The History of Rhythm and Blues

Selected commentaries taken from the booklet accompanying History of Rhythm and Blues 1925-1942

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1925-1942

Disc One - The Blues - From The Delta To The City - Country Blues, Spirituals, Jug Bands, Hokum

Blind Willie Johnson - It's Nobody's Fault But Mine
Blind Willie Johnson b. TX (1902-1947) v, g. Dallas Dec 1927 Columbia 14303
The role of blues singer and preacher seem to be inextricably linked in Afro-American culture. Almost without exception, blues singers have a musical connection with the church, and preachers have an intimate experience of the trials and tribulations that blues singers deal with in their lyrics. It is by no means uncommon to find bluesmen crossing the divide at a certain point in their career to preach the Word of the Lord. Some straddle the fence for a while until their conscience or their wallet speaks loudest. Deliberately blinded at the age of seven by his stepmother after a domestic brawl involving his father and another man, Johnson is one of the better known of the early guitar evangelists. Although he never performed any strict blues numbers, his distinctive slide guitar playing and rough, rasping vocals, full of emotion and passion, were a great influence on many artists such as Muddy Waters. The song maintains a single chord drone throughout with no change in harmony, which is one of the features of the early Delta blues. Johnson used to tune his guitar to an open D tuning using a pocketknife as a slide to echo and imitate his melodic phrases.

Pearl Dickson - Little Rock Blues
Pearl Dickson, v; Maylon Harney, g ; Richard Harney, g. Memphis Dec 1927 Columbia 14286
Little is known about Pearl Dickson, and this record, backed with Twelve Pound Daddy was her only release. The Harney brothers provide an impressive guitar accompaniment featuring early examples of archetypal R&B riffs. The chunky Chicago-style four-note guitar pattern, which would be brought to perfection in Robert Johnson’s Sweet Home Chicago, is played double-stopped on the bass strings, and transposed as the harmony changes. The high repeated triplet riff is one that Elmore James would later make his own. Dickson puts in a strong vocal performance, and her final ‘that’s enough’ leaves us in no doubt as to who was in charge on the day.

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues
Blind Lemon Jefferson b. TX (1897-1930), g, v. Chicago 1927 Okeh 8455
The sound of Texas blues was somewhat lighter, more sophisticated than in neighbouring Mississippi, and featured more relaxed vocals and mainly single-string guitar players. An itinerant musician, Jefferson was blind from birth, and for a time, T-Bone Walker used to lead him from street to street. He worked as a team with Leadbelly, and is generally considered to have been the most influential rural blues musician. His voice ranged from a high piercing to a low moan, and he had the ability to bend notes on the guitar imitating his vocal inflections. Matchbox Blues has an underlying ragtime beat, but the boogie riff during the middle of the song takes it into another direction which Big Bill Broonzy would later take up.

Blind Blake - Diddie Wah Diddie
Arthur Phelps b. FL (1890-1933), g, v. Chicago Aug 1929 Paramount 12888
Phelps travelled as a hobo in his early life often performing at lumber camps and singing for road gangs, but by 1926 he had settled in Chicago. In Afro-American folklore, Diddie Wah Diddie is said to be the mythical land of no work and no worries, but Phelps is using the metaphor here in a more earthy sense, poking fun at his own supposed naivety. This is a relaxed swinging rag, showcasing his rhythmically inventive ragtime blues guitar, and its strict adherence to a twelve bar blues structure suggests that it may have been used as a popular dance piece.

Barbeque Bob - Ease It To Me Blues
Robert Hicks b. GA (1902-31) v, g. Atlanta April 1928 Columbia 14614
On the East Coast, there was an altogether smoother style of guitar playing, using more complex harmonies. In a life cut short at the age of 29 by an attack of pneumonia, Hicks was a central figure in the development of Atlanta blues. Ease It To Me Blues highlights his highly percussive style, and he is heard using the kind of melodic and rhythmic riffs, which prefigure later styles. The irregular structure is typical of the rural blues, and although there is an approximate twelve bar harmonic scheme, extra bars and beats are added for emphasis whenever Hicks feels the need. His nickname was earned from working in a barbeque grill restaurant, and his powerful, ringing 12-string guitar made him into Columbia’s best-seller in the 1920s.

Jim Jackson - Kansas City Blues
Jim Jackson b. MS (1890-1937) g, v. Chicago Oct 1927 Vocalion 1144
As the blues moved into the urban areas, songs were being written to reflect the new aspirations of city life. Kansas City Blues is a slow rag with a heavy ponderous beat, showing influences from Frank Stokes, and Jackson’s rhythmic on-the-beat strumming provides an early version of the chunky guitar riff which would shape the Chicago sound in the 50s and 60s. Along with many of the older blues singers, Jackson toured with minstrel and medicine shows, and even appeared in the film Hallelujah in 1929.

Jimmie Rodgers - Train Whistle Blues
Jimmie Rodgers b. MS (1897-1933) g, v. with accompaniment Dallas Aug 1929 Victor 22379
Rodgers was right at the forefront of the cross-fertilisation between the blues and white country music in the 1910s and 20s. The majority of his recordings are blues-based and some of his material shows signs of influence from Blind Lemon Jefferson. His father was a rail yard worker, and he followed in the family tradition, working on the railroad when he had no musical employment. His appearance in the film The Singing Brakeman further identified him with the railways. This close interaction between country and blues would continue throughout the development of R & B with Hank Williams, Wynonie Harris and Ray Charles playing major roles.

Georgia Tom and Tampa Red - It's Tight Like That
Thomas Dorsey b. GA (1899-1993), p, v; Hudson ‘Tampa Red’ Whittaker b. GA (1900-1981), g, v. Chicago Oct 1928 Vocalion 1216
Dorsey had a strong religious upbringing, his father being a Baptist minister, but he initially made his name playing piano at rent parties and juke joints after moving to Chicago in 1916. After miraculously recovering from a serious illness in 1930, he retired from the blues world to concentrate on sacred music, and whilst not being the first to write gospel music, he was certainly responsible for bringing the genre to a wider audience, becoming gospel’s best known composer with songs such as Take My Hand, Precious Lord and Peace In The Valley. Along with the Carr/Blackwell partnership, this duo was responsible for helping to create an urbane sounding blues more fitting to a city setting. Its Tight Like That became one of the best selling blues records of all time, inspiring literally hundreds of cover versions and imitations.

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1925-1942

Disc Two - The Rhythm - Piano Boogie-Woogie Ragtime And Jazz

Cow Cow Davenport - Cow Cow Blues
Charles ‘Cow Cow’ Davenport b. AL (1894-1955), p, v. Chicago Jul 1928 Vocalion 1198
Davenport came from a church background, but he moved into vaudeville in his early years, and was known to have worked with Bessie Smith. His was a uniquely personal style, combining elements of ragtime and barrelhouse, featuring the use of crushed notes (notes played almost simultaneously to simulate the bending of notes in a blues tonality). His style was also notable for the development of the walking bass, where the left hand plays sequenced notes from the scale on every beat of the bar. Like Meade Lux Lewis’ Honky Tonk Train Blues, this is a tune imitating the sound of a train, and his nickname comes from the name of the pointed ‘cow catcher’ grill located at the front of a particular type of locomotive, in other words, "Get out of the Way, Davenport is here!" Atlantic records boss, Ahmet Ertegun would later adapt elements of the song to form Ray Charles’ first Atlantic release, Mess Around.

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - How Long How Long Blues
Leroy Carr b TN (1905-1935) v, p; Scrapper Blackwell, g. Indianapolis June 1928 Vocalion 1191
Carr moved to Indianapolis in early life, so his main influences are urban rather than rural. His relaxed and plaintive style fitted the mood of the city and helped to define the character of urban blues. Unfortunately, alcoholism pushed him towards an early grave in 1935, but he lived on in the records of his contemporaries Amos Easton, Bill Gaither and Roosevelt Sykes. Carr’s restrained, almost casual approach made him probably the most important voice in the first twenty years of urban blues recordings, and his influence can be detected in the work of Robert Johnson, Big Maceo, Roy Brown and the West Coast club blues singers, such as Percy Mayfield and Charles Brown.

Cab Calloway & his Cotton Club Orchestra - Minnie The Moocher
Cab Calloway b. LN (1907-94), v; Edwin Swayzee, Lammar Wright, Wendell Culley, Reuben Reeves, tp; De Priest Wheeler, Harry White, tb; William Thornton Blue, Arville Harris, cl, as; Andrew Brown, b-cl, ts, bs; Walter “Foots” Thomas, cl, as, ts, bs; Bennie Payne, Earres Prince, p; Morris White, bjo; Jimmy Smith, tu, bs; Leroy Maxey, d. NYC, Mar 1931 Brunswick 6074
In the early 1900s in Storyville, New Orleans, a form of jazz being played that came to be described as dirty or ‘low-down’. After the bands had played their hot jazz in the evening for the dancing couples, the musicians would slope off to the after-hours joints and play a less energetic but more bluesy kind of music, enabling them, and their late-night audiences to get through the early hours of the morning without suffering total exhaustion. Harlem had its own ‘get low-down’ tradition, which was originally derived from New Orleans, but by the early 1930s, it had evolved into something new and recognizably distinct from its southern antecedent, as we can hear in Minnie The Moocher. The chunking banjo recalls the brothels of New Orleans, but the band is pure Harlem. Listen to the call and response choruses, straight from the church, and the funeral march brought to an end by the rattle of bones. Shorn of its cocaine references, the song was covered in the 1940s by Danny Kaye no less. Brought up in a middle-class family in Baltimore, Cab Calloway was destined for the bar until he found his true calling in singing and dancing. Although he is regarded primarily as an entertainer, he was a talented jazz musician, playing a major role in the development of scat singing. Calloway did more than anyone in bringing jive, with its ghetto rhyming slang, into the musical mainstream. Calloway managed to ride out many of the crises that beached other big bands, but was finally forced to call time on his orchestra in 1948.

Harlem Hamfats - Weed Smoker’s Dream
Herb Morand, t; Odell Rand, cl; Horace Malcolm, p; Joe McCoy, v; Charlie McCoy, mand; Harrison, b; Pearlis Williams, d. Chicago Oct 1936 Decca 7234
The Hamfats’ material straddles the urban blues, jazz and popular idioms. The group were neither from Harlem, nor were they hamfats, a term of abuse to denote indifferent musicians. This song does betray a Harlem heritage though, its roots lying firmly in the slow-drag genre mapped out by Cab Calloway. Weed Smoker’s Dream was written by Herb Morand and Joe McCoy, former husband of Memphis Minnie, and, rather surprisingly, this misanthropic song was transformed into Why Don’t You Do Right, a success first for Lil Green and then later for Peggy Lee, and has gone some way into attaining the status of a feminist anthem.

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1925-1942

Disc Three - Up River To Chicago - Urban Blues And Gospel

Bumble Bee Slim - Policy Dream Blues
Amos ‘Bumble Bee Slim’ Easton b. GA (1905-68), v ; Jimmie Gordon, p ; Charlie McCoy, g. Chicago Apr 1935 Vocalion 03090
Easton was one of the most recorded artists of the 1930s, cutting over 150 songs in just three years. His reflective style of delivery was derived in large part from Leroy Carr, and he helped to lay the groundwork for the electric Chicago blues style of the 1950s. The lyrics refer to the policy racket, which was a kind of vertical roulette wheel, commonly thought to be divinable from dreams. The field holler-type vocals call out and the piano responds with a now familiar riff, later used to great effect in Bo Diddley’s I’m A Man.

Jazz Gillum - Jockey Blues
William ‘Jazz ‘ Gillum b. MS (1904-66),v, har; Big Bill Broonzy, g; unknown, b. Chicago Apr 1936 Bluebird B6409
In Jockey Blues, Gillum introduces a new variation on the eight-bar blues structure with a diminished chord on the fourth measure, which he also used in his more famous work, Key To The Highway, really a re-working of this song. It was this form, based on the traditional ballad Stack-a-Lee, that was to dominate in New Orleans with such songs as Lloyd Price’s Lawdy Miss Clawdy. A British company, for reasons only clear to themselves, wanted to bring Gillum over to London in 1936 to sing songs from popular Broadway musicals. In response to this request, Bluebird stated that although Gillum was not currently under contract, it would nevertheless be impossible because Gillum was black and he couldn’t read music, clearly showing how white companies viewed their black performers.

Big Bill Broonzy - Barrelhouse When It Rains
William Lee Conley b. MS (1893-1958), g, v; Black Bob, p; Bill Settles, b. Chicago Jan 1937 Arc 70764
Along with Leroy Carr, Broonzy played a pivotal role in the transition from country to urban blues. He started off on violin but was taught to play guitar by Papa Charlie Jackson. The use of the 6th note in the scale as the main melody note is a move away from the blues scale, and it would become a feature of songs written in New Orleans during the 1950s. With the addition of a relentless string bass on the quaver beat, this is the sound that gave Arthur Crudup a string of hits throughout the 1940s and became the foundation of the rockabilly sound at Sam Philips’ Sun studios in Memphis.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe - This Train
Sister Rosetta Tharpe b. AR (1921-1973), v, g. NYC Jan 1939 Decca 2558
Famously known for playing rocking electric guitar on her later records, Sister Rosetta was a pioneer in bringing popular influences into gospel music. She shocked religious purists with her forays into blues and boogie-woogie, and her career was damaged as a result. In 1951, she performed live at her third marriage, which was held in front of 25,000 paying guests, and the recording was released as an album on Decca. Willie Dixon used the melody of This Train for Little Walter’s My Babe, which became a big hit on Checker in 1955.

Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup - Mean Ol’ Frisco
Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup b MS (1905-74), g, v; Ransom Knowling, b. Chicago April 1942 - Bluebird 340704
Crudup was a late starter in the music business, only learning how to play the guitar in his thirties, and he was nearly forty years old when he had his first hit. Lester Melrose was impressed enough to decide to become his manager in 1939, and from 1942 through to the mid 1950s, Crudup had a long string of hits, culminating in Elvis Presley recording three of his songs. Melrose’s phenomenal skill in spotting raw talent and moulding it into a commercially acceptable format was surpassed only by his ability to defraud his gullible protégés and, like many of Melrose’s other discoveries, Crudup died in poverty. Although he was not considered to be a particularly accomplished musician, his sparse guitar style was aped first by John Lee Hooker and later by Elvis Presley. Elvis, simple soul that he was, sounded completely perplexed at having to explain his own sudden rise to fame in a 1956 interview, pointing out that Arthur Crudup and Big Bill Broonzy had been playing exactly the same kind of stuff as he, for many years before.

Andy Kirk & His Clouds Of Joy - Floyd’s Guitar Blues
Andy Kirk b. KY (1898-1992), Harry Lawson, Clarence Trice, Earl Thomson, t; Ted Donnell, Henry Wells, tb; John Harrington, cl, as; Don Byas, as; Earl Miller, as; Dick Wilson, ts; Mary Lou Williams, p; Floyd Smith, g; Booker Collins, b; Ben Thigpen, d. NYC Mar 1939 Decca 2483
Kansas City was the base for Andy Kirk’s big band, the Clouds of Joy. The jive dancers couldn’t keep up their energetic jitterbugging for a band’s whole set, so the swing bands had to include at least one slow number in their act. Guitarist Floyd Smith plays lap steel guitar on this track, and he was a pioneer of the electric instrument, influencing amongst others Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker. It gave guitarists the freedom to break away from their traditional strumming role in the rhythm section, allowing them to come to prominence with single string melody lines in the big band set up. Smith had a long career stretching into the 1960s, when he had a resurgence in fortune playing funky soul jazz with Hammond organist Hank Marr.

T-Bone Walker - Mean Old World
Aaron Thibeaux ‘T-Bone’ Walker b. TX (1910-75),g, v; Freddie Slack, p; George De Naut, b; Dave Coleman, d. Hollywood July 1942 Capitol 10033
T-Bone’s career spans more than one generation, starting off in medicine shows and string bands. His first recordings were in the country blues vein in 1929, but he skipped the urban blues phenomenon and did not record again until the 1940s. He moved to Oklahoma City and met up with an old boyhood friend, Charlie Christian, and together they developed a style involving playing single string solos on the new electrified guitar. Mean Old World can be regarded as the very start of the Texas-West Coast jazz-blues fusion, which flowered in the aftermath of the Second World War. With his fluid, mellow guitar riffs punctuating a mid-tempo boogie backing from Freddie Slack, this would prove to be a pivotal recording in the development of West Coast jump blues

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1942-1952

Disc One - Jumpin’ From Harlem To The West Coast

Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra – Little John Special
Lucius Venable Millinder (b. AL 1900-66), leader, Chiefy Scott, Dizzy Gillespie, Nelson Bryant, tp; George Stevenson, Joe Britton, tb; Tab Smith, Billy Bowen, as; Stafford Simon, Dave Young, ts; Ernest Purce, bs; Bill Doggett, p; Trevor Bacon, g; Nick Fenton, b; Panama Francis, d. NYC July 1942 - Decca/Brunswick 3406
In 1942, Lucky Millinder and Lionel Hampton were experimenting with a kind of ‘swing-boogie’, derived from Count Basie’s Kansas City sound. During the war, the black-led bands had been capable of playing either for swing-jazz or dance audiences, but due to a rather conservative approach favoured by many bandleaders, there was a general decline in the popularity of swing amongst black audiences. A new ‘riffing’ style had been developed by Basie and Don Redman by making the brass and reed sections, which normally play together as two voices, playoff against each other in a call and response fashion, rather like a blues vocalist would do with his guitar. This gave the bands more rhythm and drive, generating excitement and heightening the emotions, entertaining rather than expressive, resulting in a gradual move away from jazz. Little John Special can be seen as bridging the transition not only between swing and R&B, but also between swing and bebop, due to the appearance of Dizzy Gillespie, who makes his debut here on trumpet with a fully-fledged bop solo. Note the similarity between the riff and Dizzy’s 1944 composition Salt Peanuts, a bop classic. What bebop and R&B had in common was a new freedom from the imposed arrangements of swing.

Ella Johnson with Buddy Johnson and His Orchestra – That’s The Stuff You Gotta Watch
Gus Aiken, Henry Glover, Herbert Turner, Lewis Dupree, Willis Nelson, t; Bernhard Archer, Gordon Thomas, Leonard Briggs, tb; Joe O’Laughton, Maxwell Lucas, as; Teddy Conyers, bs; Frank Henderson, Jimmy Stanford, ts; Buddy Johnson (b. SC 1915-77), p; Leon Spann, b; George Jenkins, d; Ella Johnson (b. SC 1918-2004), v. NYC Oct 1944 - Decca 8671 Jul 45 (2)
Buddy and Ella were a brother/sister act little remembered today but were a major draw on the chittlin’ circuit. They took the route favoured by many eastern seaboard artists travelling up from their native South Carolina to New York. They had fourteen hits between 1943 and 1957 and they specialised in the big beat blues ballad, which became a staple of the bigger-sized rhythm and blues bands throughout the 1940s. Written by Platters songwriter Buck Ram, That’s The Stuff You Gotta Watch reached #2 in both the pop and race charts in July 1945 earning cover versions by Wynonie Harris, Muddy Waters and much later on by The Band. Buddy Johnson was very much going against the trend of the time towards smaller bands as he upped the size of his orchestra from a 9 piece to a 17 piece for this recording. The strength of their appeal to live audiences meant that he was able to keep the band going until well into the 1960s.

Dinah Washington with Lionel Hampton Sextet - Evil Gal Blues
Ruth Lee Jones (b. Al 1924-63), v; Joe Morris, tp; Rudy Rutherford, cl; Arnett Cobb, ts; Milt Buckner, p; Vernon King, b; Fred Radcliffe, d; Lionel Hampton, vib. NYC Dec 1943 - Keynote 605 Apr 44 (9)
Dinah Washington spent four years as Lionel Hampton’s vocalist before branching out into a solo career in 1946, and with 46 hits in 15 years, she is rightly considered as the pre-eminent female rhythm and blues singer. She led a colourful life with at least seven marriages and the circumstances of her eventual split with Hampton reputedly involved a revolver. In her early years, she concentrated on blues ballads and stompers often featuring risqué lyrics, but towards the end of her career she courted controversy of a different kind by recording such hits as What A Difference A Day Makes and September In The Rain in a more mainstream pop style, alienating some of her core fan-base. She died of an overdose of pills and alcohol at the tender age of 39. Evil Gal Blues, prefaced by Milt Buckner’s smooth piano intro, is one of the illegal recordings done in secret during the musician’s union strike of 1943. Buckner (b. MO 1915-77) developed a blocked or parallel chord style, doubling the melody line in the left hand, which influenced a generation of jazz pianists such as Oscar Peterson and George Shearing. He was also responsible for coming up with the arrangements for the Lionel Hampton band in its golden period of 1941-48.

T-Bone Walker – T-Bone Boogie
Aaron Thibeaux “T-Bone” Walker (b. TX 1910-75), g, v; Marl Young, p, dir, arr; Henderson Smith, t; Nick Cooper, t; Nat Jones, as; Frank Derrick, as; Moses Gant, ts; Micky Simms, b; Theodore “Red” Saunders, d. Chicago Oct 1944 - Rhumboogie 4002
T-Bone’s career spans more than one generation, starting off in medicine shows and string bands. His first recordings were in the country blues vein in 1929, but he skipped the urban blues phenomenon and did not record again until the 1940s. Together with old boyhood friend Charlie Christian, T-Bone developed a style playing single string solos on the new electrified guitar with fluid, mellow, Texas guitar riffs punctuating the prevailing West Coast jump blues. T-Bone Boogie is basically an up-tempo version of Count Basie’s 1935 Boogie-Woogie (Vol 1) and is notable for the exciting electric guitar intro, which replaces Basie’s piano. The sound of the band is late swing rather than Rhythm and Blues and the guitar solo, together with Red Saunders’ heavy drumming, provides a rousing, rocking finale. Walker had obviously been listening to Big Joe Turner as his vocals are similarly in front of the beat, and he reprises here Turner’s final flourishes from Roll Em Pete (Vol 1).

Joe Liggins - The Honeydripper
Joe Liggins (b. OK 1915-87), p, v; Little Willie Jackson, b; James Jackson, ts; Frank Pasley, g; George “Red” Callender, b; William “Keg” Purnell, d. LA Mar 1945 -Exclusive 207 Aug 45 (1)
Two Creole songwriters, Otis and Leon Rene have the distinction of incorporating the first post-war independent record label - Exclusive Records. They had considerable success with one of their compositions, When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano, which enabled them to form the new company to act as a vehicle for their songs. Joe Liggins had a string of eight hits with Exclusive Records starting with The Honeydripper, which still holds the extraordinary record of the longest stay of 18 weeks at number one in Billboard’s R&B charts from September 1945 to January 1946, also reaching number 13 in the pop charts. Based on the traditional plantation song, Shortnin’ Bread, this rolling boogie had as great an influence on the music of the day as did Caldonia. Honeydripper is black slang for a ladies man and was the name by which celebrated blues pianist Roosevelt Sykes was known.

Wynonie Harris with Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra - Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well
Freddie Webster, Joe Jordan, Curtis Murphy, Elton Hill, tp; Gene Simon, Alfred Cobbs, Joe Britton, tb; Preston Love, Bill Swindell, as; Elmer Williams, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Lucky Thompson, ts; Ernest Leavy, bs; Ellis Larkins, p; Lawrence Lucie, g; Al McKibbon, b; Panama Francis, d; Wynonie Harris, v. NYC May 1944 - Decca 18674 Jun 45 (1)
Despite an inability to play a musical instrument or even to be able to read music, Lucky Millinder was a pivotal figure in the development of rhythm and blues. He had an uncanny knack of picking the right singer. Before Wynonie joined, Sister Rosetta Tharpe handled the vocals, and after Harris left, the hot-seat was filled by Ruth Brown. The trend for gospel parody was fired up in 1943 by Louis Jordan’s Deacon Jones and the deacon makes a reappearance here with this curious big band gospel fusion, which hit the number one spot in the Billboard Harlem Hit Parade in June 1945. Humorous references to philandering clergymen can be found in minstrel songs from the early 1900s, and the character of Deacon Jones is thought to be based on songster Bert Williams’ satirical Elder Eatmore sermons. Released in 1919, they poked fun at the Pentecostal church, which took root in northern cities at the time of the exodus of blacks from the south. Penned by long established white songwriters Eddie Delange and Johnny Brooks, its stately intro is borrowed from the hymn What A Friend We Have In Jesus and the vigorous hand claps on the off-beat are found throughout two-step gospel music. Wynonie Harris evidently took note of this arrangement and used it again in his pivotal 1947 recording of Roy Brown’s Good Rockin’ Tonight.

Nat Cole Trio – Get Your Kicks On Route 66
Nathaniel Adams Cole (b. AL 1919-65), p, v; Oscar Moore, g; Johnny Miller, b. LA Mar 1946 - Capitol 256 Aug 46 (3)
Nat ‘King’ Cole was born in the south but moved north to Chicago when he was just four years old. He started off playing piano in various small groups with limited success until he was convinced to concentrate more on his vocals. Like many of his contemporaries, he owes a stylistic debt to the singing style of Leroy Carr. His sparse, blues-tinted jazz playing was instrumental in the formation of the West-Coast club blues style. Towards the end of the forties, he was persuaded to perform more ballads and jazz standards and his silky vocals propelled him into becoming one of biggest crooning stars of all time vying with Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. This is the classic version of this rhythm and blues standard, which was later covered by amongst others, Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones. It was written by songwriter Bobby Troup who happened to be the first white US army officer to be given command of an all-black unit during World War II.

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1942-1952

Disc Two - Guitar Boogies, Sax Screamers & Gospel Roads

Arthur Crudup - That’s Alright Mama
Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup (b. MS 1905-74), v, g; Ransom Knowling, b; Judge Riley, d. Chicago Sep 1946 - RCA Victor 20-2205
A late developer, Arthur Crudup was singing in gospel choirs as a boy but only taught himself to play guitar in his thirties, and was nearly forty years old when he had his first hit. Working simultaneously as a cotton picker and street musician, Crudup found himself in Chicago in 1939, where he was spotted by talent scout Lester Melrose who signed him up to a contract with RCA’s blues imprint, Bluebird Records. What marked Crudup out was that he really didn’t sound like anybody else at the time. His hard rocking country-style guitar was stylistically primitive but extremely effective when backed with Chicago’s top rhythm section, Ransom Knowling and Judge Riley. He also influenced the style of many other artists, notably John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

Big Joe Williams - Baby Please Don’t Go
Big Joe Williams (b. MS 1903-82) v, g; John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson, har; Ransom Knowing, b; Judge Riley, d. Chicago Jul 1947 - Columbia 30099
This is one of several versions that Big Joe Williams made of his most famous song, which he first recorded in 1935, and which has since been covered by Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters and countless other artists. He famously performed with his own homemade guitar, which he constructed with nine strings. He used a capo and played predominantly in the higher registers of his instrument giving him a sound somewhere between a mandolin and a twelve-string guitar. An energetic and passionate singer, his style is somewhat reminiscent of an earlier string band sound. His performing career stretched from his native Mississippi in the dying days of World War II , taking in successful concert tours of Europe, right up to 1983 in Memphis where he was playing just a month before his death.

Johnny Otis, His Drums And His Orchestra - Midnight In The Barrelhouse
John Alexander ‘Otis’ Veliotes (b. CA 1921-), d; John Anderson, t; George Washington, tb; Big Jay McNeely, ts; Devonia Williams, p; Pete Lewis, g; Mario Delagarde, b. LA 1947 - Excelsior 536
Otis was one of the first rhythm and blues musicians born in California and his importance in the history of the genre cannot be overstated. His first recordings were as a drummer on early Charles Brown and Wynonie Harris tracks, but after an accident in 1949, he switched to playing vibes. Apart from leading an orchestra, he also ran his own nightclub, The Barrelhouse, and it was after seeing Pete ‘Guitar’ Lewis play there at one of his open talent nights, that Otis decided to take him on as his regular guitarist. It is often stated that Ike Turner was the first to ‘discover’ the distorted guitar sound in 1951 on Rocket 88, but this recording shows that the technique, which is achieved by turning the guitar amplifier up too loud for the capability of its speakers, had been in use many years before, and in fact can even be heard on Louie Laskey’s solo acoustic track Teasin’ Brown Blues (Vol. 1) in 1935.

Lightnin’ Hopkins - Play With Your Poodle
Sam ‘Lightnin’ Hopkins, (b. TX 1912-82), v, g; Thunder Smith, p; unk, d. LA Aug 1947- Ald 209
Hopkins is a performer whose roots stretch way back to the early days of the blues. After meeting Blind Lemon Jefferson when he was just eight years old, he became convinced of his chosen profession, although he had to wait until he was in his thirties to bring his music to the record-buying public. Despite the prominence of a slicker style of rhythm and blues in California at the time, the Mesner Brothers took a chance on signing Hopkins up for their Aladdin label in 1946, and they were rewarded with a number of hits over the next few years. The quasi-narrated vocal on this old Tampa Red song betrays some country or hillbilly influences, but the lively, forward-looking guitar playing would not be out of place on records made ten years later. Fellow Texan, Buddy Holly may have absorbed certain influences from him in his short career in the following decade.

Sonny Boy Williamson - Shake That Boogie
Sonny Boy Williamson, (b. TN 1916-48), v, har; Blind John Davis p; Willie Lacey, g; Ransom Knowling, b. Chicago Aug 1946 - RCA 2056 Feb 47 (4)
John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson was a virtuoso musician who single-handedly reshaped the role of the harmonica in blues. He is the bridge between 1920s Memphis harmonicists and the post-war Chicago players and in many ways, this track is a fore-runner of what became known as the Chicago sound. He was responsible for pioneering a new band format :harmonica as lead instrument with guitar, piano and bass backing. Only the drums are lacking to complete the classic Chess era Chicago line-up. Williamson’s untimely death the year after this recording robbed the blues world of one of its most talented and charismatic practitioners.

Muddy Waters - I Can’t Be Satisfied
Muddy Waters, (b. MS 1913-83), v, g; Ernest Crawford, b; Chicago 1948 - Aristocrat 1305
Muddy Waters was very much the new kid on the block in 1948, far from being the ‘father of the Chicago blues’, as he would later be known. After his move north in 1943, it was Big Bill Broonzy who introduced him to the Chicago public. He arranged for Muddy to open the show whenever he played at club venues in the city, and the rowdy atmosphere that he encountered necessitated a switch from acoustic to electric guitar. This is a big sound considering it is just slide guitar and stand up bass, but Ernest ‘Big’ Crawford is pretty well a rhythm section on his own. His syncopated, slapped bass powers this recording along, still allowing ample space for Muddy’s searing guitar licks, and the instrumental break sees Crawford launching off into what is surely the first rumba bass riff in rhythm and blues.

John Lee Hooker - Boogie Chillen
John Lee Hooker, (b. MS 1917-2001), v, g. Detroit Sep 1948 - Modern 627 Jan 49 (1)
John Lee Hooker learned to play the guitar from his stepfather Willie Moore in the droning, one-chord Delta style of the previous generation, but his genius was to marry this up with a steady, boogie, dance beat giving his essentially downhome approach an added urban sophistication. A singularly hypnotic effect is conjured up through a heavy foot-stomping pulse, allied with the constant, single chord and simple hammered guitar figures. As he says in his song Teachin’ The Blues, ‘Throw the fancy chords away. Get this beat, this slow beat, this big beat.’ Although Hooker at the time generally played live as part of a group, the one-man-band format for many of his best-known recordings came about due to the session musicians’ inability to adapt to his idiosyncratic timing, but the success of Boogie Chillen ensured that he would continue to record in this way as a soloist.

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1942-1952

Disc Three - Have You Heard The News? There’s Good Rockin’ Tonight

Wild Bill Moore - Rock’n’Roll
Wild Bill Moore (b. TX 1918-83) ts; with unk acc.; (possibly Milt Buckner, p; “Scatman“ Crothers, v.) LA 1948 - Modern 674
Bill Moore was another of the honkin’ and screamin’ style saxophone players and his harsh, strident tone was perfect for the kind of sound being demanded by audiences in the big dance halls where rhythm and blues was being played. The Wild Bill nickname was adopted in 1946 to avoid confusion with two other jazz-playing Bill Moores on the scene in the mid 1940s. Rock And Roll is essentially a superior re-recording of his 1948 minor hit for Savoy We’re Gonna Rock, We’re Gonna Roll, and it starts off in a Cab Calloway vein, adding Wynonie Harris-style percussive hand-claps. After the sax solo, we get an example of the stop-start rhythm, which had been around since at least 1935 (see Bumble Bee Slim’s Policy Dream Blues (Vol. 1). Here though, the effect is more striking, with the band dropping out completely in the breaks to give the vocalist the space to deliver the lines in the manner that we now recognize as one of the hallmarks of rocknroll. The Suzie Q mentioned in the lyrics was a dance from the 1930s, which was revived and further popularised during the fifties. Moore became an important session musician at Atlantic Records and was still playing in the 1970s, when he guested on Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me. Rock And Roll was one of the first records that Alan Freed presented on his Moondog show in July 1951.

Roy Brown & His Mighty Men - Butcher Pete
Roy Brown, (b.N.O.1925-81), v; Teddy Riley, t; Johnny Fontenette, ts; Edward Santineo, p; Louis Sargent, g; Leroy Rankins, b; Frank Parker, d. Cincinnati Nov 1949 - Deluxe 3301
Roy Brown is perhaps best remembered as the writer of Wynonie Harris’ seminal Good Rockin’ Tonight, but his importance in the development of R&B goes much deeper. In the late 1940s, a number of singers who learned their trade in gospel choirs began to incorporate certain aspects of church music into a secular setting. Butcher Pete illustrates a new, preaching style, sung or shouted almost entirely on one note, with special emphasis placed on the vocalist’s phrasing and timing. The intensity of Brown’s pleading, emotional delivery contrasts somewhat with the sexually suggestive content of his lyric describing the activities of a ‘main-yak’ butcher with a long sharp knife who ‘don’t care whose meat he chops.’ Billboard’s reviewer of the time obviously loved it, calling it ‘loaded with imagination, humour and vitality’, Following the success of Good Rockin’ Tonight, Brown scored a further thirteen hits for the Deluxe label between 1948 and 1951, the biggest of which was Hard Luck Blues which hit the number one slot in June 1950.

Louis Jordan - Saturday Night Fish Fry
Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five: Aaron Izenhall, Bob Mitchell, Harold Mitchell, tp; Louis Jordan, as, ts, voc; Josh Jackson, ts; Bill Doggett, p; James “Ham” Jackson, el-g; Billy Hadnott, b; Joe Morris, d. NYC Aug 1949 - Decca 24725 Oct 49 (1)
Louis Jordan hooks on to the prevailing ‘rocking’ theme of the day with this, his fiftieth chart hit. Like many of his songs, the title suggests country life as a metaphor for experience in the big city. This was a much bigger sound for Jordan with a more modern tone on the guitar and a prominent bass line complimented by hi-hats. But his star was waning. The cool, detached style which was so appealing to white adults was completely inappropriate for the new teenage market and he was considered just too hokum by the bobby soxers. The supreme commentator and humorist who almost single-handedly redefined the role of black music in popular culture had had his day; his hits completely dried up in the 1950s. The song’s big band ending sums up his decline, harking back to another era where Louis was king.

Hal Singer - Rock Around The Clock
Hal Singer (b. OK 1919), ts; Sam Theard, v, Hal Mitchell, t, George Rhodes, p, Graham Moncur, b, Bobby Donaldson, d. NYC 1950 - Mercury 8196
Hal Singer had started off with Jay McShann and Hot Lips Page, but in 1947, he launched into a successful solo career cutting wild, food-orientated instrumental records. His first for Savoy Records was Cornbread, which reached the top spot in April 1948, followed by Beef Stew the following year. Moving over to Mercury in 1950, Rock Around The Clock was less successful but more influential. The rather tame Louis Jordan-style introduction is soon forgotten as the band reel out a litany of future rocknroll vocal clichés one after another. Gospel handclaps keep the rhythm going, interspersed by big band bombs on the drums and forward-looking piano triplets.

The Howlin’ Wolf - How Many More Years
Chester Burnett (Howlin’ Wolf, b. MS 1910-1976) v, har; Ike Turner, p; Willie Johnson, g; Willie Steel, d. Memphis July 1951 - Chess 1479 Aug 51(4)
The recording of downhome blues was centred in Chicago, new home for the majority of exiles from Mississippi come up river for work and a better life, but Memphis was the first stopping off point en route, and it was here that Wolf began to create his sound. No better blues pedigree exists; taught guitar by Charlie Patten, and harmonica by his brother in law, Rice Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson II), he also incorporated Jimmie Rodgers’ yodel into his vocal style. The voice was already there, rough as gravel, enough to send a shiver down the backs of anyone within a hundred yards. The track starts with another distinctive piano intro from Ike Turner before Wolf takes over the show. He would record four more singles at Philips’ studios before the Chess brothers whisked him off to Chicago for the next stage in his career. Never a big seller, Wolf managed just four records in the R&B top twenty and this would prove to be his biggest hit. Uniquely amongst major blues artists, his most influential work was done in the early 1960s, not with his own compositions, but with songs written by Willie Dixon, with whom he struck up a fractious partnership lasting ten years.

Rosco Gordon - Booted
Rosco Gordon, (b. TN 1934-2002) v, p; Adolph Duncan, ts, Willie Wilkes, ts; unk, b, d. Memphis Oct 1951 - Chess 1487 Feb 52 (1)
Gordon borrowed his trademark loping shuffle rhythm with the heavy accent on the off beat from Louis Jordan, but he had obviously been listening to New Orleans records, such as Archibald’s Stagger Lee, which had come out twelve months earlier. In his new role as talent scout for Modern Records, Ike Turner signed him up to the Bihari brothers’ imprint, RPM Records, but unbeknown to them, Sam Phillips had already sent the master to Chess, so the record came out on both labels. Howling Wolf found himself in an identical situation with simultaneous contracts binding him to the same two labels, but the ensuing legal arguments were settled with Wolf going to Chess and Gordon staying with RPM. The simultaneous release did undoubtedly help sales as Booted reached number one in February 1952. The record is further notable for the fact that the B-side, I Love You Till The Day I Die, sung by Bobby Bland, was Bland’s first recording, although it was credited to Rosco Gordon. If fellow Sun recording artist, Elvis Presley, had anything to do with the writing of his 1957 hit, All Shook Up, as is suggested by his name on the songwriter credits, it is in the borrowing of the melody of Booted.

Tiny Bradshaw - Well Well Well
Myron ‘Tiny’ Bradshaw, (b. OH 1905-58) v; Jimmy Robinson, p; Leroy Harris, g; Clarence Mack, b; Calvin Shields, d. Cincinnati Feb 1950 - King 4357 May 50 (2)
Success came late to Tiny Bradshaw; in fact he was almost fifty when he recorded this, his first stab at chart success. A twenty-year recording career had seen many incarnations of his big band, but it was this punchy four-piece group with its stop-go rhythm and percussive bass, which really made the difference. King Records had a stable of artists that was split between the hillbilly and R&B markets and label boss Sid Nathan worked out that he could get twice as much for his dollar if he paired up a country and a blues version of each record release. So, following Bradshaw’s success with Well Well Well, he got Moon Mullican to cover it, which made very good business sense for Nathan, less so for his artists as he invariably garnered songwriter credits (and royalties) on all the songs he published.

Elmore James - Dust My Broom
Elmore James (b. MS 1918-63), v, g; Rice Miller, h; Leonard Ware, b; Frock O’Dell, d. Jackson Aug 1951 - Trumpet 146 Apr 52 (9)
James had an occasional job working as guitarist for Trumpet Records backing Sonny Boy Williamson II, and in August 1951 it was suggested that he record a song as session leader. There were evidently no plans for releasing it, as James was not even called in to cut a B-side, so when it hit the charts some nine months later, nobody was more surprised than the guitarist himself. The title of the song is said to be southern slang for ‘leaving for good’, and is in fact a version of Robert Johnson’s I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom. The now familiar chunky guitar boogie riff made an early appearance on record on Johnnie Temple’s 1935 recording of Lead Pencil Blues (Vol. 1) and it is said that Temple jointly came up with the idea based on the style of a left hand boogie-woogie piano part, while playing with a musician he knew only as ‘RJ’ (Robert Johnson?). The familiar high bottleneck triplet figure was also borrowed from the Johnson original. It became Elmore’s trademark and in time would be part of the staple vocabulary of every aspiring blues guitarist. John Peel once said that if he could learn just one thing on the guitar, it would be the opening to this record. Of all the musicians who influenced the style of Jimi Hendrix, none had a greater effect than Elmore James.

Dominoes - Sixty-Minute Man
Clyde McPhatter (b. NJ 1932-72), Charlie White, Joe Lamont, Bill Brown, v; Billy Ward (b. GY 1921-2002), p. NYC Dec 1950 - Federal 12022 May 51 (1)
This was the record which really made the breakthrough for the Dominoes, and arguably for rhythm and blues itself, with a fourteen week stay at the top of the Billboard R&B charts in 1951 and a crossover hit to boot getting to #17 on the pop charts. There was nothing indirect about the sexual illusions in this record. Raunchy Lovin’ Dan’s rockin’ and rollin’ helped to popularise the phrase and clarify the meaning for its new audience unused to such frankness. The percussive tambourine and handclaps may have been straight out of the church, but the rest came from a different tradition, through urban blues back to hokum and beyond (see Volume One). McPhatter left the Dominoes to form the Drifters in 1953, tired of Billy Ward’s exploitation and excessive discipline, but Ward found a more than adequate replacement in Jackie Wilson.

Fluffy Hunter & Jesse Powell - Walk Right In
Fluffy Hunter, v; Buck Clayton, t; J.J. Johnson, tb; Jesse Powell, ts; Cecil Payne, bs; Bill Doggett, p; Johnny John, g; Jim Jam Smith, b; Herbie Lovelle, d. NYC Nov 1951 - Federal 12056 Jan 52?
Fluffy Hunter was the vocalist for the Buddy Banks Sextet during the late 1940s before joining Jesse Powell’s Orchestra in an all-star line-up including veterans Buck Clayton, J.J. Johnson and Bill Doggett. This is basically a re-working of an old blues chant with clever fill-in-the-blanks lyrics “I got a man who loves to Hucklebuck/When he gets home all he wants to do is.../Walk Right In.” Fluffy had to wait another couple of years before Federal decided to release anything else, and after two records in 1954, the label dropped her. Jesse Powell later led the house band for Jubilee Records and can be heard most notably providing the backing behind the Cadillacs.

The Swallows - It Ain’t The Meat It’s The Motion
Eddie Rich, Earl Hurley, Norris Mack, v; Herman Denby, v, b; Frederick Johnson, v, g; Sonny Thompson, p. NYC Sep 1951 - King 4501 early 52
The Swallows were another vocal group who originated from the Baltimore area and were unusual in that they played their own instruments. They were just thirteen when in 1946 they started to sing together as the Oakaleers. They were later inspired to adopt their new name from the Ink Spots’ recording of Otis Rene’s composition, When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano, which fitted in nicely with the prevailing fashion for vocal groups naming themselves after birds. With its descending bass, handclaps and ‘rhythm changes’ chorus, this is a pop record par excellence, eminently suitable for the record industry’s new business model of targeting their product at teenagers, albeit at this time still largely black.

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1942-1952

Disc Four - Soul Train Mambo - Destination New Orleans

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan - Stone Cold Dead In The Market
Ella Fitzgerald (b. VA 1918-96) & Louis Jordan, v: Aaron Izenhall, tp; Louis Jordan, as; Josh Jackson, ts; Wild Bill Davis, p; Carl Hogan, el-g; Po Simpkins, b; Eddie Byrd, d; Harry Dial, maracas; Vic Lourie, claves. NYC Oct 1945 - Decca 23546 June 46 (1)
Ella Fitzgerald had been a successful jazz singer before the war but her first major popular success came with a version of Ella Mae Morse’s Cow Cow Boogie which reached number one in the Harlem Hit Parade in 1944. She ventured further into the nascent rhythm and blues field with a string of duets which she recorded with Louis Jordan in the late 1940s. Jordan’s strength lay in the quality of his material for which he would search high and low, often taking submissions from unknown songwriters. He adapted this song from He Had It Coming by the Trinidadian calypso singer, Wilmoth Houdini, and the clave rhythm gave the track an authentic Caribbean feel which was lacking in another West-Indian hit song recorded the previous year by the Andrews Sisters, Rum And Coca-Cola. Jordan’s decision to use material from the West Indies may have been prompted by the large influx of immigrants from the islands into the New York area during and after World War II.

Edgar Hayes - Fat Meat ‘n’ Greens
Edgar Hayes (b. KY 1904-79), p, Teddy Bunn, g, Curtis Counce, b, Bryant Allen, d; LA 1948 - Exclusive 78 Feb 49 (11)
The rhythms of Latin-American music, such as the habanera, have always placed the emphasis on the first beat in the bar, and Curtis Counce’s funky bass riff that kicks off Fat Meat ’n’ Greens is in fact a mixture of latin rhumba and jazz shuffle. This hybrid, with its heavy upbeat, became the basis of arranger Jesse Stone’s familiar ‘Atlantic beat’, which was used to such great effect on records by Ruth Brown and the Clovers. The derivation of the word funk stretches back to the early years of the century, originally having the meaning of slow and mellow music, which is a description that could easily be applied to this atmospheric number. Ten years earlier, Hayes had recorded the original version of In The Mood, which was written by his trumpeter, Joe Garland, and later popularised by Glenn Miller. During the latter half of the 1950s, Counce would become one of the most celebrated bassists in the West-Coast branch of hard bop jazz. Rickie Lee Jones used his same riff on her 1970s hit, Chuck E’s In Love.

Dave Bartholomew - Country Boy
Dave Bartholomew (b. LN 1920-) v, t; Joseph Harris, as; Clarence Hall, ts; Fred Lands, p; Ernest McLean, g; Frank Fields, b; Earl Palmer, d. NO Apr 1949 - Deluxe 3223 Feb 50 (14)
Bartholomew’s role in the history of New Orleans music was immense. Apart from the hundred or so tracks he arranged, produced and co-wrote with Fats Domino, he also produced the first recordings by Archibald, Lloyd Price, Smiley Lewis, Shirley & Lee and James Booker, acting as talent scout or A&R man for Imperial, Aladdin and various other record labels. His first experience leading a band was on a paddle steamer playing traditional foxtrots and waltzes. In the early 1940s, he had the opportunity to watch a master at work, sitting in on trumpet with the Jimmy Lunceford Band while they were gigging in New Orleans. He credits Louis Jordan as his main early influence, and the underlying shuffle beat behind Country Boy is straight out of the Tympani Five’s canon, but it is likely that he was also thinking of Edgar Hayes’ Fat Meat ‘n’ Greens, which had been in the best seller charts a couple of months earlier. The rhumba riff is still there although in this case, it is played by the saxes rather than the bass. Bartholomew had no further chart success himself, although he did cut some notable records such as the novelty risqué tune My Ding-A-Ling in 1952, and a remarkably stark, single-chord, philosophical rap in 1957, The Monkey.

Professor Longhair & His Shuffling Hungarians - Mardi Gras In New Orleans
Henry Roland Byrd, v, p; Robert Parker, as; Al Miller, d; t, b, unk. NO Nov 1949 - Talent 808 early 50
A traditional New Orleans funeral parade would always be followed by a band of musicians known as the ‘second line’, playing a mournful dirge on the way to the cemetery, but on the way home, the drummers would lead off with a more up-tempo, syncopated, marching beat. The distinctive character of this beat was derived from the combination of an insistent, pounding bass drum with military-style snare drum rolls on top. Each beat was subdivided into four, spiced with latin-style syncopation. The genius of Roy Byrd, aka Pro’fess’or Longhair, was in taking these complex second-line drumming rhythms and translating them into a profoundly personal style of piano playing. He was able to do this because of his unique musical heritage starting off as a tap dancer, moving to drums before settling on his chosen instrument, the piano. You can just about hear in the background, way down in the mix, drummer Al Miller banging out that second line drumming riff on the snare drum. In searching for the roots of the Bo Diddley sound, of funk music, of the beats that constitute modern dance music, the starting point must be in New Orleans with Henry Roland Byrd.

Fats Domino - The Fat Man
Antoine Fats Domino (b. NO 1928-) p, v; Dave Bartholomew, t; Joseph Harris, as; Herb Herdesty, Clarence Hall, ts; Alvin Red Tyler, bs; Ernest McLean, g; Frank Fields, b; Earl Palmer, d. NO Oct 1949 - Imperial 5058 Feb 50 (2)
The Dave Bartholomew band provided the backing for this spirited reworking of Champion Jack Dupree’s Junker Blues (Vol 1). Dupree worked out a piano style uniquely his own, from which all-subsequent New Orleans pianists have borrowed, and Fats was no exception. He threw in Little Willie Littlefield’s characteristic triplet figure and hey presto, rocknroll piano was born. The powerful, upfront piano sound, apparently a mistake in the recording process, was something that Bartholomew was extremely unhappy about. However, the million copies, sold over time must have eased his pain somewhat. Another big factor in this record’s success was the rhythm section’s unremitting four to the floor beat in the intro, a beat which Holland, Dozier and Holland adopted as their very own for early Motown productions. According to drummer Earl Palmer, “That song required a strong afterbeat throughout the whole piece. With Dixieland, you had a strong afterbeat only after you got to the last chorus. It was sort of a new approach to rhythm music.” Palmer incidentally was the first musician to use the expression “funky” in referring to a syncopated and more danceable beat.

Lloyd Price - Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Lloyd Price (b. LN 1933-), v; Joseph Harris, as; Herb Herdesty, ts; Fats Domino, p; Ernest McLean, g; Frank Fields, b; Earl Palmer, d. NO Mar 1952 - Specialty 428 May 52 (1)
Seventeen year-old Lloyd Price was snapped up by Specialty Records when label boss Art Rupe was down in New Orleans to see if he could snaffle some of the local talent which Imperial Records seemed to be doing so well with. As composer of Lawdy Miss Clawdy, another 8-bar blues, Price was well placed to make the transition from R&B to rocknroll star. In addition to the innumerable cover versions of his famous song, he also managed to hit the pop charts no less than ten times between 1957 and 1963. This recording also features the talents of Fats Domino on piano and Earl Palmer on drums. Palmer would later become one of the greatest of all session drummers, featuring on tracks by the Monkees, Little Richard, the Beach Boys and Tom Waits as well as drumming on the theme tune for the Flintstones.

Johnnie Otis - Mambo Boogie
Don Johnson, t; George Washington, tb; Walter Henry, as; Lorenzo Holden, James Von Streeter, ts; Devonia Williams, p; Pete Lewis, g; Mario Delagarde, b; Leard Bell d. LA Jan 1951 - Savoy 777 Mar 51 (4)
The first wave of latin music to hit America came from Cuba in the late 1930s with Xavier Cugat, but there was very little influence on the blues until New Orleans became a major recording centre in the late 1940s. Some of the earliest rhumba-influenced blues recordings were Champion Jack Dupree’s 1944 Mexican Reminiscences, T-Bone Walker’s 1942 T-Bone Blues and the Four Blues 1945 The Blues Can Jump. A new style emerged at the end of the 1940s, also from Cuba, called the mambo. Otis had obviously been tuning in to Mexican radio, where he must have heard the great bandleader, Perez Prado, who brought big band mambo to Mexico City, from where its accompanying dance craze spread rapidly throughout South America. Otis was well ahead of the game, as the mambo didn’t fully hit America until 1954, which some commentators of the time billed as ‘the year of the mambo’. Mambo Boogie is a real cocktail of grooves and beats. The 3-2 rhumba clave rhythm underpins complex mambo percussion figures spiced by a syncopated blues riff, which provides the boogie element. Unison grunts are mandatory on mambo records and are found peppered throughout Prado’s recorded work.

Ruth Brown - 5-10-15 Hours
Ruth Brown (b. VA 1928-2006) v; Willis ‘Gaytortail’ Jackson, ts; Harry Van Walls, p; Connie Kay, d; t, saxes, g, b, unk. NYC Feb 1952 - Atlantic 962 Apr 52 (1)
Signing Ruth Brown was a smart move for Ahmet Ertegun, and she repaid him with no less than twenty-one top ten hits during the 1950s. She was so successful in her early years at the label that Atlantic was commonly referred to in the trade as “The house that Ruth built”. Taking time out from his obsession with alcohol-based songs, writer Rudy Toombs penned this R&B chart topper, which features Jesse Stone’s distinctive ‘mambo’ bass riff throughout and a tenor sax solo from Ruth’s husband, Willis Gaytortail Jackson. She retired from the music business in the 1960s, but had a late flowering in her career with celebrated roles as an actress including an appearance in the John Waters film Hairspray as DJ Motormouth Maybelle. Atlantic never really tried to compete with King Records during the risqué blues craze and this was about as raunchy as they were prepared to go.

Little Esther Philips & Mel Walker with Johnnie Otis and his Orchestra - Mistrustin’ Blues
Johnny Otis, vb; (Little) Esther Mae Jones (b. TX 1935-84), Mel Walker, v; Lee Graves, Don Johnson, t; George Washington, tb; Lorenzo Holden, James Von Streeter ts; Walter Henry, bs; Devonia Williams, p; Pete Lewis, g; Mario Delagarde, b; Leard Bell, d; with The Robins, Ty Terrell, Roy Richards, Billy Richards, Bobby Nunn, v. LA Feb 1950 - Savoy 735 Mar 50 (1)
In interviews, Otis has described himself as a ‘white negro’, growing up the son of Greek immigrants in a black neighbourhood, mixing with blacks and generally being immersed in black culture throughout his life. He was instrumental in bringing a great many black performers to public attention, such as Big Jay McNeely, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard, Little Willie John and Little Esther, whom he signed for Savoy Records when she was only thirteen years old. Still just fifteen when recording this number, the maturity of her singing belies her tender age, and her early church experience shines through in her vocal performance. Within a couple of years of recording Mistrustin’ Blues, she succumbed to the pressures that early success often brings to an artist, and her later years were hampered by heavy drinking and an addiction to heroin. A powerful version of the country song Release Me and a move to Atlantic saw a brief upturn in her career in the early 60s. A hit version of And I Love Him impressed The Beatles so much that they flew her over to England to star in a TV special celebrating their music. An even more unlikely chart success for her was the 1975 disco version of Dinah Washington’s What A Difference A Day Makes. As for Walker, after a couple of hits with Johnny Otis, he faded into obscurity.

Percy Mayfield - Please Send Me Someone To Love
Percy Mayfield, (b. LN 1920-84) v; Maxwell Davis, Richard Wells, ts; Charles Waller, bs; Eddie Beal, p; Gene Phillips, g; Red Callender, b; Lee Young, d. LA Aug 1950 - Specialty 375 Oct 50 (1)
Mayfield found himself in Los Angeles during the war, and while working as a taxi driver, he tried his hand at pitching songs to record companies and publishers. He was signed initially to Supreme Records after they had been impressed by a song he wrote for Jimmy Witherspoon, but success did not come to him until Art Rupe lured him over to Specialty in 1950. Please Send Me Someone to Love was the first of five top-ten hits on the label and it established him as a more soulful successor to Nat Cole in the sophisticated club blues style. The song became something of a standard with versions ranging from Dinah Washington, Etta James and BB King through to Jeff Buckley and Sade in the pop world, and it can be seen as a forerunner of the classic Ray Charles sound, the soulful, bluesy pop ballad. When he left Specialty, Mayfield became a staff writer for Charles’ Tangerine label and wrote Hit the Road, Jack for him in 1961. Bob Dylan once described him as one of America’s greatest poets.

Five Keys - Too Late Baby
Rudy West, Bernie West, Maryland Pierce, Ripley Ingram, Dickie Smith, v; Joe Jones, p; unk, b. NY Mar 1951 - Aladdin 3085 Apr 51
The Five Keys began singing gospel in Virginia in 1945 as the Sentimental Four, but with the change of name in 1949, came a new sound - four-part harmony with the melody on top. The great advantage they had over their competitors was that they had two lead singers who sang in different styles. Rudy West handled the pop-oriented Ink Spots-influenced ballads, like The Glory Of Love, and Maryland Pierce took over for the uptempo tunes and the bluesy ballads, like Too Late Baby. Pierce really shows his gospel influences on this number; his great heroes were the Dixie Hummingbirds and Roy Brown. It was their first release, but it was overshadowed by the huge success of The Glory Of Love, which came out a few months later.

Ray Charles - Misery In My Heart
Ray Charles (b. GA 1930-2004), v, p; Billy Brooks, Fleming Askew, t; Marshall Royal, Earl Brown, as; Stanley Turrentine, Maurice Simon, ts; Frank McClure, b; Eddie Piper, d. LA Nov 1951 - Swingtime 326 Jan 53
The story goes that Ray Charles, under the careful shepherding of Ahmet Ertegun, was coaxed away from earnest copy-cat versions of Nat King Cole and Charles Brown songs and steered towards the celebrated metamorphosis of rhythm and blues into soul music. However, careful investigation of his early work at Swingtime Records shows that this process was well under way before his move to Atlantic. He had already cut three top ten R&B hits before recording Misery In My Heart and right from the gospel piano intro and the first soulful vocal inflections, you can tell this is a Ray Charles record. The featured tenor sax player is none other than eighteen-year old jazz legend, Stanley Turrentine, who recounts getting together with Ray to help transcribe his early songs. Turrentine was probably jointly responsible with Charles for the fierce brass arrangement and you can hear echoes of this sound on later hits such as The Right Time. ‘Lord have mercy on me’ Ray cries, but this is no gospel record, this is soul music in all but name.