams & His Orchestra (he replaced Eddie Vinson), Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra and others. He cut some two-dozen sides between 1947-1952.

By age 19, H-Bomb Ferguson was on the road with Joe Liggins & the Honeydrippers. When they hit New York, Ferguson branched off on his own. Comedian Nipsey Russell, then emcee at Harlem’s Baby Grand Club, got the singer a gig at the nightspot. Back then, Ferguson was billed as “the Cobra Kid.”Singles for Derby, Atlas, and Prestige preceded a 1951-1952 hookup with Savoy Records that produced some of Ferguson’s best waxings.Ferguson eventually made Cincinnati his home, recording for Finch, Big Bang, ARC, and the far more prestigious Federal in 1960.He cut his long over due full-length album, “Wiggin’ Out” for Earwig in 1993. He passed in 2006.

Sonny Parker began singing and dancing as a protégé of Butterbeans and Susie. He joined Lionel Hampton’s band in 1949 and was touring France in 1955 when he suffered an onstage stroke. He never recovered and passed in 1957 at the age of 32. Between 1948 and 1954 he cut some three dozen sides.

Drummer and singer T.N.T. Tribble first came to fame in 1951 and soon after began recording for Gotham. He often recorded with the exciting trumpet great Frank Motley and even led his own eclectic band, T.N.T. Tribble and His Crew. Tribble also was a much in-demand session man. He recorded as the drummer with Ike and Tina Turner in the early ’60s on “A Fool In Love” and “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.”

Billboard Magazine March 23, 1946

Charles “Crown Prince” Waterford was from Jonesboro, Arkansas. He sang with Leslie Sheffield’s Rhythmaires and Andy Kirk’s Twelve Clouds of Joy before beginning his career as “The Crown Prince of the Blues” in Chicago in the 1940s. Waterford shouted the blues for labels like Hy-Tone, Aladdin and Capitol. In 1949, he joined the King stable. In the 1950’s he recorded for small companies and later dedicated his life to the Church and became known as Reverend Charles Waterford.

Nappy Brown spent his formative years singing gospel. He joined the Selah Jubilee Singers whom he recorded with, and eventually the Heavenly Lights, who were signed to the roster of Savoy Records. When owner Herman Lubinsky heard Brown he convinced him switch to R&B in the early 50’s. Throughout the 50’s he scored with numbers such as “Pitter Patter” and the oft covered “Little by Little.” He cut the  “The Right Time” in 1957 ( covered by Ray Charles in 1958). With renewed interest in his music, mainly from Europe, he began a comeback in the 80’s and recorded steadily through the 90′s.

Show Notes:

In his memoir, Big Bill Blues, Broonzy called Sleepy John Estes’ way of singing the blues “crying the blues.” As Tony Russell noted: “The 25-year old man who sat down to record “The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair” for a traveling Victor unit in Memphis would prove to be one of the company’s most striking finds in a city full of distinctive blues artists. High, blurred, plaintive, his voice sounded like that of a man on the verge of tears; sometimes it would even break, momentarily as if overwhelmed by emotion.” While Estes would become for his finely wrought personal songs, these initial numbers were local standards or common themes like “Divin’ Duck Blues” (“If the river was whiskey and I was a divin’ duck”). His storytelling is evident on early numbers like “Street Car Blues” but it wasn’t until signing with Decca in 1937 that he cut his most enduring compositions. Today’s program spotlights  Estes recordings before his comeback, spotlighting the remarkable recordings he made between 1929 and 1941. In addition we feature some of the fine musicians from the Brownsville area who worked and recorded with Estes including Son Bonds, Yank Rachell, Hammie Nixon, Charlie Pickett, Noah Lewis and Lee Brown.

John Adam “Sleepy John” Estes, was born in Ripley, Tennessee, around 1900. Estes first learned to play guitar from his sharecropper father at age twelve. Soon thereafter, while working in the cotton fields with his family, he crafted his own cigar-box guitar and began to hone his skills at local house parties and fish fries. His nickname “Sleepy” stemmed from a chronic blood pressure disorder that gave him fits of narcolepsy. Around 1915, the Estes family moved to Brownsville, Tennessee, which served as Sleepy John’s base residence periodically for the rest of his life. Brownsville was also home to “Hambone” Willie Newbern, an important early influence, as well as Yank Rachell and Hammie Nixon–musicians with whom Estes partnered at local venues and on professional recordings. Other Brownsville musicians who Estes worked with were pianist Lee Brown and guitarists Son Bonds and Charlie Pickett, all who recorded in the 30’s and all who backed Estes on record. Estes teamed with Rachell to play house parties, picnics, and the streets in the Brownsville area from 1919 to 1927. He also partnered with local harmonica player Hammie Nixon, hoboing Arkansas and southern Missouri with him from 1924 to 1927. At this time jug band music was wildly popular, so Estes started the Three J’s Jug Band with Rachell and jug player Jab Jones. The Three J’s played Memphis, where they competed for exposure in a competitive scene dominated by the Memphis Jug Band.

When the Victor recording company sent a field recording unit to Memphis in September 1929, Estes recorded several sides backed by the Three J’s, with Jones playing piano instead of the jug. Other acts to record for Victor on this trip included the Memphis Jug Band, Frank Stokes, and Cannon’s Jug Stompers. He was invited to record again for Victor in May 1930. This session yielded the uptempo “Milk Cow Blues,” a tune Robert Johnson would later record as “Milkcow Calf Blues.” In all the group cut fifteen sides, three were unissued, over the course of eight session in 1929 and 1930. Estes gave the following account of his recording debut: “Well, it was the guy who recorded the ‘Kansas City Blues’, Jim Jackson. We were coming down the street , me and Yank Rachell. He said ‘Boys, that was a mighty good peice you sang on the street the other day.. You can really sings. I can tell you how to make some money.’ Yank said, ‘John we can go ’round ourselves. We don’t need him to carry us.’ I went around to the Ellis Auditorium and we talked to Mr. R.S. Peer of New York City. he told us., ‘Boy’, he was recording two or three other boys there, they’d hit two pieces in an hour. ‘We got some more boys here but I want to see you before you go. I want you to come back late in the afternoon so I can hear what you can do.’ We went back then and we recorded.”

Estes and Nixon moved to Chicago in 1931 where they played parties and the streets. The Depression hit the recording industry hard, and the Estes/Nixon team did not record until a July 1935 date with the Champion label where the duo cut six sides at two sessions. Among the sides recorded were “Drop Down Mama” and “Some Day Baby Blues,” tunes that became staples for a later generation of bluesmen. As Tony Russell remarks: “Nixon is the nightingale of blues harmonica and his parallel melodies echoing Estes singing on “Someday Baby Blues” and “Drop Down Mama”, to mention just the most famous of their duets, are beautiful in their understated melancholy.” They left Chicago in the late 1930′s to travel the country playing lumber camps, parties, and street corners for four years. The Decca label brought Estes to New York City to record in 1937 and again in 1938 where he cut eighteen songs, laying down some of his most enduring songs. He was backed by Charlie Pickett on guitar and Hammie Nixon on harmonica. Among the songs were vivid depictions of the Depression in songs like “Down South Blues”, riding the blinds in “Special Agent Blues (Railroad Police Blues)”  and “Hobo Jungle Blues.” On the latter he sings:

Now, when I left Chicago, I left on that G & M (2X)
Then if I reach my home, I have to change over on that L& N
Now, came in on in that Mae West, and I put it down at Chicago Heights
Now, when I came in on that Mae West, I put it down at Chicago Heights
Now, you know, over in hobo jungle, and that’s where I stayed the night
Now, if you hobo through Brownsville, you better not be peepin’ out (2X)

Now, Mr. Whitten will git you, and Mr. Guy Hare will wear you out
Now, out East of Brownsville, about four miles from town (2X)
Now, if you ain’t got your fare, that’s where they will let you down

He sang many celebrated songs about hometown life in Brownsville including “Lawyer Clark” (“He said if I just stay out of the grave, he’d see that I wouldn’t go to the pen”), he sings about Martha Hardin’s house burning down in “Fire Department Blues”, he describes race relations in the south in “Clean Up At Home” (“I played for the colored, I played for the white/All you got to do, act kinda nice, you got to”) and the personal narrative “Floating Bridge” where describes a near brush with death after falling off a car ferry crossing a river:

Now I never will forget that floating bridge (3X)
Tell me five minutes time under water I was hidW
hen I was going down I throwed up my hands
Now, when I was going down, I throwed up my hands (2X)
Please, take me on dry land
Now they carried me in the house and they laid me ‘cross the blank’t (3X)

“Bout a gallon-and-half muddy water I had drankThey dried me off and they laid me in the bed
Now, they dried me off and they laid me in the bed (2X)
Couldn’t hear nothin’ but muddy water runnnin’ through my head

Estes was paired with younger guitarist Robert Nighthawk, perhaps to modernize his sound, for his last six song Decca session in 1940 which lack the spark of his collaborations with Nixon. A year later he recorded for the Bluebird label backed by kazoos and a tub bass in a swinging session with the Delta Boys (Son Bonds and Raymond Thomas), who echoed Estes’s jug band sensibilities. All three men variously take the lead on exuberant numbers like “Don’t You Want To Know” , “You Shouldn’t Do That” both sporting a vigorous kazoo solo from Bonds who takes the lead on “Black Gal Swing.” On September 24, 1941 the trio made their final sides together, a three song session for Bluebird including the aforementioned “Lawyer Clark” and “Little Laura.” Little Laura, according to Don Kent’s notes to the Yazoo Sleepy John Estes CD, was a neighbor of Sleepy John’s and the Jimmy referred to in the lyrics is Sleepy John’s name for Yank Rachell. This song is essentially the one Sonny Boy Williamson I  recorded for Bluebird a couple of months earlier as “She Was A Dreamer.”

Estes returned to sharecropping in Brownsville in 1941. In 1948, he and Nixon recorded again for the Ora Nelle label (“Harlem Bound” and “Stone Blind Blues”) but the records went unreleased. Estes went completely blind in 1950 and elected to try his hand at recording again. In 1952 he cut four sides for the Sun label. Estes was rediscovered in 1962 during the blues revival. He cut several albums for Delmark and returned to touring with Hammie Nixon before health problems confined him to Brownsville. Sleepy John Estes died June 5, 1977.

After recording with Sleepy John Estes in  1929 and 1930 Yank Rachell decided to try his hand at farming and also worked for the L&N Railroad. During a stopover in New York Rachell teamed up with guitarist Dan Smith and laid down 25 titles for ARC in just three days, though only six of them were issued. Shortly before the ARC date, Rachell had discovered a kid harmonica player that he believed had real talent, John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. They worked together at the Blue Flame Club in Jackson, Tennessee starting in 1933. In 1934 Williamson went north to Chicago. With the success of Williamson’s first Bluebird dates of 1937, Rachell decided to join Sonny Boy in Chicago for sessions in March and June of 1938. Yank Rachell also contributed four sides of his own to each session, and then 16 more in 1941 with Sonny Boy backing him up. After Sonny Boy Williamson’s murder in 1948, Rachell drifted away from music and relied solely on straight jobs to make his living, settling permanently in Indianapolis in 1958. His wife passed away in 1961, and afterward he began to resume performing. In 1962, Rachell was re-united with Nixon and Estes, and the three of them began playing college and coffeehouse circuit, recording for Delmark as Yank Rachell’s Tennessee Jug Busters. Estes died in 1977, and from that time Rachell worked mainly as a solo act. He recorded only sporadically in his last years and passed in 1997 at the age of 87.

Sleepy John Estes, American Folk Blues Festival, 1964

Noah Lewis was born in Henning, Tennessee, and raised in the vicinity of Ripley. He played in local string bands and brass bands, and began playing in the Ripley and Memphis areas with Gus Cannon. When jug bands became popular in the mid-1920s, he joined Cannon’s Jug Stompers. He cut seven sides under his own name at sessions in 1929 and 1930. Recording as Noah Lewis’ Jug Band, he was backed on two numbers by Sleepy John and Yank Rachell with just Estes backing him on two other numbers cut a couple of days apart. Lewis died in poverty of gangrene brought on by frostbite in Ripley, Tennessee, in 1961.

Harmonica player Hammie Nixon was born on January 22, 1908, in Brownsville, TN. He began his career as a professional harmonica player in the 1920s, but also played the kazoo, guitar, and jug. “I used to hear a lot about him, John Adam”, Nixon recalled, “and I was just a kid, living out on my parent’s home near Ripley.  …And he heard me playing and he asks me would I like to go and play my harp for him?So I told him yes, but I had o ask my mama first because I was just young, see. So he comes back to my mama’s house with me, but she didn’t want me to go you know. Anyhow he says like he would look after me and provide for me and so forth so she let me go. And we been together ever since.” He performed with Sleepy John Estes for more than 50 years. He also recorded with Lee Green, Charlie Pickett, and Son Bonds. He played with many jug bands. After Estes died, Nixon played with the Beale Street Jug Band (also called the Memphis Beale Street Jug Band) from 1979 onward. Shortly before his death he cut his lone album, the marvelous  Tappin’ That Thing for the High Water label. He died August 17, 1984.

Another associate of Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon, Son Bonds played very much in the same rural Brownsville style that the Estes-Nixon team popularized in the ’20s and ’30s. The music to one of Bonds’s songs, “Back and Side Blues” cut in 1934, became a standard blues melody when John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson from nearby Jackson, TN, used it in his classic “Good Morning, (Little) School Girl” he cut in 1937.Bonds cut a total of fifteen sides over five sessions in 1934, 1938 and 1941. Hammie Nixon backs Bonds on the two 1934 sessions while Estes backs Bonds on his last two sessions in 1938 and 1941.On his Decca and Champion sides Bonds was called Brownsville Son Bonds and Brother Son Bonds at his second Decca session which was religious. Nixon gave the following account of Bonds’ death: “He got killed around the same time that Sonny Boy got killed. Sonny Boy got killed in Chicago, Son got killed in Dyersburg. A fellow shot him, he though he was shooting somebody else. Son was sitting on his porch. This guy wore them great thick glasses and he got into it with the guy who lived next door to Son. It was way about 12:00 at night and he though it was the boy who lived next door.” Estes had a different version involving a woman and a plot to get Bonds’ insurance money.

Little is known about Charlie Pickett, who was from Brownsville, TN. Sheldon Harris reported that he was Estes cousin. Hammie Nixon had him performing in a group with Estes, Nixon, and others on the streets of Chicago in the 1930′s and 1940′s. Nixon told Kip Lornell in 1975, “He started preaching in St. Louis, been living in St. Louis for a couple of years. I think he’s preaching in Los Angeles now.” Of the song “Let Me Squeeze Your Lemon”,Nixon said, “I will never forget the first time he started playing that song, how he sung a something like, ‘When I got home, another nigger kicking in my stall.’ The bossman told him ‘don’t say that no more!’” He cut four sides for Decca in 1937 backed by Hammie Nixon and Lee Brown.  Pickett also played guitar behind Estes on 19 numbers at sessions in 1937 and 1938. He or Estes may have played guitar behind pianist Lee Green at a 1937 session.

Pianist Lee Brown was another member of the Tennessee musicians who who worked in Estes orbit. As Tony Russell sums up: “…Brown was subsequently more prolific than his modest talent merited.” His lone hit was “Little Girl, Little Girl” from his second 1937 session, sessions at which he backed Estes and Charlie Pickett. Estes backs Brown on two songs from his first session. In all Brown was involved in six sessions that yielded twenty-nine sides with one unissued. He was backed by some top flight backing musicians including Charlie Shavers, Sammy Price, Buster Bailey, Henry Allen, Robert Lee McCoy and Lil Armstrong among others. Brown cut some post-war material including two songs in 1945 for the Chicago label and a session for King in 1946

Show Notes:

The West Coast had a thriving blues and jazz scene in the 1940’s and 50’s with most of the activity centering around the Los Angeles, Richmond, Oakland and San Francisco Bay areas. The Black population swelled in the 1940s, due to large manpower needs to work in the U.S. defense industry during World War II. These new arrivals needed entertainment, of course, and the local jazz and blues club scene heated up quickly. From approximately 1920 to 1955, Central Avenue was the heart of the African-American community in Los Angeles. Like New York City’s 125th Street or Memphis’s Beale Street or Chicago’s South Side, Central Avenue was one of the world capitols of nightlife, of jazz, rhythm & blues, of black culture and society.

There were several strains of blues that rose to prominence including a moody, after hours brand of piano blues popularized by the inimitable Charles Brown who himself was influenced by Nat King Cole. Brown’s influence was profound, setting the stage for fellow pianists like Amos Milburn, Floyd Dixon, Little Willie Littlefield, Ivory Joe Hunter, Cecil Gant and Roy Hawkins. T-Bone Walker’s influence was to guitar as Brown was to piano. Much of T-Bone’s material had an after hours, jazzy jump blues feel, an influence that would characterize T-Bone disciples like Pee Wee Cratyon, Lafayette Thomas, Gatemouth Brown, Goree Carter, Pete “Guitar” Lewis, Ulysses James and others. There was also a more swinging, jazzy jump blues as performed by artists like Roy Milton, Joe and Jimmy Liggins, Johnny Otis and others.

Los Angeles in the 1940′s became a huge center for rhythm and blues recording. There was a host of labels recording blues and R&B in Los Angeles in the 1940s including Specialty, Imperial, Aladdin, and the umbrella of labels run by the Bihari brothers RPM/Modern/Kent/Flair/Crown were the most notable. Bob Geddins was a key player who operated numerous small labels like Down Town, Big Town, Irma, and others. The first breakout rhythm and blues single, “I Wonder,” was recorded by Private Cecil Gant in a simple basement studio and released in 1944 on Gilt Edge Records, a short-lived L.A. indie. When “I Wonder” went to the top of Billboard’s race charts, a number of labels sprang up to capitalize on the smooth, cool, Leroy Carr-derived L.A. blues style Gant had popularized.

I’ve done several programs devoted to West Coast blues and today’s show is mostly an excuse to spotlight two exceptional West Coast artists,  Cecil Gant and Gene Phillips who I haven’t featured much on prior shows. Today’s program leans towards the jazzy jump blues side of things, giving you a taste of some of the sounds of Central Avenue during the 1940’s and early 50’s.  The buk of those recordings are draw from several excellent Ace Records reissues documenting the Central Avenue scene including: Mellow Cats ‘N’ Kittens (four volumes) and The Central Avenue Scene (three volumes ).

Cecil Gant, who went by the moniker the G.I. Sing-Sation, was an army private who allegedly got his first break while performing for a war bond rally in 1944. He scored a massive hit the same year with “I Wonder” the first release on the new Gilt-Edge label. The record’s huge success prompted others to form record companies devoted to black music. Gant was a first rate ballad singer in the vein of Nat King Cole and Charles Brown but he was also a superb bluesman who could lay down some storming boogie-woogie. Gant recorded prolifically for the L.A. labels Gilt-Edge and 4 Star and in Nashville, which was probably his hometown, for Bullet, Dot and Decca, meanwhile playing in nightclubs throughout the country. Between 1944 and 1951 he waxed over 150 sides before his untimely death in 1951 at the age of 38. The Blue Moon label has provided an invaluable service by issuing all of Gant’s recordings across seven CD’s.

Gene Phillips was one of the early stars of Modern Records. Phillips was a West Coast session musician who appeared on a myriad of jump blues waxings during the late ’40s and early ’50s before fading from view even before the dawn of rock & roll. In the early 40s he sang and played guitar, was a jump blues specialist and led his own band, the Rhythm Aces. The T-Bone Walker-influenced Phillips recorded extensively for the Modern label from 1947 through 1951.  Phillips’s bandmates were among the royalty of the L.A. scene: trumpeter Jake Porter, saxists Marshall Royal, Maxwell Davis, and Jack McVea, and pianist Lloyd Glenn were frequently on hand. Phillips was a much in demand session guitarist backing stars such as Calvin Boze, Lloyd Glenn, Wynonie Harris, Joe Liggins, Percy Mayfield and many others. Jake Porter of Combo Records, also a well-respected session player,  had this to say about these marvelous Phillips sessions for Modern, “I guess music-wise and musician-wise he had the best musicians on his sessions, and Modern Records’ boss Jules Bihari just loved the stuff. He never rushed time. One thing about Jules I got to say his love was to sit up in the control booth and watch a record being made. He was fascinated. It was just like he was in a trance.” Phillips recordings have been collected by the Ace label on two CD’s:  Swingin’ The Blues and Drinkin’ And Stinkin’.

The Los Angles scene boasted a number of the premier blues shouters including Wynonie Harris,  Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Witherspoon. Big Joe Turner ventured out to the West Coast during the war years, building quite a following while ensconced on the L.A. circuit. Few West Coast indie labels of the late ’40s didn’t boast at least one or two Turner titles in their catalogs with Turner cutting sides for RPM, Down Beat, Swing Time and MGM mostly backed by long time pianist Pete Johnson. Jimmy WitherSpoon didn’t pursue music professionally until after his WWII stint in the Merchant Marines. When the war was at an end he had the opportunity to join the small band of Kansas City musician Jay McShann working on the West coast during the mid forties. He replaced Walter Brown with McShann and made his very first records with the band for the new Philo label in Los Angeles in 1945. Further records with McShann on the Mercury, Supreme and Downbeat labels followed in the late forties and he eventually signed to the Modern label.

One strain of blues that rose to prominence in L.A. was a moody, after hours brand of piano blues popularized by the inimitable Charles Brown who himself was influenced by Nat King Cole. Brown’s influence was profound, setting the stage for fellow pianists like Amos Milburn, Floyd Dixon, Little Willie Littlefield, Ivory Joe Hunter and Roy Hawkins.Brown came up in Johnny Moore’s combo. Moore and his younger brother Oscar grew up in Texas and then Phoenix, Arizona, where they both started playing guitar and formed their own string band. In the mid 1930s they relocated to Los Angeles, where Oscar Moore joined the King Cole Trio. Johnny joined and formed several groups, before forming The Three Blazers with two fellow Texans, bassist Eddie Williams and pianist and singer Charles Brown. After the Cole Trio moved from Atlas Records to Capitol in 1943, Oscar suggested to Atlas boss Robert Scherman that he replace them with his brother Johnny’s group. Scherman agreed to record the Blazers if Oscar would play with them, and the recordings were released as by “Oscar Moore with The Three Blazers”. In 1946, they had success with “Driftin’ Blues”, sung by Charles Brown. The group followed up the success of “Driftin’ Blues” with a number of other big R&B. In 1948, frustrated by his lack of recognition and financial reward, Charles Brown left the group for a successful solo career.

Influenced by Albert Ammons, Charles Brown, and Amos Milburn, Little Willie Littlefield made his debut 78 in 1948 for Houston-based Eddie’s Records while still in his teens. After a few sides for Eddie’s and Freedom, he moved over to the Los Angeles based Modern logo in 1949. There he immediately hit paydirt with two major R&B hits, “It’s Midnight” and “Farewell.” Littlefield proved a sensation upon moving to L.A. during his Modern tenure, playing at area clubs and touring with a band that included saxist Maxwell Davis. At Littlefield’s first L.A. session for King’s Federal subsidiary in 1952, he cut “K.C. Loving” (with Davis on sax),which became a big hit for Wilbert Harrison a few years later as “Kansas City.”

The towering figure of West Coast blues was Texas born guitarist T-Bone Walker. Walker was a key figure in the electrification and urbanization of the blues, probably doing more to popularize the use of electric guitar in the form than anyone else. Among his legion of followers was fellow Texan, Pee Wee Crayton. Crayton was from Texas but relocated to Los Angeles in 1935. He signed with the L.A.-based Modern logo in 1948, quickly hitting big with the instrumental “Blues After Hours” which topped the R&B charts in late 1948. “Texas Hop” trailed hit shortly thereafter, followed by “I Love You So.” After recording prolifically at Modern to no further commercial avail, Crayton moved on to Aladdin and, in 1954, Imperial. From there, Crayton cut sides fort Vee-Jay, Jamie, Guyden, and Smash during the early ’60s, Crayton largely faded from view until Vanguard unleashed his LP, Things I Used to Do, in 1971. After that, Pee Wee Crayton’s profile was raised somewhat; he toured and made a few more albums prior to his passing in 1985.

Show Notes:

Today’s spotlight is on the Blue Moon label, a Spanish label that for the last five years or so has been reissuing some amazing recordings of jump blues and R&B from the mid-40’s to the mid-50’s. Blue Moon can been seen as a sort sister label to Document records; where Document issues the complete recorded work in chronological order of every blues artist from the pre-war era, Blue Moon has been reissuing the chronological recordings of some great jump blues pioneers from the immediate post-war era. Much of this music has been unavailable on CD and spotlights a fascinating era when jump blues was merging into R&B and eventually morphing into rock and roll. The  label has done an invaluable service by issuing the chronological recordings of neglected pioneers like Sonny Thompson, Cecil Gant, Tiny Grimes, Goree Carter, Paul Williams, Jack McVea and many others. The music on today’s program is a mix of jump blues and R&B. Jump Blues refers to an uptempo, jazz-tinged style of blues that first came to prominence in the mid- to late ’40s. Usually featuring a vocalist in front of a large, horn-driven orchestra or medium sized combo with multiple horns, the style usually features a driving rhythm, shouted vocals, and honking tenor saxophone solos. Billboard magazine first used the term “Rhythm and Blues” as the title for its black music charts in 1949, replacing “race music.” R&B evolved out of jump blues in the late ’40s, laying the groundwork for rock & roll. R&B kept the tempo and the drive of jump blues, but its instrumentation was sparer and the emphasis was on the song, not improvisation. It was blues chord changes played with an insistent backbeat.

I can’t possibly write about every artist in the Blue Moon catalog but I thought I’d give some background on a few including Cecil Gant, Sonny Thompson, Tiny Grimes, Jack McVea plus several of the blues vocalists like Sonny Parker, Crown Prince Waterford, Cousin Joe and others. Also I’ll give some background on the Kansas City and L.A. blues scenes of the 1940′s where much of today’s music emanated from.

While the big bands declined nationally, a number of small groups thrived in Kansas City. Myra Taylor, Walter Page and other musicians cast off from the decline of the big bands returned to Kansas City. Taylor’s early recording can be found on Blue Moon’s Kansas City Jumps Vol. 3. Julia Lee, the Jimmy Keith band, the Four Tons of Rhythm, the Jesse Price band, Dwight “Gatemouth” Moore, Geechie Smith, Tommy Douglas’s band, Oliver Todd’s Hottentots and a number of other small ensembles found steady work in the clubs at 18th and Vine, downtown and those “out in the county” that thrived in the post-war period. Geeshie Smith is featured on the CD Swingin’ Small Combos Kansas City Style Vol.2. Vernon “Geechie” Smith was a trumpeter/vocalist from the Tulsa, Oklahoma. He played early on with Ernie Fields Orchestra. He was a KC stalwart, spent many years in Kansas City and played in countless KC styled bands. He moved to L.A. where he joined Joe Lutcher’s band. After recording under his own name for the Bihari Brother’ Modern subsidiary Colonial in 1950 and for the obscure Kicks label in 1954, he drifted into obscurity. An influential drummer who was best known for supporting major performers, Jesse Price appeared in many settings through the years. His recordings are featured on the CD  Swingin’ Small Combos Kansas City Style – Vol.1:  The Complete Jesse Price 1946-1957. After moving to Kansas City in 1934, Price became an important fixture, playing with George E. Lee, Thamon Hayes, Count Basie’s orchestra (1936) prior to Jo Jones, touring with Ida Cox and later working with Harlan Leonard (1939-41). Price moved to Los Angeles in 1941, playing with Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong (1943), Stan Kenton (1944), Basie (1944), Benny Carter, Slim Gaillard (1949) and (in Kansas City) Jay McShann, among many others. He was less active in the 1960s and ’70s but led a band at the Monterey Jazz Festival as late as 1971. Price recorded 23 selections as a leader from 1946-48 (mostly for Capitol). During the 1950′s Jay McShann, Ben Webster, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lucky Enois and other nationally established musicians returned to Kansas City and revitalized the local scene.

Los Angeles, in the 1940′s, became a huge center for rhythm and blues recording. T-Bone Walker had settled in Los Angeles. On any given night in the late 1940′s you could drive south on Los Angeles’ Central Avenue and hear the music of such jazz and jump titans as Buddy Collette, Charles Mingus, Wynonie Harris, Big Jay McNeely, Joe Liggins and Johnny Otis. These sounds would waft from such venues as the Lincoln Theater, the Club Alabam, the Down Beat, and Jack’s Basket Room (which featured fried chicken and biscuits by the basket). When you got all the way out to Watts, you could check out Little Harlem and The Barrelhouse. The first breakout rhythm and blues single, “I Wonder,” was recorded by Private Cecil Gant in a simple basement studio and released in 1944 on Gilt Edge Records, a short-lived L.A. indie. When “I Wonder” went to the top of Billboard’s race charts, a number of labels sprang up to capitalize on the smooth, cool, Leroy Carr-derived L.A. blues style Gant had popularized. As Mike Rowe wrote: “Unlike New York and Chicago there had been no blues or any kind of recording industry pre-war …The music as well as the industry was starting from scratch. …It was very often of Do-It yourself triumphing over the most adverse conditions.” The Black population swelled in the 1940’s, due to large manpower needs to work in the U.S. defense industry during World War II. These new arrivals needed entertainment, of course, and the local jazz and blues club scene heated up quickly. There was a host of labels recording blues and R&B in Los Angeles in the 1940s including Specialty, Imperial, Aladdin, and the umbrella of labels run by the Bihari brothers RPM/Modern/Kent/Flair/Crown were the most notable. Bob Geddins was a key player who operated numerous small labels like Down Town, Big Town, Irma, and others. May of these sides were leased to larger outfits like Chess, Specialty, Modern and others.

Cecil Gant, who went by the moniker the G.I. Sing-Sation, was an army private who allegedly got his first break while performing for a war bond rally in 1944. He scored a massive hit the same year with “I Wonder” the first release on the new Gilt-Edge label. The record’s huge success prompted others to form record companies devoted to black music. Gant was a first rate ballad singer in the vein of Nat King Cole and Charles Brown but he was also a superb bluesman who could lay down some storming boogie-woogie. Gant recorded prolifically for the L.A. labels Gilt-Edge and 4 Star and in Nashville, which was probably his hometown, for Bullet, Dot and Decca, meanwhile playing in nightclubs throughout the country. Between 1944 and 1951 he waxed over 150 sides before his untimely death in 1951 at the age of 38. The Blue Moon label has provided an invaluable service by issuing all of Gant’s recordings across seven CD’s.

Bandleader and pianist Sonny Thompson was among the most prolific R&B instrumentalists of the late ’40s and early ’50s. Thompson began recording for Sultan in 1946, then did several sessions for Miracle, King, Federal, and Deluxe, while also backing vocalist Lula Reed from 1951 to 1961. Thompson scored two number one R&B hits for Miracle in 1948: “Long Gone,” Pts. 1 & 2, and “Late Freight.” He landed another Top Ten and two more Top 20 singles for Miracle in 1949, and then had three Top Ten hits for King in 1952. The biggest was “I’ll Drown In My Tears,” sung by his wife Lula Reed, which reached number five. My Tears,” which reached number five. Reed was a fine singer who passed away last summer with barley a mention in the media. In the 1960’s Thompson arranged and played on the classic Freddie King sides for King. Thompson’s recordings have been collected across five CD’s spanning from 1946-1955.

Blue Moon has issued all of Jack McVea’s recordings between 19944-1952 over four CD’s. McVea played baritone saxophone in the Lionel Hampton Orchestra in 1942. He led one of the West Coast’s earliest R&B combos and backed up important artists such as T-Bone Walker and Wynonie Harris. McVea’s own “Open The Door, Richard!” created one of the biggest crazes ever to come out of black music in the pre-Rock’n'Roll era. He blew tenor sax alongside Illinois Jacquet at the first ‘Jazz At The Philharmonic’ in 1944, and he jammed and recorded with Slim Gaillard and Charlie Parker.

Another important series is Blue Moon’s reissue of  all of Tiny Grimes recordings between 1944-1954 on five CD’s. Tiny Grimes was one of the earliest jazz electric guitarists to be influenced by Charlie Christian, and he developed his own swinging style. In 1938, he started playing electric guitar, and two years later he was playing in the Cats and the Fiddle. During 1943-1944, Grimes was part of a classic Art Tatum Trio, which also included Slam Stewart. In September 1944, he led his first record date, using Charlie Parker. He also recorded for Blue Note in 1946, and then put together an R&B-oriented group, “the Rockin’ Highlanders,” that featured the tenor of Red Prysock during 1948-1952. Although maintaining a fairly low profile, Tiny Grimes was active up until his death in 1989.

Today’s program also spotlights several fine blues vocalists including Sonny Parker, Cousin Joe, Eddie Mack, Arbee Stidham, Crown Prince Waterford and Betty Hall Jones.  Sonny Parker began singing and dancing as a protégé of Butterbeans and Susie. He joined Lionel Hampton’s band in 1949 and was touring France in 1955 when he suffered an onstage stroke. He never recovered and passed in 1957 at the age of 32. Between 1948 and 1954 he cut some three dozen sides.

Blue Moon has issued all of Cousin Joe’s recordings on three CD’s spanning 1945-55. Joe was 12 when his family moved New Orleans. Joe took up guitar and ukulele, and made a living playing on the Riverboats in the 30′s. By 1941, he’d moved to St. Louis to play in Sidney Bechet’s band, before heading to New York three years later. This was Joe’s most fruitful recording period cutting sides for a myriad of labels including King, Gotham, Philo, Savoy and Decca.

Eddie Mack was part of the Brooklyn blues scene in the late 40′s and early 50′s but his subsequent career is a mystery. He fronted various groups by Cootie Williams & His Orchestra (he replaced Eddie Vinson), Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra and others. He cut some two-dozen sides between 1947-1952.

The Arkansas-born, Chicago-based singer-guitarist Arbee Stidham hit the top of Billboard’s “race” chart in 1948 with his recording of “My Heart Belongs to You” and recorded prolifically over the next two decades for a variety of labels. He retired from music in 1974.

Charles “Crown Prince” Waterford was from Jonesboro, Arkansas. He sang with Leslie Sheffield’s Rhythmaires and Andy Kirk’s Twelve Clouds of Joy before beginning his career as “The Crown Prince of the Blues” in Chicago in the 1940s. Waterford shouted the blues in the then very popular manner and continued his recording career for labels like Hy-Tone, Aladdin and Capitol. In 1949, he joined the King stable. In the 1950′s he recorded for small companies and later dedicated his life to the Church and became known as Reverend Charles Waterford.

Blues vocalist, stand-up pianist and occasionally organist, Betty Hall Jones worked with Bus Moten’s band and Addie Williams in Kansas City. Returning to California, she performed as a single artist before joining drummer/vocalist Roy Milton’s band in L.A. in 1937. She almost certainly recorded on piano behind Alton Redd for the Black & White label in 1945, and accompanied Luke Jones on the Atlas recording sessions, and possibly with Red Mack for the same label in 1946 and 1947. In the same year she recorded with King Porter for Imperial label (the tremendous “That Early Morning Boogie” that we just heard) and under her own name for Atomic, Capitol and under Luke Jones’ name for Modern. She recalled cutting unissued titles behind Ray Charles for Capitol. In the 1950′s she recorded for Dootone and Combo.

Show Notes:

Today’s program spotlights five popular blues artists of the 1930’s and 40’s, some who represent something of the mainstream blues sound of the period while others are more indvidulistic; Bumble Bee Slim, Bill Gaither, Joe Pullum , Doctor Clayton and Johnnie Temple. The death of hugely popular Leroy Carr in 1935 was a profound shock to the blues world. Carr had a lasting influence on may blues artists including Amos Easton, who went by Bumble Bee Slim and Bill Gaither who called himself “Leroy’s Buddy.”  Both men recorded extensively throughout the 1930’s. Joe Pullum scored a massive hit with “Black Gal What Makes Your Head So Hard?” but despite strong material his subsequent sides didn’t sell well. Pullum was one of the most original vocalists of the 30’s and the same can be said of singer Doctor Clayton in the 1940’s. Clayton’s records sold well  and his recordings and style highly influential.  Johnnie Temple was a significant player in the “race” record business in the 1930’s and 40’s, scoring sizable hits with “Louise Louise Blues” and “Big Leg Woman.”

Bumble Bee Slim was a prolific singer who was one of the most-recorded and best-selling blues artists of the 1930s. His work exemplifies the beginnings of what came to be known as the Chicago style. Yet as Bill Barlow writes in  Looking Up At Down, that although he was the “most prolific” blues artist of the period he “had the least impact on Chicago’s blues culture, in part because, he never lived there for long.” He was born Amos Easton in Brunswick on May 7, 1905. When he was about fifteen, Easton joined the Ringling Brothers’ circus and traveled around the South and Midwest for two years. Returning to Georgia, he worked at a variety of jobs and was married briefly before heading north on a freight train. In 1928 he settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he most likely met pianist Leroy Carr, who with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell formed one of the most innovative blues duos of the period. Easton, now using the stage name Bumble Bee Slim, was impressed by Carr’s singing and by Blackwell’s guitar technique. A solid singer and excellent songwriter, Slim owed a large part of his success in his ability to emulate  Leroy Carr. He was, alas, derivative and as Paul Oliver noted his music seemed merely an “echo” of Carr’s “fatalism.” Slim issued a few tribute records dedicated to Carr: “The Death of Leroy Carr”, “Last Respects” and “My Old Pal Blues.” In the latter he sings:

I woke up this morning, couldn’t hardly get out of my bed (2x)
When I heard the news, that Leroy Carr was dead
I run to the window, and I fold back the blind (2x)
I stood there wondering, and just could not keep from crying

After refining his skills by playing halls and rent parties, Slim moved to Chicago, where he made his first record, “Chain Gang Bound,” for Paramount Records in 1931. The following year his song “B&O Blues” was a hit for Vocalion Records. “I made my audition… down at 666 [S.] Lake Shore Drive on the 11th floor” Slim recalled. The “contract “wasn’t much. It couldn’t be, ’cause in those days you could buy a record for 25 cents” The deal called for “forty tunes a year.” Between 1934 and 1937 Slim recorded more than 170 titles. His regular backing band included pianists Jimmie Gordon, Myrtle Jenkins, Black Bob, Honey Hill, or, on occasion, Peetie Wheatstraw. Willie Bee James was a regular on guitar but he also employed Casey Bill Weldon, Big Bill Broonzy, Bill Gaither and Scrapper Blackwell. In 1934 he did some sessions with Carl Martin and Ted Bogan. Howard Armstrong, who worked with Martin and Bogan,  refered to Slim as “one of those good old Georgia boys… well liked, nice looking… a prolific songwriter” who “overnight would write two songs sometimes. ” Several of Slim’s songs have been revived including “Sail On Little Girl, Sail On”, “Brick In My Pillow”, “Everybody’s Fishing” among others.

By 1937 Slim had become frustrated with the record business. He returned to Georgia, then relocated to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1940s, apparently hoping to break into motion pictures. He soon went back to blues music, however. Moving back to Los Angles he cut four sides for the Specialty label with two appearing on it’s sister imprint, Fidelity in 1951. An ad appeared in the September 1951 issue of Billboard: “Blues singer Amos Easton has come out of retirement and inked a five year term pact with Specialty Records. Diskery’s first sides on the warbler are Strange Angel and Lonesome Trail Blues and will be on the racks September 10.” Those were followed by two more before he made his final recording, the album Bumble Bee Slim: Back In Town, for Pacific Jazz in 1962. He died of Pneumonia on June 8, 1968.

Blues guitarist Bill Gaither cut well over a hundred sides for Decca and OKeh between 1931 and 1941. Gaither was close to the blues pianist Leroy Carr, and following Carr’s death in 1935, he recorded under the moniker Leroy’s Buddy for a time. A fine guitarist who possessed a warm, expressive voice, Gaither was also at times a gifted and inventive lyricist. He was often partnered with pianist George “Honey” Hill, and the duo patterned themselves after Carr and his guitarist, Scrapper Blackwell. Among Gaither’s many sides are three tributes to Carr: ” “Leroy Carr’s Blues,”  “Life of Leroy Carr” and “After the Sun’s Gone Down.” In The latter he sings:

It was in the evening, it was in the evening we used to talk face to face
When Leroy Carr told me, someday you’ll have to take my place

Gaither was a fine singer and as Tony Russell notes “made the bulk of his recordings before he was 30, and his voice never lost the freshness of youth, so that when he sings reflective numbers in the Carr idiom he often sounds like Carr’s sunnier younger brother.” Gaither was clearly attuned to the musical trends of the day with “Bad Luck Child” in the mold of Joe Pullum’s hit “Black Gal What Makes Your Head So Hard?” , alludes to Bumble Bee Slim’s hit “Bricks In My Pillow” in his “Gravel In My Bread”, updates Johnnie Temple’s “Big Leg Woman” with “Another Big Leg Woman” and faithfully covers Big Maceo’s “Worried Life Blues.” He was capable of transcending imitation as evidenced on worthy compositions like the jaunty “Pins And Needles” and “Bloody Eyed Woman” and more melancholy fare like  “Rocky Mountain Blues”, “Pains In My Heart”, “Old Coals Will Kindle”, “Stony Lonesome Graveyard” and the insightful topical blues of  “I’m Behind The 8 Ball Now.” In 1940 Gaither returned to Louisville where he ran a radio repair shop. Army service overseas in 1942-1945 left him with a nervous condition that prevented him from making music. He went back to Indianapolis where he worked in a cafe. He died in 1970.

Born and raised in Mississippi, Johnny Temple learned to play guitar and mandolin as a child. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing house parties and various other local events. He was part of a vibrant the 1920’s Jackson, MS scene, a city  teeming with artists such as Tommy Johnson, Walter Vincson, Ishmon Bracey, the Chatmon Brothers, Skip James and Rube Lacey. Often, he performed with Charlie and Joe McCoy and also worked with Skip James. Temple moved to Chicago in the early 30’s, where he quickly became part of the town’s blues scene.  In 1935, Temple began his recording career, releasing “Louise Louise Blues”, his biggest hit, the following year on Decca Records. He also recorded “Lead Pencil Blues” at his first session a song that was the first to employ the bottom-string boogie bass figure generally credited to Robert Johnson. Although he never achieved stardom, Temple’s records sold consistently throughout the late 30’s and 40’s. He had another sizable hit with 1938′s “Big Leg Woman.” While Temple’s recordings became somewhat formulaic, his delivery, as Tony Russell notes set him apart: “with its Southern accent, pronounced vibrato and momentary octave laps at word-endings, was set against urbane small-group settings giving his records a character that distinguished them from much contemporary blues.” He never fully shook off regional style of Jackson, singing numerous references to the city at his debut session and paid tribute to his roots in songs like Skip James’ “The Evil Devil Blues” (a version “Devil Got My Woman”) and “Cherry Ball Blues”, “Mississippi Woman’s Blues” with its similarities to Ishmon Bracey’s “Saturday Blues” and the nostalgic “Down In Mississippi.” As David Evans describes him in his liner notes as “someone who gave further life to a highly idiosyncratic and regional music and exposed elements of it to a larger audience that could never have been reached by its original creators.” Several of Temple’s songs have been oft-covered including “Lead Pencil Blues”, “Louise, Louise”,  “Big Leg Woman” and “Gonna Ride 74.”

In 1946 Temple cut some up-to-date sides for King with trumpet, tenor and piano, several of which were only issued decades later. In 1947 he cut an acetate of just himself on guitar for the Ora Nelle label, “Olds “98” Blues”, which Tony Russell notes “has some of the rockabilly drive of an early Sun recording.” In 1950 he cut a lone 78 for Miracle and cut some unissued songs for Chess. In the 1950’s, Temple’s recording career stopped, but he continued to perform, frequently with Big Walter Horton and Billy Boy Arnold. He moved back to Mississippi where he played clubs and juke joints around the Jackson area for a few years before he disappeared from the scene. He died in 1968.

“Black Gal What Makes Your Head So Hard?”  was a huge and influential hit in 1934. After Pullum recorded it in April 1934 it was covered by Vocalion by Leroy Carr, for Decca by Mary Johnson and Jimmie Gordon (under the pseudonym of Joe Bullum!), and by Josh White—all within ten months. Black gal is supposed to have been a traditional Texas theme, but Victoria Spivey calls Pullum’s “the original one.” That was ‘about 1925, yet neither Victoria nor Bernice Edwards, both members of  a clique that played West Texas from Galveston to Houston’ with Pullum and others, chose to record the song at their sessions in the ’20s. In a review of a record by Texas pianist Robert Shaw that appeared in her Blues Is My Business column in Record Research, Victoria Spivey reminisced about the early days.  “At first it made me very sad and blue as it brought back my carefree days in Texas in the early 20′s when we were all playing the whiskey joints, gay houses and picnics. We all loved each other then. Had no animosity in our hearts. These were the days of lazy, offbeat blues piano and singing. I was a member of a clique that played West Texas from Galveston to Houston to Richmond to Sugarland. There were Anthony (sic) Boy, Joe Pullum, Houston, Bernice Edwards, Pearl Dickson and myself. …On BLACK GAL, my buddy, Robert ‘Fud’ Shaw, must have really improvised the lyrics as it is very different from the original one by Joe Pullum. I first heard Joe sing this about 1925. In fact I was there in his house in the bloody 5th Ward in Houston, Texas when Joe was making up the words. It was at the time when I had a 6 month job with Miss Weaver in this same bloody 5th. Listen to Joe Pullum’s Bluebird recording and you will hear it right.” Robert Shaw had this to say about the song’s origins: “We was on a party and there were three or four girls there. An old black girl there, man she was, you talk about a handsome baby, she was a baby! Feet, eyes, legs, nose, mouth, everything fit! …So Joe Pullum says to this black girl;  ‘Say black girl!’ She didn’t say nothin’. Said ‘black girl!.’ She just kept on walkin’. He said: ‘What make your doggone head so hard’? All right! Now, there was a boy down there named Purdue (Robert Cooper) and Shine (Harold Holiday aka Black Boy Shine) and myself and Joe Pullum. Well, we went down to that party-house. Here Purdue come up playin’ the blues and this gal come in the door, the same black gal and Joe Pullum here he come (sings falsetto): ‘Black gal, black gal, woman, what makes your nappy head so hard, I would come to see you but your bad man has me barred.’ Joe Pullum brought that song up. …I bet he sold a million records and that song come out of two men and a half-a-pint of whiskey.”

“Why was it so successful?”, Tony Russell wrote. ” First, it introduced a new singing style; Pullum’s voice was pitched very high and clear, yet it always sounded relaxed, and his timing was impeccable. The effect—plaintive, appealing, penetrating—was like that of a muted trumpet solo, piercing its way through the blues, occasionally soaring in sudden leaps.” He was also a witty lyricist, writing several topical blues like “Joe Louis Is The Man”, “Bonus Blues”, “Mississippi Flood Blues” and “CWA Blues.” The piano accompaniment was first rate as Russell notes: “…The piano-playing behind Pullum is always satisfying stuff, whether the work of Andy Boy (who was on the third and longest session) or that of Robert Cooper (on the other three).”

Pullum went on to cut four sessions in less than two years which produced thirty songs including two sequels to “black gal” , yet few sold very well. Pullum performed on Houston radio station KTLC with his pianist, Preston Chase, known as Peachy. “Pullum and Peachy” became household names although for some reason Chase does not appear on Pullum’s records. Pullum headed to California probably in the 40’s where he cut a record for Swingtime in 1948. He supposedly cut a demo for Specialty in 1953. He died in 1964.

Doctor Clayton worked strictly as a vocalist (by some accounts he could play piano and ukulele), employing an impressive falsetto technique, later refined into a powerful, swooping style that was instantly recognizable. In addition he was an unparalleled songwriter, writing mostly original material with a rare wit, intelligence and social awareness. Clayton’s vocal style was widely emulated and a number of his songs became blues standards. Clayton moved to Chicago with partner Robert. Clayton was supposed to record for Decca but ended up hooking up with Lester Melrose of Bluebird. As Lockwood related later: “Doctor Clayton started singin’, and Melrose had a baby. …He had to have Doctor Clayton! Yeah! Lester Melrose heard Doctor Clayton sing, and he went crazy.” He first recorded for Bluebird in 1935 cutting six sides four of which went unissued, not recording again until 1941. Between 1941-1942 he recorded four sessions for Bluebird and Okeh. In 1941 he cut his most covered number, “Confessin’ The Blues” which has become a blues standard.  Many of Clayton’s songs deal with tough times that many still felt even after the depression. 1942′s “On The Killing Floor”no doubt spoke for many and also seems to echo  his own reckless lifestyle:

Please give me a match to light this short that I found
I know it looks bad for me, picking tobacco off the ground
I was in my prime not so very long ago
But high priced whiskey and woman done put me on the killin’ floor
Lord it’s zero weather and I ain’t got a lousy dime
I’m walking from door to door and I can’t find a friend of mine

From the same session was another down-and-out tale, “Ain’t No Business We Can Do”:

I went down to Eli, got my suit out of pawn
Took the last little change I had left, and put some new shoes on
I took a real slow stroll, right down the avenue
A high yeller asked me, could she go ‘long too
I said, “Hey good-lookin’ have you got any cash on you?
‘Cos if you broke like me, ain’t no business we can do”

Prices goin’ up every day, all kind of meat is too high
If you ain’t rich or got a good job, neckbones is all you could buy
The best friend you got, will even tell you a lie
And let me tell you buddy, you better keep some kinda cash on you
‘Cos when you broke, outdoors and hungry ain’t no business you can do

He cut a pair of topical  songs including  “Pearl Harbor Blues” and “41′ Blues.” In ”’41 Blues” Clayton offers his solution to end hostilities:

War is raging in Europe, up on the water, land and in the air
If Uncle Sam don’t be careful, we’ll all soon be right back over there
This whole war would soon be over if Uncle Sam would use my plan
Let me sneak in Hitler’s bedroom with my razor in my hand

In “Pearl Harbor Blues” he had this to say:

On December the seventh, nineteen hundred and forty one
The Japanese flew over Pearl Harbor, dropping bombs by the ton
This Japanese is so ungrateful, just like a stray dog on the street
Well he bite the hand that feeds em’, soon as he get enough to feed

Other numbers from the period were the oft covered “Cheating And Lying Blues”,  “Gotta Find My Baby”,  “Watch Out Mama”, “Moonshine Woman Blues” (covered by B.B. King in 1959 as “The Woman I Love” with an overdubbed version charting in 1968) and “Ain’t No Business We Can Do.”  Slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk was recorded playing “Cheating And Lying Blues” in 1964 live on Maxwell Street which also combined the lyrics form “Ain’t No Business We Can Do” and Pat Hare’s 1954 “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby” was a direct descendant of “Cheating And Lying Blues” (“I’m gonna murder my baby if she don’t stop cheating and lying/Well I’d rather be in the penitentiary than to be worried out of my mind”). Clayton’s final recordings were in February 1946 with a small group led by “Baby Doo” Caston with a final session in August 1946. These sessions included the original versions of oft-covered songs such as “Root Doctor”, “Angels in Harlem” (covered by Smokey Hogg, Peppermint Harris and by Larry Davis as “Angels In Houston”), “Hold That Train Conductor” (covered by B.B. King in 1961) and “I Need My Baby” (covered by B.B. King as “Walking Dr. Bill” and Smokey Hogg as “I Declare”) and perhaps ironically “Aint Gonna Drink No More.” Also cut during this period was “Copper Colored Mama” which King covered as “The Woman I Love” in 1954.

Clayton’s records were steady sellers and he regularly appeared at Chicago clubs such as Sylvios working with Robert Lockwood and Sunnyland Slim and toured in a bus with his likeness on the side. Attesting to this popularity was Sunnyland Slim who recorded as “Doctor Clayton’s Buddy” on his debut 1947 sessions and Willie Long Time Smith who in 1947 recorded the tribute, “My Buddy Doctor Clayton.” Clayton died on January 7th 1947 in Chicago, of pulmonary tuberculosis at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital. According to Big Bill only ten people attended Clayton’s funeral including himself and Tampa Red.

Show Notes:

The music on today’s program spans a fascinating period, roughly the first decade of post-war blues, when the blues was evolving into what would be called R&B and a short hop later to rock and roll. Today’s however is a throwback; this is rough and tumble down-home blues geared towards an audience that was still eager to hear earthy rural blues. Many of these listeners were still in the south while many other were transplanted southerners still eager to hear the older styles. These were exciting times with numerous small labels throwing their hat in the ring to try to cash in on the market.  Our spotlight is on the Texas variety of down-home blues. Some of today’s artists achieved a measure of success such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Lil Son Jackson and Smokey Hogg while those like Lawyer Houston, Ernest Lewis, Manny Nichols, Stickhorse Hammond, Sonny Boy Holmes, Johnny Beck and others cut fine sides but remain utterly obscure outside of hardcore collectors. Between 1944 and 1964, more than 600 record companies tried their hands at recording blues. Many failed or had limited success while others grew and became major players. This was “the last grand hurrah of local blues recorded for, and often by, local entrepreneurs.”

By the early 1950’s, competition among independent record labels in Texas was intense. Macy’s, Freedom, and Peacock (as well as Bob Shad’s New York-based Sittin-In-With) were all involved in recording local and regional blues musicians. In Houston there were fewer opportunities for recording than in Dallas until after World War II, when several independent labels were started. The earliest to record blues was Gold Star, founded by Bill Quinn in 1946 as a hillbilly label to record Harry Choates. In 1947 Quinn decided to enter the “race” market by recording Lightnin’ Hopkins. Today’s program features several Gold Star artists including Lil Son Jackson, Leroy Ervin, Andy Thomas, Lee Hunter and Perry Cain who gives us the title for today’s show. Among the Dallas labels we spin tracks form Blue Bonnet and (Star) Talent. Blue Bonnet Records was formed by Herb Rippa in 1947 in Dallas as a hillbilly label but near the end of Blue Bonnet’s three-year existence Rippa began recording a handful of blues artists, most notable being Frankie Lee Sims. Pianist Charlie Braddix cut two sides for the label in 1948. Both Willie Lane and Rattlesnake Cooper cut sides for (Star) Talent, a Dallas label owned by father and daughter Jesse and Louise Erickson. The label recorded blues, country and gospel and cut the sides first sides by Rufus Thomas and Professor Longhair.

The spirit of Lightnin’ Hopkins looms over many of these recordings and we play tracks by some who were in Hopkins orbit. Thunder Smith played piano behind Hopkins on his first two sessions for Aladdin in 1946 and 1947, never achieving the success that Hopkins did. Hopkins backed Smith on a four song session for Aladdin in 1946 with Smith cutting one session apiece in 1947 for Gold Star and in 1948 for Down Town. He reportedly died in Houston in 1965. L.C. Williams was a singer/tap dancer who also occasionally drummed behind Hopkins. He arrived in Houston in 1945 and was one of the many characters who hung around in Lightning’s orbit, sitting on stoops drinking beer and wine, shooting the breeze with passers-by. He made his first record in 1947 with Hopkins on piano and guitar. Hopkins plays guitar on a four-song session for Gold Star in 1948 with Williams making some final sides for Eddie’s and Freedom between 1948-1950. He died in Houston of TB in 1960. Frankie Lee Sims claimed to be a cousin of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Sims cut his first 78′s for Blue Bonnet Records in 1948 in Dallas, but didn’t taste anything resembling regional success until 1953, when his “Lucy Mae Blues” did well down south.  Sims recorded fairly prolifically for Los Angeles-based Specialty into 1954, then switched to the Ace label in 1957 to cut great rockers like “Walking with Frankie” and “She Likes to Boogie Real Low.” He recorded for Bobby Robinson in late 1960 but these sides were unreleased and didn’t surface until decades later when they were released on the British Krazy Kat label. Robinson ran the NYC based labels Fire, Fury and Enjoy. Sims died at age 53 in Dallas of pneumonia.

Mercy Dee Walton was a Texas émigré, who had played piano around Waco from the age of 13 before hitting the West Coast in 1938. He debuted on record in 1949 with “Lonesome Cabin Blues” for the tiny Spire logo, which became a national R&B hit. Those sides were cut in Fresno, but Los Angeles hosted some of the pianist’s best sessions for Imperial in 1950 and Specialty in 1952-53. After a lengthy layoff, Walton returned to the studio in a big way in 1961, recording prolifically for Chris Strachwitz’s Arhoolie label. He died the following year in December 1962.

In 1946, Lil’ Son Jackson shipped off a demo to Bill Quinn, who owned Houston based Gold Star Records. Jackson scored a national R&B hit, “Freedom Train Blues,” in 1948. It would prove Jackson’s only national hit, although his 1950-1954 output for Imperial Records must have sold consistently, judging from how many sides the L.A. firm issued. He gave up the blues during the mid-’50s after an auto wreck, resuming work as a mechanic. Arhoolie Records boss Chris Strachwitz convinced Jackson to cut an album in 1960. Jackson died May 30, 1976, in Dallas, TX, from cancer.

Smokey Hogg was a down-home bluesman who scored a pair of major R&B hits in 1948 and 1950 (“Long Tall Mama” and “Little School Girl”) and cut prolifically for a slew of labels including Exclusive, Modern, Bullet, Macy’s, Sittin’ in With, Imperial, Mercury, Specialty, Fidelity, Combo, Federal, and Showtime). Smokey’s cousin John Hogg also played the blues, waxing six sides in 1951.

One of the last of the old-time Texas barrelhouse pianists, Alex Moore was an institution in Dallas, his lifelong home. Moore had one of the longest recording careers in blues history. Moore began performing in the early ’20s, playing clubs and parties around his hometown of Dallas; he usually performed under the name Whistlin’ Alex. In 1929, he recorded his first sessions, for Columbia Records. Moore didn’t record again until 1937, when he made a few records for Decca. Moore didn’t record again until 1951, when RPM/Kent had him cut several songs. Arhoolie Records signed the pianist in 1960, and those records helped make him a national name. For the rest of the ’60s, he played clubs and festivals in America, as well as a handful of festival dates in Europe. He continued to perform until his death in 1989. The year before his death, he recorded a final album titled Wiggle Tail.

Among the great unknowns are artists such as Manny Nichols, Son Tillis, Laywer Houston,  Nathaniel “Stickhorse” Hammond, Wright Holmes, Lee Hunter, Sonny Boy Holmes, Luther Stoneham and Dr. Hepcat among others. Manny Nichols cut nine sides between 1949-1953 for several small labels, first in Texas and then in California. He also recorded as West Texas Slim. In addition he backed the mysterious Miss Country Slim on one record. J.R. Fullbright, owner of Elko Records, first brough Son Tillis in the studio in Longview, Texas but these were unreleased. He then brought him over to Gold Star where he cut several sides. Interviewed in 1968, Fullbright though Tillis was in the penitentiary for life for murder. Nathaniel “Stickhorse” Hammond is one of the oldest performers featured, having been born in Dallas in 1896. Laywer Houston cut an eight-song session for Atlantic in 1950 and another eight-song session circa 1953/54 that was never issued. Lavada Durst AKA Dr.Hepcat was the first black disc jockey in Texas on Austin‘s KVET. He published The Jives of Dr.Hepcat based on his outlandish radio patter. He cut early records on Peacock, Uptown and later recordings on Documentary Arts. Wright Holmes had only three sides issued in 1947, with several unissued. He was rediscovered and interviewed by Blues Unlimited magazine but had turned to relgion and was no longer playing blues. Lee hunter was the brother of the more famous Ivory Joe Hunter and cut a lone 78 for Gold Star in 1948.

Show Notes:

Newspaper photo of Son House, and a July 14 Rochester Times-Union article about his comeback.

“I’m talking about the blues now, I ain’t talkin’ about no monkey junk”

Today’s title come from a term Son House used often as his biographer Dan Beaumont explains: “House had an amusing phrase he would use when asked about the blues being played in the 1960′s. It was a phrase he used to dismiss much of the blues music of that period. ‘It’s not the blues,’ he would say. ‘It’s just a lot of monkey junk.’ The blues so dominated House’s life-we have now established the price that he had paid for it-that a period in which he all but ceased playing it may well have seemed to him simply so much ‘monkey junk.’” As anyone who’s listened to Son House knows, there was nothing frivolous or gimmicky about Son’s blues. In his hands the blues were a gripping, all consuming feeling:

You know, the blues ain’t nothin’ but a low-down shakin’, low-down shakin’, achin’ chill
I say the blues is a low-down, old, achin’ chill
Well, if you ain’t had ‘em, honey, I hope you never will

Well, the blues, the blues is a worried heart, is a worried heart, heart disease
Oh, the blues is a worried old heart disease

(The Jinx Blues Part 1, 1942)

Today’s show is our annual tribute to Son House who created some of the most visceral and gripping blues of the 1930′s and 40′s and who emerged after two decades to find himself bewilderingly hailed as a blues hero to young white audiences around the world. It’s with a matter of pride that Son’s comeback came in my adopted hometown of Rochester, NY. Over the years I met numerous people who fondly recalled Son House here in Rochester and when I started doing my yearly radio birthday tributes it brought even more people out of the woodwork who gladly shared their memories with me. So it’s puzzling that the city has never honored Son in anyway. For years myself and others thought someone should rectify this sorry state of affairs; a plaque, a statue or something to honor one of the pivotal figures in blues history. The sad fact is there is nothing tangible in this city that shows Son ever made this city his home for a good part of his life (1943-1976). It’s worth noting that Son does have a plaque in Tunica, MS as part of the Mississippi Commission’s Blues Trail.

2009 Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House Poster

Next week marks the third Hot Blues For The Homeless concert I put on with several other dedicated folks.  Now billed as Hot Blues For The Homeless …A Tribute To Son House,  we had a fantastic turn out last year, raised a good deal of money for the Rochester homeless and hopefully raised some awareness about Son House. If you live in Rochester, live close by are just visiting on June 7th make sure to help us celebrate the memory of Son House.

On today’s program we start out by playing the bulk of Son’s legendary Paramount recordings. In 1930, Arthur Laibley who had produced Charlie Patton’s last session for Paramount, stopped in Lula to arrange another session with Patton. Patton was famous throughout the Delta and had already recorded close to forty sides for the label. Patton told Laibley about House and about two other musicians Willie Brown and Louise Johnson, setting the stage for one of the blues most legendary recording sessions. The group headed to the Paramount studios in Grafton, WI, where House recorded six songs at the session, three of which were long enough to fill both sides of a 78: “Dry Spell Blues,” “Preachin’ The Blues,” and “My Black Mama.” Two songs, “Clarksdale Moan” and “Mississippi County Farm Blues” were issued as a 78, with a lone copy surfacing just recently. In September 2005, a collector announced he had obtained the lost “Clarksdale Moan” 78 in reasonably decent condition. The details of this discovery are not known to the public as the collector has chosen to remain anonymous. On April 4, 2006, both “Clarksdale Moan” and “Mississippi County Farm Blues” were released on the collection The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of from Yazoo Records. While “Clarksdale Moan” is a previously unknown song, “Mississippi County Farm Blues” is an earlier (and faster) version of a song Son House later recorded at his Library of Congress recording session in 1941. The unissued test of “Walking Blues” we spin was not found until 1985.

Rochester Times-Union article about Son House from July 6, 1964. This is the first article written about Son’s rediscovery.

Despite the disappointing sales of his records, for House the Grafton experience marked the beginning of a long musical friendship with Willie Brown. For much of the 30’s House reverted to his former pattern of preaching and then going back to the blues, usually at the prompting of Brown. He and Brown played all over the Delta as well as Arkansas and Tennessee for the rest of the 1930’s. In August of 1941 the folklorist Alan Lomax found House working as a tractor driver on a plantation near Robinsonville. House took Lomax a few miles north to Lake Cormorant where Willie Brown lived. They rounded up two other musicians, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin and Leroy Williams. Behind Clack’s general store, House recorded five songs for Lomax. The next summer in July, House recorded, unaccompanied, ten more songs for Lomax.

A year after the Library of Congress sides House vanished, or did the next best thing which was to move to Rochester, NY. More than two decades would pass before he would resurface. On June 23rd of 1964, Dick Waterman, Phil Spiro and Nick Perls found House living on 61 Grieg Street in Rochester, NY. Waterman became Son’s manager and the following year he was signed to Columbia and played the Newport Folk Festival. Son had several good years on the comeback trail; he toured the US playing folk festivals and the coffeehouse circuit and he did tours of Europe as well. He also performed locally in Rochester. From these later years we spin several tracks for his superb comeback album Father Of The Delta Blues plus several live cuts.

Also on today’s program is my good friend Dan Beaumont. University of Rochester professor Dan Beaumont discusses  his forthcoming book, Preachin’ the Blues: The Life And Music Of Son House. This is the first full-length biography of Son House and will be published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Dan will also be reading excerpts from the book at the workshop component of the Hot Blues event. in addition we also play a couple of clips of Dick Waterman talking about Son from an interview I conducted with Dick several years ago and who was a guest at last year’s event.

Show Notes:

Art Rupe founded Juke Box Records in 1946, but changed the company’s name to Specialty the following year to indicate that, unlike the major labels, his specialized in particular kinds of music – African-American blues and gospel. The Hollywood-based firm became a leader in both fields, with a roster that included R&B artists Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, Percy Mayfield, Guitar Slim, and Lloyd Price and gospel stars like the Pilgrim Travelers, the Soul Stirrers (featuring Sam Cooke), Brother Joe May, Alex Bradford, and the Original Gospel Harmonettes. Specialty also played a key role in the development of rock ‘n’ roll upon signing Little Richard in 1955. Two years later, however, Specialty lost both Richard (to religion) and Cooke (to pop music), and Rupe’s interest in making new records quickly waned. He kept the label’s many hits in print and compiled albums of older material until 1991, when he sold the company to Fantasy, Inc. Below is some background on today’s featured artists.

Among the label’s big hits were “The Honeydripper” by Joe Liggins inn 1945 and “Pink Champagne” five years later, posting many more solid sellers in between. Inspired by the success of his brother Joe, Jimmy jumped into the recording field in 1947 on Art Rupe’s Specialty logo. His “Tear Drop Blues” hit the R&B Top Ten the next year, while “Careful Love” and “Don’t Put Me Down” hit for him in 1949. “R.M. Blues” was a million seller for Roy Mitlon in 1945 and really got Specialty off and running. Rupe knew a good thing when he saw it, recording Milton early and often-through 1953. He was rewarded with 19 Top Ten R&B hits. Camille  Howard was installed as pianist with drummer Roy Milton & the Solid Senders sometime during World War II, playing on all their early hits for Art Rupe’s Juke Box and Specialty labels (notably the groundbreaking “R.M. Blues” in 1945). Rupe began recording her as a featured artist at the end of the year. Her biggest hit was the romping instrumental “X-Temporaneous Boogie” but she was also a very fine vocalist.

Specialty signed Percy Mayfield in 1950 and he scored a solid string of R&B smashes over the next couple of years. “Please Send Me Someone to Love” was a number one R&B hit in 1950a and its equally fine flip, “Strange Things Happening” were followed in the charts by “Lost Love,” “What a Fool I Was,” “Prayin’ for Your Return,” “Cry Baby,” and “Big Question.”

Smokey Hogg scored a pair of major R&B hits in 1948 and 1950 for the Modern label. He was recorded extensively for a slew of labels including Exclusive, Modern, Bullet, Macy’s, Sittin’ in With, Imperial, Mercury, Recorded in Hollywood, Specialty, Fidelity, Combo, Federal, and Showtime.

Johnny Vincent, the New Orleans promotion man for Specialty discovered Guitar Slim and brought him to the attention of Art Rupe. The result of the session was “The Things That I Used to Do”. Vincent had used a little-known piano player named Ray Charles to arrange and play on the recording. The song was a smash hit. Unfortunately, in spite of some powerful follow-up recordings, Guitar Slim’s career faded, and he died in 1959, having drunk himself to death at the age of 32.

In 1952, Rupe made his first field trip to the south, being impressed with the music of Fats Domino on another Los Angeles-based label, Imperial. He went to Fats’ hometown of New Orleans to search for talent. He announced on a radio show that he was looking for talent and for artists to come to Cosimo Matassa’s recording studio for auditions. The auditions had not produced anything worthy of recording, and Rupe was packing up to head back to Los Angeles when a 17 year old named Lloyd Price came in and sang his own composition, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.” Rupe canceled his plane ticket home and stayed in New Orleans to record the song. He got Fats Domino to play piano and Dave Bartholomew to assemble the other backing musicians. The record became the #1 R&B record for 1952 on both the Billboard and Cash Box charts, and Lloyd Price was the Cash Box “Best New R&B Singer of 1952.”

Bumble Bee Slim was one of the more popular and prolific blues artists of the 1930′s. He relocated to Los Angeles in the early ’40s. During the ’50s, Slim cut some West Coast blues for Specialty and Pacific Jazz, which failed to gain much interest. For the rest of his career, he kept a low profile, playing various Californian clubs. He died in 1968.

After success at Modern and Aladdin, Floyd Dixon jumped to the Specialty label, making his debut in mid-1953 with our featured track, “Hard Living Alone.” “Hole in the Wall” followed by year’s end, but neither was a hit, and when the same fate befell 1954′s “Ooh Ee, Ooh Eee,” the company terminated his contract.

Mercy Deed Walton debuted on record in 1949 with “Lonesome Cabin Blues” for the tiny Spire logo, which became a national R&B hit. Those sides were cut in Fresno, but Los Angeles hosted some of the pianist’s best sessions for Imperial in 1950 and Specialty in 1952-53. His “One Room Country Shack” was a huge R&B hit in 1953 and has become a blues standard.

Billed as Earl Johnson, Earl King, debuted on wax in 1953 on Savoy. Johnson became Earl King upon signing with Specialty the next year (label head Art Rupe intended to name him King Earl, but the typesetter reversed the names!). He had more success when he jumped to the Ace label; “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights,” proved a national R&B hit.

In 1954, Clifton Chenier signed with Elko Records.He had a regional hit single, “Cliston’s Blues” and “Louisiana Stomp.” His first national attention came with his first single for the Specialty record label, “Ay Tete Fille (Hey, Little Girl),” a cover of a Professor Longhair tune, released in May 1955. The song was one of 12 that he recorded during two sessions produced by Bumps Blackwell, best known for his work with Little Richard.

Professor Longhair made great records for Atlantic in 1949, Federal in 1951, Wasco in 1952, and Atlantic again in 1953. After recuperating from a minor stroke, Longhair came back on Lee Rupe’s (the ex-wife of Specialty Records’ owner Art Rupe) Ebb logo in 1957 which were also released on Specialty.