This week on Jay Bruder’s Home Town Special

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Jay Bruder’s  big Washington music retrospective set, “R&B in D.C. 1940-1960” has been announced for September release by Bear Family Records and is available for advance sale from their website.

Sunday August 1

Friends:
This week on the Home Town Special The Keystoners kick things off with the “Magic Kiss” followed by two fine Philly groups The Capris and The Revels. Bill Browning worked out of Wheeling, but he had an influence on the Washington record scene through his recording of “Dark Hollow.” The late Ric Nelson gives us a little context on how Luke Gordon first recorded that song at Ben Adelman’s Empire Studio in Takoma and then re-recorded it with The Stonemans at Nelson Funk’s Rodel Studio in Georgetown. Hobo Jack Adkins give us some proto-grass from Kentucky on the Ace and Lucky labels. Lydia Mendoza reprises her timeless “Mal Hombre” for Imperial Records in the late 1940s. She is paired with the great Portuguese Fado singer Amalia Rodriguez. We finish the hour with The Parker Brothers of Norfolk recording right here in Washington in 1950. That sets us up for another in-depth excursion into D.C. R&B in the second hour. Billy Fair’s “Boogie In The Morning” and The Four Dots “You Won’t Let Me Go” show the two opposing trends in band and vocal group recordings coming out of Washington in 1950. We explore the extraordinarily good and bad luck of Washingtonians with RCA Victor in 1951 and 1952. The facilities and arrangements were great, but the sales were not for Jimmy McPhail, TNT Tribble, and the Young Gospel Singers. We delve into the rough edge of D.C R&B with The Chords, Frank “Two Horn” Motely, and Little Sonny Warner and The Rockets. We finish out with fine vocal group ballads from The Clovers, The Blues Jays, and The Five Blues Notes. Hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to Bluegrass Country!
Jay Bruder

Sunday July 25

This week on the Home Town Special we’ll be all over the place, as usual. First up a quick look at the much overlooked tradition of the piano in country music with titles from Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Hall, and Moon Mullican. Then it’s way down south for some great rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll from Bobby Charles, Dale Hawkins and Johnny Jano. We celebrate Washington and Virginia rockers with titles from Bobby Poe and The Poe Cats, The Rock-A-Teens tribute to Janis Martin, and a title called “Rockateen” by the Satellites, before turning to bluegrass from Chapel Hill and Southside Virginia. Piano-man Jimmy McCracklin rocks us up to gospel time where we hear from three great vocal quartets, The Southern Stars, Mitchell’s Christian Singers, and The Fairfield Four,  each of whom have a very different approach to quartet singing. The second hour kicks off with a great boogie courtesy of Marv Goldberg who asked me to dig in my collection for an obscure Harry Crafton/Doc Bagby disc (look for another great research piece coming soon from Marv, just search on Unca Marvy to get to his site). We head down to New Orleans for some old standbys from Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, and Roy Brown. There were lots of records which anticipated rock ‘n’ roll, but I’ll give you four examples from the late 1940s and early 1950s. Jimmy McCracklin comes back for a second shot with “I’m Looking for A Woman” which leads to a couple of related titles from Little Hudson and Bo Diddley. Lula Reed, Paul Tate, and Sonny Thompson recreate their “Watchdog” theme for Syd Nathan’s King Records. Finally Fay Adams takes us out with the R&B anthem “Shake A Hand.” Hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to Bluegrass Cuntry!

Jay Bruder