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 January 23

Tonight on The Home Town Special we move out with Sammy Masters and his ‘Pink Cadillac.’ We are never short of car songs, so Faron Warmer and Curtis Gordon help us along. The same goes for rockabilly and we hear from Sandy Starr and Buck Griffin, two guys who were equally inclined towards country and rock’n’roll -the result was always interesting. We hear some early tracks by Jim and Jesse who were working as The Virginia Trio in 1953. I think we have seen enough winter weather that it’s time to break out two northern classics, ‘Nikolina’ and ‘The Drifting Vistling Snow,’ by The Iverson Brothers, Ernest and Clarence, performing as Slim Jim & The Vagabond Kid. Carmen Taylor puts her sophisticated twist on R&B and then we slip back into some Bluebird blues with Washboard Sam, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Big Joe Williams. John Chatman was better known as Memphis Slim and we will get to know him better on some fine blues tracks out of Chicago. Roosevelt Sykes bemoans the rising prices of 1945 and that leads to some jelly roll themed sides before the women take over with Terry Timmons, Big Sheba, Connie Allen, and Lillian Leach all showing us what they can do. Lazy Bill Lucas and Early Dranes give us their odd take on the blues and then its time to sign off. I hope you hear something you enjoy!

A special thank you is due to Dan Shipp and Nancy Lisi who maintain the bluegrasscountry.org webpage and social media sites respectively.

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org

Jay Bruder

Sunday January 16

Tonight on The Home Town Special, Charlie Feathers tells us to “Get With It” and that’s what we do for two solid hours. Feathers was a near contemporary of Elvis Presley at Sun in Memphis, but Feathers couldn’t seem to get a hit. We hear four of his wild rocking sides. Bluegrass Country still has copies of the great book and CD package called “The Early Days of Bluegrass.” I’ll play a few fine selections from it. Don’t come around asking where to get it after they are all sold out!  Sonny Til and The Orioles laid the foundation for the R&B vocal group tradition in Baltimore  in the late 1940s. I’ll play their first record and put a personal touch on the backstory to “Barbra Lee.” More boogies kick off the second hour. The “Jockey Jack Boogie” takes us on a swing through the local racetrack with Big Boy Groves reminding us “You Can’t Beat The Horses.” Don Robey out of Houston was an unlikely record man, but he built an entertainment empire in the 1950s. We’ll hear from some of his better known talent including Jimmy McCracklin, Big Walter Price, and Big Mama Thornton. Big Mama had a thing with dogs, and that leads us on a canine quest with titles such as “Barking Up The Wrong Tree,’ “Hot Dog” and “Go Away Hound Dog.” Who else could follow, but Hound Dog Taylor. We’ll finish out with some old time R&B bands and girls singers extraordinaire including Annisteen Allen, Big Maybelle, Rose Marie McCoy, and Washington’s own Baby Dee.  I hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org

Jay Bruder