This week on Jay Bruder’s Hometown 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 February 5

Last week on The Home Town Special you heard the first hour of the show twice. So this week we will try again with a new first hour and the previously recorded second hour. Norman Witcher cuts the fine line between rockabilly and straight up rock’n’roll with “Somebody’s Been Rockin’ My Boat.” The Drifters, Charles Clark, and Ted Prillaman with Hender Saul, quickly step us through the different styles of music most often featured on this show with vocal group, blues, honky tonk country, and bluegrass recordings. Last week I was remiss in not placing Kitty Wells‘ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” in context with the Hank Thompson hit “The Wild Side of Life.” J. D. Miller from Crowley, Louisiana wrote Well’s hit. He had certainly heard the Hank Thomposon hit, but there was more than a good chance he also heard the French version by Marie Falcon with Shuk Richard’s Louisiana Aces called <<La Cote Farouche de La Vie>>. Miller’s song royalties from the hit gave him the money to go into the recording business full time and he produced some incredible blues records. A set by Lightning Slim (Otis Hicks) gives you just a little taste of his output. Last week our Sunday Afternoon Host, Dick Spottswood, noticed that the Hawkshaw Hawkins’ record “Back To The Dog House” was based on “I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts of Town.” While I don’t have the Jimmy Rushing, Count Basie original, I do have nice versions by Big Bill Broonzy and Washboard Sam. Roy Milton with pianist Camille Howard gives us “Milton’s Boogie” from 1945, while Ralph Wilson, gives us “Roy’s Boogie” from 1949 which was named for his guitarist Roy Coleman. Marie Knight, once a sidekick to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, delivers a creepy lyric in “I Know Every Move You Make,” and is matched by Washington’s Clovers, and G. L. Crockett. Sonny Terry and his frequent partner, Brownie McGhee give us some Piedmont style blues from 1952. Brownie’s brother, properly called “Stick McGhee” with no ‘s’ was frequently misnamed as “Sticks” on record labels. That didn’t keep him from putting out some uptempo blues tracks with great dance rhythms for several different labels in the early 1950s. “You Won’t Let Me Go” was a popular tune around Washington R&B circles in 1951 when The Four Dots recorded it for Dot Records. They had won the recording opportunity through Jackson Lowes’ annual cycle of live radio talent shows. We trace the song back though Charles Brown in 1949, to the originator, Buddy Johnson, in 1941. Hopeless Homer brings us home with his tale of “The Girl In The Red Blue Jeans.” Hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org
Jay Bruder

Sunday January 29

Tonight on The Home Town Special we’ll take a brief excursion into cat culture from the mid 1950’s. Roy Orbison had only one hit on Sun with “Ooby Dooby,” which I played last week. Tonight I wanted to give fuller sense of what he did at Sun before moving on to mega stardom with his Monument recordings in the 1960s. The Platters were perhaps the most successful of the groups who crossed over from R&B to rock’n’roll and on into mainstream pop music. That didn’t spare them from harsh critique from a previous generation of pop music lovers, and especially from the sarcastic wit of Stan Freberg. We’ll hear him lampoon “The Great Pretender.” The Platters respond with their 1958 version of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” a 1933 standard from the musical “Roberta,” and follow with a nicely executed Disco-era version by Blue Haze.  Freberg made a career of running down rock’n’roll. His parodies were often mean-spirited and demeaning. He couldn’t help but gloat when the payola scandal hit in 1959. To celebrate he dusted off a 1950 pop title “The Old Piano Roll Blues,” and turned it into “The Old Payola Roll Blues.” I’ll play part 1. I don’t know about Part 2. Billy Walker‘s “Back Street Affair” sounds like an answer to Kitty Wells‘ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” which in turn was an answer to The “Wild Side of Life.” From There we go to the dogs with Hawkshaw Hawkins, Hank Williams, and Cliff Johnson. “Go Away Hound Dog,” another put down of Elvis, featured a really interesting harmonica player in the style of Sonny Terry, who we will hear in the second hour with his frequent partner, Brownie McGhee. Brownie’s brother, properly called “Stick McGhee” with no ‘s’ was frequently misnamed as “Sticks” on record labels. That didn’t keep him from putting out some uptempo blues tracks with great dance rhythms for several different labels in the early 1950s. Marie Knight, once a sidekick to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, delivers a creepy lyric in “I Know Every Move You Make,” and is matched by Washington’s Clovers, and G. L. Crockett. “You Won’t Let Me Go” was a popular tune around Washington R&B circles in 1951 when The Four Dots recorded it for Dot Records. They had won the recording opportunity through Jackson Lowes’ annual cycle of live radio talent shows. We trace the song back though Charles Brown in 1949, to the originator, Buddy Johnson, in 1941. Hopeless Homer brings us home with his tale of “The Girl In The Red Blue Jeans.” Hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org
Jay Bruder