This week on Jay Bruder’s Home Town Special

Many listeners tune in by using their phones. Here is where to get the app.
Later in the week you can stream the show from the Archive Player. Launch the Sunday 6 pm segment and click ahead one hour.

Jay Bruder’s  big Washington music retrospective set, “R&B in D.C. 1940-1960” has been released by Bear Family Records and is available from their website.  It’s been reviewed in the Washington Post and Washingtonian magazine.  .

Many listeners tune in by using their phones. Here is where to get the app.
Later in the week you can stream the show from the Archive Player. Launch the Sunday 6 pm segment and click ahead one hour.

Jay Bruder’s  big Washington music retrospective set, “R&B in D.C. 1940-1960” has been released by Bear Family Records and is available from their website.  It’s been reviewed in the Washington Post and Washingtonian magazine.  .

Sunday June 4

This week on the Home Town Special we go from silly to serious and back again. Gene Wyatt and Ronnie Dove give us their unrelated compositions called “Lover Boy.” Ronnie was from Baltimore so we follow on with Baltimore favorites by The Stratfords and and The Lafayettes. “Life’s Too Short” was a title used by both The Lafayettes in the 1960s and The Cats and The Fiddle in the 1940s. That takes us back to Depression era blues records by Louie Lasky and Lottie Kimbrough from the “Chimpin The Blues” CD by Jerry Zolten and Robert Crum. Ian Nagoski of Canary Records in Baltimore has recently published a book and CD on the Armenian-American vocalist Zabelle Panosian. Her acoustic era recording of “The Crane” is a remarkable sound document. We’ll hear it along with titles by Cheika Tetma and Rita Abazi. Lil’ Son Jackson follows the Middle Eastern theme with “Cairo Blues.” from Bill Quinn‘s Gold Star Records with other Gold Star titles by “D. C. Washington” and Lightin’ Hopkins. Mitchell’s Christian Singers round out the first hour. Jack Sneed and his Sneezers talk about “The Numbers” Man” while The Golden Light Quintet of Baltimore enjoins you not to play the numbers. They never convinced Wynonie Harris. He sings “Grandma Plays The Numbers” and a host of his jump blues standards. Art Sheirdan ran the legendary Chance and Sabre Record companies out of Chicago in the early 1950s. We’ll hear some of those much sought after discs by The Five Echoes, The Chanceteers, The 5 Blue Notes, and Johnny Sellers. Little Donna Hightower, Louis Jordan, and Jack McVea answer. Not to forget piano boogies, Redd Stewart and Chuck Murphy document the country piano tradition. Homer & Jethro send up Larry Darnell’s “Oh Babe!”  The Pals remind us that “Summer Is Here” so don’t forget to get out and enjoy it. Hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org.

Jay Bruder

Sunday May 28

This week on the Home Town Special We start off with some rock’n’roll from ABC-Paramount including a track by “Vince Everett” of Atlanta (not his real name) and follow with tracks by Washington’s own “Vince Everett” (not his real name either) before turning our attention to some great late 1950s rock’ n’ roll songs by The Bell Notes, The Rocking Chairs, and The Keystoners.  Terry Fell gives us near his last gasp at a hit while at RCA Victor records before we recognize Memorial Day with WWII and Korean War songs from The Armstrong Twins, L.W. Lambert, Carl Sauceman, and The Carter Family. Dewey Price travels the road that will eventually lead to bluegrass with two mid-1940s cuts. Harry “The Hipster” Gibson kicks off hour-2 with a bang. Then it is time to go fishing with Tony Hollis, Willie Love, and Chuck Willis. That leads us to Chicago Blues with Muddy Waters, Robert Nighthawk, and Little Johnny Jones. Bo Diddley demonstrates the Chicago to D.C. connection. Appalachian Reign was a popular bluegrass band around Washington in the 1970s and 1980s. Leader, Tom Knowles, has worked with Tom Mindte of Patuxent Music to create a CD in remembrance of the band and the many sidemen who played in it. We’ll hear a couple of cuts from the new CD. We’ll also hear “Sally Ann” the sole playable track from the acetate Tom and The New River Boys cut at WPIK in the Virginia Theater building in Alexandria about 1956. Tom says they had Circle Recording run off some extra copies of that acetate. If anybody has one, he’d love to hear the flip side again. We finish up with some Top 40 rock’n’roll 78 rpm discs from 1957. They mark the beginning of the end of the 78-era in the U.S.  I think they sound better than the 45s or LP cuts, and sometimes they sound a little different that the master tape as presented on CD. Hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org
Jay Bruder