Key to the Highway NOW on KSCU 103.3
2019-07-10 2-5pm
Okay, it is time to get back to sharing my
music with you. Starting Wednesday, July
10th, I will be airing on the same schedule as in the past (2-5PM
the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of each month) at 103.3fm KSCU
(Santa Clara University). Not for lack
of trying (a couple of apps just took me around in circles), I have not found
out how to listen on line, so if anyone can assist me with that it would be
much appreciated. Because it is a
learning establishment, its priority is and should be in providing
opportunities to its students, I am not assured that the time slot will be open
past September but I am hoping for a more permanent position at that point.
For KSCU listeners new to my show, I
should mention it is generally an up tempo Blues and Rhythm ride usually featuring
in depth listens to three artists with two sets each. My strongest love is for the guitar-based
Blues of the 60s such as Freddie King, Magic Sam, Luther Allison, etc. – mostly
dead now except for Buddy Guy – and each show will surely have a representative
from this category. Another of the
artists should be a horn-based music, be it R&B Jump style, 60s Soul, often
some Jazz, and the third act will be something I feel complements the other
two, oftentimes a piano-led ensemble or sometimes even solo session.
It should run the gamut as far as time
lines go, and today’s show is a good example of that with recordings from the
20s all the way into the 90s; rarely do I get more contemporary than that. There are occasions that cause me to divert
from the norms, such as my annual Louisiana show celebrating Mardi Gras, but
everything I play for you is, in my broadminded opinion, derivative of the
Blues. As I often say, Chuck Berry didn’t
say, “Roll Over Beethoven, dig this Rock and Roll”.
Today’s show is a repeat of a 2017 show because, while I have a
few playlists ready, I do not have the accompanying blogs ready. Until I get in a writing mood again (I’ve
been watching too much baseball lately!), I may fall back on the archives (going
back to 2014 and all still available at key2highway.blogspot) but there will
surely be at least one new show each month.
*************************
One thing I am sorry for not having a
microphone these past five months is losing the opportunity to speak of the
passing of one of my friends and a true friend to the entire Bay Area Blues
Community and beyond, Curtis Jay. When I
first got my time slot at KKUP in 1990, CJ the DJ was on staff there and at
KFJC, the Foothill College station. Countless
times, I can recall him stopping by to visit early in my tenure and he would
point me toward all kinds of interesting CDs in our library. Indeed, I considered him the most
knowledgeable about the many facets of the Blues of anyone I knew with the
possible exception of my mentor back in the 60s; so many good memories of CJ’s
friendship and generosity!
Unfortunately, the last couple of times I
saw him were not comforting. He
suffered, as I do, from diabetes and watching him move looked like he was walking
on razor blades, but that is not how I will remember him.
I am ashamed to say that I did not go out of my way much at all to
keep in touch with him, but I know he enjoyed reading my essays. Rest in Peace, dear friend.
*************************
And now, here is the original write-up for the music you will be
hearing today. enjoy
Key to the Highway
2017-09-13
2-5pm
Roy
Milton and his Solid Senders
Cannon’s
Jug Stompers
Luther
“Guitar Jr.” Johnson
*************************
It was a time of transition. Europe was becoming entangled in a way no one
had wanted after the Great War, and the American government was not about to
commit to the fighting, but the more it went on the more its citizen businesses
were turning a profit from providing their old allies with whatever they
required, particularly if it gave them a military advantage. The northern migration from the Deep South
had already begun as an urban black culture was developing in the cities along
the Mississippi, more than just stopping points on the way to Chicago or the
Northeast. Now that the production for
military navies was escalated, port cities on both coasts were bustling with
new workers for the increased load put upon the shipyards and the dockworkers.
West Coast ports like Los Angeles depended primarily on immigration from points
west of the Mississippi, particularly Texas and largely black. And wherever there was a black populace with
spending money there would be entertainment.
Once the war got going, particularly after the U.S.
entered, rationing took effect on all parts of society, and the sacrifices made
by the black music artists had domino effects. Highly important was the limiting of gasoline
and rubber for tires, which impacted the “travelability” of the Big Bands. No longer could they carry a twenty-piece
orchestra to many of the destinations.
As Johnny Otis discussed with Charley Lange, the Santa Cruz DJ who wrote
the liner notes for the first issue of Roy
Milton’s Specialty re-releases beginning in 1989, “By 1950, we had established
what was a hybrid form that had come into its own. Roy Milton, Joe Liggins and I have often
discussed this. Now, all of us came out
of a big band environment and we all aspired to the big band sound. I had a big band, Roy played with Ernie
Fields’ band and so on. When the big
bands died and we found we couldn’t function in that context anymore, in the
mid to late forties …when we had to break our bands down … when we played a
Blues type thing with three horns, it had a different character … See, Roy
Milton is a Blues singer and when he got his band together to play a little
gig, he didn’t use two guitars, bass and drums; he used three horns, piano,
bass and drums.. The horns were
important to him because he had come out of the big band Swing era … he was
used to that sound … See, that was one thing that made rhythm and blues
different from the old fashioned Blues.
That is the main element. The
singer is singing and instead of just guitars twanging, the horns played whole
notes, rolling those riffs near the end of the choruses, you know, whole notes
with melodies attached to them.”
Roy was born in 1907 in Wynnewood, Oklahoma and, since
his maternal grandmother was a full-blooded Chickasaw Indian, he spent the
first few years of his life on the reservation before moving to Tulsa.
In the late twenties, Roy joined on with Fields’
orchestra as a featured singer, but in the early thirties when drummer Eddie
Nicholson was arrested Milton wound up completing that evening and the rest of
the tour behind the drums. As he stated
in the 70s, “I’ve been singing while playing the drums ever since.”
Shortly after leaving the Fields band in 1933, Roy
settled in L.A. and began playing in local groups before forming his own Solid
Senders. The original group included
bassist Dave Robinson, trumpeter Hosea Sapp and tenor sax man Buddy Floyd, but
the dominant lead instrument was most often provided by pianist Camille
Howard. As the band progressed, Camille
achieved a recording career of her own but always utilized members of the Solid
Senders for her accompaniment. They were
one of the most popular acts around L.A. and even supported singer June
Richmond in three soundies in 1945.
On December 22nd 1945, after one unsuccessful
release for Lionel Hampton’s Hamp-Tone label, they got into the studio for the
independent Juke Box label, soon to change its name to Specialty Records. Art Rupe was in charge of the effort: “I was
looking for the same sound (as Lucky Millinder’s big band) with a smaller
group. I couldn’t afford eighteen pieces
so I wound up with two small acts … one was the Sepia-Tones and the other was
Roy Milton’s combo. He succeeded in
getting a sound which was as good, and even better than Lucky Millinder’s. It was an uncomplicated sound, and yet it had
the full harmonic range. Roy had two
sounds, like other black bands. During regular hours when he gigged in a white
club, he played white music, Tin Pan Alley songs. Then, after hours he went
down to Watts and played for black people.
That’s the Roy Milton that I recorded, black, urban music rooted in
blues, gospel and boogie.”
The four tracks from that first session were released
on two records that held spots on the Billboard Most Played Juke Box Race
Charts for almost six months in 1946, and are the first four tracks on today’s
show. R.M. Blues climbed to #2 on
Billboard’s R&B chart and #20 on their pop listing. On the basis of these releases, the Solid
Senders were chosen the #3 race band in the country for 1946. They had a total of 19 Top Ten hits in their
ten years with Specialty, including Hop, Skip and Jump at #3 in 1948, Information
Blues at #2 in 1950 and Best Wishes also reaching #2 in 1951. In addition to being an integral part of the
Solid Senders success, Camille had two R&B Top Ten hits herself – 1948’s
X-Temporaneous Boogie reached #7 (its flipside You Don’t Love Me hit #12) and
Money Blues made the list in 1951.
Camille moved to Federal in 1953, where she had three releases that
failed to meet her norm with Specialty of 20,000 to 50,000 sales, and she had
one more attempt in 1956 for Vee Jay.
She would later give up her music in devotion to her church.
Roy’s band remained successful throughout Camille’s
tenure, but they too left Specialty in 1955 for Dootone Records, then on to
establish the Roy Milton Record Company, but it didn’t take long for Milton to
discover the difficulties of collecting monies due, etc. By now, Rock ‘n’ Roll was going strong and
the old pros who had laid its foundation were struggling to stay relevant.
Roy’s career took an uptick in 1970 when he appeared
as a member of the Johnny Otis Revue at the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival, which
produced one of my favorite live albums.
Glimpses of the performance can be seen in the Clint Eastwood movie Play
Misty for Me. A couple of albums
followed, one on the Kent label and one for the French Black and Blue
label. Roy fell ill in 1982 and was
restricted to home, where he died September 18th 1983 at the age of
76.
After
opening up the show with the tunes from their first Specialty date, the rest of
the set comes from 1947. I jumped to
1951 and 1952 for their second set because guitarist Johnny “Junior” Rogers was
fully ensconsed in the band by then and I wanted to hear why Charley Lange
compared him to Howlin’ Wolf’s early guitarist, Willie Johnson; I did not hear
that, but there will always be another show.
By 1994 Specialty had put out three volumes of the Solid Senders plus a
fourth of Camille’s releases and those are the source of today’s show.
*************************
A lot of times, I tend to think of this show as a
little bit of an education, not only for my listeners but often for myself, so
kindly allow me to climb up on my soapbox for a while. The history of the Blues goes farther back
than can be determined, but as far as its presentation to any kind of mass
audience it was likely W.C. Handy’s 1912 publication of his Memphis Blues
manuscript. The first commercially
recorded Blues tune was in 1921, Crazy Blues by Mamie Smith, and it had much in
common with the type of Blues that was put out over the next five years in that
it was a lady singer backed by Jazz musicians (they were coming into fashion
around the same time), oftentimes with only a pianist behind them. These are usually referred to as the Classic
Blues. Around 1927, the record companies
opened up to what I like to call the front porch Blues singers, folks like
Blind Lemon Jefferson. Today, we’ll hear
from another early entrant on the Black Americana scene, but just because it’s
old doesn’t mean it’s not good, fun music.
“My daddy was in
slavery time, John Cannon . . . got his
name from the man who owned him. He used
to tell us that back in them days they put the big ole colored man with the
good looking women to raise children.”
Gus Cannon was born September 12th 1883 in Red Banks,
Mississippi, the tenth son of John and Ellie Cannon. The liner notes for Yazoo’s CD, Cannon’s Jug Stompers: The Complete
Works 1927-1930, have lots of interesting quotes so I think I’ll just let it
tell most of the story to begin with.
The disc contains 24 of the 26 numbers recorded by the Stompers.
“When I was twelve years old, one of my brothers (Tom,
I think) came and got me and took me down to Clarksdale – that’s where he
lived, south of Clarksdale by Sunflower River . . . Used to chop cotton
there. Yassuh! So that’s where I made my first banjo, from a
guitar neck and a bread pan mama used to bake biscuits in – had to hold it over
fire to tighten up the head before I could play it. Ha ha haaa!
That thing sounded good to me then, though.” Gus had to stretch a raccoon skin over the
pan to make the resonator. He didn’t
acquire his first real banjo until he was fifteen when it was a part of his
brother’s craps winnings.
“Alec Lee was the first guy I heard playing on a
Hawaiian guitar . . . used a knife. Uh,
that must’ve been around 1900, maybe a little before.” After learning the technique, the mostly
self-taught Cannon adapted it over to his 5-string banjo playing. He became proficient on guitar, fiddle and piano
and also devised a harness to go around his neck facilitating jug playing to
accompany his banjo.
Around 1901, Gus got a railroad job near Greenville,
where he put together his first jug band.
“’Bout two years after I started out down there by Sunflower River, I
was playing for Saturday night balls –that’s when us colored folks had
ourselves a time. Man, I played the hell
out of that banjo for $2.50 a night . . . had another boy with me on fiddle,
Lawd, we was raising sand down there . . . sure was! Plenty liquor . . . dope too. A gal in Clarksdale gave me a little snort of
coke (cocaine). … It didn’t do much to
me, though. I reckon I just didn’t have
enough. I don’t use no dope. . . . no
Sir! I drink beer and whisky . . . oh, I
used to be wild about it! … Noah, my
harp player, used to be full of coke all the time.” He moved near Ripley, Tennessee, to do
plantation work in 1907, and here is where he first met Noah Lewis.
Lewis, born in Tennessee around 1890, was a harmonica
player who would become known not only for his talent but also for the unique
ability of playing two harps simultaneously.
“Lawd, he used to play the hell
out of that harp. He could play two
harps at the same time . . . through his mouth and his nose . . . same key and
same melody. Y’know he could curl his
lips ‘round the harp & his nose was just like a fist. Noah, he was full of cocaine all the time – I
reckon that’s why he could play so loud and aw, he was good!”
It was also Noah who introduced Gus to the 13-year-old
guitarist Ashley Thompson, who recalled, “Gus was real famous ‘round here . . .
oh, he could clown. . . Him and Noah used to run together all the time. I didn’t care as much about drinking and
chasing women as they did . . . just looking for trouble.”
Going by the name Banjo Joe, Cannon hit the medicine
show circuit in 1914, which he continued into the 40s. He was found at one of these shows by
Paramount in 1927 and they recorded him solo on six sides as well as on duets
with Blind Blake. One tune with Blake
was Poor Boy, Long Way From Home, which Gus had learned from Alec Lee and
showed off likely the earliest recording of the slide (or bottleneck) banjo
technique.
“Dr. Streaks .
. . that’s the last medicine show I was on . . . Aw, we went all over Alabama
and Mississippi: Birmingham, Mobile, Bay St. Louis . . . I been to St. Louis,
Missouri too . . . yeh, , I been to all of ‘em.
Well, I left that show down in Gulfport, Mississippi and went back to
Memphis, married Olysa and settled down.”
That was 1929 and Gus was 47 years old.
He had wed once before around Christmas 1910 but his minstrel life was
not conducive to settling down.
More often than not during the twenties, Memphis
became Gus' home base amid his minstrel touring. It was an untamed town in those times, rife
with bootleg liquor, gambling, hookers and drugs, but such party towns also
create an atmosphere full of opportunities for musicians. Towards the end of
the decade, Gus lived with Hosea Woods, a songster considerably his elder, whom
he had met on the medicine show circuit.
The first organized jug bands developed in Louisville,
Kentucky, around 1905, and five years on there were several more. Jug band music was a Bluesy throwback to the
minstrel days and in addition to the clay jugs usually consisted of banjo,
guitar, fiddle and mandolin along with the occasional rub board, harmonica or
kazoo. They played a combination of
Country, Blues, Ragtime, Gospel, Jazz, novelty numbers… Even the sophisticated horn bands in
Louisville added the jug to their arsenal, but the rage didn’t spread further
until the early twenties recorded releases of some of the area’s bands, most
notably Earl McDonald’s Dixieland Jug Blowers.
Will Shade, a guitarist who also played harmonica and washtub bass, took
up the trend and put together the Memphis Jug Band along with Furry Lewis,
although in a much Bluesier style than McDonald. The lineup was a fluid setup with so many
members that it was not unusual for two separate ensembles at different
locations playing at the same time. In
addition to playing anywhere from Handy’s Park to the back of a moving pickup
truck advertising whatever, Shade’s group entertained at the highest social
events, including regularly for Mayor Crump, which had its benefits.
Dewey Corley, a band member, recalled a court date,
“We’d have whisky in one of our coal-oil cans . . . y’know, a jug . . . and
we’d put some coal-oil around the top, so no one could smell that hooch. Once we was playing down on Main & Beale,
a policeman walks up to us, says, ‘Whatcha got in that jug, boys?’ We say “coal-oil” – he say, “You sure don’t
look like you been drinking no coal-oil,’ and he carried us all to jail. When we was called to court we brought our
instruments with us. Judge say, ‘You the
jug band?’ We say, ‘Yassuh!’ ‘Well, I heard about you. Play a song and go home and don’t come
back.’”
The Memphis Jug Band had recording success and it was
not lost on Gus who, way back in the mid-1900s, had played in a similar
format. “. . . we had ourselves a three-piece
outfit: banjo / jug / fiddle. Jim Guffan had a coal-oil can, sounded like a
bass fiddle.” So in January 1928, Victor
returned to Memphis hoping to find another jug band and were led to Cannon,
whether through his earlier sessions as Banjo Joe or perhaps on a referral from
Shade, but they wanted him to get ready quickly. The medicine show season was over so Gus was
pleased with the opportunity. Ever since
leaving the Ashville / Ripley area fifteen years prior, Cannon had often
returned to play with Noah Lewis and Ashley Thompson while visiting friends and
it was this pair he contacted for the session.
“We rehearsed that night and the next day we recorded at the
auditorium.” Gus and Ashley each took
two of the four vocals. The records sold
well enough to bring about a second session on September 5th, this
time with Elijah Avery on banjo and guitar in place of Thompson.
It was barely two weeks later, September 20th,
that the trio was once again recording, this time with kazoo player Hosea Woods
added to the mix. Cannon and Woods also
did a duet session as the Beale Street Boys for Brunswick, then were back again
for Victor on October 1st, 1929 along with Lewis for the final Jug
Stompers’ session
Lewis
recorded four sides on his own in 1929-30 and four more in November 1930 as the
Noah Lewis Jug Band, which included Sleepy John Estes on guitar and Yank Rachel
on mandolin. It was this jug band's
remaking of a tune from the original Stompers’ session, New Minglewood Blues,
that most closely influenced the Grateful Dead's version. The answer to
where exactly “Minglewood” was is a bit uncertain. I have read that it was a
lumber camp or saw mill near the Mississippi River where musicians gathered on
weekends to have a good time, and judging from the lyrics of the song (“If
you’re ever in Memphis, better stop by Minglewood”), it was a place in the city
or close to it. Both this and the
Stompers’ Viola Lee Blues appeared on the Grateful Dead’s 1966 debut
album. I liked that album and Jerry
Garcia said he wished they had never made it, so you should be able to safely
deduce my opinion of the Dead from that.
Gus put in some
sessions for Folkways in 1956 and made appearances in the 60s with Furry Lewis
and Bukka White, but was forced to pawn his banjo to pay for the winter’s
heating bill just before the Rooftop Singers made a hit version of Walk Right
In in 1963. That led to an album for
Stax Records with Will Shade, his former jug band rival. Cannon played banjo, Shade played jug and
Milton Roby was on the washboard. Gus
performed into the 70s and died in 1979 at the age of 96.
If you can find a copy of King Vidor’s 1929
movie production Hallelujah!, you might spot Gus in the late night wedding
scene.
*************************
After listening to the first two artists for today, it
was clear to me what was missing in the presentation. Also, after last show I was speaking to a
fellow DJ who mentioned she enjoyed the guitar-centric bent my shows so often
take, and there is no compliment as relevant as one from a peer. So, no doubt about it: what this show needed
was a jolt of Chicago Blues guitar a bit more recent than today’s other
artists. I didn’t want to go to an old
favorite because I’ve played a lot of them recently, just your typical Blues
guitar player like you might be able to find every night in the clubs since the
mid-60s.
Early on in my time at KKUP we had one or both of
these discs in the library. At that time
I was transitioning from vinyl to CDs and actually thought I could buy anything
that fit my fancy, and these definitely did that. Anyway, I hadn’t pulled them out for a listen
in decades so who better to represent your normal Bluesman?
Babbling on a little more before I get to the meat of
this essay, I was interviewing the great Bay Area sax player Terry Hanck years
back and, in the midst of our discussion, he looked at me almost dumbfounded
when I didn’t seem aware of who “Sax” Gordon (last name Beadle) was, so ever
since I have taken note when I come across his name. His presence makes both these sessions
extremely better. There. A couple of things I just wanted to say
before I sat down to seriously write.
First of all, there are two Luther Johnsons from the
same era (actually, even a third) and, more confusing, both spent some time in
the Muddy Waters band. I profiled Luther
“Snake” Johnson a while back, but today you are presented Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson.
Born in 1939, Luther’s family moved to Chicago in 1955 from Itta Bena,
Mississippi, where at one point he led the church choir. His earliest influences were Gospel and
Blues, but once he got to the windy city it was all Blues.
Luther’s first gig was with drummer Ray Scott’s band,
then joined Tall Milton Shelton’s group before taking over the combo in 1962
when the leader retired to take up preaching.
Luther was clearly a disciple of Magic Sam’s West Side guitar style and
he played in Sam’s band a couple of years in the mid-60s. He also applied the name Magic Rockers to his
band in Boston, which we hear from today.
“I really dug the way Sam played.
He liked the way I played too. I
had to play Sam Cooke’s song, Somebody Have Mercy, every night for him two or
three times.”
Other West Siders Luther played with included Otis
Rush, Bobby Rush, Willy Kent and Jimmy Dawkins before he cut his first 45 for
Big Beat in 1972. His time with Muddy
spanned from 1972 to 1980, including utilizing the Waters band as backing for
his 1977 album Luther’s Blues, recorded for the French Evidence label during a
European tour. When Alligator Records
put together a four album set of Living Chicago Blues in 1980, Johnson was one
of the eighteen artists chosen to represent the city’s music.
By 1980, Luther had moved to the east coast and put
together his Magic Rockers as well as recording on three albums with the
Nighthawks. His band was backed up by
the Roomful of Blues horn section for his 1984 release on Rooster Records,
Doin’ the Sugar Too. He can also be seen
backing John Lee Hooker in the original Blues Brothers movie. His version of Walkin’ the Dog from the 1982
Montreux Festival was included in the Grammy Award (Best Traditional Blues) winning
album Blues Explosion.
All of which pretty much brings us up to today’s
show. In 1990, Luther signed on with
Bullseye Blues and released I Want to Groove with You, followed up two years
later by It’s Good to Me. It was such an
unsuspected treat to hear these albums again and, considering that this was
intended to fill a void in the show, I cannot imagine why I let them lay fallow
for so long. I am going to look into
getting his further releases, the 1996 Bullseye third album Country Sugar Papa
and his first for Telarc, 1996’s Slammin’ on the West Side. My All Music Guide rates all four of these as
four star releases, so if the other two live up to these standards …
My Guide is an old version so it didn’t list his next
two Telarc releases, Got to Find a Way from 1998 and 2001’s Talkin’ about Soul,
but I can’t imagine his talent depleting.
Luther is still alive and now residing in Florida, although I don’t know
how active at age 78 or so.
One
last quick note: besides Johnson’s guitar work and Beadle’s growling sax, Joe
Krown plays piano and organ on both albums; the rhythm section on the first has
the drumming shared by Glenn Rogers and Spider Webb while Buster Paterson
supplies the bass, and for our closing set Tuffy Kimble is behind the drum kit
and Buster Wylie furnishes the bottom.
Richard Rosenblatt adds harmonica to one number, I’m Leaving You. The Magic Rockers. enjoy
*************************
Milton’s Boogie
R.M. Blues
Rhythm Cocktail
Groovy Blues
Camille’s Boogie
What’s the Use
Little Boy Blue
Pack Your Sack, Jack
Big Fat Mama
Train Blues
Old Man River
Roy Rides (aka Nip Time)
Roy
Milton and his Solid Senders 32mins
Minglewood Blues
Madison Street Rag
Big Railroad Blues
Feather Bed
Noah’s Blues
Hollywood Rag
Heartbroken Blues
Cairo Rag
Bugle Call Rag
Viola Lee Blues
Cannon’s Jug Stompers 31mins
Red Beans
Can’t Get Along with You
I’m from Mississippi
Luther’s Boogie
Graveyard Dogs
I’m Leavin’ Chicago
Who’s That Come Walkin’
Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson
28mins
That’s the One for Me
I Have News for You
T-Town Twist
Money Blues
Schubert’s Serenade Boogie
You Lied to Me Baby
Old Baldy Boogie
Night and Day (I Miss You So)
Song of India Boogie
Roy
Milton and his Solid Senders 28mins
Walk Right In
Bring It with You When You Come
Prison Wall Blues
Wolf River Blues
Mule Get Up in the Alley
My Money Never Runs Out
Cannon’s Jug Stompers 19mins
Come Back to Me
That’s All I Need
Deep Down in Florida
I’m Leaving You
If You Love Me Like You Say
I Wonder
It’s Good to Me
Next Door Neighbor
Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson
27mins
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