About R. Connor Montgomery

R.C. Montgomery is a writer and folklore collector from North Texas, and the creative force and 78 RPM phonograph record collector behind Old Time Blues. Everything found here—for better or worse—is his doing. You may read more about his eccentric proclivities on the site's "About" page.

Regal 9791 – Harry Richman – 1925

Posted on August 10, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Harry Richman around the mid-1920s.

August 10 once again marks the birthday of one of Old Time Blues’ favorite vaudevillians, Harry Richman. Last year, we celebrated the occasion with his famous “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. This time, I offer to you Richman’s first recording ever.

Harry Richman was born Harold Reichman on August 10, 1895 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began performing by the age of eleven, and was working the vaudeville circuits by eighteen. After striking out as an act of his own in the early 1920s, he worked his way up, appearing as the star of George White’s Scandals in 1926. In 1930, he made his motion picture debut in Puttin’ on the Ritz, in which he introduced the famous Irving Berlin song of the same name. Though his acting career failed to take off, he appeared in four more pictures from 1930 to ’38. Throughout the 1930s, Richman hosted a radio program, and made a number of popular records. He was also noted as a record setting aviator, making a famous round-trip flight across the Atlantic in 1936 with Dick Merrill. In 1938, he married former Ziegfeld girl Hazel Forbes, though they had divorced by 1942. After his career slowed down in the 1940s, Richman made a number of brief comeback appearances, largely in a nostalgic context. He published an autobiography titled A Hell of a Life in 1966, and died in 1972.

Regal 9791 was recorded January 30, 1925, most likely in New York. Unfortunately, though it appears to be in decent condition, it suffers from a very thin, quiet signal, and sounds generally lousy. In spite of that, the music is still plainly audible.

First, Harry croons “Will You Remember Me”, with guitar accompaniment adding a charming, folksy effect.

Will You Remember Me, recorded January 30, 1925 by Harry Richman.

Richman seems to put on his best Jolson for “California Poppy”.

California Poppy, recorded January 30, 1925 by Harry Richman.

Updated with improved audio on November 13, 2016.

Victor 21491 – Charles Johnson’s Paradise Ten/Lloyd Scott’s Orchestra – 1928

Posted on August 8, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

In honor of “King” Benny Carter’s birthday, here’s an outstanding Harlem jazz record featuring one of his earliest recorded appearances, as well as a taste of his arranging talent.

Bennett Lester Carter was born in Harlem on August 8, 1907. As a child, he was taught piano by his mother, and was later inspired to by Bubber Miley to buy a trumpet. When he couldn’t play like Miley, he decided to take up the saxophone instead. Growing up playing jazz with the Harlem greats, Carter first recorded in 1928 with Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Ten, and played with Fletcher Henderson in the early 1930s. In 1931, he took over leadership of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers from Don Redman, who left to form his own orchestra, and followed in his footsteps the next year with a band of his own. In the 1930s, he began recording with a band under the moniker of the Chocolate Dandies, which had been previously used by a number of others. In 1935, as Louis Armstrong and a number of other jazz musicians had done previously, Carter traveled to Europe, where he played with the Ramblers, Django Reinhardt, and others before returning to the States in 1938. After returning home, he led another band and arranged prolifically. In 1942, Freddie Slack’s Orchestra made a hit with “Cow Cow Boogie”, which Carter wrote with Gene de Paul and Don Raye, and he moved to the West Coast in 1943. In 1973, Carter was a visiting professor at Princeton University for a semester. He continued to play until his retirement in 1997, bringing an end to an eight decade career, and he died in 2003 at the age of 95.

Victor 21491 was recorded January 24 and 10, 1928, respectively, in New York City. The Paradise Ten are made up of Jabbo Smith and Leonard Davis on trumpets Charlie Irvis on trombone, Benny Carter and Edgar Sampson on clarinet and alto sax, Elmer Harrell on clarinet and tenor sax, Charlie Johnson on piano, Bobby Johnson on banjo, Cyrus St. Clair on tuba, George Stafford on drums. Lloyd Scott’s orchestra on the flip-side consists of Gus McClung and Kenneth A. Roane on trumpet, Dicky Wells on trombone John Williams and Fletcher Allen on clarinet and alto sax, Cecil Scott on clarinet, tenor sax, and baritone sax, Don Frye on piano, Hubert Mann on piano, Chester Campbell on tuba, and Lloyd Scott on drums.

Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Ten took their name from Small’s Paradise in Harlem, where they played. Among their alumni were such luminaries as Jabbo Smith and Benny Carter, who made his first recordings with the band. Their superb “Charleston is the Best Dance After All” was arranged by Benny Carter.

Charleston is the Best Dance After All, recorded January 24, 1928 by Charles Johnson’s Paradise Ten.

Lloyd Scott’s Orchestra was another excellent Harlem band, that featured John Williams (husband of Mary Lou Williams) and Dicky Wells. Here they play trumpeter Kenneth A. Roane’s “Harlem Shuffle”.

Harlem Shuffle, recorded January 10, 1928 by Lloyd Scott’s Orchestra.

Okeh 8535 – Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five – 1927

Posted on August 4, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

That special time of year has come again that we celebrate the birth of the great Louis Armstrong, on the event of his 115th birthday. Last year, we commemorated the occasion with his theme song, “Sleepy Time Down South”. This time around, we have even more excellence from Armstrong’s original Hot Five.

Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five (autographed to Muggsy Spanier). Left to right: Armstrong, Johnny St. Cyr, Johnny Dodds, Kid Ory, Lil Armstrong. From Jazzmen, 1939.

Louis Armstrong was born in the cradle of jazz, New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 4, 1901. He grew up in a poor family in Storyville, and played witness to jazz in its infancy. As a child, he made money working for a Jewish family by the name of Karnofsky, who came to treat him as one of their own. Armstrong played as a youngster with the band of the New Orleans Colored Waif’s Home, and was instructed in cornet by Professor Peter Davis. After leaving the home, Louis hauled coal by day and played by night, with all the jazz greats of New Orleans. “King of Cornet”, Joe Oliver, “Papa Joe” as Louis called him, came to be Armstrong’s mentor before heading north to play in Chicago in 1919. He soon began playing in the famous brass bands of New Orleans, and on riverboats on the Mississippi.

In 1922, Armstrong received a request from Oliver to join him in Chicago. Nervously, he obliged, and in that April, Armstrong made his first recordings with King Olivier’s Creole Jazz Band for Gennett Records. With the Creole Jazz Band, Louis met piano player Lil Hardin, and before long the two were married. It was Lil’s idea that Louis should leave King Oliver’s band; she believed his potential was wasted as a sideman to Oliver, and so he did. In 1924, Armstrong left to work briefly with Ollie Powers’ band, before spending a year with Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, and then with Erskine Tate’s Vendome Orchestra (not to mention a number of other ventures on the side). His biggest break came in 1925, when he formed his first Hot Five, and thus the first time he appeared on records as leader. Through the rest of the 1920s, Armstrong kept busy playing and recording prolifically. After some work with Carroll Dickerson’s orchestra in ’29, Louis left for California in 1930 to play a gig at Sebastian’s New Cotton Club in Los Angeles, California, fronting Les Hite’s orchestra.

Following that engagement, he traveled from place-to-place for a period, from back to Chicago, to home in New Orleans, to California again, before embarked on a much celebrated tour of Europe in 1933. When he returned to the states in 1935, his fame was only on the rise. After playing swing and jazz into the post-war era, and in 1947, he assembled his All-Stars, as a revival in “dixieland” came about. Armstrong remained steadily popular until his death in 1971. From the 1920s into the 1960s, Armstrong his inimitable mark on music, and cemented his place as one of the greatest jazz musicians, and most beloved American icons, of all time.

Okeh 8535 was recorded December 13, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. The Hot Five consists of Louis Armstrong on cornet, Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lil Armstrong on piano, and Lonnie Johnson on guitar. This was the last session by the “original” Hot Five, in 1928 Armstrong organized a new group made up from members of Carroll Dickerson’s orchestra, including Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton.

Now, no matter what the question may be, the answer is right here for you, “Hotter than That”.

Hotter than That, recorded December 13, 1927 by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five.

On the flip-side, they play Kid Ory’s composition, “Savoy Blues”.

Savoy Blues, recorded December 13, 1927 by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five.

Victor 20864 – Jimmie Rodgers – 1927

Posted on August 4, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Rodgers around 1927-’28, pictured in the Victor catalog.

On the twenty-fifth of July, 1927, Ralph S. Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company hauled off to Bristol, Tennessee, to commence a series of recording sessions of local Appalachian musicians in hopes of exploring a relatively untapped market for phonograph records. As the sessions were in progress, he received a telephone call from a radio performer in Asheville, North Carolina, who had read of the opportunity in the newspaper, and was interested bringing his string band, the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers, to Bristol to cut a record. Peer obliged and arranged for the man to meet for an audition. Somewhere along the line, he had a disagreement with his band, and they parted ways before the audition. Accounts of the reason for the dispute varied depending upon which party was asked. Nevertheless, both entities carried on separately and auditioned before Peer, who saw potential for success in the lone guitarist and yodeler. Thus, on August 4, 1927, Jimmie Rodgers made his first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company, cutting only two sides at the vacant Taylor-Christian Hat and Glove Company building. The first recording was his own composition, “The Soldier’s Sweetheart”; the second was the old yodel song, “Sleep, Baby, Sleep”. The record proved successful, and Rodgers soon elbowed his way to a follow-up session with Victor at their headquarters in Camden, New Jersey, only a few months later, resulting in the first of his famous Blue Yodel songs. With that, a star was born, and over the following six years he established himself as one of Victor’s top-selling stars, one of the best-selling record artists of the Great Depression, and, posthumously, as the Father of Country Music.

Victor 20864 was recorded between 2:00 and 4:20 P.M. on August 4, 1927, at 408-10 State Street in Bristol, Tennessee, the only two sides cut in Jimmie Rodgers Bristol session, and his first ever recordings. It was released in October of 1927.

Jimmie’s second song at the session, but issued as the “A” side of his debut disc was his haunting rendition of John J. Handley’s old time yodel song, “Sleep Baby Sleep”.

Sleep Baby Sleep, recorded August 4, 1927 by Jimmie Rodgers.

Issued as the “B” side, Rodgers own composition “The Soldier’s Sweetheart” marked the first time that the voice of America’s Blue Yodeler was ever preserved in shellac.

The Soldier’s Sweetheart, recorded August 4, 1927 by Jimmie Rodgers.

Victor 20877 – The Carter Family – 1927

Posted on August 1, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

In an effort to capitalize on the success of the popular “mountaineer songs” by the likes of Vernon Dalhart and Kelly Harrell, talent scout and record producer Ralph S. Peer arranged for the Victor Talking Machine Company to make a series of field trips in an effort to discover and record marketable new artists for the burgeoning “hillbilly” market. Arriving in Bristol, Tennessee, in late July of 1927, Peer got the word out about the sessions through local radio stations and newspapers, and soon musicians began coming to Bristol in droves to record for Victor. Among the many noted artists who recorded in those sessions were Ernest Stoneman and Blind Alfred Reed. It was in early August, however, when came the artists who were to make the biggest fame for themselves and for the Bristol sessions: the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.

The Carter Family in the late 1920s. Left to right: Sara, A.P., Maybelle.

The Carter Family around the time of the Bristol Sessions. Left to right: Maybelle, A.P., Sara. Pictured in the Victor Catalog

When A.P. Carter of Maces Spring, Virginia—not far from Bristol—learned of the sessions, he persuaded his wife Sara and sister-in-law Maybelle to make the short journey from their home to audition for Ralph Peer. Though the trio had made music together since their meeting, only A.P. had inclinations to try and make a career out of it. There in Bristol, on the night of August 1, 1927, A.P., Sara, and Maybelle—as the “Carter Family”—recorded four songs: Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow”, “Little Log Cabin By the Sea”, “The Poor Orphan Child”, and “The Storms are On the Ocean”. Their audition went well. Peer was impressed by the Carters, and invited them to return the following morning to record again. They obliged, this time cutting “”Single Girl, Married Girl” and “The Wandering Boy”. In return for these recordings, they were paid fifty dollars per song, and half-a-cent royalties on each record sold. Their second issued record, “Single Girl, Married Girl” and “The Storms are On the Ocean” on Victor 20937, made quite a hit, and the Carters’ path to success as recording stars thus opened. The following May, they traveled to Camden, New Jersey to record again, anticipating the many sessions to come for Victor, Decca, and the American Record Corporation between then and the early 1940s. Thus, the Carter Family’s decades long, multi-generation legacy as one of country music’s most legendary acts of all time began.

Victor 20877 was recorded on August 1 and 2, 1927, in Bristol, Tennessee by the Carter Family, Sara, Maybelle, and A.P. Released on November 4, 1927, it was the first issued record, but not the first recorded sides, by the Carter Family.

Firstly the Carters sing “The Poor Orphan Child”, the third side recorded at the Carter Family’s first session.