Old
Curiosity Shop
By Bob Davis dnry122@yahoo.com
Old Curiosity Shop Blues Blast for
2021
Bobby Boy has found some more “oldies but
goodies” in the record racks and CD stacks in the Old Curiosity
Shop.
Back in 1955 my father had a special
assignment during the Christmas rush at the San Marino Post Office:
He was upgraded to supervisor of the temporary night crew (his
normal job was senior clerk). One of the other employees had
installed a sound system, which was usually tuned to an elevator
music station on the FM band. Pappy didn't think this was the right
stuff for a night shift, "That damn fiddle-squeakin' music will put
you to sleep!" He found that the AM band had swingin' rhythm and
blues presented by the now legendary Huggie Boy (Dick Hugg), whose
boast during the midnight to 4 a.m. program was "Nobody sleeps while
this show's on!!" This was when Little Richard, Chuck Berry and many
other artists were laying the foundation for the Rock Era.
I was in high school, and Huggie Boy soon
provided the soundtrack for late-night studying. I also learned
about the "Johnny Otis Show" and Hunter Hancock's "Harlematinee."
(This was about the same time that folks back east were tuning in to
Alan Freed). I took to hanging around the local music store, where I
became what would now be called a "resource person." The owners of
the store were more into the big band era, with some interest in
Latin American dance music (mambo, cha-cha-cha, etc.) and I would
help them identify some of the R&B and rock 'n roll that the
teenagers were asking for. In 1957 they offered me a job as
part-time sales clerk at $1 an hour plus a discount on record
purchases.
In those days we still sold a few of the 78
RPM platters, but most of the business was 45RPM singles for the
teenagers and 12" LPs for the adults. Quite a number of the rarer
numbers in my collection were bought when they decided to close out
the 78s; of course most of them are now on CDs-- something that
would have been science fiction when transistor radios were just
becoming popular.
As the years have gone by, my record
collecting has gone in fits and starts-- sometimes an active quest,
other times taking a back seat to my other great interest,
railroading. Of course there are quite a few blues songs with trains
as an essential element: "Mean Ol' Frisco Blues," "She Caught the
Katy" and "Midnight Special."
One morning I was driving along Folsom Blvd.
in Sacramento, when the country music station came on with "Folsom
Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash. On a later trip to Northern
California, I was driving through the Sacramento River delta just at
sunset, when my car tape sequenced into "St. Louis Blues"-- the 1924
version by Bessie Smith ("I hate to see--- that evening sun go
down----"). To borrow a line from the late Lowell Fulson, "The blues
is my companion, every night, every day.
1. Mournful
Serenade by Jelly Roll Morton. Back when I was
given an old AM/FM radio, one of the shows I listened to played old
blues records. I’ve forgotten whether it was a college station or
KMET, but this was their opening theme.
2. I
Believe by Elmore James: One of my all-time
favorite blues recordings, one of those “wish I could have been
there” sessions.
3. Every
Day I Have the Blues by Fleetwood Mac: Elmore James
was one of the inspirations for the original Fleetwood Mac, it was
almost like Jeremy Spencer was channeling him with his slide
guitar. This song goes back to the 1930s and has been recorded by
many artists. What makes this track special is that although Mr.
James had passed in 1964, when Fleetwood Mac was in Chicago in 1969,
they found J. T. Brown, who played tenor sax on “I Believe” and got
him to sit in.
4. My
Girlfriend Blues by Terraplane Special. A local
band that gets its name from a Robert Johnson song recorded in the
1930s. Terraplane was a low priced model of Hudson that replaced
the Essex in the Hudson lineup. I discovered the band when they
appeared at one of Terry Okey’s Second Sundays shows at Adams Pack
Station in Southern California.
5. Silver
Train by the Rolling Stones: “Goats Head Soup” is a
weird name for an album, but it’s where you’ll find this throwback
to the early days of the Stones with slide guitar and boogie bass.
6. Tin
Pan Alley by Jimmy Wilson: From Robert Geddins’ Big
Town Records in Oakland, some heavy blues. We could do a segue to
“Hastings Street,” “Lonely Avenue” and “Key to the Highway.”
7. Meet
Me with Your Black Dress On by Jimmy T-99 Nelson: I
was reminded of this song some years ago when Jenn “Funkyjenn”
Gibbons was one of the guest performers with Adam Marsland’s Chaos
Band shows. She was wearing a slinky black dress, and at the break
I told her that it reminded me of this song. She asked, “Who
recorded it?” and I said “several artists” to which she replied,
“Oh, it’s like a standard” “Yeah, a blues standard.”
8. Highway
61 Blues by Sampson Pittman. Alan Lomax recorded
this in Detroit back in 1938 as part of a Library of Congress folk
music preservation project. I heard about it when a YouTube
algorithm brought it to my attention. Some wicked guitar playing,
probably on a resonator axe. I’ve been on Highway 61, taking it
from Memphis to Clarksdale, Mississippi in 2011. Later that year we
would have encountered the Blues Highway far from the Mississippi
Delta on the east side of Iowa during our second cross-country motor
home trip.
9. Reconsider
Baby by Elvis Presley. I just received a
compilation CD set of Elvis’ recordings of R&B songs. Many of his
early, and some of his later tracks were from the 1950s and even 40s
R&B catalog; indeed his first commercial recording was an old Arthur
“Big Boy” Crudup song, “That’s All Right Mama.” This was written
and first recorded by Lowell Fulson, whom we will meet on the next
track.
10.
Why Don’t We Do It in the Road by
Lowell Fulson. To some extent the British rockers of the 1960s
followed a trail blazed by American blues artists in the
1950s. Then Lowell Fulson, who wrote “Reconsider Baby” in 1954,
returns the favor by covering a Lennon-McCartney number in 1969.
11.
My Baby Left Me by
Arthur Crudup. Another song covered by Elvis, this time in one of
his first recording sessions for RCA Victor in 1956.
12.
Bacon Fat by
Andre Williams. This song comes to mind when we’re watching a
cooking show on TV and the title subject is mentioned.
13.
Boogie Woogie Country Girl by
Joe Turner. One of Big Joe Turner’s later releases, I used to play
it at Friday night dances in the San Luis Obispo Recreational Center
on Santa Rosa Street back in 1958.
14.
Calling All Cows by
the Blues Rockers. . . Back in 1958-59, I was a student at Cal
Poly San Luis Obispo, a school noted for its engineering and
agriculture programs, and sometimes called “Cow Poly.” One of the
dorms I lived in was way up on a hillside, near one of the grazing
areas. There seemed to be one cow who was the “spokescow” for the
herd, because she was usually “mooing” about something. There’s a
story about two young men from the Los Angeles area who were
planning to major in an engineering field, and they had heard good
things about Cal Poly. They made arrangements to discuss their
plans with a faculty member, and drove up to the campus. US 101 can
be a real traffic nightmare at times, but this day all the usual
trouble spots were OK and they arrived in San Luis quite
early. They went to the instructor’s office, and were told “I have
a class right now. This would be a good time to take a look around
the campus. Then you could come back in an hour or so.” They
started exploring and wound up at a corral where they were puzzled
by the animal on the other side of the fence. One of the Ag majors
saw them and said “Howdy! If you fellers have any questions, maybe
I can answer them.” “Why yes, we do have a question. How come that
cow doesn’t have any horns?” “Could be any one of several
reasons. Often, we remove the horns when they’re young so they
can’t hurt each other if they get into a fight. Some breeds don’t
grow horns— kinda like they’re genetic’ly programmed for no
horns. And sometimes a cow will lose a horn in an accident. The
reason why that cow doesn’t have horns is because it’s a horse.”
15.
I’m a Hog for You by
the Coasters. Takes me back to my days working for the Santa Fe in
San Bernardino. Around midnight a Union Pacific freight train would
come through with 8 to 12 carloads of porkers bound for the Farmer
John plant in Vernon, California. It also reminds me of “Convoy” by
C. W. McCall and the reference to “Pigpen” with his Jimmy (GMC
truck) hauling a load of hogs.
16.
Warm Your Heart by
the Drifters. The flip side of “Honey Love,” common practice in the
1950s was to have a jumpin’ side and a dreamy/slow dancing side on
R&B records.
17.
Ruby Baby by the
Drifters: One of the many Lieber & Stoller compositions in my
collection, more widely known from the cover by Dion in 1963.
18.
TV Mama by Joe
Turner with Elmore James. The Boss of the Blues and the King of the
Slide Guitar! Recorded in Chicago in 1953, back in the days when TV
sets were just starting to become common in American household (I
don’t think we got one until 1954). We could do a segue to “TV Is
the Thing This Year” by Dinah Washington, then go to “Tele-Vee-Shun”
by Stan Freberg.
19.
Baby What You Want Me to Do by
Jimmy Reed. Long before Bob Dylan combined harmonica and guitar
played by the same person, Jimmy Reed was making hit records for
VeeJay in Chicago. Covered numerous times, including by Elvis
Presley back in the 1960s, when meant it could be included in the
last Elvis Birthday Bash in January 2019. I also saw Tracy Dawn
include it in a show a few years ago in Burbank.
20.
I’m Bewildered by
Richard Berry. An R&B classic that I probably first heard on Hunter
Hancock’s LA radio show in early 1956. But it wasn’t until 1981
that I was in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania and bought a copy at Val
Shively’s treasure trove of old 45s and brought it home on Amtrak as
part of the “No Scene Twice Seen Tour.”
21.
WPLJ by the Four
Deuces. I have a copy of this obscure product of Ray Dobard’s Music
City label in Berkeley. It was brought to the attention of a larger
group of music fans when Frank Zappa and his Mothers of Invention
recorded a tribute version in 1972. This abbreviated name for a
low-rent district drink was later adopted by a New York radio
station for its call letters.
22.
Walkin’ After Midnight by
Otis Williams. Is it country or R&B? It was Patsy Cline’s first
big hit, but it was also recorded for DeLuxe Records by Otis
Williams and the Charms a short time later in 1957, reversing the
usual order of white artists covering R&B songs (and sometimes
rewriting the lyrics to “tone them down”)
23.
Shake Your Moneymaker by
Elmore James. Who would have expected this song title to show up in
an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess?
24.
Night Beat by The
Chanceteers. A jazz-infused number first released on Chance Records
of Chicago in 1951. I heard the re-release on the Chess label in
1956, probably on Hunter Hancock’s radio show. A cool number to
close out our session.
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