Key to the Highway
2016-09-28 Louis Jordan
Frankie Lee Sims
Big Maybelle
John Littlejohn
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There
were at least two factors in the collapse of the Big Band Swing era. One was the fact that touring during the
World War II years was just no longer practical for many of the large bands
with such things as gas rationing and the tire shortage. As Dave Bartholomew saw things, "It got
too costly to keep up a big band. Band
leaders had to scale down so they could keep working and keep making money, and
they had a lot to do with the evolution of the sound." Smaller bands also meant smaller clubs could
also support live music, for both spatial and financial reasons. Another reason was that the musicians were
feeling stifled in the large orchestras. Just as the name itself implies, there
was not enough room for improvisation when everything had to be
orchestrated. Add to that the fact that
most black Americans felt that the whole Big Band Swing movement had been
hijacked from their culture and turned into a white bread commercial
product. In general, two new directions
were taken as the smaller combos were formed.
One was the birth of bop, which falls out of the area of our discussion
at the moment, and the other would be the paring down and returning to a more
blues-based form that would be called jump blues, or in general an early form
of rhythm and blues.The archetypal performer of this new art form would be alto saxist Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. He was born in Brinkley, Arkansas on July 8th, 1908 and became involved in music at an early age. His father was skilled in many instruments: "My papa was a fine musician, and he played just about all the horns. But as little as he was -- five feet three inches and about 105 pounds -- I think the instrument he liked best was the bass. ... He had a band for close to thirty years. I started off with him myself when I was about seven years old playing clarinet". Jim Jordan played on several occasions with Fat Chappelle's Rabbit Foot Minstrels, a group which could claim in its membership such notable artists as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Louis performed with the Minstrels as well, starting as a musician and dancer in his pre-teens, all the way into his time at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, which he left in 1928.
Louis went to New York City in 1929, where he met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb and participated in two recording sessions for him on the Brunswick label in June of that year. Unable to find enough work, Louis returned to Little Rock, then in 1932 moved east with the family, eventually settling in Philadelphia. Louis also had recording sessions backing Louis Armstrong in December of 1932 and two sessions for Clarence Williams in 1934. About this time, Louis started living in New York City, whose union required six months residency before becoming eligible for membership and therefore able to play the big gigs. Until then he was able to keep working with drummer Joe "Kaiser" Mitchell's band in out of town, even out of state clubs. He joined Webb's swing orchestra fulltime in the autumn of 1936 as an altoist and one of the singers, as Webb was becoming one of the hottest commodities in New York. Among the recordings Louis made with Webb was the extremely popular Ella Fitzgerald tune, "A Tisket, a Tasket". With the expanding role taken by Fitzgerald, who was only 16 years old when Webb took her under his wing in 1934, Louis' opportunities to sing were diminishing and in the summer of 1938, Louis left the ensemble. According to Jesse Stone, "I was doing arrangements for Chick Webb at the time, and Louis was playing third alto in Chick's band. He asked Chick could he sing, and Chick said yeah. Louis said, 'Well, Jesse's gonna make a couple arrangements for me.' So I made the arrangements. He tried 'em out one night and he went over great. Chick didn't like that. He wouldn't call the tunes again after that. So Louis quit. I encouraged him, told him that if he wanted to sing, he should get away from Chick. He took my band, and they became the Elks' Rendez-vous Band, the group on his first recordings." Louis' first recording session under his own name was for Decca Records on December 20th, 1938, and for their third session on March 29th, 1939, the same personnel acquired its long-enduring name Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. Tympani drums (the correct spelling) took up a lot of space and the band only used them on stage the three years they played at the Elks, "but we held on to that name, even when the five was actually seven or eight men."
One break came when the band was booked into Chicago's Capitol Lounge in May of 1941 as the second-billed act behind the Mills Brothers and also featured Maurice Rocco. The shows were broadcast on WGN radio, and the crowds kept increasing; according to Jordan, "the Capitol Lounge couldn't hold two hundred people. But they would have a hundred twenty sittin' down and maybe a hundred eighty standin' at the bar. After that booking, I was gone." The club's stage was so small that the piano player had to play standing up, which pleased the crowd so much that Rocco began to perform similarly and became billed as the "Stand-Up Pianist', a tradition later taken up by Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis to much success.
As Louis' new manager, Berle Adams, explains, the lounge "would not pay more than scale. And scale then was thirty-five a man per week -- a dollar per working hour -- plus a dollar extra for the leader. I closed the deal. It was a big accomplishment for me personally. After Jordan opened, I received an increase in salary from twenty dollars a week to thirty-five. I was quite pleased." Adams continued, "Then we had a problem. Jordan came to me to say that he had to quit; he just couldn't live on sixteen dollars a week. Then I discovered that Jordan couldn't get the musicians to come to Chicago unless they got forty dollars a man. So he was taking the money out of his salary and paying each man five dollars above what the lounge paid. When I learned this, I went to the owners and had them fire the band. ... But when they received their notice, the band went to the union, and the union summoned Jordan on the ground that he was playing for below scale. ... I had read the musicians' contract and union bylaws. I found a technicality that prevented Jordan from being fined. But as a result of the interrogation, we learned that the troublemaker in the band was the bass player. ... So I gave Louis the money to send the bass player back to New York -- that was required when you brought a musician away from his home base."
Regarding the next job Adams got them, at the Fox Head Tavern in Cedar Rapids, he recalled, ''Now, they were not in New York or Chicago. They were not known, and they could make fools of themselves. That was where they developed all the novelty songs that later made Jordan." Indeed, unlike session habits of the day, when Jordan went into the studio he picked songs that had been proven on the bandstand to have a known popularity. Louis' personality shone onstage, and his charismatic mugging enhanced more than just the novelty numbers.
Jordan's first hits were "Knock Me a Kiss" and "Outskirts of Town", released together on a 78 in January of 1942. While both sides received much jukebox play and the record sold well, they were quickly copied by other artists on different labels so Louis' versions didn't make the charts.
Wartime restraints culminating on April 25th of 1942 brought a rationing of shellac down to 30% of the record-making material the companies had used in 1941, followed quickly in July by the American Federation of Musicians' strike refusing to allow union members to make any recordings. Louis' last pre-strike recording date was a nine track session on July 24th of 1942, and since Decca was among the earliest to come to agreement with the AFM, he was back in the studio on October 4th, 1943. That marathon session in July produced Louis' first Number One hit, "What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)", hitting the Harlem Hit Parade on November 14th of 1942 and staying there for 14 weeks. While unable to record in the studio, Jordan was popular enough to be able to make several Soundies -- three minute movies that theater patrons could pay to view -- and often appeared on the Armed Forces Radio Service's Jubilee worldwide radio broadcasts to the military, both on their own as well as backing other artists.
From his first session back, Louis had another Number One with "Ration Blues", which stayed on the R&B charts for 21 weeks beginning in mid-December1943, and then also made the pop chart and hit Number One on the Folk and Western (Country) chart. "Deacon Jones", from the same session, only hit the Country chart, topping out at #7. Jordan was now a true crossover artist and a draw nationwide, pleasing audiences everywhere he went on his many tours during the mid-40s, while basing himself out of Los Angeles.
To avoid the occasional racial tensions when artists appeared before mixed audiences, Billboard reported on July 22nd, 1944, that Jordan "recently played two dates in Oakland, California, where he drew 4,200 colored dancers at the auditorium and 2,700 whites at Bill Sweet's the following night" and would continue dual settings in several of the cities on his tour.
When Adams bought out his partner Lou Levy, the contractual agreement was that Adams would manage Jordan, but all his songs would be published by Levy's company, Leeds Music. But for the song "Caldonia", Louis listed the author as his current wife Fleecie Moore. Levy would recall, "they put Louis Jordan's wife's name on the song and gave it to another publisher. But actually Jordan and Adams both got outsmarted. When the Jordans got divorced, Louis tried to get the song back and his ex-wife thumbed her nose at him." Even though Jordan had done the song in a highly popular movie short of the same name, Decca was reluctant to release it due to the remaining restrictions on shellac. It wasn't until Woody Herman and Erskine Hawkins each successfully released their versions that Decca finally put the original into circulation. Due to Decca's hesitation, the Jordan disc only reached #6 on the Pop chart, while Herman's got to #2 and Hawkins' made it to #12; on the Harlem Hit Parade, Jordan was able to sustain at #1 for seven weeks during its six month run and Hawkins took the tune to the number two spot while charting for ten weeks. As for the Jordan-Moore marriage, it came to a violent end when, early on Sunday morning, January 26th, 1947, as Jordan put it, "We had a quarrel when I came home from work. I got into bed and turned out the light. Next thing I know, I felt the knife go into my chest. This is the second time Fleecie cut me. There's not going to be another time."
In October of 1945, for the first time since his days with Chick Webb, Louis was again recording with Ella Fitzgerald. Their Caribbean-flavored duet "Stone Cold Dead in the Market" would be the first of six #1 hits he would have in 1946 including its follow-up, Choo Choo Ch- Boogie, which spent an astounding 18 weeks at #1. Jordan's foray into feature length movies began with the June 14th, 1946 debut of "Beware", a 55-minute melodrama which Newsweek reviewed on July 8th: "The presence of Jordan, who has just made his third personal appearance at the Paramount Theater in New York, assures 'Beware's' box office success. The most successful negro film to date was 'Caldonia', another Astor production with Jordan and his Tympany Five."
Three Monday sessions in fifteen days in 1947 (November 24th, December 1st and 8th) produced 13 songs as once again the record companies were facing another strike scheduled for the first tick of the clock in 1948. That year would not be a particularly good one for Jordan, what with no recording sessions, recurring bouts of illnesses brought on by his years of rigorous touring schedules, slipping record sales... But when it came to live performances, Louis could still pack 'em and please 'em. San Francisco bay area promoter John Bur-Ton was to say in March, after booking a series of one-nighters, that "Louis Jordan will make me more money than any four other attractions I can get."
Louis wasn't the only one beginning to physically suffer. As Adams explained, "I was the president and founder of Mercury Records and I became ill. Had a problem with my spine. Sold my stock in the company because I had to move to California. ... I didn't want to travel as much as I had. My doctor didn't think it was advisable. ... and I decided to give up the band. When I sat down with Louis to explain my thinking, I never forgot the look on his face. His reaction was, 'You think I'm over the hill.' I responded, 'How can that be? You still have one hit record after another. Your income is tremendous. Your percentages are high, and you can work as many days of the year as you please.' But he kept staring at me and shaking his head. "You're too smart to walk out on something that's that good. You must see something in the future.'"
Exhausted and thinking that his old friend and manager abandoned him because he had lost confidence in him, Louis announced plans to retire when his contract with Decca was due to expire in March of 1951. But Louis had no other way of making money, so he renewed his contract for another three years. Now that he was no longer advised by Adams, Jordan disbanded the Five, something he had done numerous times in the past, but this time created a full-blown orchestra. But the pulse of the people, particularly the black people, had long since left behind the Big Band music and only the best known and most well established few were achieving any success at all. Even though Louis went back to the smaller format for recording sessions, his hit-making heyday was behind him; not because his song quality had diminished any, but because the ears of the youth were turning to the developing rock 'n' roll, a music that Louis was so much an influence upon.
When it became apparent that Decca was not going to renew Louis' contract, he signed with Aladdin According to keyboard man and arranger Bill Doggett, "No one ever got real close to Louis, although the public thought he was just the friendliest, warmest guy. Actually, he was a very decent and fair man, just kind of cold."
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John
Littlejohn was born John Wesley
Funchess on April 16th 1931 in Lake, Mississippi. His father was not a musician (it was his
friend, Henry Martin, who first taught young John the guitar), but he was a
gambler and one night part of his winnings was a guitar which John would pick
up.In his youth, John’s parents worked on a pecan and peach farm where John would earn forty cents a day hauling water to the workers. In 1946, John and his brother left home for nearby Jackson to where they earned $1.25 a day working on an ice truck, listening to the Blues being played at some of their delivery stops. John and a friend moved along to Arkansas in 1949 to chop cotton and there were recruited to pick cherries in New York state, but neither were adequate pickers and they moved on to Rochester, New York. There John got a good job driving a bulldozer but, when the construction company had completed the job and offered him $200 a week in Florida, he chose to not return to the south and instead took a Greyhound bus to Gary, Indiana, in hopes of finding good paying work in the steel mills. Unfortunately, all that could be found was a $40 a week job working at a service station which he held onto for six months.
It was 1951 and the northern industrial migration had brought lots of black workers wishing to hear the music of the Delta, albeit in a more electric way so, even though he hadn’t played guitar since leaving home, John saved enough money to get a guitar, amp and microphone and set about making music. Not long after a six-month practice period, John had assembled a band that was playing seven nights a week around Chicago and its suburbs. Their popularity soon got them a gig at the 99 Club in Joliet, Illinois, working weekends only but earning more than ever before. They held it for three years. In Gary, he met up with Joe Jackson, the patriarch of the Jackson 5, and John’s band occasionally backed the boys up in rehearsal sessions.
Littlejohn did not get the opportunity to record until 1968 when the slide guitarist put out singles for several record labels. Later in the year, he recorded this album followed up by four unreleased tracks for the Chess label. A few releases from local companies followed and in 1985 he was able to put together the So-called Friends album for the label Rooster Blues. Shortly afterward, John fell into ill health and passed away almost a decade later from kidney failure on February 1st 1994 at the age of 62.
Here is something I cannot verify but it seems I read a long time ago regarding the album we hear today. Arhoolie Records’ owner Chris Strachwitz, based right here in the Bay Area’s El Cerrito, wanted to put his label into more than just the acoustic Blues it was noted for and approached Buddy Guy to do a session but, most likely for contractual reasons, Buddy declined and recommended Littlejohn. Don’t take that to the bank because I can’t come up with where I read it, but I don’t think my mind is capable of fabricating the story.
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When I first came to KKUP, before I took a regular time
slot 25+ years ago, I was still earning my living tending bar and I had one
buddy / customer who put together a cassette of all kinds of his favorite Blues
from his 45s. He wrote short notes about
the songs or artists and I remember one said something like, “It’s cracked but
it still plays!” Many of them were stuff
I was well aware of, but one of the hidden gems was a thing called Walking with
Frankie from the Ace label. I haven’t
looked for a long time for that tune, but when I found this compilation I
promptly burned a copy for Marvelous Marv.Frankie Lee Sims is about as different in his style from Louis Jordan as any artist I could think of for today’s show, with a twangy, crude, country electric Blues style. He is believed to have been born on April 30th 1917 in New Orleans, Louisiana despite his claiming February 29th 1906, because 1906 was not a leap year. Both his parents, Henry Sims and Virginia Summuel, were guitarists, and his uncle, Texas Alexander, was an often recorded Bluesman, but it was most notably his cousin Lightnin’ Hopkins, who has as many discs in my collection as anyone except maybe John Lee Hooker, and I have never really been a Hopkins fan.
The family moved to Marshall, Texas, in the late twenties but, shortly after learning to play guitar from Little Hat Jones, Sims left home at the age of twelve to sing his Blues. By the late thirties, having graduated college, he was working weekdays teaching at a Palestine, Texas, school while playing dances and parties on the weekends.
After three years service in the Marines during World War II, Frankie Lee made Dallas, Texas, his home, devoting all his time to his music. Besides gigging with Texas Bluesmen like T-Bone Walker and Smoky Hogg, Sims put out two singles for the Blue Bonnet label in 1948 before hitting regionally with Lucy Mae Blues (also the title of this CD) in 1953 for Specialty Records, the only one of his nine singles to reach even that status. The songs on today’s collection are from his time with Specialty, which ended by 1957.
Frankie then moved to Ace Records where he was successful with Walking with Frankie and She Likes to Boogie Real Low. Frankie later recorded with Lightnin’ and other musicians, but by the mid-60s he was out of all but the most local earshot. Chris Strachwitz got Sims into a recording studio for his El Cerrito-based Arhoolie label in 1969, but on May 10th 1970, Frankie Lee’s health had deteriorated to the point that he passed away from pneumonia back in Dallas at the age of 53.
From the liner notes of this disc, Frankie discusses departing Dallas. “I left there and went to Chicago, that where me and Muddy Waters, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Little Milton, Etta James, we all played at the Regal Theater on 42nd and South Parkway in Chicago for about three months, and then we went to American Bandstand, me and Jimmy McCracklin. King Curtis put out a record called the Soul Twist, I’m the one playin’ the guitar on that.” To fit this into a time line, soul Twist came out in 1962.
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I have a full show prepared for today but am strongly
considering pre-empting a portion of it in favor of checking some of the new
discs that have come to the station, so it is likely we will not hear Frankie
Lee Sims or Big Maybelle, and maybe
not even the last Louis Jordan set but, just in case, I will still take the
time to introduce you to the artist born as Mabel Louise Smith on May 1st
1924 in Jackson, Tennessee. Mabel’s
earliest public singing took place in her church’s choir but she soon became
enamored of Rhythm & Blues, turning professional in 1936 with Dave Clark’s
Memphis Band. She also toured with the
popular all-female International Sweethearts of Rhythm before signing on with
Christine Chatman’s Orchestra with whom she did her first recording in
1977. She also recorded with Tiny
Bradshaw’s Orchestra between 1947 and 1950.Her first solo session was released as by Mabel Smith for the King label in 1947. It was in 1952 when signed to Okeh Records that their producer, Fred Mendelsohn, gave her the name Big Maybelle and their first release, Gabbin’ Blues, climbed to #3 on Billboard’s R&B listing, followed in 1953 by two more platters, Way Back Home (#10) and My Country Man (#5). Jerry Lee Lewis took her 1953 Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On and two years afterward made it one of the classic Rock ‘n’ Roll and Rockabilly masterpieces.
Also known as America;s Queen Mother of Soul, Maybelle moved to Savoy Records in 1955 where her 1956 #11 disc Candy would be recognized in 1999 with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. 1957 found her appearing at New York City’s Apollo Theater, while her rendition of Jazz on a Summer’s Day was filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival as she shared the stage with Mahalia Jackson and Dinah Washington.
Even though she was out of her prime by the 60s, Maybelle was recorded by several more labels, but she only made the R&B charts twice more -- 1966’s Don’t Pass Me By at #27 and her 1967 remake of the ? and the Mysterions hit 96 Tears, which climbed to #23 as well as getting on the Pop list at #96, Maybelle died in a diabetic coma on January 23rd 1972 in Cleveland, Ohio, at the age of 47. When Epic Records released The Okeh Sessions it won the 1983 W.C. Handy Award for best Vintage or Reissue Album of the Year. She was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011.
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Since it is still relatively new, I thought I’d
mention that KKUP is now streaming on the internet and, while it is still in a
developing stage, we have been putting out the word. I’m not all of that good with high-tech
stuff, but it seems pretty easy to access.
If you go to our website at KKUP.org you will see on the home page a
strip of options immediately above the pictures of the musicians the next to
the last option being LISTEN ONLINE. By
clicking this, it brings up a choice of desktop or mobile. I can only speak for the desktop but after
maybe a minute I was receiving a crystal clear feed. As already mentioned, this is still a work in
progress and we are currently limited to a finite number of listeners at any
one time. I mention this so you will be
aware to turn off the application when you are not actually listening. (I put the player in my favorites bar for the
easiest of access.) Now we can reach our
listeners in Los Gatos and Palo Alto, even my family in Canada. Let your friends elsewhere know they can now
listen to your favorite station, and while they have the home page open they
can check out our schedule.
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Jordan for PresidentBarnacle Bill the Sailor
Jake What a Snake
You Run Your Mouth and I’ll Run My Business
But I’ll Be Back
I’m Alabama Bound
Louis Jordan 16mins
How Much More Long
Treat Me WrongSlidin’ Home
Catfish Blues
Kiddeo
Reelin’ and Rockin’
Dream
Dust My Broom
John Littlejohn 30mins
What’s the Use of Getting Sober
(When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)Ration Blues
G.I. Jive
Mop! Mop!
Caldonia
Buzz Me
Don’t Worry ‘Bout That Mule
Choo Choo Ch’Boogie
Louis Jordan 22mins
I’ve Got a Feelin’
Rain Down RainGabbin’ Blues
One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show
Way Back Home
Please Stay Away From My Sam
Don’t Leave Poor Me
Big Maybelle 19mins
Ain’t That Just Like a woman
(They’ll Do It Every Time)Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens
Texas and Pacific
Jack, You’re Dead
Boogie Woogie Blue Plate
Run Joe
Beans and Corn Bread
Saturday Night Fish Fry
Blue Light Boogie
Louis Jordan 31mins
Lucy Mae Blues
Don’t Take It Out on MeMarried Woman
Jelly Roll Baker
Hawk Shuffle
Raggedy and Dirty
Yeh, Baby
Long Gone
Cryin’ Won’t Help You
Frankie Lee’s 2 O’clock Jump
Frankie Lee Sims 27mins
Stone Cold Dead in the
Marketplace
Ain’t Nobody’s BusinessBaby, It’s Cold Outside
Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald 8mins
