Key to the Highway KSCU
103.3FM
2019-09-29 7PM ‘til midnight
Various Postwar Blues and R&B
Barbara Healy
Various 60s Blues and Soul
Joanne Shaw Taylor
Various 60s White Boys
The Lee Boys
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Let’s start with a quick heads up about KQED TV channel 9’s
midnight airing on Monday morning, just as my show is ending, of Buddy Guy as
half of the hour long Austin City Limits presentation. I’ve set my TiVo.
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The new schedule for KSCU has been set and I’m very
happy with the hours I’ve received even though I can’t maintain my
long-established Wednesday afternoon time slot of almost 30 years. I submitted a few options for a weekend time
slot and the one that worked for the scheduler probably is the best for what I
wish to do as well. Having driven cab
for more than 25 years at night (like 9PM ‘til as late as 9am), the later the
better, and I prefer Sunday because KSCU’s Blues programming spans the first
six or so hours of the radio day and they would likely be happy to mention that
I’ll be on later. I will try for the
second and fourth Sundays of the month but will have flexibility in case there
is a pre-emption or some health issue which precludes me from showing up but
will try to do two shows a month, maybe three when there is a fifth Sunday. The building locks down at 1AM during the
school year so, even though my show is listed as 7 to 10PM, I can still get in
a couple of extra hours as the mood suits me without fear of being trapped inside.
Rather than changing the timing when summer
lockdown is at 7PM I’ll probably just take three months off. I have to admit I was looking forward to
being around people a third my age but don’t expect to see many folks hanging
around the basement that late at night.
Too bad, because absolutely all the people I have interfaced with at the
University could not have been any more friendly.
Because I didn’t feel I had the time to prepare the
blog for the show I had planned to open The fall season, I decided to take this
playlist off the back burner. As part of
qualifying to participate on KSCU I was required to put in five hours
evaluating CDs that had recently come into the station and was handed seven for
that purpose. I really only found three
that impressed me and I have interspersed them between various artist sets. Assessing quality is not something I enjoy or
feel competent doing; I doubt you’ll hear me say someone is the best, only that
they are my favorite, and I do have a lot of them.
So this should be a good introduction to what my taste
is, essentially up tempo and driving with the occasional slow tune thrown in
for variety. It is lacking a few things
I often throw in the mix, notably Jazz and New Orleans musics, but we do have
lots of Blues, particularly from Chicago, with some R&B, Soul and Gospel
thrown in.
Of
course, if I can make anything more difficult you can count on me. Instead of just providing a short intro
segment like this and the song list, I decided to add some thoughts off the top
of my head on each track. It took way
longer than I figured, and pardon my rambling!
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I actually had an opportunity to meet Howlin’ Wolf face to face around 1970
when I was jamming at Guitar Player Magazine and they asked me to try
interviewing one of my idols. I was way
too intimidated as a 21 year old kid to try much at all. Not only was Wolf imposing in my mind but he
also stood a full head taller than me, and I’m 5’11”. However, his sax player, Eddie Shaw, was also
one of my heroes primarily from his time with Magic Sam. House Rockin’ Boogie was among Wolf’s
earliest recordings, before he was committed to the Chess Records label and
decades prior to Eddie’s taking over as Wolf’s bandleader. Eddie was as friendly as Wolf was
aloof. More on Eddie when we open our
third set with a Magic Sam tune.
Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald overlapped slightly in their time with drummer Chick Webb’s
Swing Big Band. Every now and then I
receive a call stating that the subject matter is inappropriate, particularly
regarding violence toward women, but here’s a number about a wife killing her
husband! You have to take into
consideration the times; the most absurd, to me, was someone complaining about
a reference to Japs when the song (I believe it was by Jordan) was released
either during or shortly after WWII.
Come on.
I’ve
always said I give the Blues a pretty wide berth with the example that Chuck Berry didn’t sing Dig this Rock
‘n’ Roll, it was Dig these Rhythm and Blues.
Rockin’ at the Philharmonic bears this out to perfection with assistance
from Blues stalwarts Willie Dixon on bass and Lafayette Leake sitting down at
the piano.
Big Joe Williams plays his original acoustic version of the
oft-recorded Baby, Please Don’t Go. I’ve
always loved Them’s remake with Van Morrison.
If
you’ve got to throw in a slow Blues, I Held My Baby Last Night is a good choice
from Elmore James, the most
influential bottleneck guitar stylist.
Mona
is one of those signature ditties featuring the Bo Diddley beat. I don’t
often do shout outs but here I’d like to acknowledge my friend Wally Malone who
played bass most of the times Bo was on the West Coast.
Jazz/Jump
Blues saxophone man Jack McVea had a
big hit with his novelty number Open the Door, Richard.
Not
too many piano bandleaders on today’s show, but here’s Texan Amos Milburn’s original of a favorite
Boogie tune from his long career, Down the Road a Piece.
I
always thought the guitar playing Odetta
was more of a Gospel singer a la Mahalia Jackson but, at least according to
what I have come across, she seems more of a Folk singer and her tune Timber
shows off her powerful voice.
While
Wynonie Harris was with King Records
the label owner Syd Nathan had him do this Country number, Bloodshot Eyes,
written by another of his artists; just another way to capitalize on the
royalties, but it did become normal to see such crossovers.
Harris
got his recording start with the Lucky Millinder Orchestra and the band also
gave Sister Rosetta Tharpe full backing
as she was simultaneously establishing herself as an acoustic guitar playing
Spiritual singer. Her expansion into the
secular field wasn’t taken all that well by her Gospel fans, but I can’t see
how anyone couldn’t be impressed with her version of Up Above My Head. It seems to tag all the bases.
My
favorite story about the late 20s spiritual singer Blind Willie Johnson was when the blind man was arrested for unknowingly
standing in front of a government office as he sang If I Had My Way, I’d Tear
This Building Down, a regular part of his repertoire. Here we hear his classic Lord, I Just Can’t
Keep From Crying, later recorded by Al Kooper and Ten Years After. Another Johnson tune, What is the Soul of a
Man, was sent into space on a Voyager craft.
Big
Band leader Tiny Bradshaw had the
original of the Train Kapt a-Rolling but Rockabilly artists the Dorsett
Brothers revamped the song into the version later performed by Jeff Beck with
the Yardbirds and, even later, by Aerosmith.
The
piano man Ray Charles was a major
musical force as he traversed from Blues to Jazz, often being credited with the
birth of Soul, and even added Country to his arsenal mid-career. Here we have a live version of what must be
considered a classic of Rock ‘n’ Roll, but Ray would probably still call it
R&B.
Pianist
Fats Waller was one of the small
number of Black artists who recorded in the 20s to survive the Depression and
carry on a long recording career. It was
not uncommon for him to put out a humorous ditty like You Run Your Mouth, I’ll
Run My Business.
When
Roy Brown was trying to get his
career going, he offered a song he had written on a paper bag to the
established Shout styled singer Wynonie Harris.
Never known to be a very pleasant person unless it was in his best
interest, Harris scoffed at Brown and discarded the song. Until Roy released it in his own name, then
Harris promptly recorded it and his hit version undercut Brown’s. Elvis Presley had one of his early hits with
Good Rockin’ Tonight in the 50s.
A nice way to end a set is
with Ruth Brown’s This Little Girls
Gone Rockin’. The success she had with
the newly established Atlantic label caused it to be referred to as The House
That Ruth Built.
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My favorite from
the seven CDs I previewed was Barbara
Healy‘s LIVE with Groove Too. A fine
voice and the band was spot on and they have to be for a live performance. There was still another tune or two I felt worthy
of airplay but I wanted to keep it close to around a half hour.
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Maybe my all time favorite song, period, is by Magic Sam, one of my favorite artists,
I Just Want a Little Bit comes from his Delmark album Black Magic which
featured for the first time saxophonist Eddie Shaw. Eddie was brought to Chicago by Muddy Waters
but reached my ears through Sam. When
Sam died, Eddie moved on to Howlin’ Wolf’s band. My friend Johnnie Cozmik befriended Eddie on
one of his trips to Chicago and brought him out to the Bay Area a few times to
play as a guest artist with his J.C. Smith Band and, of course, this provided
several opportunities to get to know the man.
I am not big on gathering autographs but I am the proud possessor of
Eddie Shaw’s signature on my well worn copy of the Black Magic album cover.
Not much I can say about Luther Allison that wasn’t in my definitive write-up this July 24th
except that 4:00 O’clock in the Morning is my favorite among Luther’s early
material.
I don’t know a lot about Texas guitarist Bee Houston except that he recorded his
only album, Busy Bee, shortly after his membership in Big Mama Thornton’s
band. It is a favorite of mine from a
somewhat unknown player, particularly Be Proud to be a Black Man.
The only “celebrity” I ever gave a cab ride to in over
25 years was when the sound man at JJ’s called me directly to take Jr. Walker and a couple of his All
Stars back to their hotel room. I’m not
big on most Motown music except for Walker’s and it is represented here by
Shotgun.
A nice pairing of pianist Memphis Slim and Buddy Guy rocks it up with When Buddy Comes to
Town.
How Hound Dog
Taylor played around Chicago with only three singles to his name, released
in 1954, before Bruce Iglauer actually created Alligator Records around 1970 in
order to put him on the market is beyond my level of understanding. The label’s very first album included She’s
Gone, which shows his devotion to the Elmore James slide guitar style. His stuff always sounded to me like he was
playing through a torn speaker.
I was fortunate to get down to Monterey for the 1967
Pop Festival. Among the acts we saw that
Sunday evening were the Blues Project, Buffalo Springfield, Janis Joplin with
Big Brother and the Holding Company, the group we particularly went down there
to see The Who and, of course, the American debut of the Jimi Hendrix
Experience. If you wish to read all
about the day from my perspective you can dig into my blog archives to June 18th
2017; I think you’ll find it interesting and a little humorous. But the one artist in retrospect that that I
wish I had seen was the ultimate Soul man, Otis
Redding. I believe he died in a
plane crash within a year afterward. Here
he sings the Sam Cooke tune Shake, but not the Monterey version because it is
one of those live recordings where they edit the tune with the intro to the
next song tagged onto the end.
Irritating!
Guitarist Buddy Guy is back, this time with his
longtime though occasional harp playing partner Junior Wells on Messin’ with the Kid. This is not Junior’s original version but one
from the must have album, volume one of Vanguard’s Chicago! The Blues Today
trilogy.
I was really unaware how long Wilson Pickett’s recording career went until I picked up a full 6CD
set of his Atlantic Studio releases. I
kinda lost track as I became immersed in the Blues in the late 60s. There were lots of excellent vocals to choose
from and You Left the Water Running is about as good as it gets.
Perhaps my all time radio ego trip was when I misspoke
and said that Earl Hooker was not
related to John Lee Hooker. Just about
as soon as I got off the mike I got a call from Michael Osborne, at the time
John Lee’s guitar player, to say that John just wanted me to know Earl was his
cousin. John Lee Hooker was listening to
my show! Actually, I knew they were
cousins but my mind wasn’t working on all cylinders. Earl was a versatile guitarist with Country
songs mixed into his repertoire, but Boogie, Don’t Blot is unmitigated
Blues. Probably the reason Earl did not
become better received was that he never felt comfortable with his singing and
used a front man. Still, he had maybe a
dozen albums of his own in addition to his work as a very desirable sideman.
The pairing of Sam
and Dave by Stax Records brought about some great Soul duets, not a common
practice. The two wound up with
considerable animosity, but they continued long enough to put out a lot of
hits. I think they were my favorite Soul
men (pardon the pun), and that’s saying a lot; I Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell
Nobody was their best effort, in my opinion.
One thing that kinda surprised me when I looked over
this assemblage was the lack of songs written by Willie Dixon since I seemed to
have grown up hearing so many of the numbers he penned for the great Chess
masters, among others. At a time when he
was doing his A&R work for Cobra records between Chess stints, Willie
wrote, produced and maybe even played bass on Otis Rush‘s I Can’t Quit You, Baby.
I always thought of it as the theme song for my bass guitar: I Can’t
Quit You but I Got to Put You Down for a While until I finally did quit.
I bought Billy
Boy Arnold‘s album which contained You Don’t Love Me No More on the same
shopping excursion with a couple of friends to a record store in Mill Valley
that I also brought home Hound Dog Taylor’s first; probably my best day’s
shopping ever! I figured it would be
worthwhile because of the band behind him: a couple of guys from Magic Sam’s
band and the bass player from the first Butterfield albums, Jerome Arnold,
Billy Boy’s brother.
The only Blues fiddler on today’s show, Papa John Creach‘s String Jet Rock
reminds us why we loved him back in his days with the Bay Area’s Hot Tuna.
Stax Record’s brand of Soul was the style that grabbed
me and William Bell was part of that
stable that also included Otis Redding and Sam & Dave, whom we have already
heard. His You Don’t Miss Your Water
(‘til the Well Runs Dry) is another longtime favorite slow number.
Howlin’ Wolf, Magic Sam and Texas-born guitarist Freddie King have been my Blues
triumvirate since the 60s. Despite his
excellent Blues vocals, it seemed Freddie’s instrumentals garnished the most
attention. With so many to choose from,
Remington Ride has been my first choice since it entered my ears, due in part
to the fact it was rarely reinterpreted.
Pianist Percy
Mayfield was often referred to as the poet laureate of the Blues and a favorite
example is his River’s Invitation.
Another of his best known songs is Please Send Me Someone to Love.
Chicago guitarist Jimmy
Dawkins acquired the moniker “Fast Fingers” for obvious reasons. His debut album on Delmark also had Eddie
Shaw accompanying him, likely the reason I made the purchase, however it is the
bite in his instrumental Gittar Rapp from a decade and a half later that made
it my choice for today.
Again,
not much can be said about Aretha
Franklin that was not included in my August 14th essay. We didn’t play Save Me on that show and I find
it a strong choice to close this set.
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Of
the CDs I was asked to rate, Joanne Shaw
Taylor was the only artist whose name I was familiar with. Her album Reckless Heart was about what I
expected even though I don’t recall playing her before. I was going to place her after the first set
but decided her style was better suited as prelude to the white guys’ set.
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It was either the initial American John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
LP or the self-titled Paul Butterfield
Blues Band album that was the first group with Blues in its name I bought
and confirmed that what I most enjoyed from all those British bands like the
Animals, the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, et cetera, was indeed at least
Blues-related. Addicted to reading the
album cover notes while its record played got me to look into the real Blues
guys who did the originals, like that Elmore James was the originator of
Butterfield’s Shake Your Moneymaker.
The lead singer of the Southern California band Pacific Gas & Electric was their
only Black member, hence they are in this set.
Probably best known for their Are You Ready?, I chose Wade in the Water
instead because it might be my favorite Gospel number and this is definitely
the version that runs through my head.
The Electric
Flag was also a racially integrated ensemble that billed itself as an American
Music Band and should have been more than a one album wonder if the original
lineup remained intact. Their first of
three LPs had lots of strong material and I chose Wine to represent them.
Canned Heat was put together by a couple of avid Blues collectors
in the Los Angeles area which meant that their recordings were authentic even
as they updated them. Bullfrog Blues was
one of their very first singles. I saw
them at the Bold Knight in Sunnyvale back when I was still in high school
probably before they released their first LP.
Mose Allison was a pianist who easily crossed between Blues and
Jazz. When he first came on the scene it
was a common impression that, due to his authentic sounding vocals, he was a
Black Blues singer. I almost chose his
Ever Since I Stole the Blues for this set but felt that was maybe a bit too
blatant for the white Blues artist segment.
Besides, Your Mind is on Vacation has to be one of the ultimate put down
songs.
It may have seemed that the Siegel Schwall Blues Band rode the coattails of the Butterfield
band, but they did put out a handful of albums with their first including Bring
It with You When You Come.
Here are three contemporary artists; in fact I saw
saxophonist Terry Hanck at a
Campbell jam session just this last May.
Although I rarely do interviews, when I did one with Terry a few years
back I found out he divides his time between here and Florida except, of
course, when he’s on tour. I was unaware
of the song Flatfoot Sam but ever since hearing it I’ve wanted to hear the rest
of the saga.
My very first interview I can recall was with Deanna Bogart, the Boogie Woogie
pianist who also plays saxophone, sometimes simultaneously. I first saw her at the Monterey Blues
Festival when she was promoting her first CD which contains her version of the
great Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar.
When I saw her there the next year, she waved me and the Conductor (then
and still at KKUP radio) over to join her to set our dinner plates down and
join her. I’d say it was just because I
was new to broadcasting but, no, I still consider it an extremely welcoming
action. Deanna is from the Maryland\Virginia/D.C.
area and, when another cabbie friend and I flew back to Washington for Bill
Clinton’s first inauguration, I figured with my luck she’d be touring in
California but, no, we actually got to see her.
She had even played at one of the inaugural balls. I also heard her (on TV) playing the national
anthem at the first All Star Baseball game at Baltimore’s Camden Yards.
I first heard Delbert
McClinton on Johnny Carson’s Tonight show.
He played B-Movie Boxcar Blues, a tune that was my favorite from the
Blues Brothers album although they seemed to cut it off just as it was
peaking. Anyway, I found an album at the
library which held today’s entry, Blues about You Baby.
First
a Dylan tune (Highway 61 Revisited by Johnny
Winter) then a Henry Mancini number (Roy
Buchanan’s Peter Gunn)? What are these
Bluesmen thinking? Bringing us back down
to Earth is Mike Bloomfield’s
Carmelita Skiffle.
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It’s
always great to hear a good Rockin’ Bluesy Gospel group, and The Lee Boys
absolutely fit the bill. Listening to it
again, maybe this is my favorite of those seven CDs! We take five numbers from their album, LIVE
on the East Coast to wind down this extended show. . An
excellent show closer. enjoy
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For listening to KSCU on a computer, you
need to use 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
The studio is located in the basement of Benson Hall.
All
my writings going back to 2014 are still available at
key2highway.blogspot. I do have an
emailing list and, for those of you who are not yet on it, I would be happy to
add you if you email me 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).
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House Rockin’ Boogie
Howlin’ Wolf
Stone Cold Dead in the Market
Place
Louis Jordan and Ella
Fitzgerald
Rockin’ at the Philharmonic
Chuck Berry
Baby, Please Don’t Go
Big Joe Williams
I Held My Baby Last Night
Elmore James
Mona
Bo Diddley
Open the Door, Richard
Jack McVea
Down the Road a Piece
Amos Milburn
Timber
Odetta
Bloodshot Eyes
Wynonie Harris
Up Above My Head
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Lord, I Can’t Keep from Crying
Blind Willie Johnson
Train Kept a-Rollin’
Tiny Bradshaw
What’d I Say
Ray Charles
You Run Your Mouth, I’ll Run My
Business
Fats Waller
Good Rockin’ Tonight
Roy Brown
This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin’
Ruth
Brown 50mins
Old Woman Blues
Rumba of the Heart
Stuck by the Blues
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth
Is
Four Alarm Fire
Barbara Healy 28mins
I Just Want a Little Bit
Magic Sam
4:00 in the Morning
Luther Allison
Be Proud to Be a Black Man
Bee Houston
Shotgun
Jr. Walker and the All
Stars
When Buddy Comes to Town
Memphis Slim and Buddy Guy
She’s Gone
Hound Dog Taylor
Shake
Otis Redding
Messin’ with the Kid
Junior Wells with Buddy Guy
You Left the Water Runnin’
Wilson Pickett
Boogie, Don’t Blot
Earl Hooker
Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody
Sam and Dave
I Can’t Quit You, Baby
Otis Rush
You Don’t Love Me
Billy Boy Arnold
Jet String Rock
Papa John Creach
You Don’t Miss Your Water
(‘til Your Well Runs Dry)
William Bell
Remington Ride
Freddie King
The River’s Invitation
Percy Mayfield
Gittar Rapp
Jimmy Dawkins
Save Me
Aretha Franklin 63mins
I’m in the Mood
Bad Love
Reckless Heart
New 89
Creepin’
All My Love
Joanne Shaw Taylor 23mins
Shake Your Moneymaker
The Paul Butterfield Blues
Band
Wade in the Water
Pacific Gas & Electric
Wine
The Electric Flag
Bullfrog Blues
Canned Heat
Your Mind is on Vacation
Mose Allison
Bring It with You When You Come
The Siegel Schwall Blues
Band
Flatfoot Sam
Terry Hanck
Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar
Deanna Bogart
Blues about You Baby
Delbert McClinton
Highway 61 Revisited
Johnny Winter
Peter Gunn Theme
Roy Buchanan
Carmelita Skiffle
Michael Bloomfield 43mins
In the Morning
You’ve Got to Move
I’ll Take You There
Come on, Help Me Lift Him Up
Don’t Let the Devil Ride
The
Lee Boys 31mins
