Big Road Blues

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and died in Alabama and field trips in the early 90’s have solved most mysteries although most of the research remains unpublished.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:

There’s a definite theme running through today’s mix show,  with a good batch of recordings spotlighting the vibrant, swinging  Los Angeles blues scene of the mid-40′s through the early 50′s. 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. I’ve devoted several shows to the west coast blues scene of this period but many of today’s artists I haven’t played before. Among those spotlighted are Buddy Tate, The Great Gates, Red Mack, Al “Cake” Wichard’s Sextette, Buddy Banks’ Sextette, Roy Hawkins and Johnny Fuller.

We spin double shots of two great combos: Al “Cake” Wichard’s Sextette and Buddy Banks’ Sextette. The  Wichard tracks come from the terrific recent reissue on Ace, Al “Cake” Wichard Sextette – Cake Walkin’. Al Wichard was born in Welbourne, Arkansas, on 15th August 1919, but the steps by which he arrived in Los Angeles as a drummer in 1944 remain shadowy. He managed to record with Jimmy Witherspoon and Jay McShann within weeks of his arrival, and in April 1945 was the drummer on Modern’s first session, accompanying Hadda Brooks.This CD consists entirely of sessions made under his own name. Thirteen tracks have vocals by Jimmy Witherspoon while others feature vocalist Duke Henderson and guitarist Pee Wee Crayton. All these sides were cut between 1945 and 1949. Witherspoon is in magnificent form throughout, including our selection, the bouncy “Thelma Lee.” Henderson wasn’t quite in Spoon’s league, few were, but he turns in a superb low-down performance on our cut, “Gravels In My Pillow” as he boasts:

They call me the devil’s stepchild, they say I’m just no good (2x)
They say I’m rotten from the start, wouldn’t be no other way if I could

Tenor sax blower Buddy Banks began his career in California and played with all the best West Coast Orchestras. In 1945 he formed his own sextet. The band began recording by backing singer Marion Abernathy for the Juke Box label and in its own right for the tiny Sterling label. The band went on to record for Excelsior, United, Modern and Specialty through 1949.The band employed some fine vocalists including Fluffy Hunter, Baby Davis, Marion Abernathy and Bixie Crawford. The obscure Davis belts it out “Happy Home Blues” while Hunter storms through the rocking “Fluffy’s Debut.” It’s a shame both singers recorded so little. All these tracks come from the excellent LP Happy Home Blues issued on the Official label.

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Red Mack was a west coast vocalist who also played piano, organ, trumpet, cornet and drums. He fronted bands that cut sides for Gold Seal, Atlas and Mercury at sessions recorded in 1945, 1946 and 1951. Mack is heard to fine effect on the humorous “Mr. Big Head:”

You said your wife was fine, when you lived down on the farm (2x)
Now you got the big head, and a glamor girl on your arm
Well you making more money, and that’s a fact
You won’t drive nothing baby, but those big fine Cadillacs
Well your head is big and you think you own the moon
Well I’m tellin’ you fool, your head will go down sore

Mack’s sides have been collected, along with those of his contemporary Luke Jones, on the Krazy Kat LP Luke Jones & Red Mack – West Coast R&B 1947-1952. Also on the Krazy Kat label is The Great Gates  – West Coast R’ n B 1949-1955. 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. Gates was a smooth big voiced singer heard today on the moody “Late After Hours” backed by a killer little combo featuring the cooking tenor of Marvin Phillips.

Tenor sax man Buddy Tate joined Count Basie’s band in 1939 and stayed with him until 1948. In 1947 Tate made a batch of recordings for the L.A. based Supreme label backed by members of Basie’s band. The session included luminaries like Bill Doggett, Chico Hamilton and Jimmy Witherspoon. Alto sax man Chas Q. Price takes the vocal on the silky, after hours number “Early Morning Blues” sporting some sensitive playing from Tate. These early recordings can be found on the marvelous LP Jumpin’ On The West Coast! on the Black Lion label.

Also on tap today are some twin spins by Arbee Stidham and pianist Barrelhouse Buck McFarland. The two Stidham tracks come from the album A Time For Blues, one of Stidham’s best recordings backed by the swinging Ernie Wilkins Orchestra. A jazz-influenced blues vocalist, Stidham also played alto sax, guitar and harmonica. His father Luddie Stidham worked in Jimme Lunceford’s orchestra, while his uncle was a leader of the Memphis Jug Band. Stidham formed the Southern Syncopators and played various clubs in his native Arkansas in the ’30s. He appeared on Little Rock radio station KARK and his band backed Bessie Smith on a Southern tour in 1930 and 1931. Stidham frequently performed in Little Rock and Memphis until he moved to Chicago in the 40′s. Stidham recorded with Lucky Millinder’s Orchestra for Victor in the 40′s. He did his own sessions for Victor, Sittin’ In, Checker, Abco, Prestige/Bluesville, Mainstream, and Folkways in the 50′s and 60′, and appeared in the film The Bluesman in 1973. Stidham also made many festival and club appearances nationwide and internationally. He did occasional blues lectures at Cleveland State University in the 70′s.

Barrelhouse Buck McFarland cut his final session for Folkways and an unissued session in 1961 that was belatedly released a few years back on Delmark. He died shortly afterward. McFarland was born in Alton, Illinois in 1903 in the same area as two other exceptional piano players, Wesley Wallace and Jabbo Williams, all three of which made names for themselves on the bustling St. Louis blues scene. McFarland got his shot in the recording studio waxing ten sides; two for Paramount in 1929, two for Decca in 1934 and four more for Decca in 1935, which were not issued.

We also feature a cut by Gladys Bentley, a truly largely than life figure. Bentley cut six sides for Okeh in 1928 and fifteen sides in 1946 and 1952 for the labels Excelsior, Top Hat, Flame and Swing Time. Bentley was a 250 pound woman dressed in men’s clothes (including a signature tuxedo and top hat), who played piano and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting outrageously with women in the audience. She appeared at Harry Hansberry’s “Clam House” on 133rd Street, one of New York City’s most notorious gay speakeasies, in the 1920s, and headlined in the early thirties at Harlem’s Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She relocated to southern California, where she was billed as “America’s Greatest Sepia Piano Player”, and the “Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs”. She died, aged 52, from pneumonia in 1960. Bentley’s act was probably impossible to capture on record but her post-war recordings have a jivey exuberance, particularly our selection, the bouncy “Lay It On The Line.” Unfortunately Bentley has been ill served on reissue collections.

Also worth mentioning are a quartet of sides from New York artists. New York had a lively blues scene in the immediate post-war era, circa 1945 through 1960. The scene was dominated by small independent labels like Fire/Fury, Apollo, DeLuxe, Herald, Joe Davis, Baton, Old Town, Atlantic and Savoy. There was also out of town labels like King who recorded Big Apple talent. Hundreds of R&B and blues records were cut during this period. Today we feature several obscure artists from the scene including Mr. Bear, Larry Dale and Cousin Leroy. These tracks come form two excellent LP compilations; Harlem Heavies on the Moonshine label and New York Wild Guitars on the P-Vine label. Down the road I plan on doing a whole show devoted to the New York blues scene from this period.

Show Notes:

A while back we did our first installment of Forgotten Blues Ladies, which focused primarily on the 1920’s and 30’s. Today’s sequel covers some of the same territory but stretches up through the 1940’s and early 50’s. The Classic Female Blues era as it’s generally called spanned from 1920 to 1929 with its peak from 1923 to 1925. Although officially introduced by Mamie Smith with her hit Okeh recording of “Crazy Blues” in 1920, vaudeville entertainers such as “coon shouter” Sophie Tucker and comedienne Marie Cahill anticipated some aspects of the style on record prior to World War I. Mamie Smith, an educated city girl from the West End of Cincinnati, was something of an anomaly among the early singers; most of the women were from the South and toured on the TOBA booking circuit. A few of these artists, including Ethel Waters, the unrecorded Florence Mills, and the incomparable Bessie Smith, made the transition to ‘legitimate’ venues. Some singers led their own bands, and several key figures in jazz, such as Coleman Hawkins, made their way into the business playing in these groups. After 1930, with the advent of popular singers in a non-”Classic Blues” vein, the genre went into a slow decline. The most popular of these singers were Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Ida Cox, Victoria Spivey, Sippie Wallace, Alberta Hunter and Clara Smith. Hundreds of others recorded during this period and we will be focusing on many of these lesser knowns. In some cases they recorded dozens of sides or just a handful, some were quite popular in their day while, others were popular just regionally while others achieved little or no success yet they cut some exceptional blues records that, outside of collectors, remain all but forgotten today.

Bertha “Chippie” Hill

After the era of the classic blues woman, women were mostly confined to singing in cabarets, clubs and barrelhouses for the remainder of the pre-war period. Percentage wise there were far more women blues singers in the pre-war era, with men dominating the market in the post-war era. In the 40’s many woman fronted big bands, which gave way to smaller combos, eventually making the transition to the more hard edged R&B woman singers of the 50’s and 60′s.

From the early era of woman blues singers, Irene Scruggs,  Bertha “Chippie” Hill , Trixie Smith,  Lil Johnson and Edith Wilson achieved a modicum of success but remain largely forgotten today. The great jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams recalled that Irene Scruggs was already an established force on the St. Louis blues scene the first time Williams went there as a young member of a vaudeville revue. “In St. Louis, our show picked up a young blues singer named Irene Scruggs,” Williams said in an interview. “Irene had not long settled in St. Louis, and was starting out to become one of St. Louis’ finest singers.” Between 1924 and 1930 she cut twenty sides backed by big names such as Kid Ory, King Oliver, Lonnie Johnson, Blind Blake and Little Brother Montgomery. By the 40′s, Scruggs had joined the population of expatriate black performers living abroad, residing first in Paris wand later to Germany. In the 50′s, she did several radio broadcasts for the British BBC.

Bertha “Chippie” Hill recorded close to two-dozen sides between 1925 and 1928 and recorded the first version of “Trouble In Mind.” She gave up performing and recording in the 30’s but made a comeback in the 40’s cutting sides for the Circle label between 1946-48, sang in clubs in New York and Chicago and at the 1948 Paris Jazz Festival. She died in 1950 in a traffic accident.

Both Trixie Smith and Lil Johnson were well served on record. Smith moved to New York  and won a blues-singing contest in 1922. She cut close to 50 sides between 1922 and 1939 including the popular hit “Freight Train Blues.” After a 1926 she didn’t record again until 1938. After making a few records in 1929, Lil Johnson didn’t surface again on record until 1935, cutting some 60 sides through 1937.

Edith Wilson’s first professional experience came in 1919 in Louisville’s Park Theater. Lena Wilson and her brother, Danny, performed in Louisville; Edith married Danny and joined their act as a trio. Together they performed on the East Coast in 1920-21, and when they were in New York City Wilson was picked up by Okeh Records, who recorded her in 1921 with Johnny Dunn’s Jazz Hounds. She recorded 17 tunes with Dunn and Okeh in 1921-22. In 1924 she worked with Fletcher Henderson in New York. She remained a nightclub and theater singer, working for years on the New York entertainment scene. She retired from active performance in 1963 but made a comeback in 1973. Her last live show was given at the 1980 Newport Jazz Festival.

Little is known about most of today’s early blues ladies like Liza Brown who cut six sides in 1929, the tough St. Louis singer Lizzie Washington who cut the very first version of “Everyday I Have The Blues”, the sultry sounding fifteen year-old Annie Turner who’s accompanied by Little Brother Montgomery plus fine shadowy singers like Laura Smith, Priscilla Stewart, Cleo Gibson, Hattie Hudson and Gertrude Perkins, the latter three only cutting a solitary 78. Gibson’s  “I’ve Got Ford Engine Movements In My Hips” uses one of the more unique automobile metaphors:

I got Ford engine movements in my hips,
Ten thousand miles guarantee
A Ford is a car everybody wants to ride
Jump in, you will see
You can all have a Rolls Royce
A Packard and such
Take a Ford engine boys
To do your stuff
I’ve got Ford engine movements in my hips,
Ten thousand miles guarantee
I say ten thousand miles guarantee

Moving up to the late 1930′s and 1940′s we spin tracks by Blue Lu Barker, Betty Hall Jones, Paula Watson, Vivian Greene, Albinia Jones, Myra Taylor and  Pearl Traylor. Vivian Greene, Paula Watson and  Betty Hall Jones were part of a wave of piano pounding blues ladies, most based around the Los Angles area in the mid to late 40’s and early 50′s. Blues vocalist, stand-up pianist and occasional 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 worked with West Coast artists in the 40′s such as Alton Redd and Luke Jones and recorded under her own name in the late 40′s for Atomic, Capitol and under Luke Jones’ name for Modern. In the 1950′s she recorded for Dootone and Combo.

Little Miss Cornshucks

Singer Blue Lu Barker, Alberta Adams and Myra Taylor had the longest careers of the bunch, with Taylor and Adams still musically active. Barker was born, raised, and buried in New Orleans.  In both the ’30s and ’40s she was one of the more popular blues performers, often appearing alongside artists such as Cab Calloway and Jelly Roll Morton. Sometimes it was her husband, musician Danny Barker, who opened the. Barker’s most famous recordings were done in 1938 including “Don’t You Feel My Leg.” The early Barker material features her husband on banjo and guitar and the couple would continue performing together until his death.  The couple was contracted to Decca in the ’30s and the Apollo label the following decade. Her career continued after that, all the way up to a last recording taped live in 1998 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Myra Taylor cut ten sides for Mercury in 1946 and 1947. In 2002 she was voted Comeback Artist of the Year and also Female Blues Artist of the Year by Living Blues Magazine.

Wrapping up in the early 1950′s we play cuts by Christine Kittrell, Alberta Adams, Little Miss Cornshucks, Little Sylvia, Lil Greenwood, Fluffy Hunter, Marylin Scott, Dolly cooper, Ella Johnson, Violet Hall and Terry Timmons. Remarkably Adams remains musically active. Alberta Adams first made her mark on Detroit’s bustling Hastings Street club scene as a dancer, and a short time later she began singing. She got to know and got an education from her contemporaries on Hastings Street’s club scene, and they included John Lee Hooker, Big Maceo, Eddie Burns, and Eddie Kirkland. Adams also recorded for Savoy Records. As her reputation spread beyond Detroit, she had the chance to perform with other touring bands, including those of Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris, James Moody, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, and T-Bone Walker. In the 90′s through the 2000′s Adams recorded several albums and is still active in her 90th year.

“In 1943, when I was 19 or so years old, I went to a nightclub in the northeast black ghetto section of Washington and heard a singer whose name was Little Miss Cornshucks and I thought, “My God!!!” She was better than anything I’d ever heard. She would come out like a country girl with a bandanna around her head, a basket in her hand, and so forth, which she’d set aside fairly early on into the show. She could sing the blues better than anybody I’ve ever heard to this day. I asked her that night if she would mind if I made a record of her for myself. We cut “Kansas City” along with some other blues and she also sang a song called “So Long”. She had such a wonderful sound and I remember just thinking, “My God! My God!” And I didn’t have a record company, I just made those records for myself.” So wrote Ahmet Ertegun in What’d I Say: The Atlantic Story. Little Miss Cornshucks became a major attraction at Chicago’s Club De Lisa by the time she was 18, and began appearing at the Rhumboogie Club from its opening in 1942. Between 1946 and 1951 she cut some two-dozen sides for labels like Sunbeam, Aladdin, Miltone and Coral. In 1960 she recorded an LP for Chess.

Christine Kittrell first recorded tracks in 1951 with Louis Brooks and his Band. In 1954 she recorded tracks for the Republic Label, two of which featured Little Richard on piano and a third with Richard as backing vocalist. During the 1940′s and early 50′s, Kittrell toured extensively, and recorded for Tennessee, Republic, Federal, King and Vee-Jay Records over her career. We spin her biggest hit, “Sittin’ Here Drinking.”

Ella & Buddy Johnson

Lil Greenwood is best known for her time as one the main singers for the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the late 50′s and early 60′s, Between 1950 and 1953 she cut some two dozen numbers under her own name for Modern, Specialty and Federal. Today’s selection, “Monday Morning Blues” is a duet with labelmate Little Willie Littlefield.

Terry Timmons began singing professionally while still in her mid-teens. She moved to Chicago in the late ’40′s and crossed paths with Memphis Slim, through whom she was signed to Premium Records, the label for which Slim was recording at the time. She was a featured performer at Slim’s shows at the end of the 1940s and the start of the 1950s, around the time of her first recording sessions. She cut more sides for Premium in 1951 plus sides for Victor and the United Records label.

Born in Darlington, South Carolina, Ella Johnson she joined her brother Buddy Johnson in New York as a teenager, where he was leading a popular band at the Savoy Ballroom. Johnson scored her first hit with “Please, Mr. Johnson” in 1940. Subsequent hits included “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?” “When My Man Comes Home” and today’s featured track, “Hittin’ On Me”. Her popular 1945 recording of “Since I Fell For You”, became a jazz standard. She continued to perform with Buddy into the 1960s. She died in New York in 2004.

We wrap up with a trio of salacious blues ladies including Marylin Scott who’s selection gives today’s show its title. Mary DeLoatch, also known as Mary DeLoach, was a Norfolk, VA-based gospel singer who used the name Marylin Scott or Marylyn Scott the Carolina Blues Girl when performing blues. When performing gospel she sounded quite a bit  like Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She switched to exclusively religious material after 1950 and her final recording appears to have been made in 1967 when she was photographed playing an electric guitar while wearing evangelical robes.The raunchy “I Got What My Daddy Likes” is worth quoting:

I got what my daddy likes
Yes I got what my baby likes
An he’s just crazy about me, he  always let me have my fun

Now I’m five feet standing, I’m five feet laying down
I’m a big meat mama from my head on down
I got what my daddy like
Yes I got what my baby Likes
An he’s just crazy about me, he  always let me have my fun

Now he flips my flapjacks, clear across the table
He seats all the horses in my little stable
I got what my daddy like
Yes I got what my baby Likes
An he’s just crazy about me, he  always let me have my fun

Pearl Traylor was another fine, under recorded singer who cut nine sides in 1945 including the magnificent “Jive I Like” who’s tough minded frankness harks back to the earlier era of hard edged blues singers:

If there’s any addictive women in this house, get your hat and coat and walk (2x)
‘Cause I’m going to start my notorious song
You see my little brother smokes reefer, yes and my cousin too (2x)
Yes junk runs in my family, what the heck do you expect me to do

I’m going to drink bad whiskey, smoke Mister Charlie’s tea (2x)
And I don’t care about nobody if they can’t get high with me

Then there’s Fluffy Hunter’s rocking bawdy ‘The Walkin’ Blues” and sixteen year old Little Sylvia’s equally ribald “Drive, Daddy, Drive” (“‘Cause when I wanna ride you gotta, ride me daddy/I’d rather ride than eat”) which makes you wonder just how they got away with songs like this! Little Sylvia would go on to become one half of the duo Mickey & Sylvia and scored a Top 20 hit with “Love Is Strange” in 1957.

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.