December 5, 2019


Key to the Highway   KSCU 103.3FM 
2019-12-07    Noon-5PM          
Harpdog Brown and band LIVE in studio

Jimmy Yancey
Sam and Dave
Shakey Jake Harris
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In going through my past notes, I discovered it was on this same day, Pearl Harbor Day two years ago, that Gil de Leon and I went up to San Francisco’s Biscuits and Blues to see Harpdog Brown’s band.  Anyway, the Dog is in Silicon Valley for only one day on this West Coast tour and it is not in a club but, indeed, right here in our KSCU studio to perform for you (and for free) in this very special show.  When I first got into radio in the late 80s, one ambition I had was to present live music, but I had to give it up because, without a good sound man, it never lived up to expectations.  Therefore it is with the greatest gratitude that I thank my friend and fellow KSCU Blues DJ Gil de Leon for providing his equipment and expertise in order to make this happen.
Dog and I had discussed this for a long time with the expectation of doing it on my regular Sunday show, but you’ve probably heard something about the best laid plans of mice and men.  Due to a schedule change, the only time Dog will be available is between about two and four PM on Saturday as he drives from Sacramento to Pismo Beach, so I also must sincerely thank Uncle P for allowing me to usurp his time slot.  And, of course, thanks to Harpdog.
I am planning on doing my regular Sunday 7-11PM show December 8th because it will be the last opportunity this year due to the building being closed for the Christmas holiday.  Then I will be back on January 12th.
Okay, enough of that.  Below is an essay I did on the Dog back in May which should be good as an intro to Saturday’s show.     enjoy
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Press release type of things are something I've never done before, so bear with me.  To my DJ friends, please give the CD For Love & Money some airplay and mention the gigs.  To my blog readers who have become familiar with my taste in music, check them out if you have the opportunity; I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!  Here are comments from a couple of well known Blues artists:
"I love Harpdog’s singing and playing. He’s old-school which is a high compliment because Old-School is Real-School! Harpdog is Real Deal Smokin and Cookin Old-School style. Look out and stand back for the real deal!"
- Charlie Musselwhite, Blues Harmonica Legend and Host of Charlies Back Room on 95.9 The Krush.  (Charlie did a harp duet with Dog on his 2017 CD.  Stand Back was also the title Musselwhite used for his very first LP.)

"Hearing Harpdog Brown singing 'Reefer Lovin’ Woman' is a joy with the traditional old school instrumentation here. I am always drawn to the good old downhome style blues and this is certainly it!”
- Duke Robillard, Legendary Blues Musician
For this tour, Dog will be backed by Canadian pianist Dave Webb, who was an integral part of Dog’s 2019 album For Love & Money, and trumpeter Riley Bartlet along with a couple of Americans, Rick Jacobson on drums and Dan Fincher on saxophone.
For further background, here is part of the blog I wrote in advance of his December 2017 Bay Area gigs.
It might have crossed your mind that Harpdog Brown was not this artist’s birth name.  As he explains in his song What’s Your Real Name, taken from the 2016 album Travelin’ with the Blues, he was playing a gig at the club Momma Gold’s in Kitsilano Beach (an area of Vancouver) in the fall of 1989 when a couple of guys in the audience began yelling “Harpdog!  Harpdog!”, and Brown found it fitting and began using it, eventually even having his name changed legally.  His friends just call him Dog.
Brown was born January 28th 1962 in Edmonton, Alberta, and was adopted by a family including his slide guitar playing mother.  Quite naturally, the guitar was his first instrument and by the age of fifteen he was playing in a garage band.  He moved on to a duo that was the opening act at comedy clubs and, in the early 80s, he signed on as vocalist in a touring band.  That gig lasted six weeks before he quit and put together his own road Blues band.
Dog put out his first album in 1993, Beware of the Dog, and his follow-up, the 1994 release Home is Where the Harp Is, earned him the Muddy Award for the Best Northwest Blues Release from Portland’s Cascade Blues Association as well as a Juno nomination for Canada’s Best Blues / Gospel Recording.  His next album was Once in a Howlin’ Moon in 2001, then his release Naturally garnered the #1 Canadian Blues Album of 2010 as voted by The Blind Lemon Survey.
All of which brings us up to the two albums we’ll be hearing today.  I would be surprised if 2014’s What It Is was not a major influence on Dog’s winning the 2015 Maple Blues Award for Harmonica Player of the Year issued by the Toronto Blues Society (which he would win again the next two years and is a nominee this year) and a 2014 Lifetime Award from the Hamilton Blues Society. 
2016 saw Dog win Blues Artist of the Year from the Fraser Valley Music Awards and the release of Travelin’ with the Blues, recorded earlier in the year at Big Jon Atkinson’s Bigtone Records in Hayward and Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studios right here in San Jose.    
It was very much a fun night (when I heard Dog in Vancouver in 2017) that came to a bit of an abrupt end.  As I was outside the Yale after the show ended, having a nice little chat with the Dog, a couple came by and warned us that there was a skunk approaching us.  Indeed, we were standing next to a van by the front tires and when I looked down there was the skunk cruising down the gutter just behind the rear tires, a little too close for me.  Without a word, I made a quick exit to the other side of the street and proceeded towards the car a few blocks away.  There’s no telling what those Canadian critters might do!
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I’m sure I’ll be exhausted after an afternoon show
(for the last twenty-five years before I retired a couple of years ago, I was driving cab at night and sleeping from about 10AM ’til maybe 5PM), otherwise I might be heading up to the Smoking Pig in Fremont Saturday to catch Johnnie Cozmik’s J.C. Smith Band’s last appearance there due to the restaurant’s decision to cease live music after the end of this month.  Paul, the club’s owner, has been a strong supporter of the Blues for several years now by providing a venue for Blues folk to perform and when I was at KKUP he used to, and still does I’m sure, provide food for the participants on air during the Blues and Jazz marathons, be they DJs or performing musicians, so get out there this year and thank him by showing up.  Johnnie’s show begins at 9PM.
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These essays represent what I plan to get through around our live performance of Harpdog Brown and his band Saturday.  This repeat show from May of 2017 was one that, after its airing, I never took out of my car’s CD player because every time I started the engine the music was just too good to replace.  You might be aware that I love a good piano Blues and Boogie partly because it is the only instrument that can carry the bass, percussion and lead at the same time and Jimmy Yancey is probably my favorite solo pianist.
It’s also probably not news to you that I love the strong Soul of the late 60s with Stax Records the prime example and Sam and Dave perhaps the label’s best representative.
It’s a rarity for me to do a show without one of the choices being fronted by a strong guitar player, but I felt Shakey Jake Harris fit in nicely with the others so the lineup was set.
It must have been a time that I had a lot going on because I did not include any write-up at all, only the playlist.  With only two days before the second airing, I shall attempt to rectify that by completing at least one segment, maybe more, but no promises.     enjoy
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Although the reported year of his birth varies between 1894 and 1903, all my sources agree on February 20th as James Edwards “Jimmy” Yancey’s birthday.  Yancey had been active in the Chicago club and house party scene since 1915 but, while younger pianists, many of whom attributed inspiration from  Jimmy (Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Clarence “Pinetop” Smith) were already recording, Jimmy didn’t get the opportunity until May 1939, recording The Fives and Jimmy’s Stuff.   Soon to follow was an album of piano solos for Victor, the first of its kind.          INCOMPLETE
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There are probably other male Soul duets, but the only one that comes to mind is Sam and Dave, nicknamed “Double Dynamite” for good reason.  Sam Moore and Dave Prater met in Florida in 1961 and by the end of the decade every fan knew them on a first name basis.   Although they recorded a few times previously, the pair didn’t hit their stride until they got to the Atlantic semi-subsidiary in Memphis, Stax Records.    The exact relationship between Atlantic and Stax is somewhat unclear enough for me to try to explain at present, but Prater and Moore signed in 1965 with Atlantic Records who convinced Stax to produce them.
Both of our singers had similar Southern musical upbringings including singing in church and later in Soul and R&B clubs in the 50s.  Dave and his brother J.T. Prater were in the Gospel group the Sensational Hummingbirds who released Lord Teach Me in the 50s.  Sam was on the Doo Wop group the Majestics’ 1954 release Nitey Nite b\w Caveman Rock then later sang Gospel as part of the Gales and the Mellonaires.
They met at the King of Hearts club in Miami in 1961 where Moore (the tenor, born in 1935) was host of an amateur night that Prater (a baritone, 1935-1988) was performing in.  That night, Dave had trouble remembering the lyrics to a Jackie Wilson song and Sam guided him through it.  The boys paired up then and became a favorite act around Miami, were signed by Soul singer / record producer Steve Alaimo to Marlin Records, resulting in a couple of singles in 1952.  Then, with the help of Marlin owner Henry Stone, they wound up signing with Roulette Records and releasing a few more singles including one on Stone and Alaimo’s Alston label..
Once they signed with Atlantic, after Stone’s introduction in the summer of 1964 to producer Jerry Wexler, it was Wexler’s decision to have the duo record at Stax.  As Wexler remembered them, “Their live act was filled with animation, harmony and seeming goodwill.  I put Sam in the sweet tradition of Sam Cooke or Solomon Burke, while Dave had an ominous Four Tops’ Levi Stubbs-sounding voice, the preacher promising hellfire.”  While at Stax, much of their success must be shared with the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter, who wrote and produced the multiple hits beginning with their third single You Don’t Know Like I Know in December, which hit #7 R&B, the first of ten consecutive Top Twenty R&B 45s including numbers like Soul Man (R&B #1, Pop #2), Hold on! I’m Coming (voted Billboard’s #1 R&B Song of 1966), You Got Me Humming, When Something is Wrong with My Baby, and I Thank You (R&B #4, Pop #9).  After Stax’ distribution deal with Atlantic was ended, so were the services of Hayes and Porter as well as the backing of the house band, Booker T. and the MGs along with the horn section of the Mar-Keys.
In their time with Stax, only Aretha Franklin had more R&B chart success as the boys had ten consecutive Top Twenty hits and three consecutive Top Ten albums.  Soul Man even hit #1 on the Cashbox Pop chart and won them the 1967 Grammy for Best Performance – Rhythm and Blues Group to go along with their multiple Gold Records.  Atlantic seized on the opportunity to cash in on their Stax glory with the Best of Sam and Dave, reaching #24 R&B in 1969, but then only released two new singles from the Stax sessions, Soul Sister, Brown Sugar returning them to the R&B Top Twenty but its follow-up, Born Again barely charted.  Despite taking eight months for Atlantic to issue their first 45, Ooh, Ooh, Ooh was the first time a Sam and Dave single failed to chart at all.  Two more singles missed the rankings, and Wexler was very blunt about it.  “We just made some shit-ass records with them.  I never really got into their sensibilities as a producer.”  Even moving the next session out of New York to work with the Muscle Shoals team failed to list.
Despite their amiable appearance on stage, behind the scenes they could barely stand each other.  Sam and Dave broke up in June of 1970 but held occasional concerts throughout the 70s and once the Blues Brothers (John Belushi and Dan Akroyd from Saturday Night Live) re-popularized their Soul Man number, they put on several concerts in 1980. 
While Prater put out a single for Alston, Moore stayed with Atlantic and released three singles in the year but neither artist had a charting.  Moore was in preparation of an album produced by King Curtis which had to be ceased after Curtis was stabbed to death in 1971.  The boys got back together in the studio one last time for Atlantic and finally got back on the charts with Don’t Pull Your Love hitting #36 R&B and #102 Pop.
Prater teamed with Sam Daniels toured for a few years in the 80s as Sam and Dave.  In 1987, Dave was arrested for selling crack cocaine to an undercover cop and a year later died in an auto accident.
Sam and Dave made the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.  They have also been made members of the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
To say their tours were a success would be damning with faint praise.  Between 1967 and 1969, Sam and Dave averaged 280 gigs a year, including an amazing 1967 when they only had ten nights off all year.  Otis Redding’s manager Phil Walden said, “I think Sam and Dave will probably stand the test of time as the best live act that there ever was.  These guys were absolutely unbelievable.  Every night they were awesome.”  According to Walden, after headlining the March 1967 Stax \ Volt Revue in Europe when he had to follow their exhausting set every night, Redding refused to ever again be on the same bill.
An October 1968 Time magazine article opined that, “Of all the R&B cats, nobody steams up a place like Sam and Dave … weaving and dancing (while singing!), they gyrate through enough acrobatics to wear out more than a hundred costumes per year.”  Dubbed the Sultans of Sweat, Sam saw it as, “Unless my body reaches a certain temperature, starts to liquefy, I just don’t feel right without it.”
          ALMOST COMPLETE
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I picked Shakey Jake Harris for today’s show because his name came up in our last show, two weeks ago, when we wrote about Luther Allison.  Unlike a few harmonica players who acquire the Shakey moniker because of the way they shake the microphone, James D. Harris took on the name because gamblers, when someone was about to roll the dice, would yell, “Shake ‘em, Jake”.
By the age of seven, Jake had moved to Chicago from his birthplace of Earle, Arkansas          INCOMPLETE
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P.L.K. Blues
South Side Stuff
Rolling the Stone
Steady Rock Blues
Yancey’s Stomp
How Long Blues
Yancey’s Getaway
   Jimmy Yancey   21mins
Soul Man
I Thank You
When Something is Wrong with My Baby
You Don’t Know What You Do to Me
Soul Sista, Brown Sugar
Soothe Me
Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody
You Got Me Humming
Hold On!  I’m Coming
   Sam and Dave   25mins
Worried Blues
Keep a-Loving Me Baby
My Foolish Heart
Huffin’ and Puffin’
Jake’s Blues
You Spoiled Your Baby
Just Shakey
   Shakey Jake Harris   16mins
Yancey’s Bugle Call
State Street Special
Crying in my Sleep
Tell ‘em about Me
Make Me a Pallet on the Floor
La Salle Street Breakdown
   Jimmy Yancey   18mins
You Don’t Know Like I Know
I Take What I Want
I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down
Can’t You Find Another Way
Gimme Some Lovin’
(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay
Bring It On Home
Another Saturday Night
Summertime
Wrap It Up
   Sam and Dave   30mins
It Won’t Happen Again
Mouth Harp
Love My Baby
Jake’s Cha Cha
Easy Baby
Gimme a Smile
My Broken Heart
   Shakey Jake Harris   27mins
White Sox Jump
Five O’Clock Blues
Monkey Woman Blues
The Mellow Blues
35th and Dearborn
Shave ‘em Dry
Yancey Special
   Jimmy Yancey   21mins
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For Your Information
To listen to KSCU on a computer, use either iTunes or WinAmp for the media player.
To listen to KSCU on a smart phone use either the NextRadio or TuneIn apps.
The studio phone number is (408) 554-KSCU or, for the digitally inclined 554-5728 but, as always, make sure no one is speaking on the air before you dial.
The mailing address for sending CDs, et cetera, is:
KSCU Local Music
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA
95053
KSCU radio’s studio is located in the basement of Benson Hall
KSCU’s Sunday morning Blues rotation has the Jakester, Mister G, Dave the Blues Dude and the Bluesevangelist between 9AM and 1PM.  Sherri Jones does her Blues show between 10:30AM and 12:30PM on Saturdays.  And, of course, me!
The best way to reach me is by email at coyledon@yahoo.com (my computer’s autocorrect adds a letter t, so if that shows up here please remove it before trying to contact me; apparently, cotyledon is some kind of botanical term).  I do send out my blog via email so, if you would like to be added to that list, just give me your address and I’d be happy to do so, otherwise all my writings going back to 2014 are still available at key2highway.blogspot.  I do recommend the direct email to let you know when I will be on, especially now that I will occasionally waiver from the second and fourth week of each month format.  Thank you all for your continued support.  Feel free to call me during the show; it gets lonely in the dungeon.

November 23, 2019


Key to the Highway   KSCU 103.3FM 
2019-11-24    7-11PM    repeat from 2017-08-23
Hound Dog Taylor
Earl Hooker
Sunnyland Slim
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Before any discussion about today’s show, I’d like to mention my next show and my last show: first, a heads up for December 8th when Gil de Leon will assist me with running the sound equipment as I make my first attempt at a live broadcast in decades when my Canadian friend, harmonica master Harpdog Brown, stops by in the midst of his West Coast tour with his band to play for you.  I met him when I was in Vancouver in 2017 and have hyped him on each of his escapades to the Bay Area since, this being his third in that span.  This time he will not be gigging in the Bay Area so this will be the only opportunity to hear him again this year.  I’m sure you will enjoy it!
Also, I very much enjoyed my last show although I understand there were technical difficulties causing distortion that made the interview portions almost unlistenable.  With this in mind, I will round out today’s show with some music from the two CDs featured last time, Goddess Isis and the Cold Truth’s See in Me, and J.C. Smith and the South American All Stars Live at the MJ Pub.  Since I cannot recall having as much fun on a show, and that goes back more than thirty years, I would very much like to figure out a way to rebroadcast that show in the future.  Anyway, I asked them all for their access info and here it is:
Isis and the Cold Truth, Facebook page w/ links to video clips and performance updates
reverbnation.com/Isis and the Cold Truth - w/ some album cuts, photos, and gig updates 
or send a request to bluesonice@gmail.com to get on the band email list 
and, returning soon, Isisandthecoldtruth.com (website currently under re-construction)
and CD Baby/Goddess Isis and the Cod Truth -  to learn more about the band, purchase CD’s and/or downloads...

www.jcsmithband.com
Facebook Band page is JC Smith Band
Reverb nation is JC  Smith and the JC Smith Band
Which leaves today’s show.  For a few reasons, most notably listening to all the Impeachment hearings over the last coupla weeks, I was unable to complete the show I was planning so have chosen to use the CDs I made for a show that aired August 23rd of 2017 on KKUP. Some of my favorite artists, of which I have many or else I’d run out of material, and below is the original set of essays for that airing.     enjoy
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I felt a bit under pressure while preparing this show because, in my always so humble opinion, the Chuck Berry show last time was as good as I expected it to be, meaning possibly the best I have done in almost thirty years.  In order to avoid that type of letdown, I decided to go with the most distinctive sounding Blues guitarist in my library, Hound Dog Taylor.  I am pairing him up today with another slide guitarist, Earl Hooker, (although I find their sounds to be totally different) mostly because I had a bio all ready for use, or so I thought.  Turned out I had increased the number of sources I use since writing it.  I could have filled the three hours with just their music but felt a change of pace was required, so the piano of Sunnyland Slim (born Albert Luandrew) serves that purpose well, particularly by slowing down the tempo considerably.  I’m sure you will enjoy this show, but what do I do next time?
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I first came across Hound Dog Taylor when I went on a record buying spree to Mill Valley with a couple of friends from San Jose’s row of hippie shops on San Fernando Street near the University around 1972.  With me were a clerk from Underground Records and the man I will always consider my mentor, Bob Sidebottom, who ran the Comic Collector shop but was also a big-time Jazz and Blues fan, so much so that he named his daughter Parker after the legendary alto sax player Charlie Parker.  Anyway, working my way through the record bins I come across just about the homeliest guy I’d seen with a big grin on his face and a guitar in his hands.  I’d never heard of the guy or the record label but Bob was familiar with him and his opinion was good enough for me.  It was one of my best decisions yet.  His sound still reminds me of someone playing through torn speakers.
Theodore Roosevelt Taylor’s date of birth is in question, either 1915 or 1917, in Natchez, Mississippi.  His first instrument was piano but at age twenty he took up the guitar.  He moved to Chicago in 1942 but didn’t become a full time musician until fifteen years later, playing the usual house parties, club gigs and in the Maxwell Street Market, long a haven for aspiring musicians in the Chicago area.
Taylor had made a few appearances on Sonny Boy Williamson II’s King Biscuit Time before his move to Chicago, and he did do a few recordings beginning in 1960 for Bea and Baby (including a version of Take Five which he redid for his second album) and the Marjette label as well as a couple of singles for Carl Jones’ labels in 1962 (one backing Homesick James), but it was his live performances in the Chicago area that earned him significant respect, ultimately leading to his being chosen to participate in the 1967 American Folk Blues Festival European tour, performing with Little Walter and Koko Taylor.  Perhaps his best chance for success was in 1969 when he laid down five tracks for the Checker label, but none were released.
In 1970, Bruce Iglauer heard Taylor and the Houserockers, a three piece group which also included drummer Ted Harvey and second guitarist Brewer Phillips behind Taylor’s Elmore James-tinged slide guitar, at Florence’s Lounge, and recommended them to his employer at Delmark Records but, when nothing came from his suggestion, shipping clerk Iglauer took a $2,500 inheritance and put out the first Alligator Records release simply titled Hound Dog Taylor and the House Rockers.  Iglauer took on the full business side and got Taylor a nationwide tour with Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Big Mama Thornton, with the LP Live at Joe’s Place being recorded in Boston in 1972, followed up by two more albums from the same venue.  I have never seen them but have read that the sound quality is extremely lacking.
Late in 1973, the band was back in the studio and their second album, Natural Boogie, was also a success.  Once again, the band went on the road, then recorded the live album Beware of Dog in 1974, but neither it nor a collection of outtakes from the first two studio albums were released before Taylor’s death from lung cancer in 1975.  The compilation album was titled Genuine Houserocking Music, which became sort of a mantra for the Alligator label.
In Taylor’s last year, his ensemble played Australia and New Zealand along with Freddie King and the duo of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.  He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984.  Alligator put out Hound Dog Taylor: A Tribute, fourteen tracks with different artists (Luther Allison, Elvin Bishop, and All Music’s biographical contributor Cub Koda among others) in 1997, then a deluxe edition in 1999 and Release the Hound in 2004.  Houserockers Phillips and Harvey went on to back another of Chicago’s slide guitar masters, J.B. Hutto, on at least one album.
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It is likely inevitable that Earl Zebedee Hooker (January 15th 1930 - April 21st 1970) would be caught up by the lure of the Blues, what with his father playing harmonica and guitar, his mother having sung with the renowned traveling troupe, the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, John Lee Hooker being a first cousin, and moving to Chicago from the Mississippi Delta at the age of one.  Earl took up the guitar seriously after hanging around Robert Nighthawk's music store about 1945, and left Chicago around 1946, traveling to Helena, Arkansas, where he performed with his mentor or Sonny Boy Williamson II, including sometimes on Sonny Boy’s King Biscuit Time on Helena’s KFFA radio.  He spent a couple of years with Nighthawk touring the South.  By the end of the decade he wound up playing in Ike Turner's band, attempting to establish himself on the Memphis music scene in 1949, then taking to the road again, this time fronting his own group.
After his earliest recordings from a Florida nightclub (Race Track Blues and Blue Guitar Blues) were released on King in 1952, as well as backing vocalist / harmonica player Little Sam Davis for the Rockin’ label in 1953, Earl went into Sam Phillips’ Sun studio on July 15th 1953 and laid down about a dozen tracks but none of the recordings were released at the time.  Hooker then hit a dry spell as far as recording was concerned, ending with a single on Argo in 1956, four tracks on C.J. in 1959 and a session in 1960 for Bea and Baby.  Earl had an aversion to taking the microphone, quite likely due to his stuttering, so many of the releases were credited to the vocalists rather than Hooker.
Earl hit his stride when he teamed up with Mel London and his Chief and Age labels between 1960 and 1963, not only recording under his own name but also backing many of the labels’ other artists.  On August 8th 1960, Earl and Junior Wells recorded Galloping Horses a Lazy Mule along with Junior’s classic Messin’ with the Kid.  A couple of months later, October 17th, the pair were back to lay down an instrumental, Universal Rock.  Earl and Junior were longtime friends, not only playing on the streets but sometimes playing on the streetcars all across town to evade the truant officers.  Indeed, it was Junior who brought Earl to the label and their first session in 1960 created Junior’s Little by Little, reaching #23 on Billboard’s R&B Hot Sides the next year.  Riding on the success of Wells’ Messin’ with the Kid, May 3rd 1961 saw Earl cut his instrumental version, Rockin’ with the Kid.  Also included today are a couple of tracks done in 1962, These Cotton Pickin’ Blues and How Long Can This Go On.
Another track Hooker recorded on that May 3rd session was Blue Guitar, and Chess Records got London’s approval to use the instrumental as Muddy Waters’ backing track for You Shook Me, with lyrics by Willie Dixon.  The song’s success led to more backing track purchases and Muddy released You Need Love and Little Brown Bird, the instrumentals taped in July 1962.  In 1965, Earl found his way onto the BBC show Ready Steady Go with the Beatles.  The late 60s saw him popular on the college and festival circuits.
Always able to earn his living through his music, Earl made himself into an extremely versatile guitarist with forays into Country & Western and Jazz.  Hooker suffered, from an early age, serious attacks of tuberculosis, and his constant touring and recording didn’t mitigate the problem.  After losing a year in the hospital to treat a particularly severe attack, at which time he took up using the wah wah peddle, 1968 began the most productive studio work of Earl's career.  Based on a recommendation from Buddy Guy, Arhoolie Records' owner Chris Strachwitz went to Chicago to check him out, where they wound up recording the album Two Bugs and a Roach.  The following year, Earl came out to California to make a second album, Hooker and Steve, for the label.
There were also some live club recordings that were caught in the late sixties.  Earl made his farthest tour from home in November of 1969 when he went on the annual American Folk Blues Festival concert series.  Back in Los Angeles, he teamed up with producer / pianist Ike Turner on a fine instrumental album, Sweet Black Angel, for Blue Thumb, but a few months later, he succumbed to complications from his tuberculosis in Chicago at the age of 41.  
When he was voted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2013, it was noted that "Earl Hooker was the 'blues guitarists' guitarist,' the most respected six-string wizard in Chicago blues musicians' circles during the 1950s and '60s."  Perhaps the best way to summarize would be with B.B. King’s statement that, "to me he is the best of modern guitarists. Period. With the slide he was the best. It was nobody else like him, he was just one of a kind".
My favorite reminiscence of one of my on-air gaffes is when I misspoke and said that John Lee and Earl were not related.  I knew better, but sometimes your brain doesn't click on all cylinders.  Very quickly, I received a call from Michael Osborn, at that time John Lee's lead guitarist, to politely tell me something to the effect of, "John just wanted you to know Earl was his cousin."
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For Your Information
To listen to KSCU on a computer, use either iTunes or WinAmp for the media player.
To listen to KSCU on a smart phone use either the NextRadio or TuneIn apps.
The studio phone number is (408) 554-KSCU or, for the digitally inclined 554-5728 but, as always, make sure no one is speaking on the air before you dial.
The mailing address for sending CDs, et cetera, is:
KSCU Local Music
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA
95053
KSCU radio’s studio is located in the basement of Benson Hall
KSCU’s Sunday morning Blues rotation has the Jakester, Mister G, Dave the Blues Dude and the Bluesevangelist between 9AM and 1PM.  Sherri Jones does her Blues show between 10:30AM and 12:30PM on Saturdays.  And, of course, me!
The best way to reach me is by email at coyledon@yahoo.com (my computer’s autocorrect adds a letter t, so if that shows up here please remove it before trying to contact me; apparently, cotyledon is some kind of botanical term).  I do send out my blog via email so, if you would like to be added to that list, just give me your address and I’d be happy to do so, otherwise all my writings going back to 2014 are still available at key2highway.blogspot.  I do recommend the direct email to let you know when I will be on, especially now that I will occasionally waiver from the second and fourth week of each month format.  Thank you all for your continued support.  Feel free to call me during the show; it gets lonely in the dungeon.
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She’s Gone
Walking the Ceiling
I Held My Baby Last Night
Taylor’s Rock
It’s Alright
Wild about You Baby
It Hurts Me Too
44 Blues
55th Street Boogie
   Hound Dog Taylor   38mins
I’m Going Down the Line
Guitar Rag
Galloping Horses a Lazy Mule
Universal Rock
These Cotton Pickin’ Blues
Rockin’ with the Kid
How Long Can This Go On?
   Earl Hooker
You Shook Me
You Need Love
Little Brown Bird
   Muddy Waters
Boogie Man
Woman I Ain’t Gonna Drink No More Whiskey
Nervous Breakdown
Get Hip to Yourself
I Had it So Hard
Hard Time (When Mother’s Gone)
Gonna Be My Baby
   Sunnyland Slim
Take Five
Hawaiian Boogie
Sadie
See Me in the Morning
Sitting at Home Alone
Roll Your Moneymaker
Goodnight Boogie
   Hound Dog Taylor
Two Bugs and a Roach
Wah Wah Blues
Off the Hook
Anna Lee
Earl Hooker Blues
You Don’t Want Me
The Hook
   Earl Hooker
Give Me Back My Wig
The Sun is Shining
Dust My Broom
Rock Me
   Hound Dog Taylor


November 9, 2019


Key to the Highway   KSCU 103.3FM 
2019-11-10    7-10PM          
CD Previews:
Isis and Cold Truth
J.C. Smith Band
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Not much of a posting today.  I don’t even have a playlist for you, but what I do have is a couple of guests (friends) coming down to the studio with new CD releases by their bands.  First off, I feel I must warn you that it is not false modesty when I say I do not do interviews well; that is usually enough to stop me, but not today.  I have representatives from two of the bands I most enjoy seeing when it is convenient and know them well enough to hope I can do them justice.  I should also mention here that I have yet to listen to either disc so you’ll be hearing them as soon as I do.
First up will be members of Isis and the Cold Truth, their lead singer Isis and guitarist T.J. Politzer, whom I know as Teddy.  I met Teddy decades back when he was guitarist for the Bay Area’s Zydeco band, the Sundogs, and we have been friends ever since.  I don’t know much about Isis’ background, but that is part of what today’s show should delve into.
Again with the initials!  The singer and guitarist of the J.C. Smith Band will be with us and I know him very well as Johnnie Cozmik, for about fifteen years my co-host (as in alternating weeks) on my Wednesday afternoon show on KKUP, 91.5FM, particularly fun when we would get together the four times a year that there was a fifth Wednesday.  You can still catch him there on Thursday afternoons from 3-5PM.  It has become kind of a tradition, likely going back to 1996 with his first of two CDs with the Back to Back Blues Band, for me to be the first to introduce his new releases on the air.  Johnnie was a drummer back then and he only did a portion of the singing.
A few years later, he became adept enough on the guitar to put together a new band with him front and center as lead guitarist and lead vocalist in the J.C. Smith Band.  Johnnie has put out at least four CDs since then and through more than a decade has held together a gigging band, despite some attrition in the band’s lineup, and each change seems to have made the band better.  In addition to his many dates in the area, he has also acquired annual tours of Siberia and other parts of eastern Europe, Argentina and Chile, and occasional gigs in Western Canada.
Indeed, the live CD we will hear today is with a band he played with in South America.  It has always been my opinion that his live performances were better than his studio sessions.  Johnnie has always had a great radio presence and that translates directly to a possibly better stage presence; it is difficult, I would imagine, to generate the energy that he draws from his audience.  I believe Johnnie rarely puts tunes from his stage show on albums, so this should be an hour or so of his music mostly unheard ‘til now on recorded media.  While I would likely prefer to hear his hometown band (he only takes his regular group on tours to Canada because intercontinental travel costs are prohibitive) so just kick back and ….    enjoy
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May as well mention that I am having problems with my Windows Media Player and have added itunes to my computer but don’t really know how to create playlists and burn CDs for my show, so if there are Silicon Valley types listening who can help with those, please call or email me.     thanks
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For Your Information
To listen to KSCU on a computer, use either iTunes or WinAmp for the media player.
To listen to KSCU on a smart phone use either the NextRadio or TuneIn apps.
The studio phone number is (408) 554-KSCU or, for the digitally inclined 554-5728 but, as always, make sure no one is speaking on the air before you dial.
The mailing address for sending CDs, et cetera, is:
KSCU Local Music
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA
95053
KSCU radio’s studio is located in the basement of Benson Hall
KSCU’s Sunday morning Blues rotation has the Jakester, Mister G, Dave the Blues Dude and the Bluesevangelist between 9AM and 1PM.  Sherri Jones does her Blues show between 10:30AM and 12:30PM on Saturdays.  And, of course, me!
The best way to reach me is by email at coyledon@yahoo.com (my computer’s autocorrect adds a letter t, so if that shows up here please remove it before trying to contact me; apparently, cotyledon is some kind of botanical term).  I do send out my blog via email so, if you would like to be added to that list, just give me your address and I’d be happy to do so, otherwise all my writings going back to 2014 are still available at key2highway.blogspot.  I do recommend the direct email to let you know when I will be on, especially now that I will occasionally waiver from the second and fourth week of each month format.  Thank you all for your continued support.  Feel free to call me during the show; it gets lonely down here in the dungeon.
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October 27, 2019


Key to the Highway   KSCU 103.3fm
2019-10-27 (repeat of 2016-09-28)
Louis Jordan                          
Frankie Lee Sims
Big Maybelle
John Littlejohn
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Once again, I must announce a change in my airtime hours.  I figured by taking a late show on Sunday, there would be no one following me and I could pursue expanding beyond the allotted three hours to almost five but, to my surprise, a very pleasant group of young gentlemen came in last show with the idea that they had a 10-12PM timeslot.  I gave over the microphone at that time but we came up with an amiable compromise that the weeks I aired they would instead go to an 11PM-1AM shift.  I may be able on occasion to get in before 7PM and continue the five hour plan, but I guess we can just figure my show will bleed into the hours before and after my scheduled 7-10PM.  I had a good time hanging out with them after the last show for about an hour and will likely do the same this week.  To be clear, I will be starting today’s show around 7PM.
Due to problems with my Windows Media Player, today’s show is a repeat of the music I used about three years ago.  It proved to be a popular one as I received an inordinate number of calls regarding Louis Jordan, as it should be because, after a quick set of his earliest material, all the songs on his next two sets charted #1.  The man had an astounding 26 #1s, seven #2s and ten #3 among his voluminous output spanning all of the 40s into the mid-50s.  And the other three artists ain’t too shabby either!  If I have time after all this before the next guys come in, I still have stuff I didn’t get around to last show.  The following are the essays from that 2016 airing.     enjoy        
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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 factor 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 into radio, 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 his most notable relative was 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 and 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.  The selections played today are another fine example of the 52CD box set which I strongly recommend every time I play from it, ABC of the Blues.
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For Your Information
To listen to KSCU on a computer, use either iTunes or WinAmp for the media player.
To listen to KSCU on a smart phone use either the NextRadio or TuneIn apps.
The studio phone number is (408) 554-KSCU or, for the digitally inclined 554-5728 but, as always, make sure no one is speaking on the air before you dial.
The mailing address for sending CDs, et cetera, is:
KSCU Local Music
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA
95053
KSCU radio’s studio is located in the basement of Benson Hall
KSCU’s Sunday morning Blues rotation has the Jakester, Mister G, Dave the Blues Dude and the Bluesevangelist between 9AM and 1PM.  Sherri Jones does her Blues show between 10:30AM and 12:30PM on Saturdays.  And, of course, me!
The best way to reach me is by email at coyledon@yahoo.com (my computer’s autocorrect adds a letter t, so if that shows up here please remove it before trying to contact me; apparently, cotyledon is some kind of botanical term).  I do send out my blog via email so, if you would like to be added to that list, just give me your address and I’d be happy to do so, otherwise all my writings going back to 2014 are still available at key2highway.blogspot.  I do recommend the direct email to let you know when I will be on, especially now that I will occasionally waiver from the second and fourth week of each month format.  Thank you all for your continued support.  Feel free to call me during the show; it gets lonely in the dungeon.
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Jordan for President
Barnacle 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 Wrong
Slidin’ 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 Rain
Gabbin’ 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 Me
Married 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 Business
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
   Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald   8mins