This week on Jay Bruder’s Home Town 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 December 3

Friends:

Most of the time on The Home Town Special we chase after where the music came from. Tonight, I am going to start with where the music went by playing three tracks that show how Rockabilly echoed down through the decades with cuts from some 35 to 55 years after Elvis’s Sun recordings. Roy Kyle and Nite Life do “I Like Your Style” from 1991, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and The Flatlanders do “Dallas” from 1995 (a fine example of personification, for those of you who collect named figures of speech), the irrepressible Marti Brom does “Get A Little Goner” from her 2010 Ripsaw CD, “Not For Nothin’.”  Bob & Lucille were known as the The Canadian Sweethearts which is somewhat of a misnomer given their scorching performance on “Enny-Meeny-Miney-Moe.” Country pianist Moon Mullican teamed with Boyd Bennett for the session which delivered “Seven Nights To Rock.” The Maddox Brothers and Rose lead off a set of obscure country recordings including the original, non-hit, version of “A Satisfied Mind” by Red Hays. We’ll hear some Christmas tunes from Ed Meath (I’d never heard of him before last week), Tex Williams and The Moonglows. We had a request for The Platters so you’ll get one of their big hits and three lesser-known tracks from the time when they recorded for Syd Nathan’s Federal label. Curley King’s version of “The Pale Horse and His Rider” sets us up for a great gospel performance by The Mello-Tones.

Sunnyland Slim kicks off hour 2 with “Jivin’ Boogie” which opens the door for Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Jivin’ The Blues.” The fine piano was from Joshua Althheimer. For all his hits, Amos Milburn had an equal number of great flip-sides. We’ll hear three, including his version of Lil Green’s “Why Don’t You Do Right.” Joe Loco answers with the same title in Mambo arrangement. The Swallows of Baltimore, The Bluebirds of New York, and The Hollywood Flames show us what double entendre really means. Will Rowland and Big Joe Turner carry on the Texas blues legacy of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Rabbit Foot Blues.” The Davis Sisters rock out on “The Christmas Boogie.” We’ll close with three great jump blues records from The Dominoes, Little Esther, and Lil Greenwood. I hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org.
Jay Bruder

Sunday November 26

Friends:

As the weather cools down, I wanted to warm things up on The Home Town Special with a quick trip to Hawaii. Recording engineer Bob Bertram created some remarkable sounding records out of a small Honolulu apartment. Yes, the bathroom served as the echo chamber. Bill Lawrence’s “Hey Baby” from late 1958 is a much sought after rockabilly record on the Bob’s Bertram International label. The Lawrence Brothers were Bertram’s regular studio band. They backed the teenage rocker, Robin Luke, on his hit, “Susie Darlin’.” Luke’s version of “You Can’t Stop Me from Dreaming” is another worthy entry into the rock ‘n’ roll record sweepstakes. It failed to chart, but it still holds up nicely today. It was clearly derived from a 1951 release by Helen Carter and Grant Turner with Dell Wood on piano.  That leads us to some obscure country material by The Maddox Brothers and Rose, with Fred taking the lead here, and then on to tracks by Johnny Tyler, and Zeb Turner. Saturday a week ago on Hot Jazz Saturday Night Rob Bamberger did his outstanding retrospective on the works of W.C. Handy. If you tuned in on WAMU-FM you heard more than a couple renditions of Handy’s “St. Louis Blues.” This song also had its run in the vocal group community. We’ll hear versions by The Mills Brothers, The Brooks Brothers, and The Progressive Four, a group out of Washington, D.C. Another Depression era song with surprisingly long legs was “River Stay Away from My Door.” While I don’t have the Jimmy Noone original from 1931, I do have a nice contemporary version by Paul Robeson (you would remember him for “Ol’ Man River”) and a version from The Syncopators out of southwest Washington, D.C. from 1949. The Syncopators had a brief shot at breaking into the pop charts thanks to two releases on National Records, but neither disc caught on. The group broke up within 6 months of their initial formation. We’ll cycle back to The Mills Brothers for their rendition of “Gloria” which became an inspiration to the first generation of R&B vocal groups. Shortly after The Mills Brothers original release, The Four Gabriels, a group recording for World Records in Nashville, released their slightly different interpretation of the song, but it was The Cadillacs (remember: ‘They often call me Speedo, but my real name is Mr. Earl’) who delivered the R&B version of “Gloria” which has served as the benchmark for all subsequent performances. The Wright Brothers and The Mello-Tones deliver some powerful gospel songs before Eddie Grishaw (aka Zeb Turner) delivers some great guitar licks on “Guitar Fantasy” with The Hi Neighbor Boys.

Pianist Pete Johnson recorded a great session in April 1939 which was released on Solo Art, a label oriented towards jazz collectors. Johnson did an instrumental version of “B. And O. Blues” which leads to a 1932 song of the same title by Bumble Bee Slim (r.n. Amos Easton). Following up on last weeks’ Sun blues to rockabilly theme we’ll hear Billy Hancock doing “Boogie Disease,” originally a Sun release done Dr. Ross –The Harmonica Boss. This track was from a series of magical sessions Billy did with Tex Rubinowitz for Jon Strong and Jim Kirhuff‘s Ripsaw Records. Billy was an attentive song collector. One of his favorite finds was a budget LP recorded by “Luke Gordon” at Ben Adleman’s Empire Studio in the Takoma section of Washington, D.C. From that LP, Billy transformed “Christmas in Tennessee” into a rock ‘n’ roll Christmas favorite. Then it’s back to The Syncopators to hear “These Are Things I Want To Share With You,” and a West Coast pop cover by George Shelly. Both were nice recordings. Neither made much of a dent in the market. I try to give an overview of the record scene in past decades, but sometimes I glance over successful artists because I think they are too well known. This week I’ll fix that a little bit by turning a brief spotlight on Sonny Til and The Orioles of Baltimore who were hugely influential from 1949 into the early 1950s. They set the stage for the stylistic changes which would sweep the industry in the years just preceding Elvis. By now you should have a little taste of just how important Washington and Baltimore were in the early years of R&B vocal group music. Next up are two lesser-known groups out of New York City studios, The Mel-O-Dots, and The Toppers who enjoyed releases in 1952. Hal Singer takes us home with a fine version of “Blue Velvet.” I hope you hear something you enjoy!

Thank you for your donations to bluegrasscountry.org.
Jay Bruder