Podcasts about okeh records

Show #1086 More Good Music 01. Dennis Spencer - Cheap Entertainment (4:00) (Bluesman From Jupiter, self-release, 2024) 02. Piney Woods - You Got Me Where You Want Me (2:34) (The Piney Woods Record, self-release, 2024) 03. Heavydrunk & Watermelon Slim - Little Bighorn (3:26) (Bluesland Theme Park, Heavydrunk Records, 2025) 04. Jennifer Porter - Stop Your Talkin' (4:12) (Sun Come And Shine Redux, Overton Music, 2025) 05. Steve Howell & the Mighty Men - One Mint Julep (2:38) (Yeah Man, Out Of The Past Music, 2025) 06. Sunny Bleau & the Moons - S-H-E-E-E W-O-M-A-N (5:21) (Passion & Regrets, Endless Blues Records, 2025) 07. Mark Muleman Massey - She's Married To The Streets (3:28) (Been A Long Long Time, MuleTone Records, 2025) 08. Giles Robson & John Primer - Let Me Explain (2:43) (Ten Chicago Blues Classics, self-release, 2024) 09. Ed Alstrom - Fruitcake (4:00) (Flee Though None Pursue, Haywire Records, 2025) 10. Ollee Owens - Solid Ground (2:47) (Nowhere To Hide, Ollee Owens Music, 2024) 11. Hitman Blues Band - Back To The Blues (3:22) (Calling Long Distance, Nerus Records, 2024) 12. Robbert Duijf - First Train Out (3:30) (Silver Spoon, Naked Productions, 2025) 13. Reckoners - Woman's Woman (3:34) (Reckoners, Vintage League Music/Uptown Sound, 2024) 14. Greg Nagy - Never Mine (2:48) (The Real You, self-release, 2024) 15. Carly Harvey - Worth Waiting For (2:55) (Kamama, self-release, 2024) 16. The Band - Chest Fever (5:15) (Music From Big Pink, Capitol Records, 1968) 17. Dinah Washington (with Eddie Chamblee Orchestra) - Trouble In Mind (2:26) (45 RPM Single, Mercury Records, 1952) 18. Thelma La Vizzo - Trouble In Mind (3:01) (78 RPM Shellac, Paramount Records, 1924) 19. Bertha "Chippie" Hill - Trouble In Mind (2:51) (78 RPM Shellac, Okeh Records, 1926) 20. Georgia White - Trouble In Mind (2:35) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1936) 21. Richard M. Jones - Trouble In Mind (2:40) (78 RPM Shellac, Bluebird Records, 1936) 22. Nina Simone - Trouble in Mind (2:45) (Pastel Blues, Philips Records, 1965) 23. Big Bill Broonzy - Trouble In Mind [1957] (2:36) (Black Brown And White, Mercury Records, 1991) 24. Two Men From Earth - Trouble In Mind (3:30) (Walkin' To New Orleans, self-release, 2009) 25. Misses Satchmo - Trouble In Mind (2:35) (The Sun Will Shine, Disques Bros Records, 2011) 26. Mose Allison - Trouble In Mind (3:15) (Local Color, Prestige Records, 1958) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

A few weeks before his death in November 1966, Mississippi John Hurt's rendition of “Payday” was released as the opening track on his Today album for Vanguard Records.At the time, many fans believed the 74-year-old bluesman wrote the song, despite his introduction in which he characterized it as “an old tune… a ‘bandit tune.'” And we now know that a quarter of a century earlier, folklorist John Lomax recorded a version of “Payday” by lesser-known blues artists Willie Ford and Lucious Curtis in Natchez, Mississippi.Still, it is the John Hurt version that has become loved among syncopated fingerpicking guitarists; to this day his take on “Payday” is taught in classes and on YouTube videos.The John Hurt Odyssey: Part IThe Today album, hitting record stores in October 1966, marked the end of a remarkable three years for the venerable blues artist, who was born the son of freed slaves around 1892 in Teoc, Mississippi. John Smith Hurt grew up in the Mississippi Delta, living in Avalon, which sits midway between Greenwood and Holcomb just west of Highway 51.He left school at age 10 to be a farm hand and was taught guitar by a local songster and family friend. Hurt lived most of his life without electricity, did hard labor of all sorts and played music as a hobby at local dances. In the late 1920s, performing with local fiddler Willie Narmour, he won a competition and a chance to record with Okeh Records in two sessions, one in Memphis and another in New York City. John Hurt: Part IIThe resulting records were not a great commercial success — John went back to farming and raising a family that would grow to 14 children — but a quarter of a century later, his music entered the folk music canon. That's when two of those 1928 tracks were included in the holy grail of American music, Harry Smith's 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, considered one of the main catalysts for the folk and blues revival of the 1960s and ‘70s. A decade later, in 1962, the presence of those old cuts — “Frankie” and “Spike Driver Blues” — on in the Smith anthology prompted musicologist Dick Spottswood and his friend, Tom Hoskins, to track Hurt down. Hoskins persuaded him to perform several songs for his tape recorder to make sure he was the genuine article. Quickly convinced — in fact, folkies found Hurt even more proficient than he had been in his younger Okeh recording days — Hoskins encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C., to perform for a broader audience.For the last three years of his life, Hurt performed extensively at colleges, concert halls and coffeehouses, appearing on television shows ranging from “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson to Pete Seeger's “Rainbow Quest” on public TV. Much of Hurt's repertoire also was recorded for the Library of Congress, and his final tunes, recorded in 1964 and released two years later, are on Today.He also developed a delightful friendship with a young folksinger named Patrick Sky who produced that final album for Vanguard, where “Payday” is the opening track.Deeper Roots of “Payday”By the way, in the brand new book, Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs & Hidden Histories, published last spring, author Elijah Wald finds a much longer tail on the tune, not to mention a possible connection to another Flood favorite.Wald notes that back in 1908, Missouri pianist Blind Boone published a pair of “Southern Rag” medleys that African Americans were singing in that region around the turn of the century.“Medley number one was subtitled ‘Strains from the Alleys',” Wald writes, and included the first publication of “Making Me a Pallet on the Floor.'” Wald says the medley also featured “a song that probably reaches back to slavery times and would be recorded in later years as ‘Pay Day,' ‘Reuben,' and various other names.”Our Take on the TunePurists say this doesn't sound much like Mississippi John Hurt's original, but that's pretty much by design. Once The Flood folks learn a song, they usually stop listening to the original so it is free to find its own form in the Floodisphere. That's their take on what Pete Seeger's folklorist father Charles called “the folk process.”And in this instance, “Payday” has been processing in Floodlandia for more than 20 years now, ever since its inclusion on the band's first studio album back in 2001.Here's the current state of its evolution, taken from a recent rehearsal. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Show #1051 What A Shame 01. The Rolling Stones - What A Shame (3:06) (The Rolling Stones No. 2, Decca Records, 1965) 02. Curtis Salgado - Low Down Dirty Shame (3:18) (The Beautiful Lowdown, Alligator Records, 2016) 03. Mighty Reapers - It's A Shame (7:00) (Trouble People, Terra Nova Records, 1996) 04. Billy T. Band - Shame Shame (3:33) (Reckoning, Big H Records, 2016) 05. Teskey Brothers - Crying Shame (3:52) (Half Mile Harvest, Decca Records, 2018) 06. Stinky Lou & the Goon Mat - It's A Shame (2:26) (Fat Sausage For Dinner, Voodoo Rhythm Records, 2004) 07. Bridget Kelly Band - It's A Shame (3:58) (Blues Warrior, Alpha Sun Records, 2018) 08. Veldman Brothers - Cryin' Shame (4:32) (Livin' By The Dat, self-release, 2014) 09. Billy Jones - Ain't That A Shame (3:50) (Tha' Bluez, Black And Tan Records, 2005) 10. Nick Curran & the Nitelifes - Low Down Dirty Shame (2:30) (Nitelife Boogie, Texas Jamboree Records, 2001) 11. Sugar Ray Norcia - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (4:17) (Sweet & Swingin', Bullseye Blues, 1998) 12. Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (2:49) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1942) 13. Ollie Shepard & His Kentucky Boys - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (3:18) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1937) 14. Moanin' Bernice Edwards - Low Down Dirty Shame Blues (2:57) (78 RPM Shellac, Paramount Records, 1929) 15. Big Bill Broonzy - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (2:56) (78 RPM Shellac, Vocalion Records, 1938) 16. George Barnes - I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me (2:58) (78 RPM Shellac, Okeh Records, 1940) 17. Shari Puorto - It's A Damn Shame (4:08) (My Obsession, Blues Rock Music, 2015) 18. Dyer Davis - Cryin' Shame (4:47) (Dog Bites Back, Wildroots Records, 2023) 19. Phantom Blues Band - Shame Shame (4:16) (Inside Out, VizzTone Records, 2012) 20. Omar & the Howlers - Shame Shame Shame (3:44) (Too Much Is Not Enough, Big Guitar Music, 2012) 21. Screamin' John & TD Lind - Shame Shame Shame (3:11) (Mr Little Big Man, Down In The Alley Records, 2019) 22. Sunday Wilde - Crying Shame (5:20) (He Digs Me, self-release, 2014) 23. R&B Caravan - What A Shame (3:53) (Completely Locked In, Styx Records, 2006) 24. George Barnes - I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles (2:54) (78 RPM Shellac, Okeh Records, 1940) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

In blues parlance, the term “easy rider” is code for … oh, well, for many things. Maybe a rovin' gambler or a lover, maybe a pimp … (Y'all just talk among yourselves and let your imagination gallop away with ya.)Easy riders started appearing in blues songs more than a century ago. W.C. Handy famously featured an easy rider in his great “Yellow Dog Blues” back in 1915. But, as we noted in an earlier Flood Watch article, that great old blues — which Bessie Smith would memorialize with her classic 1925 Columbia recording of it — was written in answer to an earlier ragtimey blues called “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone,” released in 1913 by its composer, Shelton Brooks.Meet Shelton BrooksShelton Brooks was one of the most successful Black songwriters of the era before jazz. An African-Canadian, he had a recording career as an OKeh Records artist in the 1920s, but today he is better remembered for his songwriting chops.His most successful songs were "Some of These Days" (1911), "All Night Long" (1912), "Walkin' the Dog" (1916) and especially "Darktown Strutters' Ball" (1917), which sold more than 3 million copies as sheet music.About This SongBrooks' “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone” was first popularized on the vaudeville stage by Sophie Tucker.We base our version of the song on a July 9, 1929, recording by our hokum band heroes Tampa Red on guitar and Georgia Tom on piano, with jazz singer Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon doing the vocals.But perhaps the best known version of Brooks' tune came four years after that, when film siren Mae West delivered a sultry performance of it in her 1933 movie She Done Him Wrong.By the way, a legacy of Brooks' song and Handy's “Yellow Dog Blues” answer is that lines and melody from both songs started showing up in the 1920s and ‘30s in such songs as "E. Z. Rider," "See See Rider," "C. C. Rider" and "Easy Rider Blues.”Our Take on the TuneThis is the kind of song that The Flood likes the start the evening with, as we did at last week's rehearsal, because it has plenty of room for everyone to just stretch out and wail.Listen as the solos pass from Danny Cox to Sam St. Clair to Randy Hamilton. And when it's Jack Nuckols' turn, he reaches for those wooden spoons he keeps near his drum kit. See if it doesn't sound like a jazzy tap dancer has just shim-sham-shimmied into the room. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Show #1025 Peace 01. Steve Earle - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding (3:39) (Just an American Boy, Artemis Records, 2003) 02. The Holmes Brothers - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding (4:15) (State Of Grace, Alligator, 2007) 03. Gabe Stillman - No Peace For A Soldier (4:03) (Just Say The Word, VizzTone Records, 2021) 04. The Twangtown Paramours - Talk About Peace (2:47) (Double Down On A Bad Thing, Inside Edge Records, 2022) 05. Betty Fox Band - Peace In Pieces (3:34) (Peace In Pieces, self-release, 2020) 06. Southern Avenue - Peace Will Come (3:03) (Tony Holiday's Porch Sessions Volume 2, Blue Heart Records, 2021) 07. Tinsley Ellis - Peace And Love (4:40) (Midnight Blue, Heartfixer Music, 2014) 08. Anders Osborne - Peace (6:47) (Peace, Alligator Records, 2013) 09. Popa Chubby - No Justice No Peace (5:06) (Tinfoil Hat, Dixiefrog Records, 2021) 10. Justin Saladino Band - Peace With You (6:39) (Live, Bros Records, 2020) 11. John Frick Band - March For Peace (4:38) (K.02 Sessions, Blueshine Records, 2015) 12. Antry - Prince of Peace (4:32) (Devil Don't Care, Tres Lobas Enterprises, 2017) 13. Carolyn Wonderland - Fragile Peace And Certain War (3:59) (Tempting Fate, Alligator Records, 2021) 14. Kings & Associates - Peace x Peace (7:16) (Tales Of A Rich Girl, Big Wing Records, 2017) 15. Michael Packer - Blues For Peace (5:12) (I Am The Blues - My Story Vol 3, Iris music Group, 2017) 16. Anthony Gomes - Peace, Love & Loud Guitars (3:49) (Peace, Love & Loud Guitars, Up 2 Zero Entertainment, 2018) 17. Eric & Leon Bibb - Praising Peace (4:09) (Praising Peace, Stony Plain Records, 2006) 18. Joe Cocker - One Word (Peace) (2:49) (Hymn For My Soul, EMI Records, 2007) 19. Dr. John - Peace Brother Peace (2:50) (In The Right Place, Atco Records, 1973) 20. Harper & Midwest Kind - Peaceful (4:35) (Rise Up, Access Records, 2020) 21. Tom Waits - Road To Peace (7:17) (Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, ANTI- Records, 2006) 22. Keb' Mo' - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding (3:43) (Peace...Back by Popular Demand, Okeh Records, 2004) 23. The Reverend Shawn Amos - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, And Understanding (3:48) (The Reverend Shawn Amos Breaks It Down, Put Together, 2018) 24. Eric Gales - Universal Peacepipe (4:46) (Relentless, Blues Bureau International, 2010) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Episode 169 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Piece of My Heart" and the short, tragic life of Janis Joplin. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources There are two Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two . For information on Janis Joplin I used three biographies -- Scars of Sweet Paradise by Alice Echols, Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren, and Buried Alive by Myra Friedman. I also referred to the chapter '“Being Good Isn't Always Easy": Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield, and the Color of Soul' in Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination by Jack Hamilton. Some information on Bessie Smith came from Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay, a book I can't really recommend given the lack of fact-checking, and Bessie by Chris Albertson. I also referred to Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis And the best place to start with Joplin's music is this five-CD box, which contains both Big Brother and the Holding Company albums she was involved in, plus her two studio albums and bonus tracks. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, this episode contains discussion of drug addiction and overdose, alcoholism, mental illness, domestic abuse, child abandonment, and racism. If those subjects are likely to cause you upset, you may want to check the transcript or skip this one rather than listen. Also, a subject I should probably say a little more about in this intro because I know I have inadvertently caused upset to at least one listener with this in the past. When it comes to Janis Joplin, it is *impossible* to talk about her without discussing her issues with her weight and self-image. The way I write often involves me paraphrasing the opinions of the people I'm writing about, in a mode known as close third person, and sometimes that means it can look like I am stating those opinions as my own, and sometimes things I say in that mode which *I* think are obviously meant in context to be critiques of those attitudes can appear to others to be replicating them. At least once, I have seriously upset a fat listener when talking about issues related to weight in this manner. I'm going to try to be more careful here, but just in case, I'm going to say before I begin that I think fatphobia is a pernicious form of bigotry, as bad as any other form of bigotry. I'm fat myself and well aware of how systemic discrimination affects fat people. I also think more generally that the pressure put on women to look a particular way is pernicious and disgusting in ways I can't even begin to verbalise, and causes untold harm. If *ANYTHING* I say in this episode comes across as sounding otherwise, that's because I haven't expressed myself clearly enough. Like all people, Janis Joplin had negative characteristics, and at times I'm going to say things that are critical of those. But when it comes to anything to do with her weight or her appearance, if *anything* I say sounds critical of her, rather than of a society that makes women feel awful for their appearance, it isn't meant to. Anyway, on with the show. On January the nineteenth, 1943, Seth Joplin typed up a letter to his wife Dorothy, which read “I wish to tender my congratulations on the anniversary of your successful completion of your production quota for the nine months ending January 19, 1943. I realize that you passed through a period of inflation such as you had never before known—yet, in spite of this, you met your goal by your supreme effort during the early hours of January 19, a good three weeks ahead of schedule.” As you can probably tell from that message, the Joplin family were a strange mixture of ultraconformism and eccentricity, and those two opposing forces would dominate the personality of their firstborn daughter for the whole of her life.  Seth Joplin was a respected engineer at Texaco, where he worked for forty years, but he had actually dropped out of engineering school before completing his degree. His favourite pastime when he wasn't at work was to read -- he was a voracious reader -- and to listen to classical music, which would often move him to tears, but he had also taught himself to make bathtub gin during prohibition, and smoked cannabis. Dorothy, meanwhile, had had the possibility of a singing career before deciding to settle down and become a housewife, and was known for having a particularly beautiful soprano voice. Both were, by all accounts, fiercely intelligent people, but they were also as committed as anyone to the ideals of the middle-class family even as they chafed against its restrictions. Like her mother, young Janis had a beautiful soprano voice, and she became a soloist in her church choir, but after the age of six, she was not encouraged to sing much. Dorothy had had a thyroid operation which destroyed her singing voice, and the family got rid of their piano soon after (different sources say that this was either because Dorothy found her daughter's singing painful now that she couldn't sing herself, or because Seth was upset that his wife could no longer sing. Either seems plausible.) Janis was pushed to be a high-achiever -- she was given a library card as soon as she could write her name, and encouraged to use it, and she was soon advanced in school, skipping a couple of grades. She was also by all accounts a fiercely talented painter, and her parents paid for art lessons. From everything one reads about her pre-teen years, she was a child prodigy who was loved by everyone and who was clearly going to be a success of some kind. Things started to change when she reached her teenage years. Partly, this was just her getting into rock and roll music, which her father thought a fad -- though even there, she differed from her peers. She loved Elvis, but when she heard "Hound Dog", she loved it so much that she tracked down a copy of Big Mama Thornton's original, and told her friends she preferred that: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Hound Dog"] Despite this, she was still also an exemplary student and overachiever. But by the time she turned fourteen, things started to go very wrong for her. Partly this was just down to her relationship with her father changing -- she adored him, but he became more distant from his daughters as they grew into women. But also, puberty had an almost wholly negative effect on her, at least by the standards of that time and place. She put on weight (which, again, I do not think is a negative thing, but she did, and so did everyone around her), she got a bad case of acne which didn't ever really go away, and she also didn't develop breasts particularly quickly -- which, given that she was a couple of years younger than the other people in the same classes at school, meant she stood out even more. In the mid-sixties, a doctor apparently diagnosed her as having a "hormone imbalance" -- something that got to her as a possible explanation for why she was, to quote from a letter she wrote then, "not really a woman or enough of one or something." She wondered if "maybe something as simple as a pill could have helped out or even changed that part of me I call ME and has been so messed up.” I'm not a doctor and even if I were, diagnosing historical figures is an unethical thing to do, but certainly the acne, weight gain, and mental health problems she had are all consistent with PCOS, the most common endocrine disorder among women, and it seems likely given what the doctor told her that this was the cause. But at the time all she knew was that she was different, and that in the eyes of her fellow students she had gone from being pretty to being ugly. She seems to have been a very trusting, naive, person who was often the brunt of jokes but who desperately needed to be accepted, and it became clear that her appearance wasn't going to let her fit into the conformist society she was being brought up in, while her high intelligence, low impulse control, and curiosity meant she couldn't even fade into the background. This left her one other option, and she decided that she would deliberately try to look and act as different from everyone else as possible. That way, it would be a conscious choice on her part to reject the standards of her fellow pupils, rather than her being rejected by them. She started to admire rebels. She became a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis, whose music combined the country music she'd grown up hearing in Texas, the R&B she liked now, and the rebellious nature she was trying to cultivate: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"] When Lewis' career was derailed by his marriage to his teenage cousin, Joplin wrote an angry letter to Time magazine complaining that they had mistreated him in their coverage. But as with so many people of her generation, her love of rock and roll music led her first to the blues and then to folk, and she soon found herself listening to Odetta: [Excerpt: Odetta, "Muleskinner Blues"] One of her first experiences of realising she could gain acceptance from her peers by singing was when she was hanging out with the small group of Bohemian teenagers she was friendly with, and sang an Odetta song, mimicking her voice exactly. But young Janis Joplin was listening to an eclectic range of folk music, and could mimic more than just Odetta. For all that her later vocal style was hugely influenced by Odetta and by other Black singers like Big Mama Thornton and Etta James, her friends in her late teens and early twenties remember her as a vocal chameleon with an achingly pure soprano, who would more often than Odetta be imitating the great Appalachian traditional folk singer Jean Ritchie: [Excerpt: Jean Ritchie, "Lord Randall"] She was, in short, trying her best to become a Beatnik, despite not having any experience of that subculture other than what she read in books -- though she *did* read about them in books, devouring things like Kerouac's On The Road. She came into conflict with her mother, who didn't understand what was happening to her daughter, and who tried to get family counselling to understand what was going on. Her father, who seemed to relate more to Janis, but who was more quietly eccentric, put an end to that, but Janis would still for the rest of her life talk about how her mother had taken her to doctors who thought she was going to end up "either in jail or an insane asylum" to use her words. From this point on, and for the rest of her life, she was torn between a need for approval from her family and her peers, and a knowledge that no matter what she did she couldn't fit in with normal societal expectations. In high school she was a member of the Future Nurses of America, the Future Teachers of America, the Art Club, and Slide Rule Club, but she also had a reputation as a wild girl, and as sexually active (even though by all accounts at this point she was far less so than most of the so-called "good girls" – but her later activity was in part because she felt that if she was going to have that reputation anyway she might as well earn it). She also was known to express radical opinions, like that segregation was wrong, an opinion that the other students in her segregated Texan school didn't even think was wrong, but possibly some sort of sign of mental illness. Her final High School yearbook didn't contain a single other student's signature. And her initial choice of university, Lamar State College of Technology, was not much better. In the next town over, and attended by many of the same students, it had much the same attitudes as the school she'd left. Almost the only long-term effect her initial attendance at university had on her was a negative one -- she found there was another student at the college who was better at painting. Deciding that if she wasn't going to be the best at something she didn't want to do it at all, she more or less gave up on painting at that point. But there was one positive. One of the lecturers at Lamar was Francis Edward "Ab" Abernethy, who would in the early seventies go on to become the Secretary and Editor of the Texas Folklore Society, and was also a passionate folk musician, playing double bass in string bands. Abernethy had a great collection of blues 78s. and it was through this collection that Janis first discovered classic blues, and in particular Bessie Smith: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Black Mountain Blues"] A couple of episodes ago, we had a long look at the history of the music that now gets called "the blues" -- the music that's based around guitars, and generally involves a solo male vocalist, usually Black during its classic period. At the time that music was being made though it wouldn't have been thought of as "the blues" with no modifiers by most people who were aware of it. At the start, even the songs they were playing weren't thought of as blues by the male vocalist/guitarists who played them -- they called the songs they played "reels". The music released by people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Robert Johnson, Kokomo Arnold and so on was thought of as blues music, and people would understand and agree with a phrase like "Lonnie Johnson is a blues singer", but it wasn't the first thing people thought of when they talked about "the blues". Until relatively late -- probably some time in the 1960s -- if you wanted to talk about blues music made by Black men with guitars and only that music, you talked about "country blues". If you thought about "the blues", with no qualifiers, you thought about a rather different style of music, one that white record collectors started later to refer to as "classic blues" to differentiate it from what they were now calling "the blues". Nowadays of course if you say "classic blues", most people will think you mean Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker, people who were contemporary at the time those white record collectors were coming up with their labels, and so that style of music gets referred to as "vaudeville blues", or as "classic female blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] What we just heard was the first big blues hit performed by a Black person, from 1920, and as we discussed in the episode on "Crossroads" that revolutionised the whole record industry when it came out. The song was performed by Mamie Smith, a vaudeville performer, and was originally titled "Harlem Blues" by its writer, Perry Bradford, before he changed the title to "Crazy Blues" to get it to a wider audience. Bradford was an important figure in the vaudeville scene, though other than being the credited writer of "Keep A-Knockin'" he's little known these days. He was a Black musician and grew up playing in minstrel shows (the history of minstrelsy is a topic for another day, but it's more complicated than the simple image of blackface that we are aware of today -- though as with many "more complicated than that" things it is, also the simple image of blackface we're aware of). He was the person who persuaded OKeh records that there would be a market for music made by Black people that sounded Black (though as we're going to see in this episode, what "sounding Black" means is a rather loaded question). "Crazy Blues" was the result, and it was a massive hit, even though it was marketed specifically towards Black listeners: [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] The big stars of the early years of recorded blues were all making records in the shadow of "Crazy Blues", and in the case of its very biggest stars, they were working very much in the same mould. The two most important blues stars of the twenties both got their start in vaudeville, and were both women. Ma Rainey, like Mamie Smith, first performed in minstrel shows, but where Mamie Smith's early records had her largely backed by white musicians, Rainey was largely backed by Black musicians, including on several tracks Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider"] Rainey's band was initially led by Thomas Dorsey, one of the most important men in American music, who we've talked about before in several episodes, including the last one. He was possibly the single most important figure in two different genres -- hokum music, when he, under the name "Georgia Tom" recorded "It's Tight Like That" with Tampa Red: [Excerpt: Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, "It's Tight Like That"] And of course gospel music, which to all intents and purposes he invented, and much of whose repertoire he wrote: [Excerpt: Mahalia Jackson, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord"] When Dorsey left Rainey's band, as we discussed right back in episode five, he was replaced by a female pianist, Lil Henderson. The blues was a woman's genre. And Ma Rainey was, by preference, a woman's woman, though she was married to a man: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "Prove it on Me"] So was the biggest star of the classic blues era, who was originally mentored by Rainey. Bessie Smith, like Rainey, was a queer woman who had relationships with men but was far more interested in other women.  There were stories that Bessie Smith actually got her start in the business by being kidnapped by Ma Rainey, and forced into performing on the same bills as her in the vaudeville show she was touring in, and that Rainey taught Smith to sing blues in the process. In truth, Rainey mentored Smith more in stagecraft and the ways of the road than in singing, and neither woman was only a blues singer, though both had huge success with their blues records.  Indeed, since Rainey was already in the show, Smith was initially hired as a dancer rather than a singer, and she also worked as a male impersonator. But Smith soon branched out on her own -- from the beginning she was obviously a star. The great jazz clarinettist Sidney Bechet later said of her "She had this trouble in her, this thing that would not let her rest sometimes, a meanness that came and took her over. But what she had was alive … Bessie, she just wouldn't let herself be; it seemed she couldn't let herself be." Bessie Smith was signed by Columbia Records in 1923, as part of the rush to find and record as many Black women blues singers as possible. Her first recording session produced "Downhearted Blues", which became, depending on which sources you read, either the biggest-selling blues record since "Crazy Blues" or the biggest-selling blues record ever, full stop, selling three quarters of a million copies in the six months after its release: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Downhearted Blues"] Smith didn't make royalties off record sales, only making a flat fee, but she became the most popular Black performer of the 1920s. Columbia signed her to an exclusive contract, and she became so rich that she would literally travel between gigs on her own private train. She lived an extravagant life in every way, giving lavishly to her friends and family, but also drinking extraordinary amounts of liquor, having regular affairs, and also often physically or verbally attacking those around her. By all accounts she was not a comfortable person to be around, and she seemed to be trying to fit an entire lifetime into every moment. From 1923 through 1929 she had a string of massive hits. She recorded material in a variety of styles, including the dirty blues: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Empty Bed Blues] And with accompanists like Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong, "Cold in Hand Blues"] But the music for which she became best known, and which sold the best, was when she sang about being mistreated by men, as on one of her biggest hits, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do" -- and a warning here, I'm going to play a clip of the song, which treats domestic violence in a way that may be upsetting: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do"] That kind of material can often seem horrifying to today's listeners -- and quite correctly so, as domestic violence is a horrifying thing -- and it sounds entirely too excusing of the man beating her up for anyone to find it comfortable listening. But the Black feminist scholar Angela Davis has made a convincing case that while these records, and others by Smith's contemporaries, can't reasonably be considered to be feminist, they *are* at the very least more progressive than they now seem, in that they were, even if excusing it, pointing to a real problem which was otherwise left unspoken. And that kind of domestic violence and abuse *was* a real problem, including in Smith's own life. By all accounts she was terrified of her husband, Jack Gee, who would frequently attack her because of her affairs with other people, mostly women. But she was still devastated when he left her for a younger woman, not only because he had left her, but also because he kidnapped their adopted son and had him put into a care home, falsely claiming she had abused him. Not only that, but before Jack left her closest friend had been Jack's niece Ruby and after the split she never saw Ruby again -- though after her death Ruby tried to have a blues career as "Ruby Smith", taking her aunt's surname and recording a few tracks with Sammy Price, the piano player who worked with Sister Rosetta Tharpe: [Excerpt: Ruby Smith with Sammy Price, "Make Me Love You"] The same month, May 1929, that Gee left her, Smith recorded what was to become her last big hit, and most well-known song, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out": [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] And that could have been the theme for the rest of her life. A few months after that record came out, the Depression hit, pretty much killing the market for blues records. She carried on recording until 1931, but the records weren't selling any more. And at the same time, the talkies came in in the film industry, which along with the Depression ended up devastating the vaudeville audience. Her earnings were still higher than most, but only a quarter of what they had been a year or two earlier. She had one last recording session in 1933, produced by John Hammond for OKeh Records, where she showed that her style had developed over the years -- it was now incorporating the newer swing style, and featured future swing stars Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden in the backing band: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Gimme a Pigfoot"] Hammond was not hugely impressed with the recordings, preferring her earlier records, and they would be the last she would ever make. She continued as a successful, though no longer record-breaking, live act until 1937, when she and her common-law husband, Lionel Hampton's uncle Richard Morgan, were in a car crash. Morgan escaped, but Smith died of her injuries and was buried on October the fourth 1937. Ten thousand people came to her funeral, but she was buried in an unmarked grave -- she was still legally married to Gee, even though they'd been separated for eight years, and while he supposedly later became rich from songwriting royalties from some of her songs (most of her songs were written by other people, but she wrote a few herself) he refused to pay for a headstone for her. Indeed on more than one occasion he embezzled money that had been raised by other people to provide a headstone. Bessie Smith soon became Joplin's favourite singer of all time, and she started trying to copy her vocals. But other than discovering Smith's music, Joplin seems to have had as terrible a time at university as at school, and soon dropped out and moved back in with her parents. She went to business school for a short while, where she learned some secretarial skills, and then she moved west, going to LA where two of her aunts lived, to see if she could thrive better in a big West Coast city than she did in small-town Texas. Soon she moved from LA to Venice Beach, and from there had a brief sojourn in San Francisco, where she tried to live out her beatnik fantasies at a time when the beatnik culture was starting to fall apart. She did, while she was there, start smoking cannabis, though she never got a taste for that drug, and took Benzedrine and started drinking much more heavily than she had before. She soon lost her job, moved back to Texas, and re-enrolled at the same college she'd been at before. But now she'd had a taste of real Bohemian life -- she'd been singing at coffee houses, and having affairs with both men and women -- and soon she decided to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin. At this point, Austin was very far from the cultural centre it has become in recent decades, and it was still a straitlaced Texan town, but it was far less so than Port Arthur, and she soon found herself in a folk group, the Waller Creek Boys. Janis would play autoharp and sing, sometimes Bessie Smith covers, but also the more commercial country and folk music that was popular at the time, like "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", a song that had originally been recorded by Wanda Jackson but at that time was a big hit for Dusty Springfield's group The Springfields: [Excerpt: The Waller Creek Boys, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"] But even there, Joplin didn't fit in comfortably. The venue where the folk jams were taking place was a segregated venue, as everywhere around Austin was. And she was enough of a misfit that the campus newspaper did an article on her headlined "She Dares to Be Different!", which read in part "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her Autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break out into song it will be handy." There was a small group of wannabe-Beatniks, including Chet Helms, who we've mentioned previously in the Grateful Dead episode, Gilbert Shelton, who went on to be a pioneer of alternative comics and create the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Shelton's partner in Rip-Off Press, Dave Moriarty, but for the most part the atmosphere in Austin was only slightly better for Janis than it had been in Port Arthur. The final straw for her came when in an annual charity fundraiser joke competition to find the ugliest man on campus, someone nominated her for the "award". She'd had enough of Texas. She wanted to go back to California. She and Chet Helms, who had dropped out of the university earlier and who, like her, had already spent some time on the West Coast, decided to hitch-hike together to San Francisco. Before leaving, she made a recording for her ex-girlfriend Julie Paul, a country and western musician, of a song she'd written herself. It's recorded in what many say was Janis' natural voice -- a voice she deliberately altered in performance in later years because, she would tell people, she didn't think there was room for her singing like that in an industry that already had Joan Baez and Judy Collins. In her early years she would alternate between singing like this and doing her imitations of Black women, but the character of Janis Joplin who would become famous never sang like this. It may well be the most honest thing that she ever recorded, and the most revealing of who she really was: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, "So Sad to Be Alone"] Joplin and Helms made it to San Francisco, and she started performing at open-mic nights and folk clubs around the Bay Area, singing in her Bessie Smith and Odetta imitation voice, and sometimes making a great deal of money by sounding different from the wispier-voiced women who were the norm at those venues. The two friends parted ways, and she started performing with two other folk musicians, Larry Hanks and Roger Perkins, and she insisted that they would play at least one Bessie Smith song at every performance: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, Larry Hanks, and Roger Perkins, "Black Mountain Blues (live in San Francisco)"] Often the trio would be joined by Billy Roberts, who at that time had just started performing the song that would make his name, "Hey Joe", and Joplin was soon part of the folk scene in the Bay Area, and admired by Dino Valenti, David Crosby, and Jerry Garcia among others. She also sang a lot with Jorma Kaukonnen, and recordings of the two of them together have circulated for years: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonnen, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] Through 1963, 1964, and early 1965 Joplin ping-ponged from coast to coast, spending time in the Bay Area, then Greenwich Village, dropping in on her parents then back to the Bay Area, and she started taking vast quantities of methamphetamine. Even before moving to San Francisco she had been an occasional user of amphetamines – at the time they were regularly prescribed to students as study aids during exam periods, and she had also been taking them to try to lose some of the weight she always hated. But while she was living in San Francisco she became dependent on the drug. At one point her father was worried enough about her health to visit her in San Francisco, where she managed to fool him that she was more or less OK. But she looked to him for reassurance that things would get better for her, and he couldn't give it to her. He told her about a concept that he called the "Saturday night swindle", the idea that you work all week so you can go out and have fun on Saturday in the hope that that will make up for everything else, but that it never does. She had occasional misses with what would have been lucky breaks -- at one point she was in a motorcycle accident just as record labels were interested in signing her, and by the time she got out of the hospital the chance had gone. She became engaged to another speed freak, one who claimed to be an engineer and from a well-off background, but she was becoming severely ill from what was by now a dangerous amphetamine habit, and in May 1965 she decided to move back in with her parents, get clean, and have a normal life. Her new fiance was going to do the same, and they were going to have the conformist life her parents had always wanted, and which she had always wanted to want. Surely with a husband who loved her she could find a way to fit in and just be normal. She kicked the addiction, and wrote her fiance long letters describing everything about her family and the new normal life they were going to have together, and they show her painfully trying to be optimistic about the future, like one where she described her family to him: "My mother—Dorothy—worries so and loves her children dearly. Republican and Methodist, very sincere, speaks in clichés which she really means and is very good to people. (She thinks you have a lovely voice and is terribly prepared to like you.) My father—richer than when I knew him and kind of embarrassed about it—very well read—history his passion—quiet and very excited to have me home because I'm bright and we can talk (about antimatter yet—that impressed him)! I keep telling him how smart you are and how proud I am of you.…" She went back to Lamar, her mother started sewing her a wedding dress, and for much of the year she believed her fiance was going to be her knight in shining armour. But as it happened, the fiance in question was described by everyone else who knew him as a compulsive liar and con man, who persuaded her father to give him money for supposed medical tests before the wedding, but in reality was apparently married to someone else and having a baby with a third woman. After the engagement was broken off, she started performing again around the coffeehouses in Austin and Houston, and she started to realise the possibilities of rock music for her kind of performance. The missing clue came from a group from Austin who she became very friendly with, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, and the way their lead singer Roky Erickson would wail and yell: [Excerpt: The 13th Floor Elevators, "You're Gonna Miss Me (live)"] If, as now seemed inevitable, Janis was going to make a living as a performer, maybe she should start singing rock music, because it seemed like there was money in it. There was even some talk of her singing with the Elevators. But then an old friend came to Austin from San Francisco with word from Chet Helms. A blues band had formed, and were looking for a singer, and they remembered her from the coffee houses. Would she like to go back to San Francisco and sing with them? In the time she'd been away, Helms had become hugely prominent in the San Francisco music scene, which had changed radically. A band from the area called the Charlatans had been playing a fake-Victorian saloon called the Red Dog in nearby Nevada, and had become massive with the people who a few years earlier had been beatniks: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "32-20"] When their residency at the Red Dog had finished, several of the crowd who had been regulars there had become a collective of sorts called the Family Dog, and Helms had become their unofficial leader. And there's actually a lot packed into that choice of name. As we'll see in a few future episodes, a lot of West Coast hippies eventually started calling their collectives and communes families. This started as a way to get round bureaucracy -- if a helpful welfare officer put down that the unrelated people living in a house together were a family, suddenly they could get food stamps. As with many things, of course, the label then affected how people thought about themselves, and one thing that's very notable about the San Francisco scene hippies in particular is that they are some of the first people to make a big deal about what we now  call "found family" or "family of choice". But it's also notable how often the hippie found families took their model from the only families these largely middle-class dropouts had ever known, and structured themselves around men going out and doing the work -- selling dope or panhandling or being rock musicians or shoplifting -- with the women staying at home doing the housework. The Family Dog started promoting shows, with the intention of turning San Francisco into "the American Liverpool", and soon Helms was rivalled only by Bill Graham as the major promoter of rock shows in the Bay Area. And now he wanted Janis to come back and join this new band. But Janis was worried. She was clean now. She drank far too much, but she wasn't doing any other drugs. She couldn't go back to San Francisco and risk getting back on methamphetamine. She needn't worry about that, she was told, nobody in San Francisco did speed any more, they were all on LSD -- a drug she hated and so wasn't in any danger from. Reassured, she made the trip back to San Francisco, to join Big Brother and the Holding Company. Big Brother and the Holding Company were the epitome of San Francisco acid rock at the time. They were the house band at the Avalon Ballroom, which Helms ran, and their first ever gig had been at the Trips Festival, which we talked about briefly in the Grateful Dead episode. They were known for being more imaginative than competent -- lead guitarist James Gurley was often described as playing parts that were influenced by John Cage, but was equally often, and equally accurately, described as not actually being able to keep his guitar in tune because he was too stoned. But they were drawing massive crowds with their instrumental freak-out rock music. Helms thought they needed a singer, and he had remembered Joplin, who a few of the group had seen playing the coffee houses. He decided she would be perfect for them, though Joplin wasn't so sure. She thought it was worth a shot, but as she wrote to her parents before meeting the group "Supposed to rehearse w/ the band this afternoon, after that I guess I'll know whether I want to stay & do that for awhile. Right now my position is ambivalent—I'm glad I came, nice to see the city, a few friends, but I'm not at all sold on the idea of becoming the poor man's Cher.” In that letter she also wrote "I'm awfully sorry to be such a disappointment to you. I understand your fears at my coming here & must admit I share them, but I really do think there's an awfully good chance I won't blow it this time." The band she met up with consisted of lead guitarist James Gurley, bass player Peter Albin, rhythm player Sam Andrew, and drummer David Getz.  To start with, Peter Albin sang lead on most songs, with Joplin adding yelps and screams modelled on those of Roky Erickson, but in her first gig with the band she bowled everyone over with her lead vocal on the traditional spiritual "Down on Me", which would remain a staple of their live act, as in this live recording from 1968: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me (Live 1968)"] After that first gig in June 1966, it was obvious that Joplin was going to be a star, and was going to be the group's main lead vocalist. She had developed a whole new stage persona a million miles away from her folk performances. As Chet Helms said “Suddenly this person who would stand upright with her fists clenched was all over the stage. Roky Erickson had modeled himself after the screaming style of Little Richard, and Janis's initial stage presence came from Roky, and ultimately Little Richard. It was a very different Janis.” Joplin would always claim to journalists that her stage persona was just her being herself and natural, but she worked hard on every aspect of her performance, and far from the untrained emotional outpouring she always suggested, her vocal performances were carefully calculated pastiches of her influences -- mostly Bessie Smith, but also Big Mama Thornton, Odetta, Etta James, Tina Turner, and Otis Redding. That's not to say that those performances weren't an authentic expression of part of herself -- they absolutely were. But the ethos that dominated San Francisco in the mid-sixties prized self-expression over technical craft, and so Joplin had to portray herself as a freak of nature who just had to let all her emotions out, a wild woman, rather than someone who carefully worked out every nuance of her performances. Joplin actually got the chance to meet one of her idols when she discovered that Willie Mae Thornton was now living and regularly performing in the Bay Area. She and some of her bandmates saw Big Mama play a small jazz club, where she performed a song she wouldn't release on a record for another two years: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Ball 'n' Chain"] Janis loved the song and scribbled down the lyrics, then went backstage to ask Big Mama if Big Brother could cover the song. She gave them her blessing, but told them "don't" -- and here she used a word I can't use with a clean rating -- "it up". The group all moved in together, communally, with their partners -- those who had them. Janis was currently single, having dumped her most recent boyfriend after discovering him shooting speed, as she was still determined to stay clean. But she was rapidly discovering that the claim that San Franciscans no longer used much speed had perhaps not been entirely true, as for example Sam Andrew's girlfriend went by the nickname Speedfreak Rita. For now, Janis was still largely clean, but she did start drinking more. Partly this was because of a brief fling with Pigpen from the Grateful Dead, who lived nearby. Janis liked Pigpen as someone else on the scene who didn't much like psychedelics or cannabis -- she didn't like drugs that made her think more, but only drugs that made her able to *stop* thinking (her love of amphetamines doesn't seem to fit this pattern, but a small percentage of people have a different reaction to amphetamine-type stimulants, perhaps she was one of those). Pigpen was a big drinker of Southern Comfort -- so much so that it would kill him within a few years -- and Janis started joining him. Her relationship with Pigpen didn't last long, but the two would remain close, and she would often join the Grateful Dead on stage over the years to duet with him on "Turn On Your Lovelight": [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, "Turn on Your Lovelight"] But within two months of joining the band, Janis nearly left. Paul Rothchild of Elektra Records came to see the group live, and was impressed by their singer, but not by the rest of the band. This was something that would happen again and again over the group's career. The group were all imaginative and creative -- they worked together on their arrangements and their long instrumental jams and often brought in very good ideas -- but they were not the most disciplined or technically skilled of musicians, even when you factored in their heavy drug use, and often lacked the skill to pull off their better ideas. They were hugely popular among the crowds at the Avalon Ballroom, who were on the group's chemical wavelength, but Rothchild was not impressed -- as he was, in general, unimpressed with psychedelic freakouts. He was already of the belief in summer 1966 that the fashion for extended experimental freak-outs would soon come to an end and that there would be a pendulum swing back towards more structured and melodic music. As we saw in the episode on The Band, he would be proved right in a little over a year, but being ahead of the curve he wanted to put together a supergroup that would be able to ride that coming wave, a group that would play old-fashioned blues. He'd got together Stefan Grossman, Steve Mann, and Taj Mahal, and he wanted Joplin to be the female vocalist for the group, dueting with Mahal. She attended one rehearsal, and the new group sounded great. Elektra Records offered to sign them, pay their rent while they rehearsed, and have a major promotional campaign for their first release. Joplin was very, very, tempted, and brought the subject up to her bandmates in Big Brother. They were devastated. They were a family! You don't leave your family! She was meant to be with them forever! They eventually got her to agree to put off the decision at least until after a residency they'd been booked for in Chicago, and she decided to give them the chance, writing to her parents "I decided to stay w/the group but still like to think about the other thing. Trying to figure out which is musically more marketable because my being good isn't enough, I've got to be in a good vehicle.” The trip to Chicago was a disaster. They found that the people of Chicago weren't hugely interested in seeing a bunch of white Californians play the blues, and that the Midwest didn't have the same Bohemian crowds that the coastal cities they were used to had, and so their freak-outs didn't go down well either. After two weeks of their four-week residency, the club owner stopped paying them because they were so unpopular, and they had no money to get home. And then they were approached by Bob Shad. (For those who know the film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the Bob Shad in that film is named after this one -- Judd Apatow, the film's director, is Shad's grandson) This Shad was a record producer, who had worked with people like Big Bill Broonzy, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, and Billy Eckstine over an eighteen-year career, and had recently set up a new label, Mainstream Records. He wanted to sign Big Brother and the Holding Company. They needed money and... well, it was a record contract! It was a contract that took half their publishing, paid them a five percent royalty on sales, and gave them no advance, but it was still a contract, and they'd get union scale for the first session. In that first session in Chicago, they recorded four songs, and strangely only one, "Down on Me", had a solo Janis vocal. Of the other three songs, Sam Andrew and Janis dueted on Sam's song "Call on Me", Albin sang lead on the group composition "Blindman", and Gurley and Janis sang a cover of "All Is Loneliness", a song originally by the avant-garde street musician Moondog: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "All is Loneliness"] The group weren't happy with the four songs they recorded -- they had to keep the songs to the length of a single, and the engineers made sure that the needles never went into the red, so their guitars sounded far more polite and less distorted than they were used to. Janis was fascinated by the overdubbing process, though, especially double-tracking, which she'd never tried before but which she turned out to be remarkably good at. And they were now signed to a contract, which meant that Janis wouldn't be leaving the group to go solo any time soon. The family were going to stay together. But on the group's return to San Francisco, Janis started doing speed again, encouraged by the people around the group, particularly Gurley's wife. By the time the group's first single, "Blindman" backed with "All is Loneliness", came out, she was an addict again. That initial single did nothing, but the group were fast becoming one of the most popular in the Bay Area, and almost entirely down to Janis' vocals and on-stage persona. Bob Shad had already decided in the initial session that while various band members had taken lead, Janis was the one who should be focused on as the star, and when they drove to LA for their second recording session it was songs with Janis leads that they focused on. At that second session, in which they recorded ten tracks in two days, the group recorded a mix of material including one of Janis' own songs, the blues track "Women is Losers", and a version of the old folk song "the Cuckoo Bird" rearranged by Albin. Again they had to keep the arrangements to two and a half minutes a track, with no extended soloing and a pop arrangement style, and the results sound a lot more like the other San Francisco bands, notably Jefferson Airplane, than like the version of the band that shows itself in their live performances: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Coo Coo"] After returning to San Francisco after the sessions, Janis went to see Otis Redding at the Fillmore, turning up several hours before the show started on all three nights to make sure she could be right at the front. One of the other audience members later recalled “It was more fascinating for me, almost, to watch Janis watching Otis, because you could tell that she wasn't just listening to him, she was studying something. There was some kind of educational thing going on there. I was jumping around like the little hippie girl I was, thinking This is so great! and it just stopped me in my tracks—because all of a sudden Janis drew you very deeply into what the performance was all about. Watching her watch Otis Redding was an education in itself.” Joplin would, for the rest of her life, always say that Otis Redding was her all-time favourite singer, and would say “I started singing rhythmically, and now I'm learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it.” [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "I Can't Turn You Loose (live)"] At the start of 1967, the group moved out of the rural house they'd been sharing and into separate apartments around Haight-Ashbury, and they brought the new year in by playing a free show organised by the Hell's Angels, the violent motorcycle gang who at the time were very close with the proto-hippies in the Bay Area. Janis in particular always got on well with the Angels, whose drugs of choice, like hers, were speed and alcohol more than cannabis and psychedelics. Janis also started what would be the longest on-again off-again relationship she would ever have, with a woman named Peggy Caserta. Caserta had a primary partner, but that if anything added to her appeal for Joplin -- Caserta's partner Kimmie had previously been in a relationship with Joan Baez, and Joplin, who had an intense insecurity that made her jealous of any other female singer who had any success, saw this as in some way a validation both of her sexuality and, transitively, of her talent. If she was dating Baez's ex's lover, that in some way put her on a par with Baez, and when she told friends about Peggy, Janis would always slip that fact in. Joplin and Caserta would see each other off and on for the rest of Joplin's life, but they were never in a monogamous relationship, and Joplin had many other lovers over the years. The next of these was Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish, who were just in the process of recording their first album Electric Music for the Mind and Body, when McDonald and Joplin first got together: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Grace"] McDonald would later reminisce about lying with Joplin, listening to one of the first underground FM radio stations, KMPX, and them playing a Fish track and a Big Brother track back to back. Big Brother's second single, the other two songs recorded in the Chicago session, had been released in early 1967, and the B-side, "Down on Me", was getting a bit of airplay in San Francisco and made the local charts, though it did nothing outside the Bay Area: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me"] Janis was unhappy with the record, though, writing to her parents and saying, “Our new record is out. We seem to be pretty dissatisfied w/it. I think we're going to try & get out of the record contract if we can. We don't feel that they know how to promote or engineer a record & every time we recorded for them, they get all our songs, which means we can't do them for another record company. But then if our new record does something, we'd change our mind. But somehow, I don't think it's going to." The band apparently saw a lawyer to see if they could get out of the contract with Mainstream, but they were told it was airtight. They were tied to Bob Shad no matter what for the next five years. Janis and McDonald didn't stay together for long -- they clashed about his politics and her greater fame -- but after they split, she asked him to write a song for her before they became too distant, and he obliged and recorded it on the Fish's next album: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Janis"] The group were becoming so popular by late spring 1967 that when Richard Lester, the director of the Beatles' films among many other classics, came to San Francisco to film Petulia, his follow-up to How I Won The War, he chose them, along with the Grateful Dead, to appear in performance segments in the film. But it would be another filmmaker that would change the course of the group's career irrevocably: [Excerpt: Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)"] When Big Brother and the Holding Company played the Monterey Pop Festival, nobody had any great expectations. They were second on the bill on the Saturday, the day that had been put aside for the San Francisco acts, and they were playing in the early afternoon, after a largely unimpressive night before. They had a reputation among the San Francisco crowd, of course, but they weren't even as big as the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape or Country Joe and the Fish, let alone Jefferson Airplane. Monterey launched four careers to new heights, but three of the superstars it made -- Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who -- already had successful careers. Hendrix and the Who had had hits in the UK but not yet broken the US market, while Redding was massively popular with Black people but hadn't yet crossed over to a white audience. Big Brother and the Holding Company, on the other hand, were so unimportant that D.A. Pennebaker didn't even film their set -- their manager at the time had not wanted to sign over the rights to film their performance, something that several of the other acts had also refused -- and nobody had been bothered enough to make an issue of it. Pennebaker just took some crowd shots and didn't bother filming the band. The main thing he caught was Cass Elliot's open-mouthed astonishment at Big Brother's performance -- or rather at Janis Joplin's performance. The members of the group would later complain, not entirely inaccurately, that in the reviews of their performance at Monterey, Joplin's left nipple (the outline of which was apparently visible through her shirt, at least to the male reviewers who took an inordinate interest in such things) got more attention than her four bandmates combined. As Pennebaker later said “She came out and sang, and my hair stood on end. We were told we weren't allowed to shoot it, but I knew if we didn't have Janis in the film, the film would be a wash. Afterward, I said to Albert Grossman, ‘Talk to her manager or break his leg or whatever you have to do, because we've got to have her in this film. I can't imagine this film without this woman who I just saw perform.” Grossman had a talk with the organisers of the festival, Lou Adler and John Phillips, and they offered Big Brother a second spot, the next day, if they would allow their performance to be used in the film. The group agreed, after much discussion between Janis and Grossman, and against the wishes of their manager: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Ball and Chain (live at Monterey)"] They were now on Albert Grossman's radar. Or at least, Janis Joplin was. Joplin had always been more of a careerist than the other members of the group. They were in music to have a good time and to avoid working a straight job, and while some of them were more accomplished musicians than their later reputations would suggest -- Sam Andrew, in particular, was a skilled player and serious student of music -- they were fundamentally content with playing the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore and making five hundred dollars or so a week between them. Very good money for 1967, but nothing else. Joplin, on the other hand, was someone who absolutely craved success. She wanted to prove to her family that she wasn't a failure and that her eccentricity shouldn't stop them being proud of her; she was always, even at the depths of her addictions, fiscally prudent and concerned about her finances; and she had a deep craving for love. Everyone who talks about her talks about how she had an aching need at all times for approval, connection, and validation, which she got on stage more than she got anywhere else. The bigger the audience, the more they must love her. She'd made all her decisions thus far based on how to balance making music that she loved with commercial success, and this would continue to be the pattern for her in future. And so when journalists started to want to talk to her, even though up to that point Albin, who did most of the on-stage announcements, and Gurley, the lead guitarist, had considered themselves joint leaders of the band, she was eager. And she was also eager to get rid of their manager, who continued the awkward streak that had prevented their first performance at the Monterey Pop Festival from being filmed. The group had the chance to play the Hollywood Bowl -- Bill Graham was putting on a "San Francisco Sound" showcase there, featuring Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, and got their verbal agreement to play, but after Graham had the posters printed up, their manager refused to sign the contracts unless they were given more time on stage. The next day after that, they played Monterey again -- this time the Monterey Jazz Festival. A very different crowd to the Pop Festival still fell for Janis' performance -- and once again, the film being made of the event didn't include Big Brother's set because of their manager. While all this was going on, the group's recordings from the previous year were rushed out by Mainstream Records as an album, to poor reviews which complained it was nothing like the group's set at Monterey: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] They were going to need to get out of that contract and sign with somewhere better -- Clive Davis at Columbia Records was already encouraging them to sign with him -- but to do that, they needed a better manager. They needed Albert Grossman. Grossman was one of the best negotiators in the business at that point, but he was also someone who had a genuine love for the music his clients made.  And he had good taste -- he managed Odetta, who Janis idolised as a singer, and Bob Dylan, who she'd been a fan of since his first album came out. He was going to be the perfect manager for the group. But he had one condition though. His first wife had been a heroin addict, and he'd just been dealing with Mike Bloomfield's heroin habit. He had one absolutely ironclad rule, a dealbreaker that would stop him signing them -- they didn't use heroin, did they? Both Gurley and Joplin had used heroin on occasion -- Joplin had only just started, introduced to the drug by Gurley -- but they were only dabblers. They could give it up any time they wanted, right? Of course they could. They told him, in perfect sincerity, that the band didn't use heroin and it wouldn't be a problem. But other than that, Grossman was extremely flexible. He explained to the group at their first meeting that he took a higher percentage than other managers, but that he would also make them more money than other managers -- if money was what they wanted. He told them that they needed to figure out where they wanted their career to be, and what they were willing to do to get there -- would they be happy just playing the same kind of venues they were now, maybe for a little more money, or did they want to be as big as Dylan or Peter, Paul, and Mary? He could get them to whatever level they wanted, and he was happy with working with clients at every level, what did they actually want? The group were agreed -- they wanted to be rich. They decided to test him. They were making twenty-five thousand dollars a year between them at that time, so they got ridiculously ambitious. They told him they wanted to make a *lot* of money. Indeed, they wanted a clause in their contract saying the contract would be void if in the first year they didn't make... thinking of a ridiculous amount, they came up with seventy-five thousand dollars. Grossman's response was to shrug and say "Make it a hundred thousand." The group were now famous and mixing with superstars -- Peter Tork of the Monkees had become a close friend of Janis', and when they played a residency in LA they were invited to John and Michelle Phillips' house to see a rough cut of Monterey Pop. But the group, other than Janis, were horrified -- the film barely showed the other band members at all, just Janis. Dave Getz said later "We assumed we'd appear in the movie as a band, but seeing it was a shock. It was all Janis. They saw her as a superstar in the making. I realized that though we were finally going to be making money and go to another level, it also meant our little family was being separated—there was Janis, and there was the band.” [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] If the group were going to make that hundred thousand dollars a year, they couldn't remain on Mainstream Records, but Bob Shad was not about to give up his rights to what could potentially be the biggest group in America without a fight. But luckily for the group, Clive Davis at Columbia had seen their Monterey performance, and he was also trying to pivot the label towards the new rock music. He was basically willing to do anything to get them. Eventually Columbia agreed to pay Shad two hundred thousand dollars for the group's contract -- Davis and Grossman negotiated so half that was an advance on the group's future earnings, but the other half was just an expense for the label. On top of that the group got an advance payment of fifty thousand dollars for their first album for Columbia, making a total investment by Columbia of a quarter of a million dollars -- in return for which they got to sign the band, and got the rights to the material they'd recorded for Mainstream, though Shad would get a two percent royalty on their first two albums for Columbia. Janis was intimidated by signing for Columbia, because that had been Aretha Franklin's label before she signed to Atlantic, and she regarded Franklin as the greatest performer in music at that time.  Which may have had something to do with the choice of a new song the group added to their setlist in early 1968 -- one which was a current hit for Aretha's sister Erma: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] We talked a little in the last episode about the song "Piece of My Heart" itself, though mostly from the perspective of its performer, Erma Franklin. But the song was, as we mentioned, co-written by Bert Berns. He's someone we've talked about a little bit in previous episodes, notably the ones on "Here Comes the Night" and "Twist and Shout", but those were a couple of years ago, and he's about to become a major figure in the next episode, so we might as well take a moment here to remind listeners (or tell those who haven't heard those episodes) of the basics and explain where "Piece of My Heart" comes in Berns' work as a whole. Bert Berns was a latecomer to the music industry, not getting properly started until he was thirty-one, after trying a variety of other occupations. But when he did get started, he wasted no time making his mark -- he knew he had no time to waste. He had a weak heart and knew the likelihood was he was going to die young. He started an association with Wand records as a songwriter and performer, writing songs for some of Phil Spector's pre-fame recordings, and he also started producing records for Atlantic, where for a long while he was almost the equal of Jerry Wexler or Leiber and Stoller in terms of number of massive hits created. His records with Solomon Burke were the records that first got the R&B genre renamed soul (previously the word "soul" mostly referred to a kind of R&Bish jazz, rather than a kind of gospel-ish R&B). He'd also been one of the few American music industry professionals to work with British bands before the Beatles made it big in the USA, after he became alerted to the Beatles' success with his song "Twist and Shout", which he'd co-written with Phil Medley, and which had been a hit in a version Berns produced for the Isley Brothers: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] That song shows the two elements that existed in nearly every single Bert Berns song or production. The first is the Afro-Caribbean rhythm, a feel he picked up during a stint in Cuba in his twenties. Other people in the Atlantic records team were also partial to those rhythms -- Leiber and Stoller loved what they called the baion rhythm -- but Berns more than anyone else made it his signature. He also very specifically loved the song "La Bamba", especially Ritchie Valens' version of it: [Excerpt: Ritchie Valens, "La Bamba"] He basically seemed to think that was the greatest record ever made, and he certainly loved that three-chord trick I-IV-V-IV chord sequence -- almost but not quite the same as the "Louie Louie" one.  He used it in nearly every song he wrote from that point on -- usually using a bassline that went something like this: [plays I-IV-V-IV bassline] He used it in "Twist and Shout" of course: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] He used it in "Hang on Sloopy": [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] He *could* get more harmonically sophisticated on occasion, but the vast majority of Berns' songs show the power of simplicity. They're usually based around three chords, and often they're actually only two chords, like "I Want Candy": [Excerpt: The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy"] Or the chorus to "Here Comes the Night" by Them, which is two chords for most of it and only introduces a third right at the end: [Excerpt: Them, "Here Comes the Night"] And even in that song you can hear the "Twist and Shout"/"La Bamba" feel, even if it's not exactly the same chords. Berns' whole career was essentially a way of wringing *every last possible drop* out of all the implications of Ritchie Valens' record. And so even when he did a more harmonically complex song, like "Piece of My Heart", which actually has some minor chords in the bridge, the "La Bamba" chord sequence is used in both the verse: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] And the chorus: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] Berns co-wrote “Piece of My Heart” with Jerry Ragavoy. Berns and Ragavoy had also written "Cry Baby" for Garnet Mimms, which was another Joplin favourite: [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms, "Cry Baby"] And Ragavoy, with other collaborators

Born in New Orleans in 1899, Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was one of America's great blues and jazz artists, touring with Bessie Smith, recording with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, with Charlie Christian and Eddie Lang, with stride piano giant James P. Johnson and so many more.He was a guitar pioneer. In fact, blues historian Gérard Herzhaft believes Johnson was "undeniably the creator of the guitar solo played note by note with a pick, which has become the standard in jazz, blues, country and rock.”He started that style as early as 1927 with his solo on "6/88 Glide" for Okeh Records.More Chops Than ThatBut while his guitar innovations reached both Delta blues and urban players who adapted and developed them into the modern electric blues style, Johnson also was known in the 1920s as a sophisticated and urbane singer and composer. In fact, "of the 40 ads for his records that appeared in The Chicago Defender between 1926 and 1931,” music historian Elijah Wald notes, “not one even mentioned that he played guitar."But when record sales plunged in the Depression, Johnson's output dwindled and he worked for a while at a Cleveland radio station, among other jobs, just to make ends meet. Things started looking up again in 1937 when he went to Chicago to begin recording for Decca. Two years later he joined Lester Melrose's roster at the new Bluebird Records, for which Lonnie recorded 34 tracks over the next five years.The SongA solo hit from one for the last of the Bluebird sessions was Johnson's composition, “He's a Jelly Roll Baker,” recorded Feb. 13, 1942, with Blind John Davis on piano and Andrew Harris on bass.In addition to its scintillating guitar break, the track's lyrics demonstrate Lonnie Johnson's growth as a savvy songwriter. “Jelly Roll Baker” presents a swaggering protagonist who proclaims his love-making prowess with women from all walks of society, from a judge's wife to a hospital nurse.InfluencesLonnie's second career — which included “I Know It's Love” on which he switched to the electric guitar that would be his signature instrument from then on — eventually disappeared under an avalanche of rock 'n' roll in the early ‘50s. Ironically, “Tomorrow Night,” a Johnson hit on King Records, was one of Elvis Presley's earliest pressings for Sam Phillips at the Sun studios. (Presley recorded it in September 1954, though it wasn't released for another dozen year.) Meanwhile, Lonnie Johnson gained acclaim with a new crowd 10 years later during the folk music revival. The Flood learned its version of “Jelly Roll Baker” from Tom Rush's debut Elektra album, released in 1965. Rush, who picked up the tune from fellow folkie Geoff Muldaur, recorded it with Bill Lee on bass and John Sebastian on harmonica.Lonnie's Last YearsJohnson life was cut short when he was hit by a car while walking on a sidewalk in Toronto in March 1969. Seriously injured, he suffered a broken hip and kidney damage. A benefit concert was held on in May 1969, with two dozen acts, including Ian and Sylvia, John Lee Hooker and Hagood Hardy. Never fully recovering from a subsequent stroke, Johnson died 13 months later.Our Take on the TuneAs noted, while this sassy song as written and recorded 80 years ago as a rhythm and blues hit, we owe our version to our folk music heroes of the 1960s.To this day, it's one of those perfect warmup tunes for us, because it provides plenty of stretching-out room for solos by everyone in the house, Danny and Sam, Randy and Jack.More Blues?If you're not ready to end today's blues infusion, you can get a big dose of Floodishness with the Blues Channel on our free Radio Floodango music streaming service. Click here to tune in and enjoy the jelly roll. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Ashland, Ky., native Clyde McCoy and his orchestra recorded this song for Columbia in 1933 and then for the next half century he continued to perform it in front of crowds all over the country. In fact, “Tear It Down” was one the trumpeter's two most requested numbers, second only to his signature song, Clarence Williams' “Sugar Blues.” When Clyde moved from Columbia to the new Decca label in 1935, he re-recorded “Tear It Down” as the A side of his band's first release for that company. While millions of copies of the record sold over the years, few listeners ever knew that Clyde's happy, silly swing number was rooted in a dark and desperate neighborhood downriver in Cincinnati. We'll tell that story in a minute.The Clyde McCoy StoryRivers were a big part of Clyde McCoy's life. When he was 9, he moved with his family from Ashland to Portsmouth, Ohio. There, when he was just 14, Clyde found jobs playing on the riverboats, which in those days still worked the waters of the rural Midwest, southern and border states. He performed on the sidewheelers Island Queen and Bernard McSwain.One of the youngest musicians on the river, he already was a stand-out trumpet player.In 1920 McCoy assembled his first band for a two-week engagement at a popular Knoxville, TN, resort. It was quite a trick; though the guys had never performed together, they proved quite popular and their contract was extended to two months.Then for the next decade, the band mates worked from New York to Los Angeles, honing their chops. It was during this period that McCoy also started using a mute on his trumpet, creating the "wah-wah" effect that became his signature sound, a distinctive musical identification.Lightning finally struck when Clyde and the boys landed at Chicago's plush Drake Hotel. When they played their rendition of "Sugar Blues," the crowd went wild. The song hit the radio. A Columbia Records recording contract followed, and the band was on its way. That first record — with “Sugar Blues” on one side and “Tear It Down” on the other — sold millions of copies by early the next year, no small feat in the depths of the depression.Its success fueled a remarkable 68-year career for the Kentuckian. At Clyde's retirement in 1985, total international sales of that original recording were more than 14 million. Meanwhile, McCoy's "Wah-Wah Mute" was so popular that he licensed the King Instrument Co. to market the device to trumpeters around the world.The Wah-Wah PedalClyde's wah-wah-ishness even traveled beyond the trumpet world to guitarists. In 1967, the Vox Clyde McCoy Wah-Wah Pedal, a significant guitar effect of its time, was invented by engineer Brad Plunkett of the Thomas Organ Co. Original versions featured an image of McCoy on the bottom panel. This branding later gave way to just his signature before the name of the pedal was changed to “Cry Baby.”But What About the Song?So, Clyde and his orchestra recorded “Tear It Down” in 1933, but the song seems to have originated at least four years earlier downriver from McCoy's old Portsmouth, Ohio, home. Now our story needs to jump to the red light district of Cincinnati where a pair of young brothers named Bob and Walter Coleman were fixtures in the dives on George Street.With Bob on guitar and Walter on harmonica, the two often teamed up with a Paducah, Ky., multiple instrumentalist named Sam Jones (often called “Stovepipe #1”).In May 1928, Bob Coleman, under the name "Kid Cole," traveled with Jones to Chicago to record four sides for Vocalion Records. When he returned to Chicago in January 1929, Coleman brought with him both Jones and his brother, Walter, to record four more sides for Paramount, two credited to “The Cincinnati Jug Band” and the remainder to Bob Coleman alone.It was in that session that Coleman recorded what seems to have been his own composition, “Tear It Down.” That side — along with the group's "Newport Blues," "George Street Stomp" and "Cincinnati Underworld"— are among the rarest of all jug band recordings and these days remain prized among collectors.Following Coleman's 1929 release, “Tear It Down” became one of the favorite tunes for jug bands. Jack Kelly and the Memphis Jug Band did it in 1930, as did Whistler's Jug Band (though they called it “Foldin' Bed”). Meanwhile, Sam Jones moved to Atlanta, taking the tune with him. When he teamed with guitarist David Crockett, he recorded it for Okeh Records as King David's Jug Band. And today the song still has game. Back in January 2001, for instance, when the guys of Old Crow Medicine Show made their four-minute debut on the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium, they played "Tear It Down" and received a rare first-time-out standing ovation and a call for an encore.Our Take on the TuneJack Nuckols, an old high school buddy of Charlie Bowen's, has played lots of instruments — fiddle, guitar, dulcimer, Autoharp — and as a percussionist he used to jam with The Flood back in the Bowen Bash days.Last week when Jack dropped in to visit with the band, we immediately drew him into the circle. First, we passed him the house bongos to play, but then when a jug band tune came around, we put spoons in his hands. Jack was rocking it hard, we were digging on those rhythmic riffs and, just as we were fixing to turn it over to him for a solo, darned if those spoons didn't break in his hands. Now, Jack was apologetic, but — as you'll hear — we all thought it was a hoot! What better way to end a song called, “Tear It Down”? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

"All American music is Black music." The focus on Black Music Month continues as music journalist and theGrio writer Matthew Allen joins Michael Harriot to analyze society's relationship with pop music and Black artists' influence on the genre.  Music Credits:  Song: “Hit Me Baby One More Time” Artist: Britney SpearsLabel: Jive RecordsProducer(s): Max Martin, Rami Song: “West End Blues”Artist: Louis ArmstrongLabel(s): Sony Music Entertainment, Okeh Records, Brunswick RecordsProducer: Joe “King” Oliver Song: “Carless Whispers”Artist(s): Wham! featuring George Michael Label(s): Epic Records, Columbia Records, Sony Music EntertainmentProducer(s): Jerry Wexler, George Michaels  Song: “Nobody Loves Me But My Mother”Artist: BB KingLabel(s): Warner Bros. Classic, Alfred Music, ABC RecordsProducer: Bill Szymczyk Song: “Turkey in the Straw” Artist: George Washington DixonLabel: Columbia RecordsProducer: N/A Additional Music Provided By Transition Music See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

Early 1920s recordings by Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds for Okeh Records.  

Mississippi John Hurt  wychowywał się i spędził większość w Avalon w stanie Mississippi. Był wokalistą i gitarzystą bluesowy i countrowym. W latach dwudziestych nagrał dla wytwórni OKEH Records kilka płyt. Okazały się komercyjnymi porażkami i zarzucił publiczne muzykowanie mniej więcej na 35 lat. Do 1963 roku. Wtedy, na fali  tzw. „folg revival” Ameryka zainteresowała się muzykiem. Hurt wystąpił na słynnym Newport Folk festiwal. Tam został gwiazdą. Nie na długo, zmarł 3 lata roku na zawał serca. Pozostawił po sobie całkiem sporo nagrań. Jedno z najsłynniejszych, to  “Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me”. Piosenka została opublikowana dopiero w 1972 roku, choć powstała w latach 20. Opowiada o człowieku zmęczonym życiem, kochanki nie może znaleźć, z żoną mu źle, uciekłby przed nią przez morze, chętnie by odszedł, ale nie stać go na bilet na parowiec. No więc marzy o tym że po śmierci znajdzie spokój w głębiach oceanu flirtując z syrenami. Autorstwo tekstu jest przypisywane wydawcy Williamowi Meyerowi, choć niektóre źródła wskazują że tekst napisał Hurt. A muzyka? Muzykę zaczerpnął John z innej piosenki. To kolejny przebój amerykańskiego folku.  „Waiting For The Train” Jimmi Rodgers napisał i nagrał w 1929 roku. Opowiada o mężczyźnie wracającym do domu, który za brak biletu zostaje wyrzucony z pociągu i wiedzie życie włóczęgi. Rodgers pisząc utwór zaadaptował z kolei na swoje potrzeby XIX wieczna piosenkę z Anglii. Spisał tekst tak jak zapamiętał a producent Ralph Peer pomógł zmodyfikować melodię tak aby była dostosowana do podobno niezbyt dużego repertuaru akordów, jakie potrafił Rogers zagrać. Nie przeszkadzało to zostać piosence wielkim przebojem. Pomógł w tym październikowy krach na giełdzie w Nowym Jorku w 1929 roku. Tekst piosenki stał się bardzo aktualny. Niektórzy znawcy tematu uważają, że to Jimmy Rodgers a nie Woody Guthrie był prawdziwym głosem kryzysu. W tym samym roku Rodgers wystąpił w filmie wyprodukowanym przez Columbia Pictures, w którym śpiewał „Waiting For The Train”. Był to w zasadzie jeden z pierwszych teledysków muzyki counrty. Wracając do korzeni piosenki, pierwowzorem podobno była londyńska ballada z połowy XIX wieku „Standing For The Platform”. Historia mężczyzny, który spotkał na dworcu kolejowym kobietę, która później fałszywie oskarżyła go o napaść. Pod koniec XIX wieku opublikowano na wersję ballady pod tytułem: „Wild and Reckless Hobo” („Dziki i lekkomyślny włóczęga”). Ale żeby nie było zbyt łatwo. Niektórzy amerykańscy znawcy tematu  źródeł piosenki Rodgersa upatrują gdzie indziej. Twierdzą, że Rodgers był zainspirowany amerykańską folkową piosenką z końca XIX wieku „I've been Working on the Railroad”. Podobieństwa faktycznie są, więc może…   Sail-Ho     Audycja zawiera utwory: “Waiting For A Train” (w tle), wyk. Raul Malo, Pat Flynn, Rob Ickes, Dave Pomeroy, muzyka: Jimmy Rodgers „Parostatek” , wyk. Krzysztof Krawczyk, słowa: Tadeusz Drozda, muzyka: Jerzy Milian „Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me”, wyk. Mississippi John Hurt, słowa: Mississippi John Hurt muzyka: Mississippi John Hurt na podst.”Waiting for the Train” „Waiting for the Train”, wyk. Jimmy Rodgers, słowai muzyka: Jimmy Rodgers „Waiting for the Train”, wyk. Hugh Laurie, słowa i muzyka: Jimmy Rodgers „Wild And Reckless Hobo”, wyk. Jimmie Davies, słowa i muzyka: trad. „I've Been Working On The Railroad”, wyk. Pete Seeger, słowa I muzyka: trad. „Syrena niech porwie mnie”, wyk. Marek Szurawski i John Townley, słowa: Marek Szurawski, muzyka: Mississippi Jonhn Hurt „Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me”,  

Lien vers la playlist de cet épisode : linktr.ee/djwildroseCrédits :Animatrice : DJ WildroseDirectrice éditoriale : DJ WildroseRéalisateur : Kevin AbadieIngénieur du son : Kevin AbadieMusique :. Muddy Waters, Rollin' Stone, Chess Records. Howlin' Wolf, Back Door Man, Chess Records. Screamin' Jay Hawkins, I Put a Spell On You, Okeh Records. Robert Johnson, Crossroad Blues, Vocalion. Bo Diddley, Pretty Thing, Checker. Gary Clark Jr., Low Down Rolling Stone, Warner Bros. Records Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

The first wave of independent record labels were primed to take advantage of the recording phenomenon after Gennett Records successfully sued the Victor corporation in 1921 which along with Columbia had been fiercely guarding the technology through patent laws, but the ensuing court victory removed Victor's rights to exclusivity over the method of making lateral cut 78 RPM records. some labels thrived with recordings by jazz greats but the majors were still reluctant to put black artists on record, creating a schism between the majors and independent labels for the next fifty years. enter the race record , sound recordings of the early 20th century that were made exclusively by and for African Americans. The term is sometimes said to have been coined by Ralph S. Peer, who was then working for OKeh Records.

This week, renowned Mississippi blues guitarist and singer Alvin Youngblood Hart recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park. Alvin Youngblood Hart was born in Oakland, California in 1963 and spent some time in Carroll County, Mississippi in his youth, where he was influenced by the Mississippi country blues performed by his relatives. Hart is known as one of the world's foremost practitioners of country blues. He is also known as a faithful torchbearer for 1960s and 1970s guitar rock as well as western swing and traditional country. His style has been compared to Lead Belly and Spade Cooley. Bluesman Taj Mahal once said about Hart: "The boy has got thunder in his hands." Hart himself said, "I guess my big break came when I opened for Taj Mahal for four nights at Yoshi's." His debut album, Big Mama's Door, was released in 1996 on Okeh Records. In 2003, Hart's album Down in the Alley was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. In his segment “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins investigates the history of tourism in the entertainment Mecca of the Ozarks: Branson, Missouri.

Show #967 The Originals 01.  Bob Dylan - Everything Is Broken (3:15) (Oh Mercy, Columbia Records, 1989) 02.  Ray Charles - Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I) [1955] (2:55) (The Genius Sings The Blues, Atlantic Records, 1961) 03a. Ray Charles - Mess Around (2:39) (45 RPM Single, Atlantic Records, 1953) 03b. Charles 'Cow Cow' Davenport - Cow Cow Blues (3:09) (78 RPM Shellac, Vocalion Records, 1928) 04.  Fabulous Thunderbirds - Full Time Lover (4:43) (Girls Go Wild, Takoma Records, 1979) 05.  Al Green - Love And Happiness (5:07) (I'm Still In Love With You, Hi Records, 1972) 06.  Dire Straits - Money For Nothing (8:26) (Brothers In Arms, Vertigo Records, 1985) 07a. Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You (3:31) (45 RPM Single, Okeh Records, 1956) 07b. Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You (2:52) (Unreleased, Grand Records, 1955) 08.  Sonny Boy Williamson II - Don't Start Me Talking (2:35) (45 RPM Single, Checker Records, 1955) 09.  Atlanta Rhythm Section - So In To You (4:16) (A Rock And Roll Alternative, Polydor Records, 1976) 10.  ZZ Top - Tush (2:14) (Fandango!, London Records, 1975) 11.  Mothers Of Invention - Trouble Comin' Every Day (5:47) (Freak Out!, Verve Records, 1966) 12.  Son House - Grinnin' In Your Face (2:07) (Father Of Folk Blues, Columbia Records, 1965) 13.  Lynyrd Skynyrd - Gimme Three Steps (4:24) (Lynyrd Skynyrd, MCA Records, 1973) 14.  Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel (2:09) (45 RPM Single, RCA Victor, 1956) 15.  Neville Brothers - Yellow Moon (3:58) (Yellow Moon, A&M Records, 1989) 16.  Little Feat - Spanish Moon (4:50) (Waiting For Columbus, Warner Bros Records, 1978) 17a. Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman Orchestra - Why Don't You Do Right (3:14) (78 RPM Shellac, Columbia Records, 1942) 17b. Harlem Hamfats - Weed Smoker's Dream (3:17) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1936) 17c. Lil Green - Why Don't You Do Right (3:00) (78 RPM Shellac, Bluebird Records, 1941) 18.  Prince & the Revolution - Kiss (3:38) (Parade, Paisley Park/Warner Bros Records, 1986) 19.  Fenton Robinson - Somebody (Loan Me A Dime) (2:23) (45 RPM Single, Palos Records, 1967) 20.  Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (5:12) (Electric Ladyland, Polydor Records, 1968) 21.  Tampa Red - It Hurts Me Too (2:28) (78 RPM Shellac, Bluebird Records, 1940) 22a. Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan (5:58) (I'm Your Man, Columbia Records, 1988) 22b. Jennifer Warnes - First We Take Manhattan (3:47) (Famous Blue Raincoat, Cypress Records, 1986) 23.  Albert King - Oh Pretty Woman (2:47) (Born Under A Bad Sign, Stax Records, 1967) 24.  Fleetwood Mac - Black Magic Woman (2:49) (45 RPM Single, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Episode 124 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “People Get Ready", the Impressions, and the early career of Curtis Mayfield.  Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "I'm Henry VIII I Am" by Herman's Hermits. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, I've created a Mixcloud playlist, with full versions of all the songs excerpted in this episode. A lot of resources were used for this episode. Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs by Guy and Candie Carawan is a combination oral history of the Civil Rights movement and songbook. Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power by Aaron Cohen is a history of Chicago soul music and the way it intersected with politics. Traveling Soul: The Life of Curtis Mayfield  by Todd Mayfield with Travis Atria is a biography of Mayfield by one of his sons, and rather better than one might expect given that. Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul by Craig Werner looks at the parallels and divergences in the careers of its three titular soul stars. This compilation has a decent selection of recordings Mayfield wrote and produced for other artists on OKeh in the early sixties. This single-CD set of Jerry Butler recordings contains his Impressions recordings as well as several songs written or co-written by Mayfield. This double-CD of Major Lance's recordings contains all the hits Mayfield wrote for him. And this double-CD collection has all the Impressions' singles from 1961 through 1968. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A couple of episodes ago we had a look at one of the first classic protest songs of the soul genre. Today we're going to look at how Sam Cooke's baton was passed on to another generation of soul singer/songwriters, and at one of the greatest songwriters of that generation. We're going to look at the early career of Curtis Mayfield, and at "People Get Ready" by the Impressions: [Excerpt: The Impressions, "People Get Ready"] A quick note before I start this one -- there is no way in this episode of avoiding dealing with the fact that the Impressions' first hit with a Curtis Mayfield lead vocal has, in its title, a commonly used word for Romany people beginning with "g" that many of those people regard as a slur -- while others embrace the term for themselves. I've thought long and hard about how to deal with this, and the compromise I've come up with is that I will use excerpts from the song, which will contain that word, but I won't use the word myself. I'm not happy with that compromise, but it's the best I can do. It's unfortunate that that word turns up a *lot* in music in the period I'm covering -- it's basically impossible to avoid. Anyway, on with the show... Curtis Mayfield is one of those musicians who this podcast will almost by definition underserve -- my current plan is to do a second episode on him, but if this was a thousand-song podcast he would have a *lot* more than just two episodes. He was one of the great musical forces of the sixties and seventies, and listeners to the Patreon bonus episodes will already have come across him several times before, as he was one of those musicians who becomes the centre of a whole musical scene, writing and producing for most of the other soul musicians to come out of Chicago in the late fifties and early 1960s. Mayfield grew up in Chicago, in the kind of poverty that is, I hope, unimaginable to most of my listeners. He had to become "the man of the house" from age five, looking after his younger siblings as his mother went out looking for work, as his father abandoned his family, moved away, and changed his name. His mother was on welfare for much of the time, and Mayfield's siblings have talked about how their special Christmas meal often consisted of cornbread and syrup, and they lived off beans, rice, and maybe a scrap of chicken neck every two weeks. They were so hungry so often that they used to make a game of it -- drinking water until they were full, and then making sloshing noises with their bellies, laughing at them making noises other than rumbling. But while his mother was poor, Mayfield saw that there was a way to escape from poverty. Specifically, he saw it in his paternal grandmother, the Reverend A.B. Mayfield, a Spiritualist priest, who was the closest thing to a rich person in his life. For those who don't know what Spiritualism is, it's one of the many new religious movements that sprouted up in the Northeastern US in the mid to late nineteenth centuries, like the Holiness Movement (which became Pentecostalism), the New Thought, Christian Science, Mormonism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Spiritualists believe, unlike mainstream Christianity, that it is possible to communicate with the spirits of the dead, and that those spirits can provide information about the afterlife, and about the nature of God and angels. If you've ever seen, either in real life or in a fictional depiction, a medium communicating with spirits through a seance, that's spiritualism. There are numbers of splinter spiritualist movements, and the one Reverend Mayfield, and most Black American Spiritualists at this time, belonged to was one that used a lot of elements of Pentecostalism and couched its teachings in the Bible -- to an outside observer not conversant with the theology, it might seem no different from any other Black church of the period, other than having a woman in charge. But most other churches would not have been funded by their presiding minister's winnings from illegal gambling, as she claimed to have the winning numbers in the local numbers racket come to her in dreams, and won often enough that people believed her. Reverend Mayfield's theology also incorporated elements from the Nation of Islam, which at that time was growing in popularity, and was based in Chicago. Chicago was also the home of gospel music -- it was where Sister Rosetta Tharpe had got her start and where Mahalia Jackson and Thomas Dorsey and the Soul Stirrers were all based -- and so of course Reverend Mayfield's church got its own gospel quartet, the Northern Jubilee Singers. They modelled themselves explicitly on the Soul Stirrers, who at the time were led by Sam Cooke: [Excerpt: The Soul Stirrers, "Jesus Gave Me Water"] Curtis desperately wanted to join the Northern Jubilee Singers, and particularly admired their lead singer, Jerry Butler, as well as being a huge fan of their inspiration Sam Cooke. But he was too young -- he was eight years old, and the group members were twelve and thirteen, an incommensurable gap at that age. So Curtis couldn't join the Jubilee singers, but he kept trying to perform, and not just with gospel -- as well as gospel, Chicago was also the home of electric blues, being where Chess Records was based, and young Curtis Mayfield was surrounded by the music of people like Muddy Waters: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "Rollin' and Tumblin'"] And so as well as singing gospel songs, he started singing and playing the blues, inspired by Waters, Little Walter, and other Chess acts. His first instrument was the piano, and young Curtis found that he naturally gravitated to the black keys -- he liked the sound of those best, and didn't really like playing the white keys. I won't get into the music theory too much here, but the black keys on a piano make what is called a pentatonic scale -- a five-note scale that is actually the basis for most folk music forms, whether Celtic folk, Indian traditional music, the blues, bluegrass, Chinese traditional music... pentatonic scales have been independently invented by almost every culture, and you might think of them as the "natural" music, what people default to. The black notes on the piano make that scale in the key of F#: [Excerpt: pentatonic scale in F#] The notes in that are F#, G#, A#, C#, and D#. When young Curtis found a guitar in his grandmother's closet, he didn't like the way it sounded -- if you strum the open strings of a guitar they don't make a chord (well, every combination of notes is a chord, but they don't make one most people think of as pleasant) -- the standard guitar tuning is E, A, D, G, B, E. Little Curtis didn't like this sound, so he retuned the guitar to F#, A#, C#, F#, A#, F# -- notes from the chord of F#, and all of them black keys on the piano. Now, tuning a guitar to open chords is a fairly standard thing to do -- guitarists as varied as Keith Richards, Steve Cropper, and Dolly Parton tune their guitars to open chords -- but doing it to F# is something that pretty much only Mayfield ever did, and it meant his note choices were odd ones. He would later say with pride that he used to love it when other guitarists picked up his guitar, because no matter how good they were they couldn't play on his instrument. He quickly became extremely proficient as a blues guitarist, and his guitar playing soon led the Northern Jubilee Singers to reconsider having him in the band. By the time he was eleven he was a member of the group and travelling with them to gospel conventions all over the US. But he had his fingers in multiple musical pies -- he formed a blues group, who would busk outside the pool-hall where his uncle was playing, and he also formed a doo-wop group, the Alphatones, who became locally popular. Jerry Butler, the Jubilee Singers' lead vocalist, had also joined a doo-wop group -- a group called the Roosters, who had moved up to Chicago from Chattanooga. Butler was convinced that to make the Roosters stand out, they needed a guitarist like Mayfield, but Mayfield at first remained uninterested -- he already had his own group, the Alphatones. Butler suggested that Mayfield should rehearse with both groups, three days a week each, and then stick with the group that was better. Soon Mayfield found himself a full-time member of the Roosters. In 1957, when Curtis was fifteen, the group entered a talent contest at a local school, headlined by the Medallionaires, a locally-popular group who had released a single on Mercury, "Magic Moonlight": [Excerpt: The Medallionaires, "Magic Moonlight"] The Medallionaires' manager, Eddie Thomas, had been around the music industry since he was a child – his stepfather had been the great blues pianist Big Maceo Merriweather, who had made records like "Worried Life Blues": [Excerpt: Big Maceo Merriweather, "Worried Life Blues"] Thomas hadn't had any success in the industry yet, but at this talent contest, the Roosters did a close-harmony version of Sam Cooke's "You Send Me", and Thomas decided that they had potential, especially Mayfield and Butler. He signed them to a management contract, but insisted they changed their name. They cast around for a long time to find something more suitable, and eventually decided on The Impressions, because they'd made such an impression on Thomas. The group were immediately taken by Thomas on a tour of the large indie labels, and at each one they sang a song that members of the group had written, which was inspired by a song called "Open Our Eyes" by the Gospel Clefs: [Excerpt: The Gospel Clefs, "Open Our Eyes"] Herman Lubinsky at Savoy liked the song, and suggested that Jerry speak-sing it, which was a suggestion the group took up, but he passed on them. So did Ralph Bass at King. Mercury Records gave them some session work, but weren't able to sign the group themselves -- the session was with the big band singer Eddie Howard, singing backing vocals on a remake of "My Last Goodbye", a song he'd recorded multiple times before. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to track down a copy of that recording, the Impressions' first, only Howard's other recordings of the song. Eventually, the group got the interest of a tiny label called Bandera, whose owner Vi Muszynski was interested -- but she had to get the approval of Vee-Jay Records, the larger label that distributed Bandera's records. Vee-Jay was a very odd label. It was one of a tiny number of Black-owned record labels in America at the time, and possibly the biggest of them, and it's interesting to compare them to Chess Records, which was based literally across the road. Both put out R&B records, but Chess was white-owned and specialised in hardcore Chicago electric blues -- Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter and so on. Vee-Jay, on the other hand, certainly put out its fair share of that kind of music, but they also put out a lot of much smoother doo-wop and early soul, and they would have their biggest hits a few years after this, not with blues artists, but with the Four Seasons, and with their licensing of British records by Frank Ifield and the Beatles. Both Vee-Jay and Chess were aiming at a largely Black market, but Black-owned Vee-Jay was much more comfortable with white pop acts than white-owned Chess. Muszynski set up an audition with Calvin Carter, the head of A&R at Vee-Jay, and selected the material the group were to perform for Carter -- rather corny songs the group were not at all comfortable with. They ran through that repertoire, and Carter said they sounded good but didn't they have any originals? They played a couple of originals, and Carter wasn't interested in those. Then Carter had a thought -- did they have any songs they felt ashamed of playing for him? Something that they didn't normally do? They did -- they played that song that the group had written, the one based on "Open Our Eyes". It was called "For Your Precious Love", and Carter immediately called in another group, the Spaniels, who were favourites of the Impressions and had had hits with records like "Goodnite Sweetheart Goodnite": [Excerpt: The Spaniels, "Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite"] Carter insisted on the Impressions singing their song for the Spaniels, and Butler in particular was very worried -- he assumed that Carter just wanted to take their song and give it to the bigger group. But after they played the song again, the Spaniels all enthused about how great the Impressions were and what a big hit the Impressions were going to have with the song. They realised that Carter just *really liked* them and the song, and wanted to show them off. The group went into the studio, and recorded half a dozen takes of "For Your Precious Love", but none of them came off correctly. Eventually Carter realised what the problem was -- Mayfield wasn't a member of the musicians' union, and so Carter had hired session guitarists, but they couldn't play the song the way Mayfield did. Eventually, Carter got the guitarists to agree to take the money, not play, and not tell the union if he got Mayfield to play on the track instead of them. After that, they got it in two takes: [Excerpt: Jerry Butler and the Impressions, "For Your Precious Love"] When it came out, the record caused a major problem for the group, because they discovered when they saw the label that it wasn't credited to "The Impressions", but to "Jerry Butler and the Impressions". The label had decided that they were going to follow the strategy that had worked for so many acts before -- put out records credited to "Singer and Group", and then if they were successful develop that into two separate acts. To his credit, Butler immediately insisted that the record company get the label reprinted, but Vee-Jay said that wasn't something they could do. It was too late, the record was going out as Jerry Butler and the Impressions and that was an end to it. The group were immediately put on the promotional circuit -- there was a rumour that Roy Hamilton, the star who had had hits with "Unchained Melody" and "Ebb Tide", was going to put out a cover version, as the song was perfectly in his style, and so the group needed to get their version known before he could cut his cover. They travelled to Philadelphia, where they performed for the DJ Georgie Woods. We talked about Woods briefly last episode -- he was the one who would later coin the term "blue-eyed soul" to describe the Righteous Brothers -- and Woods was also the person who let Dick Clark know what the important Black records were, so Clark could feature them on his show. Woods started to promote the record, and suddenly Jerry Butler and the Impressions were huge -- "For Your Precious Love" made number three on the R&B charts and number eleven on the pop charts. Their next session produced another hit, "Come Back My Love", although that only made the R&B top thirty and was nowhere near as big a hit: [Excerpt: Jerry Butler and the Impressions, "Come Back My Love"] That would be the last time the original lineup of the Impressions would record together. Shortly afterwards, before a gig in Texas, Jerry Butler called the President of the record label to sort out a minor financial problem. Once the problem had been sorted out, the president put the phone down, but then one of the other Impressions, Arthur Brooks, asked if he could have a word. Butler explained that the other person had hung up, and Brooks went ballistic, saying that Butler thought he was in charge, and thought that he could do all the talking for the group. Well, if he thought that, he could do all the singing too. Brooks and his brother Richard weren't going on stage. Sam Gooden said he wasn't going on either -- he'd been an original Rooster with the Brooks brothers before Butler had joined the group, and he was siding with them. That left Curtis Mayfield. Mayfield said he was still going on stage, because he wanted to get paid. The group solidarity having crumbled, Gooden changed his mind and said he might as well go on with them, so Butler, Mayfield, and Gooden went on as a trio. Butler noticed that the audience didn't notice a difference -- they literally didn't know the Brooks brothers existed -- and that was the point at which he decided to go solo. The Impressions continued without Butler, with Mayfield, Gooden, and the Brooks brothers recruiting Fred Cash, who had sung with the Roosters when they were still in Tennessee. Mayfield took over the lead vocals and soon started attracting the same resentment that Butler had. Vee-Jay dropped the Impressions, and they started looking round for other labels and working whatever odd jobs they could. Mayfield did get some work from Vee-Jay, though, working as a session player on records by people like Jimmy Reed. There's some question about which sessions Mayfield actually played -- I've seen conflicting information in different sessionographies -- but it's at least possible that Mayfield's playing on Reed's most famous record, "Baby What You Want Me to Do": [Excerpt: Jimmy Reed, "Baby What You Want Me to Do"] And one of Mayfield's friends, a singer called Major Lance, managed to get himself a one-off single deal with Mercury Records after becoming a minor celebrity as a dancer on a TV show. Mayfield wrote that one single, though it wasn't a hit: [Excerpt: Major Lance, "I Got a Girl"] Someone else who wasn't having hits was Jerry Butler. By late 1960 it had been two years since "For Your Precious Love" and Butler hadn't made the Hot One Hundred in that time, though he'd had a few minor R&B hits. He was playing the chitlin' circuit, and in the middle of a tour, his guitarist quit. Butler phoned Mayfield, who had just received a four hundred dollar tax bill he couldn't pay -- a lot of money for an unemployed musician in 1960. Mayfield immediately joined Butler's band to pay off his back taxes, and he also started writing songs with Butler. "He Will Break Your Heart", a collaboration between the two (with Calvin Carter also credited), made the top ten on the pop chart and number one on the R&B chart: [Excerpt: Jerry Butler, "He Will Break Your Heart"] Even more important for Mayfield than writing a top ten hit, though, was his experience playing for Butler at the Harlem Apollo. Not because of the shows themselves, but because playing a residency in New York allowed him to hang out at the Turf, a restaurant near the Brill Building where all the songwriters would hang out. Or, more specifically, where all the *poorer* songwriters would hang out -- the Turf did roast beef sandwiches for fifty cents if you ate standing at the counter rather than seated at a table, and it also had twenty payphones, so all those songwriters who didn't have their own offices would do their business from the phone booths. Mayfield would hang out there to learn the secrets of the business, and that meant he learned the single most important lesson there is -- keep your own publishing. These writers, some of whom had written many hit songs, were living off twenty-five-dollar advances while the publishing companies were making millions. Mayfield also discovered that Sam Cooke, the man he saw as the model for how his career should go, owned his own publishing company. So he did some research, found out that it didn't actually cost anything to start up a publishing company, and started his own, Curtom, named as a portmanteau of his forename and the surname of Eddie Thomas, the Impressions' manager. While the Impressions' career was in the doldrums, Thomas, too, had been working for Butler, as his driver and valet, and he and Mayfield became close, sharing costs and hotel rooms in order to save money. Mayfield not only paid his tax bill, but by cutting costs everywhere he could he saved up a thousand dollars, which he decided to use to record a song he'd written specifically for the Impressions, not for Butler. (This is the song I mentioned at the beginning with the potential slur in the title. If you don't want to hear that, skip forward thirty seconds now): [Excerpt: The Impressions, "Gypsy Woman"] That track got the Impressions signed to ABC/Paramount records, and it made the top twenty on the pop charts and sold half a million copies, thanks once again to promotion from Georgie Woods. But once again, the follow-ups flopped badly, and the Brooks brothers quit the group, because they wanted to be doing harder-edged R&B in the mould of Little Richard, Hank Ballard, and James Brown, not the soft melodic stuff that Mayfield was writing. The Impressions continued as a three-piece group, and Mayfield would later say that this had been the making of them. A three-part harmony group allowed for much more spontaneity and trading of parts, for the singers to move freely between lead and backing vocals and to move into different parts of their ranges, where when they had been a five-piece group everything had been much more rigid, as if a singer moved away from his assigned part, he would find himself clashing with another singer's part. But as the group were not having hits, Mayfield was still looking for other work, and he found it at OKeh Records, which was going through something of a boom in this period thanks to the producer Carl Davis. Davis took Mayfield on as an associate producer and right-hand man,  primarily in order to get him as a guitarist, but Mayfield was also a valuable talent scout, backing vocalist, and especially songwriter. Working with Davis and arranger Johnny Pate, between 1963 and 1965 Mayfield wrote and played on a huge number of R&B hits for OKeh, including "It's All Over" by Walter Jackson: [Excerpt: Walter Jackson, "It's All Over"] "Gonna Be Good Times" for Gene Chandler: [Excerpt: Gene Chandler, "Gonna Be Good Times"] And a whole string of hits for Jerry Butler's brother Billy and his group The Enchanters, starting with "Gotta Get Away": [Excerpt: Billy Butler and the Enchanters, "Gotta Get Away"] But the real commercial success came from Mayfield's old friend Major Lance, who Mayfield got signed to OKeh. Lance had several minor hits written by Mayfield, but his big success came with a song that Mayfield had written for the Impressions, but decided against recording with them, as it was a novelty dance song and he didn't think that they should be doing that kind of material. The Impressions sang backing vocals on Major Lance's "The Monkey Time", written by Mayfield, which became a top ten pop hit: [Excerpt: Major Lance, "The Monkey Time"] Mayfield would write several more hits for Major Lance, including the one that became his biggest hit, "Um Um Um Um Um Um", which went top five pop and made number one on the R&B charts: [Excerpt: Major Lance, "Um Um Um Um Um Um (Curious Mind)"] So Mayfield was making hits for other people at a furious rate, but he was somehow unable to have hits with his own group. He was still pushing the Impressions, but they had to be a weekend commitment -- the group would play gigs all over the country at weekends, but Monday through Friday Mayfield was in the studio cutting hits for other people -- and he was also trying to keep up a relationship not only with his wife and first child, but with the woman who would become his second wife, with whom he was cheating on his first. He was young enough that he could just about keep this up -- he was only twenty at this point, though he was already a veteran of the music industry -- but it did mean that the Impressions were a lower priority than they might have been. At least, they were until, in August 1963, between those two huge Major Lance hits, Curtis Mayfield finally wrote another big hit for the Impressions -- their first in their new three-piece lineup. Everyone could tell "It's All Right" was a hit, and Gene Chandler begged to be allowed to record it, but Mayfield insisted that his new song was for his group: [Excerpt: The Impressions, "It's All Right"] "It's All Right" went to number four on the pop chart, and number one R&B. And this time, the group didn't mess up the follow-up.  Their next two singles, "Talking About My Baby" and "I'm So Proud", both made the pop top twenty, and the Impressions were now stars. Mayfield also took a trip to Jamaica around this time, with Carl Davis, to produce an album of Jamaican artists, titled "The Real Jamaica Ska", featuring acts like Lord Creator and Jimmy Cliff: [Excerpt: Jimmy Cliff, "Ska All Over the World"] But Mayfield was also becoming increasingly politically aware. As the Civil Rights movement in the US was gaining steam, it was also starting to expose broader systemic problems that affected Black people in the North, not just the South. In Chicago, while Black people had been able to vote for decades, and indeed were a substantial political power block, all that this actually meant in practice was that a few powerful self-appointed community leaders had a vested interest in keeping things as they were. Segregation still existed -- in 1963, around the time that "It's All Right" came out, there was a school strike in the city, where nearly a quarter of a million children refused to go to school. Black schools were so overcrowded that it became impossible for children to learn there, but rather than integrate the schools and let Black kids go to the less-crowded white schools, the head of public education in Chicago decided instead to make the children go to school in shifts, so some were going ridiculously early in the morning while others were having to go to school in the evening. And there were more difficult arguments going on around segregation among Black people in Chicago. The issues in the South seemed straightforward in comparison -- no Black person wanted to be lynched or to be denied the right to vote. But in Chicago there was the question of integrating the two musicians' union chapters in the city. Some Black proponents of integration saw merging the two union chapters as a way for Black musicians to get the opportunity to play lucrative sessions for advertising jingles and so on, which only went to white players. But a vocal minority of musicians were convinced that the upshot of integrating the unions would be that Black players would still be denied those jobs, but white players would start getting some of the soul and R&B sessions that only Black players were playing, and thought that the end result would be that white people would gentrify those areas of music and culture where Black people had carved out spaces for themselves, while still denying Black people the opportunity to move into the white spaces. Mayfield was deeply, deeply, invested in the Civil Rights movement, and the wider discourse as more radical voices started to gain strength in the movement. And he was particularly inspired by his hero, Sam Cooke, recording "A Change is Gonna Come".  As the rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement was so deeply rooted in religious language, it was natural that Mayfield would turn to the gospel music he'd grown up on for his own first song about these issues, "Keep on Pushing": [Excerpt: The Impressions, "Keep on Pushing"] That became another huge hit, making the top ten on the pop chart and number one on the R&B chart. It's instructive to look at reactions to the Impressions, and to Mayfield's sweet, melodic, singing. White audiences were often dismissive of the Impressions, believing they were attempting to sell out to white people and were therefore not Black enough -- a typical reaction is that of Arnold Shaw, the white music writer, who in 1970 referred to the Impressions as Oreos -- a derogatory term for people who are "Black on the outside, white inside". Oddly, though, Black audiences seem not to have recognised the expertise of elderly white men on who was Black enough, and despite white critics' protestations continued listening to and buying the Impressions' records, and incorporating Mayfield's songs into their activism. For example, Sing For Freedom, a great oral-history-cum-songbook which collects songs sung by Civil Rights activists, collected contemporaneously by folklorists, has no fewer than four Impressions songs included, in lightly adapted versions, as sung by the Chicago Freedom Movement, the group led by Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and others, who campaigned for an end to housing segregation in Chicago. It quotes Jimmy Collier, a Black civil rights activist and folk singer, saying "There's a rock 'n' roll group called the Impressions and we call them ‘movement fellows' and we try to sing a lot of their songs. Songs like ‘Keep On Pushin',' ‘I Been Trying,' ‘I'm So Proud,' ‘It's Gonna Be a Long, Long Winter,' ‘People Get Ready, There's a Train a-Comin',' ‘There's a Meeting Over Yonder' really speak to the situation a lot of us find ourselves in." I mention this discrepancy because this is something that comes up throughout music history -- white people dismissing Black people as not being "Black enough" and trying to appeal to whites, even as Black audiences were embracing those artists in preference to the artists who had white people's seal of approval as being authentically Black. I mention this because I am myself a white man, and it is very important for me to acknowledge that I will make similar errors when talking about Black culture, as I am here. "Keep on Pushing" was the Impressions' first political record, but by no means the most important. In 1965 the Civil Rights movement seemed to be starting to unravel, and there were increasing ruptures between the hardliners who would go on to form what would become the Black Power movement and the more moderate older generation. These ruptures were only exacerbated by the murder of Malcolm X, the most powerful voice on the radical side. Mayfield was depressed by this fragmentation, and wanted to write a song of hope, one that brought everyone together. To see the roots of the song Mayfield came up with we have to go all the way back to episode five, and to "This Train", the old gospel song which Rosetta Tharpe had made famous: [Excerpt: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, "This Train (live)"] The image of the train leading to freedom had always been a powerful one in Black culture, dating back to the Underground Railroad -- the network of people who helped enslaved people flee their abusers and get away to countries where they could be free. It was also a particularly potent image for Black people in the northern cities, many of whom had travelled there by train from the South, or whose parents had. Mayfield took the old song, and built a new song around it. His melody is closer than it might seem to that of "This Train", but has a totally different sound and feeling, one of gentle hope rather than fervent excitement. And there's a difference of emphasis in the lyrics too. "This Train", as befits a singer like Tharpe who belonged to a Pentecostal "holiness" sect which taught the need for upright conduct at all times, is mostly a list of those sinners who won't be allowed on the train. Mayfield, by contrast, had been brought up in a Spiritualist church, and one of the nine affirmations of Spiritualism is "We affirm that the doorway to reformation is never closed against any soul here or hereafter". Mayfield's song does talk about how "There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner, Whom would hurt all mankind just to save his own", but the emphasis is on how "there's hope for *all*, among those loved the most", and how "you don't need no baggage", and "don't need no ticket". It's a song which is fundamentally inclusive, offering a vision of hope and freedom in which all are welcome: [Excerpt: The Impressions, "People Get Ready"] The song quickly became one of the most important songs to the Civil Rights movement -- Doctor King called it "the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights movement" -- as well as becoming yet another big hit. We will continue to explore the way Mayfield and the Impressions reacted to, were inspired by, and themselves inspired Black political movements when we look at them again, and their political importance was extraordinary. But this is a podcast about music, and so I'll finish with a note about their musical importance. As with many R&B acts, the Impressions were massive in Jamaica, and they toured there in 1966. In the front row when they played the Carib Theatre in Kingston were three young men who had recently formed a group which they had explicitly modelled on the Impressions and their three-part harmonies. That group had even taken advantage of Jamaica's nonexistent copyright laws to incorporate a big chunk of "People Get Ready" into one of their own songs, which was included on their first album: [Excerpt: The Wailers, "One Love (1965 version)"] Bob Marley and the Wailers would soon become a lot more than an Impressions soundalike group, but that, of course, is a story for a future episode...

Label: Okeh 7311Year: 1968Condition: M-Last Price: $40.00. Not currently available for sale.Here's an especially beautiful copy of this terrific, seldom-heard Gamble-Huff production from 1968. This was a non-album single. Note: This 45 record comes in a vintage Okeh Records factory sleeve. The labels and vinyl (styrene) grade very close to Mint in appearance, and the audio sounds pristine!

 Here’s a song that grew up in the after-dark world of New Orleans at the turn of the last century. “Trouble in Mind” was written by a pioneer jazzman named Richard M. Jones, who grew in the Crescent City and, while still a teenager, was pounding piano in the houses of New Orleans’ red-light district known as Storyville. He also sometimes led a small band that included other jazz forefathers like cornet player Joe Oliver, who later would be crowned “King Oliver.” But back to the song. In the the spring of 1924 “Trouble in Mind” was among the first blues recordings ever made. But it was two years later, in 1926 in Chicago, that singer Betha “Chippie” Hill popularized it with a rendition she recorded for Okeh Records with Richard Jones on piano and another young horn man, a 25-year-old Louis Armstrong, on cornet. Since those days, this song of New Orleans has been revisited by everyone from Big Bill Broonzy to Dinah Washington and Nina Simone. Here’s the latest Flood take on the tune from a recent rehearsal.

Un dilluns més a Blues Barrelhouse fent una travesía a través del Blues i tota la seva diversitat. Aquest cop coneixerem millor OKEH RECORDS. Aquesta discogràfica que s’origina al New York City del 1918 on, moltes figures rellevants del Blues han format part d’ella tals com, Little Richard, Lonnie Johnson, Lucille Bogart o Big Joe […] The post Blues Barrelhouse 07/12/2020 first appeared on Ripollet Ràdio.

Episode one hundred and three of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Hitch-Hike” by Marvin Gaye, and the early career of one of Motown’s defining artists. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Any Other Way” by Jackie Shane. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ (more…)

An invitation to see the opening act at what would be the final Tom Petty performance resulted in an album, and laid back blues from a Philly artist who got his start in music after moving to Boston. This is episode 37 of Caffe Lena: 60 Years of Song. Thank you to Sarah for the list of songs and artists for this feature. G. Love and Special Sauce formed in Boston in 1993 . Their music is a unique, laid back blues sound that encompasses classic R&B. In 1994 they released their debut album on Okeh Records, which was the label’s first release by white musicians. Jesse Malin ’s latest album, Sunset Kids , got its start after he accepted Lucinda Williams’ invitation to see her open at The Hollywood Bowl for what would become Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ last live performance. That bittersweet experience is the basis for the song “Shining Down” and the visit with Lucinda planted the seed for her to produce the record. Caffe Lena : 60 Years of Song, a production of WEXT Radio.

Show #840 King Thing Again It is the Dutch king's birthday this week. So Spinner put together a royal show agian. Stay safe and enjoy this King Thing. 01. ZZ Top - Nasty Dogs And Funky Kings (2:46) (Fandango!, London Records, 1975) 02. Bluesix - King Of The New York Streets (5:37) (Ready, Tramp Records, 2008) 03. Muddy Waters - I'm A King Bee (3:51) (King Bee, Blue Sky Records, 1981) 04. Monti Amundson - King's New Clothes (4:18) (The Obvious Rock, Munich Records, 1994) 05. The Radio Kings - Everything's Gonna Be All Light (5:20) (The Radio Kings, CoraZong Records, 2009) 06. Freddie King - Pulpwood (7:14) (The Texas Cannonbal, Shelter Records, 1972) 07. JP Soars - Freddie King Thing (3:17) (Let Go Of The Reins, Whiskey Bayou Records, 2019) 08. Ray Wylie Hubbard - The Ballad Of The Crimson Kings (4:44) (Dangerous Spirits, CRS/Philo Records, 1997) 09. Blues Boy Kings - Can't Get Any Worse (3:48) (Blues Boy Kings, self-release, 2011) 10. Blues 'n' Trouble - King Tut's Wah Wah Hut (1:00) (Down to the Shuffle, Tramp Records, 1991) 11. The Kokomo Kings - Silicone Brain (2:28) (Too Good To Stay Away From, Rhythm Bomb Records, 2017) 12. BB King - How Blue Can You Get (5:09) (Live in Cook County Jail, ABC Records, 1971) 13. Keb' Mo' - Riley B. King (5:17) (Keep It Simple, Okeh Records, 2004) 14. Dr. John - Kingdom Of Izzness (3:37) (Locked Down, Nonesuch Records, 2012) 15. Katy Hobgood Ray - Kings, Queens, And Jesters (4:06) (I Dream Of Water, Out Of The Past Music, 2019) 16. Eddie 9V - Bending With The Kings (3:01) (Left My Soul in Memphis, Hubbub! Music, 2019) 17. Danny Gatton - Sky King (6:41) (Cruisin' Deuces, Elektra Records, 1993) 18. Sass Jordan - Palace Of The King (3:40) (Rebel Moon Blues, Stony Plain Records, 2020) 19. Seth Rosenbloom - Palace Of The King (3:38) (Keep On Turning, Holmz Music, 2019) 20. Bugs Henderson Group - Shuffle King (6:28) (At Last, Armadillo Records, 1978) 21. Chris Daniels & the Kings - All For The Love Of Lill (2:47) (Louie Louie, Moon Voyage Records, 1998) 22. Guy King - King Thing (5:42) (Truth, Delmark Records, 2016) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Find us at: iTunes Spotify Patreon CW: Discussions of racism, violence, sexism. In preparation for the new Netflix series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, we read all 8 issues of the comic it's based on. There's some interesting ideas floating around, but between some seriously problematic writing and just ugly artwork, we're not real excited about the comic itself. Still, there's not enough here to make us not want to watch the new show, and the last three issues in the series made things a little easier to swallow. Who knows? Maybe you'll side with these witches over Macintosh & Maud, and then join us on Patreon for our continuing review of the TV series... Macintosh & Maud have started a Patreon! You can sign up now at our $2/month level to get our Doghouse Drive-Thru every Friday after a new Riverdale episode, plus season 2 ofThe Chilling Adventures of the Doghouse, a weekly review of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix! You can email us with feedback at macintoshandmaud@gmail.com, or you can connect with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Intro taken from "I Put a Spell on You," written and performed by "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins. Copyright 1956 OKeh Records. Outro taken from "Season of the Witch," written by Donovan and Shawn Phillips, and performed by Donovan. ℗©1966 Epic Records/Sony Music Entertainment Inc. Interstitial music taken from "Make Up" from the compilation album Kamelot by Distortions. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. To hear the song or get more information about the artist, visit the song page at Jamendo.

The battle wages on to save the South’s first recording studio, and the hallowed ground where country music’s first commercial recordings were made. Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville is slated to swing the wrecking ball on 152 Nassau Street, clearing the way for a deluxe new outpost for its chain restaurant and hotel. In June of 1923, New York-based Okeh Records executive Ralph Peer set up a pop-up studio in the building which facilitated recordings by various regional jazz, blues, and country music artists including Fiddlin’ John Carson, Warner’s Seven Aces, Charlie Fulcher, the Morehouse College Quartet, Lucille Bogan, Fannie Mae Goosby, Eddie Heywood, and more. Photo is courtesy of Kyle Kessler / www.nassaustreetsessions.com/action/

The newest Ken Burns series premiering in September follows the vast and varied evolution of country music over the 20th century. The eight-part series begins not in Nashville, nor Bristol, but Atlanta. That's because, in 1923, OKeh Records music pioneer Ralph Peer came from New York to the South and set up a temporary recording studio smack dab in downtown Atlanta at 152 Nassau Street. That's where he recorded early country, blues, jazz and gospel artists, including what is known as country music's first hit, "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" by Fiddlin' John Carson.

In 1923, OKeh Records’ recording sessions at 152 Nassau Street highlighted an array of Southern jazz numbers from Warner’s Seven Aces and Charlie Fulcher, spirituals from the Morehouse College Quartet, and blues tracks from Lucille Bogan, Eddie Heywood, and Fannie Mae Goosby. What also makes these sessions noteworthy is that it’s where famed Cabbagetown resident Fiddlin’ John Carson cut to wax his tunes “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” and “The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster’s Going to Crow,” stamping in time the beginning of commercially recorded country music. Host Chad Radford speaks to Kyle Kessler about how this important historical site could soon fall prey to the wrecking ball, making way for a massive Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville location. Photo by Bill Torpy.

Our second episode brings us to a small town in the Northern part of the U.S. where we, surprisingly, find a deep Blues history. We follow Paramount Records through the peak of success, recording landmark artists that changed Western popular music forever, but this music, at several times, was almost lost forever. We follow the thin thread of events and recent efforts that have gone into preserving this important musical history.   Here’s an external link to every Musical Mention in this episode: 0:50 Muddy Waters 0:51 B.B King 0:54 Blind Lemon Jefferson 0:56 Charley Patton 0:57 Skip James 1:09 Blues 1:12 Africa 1:50 Skip James 2:03 Big Bill Broonzy 2:07 Bill Big Broonzy: The Man That Brought The Blues to Britain 2:14 Paramount Records 3:44 Jazz 3:55 Johann Sebastian Bach 3:55 Ludwig Van Beethoven 3:55 Johannes Brahms 3:59 Franz Joseph Haydn 3:59 Wenzel Müller 3:59 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 4:06 Vaudevillan Performers 4:08 Dixieland Jazz 4:10 Creole Music 4:14 Military Bands 4:49 Al Jolson 6:11 Pop music 6:19 Wisconsin Chair Company 6:28 Phonographs 7:21 Alex Van Der Tuuk 7:31 Paramount’s Rise and Fall 7:55 Classical Music (Western) 8:05 Vaudeville 8:10 Country Music 8:37 Mamie Smith 8:38 Crazy Blues 9:09 Race Records 10:10 J. Mayo “Ink” Williams 10:31 Blues Music 11:15 Bessie Smith 11:17 Jelly Roll Morton 12:31 Alberta Hunter 12:32 Monette Moore 12:53 Blind Lemon Jefferson 13:48 Charley Patton 13:52 Dockery Farms 13:57 Robert Johnson 14:29 Pony Blues 14:31 Banty Rooster Blues 15:10 Swanee River 15:21 Juke Joints 15:46 Delta Blues 16:59 Metal Masters 19:25 Grafton House of Blues 19:34 Angie Mack Riley 19:56 Blues 19:56 Jazz 19:56 Country Music 22:43 PBS History Detective: Paramount Records Episode 22:59 Charley Patton 22:59 Skip James 22:59 Blind Lemon Jefferson 23:27 Louis Armstrong 23:27 Ma Rainey 23:27 Son House 24:28 Delta Blues 24:49 Elvis Presley 25:22 Paramount’s Rise and Fall 25:29 Agram Blues 25:41 Jack White Box Set 25:54 Dean Blackwood 25:55 Revenant Records 27:10 Paramount Box Set #1 27:28 Grammy Award 27:57 The World Music Foundation 28:05 World Music 29:10 Folklore Music 29:18 Zydeco 29:22 Cajun Music 29:36 Rolling Stones 29:41 Love in Vain 30:10 Elmore James 30:01 Howlin’ Wolf 30:04 Muddy Waters 30:28 The Country Blues, by Samuel Charters 30:40 Columbia Records 30:42 Okeh Records 30:43 Paramount Records

We had the honor of spending some time with John discussing his evolution in music, what it’s like to create utterly improvisational music in, and for, the moment, music as prayers and the sacred nature of sound, the difference between producing music and playing it, his new album with Mad Skillet, and a whole lot more.Equally comfortable behind a Steinway grand piano, Hammond organ or any number of vintage keyboards, John Medeski is a highly sought after improviser and band leader whose projects range from work with John Zorn, The Word (Robert Randolph, North Mississippi Allstars), Phil Lesh, Don Was, John Scofield, Coheed & Cambria, Susana Baca, Sean Lennon, Marc Ribot, Irma Thomas, Blind Boys of Alabama, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and many more. Classically trained, Medeski grew up in Ft.Lauderdale, FL where as a teenager he played with Jaco Pastorius before heading north to attend the New England Conservatory. He released his first solo piano record, A Different Time, on Sony’s Okeh Records in 2013, and current projects include a new album in the works with his band MadSkillet (Terrence Higgins, Kirk Joseph, Will Bernard), and HUDSON (a collaboration with Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield & Larry Grenadier), plus a documentary on Medeski Martin & Wood.Listen to Mad Skillet on iTunes or anywhere you stream or download your tunes!Make sure to check out all of johnmedeski.com for tour news, merch, and more info.***THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY THE AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE SHOP TOUR BUS & DEFYNE PREMIUM CANNABIS!!!!*SHOP TOUR BUS:* Visit shoptourbus.com or @shoptourbus on IG and pick up some wonderfully creative and beautiful Grateful Dead inspired shirts/hoodies. Use the code nosimpleroad for free shipping!!!!!!DEFYNE PREMIUM CANNABIS:Defyne Premium Cannabis here in Oregon with two locations to serving the most incredible premium cannibis around: HILLSBORO: 1775 SE Tualatin Valley Hwy. Hillsboro, OR. 97123 and FOREST GROVE: 3821 Pacific Ave. Forest Grove, OR. 97116Head over to defyne.life to learn about their products and get ahold of some sweet Defyne Premium Cannabis Swag!SHOW CREDITS:ENGINEERNORMAN MARSTON (norman7norman7@gmail.com) co-owner/operator of Wall of Sound Recording Chicago, ILWall of Sound Recording of FBand @wallofsound_recording on IGPRODUCERJUSTIN ELROD (justin.g.elrod@gmail.com)MUSICIntro Music - 'No Simple Road' written and performed by 'THE HIGGS' Check them out at: thehiggsmusic.comOutro Music by: THE CHILLDREN OF INDIGOCheck out their website chilldrenofindigo.comcheck out this amazing video created exclusively for NSR!REDDIT AND OTHER COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTCOREY HURST (u/DogKnees2001 over on Reddit)LOGO DESIGNS AND RELATED ARTWORKJust Elrod (NSR Hand Logo)@wickedawesome (NSR... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After witnessing Bria's tenacity first hand it became increasingly important for me to shine a light on her innate ability to breath life into her dreams through hard work, focused leadership and vision. On this episode of The Working Artist Project, we explore Bria's past with the purpose of decoding her formula for success. Enjoy the show. Connect with Bria here: http://www.briaskonberg.com Connect with Darrian here: http://www.secondlinearts.org Bio New York based Canadian singer, trumpeter and songwriter Bria Skonberg has been described as one of the “most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation” (Wall Street Journal). Recognized as one of 25 for the Future by DownBeat Magazine, Bria Skonberg has been a force in the new generation with her bold horn melodies and smoky vocals, and adventurous concoctions of classic and new. Bria is signed to Sony Music Masterworks' OKeh Records and released her debut LP in September 2016, Bria, which won a Canadian JUNO award and made the Top 5 on Billboard jazz charts. She collaborated again with producer Matt Pierson, as well as multi-Grammy winner Gil Goldstein, for her second Sony album, With A Twist, released May 2017. Her take on Leonard Cohen's “Dance Me To The End of Love” has garnered over 1.3 million streams. Noted as a millennial “shaking up the jazz world,” (Vanity Fair), Bria Skonberg has played festivals and stages the world over, including New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, and over a hundred more. She recently performed the Star Spangled Banner at Madison Square Garden for an NHL game. Originally from the small town of Chilliwack, British Columbia, Bria studied jazz and performance at Capilano University in Vancouver while balancing a full road schedule with two bands. After graduating, she traveled extensively, performing in China and Japan and throughout Europe. When she wasn't traveling, Bria was honing her chops with Dal Richards, Vancouver's King of Swing. Playing BC Place Stadium at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver capped off this exciting period, with Bria featured at the Paralympics opening ceremony. Seeking new challenges, Bria moved to New York city in September of 2010. Upon arrival she went to jam with friends in Washington Square Park and an hour into playing world renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis stopped to listen. He gave her a thumbs up. In 2012, Bria released So Is The Day (Random Act Records). That collection showcased a developing flair for original songs and new takes on standards, including a duet with John Pizzarelli. So Is The Day received rave reviews from critics; “while tipping a hat to tradition, [So Is The Day] appropriately pushes Bria Skonberg to the forefront of today's musical talents” (All About Jazz). In 2015, following her second album Into Your Own, Skonberg received the distinguished Jazz At Lincoln Center Swing Award. Further accolades include Best Vocal and Best Trumpet awards from Hot House Jazz Magazine (2014-15, 2017), Outstanding Jazz Artist from the New York Bistro Awards (2014), DownBeat Rising Star (2013-17), and a nominee for Jazz Journalists Association Up and Coming Artist (2013). She is an avid educator and supporter of public school opportunities, giving numerous workshops and concerts for students of all ages. Bria has been a faculty member at the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Camp (2008- present), Centrum Jazz Camp, performs outreach on behalf of Jazz at Lincoln Center and co-founded the New York Hot Jazz Camp for adults in 2015. She is also co-founder of the New York Hot Jazz Festival. Support this podcast

En esta ocasión , vamos a deleitarnos con Norman Brown and Nelson Rangel Norman Brown Con el lanzamiento de Let It Go, Norman Brown no sólo ofrece un tributo musical que eleva a la vida, sino que nos recuerda nuestra propia luz divina instintiva. Brown también afirma que la innovación, el virtuosismo y la visión musical que nos enamoramos de años atrás, es a toda velocidad por delante, concluye, “Nuestro ser es de dos partes y el único camino para el éxito en la vida es a través del equilibrio apropiado de los dos.” Así que sentarse, escuchar, abrir su corazón, mente y alma y se deja ir. Copyright © 2017 http://www.normanbrown.com/bio Nelson Rangell: http://nelsonrangell.com/ La Revista Jazziz escribe que Nelson Rangell es “un artista de profundidad, un maestro de la canción y un gran improvisador.” The Times de Londres señala “su extraordinaria facilidad en una gama de instrumentos” . Saxofón Diario escribe: “Como domina el saxofón alto!, con tal autoridad no se puede negar que Rangell es un verdadero artista”, y flauta Revista afirma “Nelson Rangell crea la impresión de que todo es posible cuando improvisa.” Tal elogio es una confirmación de lo que los aficionados al jazz contemporáneos han conocido surgió a finales de los años 80: que Rangell es uno de los artistas más emocionantes y diversos en el género, igualmente hábil para soprano, alto, y el saxofón tenor, además de ser un auténtico virtuoso de la flauta y el flautín e incluimos la combinación de silbido y flauta: Bria Skonberg: http://www.briaskonberg.com/bio Cantante canadiense, trompetista y compositora Bria Skonberg , la describe el The Wall Street Journal como uno de los “músicos más versátiles y más imponentes de su generación.” Reconocido como uno de los “25 para el Futuro” por la revista DownBeat (verano de 2016), Skonberg acaba de firmar con Sony Music Masterworks' OKeh Records, y lanzará su primer LP, titulado simplemente BRIA, el 23 de septiembre 2016. exquisito, no lo perdais. Ingles: To date, Bria has performed at some 100 festivals worldwide. She is the co-founder of the New York Hot Jazz Camp and New York Hot Jazz Festival. Further accolades include Best Vocal and Best Trumpet awards from Hot House Jazz Magazine (2014-15), Outstanding Jazz Artist at the New York Bistro Awards (2014), a DownBeat Rising Star (2013-15), and a nominee for Jazz Journalists' Association Up and Coming Artist (2013).

SUBTLE VIRTUOSITYTo listen to program CLICK HEREIn 1951, Mr. Ahmad Jamal first recorded 'Ahmad's Blues' on Okeh Records. His arrangement of the folk tune 'Billy Boy', and 'Poinciana' (not his original composition), also stem from this period. In 1955, he recorded his first Argo (Chess) Records album that included 'New Rhumba', 'Excerpts From The Blues', 'Medley' (actually 'I Don't Want To Be Kissed'), and 'It Ain't Necessarily So' --all later utilized by Miles Davis and Gil Evans on the albums “Miles Ahead” and “Porgy and Bess.” In his autobiography, Mr. Davis praises Mr. Jamal's special artistic qualities and cites hisinfluence. In fact, the mid-to-late 1950's Miles Davis Quintet recordings notably feature material previously recorded by Mr. Jamal: 'Squeeze Me', 'It Could Happen To You', 'But Not For Me', 'Surrey With The Fringe On Top', 'Ahmad's Blues', 'On Green Dolphin Street' and 'Billy Boy'.In 1956, Mr. Jamal, who had already been joined by bassist Israel Crosby in 1955, replaced guitarist Ray Crawford with a drummer. Working as the “house trio” at Chicago's Pershing Hotel drummer Vernell Fournier joined this trio in 1958 and Mr. Jamal made a live album for Argo Records entitled “But Not For Me”. The resulting hit single and album, that also included 'Poinciana' -- his rendition could be considered his “signature”. This album remained on the Ten Best-selling charts for 108 weeks -- unprecedented then for a jazz album. This financial success enabled Mr. Jamal to realize a dream, and he opened a restaurant/club, The Alhambra, in Chicago. Here the Trio was able to perform while limiting their touring schedule and Mr. Jamal was able to do record production and community work.Mr. Jamal was born on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A child prodigy who began to play the piano at the age of 3, he began formal studies at age 7. While in high school, he completed the equivalent of college master classes under the noted African-American concert singer and teacher Mary Caldwell Dawson and pianist James Miller. He joined the musicians union at the age of 14, and he began touring upon graduation from Westinghouse High School at the age of 17, drawing critical acclaim for his solos. In 1950, he formed his first trio, The Three Strings. Performing at New York's The Embers club, Record Producer John Hammond “discovered” The Three Strings and signed them to Okeh Records (a division of Columbia, now Sony Records).Mr. Jamal has continued to record his outstanding original arrangements of such standards as 'I Love You', 'A Time For Love', 'On Green Dolphin Street' (well before Miles Davis!), 'End of a Love Affair', to cite a few. Mr. Jamal's own classic compositions begin with 'Ahmad's Blues' (first recorded on October 25, 1951!), 'New Rhumba', 'Manhattan Reflections', 'Tranquility', 'Extensions', 'The Awakening', 'Night Mist Blues' and most recently 'If I Find You Again', among many others..In 1994, Mr. Jamal received the American Jazz Masters award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The same year he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University, where he performed commissioned works with the Assai String Quartet. A CD is available of these works.In 1970, Mr. Jamal performed the title tune by Johnny Mandel for the soundtrack of the film “Mash!”; and in 1995, two tracks from his hit album “But Not For Me” -- 'Music, Music, Music', and 'Poinciana' -- were featured in the Clint Eastwood film “The Bridges of Madison County”.Mr. Jamal's CD entitled “The Essence” features tenor saxophonist George Coleman -- Mr. Jamal's first recording made with a horn! Critical acclaim and outstanding sales resulted in two prestigious awards: D'jango D'or (critics) and Cloch (for sales) in France. Its success generated a concert at Salle Pleyel, and a CD has been released “Ahmad Jamal a Paris” (1992) and a second “live” concert by Mr. Jamal in l996 under the same title, unissued except in France and available on the Dreyfus Records on the Internet, Mr. Jamal rightly considers one of his best recordings. Ahmad Jamal's 70th Birthday “live” concert recording Olympia 2000, is known as “The Essence Part III”. “The Essence, Part II”, featured Donald Byrd on the title track, and on his CD entitled “Nature”, Stanley Turrentine is featured on 'The Devil's In My Den', and steel drummer Othello Molineaux augments the trio format. Continuing his recording career, Mr. Jamal released “In Search of” on CD, and his first DVD “Live In Baalbeck”.For students of the piano, Hal Leonard Publications has published “The Ahmad Jamal Collection”, a collection of piano transcriptions. Mr. Jamal continues to record exclusively for the French Birdology label, and his albums are released on Verve and Atlantic in the United States.Mr. Jamal is an exclusive Steinway piano artist.Mr. Jamal's 'About My Life' story in his own words:At three years of age, my wonderful Uncle Lawrence stopped me while I was walking past the piano in my parents' living room. He was playing the piano and challenged me to duplicate what he was doing. Although I had never touched this or any piano, I sat down and played note for note what I had heard. “The rest is history.”What a thrilling ride it has been and continues to be. I was born in one of the most remarkable places in the world for musicians and people in the arts - Pittsburgh, PA. At seven years, I was selling newspapers to Billy Strayhorn's family. Billy had already left home; I didn't get to meet him until years later. Following is a partial listing of “Pittsburghers:”George BensonRoy EldridgeArt BlakeyErrol GarnerKenny ClarkeEarl “Fatha” HinesBilly EcksteinPhyllis HymanMaxine SullivanGene KellyStanley TurrentineJoe Kennedy, Jr.Earl WildOscar LevantMary Loe WilliamsLorin MaazelGeorge Hudson (his orchestra was my first job away from home, I was 17 and just out of high school.) - Dodo MarmarosaDakota StatonBilly StrayhornAt seven years of age I began my studies with a wonderful woman, Mary Cardwell Dawson. In addition to her great influence on me, she was very influential in the careers of many musical personalities on a local, as well as worldwide basis. One of her students is my life long friend, violinist, Joe Kennedy, Jr. Later, while still in my teens, I began studying with James Miller, as a result of Mrs. Dawson's relocation to Washington, D.C.After touring with George Hudson's Orchestra, I traveled to Chicago with The Four Strings, a group headed by violinist, Joe Kennedy, Jr. Unfortunately, the group disbanded because of a lack of employment and in 1951, I formed The Three Strings.The year 1951 was the beginning of my recording career. “Ahmad's Blues,” which I wrote in 1948 during my stint with a song and dance team out of East St. Louis, was one of my first recordings; “Ahmad's Blues” has been heard in the stage play, “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” and recorded by Marlena Shaw, Natalie Cole, Red Garland and others. The first session also included my arrangement of the folk tune, “Billy Boy,” which arrangement was copied by many of my peers. I wrote “New Rhumba” around 1951 and it has also been recorded and performed by many others, most notably Miles Davis. My most famous recording was done in Chicago in 1958 at the Pershing Hotel with two of the most talented musicians of the century, Israel Crosby and Vernell Fournier.Five decades covering my career are most interesting to me and contain some of the historical data that you can find by clicking the indicated categories of my web page menu. What you can't find won't be available until my proposed autobiography goes to print.To Visit Ahmad Jamal's website CLICK HERE

Dick Henry Jurgens (January 9, 1910 – October 5, 1995) was an American swing music bandleader, who enjoyed great popularity in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Dick Jurgens was born in Sacramento, California to Dietrich Heinrich Jurgens and Clara Matilda (Erath) Jurgens. Jurgens played in an orchestra in high school but was kicked out of the ensemble for playing pop music. In response, he formed his own group in 1928 while still a student. His brother Will Jurgens was a member; Will later became Dick's manager during his years of fame. Jurgens then studied at the University of California at Berkeley and the Sacramento Junior College before accepting an engagement with his own orchestra at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in 1933. The following year, Jurgens signed a contract with Decca Records, and recorded extensively for the label between 1934 and 1940. Jurgens' vocalist at this time was Eddy Howard. Jurgens held residencies at the Casino Ballroom on Catalina Island, the Elitch Gardens in Denver, the Aragon Ballroom and the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, and other popular swing venues. He recorded for Vocalion Records in 1938 and for Okeh Records starting in 1940. His first side to reach Your Hit Parade was "It's a Hundred to One You're in Love with Me" in 1939; the following year, "In an Old Dutch Garden" proved to be a big hit. Jurgens often found that Glenn Miller's versions of his hits performed better on the charts than his own, such as the song "Careless". Following Howard's departure from the group in 1940, Harry Cool became its lead singer. Jurgens scored more hits later that year, with "A Million Dreams Ago" and the instrumental "Elmer's Tune", the latter of which Miller would take a vocal version to number one. Later hits included "The Bells of San Raquel" and "Happy in Love" (released on Columbia Records). His biggest hit was 1942's "One Dozen Roses", with Buddy Moreno on vocals; the song hit #1 in the summer of that year. Later in 1942, Jurgens disbanded his group due in no small part to the 1942 recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians. He joined the Marines from 1942 to 1945, directing theater shows for the troops. In 1946 he re-formed his band, recording for Columbia and Mercury into the 1950s. He had his own radio show in 1948 on CBS, and also married in December of that year to Miriam Davidson. Jurgens kept up his group until 1956, by which time his style of swing had long passed out of popular favor. After this he moved to Colorado Springs and founded an electronics business with his brother. He occasionally played at the Broadmoor Country Club in Colorado Springs, and moved to California in 1965, where he again played intermittently. He put together a new band late in the 1960s; he played and recorded with the group on a part-time basis through 1976. His latter years were spent in Sacramento in the real estate business. He sold the rights to his ensemble's name to Don Ring in 1986. He died in 1995 of cancer at age 85.