Key to the Highway
2017-10-25 2-5pm
Buddy Guy 1959-1968
Ruth Brown 1949-1960
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First of all, I wish to thank Jim Thomas for filling
in last minute for me two weeks ago, but I found out that Monday that my son’s
mother was an early victim of the Santa Rosa fires and I needed to make myself
available to him.
I usually prefer to include three artists on each show
but I think today’s will be fine with only two.
I have been putting off Buddy Guy
because a long time ago I burned most of his material (and many others’) to CDs
so I would still have it after selling the original discs to afford the
purchase of more stuff, but when I input the CD-Rs into my library I have to
type in all the data and I do enough typing for these blogs. Also, I used to have his book Damn Right I’ve
Got the Blues but I fear it got lost in my last move, so I’ll hold off on
writing a full bio until I look for it longer.
Enough of that useless information, now about the music.
We start with some of Guy’s earliest recordings, three
tracks from his 1959 Cobra sessions.
Shortly thereafter he went over to Chess Records and one of the early
releases was a live show LP where the guitarist joined drummer Fred Below,
bassist Jack Meyers, pianist Otis Spann, and Jarrett Gibson and Donald Hankins
on saxes to back the vocals of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. It is an extreme rarity for me to play a
bunch of slow tunes in a row but that is about the only option here and it
seems to work okay.
Recorded July 26th 1963, the album was
released under a couple of names, the more correct Live at Big Bill’s Copa
Cabana but I think the version I have was called Folk Festival of the
Blues. Anyway, the introductory tune
mentions harmonica players Little Walter (I don’t recall him at all) and Sonny
Boy Williamson. I do recall there was
something hinky about the album and I think it was that Sonny Boy’s tracks were
actually studio numbers with audience noise overdubbed but I’m not positive. I can’t find the album; it’s probably hiding
out with the book. Willie Dixon only
sings on the first tune and does not play bass at all, then Buddy, Wolf and
Muddy each sing slow tunes before Waters closes out the set with Got My Mojo
Working. Got to have a closer that
moves!
I know it was 1966 when I first heard Buddy as he
backed up Junior Wells on five tracks from volume 1 of the 1966 Vanguard
three-record set Chicago / The Blues / Today! and we include their portion in
its entirety as our middle set. Guitarist
Buddy and harmonica man Junior both had long individual careers, but they often
got back together as a team, and at least once for contractual reasons listing
Buddy as Friendly Chap. Since this
session was under Junior’s name, maybe this counts as that third artist.
Our
closing set is still from early in Buddy’s career (he is still active to this
day), another Vanguard album titled This is Buddy Guy from a live 1968
concert. Upon listening to the full CD,
I think you’ll agree this is a great way to close out the show.
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If I have one fault in my choice of artists for the
show that I could point to, and I’m sure there are many more, it might be that
I just don’t play enough Blues women. It’s not like I’m a misogynist, far from it;
it’s just that not that many women pack the punch that appeals to me. That has changed somewhat in the past couple
of decades, especially with some guitar players, but I do not cater to the
contemporary. Especially since I have
been doing these essays, I prefer to choose longtime favorites (or some that I
overlooked back in the day) that have a full enough history to delve into.
I remember one concert, maybe even before I came to
KKUP, where the San Francisco Blues Festival had an excellent lineup of women:
pianist Katie Webster, who was making the Bay Area her home, Koko Taylor and Ruth Brown. Any three consecutive artists of any gender
would have been hard pressed to put on a more exciting show. I’ll look at all three eventually, but let’s
begin today with Miss Rhythm, Ruth Brown.
She was born Ruth Alston Weston in Portsmouth,
Virginia on January 12th 1928, the first of seven children. Her father was a dock worker as well as the director
of their church’s choir. She listened to
the Jazz vocalists Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, leaving
home at seventeen with her soon-to-be husband, trumpeter and bandleader Jimmy
Brown, after having honed her chops at USO shows and in nightclubs. She spent a month with the Lucky Millinder
orchestra as the second singer behind Annisteen Allen in 1947, but lost that
gig when she delivered a round of drinks to members of the band. Almost immediately, she met up with Cab
Calloway’s sister Blanche, who set her up with a gig at the Washington, D.C.,
nightclub Crystal Cavern, where Ms. Calloway was not only the bandleader but
the club owner as well, before becoming Ruth’s fulltime manager. The gig was supposed to last a week but got stretched
out to sixteen weeks.
While performing at the Cavern, Willis Conover, who
would later become the Voice of America deejay, caught her act and recommended
her to the recently-formed (in October 1947) Atlantic Records. Atlantic’s owners Ahmet Ertegun and Herb
Abramson left New York City to hear her at the Cavern. There she was singing mostly ballads but
Ertegun suggested she would do better with Rhythm & Blues, although once
with the label they still sent her some schlocky material in search of commercial
success. Before she could get to an
audition, she and Blanche were involved in a car crash on their way to a gig at
New York’s Apollo that put Ruth in the hospital for nine months, and that is
where she inked her contract. She was
still on crutches when, on May 25th 1949, she cut her first session (not
counting one song laid down as a trial run April 6th) producing So Long which,
at number 6 on Billboards R&B chart and remaining for nine weeks, was only
Atlantic’s second hit record, the first being Stick McGhee’s Drinkin’ Wine
Spo-Dee-O-Dee in April ‘49. She would
wind up with a total of 24 chartings in her time with the label between 1949
and 1961.
Her unreleased Hey Pretty Baby from September 14th
1949 was a duet with her husband Jimmy Brown.
Atlantic used different backing bands for each session, but they did
tend to use repeat songwriters more often.
Her next hit, September 1950’s Teardrops from My Eyes (staying #1 on
Billboard’s R&B list for 11 of its 26 weeks on the chart), was penned by
Rudy Toombs, as were I’ll Wait for You, 5-10-15 Hours (#1 for 7 of its 13 weeks)
and Daddy Daddy (peaking at #3 in its 8 week stay), both released in 1952, all
from the 40-track 2CD collection Miss Rhythm.
Herb Abramson recalled, “(Rudy Toombs) came in and sang, ‘Give me
five-ten-fifteen minutes of your love’.
I said that minutes was not enough in this era of The Sixty-Minute Man –
we better make it fifteen hours of your love.”
Ruth remembered, “That was Willis Gator Tail Jackson. He used to talk to me through his horn.” Tenor sax player Jackson would become her
second husband. The duo of Jerry Leiber
and Mike Stoller penned I Wanna Do More, Lucky Lips and I Can’t Hear a Word You
Say and there are also a couple of Brook Benton numbers, Why Me and I Don’t
Know, that were also chosen.
As well as being dubbed Miss Rhythm by Frankie Laine,
1951 saw Ruth chart again with I’ll Wait for You (#3) and I Know (#7). In addition to the two previously mentioned
Toombs tunes from 1952, Ruth charted again the next year with Mama, He Treats
Your Daughter Mean, not only hitting #1 R&B for 5 of its 16 weeks but also
moving into the pop chart for the first time at #23. The song was also chosen by the readers of
Down Beat as the number one R&B record of 1953. Then came a two-sided hit with Wild Wild
Young Men at #3 while charting for 11 weeks and Mend Your Ways at #7, all this
leading to Ruth receiving the 1953 Bessie Smith Award from the Pittsburgh
Courier for being the best female Blues singer.
Nipsey Russell was the emcee when Ruth toured with
Duke Ellington and Billy Eckstein around 1953 or 1954, and he opined, “She was
a superstar by then. She would have at
that time, I would guess, maybe four hit records on the charts. At that point, she was bigger than Dinah (Washington)
or anybody. She was the
thing.” Regarding Ruth only having once
made it to the pop charts, Russell explained, “Ruth Brown appealed to anybody
that heard her – she didn’t just appeal to black listeners. The limitation of her appeal at that time
would be the limitation of the exposure.
Many of the records that they called Rhythm and Blues – which is a
euphemism for race and black – were not played on some general stations. It would mean she’d be big in a city like
Detroit where there’s a mass black population and therefore two or three radio
stations that played black records. In a
city where there’s not much of a black population and no black station, she
wouldn’t be as well known.” Throughout
her career, Ruth extensively toured the southern states, and it was reportedly
said, “In the South Ruth Brown is better known than Coca-Cola”.
Ruth scored another #1 with 1954’s Oh What a Dream,
one of the two songs authored by Chick Willis on the CDs which I opted not to
include. Brown followed that up with
another chart topper, Mambo Baby, before the year was out.
1955 was a big year for Ruth, beginning with another
two-sided hit with As Long As I’m Moving (#4) and I Can See Everybody’s Baby
(#7), then Ever Since My Baby’s Been Gone (#13), It’s Love, Baby (24 Hours a Day)
at #4, the #8 duet with Clyde McPhatter Love Has Joined Us Together, before
winding up the year at #3 with I Wanna Do More.
Actually, that last one might have charted very early 1956 and I was
tempted to play its B-side as well, Old Man River, since I had played it the
last two shows by Roy Milton and Tiny Bradshaw, but this version just was not
very exciting; I did notice that the first word was spelled differently three
times, Ol’, Ole and Old.
All of her success that year culminated in a poll of
R&B deejays published by Billboard in November of 1955 proclaiming Ruth
Brown second only to Fats Domino as their favorite singer. Similarly, Cash Box deemed her the favorite
R&B artist for the second year in a row.
During the year she also made an appearance on TV’s Showtime at the
Apollo where, coincidentally, former husband Jimmy Brown was in the band. Her poise and sense of humor showed up in her
banter with the show’s emcee, foreboding her future acting success
In 1956, Ruth had a #10 with Sweet Baby of Mine, then
broke once again into the pop chart at #25 in its 9 weeks with Lucky Lips (#6
R&B). This Little Girl’s Gone
Rockin’ (#7 R&B, #24 pop, written specifically for her by Bobby Darin and
Mann Curtis) and Why Me (#17 R&B) were both recorded on July 30th
1958 By 1959, the pop charts were more
inclusive of R&B items and Ruth put three songs on both charts: I Don’t
Know (5 R&B, 64 pop), I Can’t Hear a Word You Say (23, 96) and 1960’s Don’t
Deceive Me (10 & 62).
In addition to the nickname Miss Rhythm, Ruth was
called the Queen of R&B and The Girl with a Tear in Her Voice. That last title brings to mind a singing
technique, hard for me to describe, but where it’s like she kinda shortens her
breath on the last syllable of a line.
You can catch it in Daddy Daddy or I Wanna Do More; the only other one I
am aware to use the style is Jazz alto saxophonist and R&B singer Eddie
Vinson. Also, Ruth’s success with the
fledgling Atlantic Records caused the label to be referred to as the house that
Ruth built, a nifty task considering the label also housed Big Joe Turner (beginning
in 1951) and Ray Charles (1952-1959) during her tenure
After
her departure from Atlantic, Ruth recorded for Philips, Mainstream and Skye,
among others, mostly in a Jazz vein and often in a live setting, before
settling down in the ‘60s to raise her two sons. She found herself back in front of audiences
again in 1975 at the prompting of comedian Redd Foxx, which led to an acting
career on the TV comedy Hello Larry, John Waters’ 1985 movie Hairspray, a pair
of public radio series Harlem Hit Parade and Blues Stage, and a few stage shows. She was in the off-Broadway cast of the
musical Staggerlee and the Broadway productions of Amen Corner and Black and
Blue, the latter bringing a 1989 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and
leading to her 1989 album Blues on Broadway.
Other albums from her resurgence were 1988’s Have a Good Time, Fine and Mellow from 1991, the
1993 Songs of My Life (at merely three, the only album of her last five to rate
less than four stars from the All Music Guide), and 1997’s R + B = Ruth Brown, She was a recipient of the Pioneer Award in
1989, its first year, inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992, and
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, but what must not be overlooked was her
groundbreaking work to establish musician’s rights and fair distribution of
royalties, culminating in the 1987 formation of the Rhythm and Blues
Foundation. Ruth died November 17th
2006. enjoy
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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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This is the EndTry to Quit You Baby
You Sure Can’t Do
Wee Wee Baby
Don’t Know Which Way to Go
Sugar Mama (Howlin’ Wolf)
Sitting and Thinking (Muddy Waters)
Got My Mojo Working (Muddy Waters)
Buddy Guy 29mins
Shine On
5-10-15 HoursSentimental Journey
R.B. Blues
Daddy Daddy
Hey Pretty Baby
Teardrops from my Eyes
I’ll Get Along Somehow (part one)
I Know
It’s All for You
Wild Wild Young Men
Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean
Ruth Brown 33mins
Help Me (A Tribute to Sonny Boy Williamson)
It Hurts Me TooMessin’ with the Kid
Viet Cong Blues
All Night Long (Rock Me Baby)
Junior Wells with Buddy Guy 18mins
As Long as I’m Moving
It’s Love BabyI Wanna Do More
Love Has Joined us Together
Ever Since My Baby’s Been Gone
Why Me
I Can’t Hear a Word You Say
Lucky Lips
I Don’t Know
Takin’ Care of Business
Love Contest
This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin’
Ruth Brown 31mins
I Got My Eyes on You
The Things I Used to Do(You Give Me) Fever
Knock on Wood
I Had a Dream Last Night
24 Hours of the Day
You Were Wrong
I’m Not the Best
Buddy Guy 40mins
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