Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Blues & Rhythm Magazine Cover Number 34

I received the sad news of the passing of Larry Dale who died on May 19th. Outside of die hard collectors, who hold Dale’s recordings in high esteem, he never broke out to a large audience despite cutting some potent blues and R&B sides under his own name and some knockout session guitar backing artists like Mickey Baker, Champion Jack Dupree, Bob Gaddy, Paul Williams and Cootie Williams. I became an immediate fan of Dale’s after grabbing a copy Still Groove Jumping! from my favorite record store, Finyl Vinyl on New York’s Second Ave., an anthology of sides cut for the Groove label including a trio of gritty blues by Dale. It was also about this time that I was a regular reader of  the British Juke Blues magazine when they published an article entitled Larry Dale: The New York Houserocker (Juke Blues # 9, 1987 – read below). To my surprise I found out that Dale and I both lived in the Bronx but unfortunately I never got a chance to see him perform. Over the years I’ve picked up just about all of Dale’s recordings and today we pay tribute to Dale and his New York friends who’s records he played on.

New York City has never had a big reputation as a blues town, compared to Chicago and L.A. It did however have a very lively postwar R&B scene. The R&B scene had its peak between 1945 and 1960 and has always been closely associated with the local jazz scene. There were nationally important clubs like the Apollo and Savoy and numerous other spots for live entertainment.  The recording scene was dominated by a group of small but enterprising independent companies like: Apollo, DeLuxe, Fire/Fury, Herald, Baton, Joe Davis, Old Town and in particular, Atlantic and Savoy. There was also out of town companies that recorded local talent like Federal and RCA’s Groove and Vik subsidiaries. Literally hundreds and hundreds of R&B recordings were made, aimed at the black market with occasional cross over success

Born in Texas, Dale had moved to New York City in 1949 and quickly fell into the local blues scene as he explained: ”It’s kinda funny how I learned to play the guitar. Brownie McGhee would let me come up on his bandstand and sit in the back and playing all kind of bad notes until I learned where the changes were. And then I got so where I could play pretty good. And I could always sing good, If I could sing and leave the guitar alone I was good, but if I tried to play the guitar …Bobby Schiffman told me ‘You just sing, leave the guitar alone. you’11 make it’. But he didn’t know I was determined to learn the guitar. So I bought B.B King records, people that played guitars; and I learned how to play. Then Mickey Baker he taught me a lot. …Well before then Mickey taught me a lot about guitar. And then it’s a funny thing, after Mickey taught me then I had to teach him how to play the blues!”

Larry Dale’s House Rockers: Matt Gray, sax; Larry Dale, guitar; Bob Gaddy, piano; poss Gene Brooks, drums.

Dale made his start with Paul “Hucklebuck” Williams’ band in the early 50’s and plays on one four song session cut in 1952 for Jax, taking the vocals on  ”Shame, Shame, Shame” and “The Woman I Love Is Dying.” These records can be found on Blue Moon’s Paul Williams Vol. 3 1952-1956.  Saxophonist and bandleader Paul Williams scored one of the first big hits of the R&B era in 1949 with “The Hucklebuck which topped the R&B charts for 14 weeks and was one of three Top 10 and five other Top 20 R&B instrumental hits that Williams scored for Savoy in 1948 and 1949. He was later part of Atlantic Records’ house band in the ’60s and directed the Lloyd Price and James Brown orchestras until 1964.

Both as a session man and featured recording artist, pianist Bob Gaddy made his presence known on the New York blues scene during the 1950′s. Dale had high praise for Gaddy: “Bob Gaddy as a musician? Well, he kept me in the business I would say, he was that good …Bob was one of the best nightclub entertainers I ever worked with.” Gaddy was drafted in 1943, and that’s when he began to take the piano seriously. He picked up a little performing experience in California clubs while stationed on the West Coast before arriving in New York in 1946. Gaddy gigged with Brownie McGhee and guitarist Larry Dale around town, McGhee often playing on Gaddy’s waxings for Jackson (his 1952 debut, “Bicycle Boogie”), Jax, Dot, Harlem, and from 1955 on, Hy Weiss’ Old Town label. There Gaddy stayed the longest, waxing the fine “I Love My Baby,” “Paper Lady,” “Rip and Run,” and quite a few more into 1960. Both Gaddy and Dale remained active on the New York scene for decades after. Dale is featured on many Gaddy recordings including four sides for Jax and Harlem in 1952, for Dot in 1954, for Harlem in 1955 and for Old Town between 1956 and 1958. Dale’s Old Town sides can be found on several Ace collections including Bob Gaddy: Harlem Blues Operator, Old Town Blues Vol. 2 – The Uptown Sides and Harlem Hit Parade: Old Town Blues Vol. 2.

Dale is also the vocalist on the rousing “I’m Tired” b/w ”Where Is My Honey” by Big Red McHouston (alias Mickey Baker) on Groove. In 1954 he had the first release under his own name. A session for RCA’s Groove subsidiary on June 21, 1954, produced four tracks, including the menacing  ”You Better Heed My Warning”, which came out on Groove b/w “Please Tell Me”. The two other songs from this fruitful session, “Down To the Bottom” and “Midnight Hours”, were originally unissued. Also from this session is “I’m Tired” and “Stranger Blues” also featuring Baker. These tracks can be found on the Bear Family CD Mickey Baker: Rock With A Sock. In the early and mid-’50s, Baker did countless sessions for Atlantic, King, RCA, Decca, and OKeh, playing on such classics as the Drifters’ “Money Honey” and “Such a Night,” Joe Turner’s “Shake Rattle & Roll,” Ruth Brown’s “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean,” and Big Maybelle’s “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On.” He also released a few singles under his own name. Baker was also recorded as half of the duo Mickey & Sylvia.

His next vocal session was for Herald in 1955, yielding one single release, again backed by Baker. The next year rock ‘n’ roll exploded on the music scene and inevitably, Dale tried his hand at the genre, with “Rock ‘n’ Roll Baby” b/w “Hoppin’ and Skippin’for Ember. For the next four years, Dale worked the New York club circuit with his lifelong friend, pianist Bob Gaddy and was much in demand as a session player. Particularly impressive is his playing on Champion Jack Dupree’s recordings from this period, especially the Atlantic LP Blues From the Gutter. Blues From The Gutter, cut for Atlantic in 1958 (in stereo), is Dupree’s finest album of his  prolific career and Dale’s playing is brilliant. His playing on that album supposedly inspired Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Dale also backed Dupree on over a dozen excellent sides in 1956 and 1957 for the Vik and Groove labels. These sides have been collected on the excellent album Shake Baby Shake.

Also in 1957 Dale also did several sessions with Cootie Williams for RCA, where he was given an occasional chance to sing. As Dale recalled: “One night we were playing at the Sportsman’s Lounge and Cootie Williams came in and he was in the audience, I didn’t know he was there. So Cootie dug what we was doing. The next day he called me, ‘I was up to listen to you last night’. I said, ‘Oh yeah, who is this’. He said, ‘Cootie Williams. I wonder if you want to  come with my band?’. l said, ‘No I don’t think so, l got my own band, my name’s up top’ (laughs) but started to think about it,  Cootie’s big. Maybe we can get some recordings. Maybe I can get a name out there. …So. I stayed with Cootie about three years. 1956, ’57 and early ’58.” As a member of the Cootie Williams Orchestra he traveled all over the U.S. and Europe. Cootie Williams was one of the finest trumpeters of the 1930′s. He played for a short time with the orchestras of Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson before joining Duke Ellington in February 1929, staying until 1940. He would rejoin Ellington from 1962 through 1974, but led his own bands prior to that.

In 1960, Dale did another vocal session, for the Old Town subsidiary Glover in New York City, resulting in two fine singles, “Big Muddy” and “Let the Door Bell Ring” which hit the R&B charts. The next year he was signed by Atlantic, but of the five tracks recorded in November 1961, only “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” b/w “Keep Getting Up” was issued. Singles on Ram (1968) and Fire (1969) rounded out Dale’s recording career as a vocalist. None of his recordings charted nationally, but Dale continued to perform for several decades and garnered a strong fan base in Europe, performing at Blues Estafette in 1987 .Dale’s final recordings included a 45 issued by the Juke Blues magazine in 1987 and a few live sides backed by the European blues combo,the Mojo Blues Band, recorded in 1993.

“Larry Dale: The New York Houserocker“ (Juke Blues # 9, 1987 by John Broven) (zip)

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.