ARTIST | SONG | ALBUM |
---|---|---|
Doc Wiley | Big House Blues | Blues & Gospel Kings, Vol. 2 1945-50 |
Walter Brown & Skip Brown's Orchestra | Susie May | Blues & Gospel Kings, Vol. 2 1945-50 |
Charles "Crown Prince" Waterford | Time To Blow | Blues & Gospel Kings, Vol. 2 1945-50 |
Alice Moore | New Blue Black And Evil Blues | St. Louis Women Vol. 2 1934-1941 |
Josh White | Black And Evil Blues | Josh White: Blues Singer 1932-1936 |
Leroy Ervin | Blue Black And Evil | Texas Blues:Bill Quinn's Gold Star Recordings |
Lennie Lewis & His Orchestra (vcl. Harold Tinsley) | Mean, Bad And Evil Blues | Blues & Gospel Kings, Vol. 2 1945-50 |
Lightnin' Hopkins | Black and Evil | Texas Blues |
Blind Joe Reynolds | Outside Woman Blues | Blues Images Vol. 5 |
Marshall Owens | Try Me One More Time | Blues Images Vol. 4 |
Willie Harris | Never Drive a Stranger from Your Door | Jackson Blues 1928 -1938 |
John Lee Hooker | Don't You Remember Me? | I'll Go Crazy: The Federal Records Story |
Lightnin' Hopkins | Darling, Do You Remember Me? | Soul Blues |
Clifford Gibson (R.T. Hanen Vcl) | She's Got The Jordan River In Her Hips | Clifford Gibson 1929-1931 |
Washboard Sam | Rive Hip Mama | Rockin' My Blues Away |
Sammy Lewis & Willie Johnson | So Long Baby Goodbye | Sun Blues box |
Sammy Lewis | You Lied To Me | Blow By Blow - An Anthology of Harmonica Blues |
Peg Leg Howell | Moanin' and Groanin' Blues | Folks, He Sure Do Pull Some Bow! |
Mississippi Sheiks | Your Good Man Caught The Train and Gone | Honey Babe Let The Deal Go Down: The Best Of The Mississippi Sheiks |
Mobile Strugglers | Memphis Blues | African American Fiddlers 1926-1949 |
Muddy Waters | Too Young To Know | The Complete Chess Recordings |
Louisiana Red | Catch Me A Freight Train | Forrest Cty Joe/Rocky Fuller: Memory Of Sonny Boy |
Sonny Boy Williamson II | Born Blind | The Chess Years Box Set |
Blind Lemon Jefferson | Stocking Feet Blues | Meaning In The Blues |
Blind Lemon Jefferson | That Crawlin' Baby Blues | Best Of Blind Lemon Jefferson |
Otis Spann | Hotel Lorraine | Martin Luther King’s Blues |
Big Joe Williams | The Death Of Dr. Martin Luther King | Martin Luther King’s Blues |
Brother Will Hairston | The Alabama Bus Parts 1 & 2 | Martin Luther King’s Blues |
Chocolate Brown with Blind Blake | You Got What I Want | Blues Images Vol. 12 |
Mamie Smith | Kansas City Man Blues | Crazy Blues: The Best of Mamie Smith |
Lucille Bogan | Tired as I Can Be | Shave 'Em Dry: The Best of Lucille Bogan |
Show Notes:
While I do theme shows most weeks, these mix shows often contain some short themes from set to set and we certainly explore a few on today's program. On deck today we spotlight several songs that revolve around the lyric "black and evil, first popularized by singer Alice Moore, we showcase a trio of songs revolving around Martin Luther King, we play several sides from the King Records anthology Blues & Gospel Kings, Vol. 2, we hear twin spins from Blind Lemon Jefferson and Sammy Lewis, plus a whole batch of great pre-war blues and more.
Alice Moore, Little Alice, as she was known, achieved a measure of success with her first record, "Black And Evil Blues" cut at her first session 1929 with three subsequent versions cut during the 1930's. Our version, "New Black And Evil Blues" was recorded in 1937.
I'm black and I'm evil, and I did not make myself (2x)
If my man don't have me, he won't have nobody else
I've got to buy me a bulldog, he'll watch me while I sleep (2x)
Because I'm so black and evil, that I might make a midnight creep
I believe to my soul, the Lord has got a curse on me (2x)
Because every man I get, a no good woman steals him from me
Paul Oliver had this to say about the number: "At times the characteristics of African racial features and color have an ominous significance in the blues, which may hint that they are indirectly related to social problems. So the state of being 'blue' is associated with alienation, and is linked with an 'evil mind' or an inclination to violence. Both are coupled with the inescapable condition of being black." There's also, I think, a way of diffusing the negative "black" by owning it as Moore does, a way of empowering oneself by taking the negative associations of black and turning it around and even reveling in it. Moore's song was covered by Lil Johnson, Lightnin' Hopkins and Leroy Ervin. Several other artists used the "black and evil" theme including Josh White and Lennie Lewis & His Orchestra, both who are featured today.
Today we spotlight several songs from the second volume of an anthology that collects early sides from the legendary King label titled Blues & Gospel Kings, Vol. 2 1945-50. Founded by Syd Nathan in 1943, King Records was one of the most influential independent labels of the 1940s and 1950s. By the end of the latter decade, it had become the nation's sixth largest record company. The label originally specialized in country music and." King advertised, "If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly – If it's a Hillbilly, it's a King." The company also had a "race records" label, Queen Records (which was melded into the King label within a year or two) and most notably (starting in 1950) Federal Records which launched the singing career of James Brown. In the 1950s, this side of the business outpaced the hillbilly recordings.
Although he was not the first male country blues singer/guitarist to record, Blind Lemon Jefferson was the first to succeed commercially and his success influenced previously reluctant record companies to actively seek out and record male country blues players in the hope of finding a similar talent. Throughout the ’20s Lemon spearheaded a boom in ‘race’ record sales that featured male down-home blues singers and such was the appeal of his recordings that in turn they were responsible for inspiring a whole new generation of blues singers. There's no shortage of great Lemon songs and today we spin "Stocking Feet Blues" and "That Crawlin' Baby Blues", the latter with the devastating lines:
Some woman rocks the cradle, and I declare she rules her home
Woman rocks the cradle, and I declare she rules her home
Many a man rocks some other man's baby and the fool thinks he's rockin' his own
I did not do a new show last week but I did want to play a few songs in honor of Martin Luther King. I did, however, see the movie Selma which was quite powerful. Overt political commentary was rare in recorded blues and gospel prior to the 1960’s but became increasingly more common afterwords. Several blues and gospel numbers were recorded about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in Alabama. In "Alabama Bus Pts. 1 & 2" Brother Will Hairston sings bout the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. King and ignited by Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white man. Several blues singers paid tribute to the death of Martin Luther King including Champion Jack Dupree, Big Joe Williams and Otis Spann. All three tracks played today come from the CD Martin Luther King's Blues on the Agram label, a companion to the book President Johnson’s Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on LBJ, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and Vietnam 1963-1968 by Guido Van Rijn.
Sammy Lewis (Photo from the Charly Sun Blues Box) |
Harmonica blower Sammy Lewis and guitarist Willie Johnson recorded for Sun Records in 1955 cutting "I Feel So Worried b/w So Long Baby Goodbye." The third song from this session, "Gonna Leave You Baby" was not issued at the time. Lewis continued working in Memphis after Johnson moved north, working with an assortment of bands. He went on to cut a 45 for the West Memphis 8th Street label in 1977. He was thought to have died until he was rediscovered in 1970, still playing in West Memphis. The 8th street sides were collected on the anthology Blow By Blow – An Anthology of Harmonica Blues on the Sundown label.
We play several classics from the pre-war era and as always I try to drawn from the best sounding reissues I can find. Tracks like Blind Joe Reynolds' "Outside Woman Blues", Marshall Owens' "Try Me One More Time" and Chocolate Brown (Irene Scruggs) with Blind Blake come from the CD's that accompany record collector John Tefteller's annual blues calendars. The 78's are expertly remastered by Richard Nevins of Yazoo Records from the best possible copies. Other tracks like Peg Leg Howell's "Moanin' and Groanin' Blues" and Blind Lemon Jefferson's "That Crawlin' Baby Blues" come from some of the best reissue labels, Old Hat and Yazoo, A few others like Mamie Smith's "Kansas City Man Blues", Lucille Bogan's "Tired as I Can Be" and the Mississippi Sheiks' "Your Good Man Caught The Train and Gone" come from major label reissues, sometimes from the original masters, back when the majors occasionally reissued pre-war blues. So if you're not a 78 collector but are collecting pre-war blues pay attention to companies like these if you want to hear these old blues records at their best.