Tag Archives: 1940s

Montgomery Ward M-8861 – Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys – 1940

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In this website dedicated to honoring the legends and the lost of American music, it would seem terribly remiss to not pay tribute to such a tremendous figure as mandolinist, singer, and founder of the bluegrass genre, Bill Monroe—falling, needless to say, into the former category.  In fact, it would be nearly impossible to overstate the man’s legacy.

Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys at the time of their Bluebird recordings. From Bluebird catalog.

William Smith Monroe was born into a musically inclined family on September 13, 1911, in Rosine, Kentucky, the eighth and youngest child of Buck and Malissa Monroe.  Among his early musical influences were his uncle, fiddle player Pendleton Vandiver—with whom he lived after his parents’ deaths, and to whom he dedicated his popular song “Uncle Pen”—and black guitarist and fiddler Arnold Shultz.  As his older brothers Charlie and Birch already played guitar and fiddle, young Bill was relegated to playing the mandolin.  Together with them, Bill began playing music in a professional manner in 1929.  After Birch departed and the group became a duo consisting of just Bill and Charlie, the Monroe Brothers made their recording debut for RCA Victor subsidiary Bluebird in 1936, producing some popular records such as the sacred song “What Would You Give Me in Exchange?”.  The act was not particularly long-lived however, as the brothers tended to butt heads, and they went their separate ways in 1938.  Subsequently, Bill formed a new band—dubbed the Blue Grass Boys, for his home state of Kentucky—and in 1939 auditioned for WSM’s Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.  His rendition of Jimmie Rodgers’s “Mule Skinner Blues” impressed the Solemn Old Judge, and the Blue Grass Boys became a mainstay of that program for decades to come.  A year after their Opry debut, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys made their first recordings for Bluebird, foreshadowing the genre of music that would be named in the group’s honor.  Over the years, Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys employed such future bluegrass luminaries as Clyde Moody, David (“Stringbean”) Akeman, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and Jimmy Martin, all of whom would go on to be stars in their own rights.  In 1945, the group went to Columbia Records, and in 1949 on to Decca, producing hits for each, including “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and “New Mule Skinner Blues”.  Although his success dipped in the 1950s with the birth of rock ‘n’ roll and more modern styles of country music, Monroe and his bluegrass enjoyed renewed popularity during the folk music revival of he 1960s, and the musical form over which he reigned found a dedicated community of musicians and fans that has persisted to the present day.  Bill Monroe continued to perform and lead the Blue Grass Boys until months before his death on September 9, 1996, four days before he would have been eighty-five.

Montgomery Ward M-8861 was recorded on October 7, 1940 in the Kimball House Hotel at 30 South Pryor Street in Atlanta, Georgia.  The Blue Grass Boys are Bill Monroe on mandolin and guitar, Clyde Moody on guitar and mandolin, Tommy Magness on fiddle, and Willie “Cousin Wilbur” Wesbrooks on string bass.  It was originally released as Bluebird B-8568 on November 22, 1940.  Side A was reissued on RCA Victor 20-3163 in 1948.

Bill Monroe sings and plays the guitar, while Clyde Moody takes the mandolin, on the Blue Grass Boys’ legendary rendition of the Jimmie Rodgers classic, “Mule Skinner Blues”., the number that won Monroe a place on the prestigious Grand Ole Opry.

Mule Skinner Blues, recorded October 7, 1940 by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.

On the “B” side, Clyde Moody sings the baritone vocal on the twelve-bar blues of his own composition, “Six White Horses” (not to be confused with the Tommy Cash song of later years).

Six White Horses, recorded October 7, 1940 by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.

Bluebird 34-0706 – Tommy McClennan – 1942

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One of the roughest-hewn bluesmen to emerge from the Mississippi Delta, Tommy McClennan was known for his distinctively uncomplicated but hard-grooving style of guitar playing, coarse and gravelly vocals, and evocative, sometimes provocative lyrics.  Though his recording career spanned only three years, McClennan’s records were among the best selling by a Delta musician in the pre-World War II era.  Despite that success, most of the details surrounding McClennan’s life and work are uncertain, if not outright lost to time.

A crop of the only known photograph of Tommy McClennan, pictured in Bluebird catalog supplement.

Tommy McClennan is believed to have been born on January 4, 1905, in Durant, Mississippi, one of Virgil and Cassie McClennan’s several children.  He grew up on plantations in Carroll and Leflore Counties, and was later known to have spent much of his time in Yazoo City and Greenwood.  As a musician, he associated himself with fellow bluesmen Robert Petway and David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and was well known around the southern Mississippi Delta as “Sugar” or “Bottle Up”.  While living on the Sligh Plantation in Yazoo City in 1939, McClennan was “scouted” by Chicago blues impresario Lester Melrose.  Subsequently, like so many of compatriots, he traveled north to make a record.  At five sessions between November 22, 1939, and February 20, 1942, Tommy McClennan recorded forty sides for RCA Victor’s Bluebird label, cutting exactly eight tracks each time—plus an appearance on his friend Robert Petway’s “Boogie Woogie Woman” at the last date.  His twenty records saw considerable success compared to those of many of his contemporaries, and many of songs inspired covers in later years.  Among his recorded songs were his famous “Bottle it Up and Go”, “Cross Cut Saw Blues”, and “Deep Blue Sea Blues”—the last of which he called “the best one I’ve got.”  He was well remembered during that period by Big Bill Broonzy, who later recounted some sordid tales of him, such as an occasion in which Broonzy purportedly shoved him out the window of a Chicago blues club after some of the controversial verses in his “Bottle it Up and Go” riled the crowd to the point of violence.  Although his recording career came as the rural-flavored, unelectrified blues of pre-war years was being supplanted by a more urbane, amplified and ensemble-based style that would dominate in years to come, his music and lyrics were deeply steeped in the Delta blues tradition of his earlier contemporaries.  After the conclusion of his recording career, McClennan evidently remained in Chicago, where he is thought to have continued to perform for about a decade before descending into alcoholism and underworld life.  On May 9, 1961, Tommy McClennan died of bronchopneumonia at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago at the age of fifty-six, just as the folk and blues revival was beginning to gain steam.  Though he didn’t make it to see the revival firsthand, many of McClennan’s recordings have since been reissued on prominent blues compilations, earning him well-deserved recognition in the years and decades since his death.

Bluebird 34-0706 was recorded on February 20, 1942, in RCA Victor’s Studio A in Chicago, Illinois—Tommy McClennan’s last session.  McClennan’s vocal and guitar are accompanied by the prolific Ransom Knowling on string bass.

On the “A” side of 34-0706, Tommy McClennan sings “Roll Me, Baby”, espousing a common theme in blues songs, very similar to Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “Rock Me Mamma” or “Rockin’ and Rollin'” as made famous by Little Son Jackson.

Roll Me, Baby, recorded February 20, 1942 by Tommy McClennan.

And on the “B” side, Tommy delivers a fine performance on “Blue as I Can Be”, a number which seems to be one of his more popular recordings in the present day.  It is as good an example as any of his famously rugged fashion of both singing and guitar playing.

Blue as I Can Be, recorded February 20, 1942 by Tommy McClennan.

Martin M103 – Joe Petek’s Orchestra – c. 1947

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“[Texas Czech music] was not like it sounded in Europe; this had much more of the Southwest swing to it.  A year later I heard the Joe Patek Orchestra in person at a dancehall in north Houston.  There were many of these bands in the area, but Patek’s was the best of them.”

— Chris Strachwitz

Out of the myriad of ethnic groups that comprise the melting pot of modern-day Texas, the Czechs have had a particularly significant impact on the culture of the Lone Star State.  Arriving first in the early days of Anglo settlement in Texas and settling largely in the southeastern quadrant of the state, there now number more individuals of Czech heritage in Texas than in any other state in the union.  And with them, they brought bountiful treasures which are appreciated by Texans of every race, color, and creed, including kolaches, klobasneks, bock beer, polka music, the SPJST, and Czech Stop.  In their honor, October has been declared Czech Heritage Month by the Texas State Legislature, and it would seem remiss to allow the month to pass by without paying tribute to their rich musical contributions to Texas culture

Of the many Bohemian bands in central and south Texas—Rhine Winkler’s, Rudy Kurtz’s, Frank and Adolph Migl’s, the Baca family’s, and others—perhaps none exceeded the renown of Joe Patek and his family band.  Hailing from Shiner, Texas—home of the eponymous Shiner Bock beer—at the heart of Texas’ Czech community, Patek’s Bohemian Orchestra has been hailed as the greatest renowned of the numerous such bands in the region, though they claimed to have only played for their own amusement.  The Patek family band was founded in 1895 (or 1920) by Czech immigrant John Patek, Sr., who had been a musician in the old country.  One of six Patek brothers, Joseph Patek was born in Shiner on September 14, 1907, and took over leadership of his father’s band from his older brother Jim in the 1930s.  Once the reins were in his hands, Patek’s Bohemian Orchestra recorded seven sides for Decca during their field trip to Dallas in February of 1937, of which only one record was released, and which sold quite poorly.  Patek attributed that commercial failure to the band being rushed by the recording director.  They would not record again until the rise of small, regional record companies in the years following World War II, beginning with a series of discs on the tiny San Antonio label Martin.  Subsequently, they recorded somewhat prolifically for the FBC (Fort Bend County) and Humming Bird labels out of Rosenberg and Waco, respectively.  Transitioning to the 45 RPM and LP era, Patek’s band cut records for San Antonio’s illustrious Tanner ‘n’ Texas (or TNT) and Bellaire Records from the Texas town of the same name.  They continued to record into the 1970s, with albums remaining in print on CD to the present day.  In addition to recording, Patek’s orchestra also had a weekly radio program on KCTI in Gonzalez, Texas, in the mid-1940s, and toured central and south Texas dance halls and picnics.  Their repertoire consisting of polkas, waltzes, and marches, many with Czech vocals, they became as well known as the beer that made Shiner famous.  Under Joe’s leadership, the Patek orchestra incorporated jazz and Latin influences in a uniquely Texan blend unheard in traditional Bohemian music. In addition to music, Patek operated a grocery store, meat market, and slaughterhouse, still in business today in Shiner.  The Patek orchestra dissolved following a 1982 New Year’s Eve dance at the Shiner American Legion.  Five years later, Joe Patek died in Victoria, Texas, on October 24, 1987.

Martin M103 was recorded around 1947 by the S.W. Martin Distributing Company.  The actual date of recording is untraceable and may be lost to time.  It was their first record for Martin.  The label misspells Joe Patek’s  last name as “Petek”.

On the A-side, Patek’s band plays what is surely their most widely and perhaps fondly remembered piece, the “Shiner Song” (“Když jsme opustili Shiner”), an “all-time favorite song” of the Texas Polka Music Association, derived from the older “Praha Polka” and rededicated to the popular beer produced by the Spoetzl Brewery of their hometown of Shiner, Texas.

Shiner Song, recorded c. 1947 by Joe Petek’s Orchestra.

On the reverse, they play a waltz dedicated to our great nation titled “Beautiful America” (“Krásná Amerika”), a number which they recorded again for TNT in the decade that followed.

Beautiful America, recorded c. 1947 by Joe Petek’s Orchestra

Globe 122 – Jesse Lockett with Earl Sims’ Sextette – 1946

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Performing and recording alongside more famous contemporaries like Lightnin’ Hopkins, L.C. Williams, and Melvin “Little Son” Jackson, blues shouter Jesse Lockett was a big figure on the 1940s Houston blues scene and a pioneering vocalist in the postwar Texas record industry—notable for making the first blues record to appear on a Texas-based label—yet very little is known of him and his scant recording career today.

Jesse Eugene Lockett was born on September 23, 1912, in Trinity County, Texas.  He grew up in Houston, where he attended Wheatley High School.  In adulthood, he was described as a heavyset, dark complected man, about five feet, ten inches tall and weighing as much as three-hundred pounds, and was called at point a “buxom and vociferous singer of the blues (all gut bucket).”  While living in Houston in the summer of 1935, Lockett—despite a plea of not guilty—was convicted of burglary and theft and sentenced to seven years on the Clemens State Farm in Brazoria County beginning on September 11, 1935.  There, on April 16, 1939, noted folklorist John A. Lomax recorded him singing “Worry Blues” and accompanying himself on the guitar in one of his prison recording trips for the Library of Congress.  Only a few months later, he was released early, walking free on September 14, 1939.  Soon after his release, he formed a band called the Blue Five, which was well received in Houston in the early-to-mid-1940s, making appearances at both public venues and private functions.  Known for composing most of his own material, he earned regular mention in the local black newspaper, the Informer and Texas Freeman, in which he was hailed as “Houston’s gift to the music world.”  Some of his known appearances included regular revues at the Lincoln Theatre at 711 Prairie Street, nightclub shows, including a bi-weekly “Harlem Review” at Lee Curry’s New Harlem Grill and opening night at Sutton Batteau’s Blue Room, and at least one concert at the City Auditorium.  He was often joined in these shows by tap dancer Jimmy De Barber and blackface comedian “Cream Puff” Smith, and he shared the stage at times with such noted bands as LeRoy Hardison’s Carolina Cotton Pickers and I.H. Smalley’s Rockateers.  In the early 1940s, Lockett had a string of engagements on the East Coast, and around the same time was purported to have been a “Decca recording artist,” with some of his songs listed as “Defense Blues” and “The New Sugar Ration Blues”, though no evidence of these songs or of Lockett ever recording for Decca appears to exist.  A few years later, around late 1945, he made his documented commercial recording debut for Bill Quinn’s Houston-based Gulf label with “Boogie Woogie Mama” and “Blacker the Berry”, the first and only known blues record to appear on the first record label based in Texas.  An October 1945 newspaper article reported that Lockett had recorded ten sides for an unnamed “local record company” (presumably Gulf), but only the aforementioned two are known to have been released.  Soon after, he ventured out west to join Earl Sims’ Sextette on a pair of jump blues sides recorded for the Los Angeles-based Globe label.  Following this stint in California, Lockett returned to Houston, at which point he recorded once again for Bill Quinn—whose Gulf label had become Gold Star—cutting four sides as a vocalist with Will Rowland’s Orchestra (who had apparently traveled with him from California) in late 1948, including “Run Mr. Rabbit Run” and “Reefer Blues”.  Afterwards, he seems to have gone back to California, where—apparently finding it hard to stay out of trouble—he was incarcerated again by 1950, this time in the Los Angeles County Jail, ostensibly putting an end to his promising career in music.  After serving his sentence again, Lockett remained in California, where he died in San Luis Obispo on March 14, 1966.

Globe 122 was recorded sometime in 1946 in Los Angeles, California, and released the same year.  Earl Sims’s Sextette consists of Sims on alto saxophone, Doc Jones on tenor sax, Jimmy Moorman on trumpet, Laurence Robinson on piano, C. LeChuga on string bass, and Felix Gross on drums.

On the record’s first side, Jesse Lockett sings a slow blues of his own composition titled “Mellow Hour Blues”.  Lockett seems to have been both a fine singer and songwriter, drawing inspiration from the folk blues tradition.

Mellow Hour Blues, recorded c. 1946 by Jesse Lockett with Earl Sims Sextette.

On the “B” side, Lockett sings a “jump boogie” titled “Hole in the Wall”, not to be confused with the different song of the same name recorded by fellow Texas blues singer L.C. Williams around two years later.

Hole in the Wall, recorded c. 1946 by Jesse Lockett with Earl Sims Sextette

Silver Star 101 – Cecil Gill – c.1946

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Back in the days when radio was king, a great many singing and musical stars of yesteryear made their fame on that medium, often producing few if any records, and so faded from public memory along with the generation that enjoyed their music like the ephemeral waves that carried their sounds through the air.  We hear from one such star on the record herein: once a familiar voice on north Texas radio: the “Yodeling Country Boy”, Cecil Gill.

Cecil Gill, Yodeling Country Boy, circa 1930s.

Cecil Harris Gill was born in Des Arc, Arkansas, on September 19, 1912, but grew up in Texas from the age of seven when his family moved to the small west Texas town of McCaulley.  There, on Christmas Day of 1928, when he was sixteen-years-old, Gill made it up in his mind that he wanted to be a singer and yodeler.  And so he did, making his radio debut on KFYO in Abilene—some forty miles to the southeast—alongside fellow budding star Stuart Hamblen, who was four years his senior.  At a 1929 show at Simmons University, Cecil Gill met his hero, Jimmie Rodgers, who invited the young singer to join him on stage for a performance of “Never No Mo’ Blues”.  The next year saw Gill relocate to Fort Worth, where he began singing on KTAT under the sobriquet for which he would be best known: the “Yodeling Country Boy”.  His repertoire consisted of both traditional folk songs and originals of his own composition.  In the early 1930s, he married Pearl Bernice Nelson, and the couple had two children, a boy and a girl.  In 1932, he was appearing on WBAP, and by 1935, was singing multiple times a day on KFJZ, with whom he seems to have had the lengthiest affiliation.  In 1936, he gained note for singing the “Little Frontier Centennial March” in honor of Amon G. Carter’s Frontier Centennial celebration in Fort Worth.  By the beginning of the next decade, he was on the popular station KGKO, alongside “Smiling Troubadour” Ernest Tubb, whom he would later join in a Grand Ole Opry show at Fort Worth’s North Side Coliseum in 1945.  He was also known to have made appearances on other stations, and bounced back and forth from station-to-station throughout the years. Gill estimated at one point that he had been before the microphone on 6,448 broadcasts.  He also made numerous public appearances.  Though known primarily as a regional star, Gill was known to have performed outside of Texas as well, including a stint on WGAD in Gadsden, Alabama in 1947, and apparently even an appearance at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago.  Around 1946—after roughly two decades on the air—Gill made his recording debut, waxing six sides for the Fort Worth-based Silver Star Records.  He reportedly made further recordings for Dallas’ Blue Bonnet Records in 1948, though none of these seem to have surfaced (it is possible that this report had simply confused his Silver Star recordings with the more prolific Blue Bonnet label).  He would not record again until 1963, when he began producing five albums worth of material for the Bluebonnet label in Fort Worth (a separate entity than the aforementioned), all titled The Yodeling Country Boy.  In 1971, he came out of retirement to record an album of gospel songs titled How Big is God for the Inspiration label in Arlington, Texas.  On the side, Gill operated a café—”Cecil Gill’s Eat Shop”—and later a laundry service.  Making his home in Arlington in his later years, Cecil Gill died of a heart attack on March 28, 1978, at Huguley Hospital, and was interred at Laurel Land Memorial Park in Fort Worth.

Silver Star 101 was recorded presumably in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1946 or 1947; the exact date seems to have been lost to time.  It features the vocals of Cecil Gill, backed by a small honky-tonk band (most likely Ernest Winnett’s Texas Trailblazers, who accompanied Gill on his other Silver Star records) that sounds to consist of—at least—steel guitar, standard guitar, and string bass.  According to some sources, it was released in February of 1948.  It was also issued on the Tennessee-based Rich-R-Tone, record number 393, the following year.

A personal favorite of mine, the poignant “Tear Drops in the Rain” seems to have been something of a signature song for Gill, and he recorded it again on his second Bluebonnet album in 1966.

Tear Drops in the Rain, recorded c. 1946-47 by Cecil Gill.

On the reverse, he sings another original composition, “Say Goodbye”.  Though he was known as the “Yodeling Country Boy”, Gill did not yodel on these recordings.

Say Goodbye, recorded c. 1946-47 by Cecil Gill.