| SONG | ALBUM | |
|---|---|---|
| Little Johnny Jones | Chicago Blues | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Ann Sorter | Bad Stuff | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Matu Roy | Pete's Shuffle Boogie (Part 1) | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Bill 'Jazz' Gillum | Me and My Buddy | Me And My Buddy |
| Louis Jordan | Do You Call That A Buddy (Dirty Cat) | Let The Good Times Roll |
| Lead Belly & Josh White | Don't Lie Buddy | Classic Blues From Smithsonian Folkways |
| Nyles Jones | Expressin' The Blues | The Welfare Blues |
| Son House | Lake Cormorant Blues | The Real Delta Blues |
| Lattie Murrell | Wolf's At Your Door | Wolf's At Your Door |
| Square Walton | Fish Tail Blues | Rub a Little Boogie |
| Earl King | A Weary Silent Night | Earl's Pearls: The Very Best Of Earl King |
| James 'Wide Mouth' Brown | Boogie Woogie Nighthawk | Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 3 |
| Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown | Boogie Rambler | Boogie Uproar |
| Forest City Joe | Sawdust Bottom | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Magic Sam & Shakey Jake | Leaving This Morning | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Little Walter | My Kind of Baby | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Ishman Bracey | Left Alone Blues | Canned Heat Blues: Masters Of The Delta Blues |
| Sam Collins | Jail House Blues | Jail House Blues |
| Sleepy John Estes | Clean up at Home | I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More |
| Johnnie Head | Fare Thee Blues Part 2 | Country Blues Collector's Items 1924-1928 |
| Hardy Gray | Runaway | Playing for the Man at the Door |
| Baby Tate | You Can Always Tell | Another Man Done Gone |
| Jack Harp | After A While | Another Man Done Gone |
| Bessie Smith | St. Louis Gal | Frog Blues & Jazz Annual No. 4 |
| Bessie Mae Smith & Wesley Wallace | St. Louis Daddy | St. Louis Barrelhouse Piano 1929-1934 |
| Lonnie Johnson | The St. Louis Train Kept Passin’ by | Lonnie Johnson Vol. 3 1927-1928 |
| Washboard Sam | I'm Going To St. Louis | Washboard Sam Vol. 5 1940-1941 |
| Red Mike Bailey | Red Mike Blues | Piano Blues Vol. 6 1933-1938 |
| Bert Mays | Midnight Rambler's Blues | Piano Blues Vol. 1 1927-1936 |
| Big Maceo | Do You Remember | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Muddy Waters | Iodine In My Coffee | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Robert Lockwood Jr | Pearly B | Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 - The Special Stuff |
| Jack Ranger | Thieving Blues | Texas Piano Vol. 2 1927-1938 |
| Walter Roland | Bad Dream Blues | The Melotone Blues Story |
| Charlie Spand | Got To Have My Sweetbread | Dreaming the Blues: The Best of Charlie Spand |
Show Notes:
A mixed show for today spanning a wide range of blues from the 20s through the 70s. We spin two by sax man/bandleader Preston Love, spotlight some great tracks from a couple of long-out-of-print and album, explore some lyrical themes from a song popularized by Louis Jordan, spin a batch of songs about St. Louis and a trio of intertwined song revolving around Gatemouth and his less famous musical brother. Also, on deck some terrific sets of pre-war blues, including some outstanding pianists, three sets devoted to the box set, Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 – The Special Stuff, the final installment of a remarkable series and some blues recording in the field or in informal settings.
We spin two numbers by Preston Love today from a twenty-two track survey of his career from the Jasmine label titled Reflections In Rhythm & Blues 1951-1953. Love was an alto and tenor saxophonist, bandleader and songwriter, from Omaha, Nebraska, perhaps best known as a sideman with artist like Count Basie, Ray Charles, Lucky Millinder, Nat Towles, Lloyd Hunter and others. He began his career in the Big Band era and recorded prolifically with Count Basie in the 40s before getting his own recording career away in 1951. He worked extensively with bandleader/producer Johnny Otis during 1951, recording sides like “Twilight Blues” and “Strictly Cash” for Federal Records, before launching the short-lived Spin label in 1952, in partnership with Otis.
I have a huge fondness for the UK based Flyright label founded in 1970 by Bruce Bastin, Mike Leadbitter and Simon A. Napier. The label was responsible for so many great reissues as well as fine latter day field recordings. Flyright fell under Interstate Music Inc. which housed some of my favorite labels such as Krazy Kat and Magpie. We hear two numbers from the excellent 1978 release, Another Man Done Gone, a collection of field recordings from the 60s and 70s. The album includes three numbers by Jack Harp who we feature. Harp was born in Crestview, Florida about 1915. He claimed to Jeff Tarrer, who discovered him, that he had recorded with Barbecue Bob un June, 1927, with Blind Blake in 1929 and with Tampa Red in 1932. Back then he was a blues guitarist: “I was young and kinda wild and foolish.” About 1955 he turned to the church and when he was located by Tarrer, was playing from a wheelchair. On some of the numbers recorded, Harp’s wife, Zepherine, plays washboard; no ordinary one but an ice-tray from an old-fashioned refrigerator which stood up to the punishment better! Originally, she played this with two knife-blades, but Tarrer had that day bought her some thimbles to reduce the sound and make it easier to record. The bass drum is played by her daughter, Caroline James.
Jeff Tarrer described his meeting with the Reverend Jack Harp in an article for Blues Unlimited in 1965: “I first heard Willis Nathaniel Harp, better known to most people as the Reverend Jack Harp, and his wife Zepherine about three years ago on a street corner of Crestview on my way to my wife’s home in Andalusia, Alabama. When I heard it, I immediately knew this was the ‘old sound’ and I screeched the brakes to a halt and went back. The Reverend has been crippled from the waist down since he was nine months old. He is unable to use crutches, but gets around in a wheel-chair and goes from town to town with his singing family. Sometimes he appears at Negro churches and other times he plays at a café or some other regular gathering place in the Negro section of the town.”
From that album we also hear from guitarist Baby Tate recorded only a handful of sessions, spending the bulk of his life as a sideman, playing with musicians like Blind Boy Fuller, Pink Anderson, and Peg Leg Sam. When he was 14 years old, Tate taught himself how to play guitar. Shortly afterward, he began playing with Blind Boy Fuller, who taught Tate the fundamentals of blues guitar. For most of the ’30s, Baby played music as a hobby, performing at local parties, celebrations, and medicine shows. Tate picked up music again in 1946, setting out on the local blues club circuit. In the early ’50s, Baby moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he performed both as a solo act and as a duo with Pink Anderson. In 1962, Charters recorded Tate for the album, See What You Done Done for Bluesville. The following year, he was featured in Charters’ documentary film, The Blues. For the rest of the decade, Baby Tate played various gigs, concerts, and festivals across America. With the assistance of harmonica player Peg Leg Sam, Baby Tate recorded another set of sessions in 1972. Pete Lowry recorded him extensively in 1970 but theses sides remain unreleased. He died on August 17, 1972.
Another out-of-print record today features Guitar Gabriel AKA Nyles Jones, who recorded under the latter name the superb LP, My South, My Blues, for the Gemini label in 1970 (reissued in 1988 as Welfare Blues). Mike Leadbitter, writing in Blues Unlimited in 1970, called the single, “Welfare Blues”, the most important 45 released that year. Gabriel dropped out of sight for about 20 years and his belated return to performing was due largely to folklorist and musician Timothy Duffy, who located Gabriel in 1991. With Duffy accompanying him as second guitarist on acoustic sets and as a member of his band, Brothers in the Kitchen, Gabriel performed frequently at clubs and festivals, and appeared overseas. He recorded several albums for Duffy’s Music Maker label before passing in 1996.
We spotlight some songs that refer to a “buddy”, a term that appears in numerous blues songs although not all related. One of those is Louis Jordan’s humorous “Do You Call That A Buddy (Dirty Cat).” According to John Chilton’s biography of Louis Jordan, Let The Good Times Roll, Coot Grant (Leola Wilson) and Wesley Wilson played a significant role in getting Jordan his first recording date with Decca in 1938. When Jordan’s Tympany Four was the house band at the Elks Rendezvous Club at 133rd St. and Lenox Avenue, Harlem journalist Dan Burley recommended Jordan to Decca’s Mayo Williams, and Grant and Wilson evidently talked Williams into taking a chance on Jordan. Chilton further mentions that Louis Jordan’s “That’ll Just ’bout Knock Me Out” was written for Jordan by Mayo Williams and WesIey Wilson. A handful of Wilson’s earlier compositions, including “Do You Call That A Buddy,” were later recorded by Louis Jordan. That song was one of Wilson’s most popular songs, having been recorded by Grant and Wilson in 1932 (but not issued),Louis Armstrong, the Andrews Sisters, and Larry Clinton. Other “buddy” songs heard today are Jazz Gillum’s “Me and My Buddy” and a team-up by Lead Belly and Josh White on “Don’t Lie Buddy.” The latter songs is closely related to “Don’t You Lie to Me” which has been recorded by numerous artists such as Tampa Red , B.B. King, Snooks Eaglin, Johnny Young and others.
We a spin a set of interconnected songs: “A Weary Silent Night”, “Boogie Rambler” and “Boogie Woogie Nighthawk.” James ‘Wide Mouth’ Brown was Gatemouth Brown’s older brother. He cut his only record, “A Weary Silent Night” b/w “Boogie Woogie Nighthawk”, in 1952 issued on the Jax label. “Boogie Woogie Nighthawk” was based on Gatemouth Brown’s “Boogie Rambler” from 1949. James ‘Wide Mouth’ Brown’s “A Weary Silent Night” was covered by Earl King in 1959.
As usual we spin some terrific pre-war blues the well known and utterly obscure. We hear from Red Mike Bailey and Bert Mays today who are subjects in the new book Hot Time Blues: On the Trail of Long-Gone Blues and Gospel Singers by Alex van der Tuuk. Red Mike Bailey cut one 78 for Paramount in 1931 and six sides for Bluebird in 1938. He was living in St. Louis when he recorded as was remembered by Henry Townsend. May recorded for Paramount in 1927 and 1928 and recorded for Vocalion in 1928 and 1929.
We play Johnnie Head’s “Fare Thee Blues Part 2” today. Head “tentatively” was born in Georgia in 1887. His two-part “Fare Thee Blues” is a variant of the “I’ll See You In The Spring, When The Birds Begin To Sing” that the Memphis Jug Band recorded in 1927. Head’s sides were recorded for Paramount in 1928 and he cut two other sides for Vocalion that were never issued (“Johnny Head’s Blues b/w Gonna Lay Down and Die Blues”).
We also hear from the famous Lonnie Johnson on a great lesser known number with the evocative title, “The St. Louis Train Kept Passin’ By” featuring Jimmy Blythe on piano. The record was issued by Champion in 1927 under the name George Jefferson and on Supertone as by Cloudy Williams.
David Evans wrote the following: “Jack Ranger may or may not be the pianist on his three pieces, nor is it known for certain who plays the guitar with its typically Texas string bending. Ranger is a fine singer and songwriter, and it’s a shame he didn’t record more. His “Thieving Blues” was a source for King Solomon Hill’s “Down On My Bended Knee’.” His three sides were recorded in Dallas in 1929. On August 13, 1935 the Gallup Independent reported the following: “In jail today in lieu of a $50 fine were Cora and Jack Ranger, negroes, charged with vagrancy and arrested following a complaint of fighting at 123 north 1st St. Cora Ranger charged that blind Jack Ranger, a musician, had beaten her with an unloaded revolver.”
I’ve been hugely impressed with a series subtitled Down Home Blues from the British label Wienerworld. Since 2016 they have issued six collections: Down Home Blues Detroit – Detroit Special, Down Home Blues Chicago Fine Boogie, Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 2: Sweet Home Chicago, Down Home Blues: New York, Cincinnati & The North Eastern States: Tough Enough and the most recent, Down Home Blues: Miami, Atlanta & The South Eastern States – Blues In The Alley and the final, and most recent, Down Home Blues: Chicago Volume 3 – The Special Stuff. These sets are filled with rare and iconic tracks from well-known artists to the utterly obscure, but all with high quality musicianship and include material not previously available. These handsome sets come with thick, informative booklets filled with amazing photos and label shots, some not seen before. As a long-time collector and blues fan, these sets have made a big impression on me and I’ve featured tracks from these sets on many of my shows. These sets were produced by Peter Moody who passed away November 21st, 2021 and the booklet opens with a nice tribute to him. I talked briefly with Peter about an interview but was unaware of how sick he was at the time and sadly the interview never happened.
We spin three sets from the collection, including some rarities and lesser known artists. We hear alternate takes and unissued sides by Little Johnny Jones, Little Walter, Muddy Waters (the excellent “Iodine In My Coffee”, a favorite since first hearing on the compilation Rare and Unissued), Robert Lockwood Jr, Forest City Joe and several recordings by Magic Sam and Shakey Jake from a 1966 private home recording. Among the intriguing little knowns are Ann Sorter and Matu Roy. Sorter was a girlfriend of Robert Nighthawk’s and appears on on two of his 1940 Decca sides. She cut a couple of her own sides and appeared on records by Washboard Sam and Kansas Joe McCoy. Pianist/singer Mata Ray was born in Georgia and moved to Chicago and an unknown date. By 1944 she was living in Los Angeles where she recorded that year as a member of the Sepia Tones for Juke Box. She was back in Chicago in 1948 and around 1952 recorded the lone 78 under we hear today under her own name for the Ebony label listed as Mata Roy The Personality Girl And Her Boogie Beats.
A couple months back we spotlighted the long anticipated box set, Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack Mccormick, 1958–1971. Today we hear a fine number by Hardy Gray that we omitted on that show. In 1968 McCormick recorded Hardy Gray, who introduces himself and says he was born in 1924 in Troy, Alabama. The recordings make clear that Gray was a songster. He’s sang mainly church music, but McCormick got a range of songs from him from religious numbers to “Careless Love”, “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain” and more.
Finally we should mention some field recordings and those recorded informally. In Alex van der Tuuk’s book there is a lengthy chapter on Son House and Willie Brown. It inspired me to play on of House’s earliest “rediscovery” recordings from the album The Real Delta Blues. These sides were privately taped in the early 1960s in Rochester by Nick Perls.
