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 released by Bear Family Records and is available from their website.  It’s been reviewed in the Washington Post and Washingtonian magazine.  .

Sunday May 29

Tonight on the Home Town Special we start with a little hep talk from Bobby Lee Trammell, Norman Witcher, and Andy Starr. “Little Liza Jane” can be traced back to a 1916 copyright, and then it became a staple of country music through the 20^th century. All the more reason to be surprised when it emerged in a rock’n’roll and r&b context in the 1950s. We hear versions by Dale Hawkins, Huey ‘Piano’ Smith and the Clowns, and Joe Dyson’s Orchestra. Ray Davis was a long-time host for BluegrassCountry, but back in the early 1950s he was attempting to break out as a recording artist. We’ll hear “Ray’s Boogie” by Ray’s band featuring Chubby Wise on fiddle. Washington did have some legitimate recording successes in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Syncopators out of SW Washington covered Buzz Butler’s ‘Mule Train.” They couldn’t beat out Frankie Laine, but their version must have sold moderately well as it is not very scarce today. In the country field Buzz Busby, John Duffy and The Country Gentlemen, and The Bluegrass Champs all put in an appearance. Joe Dyson makes a return appearance with the unusual “Merc-O-Matic Boogie’ which is a boogie, just not a piano boogie.  Likewise for “Boogie” by Snooky Pryor and Floyd ‘Moody’ Jones out of Chicago in 1948. “Anna Lee” got both Robert Nighthawk and Elmore James moving, though in different decades. Cecil Gant delivers some fine piano boogies and when Snooky and Moody return we delve in to the Chicago blues sound of Junior Wells. The only thing to follow that would be Viola Wells doing business as Miss Rhapsody. Then its Helen Humes, and LaVern Baker as Little Miss Sharecropper. A short set of vocal group records from Atlantic Records of New York City is about all we have time for at the end of the show. I hope you hear something you enjoy!

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Jay Bruder

Sunday May 22

Tonight on the Home Town Special we are going to cover some ground and Roy Orbison’s “Go Go Go!” gets us moving. Mac Curtis split the difference between rockabilly and rock’n’roll quite nicely so we’ll hear three of his King recordings, including “That Ain’t Nothing But Right.” It’s not uncommon for 1950s musicians top recycle religious songs into love songs, but on rare occasions they would use biblical metaphors to recount the bitterness of rejection. We’ll hear a handful of these gems. Then it’s back to Washington, D.C. for Luke Gordon and Marvin Rainwater. Mickey Gilley recently passed so I’ll play a few of his tunes that did not make the TV obits. The Southern Wonders live up to their billing with a fine version of “Shady Green Pastures” followed by an updated version from Washington by Mae Gooch and the Gospel Stars recording for Mrs. Lillian Claiborne in 1949. Pete Johnson makes a return appearance with two great piano boogies. Gladys Palmer and Jo Evans gives us a sense of Black Pop music in the transition to the R&B years. We don’t need much of an excuse to paly Washington’s own Clovers. Here they are augmented by The Blue Belles, also recording for Atlantic. Then it is out to Los Angeles for a particular style of vocal group ballads by The Jewels, The Marbles, and Jesse Belvin. Then it’s up to Detroit for some rough and ready country from Fortune Records. Buster Turner shows us how close his band came to classic bluegrass in 1956. Boots Gilbert gives us some honky tonk country with “Take It or Leave It.” While Skeets McDonald gives us his juke box hit, “The Tattooed Lady.” The Davis Sisters and The Carter Sisters with Mother Maybelle take us back to more conventional country sounds, followed by Jimmy Reed’s slow and easy blues style to ease us out for the week. I hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org

Jay Bruder

Sunday May 15

Tonight on the Home Town Special we are really going to jump around the country and styles of music. Four Star Records run by Bill McCall out of Pasadena, California was best known for its country output, but there were a few rockers and boppers on the label. We’ll hear Ramblin’ Tommy Scott’s version of ‘Cat Music,’ Charlie Ryan updates “The Hot Rod Race” as “Hot Rod Lincoln” in 1959, and Arkie Shibley sends up the typical movie-star cowboy with “Pick, Pick Pickin’.” Rocking is our business and we trace back “Rock The Joint” from Jimmy Cavallo, through Billy Haley, to Jimmy Preston. LaVern Baker worked hard to break through at the outset of her career. We’ll hear her first record with Eddie “Sugarman” Penigar, a jumper with Maurice King (who would become a key force at Motown), and the flip of her first release for Atlantic called “How Can You Leave A Man Like This.” Her move to Atlantic led to a very successful career as a pop-oriented rock’n’roller.  Rosetta Perry from Baltimore sets us off on a trace of female vocalists who really could rock. And that leads us to rock’n’rollers Mac Curtis, Johnny Carroll, and Carl Mann. Louie Setzer delivers his unique brand of Pennsylvania bluegrass. In hour two Roosevelt Sykes commends “This Tavern” with a boogie, while Amos Milburn documents the consequences from “Vicious, Vicious Vodka.” ‘Right, but wrong’ is a common theme in R&B. Charmaine Neville out of New Orleans gives an animated live performance of “The Right Key, But The Wrong Keyhole.” We get a little rejoinder from The Four Jacks with “The Last of The Good Rockin Men.” Elmore James was one of the leading proponents of Delta-style electric slide guitar, but he had more that one trick and we’ll get to hear a couple of his later non-slide performances. Otis Rush was one of the late- 50’s generation of Chicago-based guitar players. Along with Elmore James they pioneered new sounds which influenced guitar recordings into the 1960s and beyond. D. Clinton Thompson was so taken the with the 60s surf music sound of the Ventures that he reprised their “Driving Guitars” in 1978. That brings us back to Piedmont Blues, acoustic style with Dan Pickett’s “Driving That Thing.” The Flamingos and The Jumping Jaguars wrap things up for us. I hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org