Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

From the booklet to The Mercury Blues 'N' Rhythm Story 1945-1955: "No other record label to come our of Chicago has ever had as many hit records, or become such a major power in the recording industry, as Mercury Records. Mercury covered a broad musical base, encompassing blues, pop, jazz, country, polka and gospel (and, in the years to follow, rhythm & blues, rock 'n' roll, doo-wop, soul, funk, and other genres). Housed in small offices in the famed Jeweller's Building on 35 East Wacker Drive, it was the first record label based in Chicago. (The famed Chess label was formed in late 1947 as Aristocrat Records. Vee-Jay, Chicago's other bygone independent, started in 1953.) Mercury ranks among the all-time top four in the number of hist to reach Billboard magazine's R&B charts, far ahead of its Windy City peers.

…"It's just The Blues," by Willie Dixon's Four Jumps Of Jive, was the company's debut release. Forming the Mercury Radio and Television Corporation were Berle Adams, Chicago agent-manager for the General Amusement Corp., and Irving Green of Olsen and Tilger Manufacturing Co., Inc. …'The big thing about Mercury was: we were an economy company,' Adams recently recalled with great enthusiasm. 'We had no money. The other companies were well financed. we couldn't compete with the big boys, so we chose R&B and country & western. You didn't need arrangers, copyists, big orchestras. It was easier to finance that kind of operation. I had come out of the cocktail lounge business in Chicago, I used the talent that I had worked with previously.'

The October 13, 1945 issue of Billboard reported: 'Chicago's potential as a recording center got a big shot in the arm with the announcement this week by Irving Green, local plastics expert, that he is a heading a new firm, Mercury Records, which will eventually reach 250,000 disks per month… Thus far the new label has inked only Negro artists, with its catalog including sides by June Richmond, ex-andy Kirk rythm singer; Bill Samuels and His Cats 'n' Jammers, and the Four Jumps of Jive, both cocktail units; Sippie Wallace and Karl Jones, blues shouters; Al Ammons, boogie pianist and half the team of Ammons and Johnson, and Bob Shaffner And His Harlem Hot Shots."

In early 1946 Mercury inaugurated their race series and would soon produced an impressive body of blues and R&B recordings which would make them rivals to Atlantic during the late 40's and 50's. As writer Jim O'Neal points out "today's listenership might be easily mislead because of the preponderance of Delta-based Chicago blues recordings from this period selected for reissue by collector's labels, but in truth a large portion of the blues records coming out of Chicago in the Forties and Fifties were decidedly more urbane, owing more to jazz and jump than to jukes and John the Conqueror roots. …In this field the most prolific of all the Chicago labels was Mercury,which released some 300 records in its 'Race' series from 1946 to 1952, in addition to several released in 1945-46 before the catalog was subdivided into different series."

In part one we spotlighted the years 1945 through 1949 with the style of most of the recording a more urbane jump blues. In our second installment that style is eclipsed by a more down-home style as Mercury spread its tentacles to New Orleans, Texas and Los Angeles. From a Billboard notice from the period: "CHICAGO, May 12-In a renewed effort to see what makes the rhythm and blues segment click, Art Talmadge, Mercury Records' executive vice-president in charge of artists and repertoire, left Friday (11) for a fast sweep thru the South, searching for new artists and material. Morry Price, sales manager, will meet Talmadge in Atlanta. In addition, the label's Southern distributors have been alerted to keep their eyes open for potential r.&b. waxers."

One of the label's destinations was New Orleans. The Mercury label cut some fine sessions in there between 19490 and 1953. The Mercury New Orleans sessions began with William B. Allen, who owned a radio supply store at Orleans and North Robertson streets and also distributed Mercury records in New Orleans. In late 1949 Allen talked to Mercury's main office about recording black artists in New Orleans. Among those recorded were Professor Longhair, Alma Monday, Little Joe Gaines, George Miller & His Mid-Driffs, Ray Johnson and Herbert 'Woo Woo' Moore among others.

From the West Coast the label recorded Chuck Norris, Johnny Otis, J.D. Edwards and Big Jimm Wynn among others. Chuck Norris worked in Chicago until the mid-’40s, when he moved out to the West Coast. He soon became one of the most-called musicians in Hollywood. He did sessions on his own between 1947-1953, including singles for Coast, Imperial, Mercury, Aladdin, Selective and Atlantic. Some of the guitarist’s best playing was on records by artists such as Percy Mayfield, Roy Hawkins and Floyd Dixon. Norris had a live record released in 1980 on the European Route 66 label.

Norris also backs Big Jim Wynn on our track, "West Coast Lover." Wynn was born June 21, 1912, in El Paso, TX, but grew up in Los Angeles, where his first instrument was the clarinet. Switching to tenor saxophone, he began his professional career with Charlie Echols and was a sideman on hundreds of West Coast recordings, including a long association with Johnny Otis. As a bandleader (often billed as Big Jim Wynn), he recorded sporadically from 1945 to 1959 with a dozen different labels, including 4 Star/Gilt Edge (which issued his best-known side, "Ee-Bobaliba"), Modern, Specialty, Supreme, and Mercury.

After a lengthy stint with Savoy, Johnny Otis jumped to Mercury, cutting four sessions for Mercury in 1951 and 1952.From those sessions we spin "Doggin' Blues" sporting a terrific vocal from Linda Hokpkins and the rocking instrumental "Goomp Blues" a spotlight for the whole band but particularly Pete "Guitar" Lewis who really tears it up.

Quite a number of Houston artists were recorded no doubt due to Bob Shad who was brought on in 1951 to handle its rhythm & blues productions. Shad already recorded a number of Houston blues artists for his Sittin' In label as he related to Arnold Shaw in his book Honkers And Shouters: "Went down South and did a lot of recording with Peppermint Harris, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Smokey Hogg. Recorded in Texas, mostly Houston."

Shad cut a number of fine sides for Sittin' In With and it was likely Shad who brought Lightnin' Hopkins to Mercury. Hopkins’ first decade of recording (1946-1956), was a prolific period which found him cutting close to 200 sides geared for the black market on a variety of different labels. Between 1946 and 1950 Hopkins recorded primarily for the L.A. based Aladdin label and the Houston based Gold Star label. After Gold Star he cut for RPM, Sittin' In With, Decca, Herald and a dozen sides for Mercury in 1951.

Elmore Nixon, L.C. Williams and Smokey Hogg also recorded for Sittin' In With and again it's likely Shad was instrumental in hooking them up with Mercury. Nixon was a Houston pianist who was a sideman on labels such as Gold Star, Peacock, Mercury, Savoy and Imperial between 1949 and 1955. In the 1960’s he backed Lightnin’ Hopkins and Clifton Chenier on sessions. He also cut over two-dozen sides under his own name between 1949 and 1952 for labels like Sittin’ In With, Peacock, Mercury Savoy and Imperial.

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 sides for Eddie’s, Freedom, Sittin' In With and a final session for Mercury in 1951. He died in Houston in 1960.

Andrew “Smokey” Hogg was born in Texas and in the 30’s and ran with guitarist the Black Ace playing for dances in small East Texas towns. In 1937 he waxed a solitary 78 and wouldn’t record again until 1947. Hogg only scored two R&B hits but was a consistent seller who cut hundreds of records for numerous labels through the late 50’s. He cut a four song-session for Mercury in 1951. He passed in 1960. His brother John Hogg cut two sessions in 1951, one for Mercury and one for Octive.

Two other Texas bluesman featured today are the obscure Luther Stoneham and Lee Grave. Stoneham cut only two sides in 1951 in Houston, both for Mercury. Lee Graves with Henry Hayes & His Rhythm Kings cut for sides in Houston for Mercury in 1951, his sole recorded legacy.

As Billboard noted: "Merc, which has had trouble getting an R&B catalog together, except for singer Dinah Washington, who has scored consistently, is giving Shad a free had, with a heavy budget set up for promotion and inking new artists." Back in 1949 Mercury tried its hand recording several previously successful Chicago artists such as Big Bill Broonzy, St. Louis Jimmy, Sunnyland Slim and Robert Jr. Lockwood. Except for St. Louis Jimmy, and with the addition of Memphis Slim, tried it hand again with Shad in charge.

As Big Bill Broonzy & His Fat Four, Broonzy cut nine sides for Mercury at two in 1949, two sessions in 1951 backed by a fine band that included Memphis Slim and a final session for the label backed just by bassist Ernest “Big” Crawford.

Robert Lockwood had backed Sunnyland Slim back in 1949 and cut a four-song session for Mercury in 1951 backed by Sunnyland Slim. Backed by bassist Ernest “Big” Crawford and drummer Alfred "Big Man" Wallace, Lockwood is in magnificent form on "(I'm Gonna) Dig Myself A Hole" a cover of the Arthur Crudup number, "Dust My Broom" which Lockwood learned from Robert Johnson, "My Daily Wish" and "Glory For Man", unissued by Mercury at the time.

Memphis Slim cut three sessions for Mercury in 1951 with singer Terry Timmons taking co-vocals on some tracks. Backed by riffing horns and rippling piano, Slim is at his elegant best on the brisk shuffle "No Mail Blues", the mid-tempo "Train Is Comin'" and the cocktail lounge tinged "Blue Evening" a sultry duet with Timmons.

Show Notes:

From the booklet to The Mercury Blues 'N' Rhythm Story 1945-1955: "No other record label to come our of Chicago has ever had as many hit records, or become such a major power in the recording industry, as Mercury Records. Mercury covered a broad musical base, encompassing blues, pop, jazz, country, polka and gospel (and, in the years to follow, rhythm & blues, rock 'n' roll, doo-wop, soul, funk, and other genres). Housed in small offices in the famed Jeweller's Building on 35 East Wacker Drive, it was the first record label based in Chicago. (The famed Chess label was formed in late 1947 as Aristocrat Records. Vee-Jay, Chicago's other bygone independent, started in 1953.) Mercury ranks among the all-time top four in the number of hist to reach Billboard magazine's R&B charts, far ahead of its Windy City peers.

…"It's just The Blues," by Willie Dixon's Four Jumps Of Jive, was the company's debut release. Forming the Mercury Radio and Television Corporation were Berle Adams, Chicago agent-manager for the General Amusement Corp., and Irving Green of Olsen and Tilger Manufacturing Co., Inc. …'The big thing about Mercury was: we were an economy company,' Adams recently recalled with great enthusiasm. 'We had no money. The other companies were well financed. we couldn't compete with the big boys, so we chose R&B and country & western. You didn't need arrangers, copyists, big orchestras. It was easier to finance that kind of operation. I had come out of the cocktail lounge business in Chicago, I used the talent that I had worked with previously.'

The October 13, 1945 issue of Billboard reported: 'Chicago's potential as a recording center got a big shot in the arm with the announcement this week by Irving Green, local plastics expert, that he is a heading a new firm, Mercury Records, which will eventually reach 250,000 disks per month… Thus far the new label has inked only Negro artists, with its catalog including sides by June Richmond, ex-andy Kirk rythm singer; Bill Samuels and His Cats 'n' Jammers, and the Four Jumps of Jive, both cocktail units; Sippie Wallace and Karl Jones, blues shouters; Al Ammons, boogie pianist and half the team of Ammons and Johnson, and Bob Shaffner And His Harlem Hot Shots."

In early 1946 Mercury inaugurated their race series and would soon produce an impressive body of blues and R&B recordings which would make them rivals to Atlantic during the late 40's and 50's. As writer Jim O'Neal points out "today's listenership might be easily mislead because of the preponderance of Delta-based Chicago blues recordings from this period selected for reissue by collector's labels, but in truth a large portion of the blues records coming out of Chicago in the Forties and Fifties were decidedly more urbane, owing more to jazz and jump than to jukes and John the Conqueror roots. …In this field the most prolific of all the Chicago labels was Mercury,which released some 300 records in its 'Race' series from 1946 to 1952, in addition to several released in 1945-46 before the catalog was subdivided into different series." This style is reflected in part one of our look at the label as we focus on the years 1945 to 1949, spotlighting several tracks by the label's big R&B stars Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson and Dinah Washington, plus big names like T-Bone Walker, Albert Ammons, Big Bill Broonzy, Sippie Wallace, Professor Longhair and Jay McShann and his great singers Walter Brown and Jimmy Witherspoon. We'll also hear great lesser knowns like Myra Taylor, Little Joe Gaines, Smiley Turner and Vivianne Greene among among others. Below is some background on today's artists.

Dinah Washington was far and away the label's star attraction as Jim O'Neal explains: "On one hand, Mercury's policy descriptions certainly left the doors open for Chess and other labels to corner what might be called the "hard blues" market; on the other, Mercury eclipsed them all by virtue of one artist with a smooth, sophisticated approach- Dinah Washington. Washington had more Billboard chart hits (45, from 1948 to 1961) than the combined total Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson had during their entire careers."

Alongside Washington, Eddie Vinson was one of the most prolifically recorded artists for Mercury in it fledgling years, waxing around three dozen sides for the label through 1954. Vinson first picked up a horn while attending high school in Houston during the late '30s. Vinson picked up a few vocal tricks while on tour with bluesman Big Bill Broonzy and joined the Cootie Williams Orchestra from 1942 to 1945. His vocals on trumpeter Williams' renditions of "Cherry Red" and "Somebody's Got to Go" were big hits. Vinson struck out on his own in 1945, forming his own large band, signing with Mercury, and enjoying a double-sided smash in 1947 with his romping R&B chart-topper "Old Maid Boogie" and the song that would prove his signature number, "Kidney Stew Blues."

One of the very first acts signed to the newly founded Mercury label in 1945 was a quartet calling itself the Cats 'N Jammer Three. Their pianist and lead vocalist was Mississippi native and Chicago-based entertainer Bill Samuels. The first of two versions of "I Cover the Waterfront" was terrifically successful for the Jammers and for Mercury. The Cats 'N Jammer Three seem to have disbanded during the 1948 recording ban. Samuels waxed only a couple of sides in 1949, then moved to Minneapolis where he managed to form a trio, eventually recording an LP and one last single. He passed away in March of 1964 at the age of 53

Sippie Wallace, who recorded prolifically in the 20’s but hadn’t recorded since 1929, came out of retirement briefly to cut four sides for Mercury in 1945. During the early 1920's she toured the TOBA vaudeville circuit where she was billed as "The Texas Nightingale". In 1923 she followed her brothers to Chicago and began performing in the cafes and cabarets around town. In 1923 she recorded her first records for Okeh and went on to record over forty songs for them between 1923 and 1929. As Jim O'Neal notes "…the Mercury venture also marked one of the few times that any of the great classic women blues singers of the Twenties were given a chance to record during the Forties (or Fifties)."

In 1929 T-Bone Walker recorded two singles for Columbia Records, "Trinity River Blues" and "Witchita Falls Blues," as Oak Cliff T-Bone (Walker lived in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff). He continued playing with a 16-piece band formed during his school days with Lawson Brooks until 1934, when he quit and moved to Los Angeles. Walker made his living on the West Coast playing with various small combos in the thriving jazz clubs of Los Angeles. In 1939 he joined Les Hite’s Cotton Club Orchestra as a singer, guitarist, and composer. "I was out there four or five years on my own before they all started playing amplified," Walker stated. "I recorded my T-Bone Blues’ with Les Hite in 1939, but I’d been playing amplified guitar a long time before that." Throughout the 40's he recorded prolifically for mainly for Black & White and Capitol but cut a couple of fine sides for Mercury in 1945, two of which we spotlight today.

Jay McShann was a mostly self-taught as a pianist, worked with Don Byas  as early as 1931 and played throughout the Midwest before settling in Kansas City in 1936. McShann formed his own sextet the following year and by 1939 had his own big band. In 1940 the full orchestra recorded for Decca on two occasions during 1941-1942 but they were typecast as a blues band and did not get to record many of their more challenging charts. In addition to Charlie Parker, the main stars were trumpeter Bernard Anderson, the rhythm section, and singer Walter Brown. McShann and his band arrived in New York in February 1942 and made a strong impression, but World War II made it difficult for any new orchestras to catch on. There was a final session in December 1943 without Parker, but McShann was soon drafted and the band broke up. After being discharged later in 1944, McShann briefly re-formed his group but soon moved to Los Angeles, where he led combos for the next few years; his main attraction was the young singer Jimmy Witherspoon. McShann and Witherspoon cut three sessions for Mercury in 1946 and 1947. McShann also employed a couple of other fine singers that recorded for Mercury, including Walter Brown and Crown Prince Waterford.

A popular entertainer who recorded frequently for Capitol during 1944-1950, Julia Lee's double-entendre songs and rocking piano made her a major attraction in Kansas City. In 1944, she started recording for Capitol. After 1952, Julia Lee only recorded four further songs, but she was active up until her death in 1958. Her lone session for Mercury was a four-song session in 1945.

As a child, Helen Humes played piano and organ in church, and made her first recordings (ten blues songs in 1927 with guitarist Sylvester Weaver) when she was only 13 and 14. In the 1930's, she worked with Stuff Smith and Al Sears, recording with Harry James in 1937-1938. In 1938, Humes joined Count Basie's Orchestra for three years. Humes moved to Los Angeles. She began to record as a leader in the early to mid 40's and waxed three sessions for Mercury in 1947 and 1948.

Although a Chicago label, Mercury left the market for "hard" blues mainly for labels like Aristocrat (soon to be Chess), and a bit later for a slew of small independents like Hy-Tone, J.O.B., Parkway, Tempo-Tone, Chance, United among several others. During our time span the label did cut some of these artists including veteran Big Bill Broonzy and Sunnyland Slim. As Big Bill Broonzy & His Fat Four, Broonzy cut nine sides for Mercury at two in 1949, two sessions in 1951 backed by a fine band that included Memphis Slim and a final session for the label backed just by bassist Ernest “Big” Crawford. Broonzy sides, backed by sax, piano and drums, have a decidedly more sophisticated, up-to-date air as heard on "I Love My Whiskey", and "Water Coast Blues." More sides by Broonzy will be featured in part two. Sunnyland Slim cut two sides for Mercury in 1949 and a four-song session for the label in 1951 all backed by Robert Lockwood. Sunnyland too employed a fine sax play, Alex Atkins, and is in prime orm on "Everytime I Get To Drinkin' ", a song he would cut many times, and "Mud Kickin' Woman."

Vivian Greene was based was a vocalist/pianist based out of California some tw0-dozen sides between 1947 and 1955 for several different label. She cut four sides for Mercury in 1948. There was something of a trend circa the mid to late 40's of piano pounding boogie woogie blues ladies, most based around the Los Angles area. In addition to Green there was Nellie Lutcher, Camille Howard, Betty Hall Jones,  Hadda Brooks, Effie Smith among others.