Key to the Highway
2020-01-12 7-11PM
Billy
Boy Arnold 1955-64
Lou
Donaldson 1964-65
Johnny
Shines
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I hope you all had a great holiday season in
the month or so I was off the air, but it is good to be back. Chef Gigi will be on the air until 7PM this
week so I will not be able to fit the five hour show I had planned but fear
not, I haven’t been doing radio for over thirty years without a few good past
shows I can conjure up in times like this.
This three hour show originally aired February 2nd 2017 and
has some excellent material I shall enjoy revisiting. Not sure what I will do with the hour or so
leading up to 11PM, perhaps some additional Donaldson and/or Billy Boy tracks
or just seeing what is in the KSCU library, but it will be interesting.
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It seems like I’ve written this before although I
can’t recall in what context, but Billy
Boy Arnold is a perfect example of how I found new and interesting artists
in the 60s and 70s. I came across Billy
Boy’s first album, Prestige’s 1964 release More Blues from the West Side, which
leads off today’s show, and discovered that Jerome Arnold, bass player for the
first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album, was his brother and played on this
album. That was a good start, but the
topper was the fact that two of Magic Sam’s recording sidemen, guitarist Mighty
Joe Young and piano man par excellence Lafayette Leake, were included here
along with another familiar name, drummer Junior Blackmon, filling out the four
man backing crew.
From that album we take a step backward a decade, as
we return for our next Arnold set, to visit his earliest available recordings
backing Bo Diddley in 1955 and some things put out in his own name from the
same sessions. Billy Boy had laid down a
couple of tracks in 1952 for the Cool label, but they are not in my collection
so we begin here with a March 2nd 1955 session for Chess Records, which
produced Bo Diddley and I’m a Man, plus two tracks released under Arnold’s
name, Sweet on You Baby and You’ve Got to Love Me. Earlier, in the fall of 1954, Billy Boy and
Bo, along with another future well-known Chicago sideman, guitarist Jody
Williams, had teamed up playing on the street corners outside the bars. Williams appeared on that first Vee Jay
session, Bo did not. Billy Boy joined Bo
again on May 15th to cut Diddley Daddy and The Great Grandfather,
but sometime that month Billy Boy went into the Vee Jay studio and came out
with his first hit, I Wish You Would, along with its B-side I Was Fooled. This was reportedly the first Chicago Blues
release to utilize an electric bass but the song’s airplay was reduced when
Leonard Chess complained it was too similar to Bo Diddley, whether that meant
the song or the artist was unclear.
Billy backed up Bo once again July 14th on
the recordings of Bring It to Jerome and Pretty Thing. Then it was back to Vee Jay in September for
four more tracks, of which we hear Don’t Stay Out All Night and I Ain’t Got
You, the latter tune released simultaneously by Vee Jay’s most popular
Bluesman, Jimmy Reed. The song was
chosen almost a decade later by a couple of British groups, The Yardbirds (who
had already done Arnold’s I Wish You Would) and The Animals, and those versions
made the song a favorite of seemingly every local garage band around 1966. Our set closes with Arnold’s last recording
with Bo, Down Home Special from some time in 1956.
All the Bo Diddley tunes are sourced from the 2CD
Chess Box while the six remaining songs come from Charlie Records Billy Boy
Arnold: I Wish You Would. More from the
latter album provides us with four more numbers from Arnold’s Vee Jay sessions
to open our closing set. Whether he was
playing with Bo’s band or assembling a combo for each of his own sessions,
Arnold was availed of the highest caliber of Chicago’s sidemen, including for
Vee Jay Howlin’ Wolf’s longtime pianist Henry Gray or Sunnyland Slim and
drummers Fred Below and Earl Phillips. Pianist
Otis Spann and drummer Clifton James were part of the first Diddley date. The bassist on all the Diddley tracks was
Chess’ A&R man Willie Dixon.
Alligator Records acquired a taped session from June
25th 1963 featuring Johnnie Jones, best known as the piano man
behind Elmore James. He was also very
popular on Chicago’s West Side clubs and for a while was essentially the house
pianist at Sylvio’s, which provided a base at various times to such as Howlin’
Wolf or Magic Sam. Most often the club
featured three bands and Johnnie would join in with all three. Had he not died of cancer in November of 1964
and been able to play maybe a decade longer, his stature as one of Chicago’s
best keyboard players would have been cast in concrete. As Arnold recalled, “It was a little place in the basement. I guess there were
about fifty people, no more. It was an
old upright piano. No, we didn’t
rehearse. We just called out tunes when
we got on stage. A guy like that, you
don’t have to rehearse.” Most of the
album Jones plays solo, but we did take three tunes showing Billy Boy’s talents
to close today’s presentation.
Billy Boy was a native of Chicago (born there on March
16th 1935, one of sixteen children) and in 1948 was taken under the
wing of harmonica legend John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. I have come across a few explanations why
Billy became Billy Boy, one being that he was a child prodigy, but the one I
choose to believe is that he took on the addition in tribute to Sonny Boy, who
was murdered the same year Arnold came under his tutelage. Arnold had met Ellis McDaniel in the early
50s and, while busking on the Chicago street corners, the two created
McDaniel’s lasting identity as Bo Diddley.
At one point, Bo even put together Billy Boy’s first amp out of an
orange crate After his recording successes
with Bo but mostly from his own releases for Vee Jay, Billy Boy was able to
play the Chicago club circuit regularly, but partly due to the young black
audience moving away from the Blues combined with the competition of so many
quality Bluesmen in Chicago and his contract with Vee Jay not being renewed,
the early 60s found Billy making his living out of music as a bus driver,
truant officer or counselor to women paroled from the Illinois Justice system.
As Arnold expressed to Pete Welding for the 1965 liner
notes to the Prestige LP, “The main reason I haven’t been working as much as I
could is that I just got tired of all the trouble, the hassle, involved in
keeping a band together. You form a
group and it seems that you no sooner get it where it’s good, get it to where
you want it, than the guys start leaving to go out on their own. So you spend practically all your time
recruiting new musicians and breaking them in; the rest of the time you’re out
hustling for jobs. You spend all your
energy staying where you are and to keep what you have. I just got tired of it all.”
Chicago sessions recorded in 1966 for Testament
Records comprised all but one track of the 1995 CD release Goin’ to Chicago,
but I believe many of the tracks were released on vinyl in the late 60s or
early 70s on a compilation album of the same name. The 70s also saw Billy boy hitting the
festivals and making his first tour of Europe in 1974. There was a 1973 Vogue release titled Kings
of Chicago Blues Volume 3, but I guess by the title it may be reissues of
American stuff. A couple of albums came
out on Red Lightnin’ in 1975 (Blow the Back Off It) and 1979 (Checkin’ It Out) as
well as the recording of an October 1977 session for BBC Radio One DJ John
Peel. Another session in London in 1997
with Tony McPhee’s Groundhogs created the Catfish album, released in 1999.
A Paris recording from December 1984 was rereleased in
1995 on the Evidence label as Ten Million Dollars. Things were looking up as Billy Boy got a
contract with Alligator Records but only two albums were released, Back Where I
Belong in 1993 and El Dorado Cadillac in 1995.
After another recording drought, Arnold was backed in 2001 by Duke
Robillard’s band for Stony Plain Record’s Boogie ‘n’ Shuffle.
Mark Hummel set up ten dates for Billy Boy and Jimmy
Rogers, and he used Billy Boy’s time in California as an opportunity to record
him backed up by Mark’s band, the Blues Survivors, which at the time featured
guitarist Rusty Zinn and bass player Ronnie James Weber. The tracks were laid down in eight hours on
October 1st 1992 but didn’t see the light of day until 2005 on Electro-Fi
Records, then the label followed with Billy Boy Arnold Sings Sonny Boy in 2008
and Billy Boy Arnold Sings Big Bill Broonzy in 2012. Stony Plain came back with another release in
2014, The Blues Soul of Billy Boy Arnold.
In
2012, the album Blue and Lonesome was released, but it might be the same as the
earlier mentioned Catfish album because it featured McPhee’s Groundhogs. Wikipedia also lists Live at the Venue 1990
on the Catfish label so that brings up some confusion. Not that big a deal, though. What is more disconcerting to me is the fact
that since 1955 (over 60 years) that this small selection of releases is all
there is of such a fine Bluesman. In
2014, Billy Boy was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the category of
Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year.
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From its inception in 1990, this show was intended that
Jazz would be an occasional participant, but likely due to my lack of knowledge
of that genre the appearances have been relatively rare. That should change this year.
My earliest Jazz purchases were around 1970 or so at the
Flea Market where used LPs sold for about a quarter, not much of a risk. One decision that was really a no-brainer was
an album called Rough House Blues which we’ll be hearing as the second set of
this airing. The album cover caught my
attention right away with a large-looking black guy wearing a derby hat and a half-drank
mug of beer resting just outside his left hand on the bar, not to mention two
of the songs having Blues right there in the title. For the longest time, Lou Donaldson was my Jazz go-to guy, particularly this 1964 album
and you should probably be able to tell why.
So please forgive the scratches but they were well earned. Likewise, our other Donaldson LP, 1965’s live
recording Fried Buzzard, both albums released on the Chess subsidiary, Cadet
Records.
Since we are talking over 50 years since these tracks
were laid down, when I looked up his biographical information I was pleasantly
surprised that Lou was still active.
Born on November 1st 1926 in Badin, North Carolina, the alto
saxophonist attended North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University
in the early 40s, then signed up for the Navy during World War II. Doing his naval training in Chicago, Lou was
exposed to Bop music when he hit the city’s club scene and was particularly
influenced by the music of Charlie Parker.
After the war, Donaldson returned to Greensboro where he played the
clubs with The Rhythm Vets, a group of Navy men who also attended A&T.
The Rhythm Vets performed the soundtrack to a musical
comedy short film, Pitch a Boogie Woogie, in 1947. The film hit the Black theaters the next year
and was chosen for restoration by the American Film Institute in 1985, and the
band gave a reunion concert after the restored movie’s debut was held at
Greenville’s East Carolina University.
There was a bit of a Fayetteville, N.C. concert contained in the
documentary titled Boogie in Black and White about the film.
Lou recorded
first in 1950 as part of the Charlie Singleton Orchestra and in 1952 with Milt
Jackson and Thelonius Monk. Among those
he gigged with were trumpeter Blue Mitchell, pianist Horace Silver and drummer
Art Blakey. He was part of sessions in
1953 with Clifford Brown and Philly Joe Jones.
He joined Blakey’s Quintet and among the dates they recorded was Night
at Birdland, done in February of 1954 at the legendary Jazz venue. He entered the North Carolina Music Hall of
Fame in 2012, the same year he was proclaimed a Jazz Master by the National
Endowment for the Arts, considered America’s most esteemed honor for Jazz
musicians.
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Born John Ned Shines in Memphis, Tennessee on April 26th
1915, it took little time after learning the basics of guitar from his mother before
Johnny Shines was busking on the
Memphis streets and playing the local jook joints. Johnny worked on the farms around Hughes,
Arkansas beginning in 1932 until he met Robert Johnson and got back into his
music, beginning in 1935 when he and Johnson toured the States and Canada. A year after they went their separate ways,
Johnson was murdered.
Shines shared his music around the southern states
until moving to Chicago in 1941 where, in addition to playing the bar scene, he
worked in construction. After recording
for Columbia in 1946 and Chess in 1950, it wasn’t until his 1952 session for
J.O.B. Records that anything ever hit the shelf. While these have been considered the best of
his output, they didn’t make a dent in the market and Shines sold off his
musical equipment and looked again to construction to make his living.
In 1967, I got what must have been my first experience
of hearing some of the “real Blues” when a fellow student played a great set of
three LPs, Vanguard’s Chicago / The Blues / Today!. The first album is my favorite with The Junior
Wells Chicago Blues Band (with Buddy Guy), Otis Spann’s South Side Piano, and
my favorite from the collection, J.B. Hutto and his Hawks. The second platter has The Otis Rush Blues
Band, Homesick James (Williamson) and his Dusters, and The Jimmy Cotton Blues
Quartet, but it is the third in the series that concerns us today. After twenty-two minutes of Johnny Young’s
South Side Blues Band comes The Johnny Shines Blues Band, including drummer
Frank Kirkland, bassist Floyd Jones and Big Walter “Shakey” Horton on harmonica
(Walter also appears on Young’s portion of the LP), and when Walter is allowed
the instrumental Rockin’ My Boogie he adds a second harmonica player, Memphis
Charlie Musselwhite, to the ensemble. In
my always humble opinion (yeah, sure!) there hasn’t been a compilation that
comes close to this one, especially considering all these recordings were made
specifically for this series. We use all
the Shines tracks from this volume except one to conclude our set; the first
three tunes may be from that J.O.B. session but I have no further information
available.
Shines, along with Horton, went on to join The Chicago
Blues All Stars, headed by bassist and generally all around Blues legend Willie
Dixon. In 1969, Johnny moved to Holt,
Alabama but remained active on the international Blues scene and in the late
60s into the 70s could be found on tour with Robert Lockwood, Jr. the guitar-playing
stepson of Robert Johnson.
In 1980, Johnny suffered a stroke that put a damper on
his playing. In 1989 he began
touring with Kent DuChaine, which continued right up to his death on April 20th
1992 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the same year he was inducted into the Blues Hall
of Fame. Prior to that he played in the
1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson and put out his final album
along with Snooky Pryor and Johnny Nicholas, Back to the Country, for which he
was given a W.C. Handy Award.
Shortly before Johnny’s passing, I was
fortunate to see him at the San Jose State Fountain Blues Festival. As I recall, Roy Rogers had been given the
honor of choosing the guitarists to be included that year. The only other imported act I can recall was
Louisiana’s John Mooney, but the show was all top notch talent. Shines also gave a lecture, probably the
Monday after the Sunday event, but I was not smart enough to attend. I presume it would have been relevant to the
Johnson documentary.
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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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School Time
Goin’ By the River
Evaleena
You’re My Girl
I Love Only You
I’ll Forget About You
Billy Boy’s Blues
You Better Cut That Out
Get Out of Here
You Don’t Love Me No More
Billy Boy Arnold 25mins
Tippin’ In
L.D. Blues
Rough House Blues
Huffin’ ‘n’ Puffin’
Back Talk
Lou
Donaldson 24mins
Fishtail
Cool Driver
Evening Shuffle
Dynaflow Blues
Black Spider Blues
Layin’ Down My Shoes and Clothes
If I Get Lucky
Rockin’ My Boogie
Hey, Hey
Johnny Shines 25mins
Bo Diddley
I’m a Man
Sweet on You
You’ve Got to Love Me
Diddley Daddy
The Great Grandfather
I Wish You Would
I Was Fooled
Bring It to Jerome
Pretty Thing
Don’t Stay Out All Night
I Ain’t Got You
Down Home Special
Billy Boy Arnold (w/ Bo Diddley) 34mins
Fried Buzzard
The Thang
Peck Time
The Best Things in Life Are Free
We
Lou
Donaldson 28mins
Prisoner’s Plea
Everyday, Every Night
My Heart is Crying
Rockinitis
Sloppy Drunk
Early in the Morning
I Have Got to Go
Billy Boy Arnold 18mins
