Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

A varied mix show today stretching from the 1920′s up through the 1970′s with the emphasis more on the post-war blues then usual. On deck today are a pair of extended sets focusing on some terrific blues ladies, a batch of prime Chicago blues from the 1950′s and 60′s, a pair of cuts by Tampa Red plus a pair featuring Johnny Heartsman. Amid the obscure players we feature quite a number of well known artists although, perhaps, performing lesser known tracks.

Alberta Hunter

Among the better known blues ladies featured today are Lavern Baker, Memphis Minnie and Alberta Hunter. From 1953, her second session and first for Atlantic, we spin Lavern Baker’s torrid “How Can You Leave A Man Like This” backed by a rocking combo featuring Jimmy Lewis on guitar and Freddie Mitchell on tenor sax. During her time at Atlantic Records (1953-62), Baker cut half a dozen singles that rose to high positions on both the pop and R&B charts, including “Tweedle Dee” and “Jim Dandy.” The niece of blues singer Memphis Minnie, Baker was blessed with a powerful voice, which she put to use as a teenager singing in nightclubs under the stage name Little Miss Sharecropper. She recorded under that and other pseudonyms (including Bea Baker), finally adopting the name LaVern Baker while singing for Todd Rhodes and His Orchestra.

A couple of decades before Baker made her debut, Memphis Minnie made hers. Starting in 1929, her remarkable career ran through 1953,  following three basic phases : the duet years with Kansas Joe, the “Melrose” band sound of the late thirties and early forties, and her later electric playing with Ernest “Little Son Joe” Lawlars. From 1936 we hear the powerfully sung “Out In The Cold.”

Then there’s Alberta Hunter, one of the original woman who ushered in the blues craze, making her debut for the legendary Black Swan label way back in 1921. Hunter recorded in six decades of the twentieth century, outlasting just about all her peers. Hunter first cut “Chirpin’ The Blues” for Paramount in 1923 and again in 1939 which is the version featured today. Backed by a stellar band featuring Charlie Shaver on trumpet, Buster Bailey on clarinet and Lil Armstrong on piano, Hunter delivers a magnificent performance.

No less talented are the lesser known blues ladies including Madonna Martin, who only cut four sides in 1949, and delivers the storming “Madonna’s Boogie”, Hattie Green, who cut six sides for Atlas in the 50′s, lays down the tough “Pawn Shop Blues” and Annisteen Allen shouts the blues on the raucous “Hard to Get Along.” From the pre-war there’s the superb, but utterly obscure, Madelyn James who cut a lone 78 for Brunswick in 1930, “Long Time Blues b/w Stinging Snake Blues”,  featuring the excellent session pianist Judson Brown.

Today’s program is also sprinkled with some top notch Chicago blues from the 50′s and 60′s including cuts by Eddie Taylor, Robert Nighthawk, Big John Wrencher, Johnny Littlejohn and J.B. Lenoir. Eddie Taylor hit Chicago in 1949, falling in with harpist Snooky Pryor, guitarist Floyd Jones, and Jimmy Reed who was a childhood friend. From Jimmy Reed’s second Vee-Jay date in 1953, Taylor was on the great majority of Reed’s Vee-Jay sides during the 1950s and early ’60s, and he even found time to wax a few classic sides of his own for Vee-Jay during the mid-’50s. He also recorded behind John Lee Hooker, John Brim, Elmore James, Snooky Pryor, and many more during the ’50s. He cut his debut album, I Feel So Bad, in 1972 for Advent. From that album we spin his fine cover of Robert Nighthawk’s “Jackson Town Gal”, here title “Jackson Town.”

Delta born John Funchess left home in 1946, pausing in Jackson, MS; Arkansas, and Rochester, NY, before winding up in Gary, IN. Littlejohn waited a long time to wax his debut singles for Margaret, T-D-S, and Weis in 1968. But before the year was out, Littlejohn had also cut his debut album, Chicago Blues Stars, for the Arhoolie logo. Unfortunately, a four-song 1969 Chess date remained in the can. After that, another long dry spell preceded Littlejohn’s 1985 album So-Called Friends for Rooster Blues. Littlejohn had been in poor health for some time prior to his 1994 passing. Today’s cut, “I Got My Nose Open” was recorded for the Mississippi Ace label but inexplicably was unissued.

One-Armed harmonica player Big John Wrencher was a fixture of Maxwell Street. Wrencher was a traveling musician, playing throughout Tennessee and neighboring Arkansas from the late 1940’s to the early 1950’s. By the early 1960’s he had moved North to Chicago and quickly became a regular fixture on Maxwell Street. His first recordings surfaced on a pair of Testament albums from the 1960’s, featuring Big John in a sideman role behind Robert Nighthawk. We hear him today backing Nighthawk on a fine rendition of “Blues Before Sunrise.” Wrencher cut the excellent Maxwell Street Alley Blues for the Barrelhouse label and cut Big John’s Boogie for the British Big Bear label in 1975. Wrencher passed in 1977.

We have a couple of twin spins, of sorts on today’s program. Two from the incomparable  Tampa Red, including 1940′s solo “Noonday Hour Blues” and 1941′s gorgeous “Georgia, Georgia Blues” backed by pianist Big Maceo and Ransom Knowling. We also spin two versions of the blues standard ‘Eyesight To The Blind” by The Larks and B.B. King. The song was originally cut by Sonny Boy Williamson and has has been covered many times. The most successful early version was that by The Larks. The group’s recording of “Eyesight to the Blind”, with vocals and guitar by Allen Bunn, who later worked solo as Tarheel Slim, reached #5 on the Billboard R&B charts in July 1951. King first cut the song in 1965 and played the song often live.

Through one of his main influences, guitarist Lafayette “Thing” Thomas, a teenage Johnny Heartsman hooked up with Bay Area producer Bob Geddins. Heartsman played bass on Jimmy Wilson’s 1953 rendition of “Tin Pan Alley,” handling guitar or piano at other Geddins recordings.  Other artists he backed included Ray Agee, Little Willie Littlefield and Jimmy McCracklin . He cut his own two-part instrumental, the “Honky Tonk”-inspired “Johnny’s House Party,” for Music City, which become a national R&B hit in 1957. The early ’60s brought a lot more session work — Heartsman played on Tiny Powell’s “My Time After Awhile” (soon covered by Buddy Guy) which we also spin, and Al King’s remake of Lowell Fulson’s “Reconsider Baby.” Stints in show bands, jazzy cocktail lounge gigs, and a stand as soul singer Joe Simon’s organist came prior to his return to the blues in the 90′s. In 1991 he cut his best album, The Touch for Alligator. He passed in 1996.

Also worth mentioning are some fine down-home blues by Guitar Slim Green and Jim Bunkley. West Coast guitarist Slim Green cut a handful of sides in the late 40’s and late 50’s for a bunch of small California labels and in 1970 cut the album Stone Down Blues for Kent backed by Johnny and Shuggie Otis. From that album we spin “Fifth Street Alley” a reworking of his 1948 gem, “Alla Blues.”

George Mitchell recorded a handful of sides by Bunkley in Geneva, Georgia in 1968. From Mitchell’s notes:  ”Jim Bunkley lived in a small tar-papered house he bragged was his own, in Geneva, Georgia, his birthplace. He was ‘eight years old when they took the census in 1920. It was about that time he made friends with the guitar.” ‘When I was about eight, my brother had one, and me and my nine year-old sister used to play it. Us couldn’t hold it. Had it hanging up ‘side of the wall and we’d get up on a chair and play it. Everyone in my family could play – we had five boys and four girls.’ ”When he ‘got up in age, Bunkley was about the best known musician around Talbot County. He recalled the many times he walked away with prizes offered at a theater in nearby Junction City. ‘I was rough then,’ he said. ‘I had on a great big ole cowboy hat and I got up there on the stage and cracked a whole lot of jokes and then played. I win all that money, too.’” Our track, the topical “Segregation Blues”, comes from the recent collection, President Johnson’s Blues and was originally released in 1971 on the Revival label as George Henry Bussey and Jim Bunkley. The CD is a companion to Guido van Rijn’s book of the same name, the fourth in a series of superbly researched books dealing with topical blues and gospel. I’ve read Rijn’s previous books and look forward to reading this one as well. There’s an additional CD companion to his latest book, Martin Luther King’s Blues which is another fascinating collection of topical rarities.

Show Notes:

Elmore James was undoubtedly the most influential slide guitarist of the postwar period. Although his early death from heart failure kept him from enjoying the fruits of the ’60s blues revival like his contemporaries Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf did, Elmore was hugely influential on a generation of guitar players. James always gave it everything he had, everything he could emotionally invest in a number. The fact is that over his twelve-year recording career it can be argued that he never really cut a bad performance. Between 1951 and 1963 James cut about 100 sides for labels like Trumpet, Modern, Chess, Chief, Meteor and Fire. Backing him was one of the greatest Chicago blues bands,the Broomdusters, named after James’ big hit, and featuring Little Johnny Jones on piano, J.T. Brown on tenor sax and Elmore’s cousin, Homesick James on rhythm guitar. This talented combo was often augmented by a second saxophone on occasion while the drumming stool changed frequently. On later recordings his band would include pianist Johnny “Big Moose” Walker, guitarist Eddie Taylor and Sam Myers on harp. In addition James backed a few artists, particularly in the early years, including Sonny Boy Williamson II, Willie Love and later bandmate Little Johnnie Jones. Today’s show spotlights not only great sides James cut under his own name but several sides by his talented bandmates and associates.

With a few months left on his Trumpet contract, Elmore was recorded by the Bihari Brothers for their Modern label subsidiaries, Flair and Meteor, but the results were left in the can until James’ contract ran out. In the meantime, Elmore had moved to Chicago and cut a quick session for Chess, which resulted in one single being issued and just as quickly yanked off the market as the Bihari Brothers swooped in to protect their investment. This period of activity found Elmore assembling the nucleus of his great band the Broomdusters and several fine recordings were issued over the next few years on a slew of the Bihari Brothers’owned labels with several of them charting.

James was born in Canton, MS on January 27, 1918. He came to music at an early age, learning to play bottleneck on a homemade instrument. By the age of 14, he was already a weekend musician, working the various country suppers and juke joints in the area. He would join up and work with traveling players coming through like Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson. By the late ’30s he had formed his first band and was working with Sonny Boy until WW II broke out, spending three years stationed with the Navy in Guam. When he was discharged, he picked off where he left off, moving for a while to Memphis, working in clubs with Eddie Taylor and his cousin Homesick James. James was first recorded by Lillian McMurray of Trumpet Records in 1951 at the tail end of a Sonny Boy session doing his classic “Dust My Broom.” Legend has it that James didn’t even stay around long enough to hear the playback, much less record a second side. McMurray stuck a local singer (BoBo “Slim” Thomas) on the flip side and the record became the surprise R&B hit of 1951, making the Top Ten. James also backed Trumpet artists Willie Love and Tiny Kennedy the same year.

By the late 1950′s James had established a beach-head in the clubs of Chicago as one of the most popular live acts and regularly broadcasting over WPOA under the aegis of disc jockey Big Bill Hill. In 1957, with his contract with the Bihari Brothers at an end, he recorded several successful sides for Mel London’s Chief label, all of them later being issued on the larger Vee-Jay label.

In May of 1963, Elmore returned to Chicago, ready to resume his on-again off-again playing career — his records were still being regularly issued and reissued on a variety of labels — when he suffered his final heart attack. His wake was attended by over 400 blues luminaries before his body was shipped back to Mississippi.

Mississippi-born John T. Brown was a member of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels down south before arriving in Chicago. By 1945, Brown was recording behind pianist Roosevelt Sykes and singer St. Louis Jimmy Oden, later backing Eddie Boyd and Washboard Sam for RCA Victor. He debuted on wax as a bandleader in 1950 on the Harlem label, subsequently cutting sessions in 1951 and 1952 for Chicago’s United logo as well as JOB. Brown backed Elmore James and pianist Little Johnny Jones on the Meteor and Flair lbels in 1952 and 1953. Meteor issued a couple of singles under Brown’s own name. After a final 1956 date for United that laid unissued at the time, Brown’s studio activities were limited to sideman roles. In January of 1969, he was part of Fleetwood Mac’s Blues Jam at Chess album, even singing a tune for the project, but he died before the close of that year.

Johnny Jones arrived in Chicago from Mississippi in 1946 and was influenced greatly by pianist Big Maceo.Jones followed Maceo into Tampa Red’s band in 1947 after Maceo suffered a stroke. In addition to playing behind Tampa Red from 1949 to 1953, he backed Muddy Waters on his 1949 classic “Screamin’ and Cryin’” and later appeared on sides by Howlin’ Wolf. It’s Elmore James that he’ll forever be associated with; the pianist played on James’ classic 1952-56 Chicago sessions for the Bihari brothers’ Meteor, Flair, and Modern labels, as well as dates for Checker, Chief, and Fire. James only had a few opportunities to record under his own name; Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, and Leroy Foster backed Jones on his 1949 Aristocrat label classic “Big Town Playboy”, while Elmore James and saxist J.T. Brown were on hand for Jones’s 1953 Flair coupling “I May Be Wrong”/”Sweet Little Woman.” The rocking “Hoy Hoy,” his last commercial single, was done in 1953 for Atlantic and also featured James and his group in support. Jones continued to work in the clubs (with Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Syl Johnson, Billy Boy Arnold, and Magic Sam, among others) prior to his 1964 death of lung cancer at the age of 40.

James “Homesick” Williamson was playing guitar at age ten and soon ran away from his Tennessee home to play at fish fries and dances. His travels took the guitarist through Mississippi and North Carolina during the 1920s, where he crossed paths with Yank Rachell, Sleepy John Estes, Blind Boy Fuller, and Big Joe Williams. Settling in Chicago during the 1930s, Williamson played local clubs and cut his first sides in 1952-53 for Chance Records. Homesick also worked extensively as a sideman, backing harp great Sonny Boy Williamson and during the 1950s with his cousin, Elmore James. Homesick backs Elmore on sessions for Chief in 1957, Fire in 1959, Chess in 1960 and again for Fire in 1960 and 1961. Homesick’s own recordings included 45s for Colt and USA in 1962, a fine 1964 album for Prestige, and four tracks on a Vanguard anthology in 1965. Homesick was recording and touring up until shortly before his death in 2006.

Eddie Taylor is best know for his guitar work on the great majority of Jimmy Reed’s Vee-Jay sides during the 1950s and early ’60s, and he even found time to wax a few classic sides of his own for Vee-Jay during the mid-’50s. But Taylor’s records didn’t sell in the quantities that Reed’s did, so he was largely relegated to the role of sideman (he recorded behind John Lee Hooker, John Brim, Elmore James, Snooky Pryor, and many more during the ’50s) not cutting his first full-length record until the early 1970′s. Taylor backed Elmore on sessions in 1956 for Modern and for Chief in 1957.

During the ‘50s Johnny “Big Moose” Walker played with many local Greenville, MS bluesmen, joined Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm in Clarksdale and sat in with the King Biscuit Boys in Helena, Arkansas and worked the Mississippi juke joints with Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson. He traveled extensively with Earl Hooker. Walker’s first studio date was with Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson, for Trumpet Records in Jackson, Mississippi that went unissued. In 1955 Ike Turner taped Moose in a Greenville club; two of those sides, credited to J.W Walker, appeared years later on the Kent Label. He cut his first 45, as Moose John, for Johnny Otis’ Ultra label, also in 1955. Moose recorded even more after Sunnyland Slim brought him to Chicago. He backed Earl Hooker, Ricky Allen, Lorenzo Smith and others on local sessions. Willie Dixon took Moose to New York in 1960 to do some studio work for Prestige/Bluesville. Moose rejoined Elmore James at Silvio’s on the West Side and went to New Orleans with Elmore to record for Bobby Robinson’s Fire label. At another session for Robinson, Moose sang a few himself. He cut some singles during the ‘60s and waxed his first album in 1969 when he and Earl Hooker went to Los Angeles to record for ABC Bluesway. He remained active until the 1980′s before suffering a stroke.

Sam Myers cut his first sides for Ace in 1957 and played both drums and harp behind slide guitar great Elmore James at a 1961 session for Bobby Robinson’s Fire label in New Orleans. In 1960 he cut a single for Robinson’s Fury label and another in 1961 backed by Elmore James and Big Moose Walker. Most listeners know Myers as the frontman for Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets, which lasted for some 20 years before Myers passed in 2006.

Show Notes:

Vee-Jay was one of Chicago’s most successful labels. Until the advent of Motown during the early 1960s, it was the country’s largest black-owned record company. Four individuals were most responsible for the success of the label: James Bracken and Vivian Carter who founded the company in mid-1953; Vivian’s brother, Calvin Carter, who was the principal producer and A&R man; and Ewart Abner, Jr. A fifth individual, Art Sheridan, was a secret partner in the company. Vee-Jay was founded in Gary, Indiana in 1953 by Vivian Carter and James C. Bracken (later that year, Mr. & Mrs. Bracken), who used their first initials for the label’s name.  In a short time, Vee-Jay was the most successful black- owned record company in the United States. By 1963, they were charting records faster than some of the major labels. They were the first U.S. company to have the Beatles. In one month alone in early 1964, they sold 2.6 million Beatles singles. Two years later, the company was bankrupt. Early on, Vee-Jay became involved in gospel music and recorded many of the top acts in the field, notably the Staple Singers, the Swan Silvertones, the Original Five Blind Boys, and the Highway QC’s. Early jazz performers included Tommy Dean, Turk Kincheloe, and Julian Dash. But Vee-Jay established itself as a hitmaker with doowop groups and blues singers. The biggest groups were the Spaniels, the El Dorados, and the Dells, but the label could boast a host of lesser names, such as the Magnificents, the Kool Gents, and the Rhythm Aces. Vee-Jay in 1955 considerably expanded its stable of blues acts, adding Eddie Taylor (as a reward for his stellar accompaniment to Jimmy Reed), L. C. McKinley, Billy Boy Arnold, Morris Pejoe, Billy “The Kid” Emerson, and the great John Lee Hooker.

The bulk of today’s tracks come from several fine box sets: Vee Jay, The Chicago Black Music (P-Vine), The Definitive Collection (Shout Factory), Jimmy Reed: The Vee-Jay Years (Charley) and John Lee Hooker The Vee-Jay Years (Charley). The 4-CD P-Vine collection is probably the best collection from a blues standpoint while the Shout Factory 4-CD is more of an overall view. Both Charley sets are 6-CD collections that contain everything Hooker and Reed cut for Vee-Jay. Below is some background on today’s artists.

Jimmy Reed was Vee-Jay’s second signing. He was born Mathis James Reed on September 6, 1925, on a plantation near Dunleith, Mississippi. Reed moved to Chicago in 1943, and after service in the Navy during World War II settled in Gary, Indiana. The first session in June 1953 produced no hits, but “Roll And Rhumba” (Vee-Jay 100) sold enough under both Vee-Jay and Chance imprints to keep the fledgling company interested. A second session near or at the end of the year produced Reed’s first national hit, “You Don’t Have to Go,” which upon release in early 1955 lasted 10 weeks and went to #5 on the Billboard R&B chart. The key ingredient in the Jimmy Reed sound was the addition of guitarist Eddie Taylor who provided a firm drive to the songs. Reed soon emerged as one of the biggest blues acts in the country.

Bluesman Eddie Taylor was born in Benoit, Mississippi, on January 29, 1923. As a youngster he took up guitar. In 1943, he moved to Memphis, and worked in the Beale Street clubs. In 1949 Taylor moved to Chicago, initially playing in Maxwell Street but then moving into the clubs. In 1953 he began working with Jimmy Reed, who was a childhood friend in the Delta. His guitar work played a large role in the success of Jimmy Reed’s records. Taylor also appeared on the February 1954 sessions with Floyd Jones and Sunnyland Slim and in January 1955, Vee-Jay rewarded Taylor by giving him another chance to record numbers of his own.

John Lee Hooker signed with Vee-Jay in 1955, experiencing his breakthrough session for in March 1956. There with guitarist Eddie Taylor, bassist George Washington, and drummer Tom Whitehead, he laid down one of the strongest sessions of his career. Even though “Dimples” did not make the Billboard national R&B chart, it was a genuine national hit, getting played on radio stations across the country. Hooker remained with Vee-Jay until 1964, recording a load of LPs, and producing a notable pop hit, “Boom Boom,” in 1962.

Harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold first began performing on 47th Street with Bo Diddley’s street band. He made his first recording in 1953 for the highly obscure Cool label.” After Bo Diddley was signed to Chess in February 1955, Arnold recorded a couple of his own numbers at the end of the first Bo Diddley session, but Leonard Chess did not seem interested in releasing them. So Arnold went to Vee-Jay, where he recorded his great number, “I Wish You Would” (this was really the same tune that Bo Diddley recorded on his second session as “Diddley Daddy”). The session took place on May 5, 1955; his supporting band included Henry Gray (piano), Jody Williams (electric guitar), Milton Rector (on the then-novel electric bass), and Earl Phillips (drums).

Pianist Tommy Dean was born in Franklin, Louisiana, on September 6, 1909, and grew up in Beaumont, Texas. By the time he reached adulthood he was a full-time musician. During much of the 1930s he worked in carnivals and circuses, then near the end of the decade was hired by the Eddie Randle Band in St. Louis. He eventually left Randle and formed his own band, and by 1945 was working the clubs in Chicago. Before he joined Vee-Jay, Tommy Dean recorded for Town & Country in St. Louis, and Miracle, Chance, and States in Chicago. His band for Vee-Jay included Joe Buckner a blues singer who was born in St. Louis in 1924.

Soulful blues singer Billy “the Kid” Emerson was born William Robert Emerson in Tarpon Springs, Florida, on December 21, 1929. His first recordings were made with Sun Records in Memphis in 1954-55, when he cut “Red Hot,” which subsequently became a rockabilly staple. In 1955, Emerson joined Vee-Jay Records.

A T-Bone Walker disciple, guitarist L. C. McKinley, was born on 22 October 1918, in Winona, Mississippi, but had relocated to Chicago by 1941. In the early 1950s he was a regular headliner at the famed 708 Club; in 1951 and 1952, he recorded as a sideman with pianist Eddie Boyd for JOB, appearing on Boyd’s biggest hit, “Five Long Years.” He first recorded as a leader in 1953 for the Parrot label, but label owner Al Benson chose not to release his session. He probably also did some further session work during this period. The guitarist’s next session under his name was with States, in 1954. The following year, he recorded two sessions for Vee-Jay.

Vee-Jay: The Early Years

Vee-Jay Records: The Official Website

The Vee-Jay Story