Podcasts about Gatemouth

PLAYLIST Pacific St Blues & Americana 12 01 2024Now on YouTube.com https://www.youtube.com/@PacificStBluesnAmericanaPacific St Blues & Americana December 1, 2024 Support the Show: Impress Your Friends! Just in Time for Christmas: T-shirts, Hoodies, Mugs, Hats, Clocks, Phone Cases, Back-Packs22. Jimmy & Stevie Ray Vaughan / Tick Tock 23. Orianthi / Some Kind of Feeling 24. Joanne Shaw Taylor / Who's Gonna Love Me Now 25. Canned Heat / One Last Boogie 26. Swampboy / Merry Christmas Baby27. Billy Boy Arnold w/ Duke Robillard Band / Christmas Time Part 128. Joe Bonamassa / Lonesome Christmas29. Kermit Ruffins / Saint's Christmas30. Tab Benoit / The Ghost of Gatemouth 31. Freddie King / Palace of the King 32. Bates Motel / Put Your Hand on the Radio 33. Bruce Springsteen / Raise Your Hand 34. Ronnie Baker Brooks / I'm Feeling You 35. Melvin Taylor & the Slack Band / Bang that Bell 36. W / Here Comes My Girl 37. Larkin Poe / Running Down a Dream

So just who did write "Flying Home"? Who recorded it first? What's it all about? In this episode of Same Difference, AJ and Johnny answer all these questions and more, while listening to versions of this fun Jazz standard by Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Tito Puente, and new-to-us artist The Robert Bell Hot Swing Combo.

Dwight Yoakam "Guitars, Cadillacs"Hüsker Dü "Chartered Trips"Chad Price "Katarina"Fats Waller "Loafin' Time"Otis Blackwell "You Move Me, Baby"Hank Williams "Honky Tonk Blues"Eilen Jewell "Boundary County"Lucero "Sixteen"The Deslondes "Howl at the Moon"Cedric Burnside "We Made It"Fats Domino "One Night"Dr. John "Gimme That Old Time Religion (feat. Willie Nelson)"Jake Xerxes Fussell "Jump for Joy"Sister Rosetta Tharpe "This Train"Jessie Mae Hemphill "Run Get My Shotgun"Moon Mullican "Grandpa Stole My Baby"Palace Music "Work Hard / Play Hard"Hezekiah & the Houserockers "Baby, What You Want Me To Do"Moving Targets "Separate Hearts"Two Cow Garage "Come Back to Shelby"Charles Clark "Hidden Charms"Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown "Atomic Energy"Billie Holiday "Let's Call A Heart A Heart"Mance Lipscomb "If I Miss the Train"Ian Noe "Pine Grove (Madhouse)"Tom Waits "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen)"Howlin' Wolf "Goin' Down Slow"Georgia White "Get 'Em from the Peanut Man (Hot Nuts)"Leon Redbone "Sheik of Araby"Duke Ellington and His Orchestra "Love Is Like a Cigarette"J.W. Warren "Hoboing into Hollywood"Clifford Hayes & The Dixieland Jug Blowers "You'd Better Leave Me Alone, Sweet Papa"Johnny "Guitar" Watson "Hot Little Mama"Andrew Bird "Eight"Gillian Welch "Hard Times"Skip James "Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader"Beck "Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods"Jimmie Rodgers "Blue Yodel No. 8 (Mule Skinner Blues)"Mississippi Fred McDowell "Shake' Em On Down"Pretenders "Thumbelina"Richard Berry "Oh! Oh! Get out of the Car"Valerie June "Don't It Make You Want To Go Home"Dianogah "Es Possible Fuego"Loretta Lynn "Women's Prison"Professor Longhair "She Ain't Got No Hair (1949)"Johnny Cash "There Are Strange Things Happening Every Day"Superchunk "Throwing Things (Acoustic)"

Too much good stuff (said no geek ever) - it's the news with the blues (okay, you're right, too easy)... Backed by blues from former board-opp Nick the Trick (2012 edition), the Gearhead consultancy's got Toyota missteps on supporting cop-haters, mass murderers and bad TV coverage, Tesla's problem with cars that can't do cold and satellites that can't do space, and DOT head Pete "Gen-2 Marxist" Buttgieg's ongoing war on effective traffic flow. Special appearances from Peter Pantsless, Big News Heads, Ray Charles, Jeff Beck, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, BB and Albert King, Cray, Hendrix, Musselwhite, Gatemouth and Canadian truckers.

Too much good stuff (said no geek ever) - it's the news with the blues (okay, you're right, too easy)... Backed by blues from former board-opp Nick the Trick (2012 edition), the Gearhead consultancy's got Toyota missteps on supporting cop-haters, mass murderers and bad TV coverage, Tesla's problem with cars that can't do cold and satellites that can't do space, and DOT head Pete "Gen-2 Marxist" Buttgieg's ongoing war on effective traffic flow. Special appearances from Peter Pantsless, Big News Heads, Ray Charles, Jeff Beck, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, BB and Albert King, Cray, Hendrix, Musselwhite, Gatemouth and Canadian truckers.

For this episode, we're sharing an extended cut of Jason Miller's recent conversation with author Roger Wood. The interview was featured on episode 3 of this season of Bayoulands. Roger Wood's book Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues is a detailed and extensive portrait of the Houston blues scene. For this interview, Jason and Roger focused on one of the major players in the Houston blues scene, the late Clarence Gatemouth Brown. Our thanks to Roger Wood. Tune in to 91.3 FM and kvlu.org on Sunday, September 26that 5pm for a repeat of Episode 3 of Bayoulands, featuring the radio version of Roger Wood's interview along with music selections and an interview I did with the president of Lamar State College Orange, Dr. Thomas Johnson, about the college's upcoming plans to honor Gatemouth Brown by unveiling "Gatemouth Plaza" this October. If you want to take a local "Gatemouth" tour, check out the Texas Historical Marker which stands at the site of his grave at Hollywood Cemetary located on Simmons Drive in Orange and an exhibit of original artifacts on view in the Gulf Coast Music Hall of Fame at the Museum of the Gulf Coast located at 700 Procter Street in Port Arthur. Unfortunately, Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues is no longer in print, but there are a fare amount of copies for sale online. If you enjoy the conversations shared in this podcast, please remember to share and subscribe to Bayoulands TALKS wherever you find your podcasts. You can also listen on NPR One along with other podcast offerings from KVLU public radio. And join us on social media at 91.3 KVLU Public Radio on Facebook and bayoulands on Instagram. Bayoulands TALKS is produced in the studios of 91.3 KVLU Public Radio in Beaumont, Texas by Shannon Harris and Jason M. Miller. For more information and to stream KVLU online visit: kvlu.org.

Justin Townes Earle "Midnight At the Movies"ZZ Top "Francene"Lucinda Williams "Real Love"Albert King "Personal Manager"Precious Bryant "You Can Have My Husband"Ted Hawkins "California Song"The Clash "The Sound of Sinners"Sister Rosetta Tharpe "This Train"Reverend Gary Davis "Blow, Gabriel"Victoria Spivey "Detroit Moan"Ray Price "Crazy Arms"Jerry Lee Lewis "Ballad of Billy Joe"Valerie June "On My Way / Somebody To Love (Acoustic Version)"Jon Snodgrass "Don't Break Her Heart (feat. Stephen Egerton)"Joan Shelley "Brighter Than the Blues"Billie Holiday "Summertime"Maria Muldaur with Tuba Skinny "Delta Bound"Junior Kimbrough & The Soul Blues Boys "All Night Long"Hank Williams "Honky Tonk Blues"Peg Leg Howell and His Gang "Too Tight Blues"Etta Baker "Carolina Breakdown"James McMurtry "Hurricane Party"John Lee Hooker "I'm In the Mood (feat. Bonnie Raitt)"Hezekiah and The House Rockers "Baby, What You Want Me to Do"Roosevelt Sykes "Sister Kelly Blues"Tiny Bradshaw "Walk That Mess"Johnny Cash "Home of the Blues"Superchunk "Why Do You Have to Put a Date on Everything"Various Artists,Joseph "Come on up to the House"Jake Xerxes Fussell "Let Me Lose"Mississippi Fred McDowell "Red Cross Store Blues"The Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson) "Want to Woogie Some More"John Lee Hooker "Boogie Chillen"Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys "Bring It On Down to My House, Honey"Merle Haggard & The Strangers "If I Could Be Him"Wynonie Harris "Drinkin' By Myself"Lula Reed "Bump On a Log"Louis Jordan "Blue Light Boogie"Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown "Guitar In My Hand"The Black Keys "Crawling Kingsnake"Charlie Feathers "Can't Hardly Stand It"Eilen Jewell "Shakin' All Over"Bob Dylan "Political World"Bing Crosby "Street of Dreams"Dave Bartholomew "That's How You Got Killed Before"Jessie Mae Hemphill "Run Get My Shotgun"Big Joe Williams "Levee Camp Blues"Steve Earle "Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold"

Playlist: Snatch It Back and Hold It – Junior Wells; Soul Fixin' Man – Luther Allison; Got My Mojo Working – Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown; Sloppy Drunk – Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women; That Did It – Roy Buchanan; Keep On Lovin' Me, Baby – The Paladins; Love Disease – Michael Burks; I'm A Blues Man – Kenny Neal; Run Myself Out Of Town – The Holmes Brothers; Jump Start – Little Charlie & The Nightcats; I'm Still Leaving You – Katie Webster; Don't Lose My Number – Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King; Corner Of The Blanket – The Kinsey Report; There's A Devil On The Loose – Mavis Staples. Escuchar audio

Mais um final de semana e o #BluesBox segue sendo a sua melhor companhia para o sábado à noite. Hoje, o destaque fica com Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown e a identidade do blues!

The Happiness Quotient #71The Legend of CLARENCE GATEMOUTH BROWNThis episode of the The Happiness Quotient can be found in audio only format at:https://www.buzzsprout.com/268133/8029682And on YouTube at this address: https://youtu.be/BDXmcezMIwQClarence Gatemouth Brown did not want to be known as a bluesman. He called his brand of music "American and World Music, Texas Drive and Swing"In a previous lifetime I was a television reporter for an NBC affiliate in western Massachusetts, WWLP, Channel 22. I was hired as a features reporter, wherein I’d produce, shoot, edit and report in a series that I called IN TOUCH WITH WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS. Today, I’m bringing you an inspiring, honest never-before-heard interview conducted by myself in 1988 with the amazing, Grammy winning, Blues Hall of Fame legend of the blues (for lack of a better word) CLARENCE GATEMOUTH BROWN. I first met Gatemouth to interview him at his hotel, the Red Roof Inn in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, the morning before a show at the now defunct Sheehan’s Cafe in Northampton, Massachusetts. I’m going to play for you everything from that interview and impressive performance that evening, which took place during a time that many would say was the peak of his storied career. Gatemouth, who lived on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, was diagnosed in 2004 with lung cancer. When the notorious Hurricane Katrina moved into the region in August 2005, he hurried away to stay with his brother in neighboring Texas. His home was ruined during the hurricane, and his guitars and instruments washed away. Gatemouth passed shortly after.Please enjoy this 1988 interview with the incredible Gatemouth Brown, including music from his performance that night. In the interview, Gate schooled me on what The Blues really is, and how he is most assuredly NOT a bluesman. He plays a special kind of music, and it’s not the blues.For more information about Clarence Gatemouth Brown on Alligator Records:https://www.alligator.com/artists/Clarence-Gatemouth-Brown/Gate’s iconic 1966 Gibson Firebird guitar:http://legacy.gibson.com/news-lifestyle/features/en-us/legendary-guitars-clarence-708.aspxGate’s NY Times obituary:https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/arts/music/guitarist-clarence-gatemouth-brown-dies-at-81.htmlGrateful Dan Tie Dye's Etsy page for Jerry Garcia glow-in-the-dark T:https://www.etsy.com/shop/GratefulDanTieDyeTom Reney, producer/host of Jazz a la Mode on New England Public Media:https://www.nepm.org/people/tom-reney#stream/0For more information about Thom Pollard:www.eyesopenproductions.comFor a free downloadable copy of A Course In Happiness:www.patreon.com/thehappinessquotientOur theme song, Happiness Jones, appears courtesy of The Wood Brothers.For more information about The Wood Brothers:https://www.thewoodbros.com/The Wood Brothers on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTvWKQovDZlLceuct1EEMMQHappiness Jones video can be seen here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKIoiVWwF5AFor more about Thom Dharma Pollard, about personal coaching or his inspirational presentations, virtual or in person, find him at: www.eyesopenproductions.comTo join his mailing list for The Happiness Quotient, email him at thom.dharma.pollard@gmail.comSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/thehappinessquotient)

Our guest this episode is drummer Chris Lacinak. Chris has drummed with some legendary people like Gatemouth Brown, Papa Mali, Tab Benoit, & Adam Peters of Echo & The Bunnymen and Family of God to name a few. But his love of New Orleans jazz and second line drumming drove him to form his band Junko Beat with Vernon Rome and Will Snowden.This episode was an education for me in a genre of music that I was not at all familiar with, but am now deeply intrigued by. Chris tells some great stories of touring with Gatemouth, moving all over the country and playing sessions. There's also some great New Orleans jazz history in here. So there's something for everybody. Check out Junko Beat's new album Satirifunk on streaming services or their website, junkobeat.com. Subscribe, rate, & review the show. Follow us @PerformanceAnx on the socials. And let jump right into some funky stuff with Chris Lacinak and Junko Beat.This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts.

Our guest this episode is drummer Chris Lacinak. Chris has drummed with some legendary people like Gatemouth Brown, Papa Mali, Tab Benoit, & Adam Peters of Echo & The Bunnymen and Family of God to name a few. But his love of New Orleans jazz and second line drumming drove him to form his band Junko Beat with Vernon Rome and Will Snowden.This episode was an education for me in a genre of music that I was not at all familiar with, but am now deeply intrigued by. Chris tells some great stories of touring with Gatemouth, moving all over the country and playing sessions. There's also some great New Orleans jazz history in here. So there's something for everybody. Check out Junko Beat's new album Satirifunk on streaming services or their website, junkobeat.com. Subscribe, rate, & review the show. Follow us @PerformanceAnx on the socials. And let jump right into some funky stuff with Chris Lacinak and Junko Beat.This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts.

Our guest this episode is drummer Chris Lacinak. Chris has drummed with some legendary people like Gatemouth Brown, Papa Mali, Tab Benoit, & Adam Peters of Echo & The Bunnymen and Family of God to name a few. But his love of New Orleans jazz and second line drumming drove him to form his band Junko Beat with Vernon Rome and Will Snowden. This episode was an education for me in a genre of music that I was not at all familiar with, but am now deeply intrigued by. Chris tells some great stories of touring with Gatemouth, moving all over the country and playing sessions. There’s also some great New Orleans jazz history in here. So there’s something for everybody. Check out Junko Beat’s new album Satirifunk on streaming services or their website, junkobeat.com. Subscribe, rate, & review the show. Follow us @PerformanceAnx on the socials. And let jump right into some funky stuff with Chris Lacinak and Junko Beat. This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts.

The CBS Trumpeteers - I Want to Know Rev. Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore - They Buried Sin, Pt. 1 Archie Brownlee & The Five Blind Boys Of Mississippi - In The Wilderness Arizona Dranes - I Shall Wear a Crown Bessie Griffin and the Gospel Pearls - Two Wings Gospelaires Of Dayton Ohio - Live So God Can Use You The Selah Singers - Down Here I'Ve Done My Best (I Want To Go To Heaven And Rest) Angel Voices - Tell the Angels Famous Davis Sisters - Rain In Jerusalem Kelly Brothers - I Couldn't Hear Nobody Prayer Professor Harold Boggs & The Boggs Specials - God's LSD Charlie Patton - Prayer Of Death Part 1 (1929) Blind Connie Williams - Mother Left Me Standing on the Highway Blind Arvella Gray - Cryin' Holy Unto The Lord Elizabeth King & The Gospel Souls - I Hear The Voice Shirley Caesar - I'd Rather Serve Jesus Archie Brownlee & The Five Blind Boys Of Mississippi - You Done What The Doctor Couldn't Do Sister Lucille Barbee - Where Could I Go Echoes Of Zion - My Time Ain't Long The Soul Stirrers - He'll Welcome Me

-The Trumpelettes - You Don't Know My Trouble -The Original Gospel Harmonettes - The Righteous on the March -Clefs of Calavry - Keep On Marching -Brother Wilie Eason - I Want To Live -Bishop Manning & the Manning Family - This Is Everybody's Song -The Bright Clouds - Certainly Lord! -Leon Pinson - What God Can Do The Fairfield Four - The Bells Are Tolling -Prophet Powers - The Tree of Life -The Gospelaires of Dayton, Ohio - Joy, Joy, Joy -Rev. Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore - The Bible's Being Fulfilled Every Day -The Joy Rite Singers - You Better Mind -Sister O.M. Terrell - I'm Going To That City -Roosevelt Graves And Brother - Woke Up This Morning -Eddie Head and His Family - Down On Me -Harold Boggs - Lord Give Me Strength -Alpha & Omega Singers - That's Alright -Prince Dixon - The Small One - April 4th, 1968 -The Violinaires - I Don't Know

Welcome to episode twenty-three of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at “Pledging My Love” by Johnny Ace Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Also, remember I’m three-quarters of the way through the Kickstarter for the first book based on this series.  —-more—-   Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. I’ve used two main books for the information in this episode — The Late Great Johnny Ace and Transition from R&B to Rock ‘n’ Roll by James Salem is an exemplary biography, which gets far more detail about its subject than I would have though possible given his short, underdocumented, life, and which also provided some of the background material about Memphis. Big Mama Thornton: Her Life and Music by Michael Spörke  is the only biography of Thornton. It’s very well researched, but suffers somewhat from English not being its author’s first language. I got some additional details about the overlap between Ace and Thornton, and some of the information about Don Robey, from that. The Patreon-only Christmas episode I mention is here, for Patreon backers. Normally when I’m recommending a way to buy the music I discuss, I link to things available as a CD. This time, I’m going to link to a digital-only release, but it’s worth it. Ace’s Wild! The Complete Solo Sides and Sessions contains every track ever recorded and released by Ace, including the posthumous overdubbed tracks; every released track he played on for other Beale Streeters including classics from B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland; and a selection of the tribute records I talk about. I know of no physical release that’s anywhere near as comprehensive. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A content warning: this episode contains a description of a death by gunshot. I am not using any of the more explicit descriptions of this death, though I do describe some aspects of it, but talking about that subject at all can be upsetting, so if you’re likely to be disturbed by that, please turn off now. If you’re unsure whether you’ll be upset, remember that there are blog posts at 500songs.com containing the full text of every episode, and you can read the text there before listening if you wish. Johnny Ace was born John Alexander Jr — he used a stage name because his mother didn’t approve of secular music — and he was part of a group of musicians called the Beale Streeters. To understand the importance of this group of people, you have to understand Memphis and why it was important. American regional musical culture could be incredibly specific, and different cities had different specialities. That’s changed somewhat now, as transport and communications have got so much better, but certainly in the first half of the twentieth century you’d find that cities a hundred or so miles apart had taken a lot of the same musical influences but put them together in radically different ways. And Memphis, in particular, was an unusual city for the southern US. It was still an intensely racist city by any normal standards, and it was segregated, and thus still home to countless horrors and crimes against humanity. But for the Southern US black people led comparatively comfortable lives, simply because Memphis was very close to fifty percent black in the early decades of the twentieth century — and was actually majority-black in the late nineteenth. In 1878, there was a plague — yellow fever swept the city — and it took an immense toll. Before the 1878 plague, there were fifty-five thousand people living in Memphis. Afterward there were fourteen thousand, and twelve thousand of those were black. The plague killed seventy-five percent of the white people living in Memphis, but only seven percent of the black people. Even though white people moved back into the city and eventually became the majority again, and even though they had all the institutional power of a racist state on their side, there was less of a power imbalance in Memphis, and the white ruling classes simply couldn’t keep black people down as thoroughly as in other Southern cities. Memphis’ regional speciality is the blues, and its first great musical hero was W.C. Handy. Even though Handy only lived in Memphis for a few years, having been born in Alabama and later moving to New York, he is indelibly associated with Memphis, and with Beale Street in particular. Handy claimed to have invented the blues, though his blues wasn’t much like what we’d call “the blues” these days, and often had an element of the tango about it. And he was certainly the first person to have any kind of hit with blues songwriting, back in a time when hits in music were measured by sheet music sales, before recorded music had become more than an interesting novelty. [excerpt: “Beale Street Blues” by W.C. Handy] So Memphis was, as far as the wider world was concerned, and certainly as far as anyone in Memphis itself was concerned, the birthplace of the blues. And Beale Street, more than any other part of Memphis, was the blues area. Everyone knew it. Beale Street was the centre of black culture, not just for Memphis, but for the whole of Tennessee, in the late forties and early fifties. It wasn’t actually called Beale Street on the maps until 1955, but everyone referred to it as “Beale Street” anyway. By 1950 people were already complaining about the fact that the “old” Beale Street had gone. Beale Street was where Lansky’s was — the place where the coolest people bought their clothes. There was Schwab’s Dry Good Store, where you could buy everything you wanted. And there was the Beale Street Blues Boys, or the Beale Streeters — accounts vary as to what they actually called themselves. They weren’t a band in a traditional sense, but there were a few of them who got together a lot, and when they would make records, they would often play on each others tracks. There was the harmonica player Junior Parker, who would go on to record for every Memphis-based label, often recording in the Sun Studios, and who would write songs like “Mystery Train”. There was the piano player Roscoe Gordon, who had a unique off-beat way of playing that would later go on to be a massive influence on ska and reggae music. There was the singer Bobby “Blue” Bland, one of the most important blues singers of all time, and there was guitarist Riley King, who would later be known as “the blues boy”, before shortening that and becoming just “B.B.” King. And there was Johnny Ace, another piano player and singer. But the Beale Street Blues Boys slowly drifted apart. Riley King went off and started cutting his own records for RPM, one of the myriad tiny labels that had sprung up to promote R&B music. And Bobby Bland got drafted, but before he had to go off to be in the armed forces, he went into Sam Phillips’ studio and cut a few sides, which were released on Duke Records, backed by the Beale Streeters: [excerpt “Lovin’ Blues” by Bobby “Blue” Bland and the Beale Streeters] That has BB King on guitar and Johnny Ace on the piano, along with George Joyner on bass, Earl Forest on drums, and Adolph Billy Duncan on the saxophone. Shortly after this, Ace’s first single came out almost by accident. He was playing piano at a session for Bobby Bland, and Bland couldn’t get the lyrics to his song right. In the session downtime, Ace started singing Ruth Brown’s hit “So Long”: [excerpt: Ruth Brown, “So Long”] Dave Mattis, Duke Records’ owner, thought that what Ace was doing sounded rather better than the song they were meant to be recording, and so they changed it up just enough for it to count as “an original”, with Ace coming up with a new melody and Mattis writing new lyrics, and “My Song” by Johnny Ace was created: [Excerpt Johnny Ace: “My Song”] This would be how all Ace’s records would be created from that point on. They would take a pop standard or another song that Ace knew, someone would write new lyrics, and then Ace would come up with a new melody while keeping the chord progression and general feel the same. It was a formula that would lead to a string of hits for Ace. “My Song” might not sound very rock and roll, but the B-side was a jump boogie straight out of the Big Joe Turner style — “Follow The Rules” [Excerpt Johnny Ace: “Follow the Rules”] The A-side went to number one on the R&B charts, and was the first of eight hits in a row. Ace’s singles would typically have a ballad on the A-side and a boogie number on the B-side. This was a typical formula for the time — you might remember that Cecil Gant had a similar pattern of putting a ballad on one side and a boogie on the other. The idea was to maximise the number of buyers for each single by appealing to two different audiences. And it seemed to work. Ace became very, very popular. In fact, he became too popular. Duke Records couldn’t keep up with the demand for his records, and Don Robey, the owner of Peacock Records, stepped in, buying them out. Don Robey had a reputation for violence. He was also, though, one of the few black businessmen in a white-dominated industry, and it might be argued that you can only get to that kind of status with a certain amount of unethical practices. Robey’s business manager and unacknowledged partner, Evelyn Johnson, was by all accounts a far nicer person than Robey. She did the day-to-day running of the businesses, drew up the business plans, and basically did everything that an owner would normally be expected to, while Robey took the money. Johnson did everything for Robey. When he’d decided to put out records, mostly to promote the blues singer Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, who he managed, Johnson asked him how they were going to go about this, and Robey said “Hell, I don’t know! That’s for you to find out!” So Johnson figured out what to do — you call the Library of Congress. They had all the forms necessary for copyright registration, and whenever they didn’t have something, they would give her the details of the organisation that did. She got every copyright and record-related form from the Library of Congress, BMI, and other organisations, and looked over them all. Everything that looked relevant, she filled out. Everything that didn’t, she kept in case it was useful later, in a file labelled “It could be in here”. Johnson ran the record label, she ran the publishing company, and she ran *and owned* the booking agency. The booking agency started the model that companies like Motown would later use — cleaning the acts up, giving them lessons in performance, buying them clothes and cars, giving them spending money. She lost money on all the artists that were recording for Robey’s labels, where the performances turned into a loss-leader for the record labels, but she made the money back on artists like B.B. King or Ike and Tina Turner, who just turned up and did their job and didn’t have to be groomed by the Johnson/Robey operation. She never got the credit, because she was a black woman, while Don Robey was a man, but Evelyn Johnson pretty much single-handedly built up the careers of every black artist in Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi or California during the early part of the 1950s. From this point on, Duke became part of the Don Robey empire, run by Evelyn Johnson. For a while, Dave Mattis was a silent partner, but when he noticed he was getting neither money nor a say, he went to see Robey to complain. Robey pulled a gun on Mattis, and bought out Mattis for a tiny fraction of what his share of the record company was actually worth. Once Robey had bought Duke, Ace started working with Johnny Otis as many of the other Duke and Peacock artists did, and his records from then on were recorded in Houston, usually with the Johnny Otis band, and with Otis producing, though sometimes Ace’s own touring band would play on the records instead. Ace’s formula owed a lot to Charles Brown’s sophisticated West Coast blues. For those who haven’t heard the Patreon-only bonus Christmas episode of this podcast, Brown was the missing link between the styles of Nat King Cole and Ray Charles, and his smooth lounge blues was an important precursor to a lot of the more laid back kinds of soul music. Here’s a clip of “Merry Christmas Baby” by Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, with Brown on lead vocals, so you can see what I mean about the resemblance: [Excerpt “Merry Christmas Baby” Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers] Now, there is a very important point to be made here, and that is that Johnny Ace’s music was extremely popular with a black audience. He didn’t get a white audience until after his death, and that audience was largely only interested in one record — “Pledging My Love”. It’s important to point this out because for much of the time after his death his music was dismissed by white music critics precisely because it didn’t fit their ideas of what black music was, and they assumed he was trying to appeal to a white audience. In fact there’s a derogatory term for the smooth-sounding blues singers, which I won’t repeat here, but which implies that they were “white on the inside”. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Johnny Otis said, Ace was “too smooth for the white critics and white writers for a long time.” He pointed out that this was “white arrogance”, suggesting that “black people are not the best judge of what was the best art to come out of the community, but the white writers are.” Otis’ point, which I agree with, was that, in his words, “you have to take your cue from the people of the community. They know better than you what they like and what is black artistry.” Ace’s music — yearning ballads about unrequited love, sung in a smooth, mellow, voice — didn’t fit with white preconceptions about the proper music that black men should be making, and so for decades his work was more or less airbrushed out of history. It was inconvenient for the white mythmakers to have a black man playing sophisticated music. But that music was hugely popular among black audiences. “The Clock”, for example, went to number one on the R&B charts, and stayed on the charts from June through October 1953. [excerpt: Johnny Ace: “The Clock”] His follow-ups to “The Clock” weren’t as big, and there was a sign he was entering diminishing returns, but his records stayed on the charts for longer than most, and as a result his releases were also less frequent. Don Robey stockpiled his recordings, putting out just one single every six months, waiting for the previous single to fall off the charts before releasing the next one. This stockpiling would prove very lucrative for him. Because while Ace was a sophisticated performer, he lived a less sophisticated life. One of his hobbies was to drive at top speed, while drunk, and shoot the zeroes out of road signs. With a lifestyle like that, it is probably not all that surprising that Ace didn’t live to a ripe old age, but the story of his death is still one that might be shocking or upsetting, and one that is still sad even though it was probably inevitable. The last song Johnny Ace played live was “Yes, Baby” — a duet with Big Mama Thornton, who had been his regular touring partner for quite a while. The two would tour together and Thornton would be backed by Ace’s band, with another pianist. Ace would take over from the pianist for his own set, and then the two of them would duet together: [excerpt “Yes Baby” — Johnny Ace and Big Mama Thornton] As you can hear, that wasn’t one of his mellow ballads. Ace’s live shows were a big draw. Evelyn Johnson said on several occasions that Ace was so popular that she used his popularity to make deals on less popular acts — if you wanted to book Johnny Ace you had to book B.B. King or Bobby “Blue” Bland as well, and those acts built their own followings through playing those gigs, often on the same bill as Ace and Big Mama Thornton. By all accounts the show in Houston on Christmas Day was a massively enjoyable one — right up until the point that it very suddenly wasn’t. The rumour that went round in the days after his death was that he was killed playing Russian roulette. That’s still what most people who talk about him think happened. This would have been a tragic way to go, but at least he would have known the possible consequences, and you have to think that no-one is going to play Russian roulette unless they have some sort of death wish. And there were other rumours that went around — one that persists to this day, and that I inadvertantly repeated in episode ten, is that Little Esther was present. She wasn’t, as far as I can tell. And the darkest rumours, repeated by people who like to sensationalise things, claim that it was a hit from Don Robey, that Ace was planning on changing record labels. But that’s not what actually happened. What happened is much more upsetting, and even more pointlessly tragic. Johnny Ace was backstage in Houston with a bunch of people — Big Mama Thornton and the band’s bass player Curtis Tilman were there, as were Ace’s girlfriend and some other people. It was Christmas day, they were killing time between sets, and they’d been drinking. Ace was waving a gun around and making people nervous. He was in a bad mood because he had a toothache, and he was feeling tired and annoyed. Accounts vary slightly as to what happened next, but Big Mama Thornton’s was given as a legal deposition only a couple of hours after his death, before exaggeration set in. “Johnny was pointing this pistol at Mary Carter and Joe Hamilton. He was kind of waving it around. I asked Johnny to let me see the gun. He gave it to me and when I turned the chamber a .22 cal. Bullet fell out in my hand. Johnny told me to put it back in where it wouldn’t fall out. I put it back and gave it to him. I told him not to snap it to nobody. After he got the pistol back, Johnny pointed the pistol at Mary Carter and pulled the trigger. It snapped. Olivia was still sitting on his lap. I told Johnny again not to snap the pistol at anybody. Johnny then put the pistol to Olivia’s head and pulled the trigger. It snapped. Johnny said, ‘I’ll show you that it won’t shoot.’ He held the pistol up and looked at it first and then put it to his head. I started towards the door and heard the pistol go off. I turned around and saw Johnny falling to the floor. I saw that he was shot and I run on stage and told the people in the band about it.” According to Evelyn Johnson, Ace’s hair stood on end from the shock, and he died with “a smirky little grin on his face, and his expression was ‘What’d I say?'” He was only twenty-five, and he’d been the most successful rhythm and blues singer of the previous year. When Cash Box, the trade paper, polled disc jockeys in December 1954 to find out who the most played artist of 1954 had been, Ace was the clear favourite. Shortly after his death, Duke Records announced that he had had three records top one and three quarter million sales the previous year. That is, to put it bluntly, a ludicrous amount — almost nothing sold that much, and one is tempted to believe that Duke were slightly manipulating the figures — but that it’s at all plausible says a lot about how popular Johnny Ace was at the time. After Ace’s death, “Pledging My Love” instantly became his biggest hit: [excerpt: “Pledging My Love”, Johnny Ace] “Pledging My Love” is credited to Fats Washington, the lyricist behind many of B.B. King’s songs from this period, and Don Robey as songwriters, but it’s safe to say that Ace himself wrote the music, with Robey taking the credit. Robey apparently never wrote a song in his life, but you wouldn’t believe it from the songwriting credits of any record that was put out by Duke or Peacock records. There, Don Robey, or his pseudonym Deadric Malone, would appear to be one of the most prolific songwriters of all time, writing in a whole variety of different styles — everything from “Love of Jesus” to “Baby, What’s Your Pants Doing Wet?” In total, he’s credited as writer for 1200 different songs. “Pledging My Love” was released only days before Ace’s death, and the initial expectation was that it would follow the diminishing returns that had set in since “The Clock”, becoming a modest but not overwhelming hit. Instead, it became a massive smash hit, and his biggest record ever, and it gained him a whole new fanbase — white teenagers, who had previously not been buying his records in any large numbers. Black people in the fifties mostly still bought 78s, because they tended to be poorer and so not buying new hi-fi equipment when they could still use their old ones. 45s, in the R&B market, were mostly for jukeboxes. But for the first time ever, the pressing plant that dealt with Duke’s records couldn’t keep up with the demand for 45s — so much so that the record was held back on the jukebox charts, because the label couldn’t service the demand. The records were being bought by young white teenagers, instead of his previous older black audiences — although that other audience still bought the record. Ace’s death came at a crucial transition point for the acceptance of rhythm and blues among white record buyers, and “Pledging My Love” acted as a catalyst. Until a couple of years earlier, songs owned by ASCAP, the performing rights society that dealt only with “respectable” composers for the Tin Pan Alley publishing houses, made up about eight times as many hits as songs owned by BMI, who dealt with the blues and hillbilly musicians. But in early 1955, eight of the ten biggest hits were BMI songs. “Pledging My Love” came at precisely the right moment to pick up on that new wave. There were white cover versions of the record, but people wanted the original, and Johnny Ace’s version made the *pop* top twenty. What none of this did was give Ace’s family any money. Don Robey told them, after Ace’s death, that Ace owed him money rather than the other way round. And Ace and his family didn’t receive even the songwriting royalties Ace was owed for the few songs he was credited with. While Robey was registered with BMI, and registered the songs with them, he had a policy of keeping his artists as ignorant as possible of the business side of things, and so he didn’t let Ace know that Ace would also have to register with BMI to receive any money. Because of this, his widow didn’t even know that BMI existed until James Salem, Ace’s biographer, told her in the mid-nineties, and it was only then that she started to get some of the songwriting royalties she and her children had been entitled to for forty-plus years worth of sales and radio play. Robey wasn’t the only one making money from Ace. Cash-in tribute records were released, including two separate ones by Johnny Moore’s Blazers, and records by Johnny Fuller, Vanetta Dillard, the Five Wings and the Rovers. All of these records were incredibly tasteless — usually combining a bunch of quotes from Ace’s lyrics to provide his “last letter” or a letter from heaven or similar, and backing them with backing tracks that were as close as possible to the ones Ace used. This is a typical example, “Why Johnny Why” by Linda Hayes with Johnny Moore’s Blazers [excerpt: “Why Johnny Why” by Linda Hayes] And after Don Robey had completely scraped the barrel of unreleased Ace recordings, he tried to sign Johnny Ace’s brother, St. Clair Alexander, to a record deal, but eventually decided that Alexander wasn’t quite good enough (though Alexander would spend the next few decades performing a tribute show to his brother, which many people thought was quite decent). Instead, Robey persuaded a blues singer named Jimmie Lee Land to perform as “Buddy Ace” in the hope of milking it some more, and put out press releases claiming that “Buddy” was Johnny Ace’s brother. Buddy Ace’s first record was released simultaneously with the last tracks from Johnny that were in the vault, putting out adverts talking about “the last record on the immortal Johnny Ace to complete your collection” and “the first record on the versatile Buddy Ace to start your collection”. Buddy Ace actually made some very strong records, but he didn’t really sound much like Johnny: [excerpt: Buddy Ace: “What Can I Do”] Buddy Ace did not duplicate Johnny’s success, though he continued as a moderately successful performer until the day he died – which was, rather eerily, while performing in Texas, forty years to the day after Johnny Ace died. But Robey wanted to milk the catalogue, and tried in 1957 to resuscitate the career of his dead star by getting the Jordanaires, famous for backing Elvis Presley, to overdub new backing vocals on Ace’s hits: [excerpt: Johnny Ace with the Jordanaires: “Pledging My Love”] This musical graverobbing was not successful, and all it did was sour Johnny Otis on Robey, as Robey had agreed that Otis’ productions would remain untouched. Even forty years afterwards — and twenty years after Robey’s death — it would still infuriate Otis. But probably the most well-known of all the posthumous releases to do with Johnny Ace came in 1983, when Paul Simon wrote and recorded “The Late Great Johnny Ace”, a song which linked Ace with two other Johns who died of gunshot wounds — Lennon and Kennedy: [excerpt: Paul Simon “The Late Great Johnny Ace”] That’s from Simon’s “Hearts and Bones”, an album that was steeped in nostalgia for the music of the period when rhythm and blues was just starting to turn into rock and roll. The period defined by the late, great, Johnny Ace.

Welcome to episode four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at Louis Jordan and “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Louis Jordan’s music is now in the public domain, so there are many different compilations available, of different levels of quality. This four-CD set is very cheap and has most of the classic tracks on. And here’s a similarly-priced collection of Chick Webb. There aren’t many books on Louis Jordan as an individual, and most of the information here comes from books on other musicians, but this one is probably worth your while if you want to investigate more. And for all the episodes on pre-1954 music, one invaluable source is the book “Before Elvis” by Larry Birnbaum. Transcript We’ve spent a lot of time in 1938 in this podcast, haven’t we? First there was Flying Home, first recorded in 1939, but where we had to talk about events from 1938. Then we had “Roll ‘Em Pete”, recorded in 1938. And “Ida Red”, recorded in 1938. 1938 is apparently the real year zero for rock and roll — whether you come at it from the direction of blues and boogie, or jazz, or country and western music, 1938 ends up being the place where you start. Eighty years ago this year.   And 1938 is also the year that one man made his solo debut, and basically put together all the pieces of rock and roll in one place.   If you’ve seen the Marx Brothers film A Day At The Races — well, OK, if you’ve not seen A Day At The Races, you really should, because while it’s not the best film the Marx Brothers ever made, it’s still a good Marx Brothers film, and it’ll brighten up your day immensely to watch it, so go and watch that, and then come back and listen to the rest of this. And if you haven’t watched all their earlier films, watch those too. Except The Cocoanuts, you can skip that one. Go on. I can wait.   OK, now you’ve definitely seen the Marx Brothers film A Day At The Races, so you’ll remember the dance sequence where Ivie Anderson sings “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm”, and the amazing dancers in that scene.   [Ivy Anderson “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm”]   That’s a dance called the Lindy Hop — you might remember that as the dance the “booglie wooglie piggy” did in a song we excerpted in episode two, it was named after Charles Lindbergh, the famous airman and Nazi sympathiser — and the people dancing it are Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. And they were responsible for a controversy, on the night of Benny Goodman’s first Carnegie Hall concert — the one we talked about in episode one — that is still talked about in jazz eighty years later.   [Chick Webb “Stompin’ At The Savoy”]   That’s “Stompin’ at the Savoy” by Chick Webb, one of the most famous swing recordings ever, though it was later recorded by Benny Goodman in an even more fanous version. The Savoy Ballroom was where Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers used to dance — there was an entire corner of the ballroom set off for them, even though the rest of the floor was for the other dancers. The Savoy was where the Lindy Hop was invented, and it was the place to dance, because it was where Chick Webb, the real king of swing played.   We’ve seen a few kings of swing so far — Benny Goodman was the person most associated with the name, and he had the name longest. A few people called Bob Wills that, too, though he mostly billed himself as the king of Western swing. But Chick Webb was the person who deserved the title more than anyone else. He was a small man, who’d contracted tuberculosis of the spine as a child, and he’d taken up the drums as a kind of therapy. He’d been playing professionally since he was eleven, and by the time he was thirty he was leading what was, bar none, the best swing band in New York for dancing. People called him the King of Swing before Goodman, and his band was an absolute force of nature when it came to getting people to do the Lindy Hop. Benny Goodman admired Webb’s band enough that he bought the band’s arrangements and used them himself — all of the Goodman band’s biggest crowd-pleasers, at least the ones that weren’t arrangements he’d bought off Fletcher Henderson, he bought from Edgar Sampson, the saxophone player who did most of Webb’s arrangements. Sampson is the one who wrote “Stompin’ at the Savoy”, which we just heard.   There was a rivalry there — Goodman’s band was bigger in every sense, but Webb’s band was more popular with those who knew the real deal when they heard it. And in 1937, the Savoy hosted a cutting contest between Webb’s Savoy Orchestra and Goodman’s band.   A cutting contest was a tradition that came from the world of stride piano players — the same world that boogie woogie music grew out of. One musician would play his best (and it usually was a “his” — this was a very macho musical world) and then a second would try to top him — playing something faster, or more inventive, or more exciting, often a reworking of the song the first one had played — and then the first would take another turn and try to get better than the second had. They’d keep going, each trying to outdo the other, until a crowd decided that one or the other was the winner.   And that 1937 cutting contest was a big event. The Savoy had two bandstands, so they would have one band start as soon as the other one finished, so people could dance all night. Chick Webb’s band set up on one stage, Goodman’s on another. Four thousand dancers crowded the inside of the ballroom, and despite a police cordon outside to keep trouble down, another five thousand people outside tried to hear what was happening.   And Chick Webb’s band won, absolutely. Gene Krupa, Goodman’s drummer (one of the true greats of jazz drumming himself) later said “I’ll never forget that night. Webb cut me to ribbons!”   And that just was the most famous of many, many cutting contests that Chick Webb’s band won. The only time Chick Webb ever definitely lost a cutting contest was against Duke Ellington, but everyone knew that Chick Webb and Duke Ellington weren’t really trying to do the same kind of thing, and anyway, there’s no shame at all in losing to Duke Ellington.   Count Basie, though, was a different matter. He was trying to do the same kind of thing as Chick Webb, and he was doing it well. And on the night of Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert, Webb and Basie were going to engage in their own cutting contest after hours. For all that the Goodman Carnegie Hall show was important — and it was — the real jazz fans knew that this after-show party was going to be the place to be. Basie had already played the Carnegie hHall show, guesting with Goodman’s band, as had Basie’s tenor sax player Lester Young, but here they were going to get to show off what they could do with their own band.   Basie’s band was on top form at that time, with his new vocalists Jimmy Rushing, a great blues shouter, and Billie Holiday, who was just then becoming a star. Chick Webb had a couple of good vocalists too, though — his new teenage singer, Ella Fitzgerald, in particular, was already one of the great singers.   [Chick Webb – Ella]   And everyone was in the audience. Goodman’s band, Mildred Bailey, Ivie Anderson (who we heard before in that Marx Brothers clip), Red Norvo the vibraphone player, Duke Ellington. Every musician who mattered in the jazz scene was there to see if Basie could beat Chick Webb.   And… there was a dispute about it, one which was never really resolved in Webb’s lifetime.   Because Webb won — everyone agreed, when it came to a vote of the audience, Webb’s band did win, though it was a fairly close decision. Again, the only band to ever beat Chick Webb was Duke Ellington.   But everyone also agreed that Basie’s band had got people dancing more. A lot more.   What nobody realised at the time was that Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers had gone on strike. Chick Webb had misheard a discussion between a couple of the dancers about how good the Basie band was going to be that night, assumed that they were saying Basie was going to be better than him, and got into a huff. Webb said “I don’t give a good Goddam what those raggedy Lindy Hoppers think or say. Who needs ’em? As far as I’m concerned they can all go to hell. And their Mammies too.”   After this provocation, Whitey issued an ultimatum to his Lindy Hoppers. That night, they were only going to dance to Basie, and not to Webb. So even though most of the audience preferred Webb’s band, every time they played a song all the best dancers, the ones who had an entire quarter or so of the ballroom to themselves to do their most exciting and visual dances, all sat down, and it looked like the Webb band just weren’t exciting the crowd as much as the Basie band.   Of course, the Basie band were good that night, as well. When you’ve got the 1938 Count Basie band, with Jimmy Rushing and Billie Holiday singing, you’re going to get a good show. Oh, and they persuaded Duke Ellington to come up and play a piano solo — and then all the band joined in with him, unrehearsed and unprompted.   But despite all that, Webb’s band still beat them in the audience vote.   That’s how good Webb’s band were, and it’s also how good his two big stars were. One of those stars, Ella Fitzgerald, we’ve already mentioned, but the other one was an alto sax player who also took the male lead vocals – we heard him singing with Ella earlier. This sax player did a lot of the frontman job for Webb’s band and was so important to the band in those years that, allegedly, some people thought he was Chick Webb. That man was Louis Jordan.   [Chick Webb I Can’t Dance I Got Ants In My Pants]   Louis Jordan was a good sax player, but what he really was was a performer. He was someone who could absolutely sell a song, with wit and humour and a general sense of hipness that could possibly be matched at that time only by Cab Calloway and Slim Gaillard, and Jordan was a better musician than either of them. He was charming, and funny, and tuneful, and good looking, and he knew it.   He knew it so well, in fact, that shortly after that show, he started making plans — he thought that he and Ella were the two important ones in the Webb band, and he planned to form his own band, and take her, and much of the rest of the band with him. Webb found out and fired Jordan, and Ella and most of the band remained loyal to Webb.   In fact, sadly, Jordan would have had what he wanted sooner rather than later anyway. Chick Webb’s disability had been affecting him more, and he was only continuing to perform because he felt he owed it to his musicians — he would often pass out after a show, literally unable to do anything else. He died, aged thirty-four, in June 1939, and Ella Fitzgerald became the leader of his band, though like many big bands it eventually broke up in the mid-forties.   So if Jordan had held on for another few months, he would have had a good chance at being the leader of the Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald band, and history would have been very different. As it was, instead, he formed a much smaller group, the Elks Rendez-vous Band, made up of members of Jesse Stone’s band (you’ll remember him from episode two, he wrote “Shake, Rattle, and Roll”). And on December 20, 1938 — ten days before “Roll ‘Em Pete” — Louis Jordan and his Elks Rendez-vous Band went into the studio for the first time, to record “Honey in the Bee Ball” and “Barnacle Bill the Sailor”.   [excerpt of “Honey in the Bee Ball”]   Shortly after that, they changed their name to Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five.   Before we talk about them more, I want to briefly talk about someone else who worked with Jordan. I want to talk about Milt Gabler. Gabler is someone we’ll be seeing a lot of in this story, and he’s someone who already had an influence on it, but here’s where he becomes important.   You see, even before his influence on rock and roll, Gabler had made one important contribution to music. He had started out as the owner of a little record shop, and he had a massive passion for good jazz music — and so did his customers. And many of those customers had wanted to get hold of old records, now out of print. So in 1935 Gabler started his own record label, and licensed those out of print recordings by people like Bix Beiderbecke and Bessie Smith, becoming the owner of the very first ever reissue record label. His labels pioneered things like putting a full list of all the musicians on a record on the label — the kind of thing that real music obsessives cared far more about than executives who only wanted to make money.   After he had some success with that, he branched out into making new records, on a new label, Commodore. That would have stayed a minor label, but for one thing.   In 1939, one of his regular customers, Billie Holiday, had a problem. She’d been performing a new song which she really wanted to record, but her current label, Columbia, wasn’t interested. That song was too political even for her producer, John Hammond — the man who, you will remember from previous episodes, persuaded Benny Goodman to integrate his band and who put on shows that same year sponsored by the Communist Party. But the song was too political, and too inflammatory, even for him. The song, which became Billie Holiday’s best-known performance, was “Strange Fruit”, and it was about lynching.   [insert section of Strange Fruit here].   Billie Holiday could not get her label to put that track out, under any circumstances. But she knew Milt Gabler might do it — he’d been recording several small group tracks with Lester Young, who was Holiday’s colleague and friend in the Basie band. As Gabler was a friend of hers, and as he was politically left-leaning himself, he eventually negotiated a special deal with Columbia, Holiday’s label, that he could produce her for one session and put out a single recording by her, on Commodore.   That recording sold over a million copies, and became arguably the most important recording in music history. In December 1999, Time Magazine called it the “song of the century”. And in 2017, when the black singer Rebecca Ferguson was invited to play at Donald Trump’s inauguration, she agreed on one condition — that the song she performed could be “Strange Fruit”. She was disinvited.   As a result of “Strange Fruit”‘s success, Milt Gabler was headhunted away from his own label, and became a staff producer at Decca records in 1941. There he was responsible for producing many of the greatest records of the forties — not least that famous Lionel Hampton version of “Flying Home” we looked at towards the end of episode one — and he began a long collaboration with Louis Jordan — remember him? This is a story about Louis Jordan.   Jordan’s new band had a sound unlike anything else of the time — Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown later claimed that Jordan had most of the responsibility for the decline of the big bands, saying “He could play just as good and just as loud with five as 17. And it was cheaper.”   And while we’ve talked before about a whole raft of economic and social reasons for the decline of the big bands, there was a lot of truth in that statement — while there were sometimes actually as many as seven or eight members of the Tympany Five, the original lineup was just Jordan plus one trumpet, one sax, piano, bass, and drums, and yet their recordings did sound almost as full as many of the bigger bands.   The style they were playing in was a style that later became known as “jump band” music, and it was a style that owed a lot to Lionel Hampton’s band, and to Count Basie. This is a style of music that’s based on simple chord changes — usually blues changes. And it’s based on the concept of the riff.   We haven’t really talked much about the idea of riffs yet in this series, but they’re absolutely crucial to almost all popular music from the twentieth century. A riff is, in its conception, fairly straight forward. It’s an instrumental phrase that gets repeated over and over. It can act as the backbone to a song, but it can also be the basis for variation and improvisation — when you “riff on” something, you’re coming up with endless variations and permutations of it.   Riffs were important in swing music — generally they were a sort of back-and-forth in those. You’d have the saxophones play the riff, and then the trumpets and trombones repeat it after them. But swing wasn’t just about riffs — with a big orchestra, you had to have layers and stuff for all the musicians to do.   In jump band music, on the other hand, you strip everything back. The track becomes about the riff, the solos, and the vocal if there is one, and that’s it. You play that riff over the simplest possible changes, you play it to a rhythm that will get everyone dancing — often a boogie rhythm — and you make everything about the energy of the performance.   Jordan’s band did that, and they combined it with Jordan’s own unique stage personality. Jordan, remember, had been the male singer in a band whose female singer was Ella Fitzgerald. You don’t keep a job like that very long if you’re not good.   Now, Jordan wasn’t good in the same way as Ella was — no-one was good in the same way as Ella Fitzgerald — but what he was very good at was putting personality into his vocals. One thing we haven’t talked much about yet in this series is the way that there was a whole tradition of jive singing which dates back at least to the 1920s and Cab Calloway:   [excerpt from “Reefer Man”]   Jive singers weren’t usually technically great, but they had personality. They were hip, and they often used made up words of their own. They were clever, and funny, and sophisticated, and they were often singing about the underworld or drug use or prostitution or other such disreputable concepts — when they weren’t just singing nonsense words like Slim Gaillard anyway.   [Excerpt of “Flat Foot Floogie”]   And Louis Jordan was very much in the mould of singers like Gaillard or Calloway or Fats Waller, all of whom we could easily do episodes on here if we were going far enough back into rock’s prehistory. But Jordan is the way that that stream became part of the rhythm of rock music.   Most of Jordan’s songs were written by Jordan himself, although he’s not the credited writer on many of them — rather, his then-wife, Fleecie Moore, is credited for contractual reasons. Jordan and Moore later split up after multiple separate occasions where she stabbed him, but she retained credit on the songs. So, for example, she’s credited on “Caldonia”, which is a perfect example of Jordan’s comedy jump band style.   [Louis Jordan: Caldonia]   “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie,” Jordan’s biggest hit, was slightly different. From early 1943 — just after Gabler started producing his records — Jordan had been having occasional crossover hits on the country charts. These days, his music sounds to us clearly like it’s blues or R&B — in fact he’s basically the archetype of a jump blues musician — but remember how we’ve talked about Western Swing using so many swing and boogie elements? If you were making boogie music then, you were likely to appeal to the same audience that was listening to Bob Wills, just as much as you were to the audience that was listening to Big Joe Turner.   And because of this crossover success, Jordan started recording occasional songs that were originally aimed at the white country market. “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” was co-written by Gabler, but the other songwriters were pure country and western writers — Denver Darling, one of the writers, was a hillbilly singer who recorded songs such as “My Little Buckaroo”, “I’ve Just Gotta Be A Cowboy” and “Ding Dong Polka”, while the other writer, Vaughn Horton, wrote “Dixie Cannonball” and “Muleskinner Blues”.   So “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie” was, in conception, a hillbilly boogie, but in Louis Jordan’s hands, it was almost the archetypal rhythm and blues song:   [insert section of Choo Choo Ch’Boogie here]   You can hear from that how much it resembles the Bob Wills music we heard last week — and how the song itself would fit absolutely into the genre of Western Swing. There’s only really the lack of a fiddle or steel guitar to distinguish the styles. But you can also hear the horn-driven pulse, and the hip vocals, that characterise rhythm and blues. Those internal rhymes and slangy lyrics — “take me right back to the track, Jack” — come straight from the jive school of vocals, even though it’s a country and western song.   If there’s any truth at all to the claim that rock and roll was the mixing of country and western music with rhythm and blues, this is as good a point as any to say “this is where rock and roll really started”. Essentially every musician in the early rock and roll period was, to a greater or lesser extent, copying the style of Louis Jordan’s 1940s records. And indeed “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie” was later covered by another act Milt Gabler produced — an act who, more than any other, based their style on Jordan’s. But we’ll come to Bill Haley and his Comets in a few episodes time.   For now, we want to listen to the way that jump band music sounds. This is not music that sounds like it’s a small band. That sounds like a full horn section, but you’ll notice that during the sax solo the other horns just punch in a little, rather than playing a full pad under it — the arrangement is stripped back to the basics, to what’s necessary. This is a punchy track, and it’s a track that makes you want to dance.   [sax solo excerpt]   And this is music that, because it’s so stripped down, relies on vocal personality more than other kinds. This is why Louis Jordan was able to make a success of this — his jive singing style gives the music all the character that in the larger bands would be conveyed by other instruments.   But also, notice the lyrics — “the rhythm of the clickety clack”. It’s that backbeat again, the one we’ve been talking about. And the lyrics here are all about that rhythm, but also about the rhythm of the steam trains.   That mechanical steam train rhythm is one of the key influences in blues, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll — rock and roll started at almost exactly the point that America changed from being a train culture to being a car culture, and over the coming weeks we’ll see that transition happen in the music. By the 1960s people would be singing “Nobody cares about the railroads any more” or about “the last of the good old fashioned steam powered trains”, but in the 1940s and early fifties the train still meant freedom, still meant escape, and even once that had vanished from people’s minds, it was still enshrined in the chug of the backbeat, in the choo choo ch’boogie.   And so next week we’ll be talking a lot more about the impact of trains in rock and roll, as we take our final look at the Carnegie Hall concerts of 1938…   Patreon As always, this podcast only exists because of the donations of my backers on Patreon. If you enjoy it, why not join them?

Qool DJ Marv Live at the premiere party for the HBO Documentary The Price Of Everything at MoMA NYC - October 18 2018 Thank you, HBO! Nice to play a very varied but pure musical set for art world aficionados as well as artists, truly a pleasure. The film is in theaters on October 19th and on HBO on November 12th. As always, the sounds reflect the visions. Mine - Peter Mintun A Picture Of Her Face - Scott Joplin Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor WoO 59: “Für Elise” (Arr. for Harp) - Sequence Classics Vladimir Martynov: The Beatitudes - Kronos Quartet J.S. Bach: Suite for Cello Solo No.1 in G, BWV 1007 - 1. Prélude - Yo-Yo Ma Without a Frame - yMusic Allegretto (taken from the 7. Symphonie) - Marcus Schinkel Trio Fourth Movement, Allegro Assai, Exposition & Transition - Mark Kramer Trio Elise - Marcus Schinkel Trio My Baby Just Cares For Me - Nina Simone Is You Is Or Is You Ain't (My Baby) - Jimmy Smith I Don't Want You Hanging Around - Mike Morgan And The Crawl My Babe - Little Walter Breaking Out On Top - Buddy Guy Okie Dokie Stomp - Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown Good Lookin' Out - Stanley Turrentine Do The Do - Howlin' Wolf with Steve Winwood: Piano & Organ, Bill Wyman: Bass Guitar, Shaker & Cowbell, Charlie Watts: Drums, Conga & Assorted Percussion (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher - Jackie Wilson Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (Performed Live at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards) - Mick Jagger featuring Raphael Saadiq What'd I Say Parts I & II - Ray Charles Got to Get You into My Life - Ella Fitzgerald Don't Stop - Fleetwood Mac Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen I Got You - James Brown Paint It, Black - THE ROLLING STONES Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - Sting Soul Bossanova - Skeewiff Nightlite (featuring Bajka) - Bonobo L-O-V-E - Natalie Cole Oh, I Got Plenty of Nothin' - Harry Belafonte I Say A Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin Something - Frank Sinatra Albatross [live 1969] - Fleetwood Mac https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-price-of-everything + http://www.thepriceofeverything.com/ + https://www.moma.org/ http://djqoolmarvsounds.podomatic.com https://www.mixcloud.com/qooldjmarv/ https://www.instagram.com/qooldjmarv/ https://twitter.com/Qool__Marv https://www.facebook.com/QoolMarv/

The Wreck of Amtrak’s Silver Service A surgeon in a small town lives with his garrulous socially adept but childless wife. He blames her for his failed career and anger mounts to where he plots to be rid of her, seeking help to remove her from his life, but his plans go horribly awry. Gatemouth ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #31, the short stories “The Wreck of Amtrak’s Silver Service / Gatemouth Willie Brown on Guitar”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

There are few artists whose names are synonymous with one instrument and how it's played in service to an entire genre. Utter the phrase "young blues rock guitarist" within earshot of anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the modern musical vanguard and the first name they are most likely to respond with will be Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The Louisiana born axeman and songsmith has sold millions of albums while throwing singles into the Top 10, shining a light on the rich blues of the past and forging ahead with his own modern twist on a classic sound he has embodied since his teens. In a 20-year recording career that began when he was just 16, Shepherd has established himself as an immensely popular recording artist, a consistently in-demand live act and an influential force in a worldwide resurgence of interest in the blues. From television performances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (amongst others) to features in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Maxim Magazine, Blender, Spin, USA Today and more, his musical career has been nothing short of phenomenal. At 16 years old, he signed his first record deal and burst onto the national scene with the release of his 1995 debut album Ledbetter Heights, which produced the radio hits "Deja Voodoo," "Born with a Broken Heart" and "Shame, Shame, Shame." His relentless touring and success on rock radio helped to drive the album to Platinum sales status. His 1998 sophomore effort Trouble Is… also went Platinum, yielding such radio hits as "Blue on Black," "True Lies" and "Somehow, Somewhere, Someway." 1999's Live On spawned the radio hits "In 2 Deep", "Shotgun Blues" and "Last Goodbye." 2004's The Place You're In was a blistering rock record and was followed up by 2007's ambitious 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads, for which Shepherd and his band traveled throughout the American South to record with such vintage blues greats as B.B. King, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins and David "Honeyboy" Edwards on their home turf. 2010 saw the release of Shepherd's long-awaited first live album, Live! In Chicago, recorded at Chicago's House of Blues during the all-star Legends tour and featuring guest appearances by such blues legends as Hubert Sumlin and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith. The live disc debuted at #1 on Billboard's Blues chart, as did 2011's How I Go. In 2013, Shepherd further expanded his musical horizons by teaming with veteran rockers Stephen Stills and Barry Goldberg to form THE RIDES, whose first album Can't Get Enough helped to expand Shepherd's audience as well as his musical resume. 2014 saw the release of Goin' Home, Shepherd's sixth # 1 debut on the Billboard Blues charts. Goin' Home features several talented friends who shared Shepherd's enthusiasm for the project's back-to-basics ethos. Those guests include fellow guitar icons Joe Walsh, Warren Haynes, Keb' Mo' and Robert Randolph, longtime friend Ringo Starr, Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman Kim Wilson, the Rebirth Brass Band and co-producer Blade's father, Pastor Brady Blade Sr., who lends a bracing dose of preaching to Shepherd's version of Bo Diddley's' "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover." In the months since its release, Shepherd and his band have toured the world extensively blazing a fresh trail for the historical American art form in the 21st Century. We chat with Kenny about his new album, Lay It On Down" @KWSheperd #UptownTownTheaterKC #BluesMusic #SlackerMorningShow101theFox #TMobile

The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame  Was there ever another blues musician so proficient at so many styles and on so many different instruments? Gatemouth Brown was certainly one-of-a-kind. The genre defying artist' career spanned 60 years, beginning the moment he filled in for an ailing T-Bone Walker in a Houston, TX nightclub, improvising a night's worth of material to the crowd's delight. Gatemouth won a Grammy in his lifetime, was nominated for five more, and took home eight Blues Music Awards. This is his story.  Gatemouth Brown inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1999. 

12-23-2015 Guitar Shop Christmas Show! Playlist & Footnotes: https://guitarshopvictrola.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/12-23-2015-guitar-shop-christmas-show Hey all, it's our annual Xmas show! Playlist: Track * Artist * Album Guitar Shop (opening theme) * Jeff Beck Shopping On Christmas Eve * Keb’ Mo’ * The Spirit of the Holiday Silent Night * Becky Barksdale * The Christmas EP Christmas * Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown * Alligator Christmas Collection Santa Claus Is Back In Town * Joe Bonamassa We Three Kings * Steve Morse * Southern Rock … Continue reading 12-23-2015 Guitar Shop Christmas Show! →

December 31, 2014 – Happy New Year’s Eve! Guitar Shop Jeff Beck (opening theme) Guitar Shop Please Come Home For Christmas Johnny Winter Cryin’ Christmas Tears (live) Eric Clapton We Call It Christmas Keb Mo’ The Spirit of the Holidays Christmas Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown Alligator Records Christmas Collection Santa Claus Is Back in Town Joe … Continue reading December 31, 2014 – Happy New Year’s Eve! →

Lectura de poemas de CRISTINA MORANO y viñetas musicales de NEIL YOUNG & BLUE NOTES, CLARENCE 'GATEMOUTH' BROWN, THE BLUES BROTHERS y THE HONEY DRIPPERS

I know it sounds like a joke but I swear it's true

Francine Calo has been playing & singing the blues for 30 plus years ... working with husband/guitarist Paul and with their old friend, "The Shuffle King" John Hoik on drums...this trio has groove to spare...their live shows have been lighting up clubs in the New England area ..... a winner in the Battle of the Blues Bands in '98' ....they've appeared with artists Sarah Brown, Shemekia Copeland, J.Geils, Magic Dick & Bluestime, Mose Allison, Bruce Katz,Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and The Nighthawks.... Fronted by powerhouse singer/bassist Francine Calo, this well seasoned trio will take you on a real soul journey...... They seamlessly move from torchy ballads to traditional chicago styles to flat out butt rockin' texas roadhouse blues and more.... With husband Paul Calo, powerful singer in his own right, on lead guitar, and rock solid drumming by The very funky Harley Walker, this band will inspire and move you. Hop on the blues train with the Francine Calo Band......and enjoy the ride ! http://www.garageband.com/artist/FrancineCalo