I was finally able to get a computer working to transfer my records, after the one I was using kicked the bucket, so I’m now able to post this iconic record of the 1940s. Consider it an encore to yesterday’s performance. However, I must ask one kind favor from all of you people, if you think this audio has a sort of high-pitched tone or crackle (other than the record’s own noise) in the background, or otherwise sounds inferior from my usual transfers, please tell me, so I can take action in bringing it back up to par should it be necessary.
Decca 8659 was recorded on March 15, 1944 and October 4, 1943, respectively. Recordings made in 1943 are fairly uncommon, as the American Federation of Musicians began a strike that resulted in a recording ban on July 31, 1942, and lasted through most of 1943. Decca had only settled with the union the month before this recording was made.
First up, it’s Louis Jordan’s take on Johnny Mercer’s World War II classic, “G. I. Jive”.
G. I. Jive, recorded March 14, 1944 by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five.
Next is Jordan’s famous “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t (Ma’ Baby)”, another classic song of that era, and carried on to many in younger generations by way of the 1946 Tom and Jerry cartoon Solid Serenade.
Is You Is or Is You Ain’t (Ma’ Baby), recorded October 4, 1943 by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five.
Styling themselves as cowboys, the Five Harmaniacs were a novelty jug band that had a short-lived but apparently successful run on vaudeville in the middle part of the 1920s. During that run, they also made a series of recordings for a number of companies in 1926 and ’27. The group cut their first side, titled “Harmaniac Blues”, in Chicago for Paramount in June of ’26 as the Harmaniac Five. They followed with four sides for Victor, two for Brunswick, two for Edison, and one for Gennett, all of them recorded in New York. They also made radio appearances across the United States.
There is conflicting information surrounding the identities of the members of the Five Harmaniacs. Brian Rust lists Claude Shugart as the jug and washboard player, Jerry Adams on comb, Percy Stoner on kazoo and banjo, with Wade Hampton Durand, Walter Howard, and Ned Nestor filling out the rest of the band, each taking some part on banjo, guitar, harmonica, and ukulele. The 1978 LP release The Five Harmaniacs – 1926-27 (Puritan 3004) lists an entirely different personnel including Syd Newman on harmonica, kazoo, and washboard, Dave Robertson on harmonica and washboard, Roy King on banjo, ukulele, and jug, Jerry Adams on comb, Walter Howard on guitar, and Claude Shugart on ukulele. Claude Shugart is incorrectly identified in some sources as Clyde, and Wade Durand (incorrectly) as Wayne. The Mainspring Press asserts that “the usual members of this group were Jerry Adams, Hampton Durand, Walter Howard, Ned Nestor, Clyde Shugart, and Percy Stoner,” with that information apparently recorded in Brunswick ledgers from their session with that company.
C. Shugart is listed as the vocalist on the label of “Sadie Green Vamp of New Orleans”, confirming his presence in the Harmaniacs. He may have also played kazoo and possibly banjo. Rust’s identification of Shugart as playing jug is likely incorrect, as jug can be heard during his vocal on “Sadie Green”. It is also certain that Walter Howard was the vocalist on “What Makes My Baby Cry?”, and surviving evidence indicates that he played the guitar as well. With Jerry Adams listed on comb in both sources, he most likely did in fact fill that role, and may have doubled on banjo. It would not have been uncommon in this type of band for each member to have played more than one instrument, and they may have switched back and forth periodically. As all sources confirm Howard, Shugart, and Adams as members, there is little evidence to cast doubt on their presence, but the identities of the other members are unconfirmed, at least in my research.
Walter Howard was born in 1897 and hailed from Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. His brother Edgar, who played banjo, was also a musician of some merit. Wade Hampton Durand was born in Indiana in 1877, and was working in music as early as the turn of the century. In 1918, he worked as a musical director in Los Angeles, and by 1940, he was an arranger in New York, living in a hotel that played host to a host of other musicians. Durand died in 1964. While Durand is confirmed as the co-composer of “Coney Island Washboard” and “Sleepy Blues”, his instrumental role in the Harmaniacs, if any, is uncertain. It has also been posited that Jerry Adams real name was Harold Whitacre.
The two discs, four sides, featured in this post account for the Five Harmaniacs’ full recorded output for the Victor Talking Machine Company.
Victor 20293 was recorded September 17, 1926 in New York City. C. Shugart (be it Clyde or Claude) provides the vocals on pop hit “Sadie Green Vamp of New Orleans”.
Sadie Green Vamp of New Orleans, recorded September 17, 1926 by the Five Harmaniacs.
On the other side, they play the first ever recording of the now classic “Coney Island Washboard”, composed by Durand and Adams, with words by Shugart and Ned Nestor, as an instrumental.
Coney Island Washboard, recorded September 17, 1926 by the Five Harmaniacs.
The Harmaniacs returned to the Victor studio five months later and recorded Victor 20507 on February 5, 1927. Walter Howard recites the vocal on the rollicking “What Makes My Baby Cry?”.
What Makes My Baby Cry?, recorded February 8, 1927 by the Five Harmaniacs.
On the flip, they back it up with the little bit bluer sounding instrumental “It Takes a Good Woman (To Keep a Good Man at Home)”.
It Takes a Good Woman (To Keep a Good Man at Home), recorded February 8, 1927 by the Five Harmaniacs.
Updated on December 1, 2016, June 24, 2017, and April 29, 2018.
On June 26, we celebrate the probable birthday of blues legend Big Bill Broonzy. As is the case with many early blues players, such as Lemon Jefferson, the exact date of his birth is disputed; Broonzy himself claimed to have been born in 1893, but family records stated a more probable date of 1903. There is also mystery surrounding his place of birth, while Broonzy stated his hometown as Scott, Mississippi, recent research suggests he may have come from Arkansas.
Whatever the true details may be, Big Bill grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and learned from his uncle to play a homemade cigar box fiddle, which he played at local social functions. In 1920, as many Southern black people did at the time, Broonzy emigrated to Chicago in search of new opportunity, where he switched from fiddle to guitar, mentored by Papa Charlie Jackson. In Chicago, Broonzy worked odd jobs while trying make it as a musician. In 1927, he got his break when Charlie Jackson helped him l get an audition with J. Mayo Williams of Paramount Records, and after several rejected tests, made his first released records with his friend John Thomas as “Big Bill and Thomps”. Though his records sold poorly for the first few years, sales eventually began to pick up as he gained popularity in the Chicago blues scene in the 1930s, even playing in John Hammond’s From Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938 and ’39, with his style evolving from his rural roots to a more urban style all the while. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Big Bill recorded steadily, both solo and as an accompanist. In the late 1940s into the 1950s, Broonzy became a part of the folk music revival occurring at that time, and he toured abroad in the 1950s, starting in Europe in 1951. His autobiography, written with the help of Yannick Bruynoghe, was published in 1955. Broonzy died of throat cancer in August of 1958.
Perfect 0207 was recorded March 29 and 30, 1932 in New York City, at Big Bill’s first and second session for the American Record Corporation under his own name (excepting some 1930 recordings under the name Sammy Sampson and as a part of the Hokum Boys). The Jug Busters side features W.E. “Buddy” Burton on kazoo, piano by Black Bob Hudson, and Jimmy Bertrand on washboard. The identity of the jug player is unknown.
“How You Want it Done?”, recorded March 29, is a fantastic side with stupendous flatpicked guitar by Big Bill, an unusual method for blues playing. It’s likely that Broonzy picked up this song, along with its flatpicking style, from his contemporary Louie Lasky, who later recorded it in 1935, though Bill recorded it earlier. Big Bill first recorded this song in 1930 for Gennett, then for Paramount in ’31 (of which no copies have been located) This recording was also featured on the last record in Vocalion’s race series (1745). It remained in Broonzy’s repertoire for many years, and he was filmed performing it in 1957.
How You Want it Done?, recorded March 29, 1932 by Big Bill.
Recorded one day after the first side, Big Bill is accompanied by a jug band on “M & O Blues”, referring of course to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. The authorship of this song is often credited to Walter Davis. It’s worth noting that there was another “M & O Blues” sung by legendary Delta bluesman Willie Brown which was an entirely different song. Though the label looks prettier, this side unfortunately has some pretty bad stripped grooves that make a lot of noise in brief but quite intrusive passages, but it does clean up a bit as it plays. Heck, the Document Records transfer is quite noisy, so cut me a little slack!
M & O Blues, recorded March 30, 1932 by Big Bill & his Jug Busters.
Thanks to the release of the free version of Brian Rust’s Jazz Records 1917-1934, I found myself rather preoccupied as of late, and neglected to post in honor of Gene Austin’s birthday, so I’ll have to offer this a little belatedly.
Gene Austin was born Lemuel Eugene Lucas in Gainesville, Texas on June 24, 1900. He grew up in Minden, Louisiana, and learned to play guitar and piano before leaving home at fifteen to join a vaudeville troupe in Houston, Texas. When he got on stage, his voice wooed the audience so that he was offered a job on the spot. In 1917, he joined the Army to fight in the War and wound up in New Orleans, playing piano in Storyville before shipping off. When he got back home, he planned to become a dentist, but ended up going back to vaudeville. Austin first began recording with country musician George Reneau, the “Blind Musician of the Smoky Mountains”, for Vocalion and Edison, singing and playing piano, and soon switched to Victor. With the advent of electrical recording, Gene Austin was among the first singers to exploit the more sensitive technique as a “crooner”. His 1927 recording of “My Blue Heaven” was one the best selling and most popular records of the decade. As the ominous clouds of the Great Depression rolled in, Austin was relegated to the budget labels, and as swing became prominent, his style soon began to sound dated. In the mid-1930s, he began appearing in minor roles in motion pictures. Austin continue to sing professionally for many years after falling from the spotlight, and in 1964, ran for governor of Nevada. Besides his singing, Gene Austin was also a songwriter, and originated such standards as “When My Sugar Walks Down the Street”, “How Come You Do Me Like You Do?”, and “The Lonesome Road”. Austin died January 24, 1972 at the age of seventy-one.
Hit of the Week L 3 was recorded in October of 1931 in New York, and released at the newsstands on November 19, 1931. It was Gene Austin’s only Hit of the Week release. These Hit of the Week records were pressed in coated paper and sold for fifteen cents at newsstands. We previously heard Duke Ellington’s band on one of these unusual flexible discs. As part of the latter half of Hit of the Week’s releases, this disc has narrower grooves to accommodate a five minute recording on one side.
On this single sided cardboard record, Gene Austin croons “Now That You’re Gone”. The second tune, “La Paloma” is an instrumental by the Hit of the Week Orchestra.
Now That You’re Gone, recorded October 1931 by Gene Austin and Hit of the Week Orchestra.
Today we honor the consummate bandleader Guy Lombardo, whose Royal Canadians were a staple on records and radio for many decades—and who better to help celebrate the occasion than old Der Bingle?
Gaetano Alberto Lombardo was born in London, Ontario on June 19, 1902. His father had each of his children learn to play different instruments so they could accompany his singing. The Lombardo brothers put their first orchestra together when they were still children, and they first played in public in 1914. Ten years later, Guy Lombardo and his Orchestra made their first recordings for the Starr Piano Company in Richmond, Indiana, released on the Gennett label. After Gennett, the Royal Canadians recorded briefly for Brunswick, which yielded two issued sides on Vocalion in 1927, and then with Columbia, with whom he stayed until 1931. Following his engagement with Columbia, he took his band to Brunswick from 1932 to ’34, then to Decca, as many Brunswick artists did after former employee Jack Kapp founded the company. The Royal Canadians switched to Victor for a period, before returning to Decca in 1938. Lombardo’s was perhaps most famous for his New Years Eve shows, which began at the Roosevelt Hotel in 1929, and continued until after his death, with the tradition carried on by his band, despite competition from Dick Clark. Though Lombardo’s “sweet” style of music was derided by many jazz fans who preferred their music served hot, he was reportedly hailed by the likes of both Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Guy Lombardo died of a heart attack on November 5, 1977.
Brunswick 6472 was recorded January 12, 1933 in New York City by Bing Crosby accompanied by Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadians. Both songs originate from the 1933 musical film 42nd Street.
First, Bing croons “Young and Healthy”, with Lombardo’s Royal Canadians in fine form.
Young and Healthy, recorded January 12, 1933 by Bing Crosby with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.
On the flip-side, Lombardo takes top billing on “You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me”.
You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me, recorded Janury 12, 1933 by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians with Bing Crosby.
