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 September 6

Friends:
This week on the Home Town Special we start local with Washington, D.C.-based artists Roy Self, Mary Klick, and Jimmy Dean and his Texas Wildcats. Chuck Berry’s fist hit, “Maybellene” is often linked to the country standard “Ida Red.” Other researchers have suggested that the proper antecedent is “Oh! Red” by The Harlem Hamfats from 1936. You’ll get to hear both and form your own opinion. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys dominated Western Swing through the 1940s and 1950s. His “Bubbles in My Beer” is a classic. Originally recorded in 1947, its release in 1951 was contemporary with Slim Willet’s “I’m A Tool Pusher From Snyder” and Wally Fowler’s “Carolina Swing.” Bob Wills’ younger brother Johnnie Lee Wills went to work for Bullet Records in Nashville as did fellow Texan, Charline Arthur, and Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals. Washington area disc jockey Don Owens was also a musician. When he died in an early-morning auto accident in 1963 he left an undated instantaneous recording of himself with fiddler Tex Logan doing “Black Mountain Rag.” Rex Griffin is sometimes proffered as the ghost behind some of Hank Williams’s most beloved songs. His “You Got To Go To Work” starts off our Labor Day set. The Carolina Tar Heels and The Carter Sisters with Mother Maybelle add differing perspectives.  The Golden Crown Quartet recorded for the Los Angeles-based Score records in 1950. The Howington Brothers, with a young Jimmy Dean on accordion, were working for Mrs. Lillian Claiborne around 1949 when they recorded for her DC Records imprint.

     Little Brother is all you need to see on a 1930’s Bluebird to know that the artist in question is Eurreal Montgomery and you are in for some marvelous piano playing. In this case, “Louisiana Blues – Part 2 which also features his distinctive quavering vocals. Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons teamed up for RCA Victor in early 1941 to record eight boogie woogie piano duets which were featured on a 4-disc 78rpm album (the original use of the term) titled “8 To The Bar.” This album set sold widely in the months leading up to World War II and was later reissued. Mercy Dee Walton came out of Texas and had some success with Specialty Records and with The Modern Records’ subsidiary, Flair Records, in the 1950s. In the 1960s Chris Strachwitz recorded him with Bay Area bluesmen K. C. Douglas, Sidney Maiden, and Otis Cherry in a relaxed session which captured his old-time sound in pristine audio. We’ll take a detour to New York City for some mid-1950s vocal group recording by The Mastertones, The Serenaders, and to Newport News for The Five Keys. We go back out to Los Angeles for some West Coast blues by Ervin “Big Boy” Groves and Harmonica Slim (real name Travis Blaylock). Groves and his band were long an enigma to the record collecting world. You can read Marv Goldberg’s 2019 biography online. Sam Phillips started Sun Records in Memphis in 1953 with a rather expansive view of what he was going to record. We’ll hear some of his early efforts with black pop vocalists and with vocal groups such as Juanita Brown with Dusty Brooks and His Tones, Billy (The Kid) Emerson, and The Five Tinos. Emerson, and Young Jessie both worked up answer records to Big Joe Turner’s 1954 hit “Shake, Rattle, and Roll. We close with one of Sam Phillips’ earliest releases, Jimmy De Berry and Little Walter Horton doing “Easy.” They took Ivory Joe Hunter’s 1949 composition “I Almost Lost My Mind” and transformed it into a stunning electric blues instrumental. I hope you hear something you enjoy.

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org
Jay Bruder

Sunday August 30

Friends:
This week on the Home Town Special Roy Milton has been playing “The Numbers.” Have you? If you bet on one of the national lotteries this past year you probably didn’t bring home the grand prize. But if you bet on Bluegrass Country with as little as $10 to $15 a month you made a wise investment in supporting programming that you enjoy. During a year when continuity and stability have been scarce, Bluegrass Country is still here and still delivering quality programming 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Your past contributions have helped us replace old electronic infrastructure, upgrade computer software such as our new RadioReplay on demand archive system, and pay the bills to our internet provider. I hope you agree it was money well spent and that you continue to support our future efforts. We depend on listeners to keep this operation afloat, and that means you.

Country Johnny Mathis, George Jones, and Reggie Ward and The Sons of Texas take us from near rockabilly to deep country. The Early Days of Bluegrass, a 6 CD-set and book, is offered as a premium and we’ll hear selections from it by The Kelleys, Hobo Jack Adkins, and Byron Parker. Ruth Brown set the pace in the mid-1950s with songs like “As Long As I’m Moving” and “Wild, Wild Young Men.” We’ll hear the echo of her music from Janis Martin, Rose Maddox, and Miss LaVell White. Kathy Young released “Magic Is The Night” in 1961 as a follow up to “A Thousand Stars.” The song was likely based on Stacy Henry’s “Magic Was The Night” from 1960. The Southern Sons and The Carolina Kings of Harmony deliver some fine gospel quartet singing out of Lillian McMurray’s Trumpet Records in Jackson, Mississippi.

Hour two starts with a trio of boogie woogie piano songs from Jimmy McCracklin and Amos Milburn. Jazz Gillum released the definitive version of “Key To The Highway” in November 1940. He was answered by Bill Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, and Little Walter. Harmonica blues continued to sell into the 1960s. We’ll hear from Jerry McCain, Frank Frost, and George “Wild Child” Butler who recorded for Stan Lewis’ Jewel Records out of Shreveport. As it’s fundraiser, we’re counting “tens” as in “Ten Cats Down” by The Miller Sisters on Sun, and other tens from Terry Noland and Bill Haley. Roy Brown steps to the stage with His Mighty, Might Men and Roy Milton responds, appropriately enough, with “It’s Later Than You Think.” Big Bob Dougherty closes the show on what sounds like a bass saxophone (you don’t hear those very often) on “Bullfrog Hop.” I hope you hear something you enjoy.

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org
Jay Bruder