Hen Gates And His Gaters - Rock And Roll No. 2 (Plymouth P-12-149)

It’s exploitation a go-go as the Hen Gates saga continues, thanks to this second Plymouth LP of the mysterious Mr Gates. Thanks very much to the anonymous sax fan who sent this in, and he is a different anonymous sax fan from the one who kicked the whole Hen Gates thing off a few posts back.

Track 5, “Madeira Roll”, is Freddie Mitchell’s “Hot Ice”. Track 10 “Rock Daddy Rock” is also a definite Freddie Mitchell track with a new title – “Madera Hop”. Track 11 “Bee Bee Roll” is “Leapin’ On Lenox” by Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. If you’ve been following the Hen Gates posts you’ll know that these 3 tracks turned up on the previous Plymouth Gates LP “Rock And Roll”, and here they are again.

I’m not going to attempt to make any more match ups of the tracks here with the previous Hen Gates and Freddie Mitchell posts, for that road leads to certain insanity. However don’t hesitate to try it for yourselves!

Mojo Killian has kindly sent in more information with match ups between the tracks on this LP and those on previous Hen Gates LPs, especially the Masterseal album.

Thanks, Mojo and here we go:

Ok, folks, here's what I found out:
1. Moondog Rock = Rock Me Sugar on Masterseal LP "Let's All Dance to Rock and Roll"
2. Stompin' And Rockin' = Love To Rock With You on Masterseal LP
3. The Big Fish = Choo Choo Rock from Masterseal LP
4. Move It = Rock'n And Walk'n on Masterseal LP
5. Madeira Roll = Hold It on "Rock And Roll" (Plymouth 144) = Hot Ice
6. Sneaky Pete = T.N.T. on "Rock And Roll"
7. Go Everybody = Juke Box Rock on Masterseal LP
8. Till Tom Rock = Rock Around Rosie on Masterseal LP
9. Swinging To The Rock And Roll = The New Rock on Masterseal LP
10. Rock Daddy Rock = Rockin' & Rollin' Hop on "Rock And Roll" (Plymouth 144)
11. Bee Bee Roll = Look And Listen on "Rock And Roll" (= Leapin' On Lenox)
12. Zing Zang Roll = Bear Walk on "Rock And Roll"

Mojo Kilian

Ripped from vinyl by our anonymous friend at 160kbps. Password = greaseyspoon

Download from here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/379737512/Rock_And_Roll_No_2.rar

Or from here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V64SQXFK

1. Moondog Rock
2. Stompin' And Rockin'
3. The Big Fish
4. Move It
5. Madeira Roll
6. Sneaky Pete
7. Go Everybody
8. Till Tom Rock
9. Swinging To The Rock And Roll
10. Rock Daddy Rock
11. Bee Bee Roll
12. Zing Zang Roll

Record Store Day in a Mixed Up City

Saturday 17th April 2010 is the day we celebrate the continued existence of our local independent record stores. Three Glasgow shops are listed as UK participants: Avalanche Records, Monorail Music and Mixed Up Records. There’ll be live music and limited edition discs on sale, so if you’re in the Glasgow area tomorrow, get yourself along to one or all of these worthy venues. Full list of participating UK stores here:

http://www.recordstoreday.com/Venues?country=United%20Kingdom

Mixed Up Records got a mention on the original Be Bop Wino blog way back last autumn, for it is situated in Otago Lane in the West End of Glasgow. As I mentioned back then, this little area of niche businesses on the banks of the River Kelvin is under threat from a proposed development of “luxury” flats. More details can be found here on the Save Otago Lane website:

http://saveotagolane.co.uk/

As I was feeling guilty about failing to mark last year’s Record Store Day in any way, shape or form, I pissed off from work early this afternoon and took a subway ride across the city to check out the jazz and blues vinyl at Mixed Up Records. I thought I’d also take a few pixelly photos on my phone camera to give Be Bop Winos the wide world over a flavour of what our City Council and its property developer friends can’t wait to destroy. So here’s a few photies taken around the area.

I hope you get the flavour of this wonderful higgledy piggledy mixture of mid-Victorian terraces and houses, late Victorian tenements, mews buildings, workshops, etc. Obviously it’s just the kind of place that’s crying out for a massive development of apartment blocks which will totally overshadow all those horrible old buildings.

Innumerable developments of crap flats have sprouted fungus-like all over the city in the last 15 years or so. Odd that they are nearly all advertised as “executive” apartments. Will ordinary, non-executive people still be allowed to live in Glasgow in the future? Will the Be Bop Wino be driven into exile by a combination of the forces of crass commercialism and his own inability to achieve executive status?

Whatever happens, I’m gonna be thumbing through those vinyl bins right to the very end. Say no to corporate arrogance by supporting your local independent record store! Crate dig your way to the Revolution! Every vinyl record purchased and reclaimed from the local landfill site is a blow against The Man! BTW my visit to Mixed Up was successful - I scored an Illinois Jacquet LP.

Jack McVea & His All Stars - Open The Door Richard!

Tenor saxman Jack McVea was always there or thereabouts in the Los Angeles jazz / rhythm & blues scene of the 1940s. He was in the Lionel Hampton big band line-up which recorded “Flying Home”, the number which first brought Illinois Jacquet to the attention of sax fans. He took the first sax solo on “Blues” at the first ever Jazz At The Philharmonic concert, but Illinois took the second sax solo and in a few moments of blasting, screeching, crowd-pleasing madness, Jacquet had defined the future of jazz and R&B tenor sax styling. McVea was on “Slim’s Jam”, along with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Slim Gaillard, and managed to slip in a reference to “Open The Door, Richard!” about a year before he recorded his own hit version of the comedy stage routine.



In 1943 he left Hampton to form one of the first small jump bands in LA and not only released records under his own name, but also provided backing for Wynonie Harris on Apollo Records and T-Bone Walker on Black & White. It was for the latter record company that McVea made the record that was to become one of the biggest selling and most covered records of 1947 – “Open The Door Richard!” While working for the Lionel Hampton outfit a few years before, McVea had toured with a comic called Dusty Fletcher, part of whose stage routine consisted of playing a drunken reveller trying to gain entry to his appartment by rousing his slumbering roommate who happens to have the only key to the front door.

McVea worked up a little spoken musical number for his band’s live act based on the Fletcher routine and recorded it for Black & White in September 1946. The record was released at the end of the year and became a monster seller in 1947, inspiring covers by Louis Jordan, Count Basie and Dusty Fletcher himself. Of course Jack saw very little of the royalties, most of which vanished thanks to some creative accountancy by the record company. McVea’s last recording session for Black & White took place in March of 1947. In November and December of 1947 he recorded several sessions for Exclusive and then took to club work in locations as far apart as Honolulu, Alaska, Las Vegas, and even LA.

Jack signed up with Jake Porter’s Combo Records in 1953. His band was very much the house band at Combo, recording not only under Jack’s name, but also under various guises such as Jonesy’s Combo. They were on Combo’s biggest selling disc, the original version of “Ko Ko Mo” by Gene & Eunice, but once again saw little in the way of royalty payments. As the 1950s wound to a close, so did Jack’s recording career and by the early 1960s he was making a living as a junkman. In 1966 he took up an engagement as clarinet player in a small Dixieland jazz group at Disneyland. It was a gig that lasted until 1992 when Jack finally retired from the music scene. He died in December 2000.

This is a re-up of an LP originally posted on the old Be Bop Wino blog, but with all new cover scans, including the complete gatefold sleeve.

Ripped from vinyl at 320 kbps. I made extensive use of clicking and crackling elimination, which may or may not be a good thing.

Download from here:

http://www20.zippyshare.com/v/zWoIoeVl/file.html

1. Bartender Boogie (Black & White 750)
2. Tarrant Blues (Apollo 370)*
3. O-Kay For Baby (Apollo 761)
4. We're Together Again (Apollo 366)*
5. Ooh Mop (Black & White 750)
6. Don't Blame Me (Apollo 761)
7. Frisco Blues (Black & White 751)
8. Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying (Black & White 793)
9. Open The Door Richard! (Black & White 792)
10. Wine-O (Black & White 751)
11. Inflation Blues (Exclusive 260)
12. Groovin' Boogie (Black & White 810)
13. No, No, You Can't Do Dot Mon (Exclusive 266)
14. Jack Frost (Exclusive 266)
15. Mumblin' Blues (Exclusive 270)
16. The Key's In The Mailbox (Black & White 828)

* credited to Rabon Tarrant



More platters that matter -

On the blog: “New Deal” (Jukebox Lil 625) which has more early Jack McVea sides.



Recommended purchases:

“McVoutie’s Central Avenue Blues” (Delmark DE-756)



Compilation of Apollo sides. Includes sides credited to Wynonie Harris, Cee Pee Johnson, Wild Bill Moore and Duke Henderson.

“Fortissimo! The Combo Recordings 1954 -57” (Ace CDCHD 1246)

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis = Hen Gates Shock!!!

Thanks to “Hamfat” who commented on the Hen Gates and His Gaters “Rock and Roll” post, we now know that a couple of the tracks on that album are not old Freddie Mitchell masters bought from Derby, but are in fact Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis tracks recorded for Lenox in 1947.

The tracks in question are “Back Bone” and “Look and Listen.” Hamfat suggested that they were in fact “Leapin’ On Lenox” and “Lockjaw’s Bounce.” My thoughts after listening to the Lenox tracks on the excellent Chronological Classics CD “Eddie Lockjaw Davis 1946 – 1947” are that “Back Bone” is “Minton’s Madhouse” and “Look and Listen” is indeed “Leapin’ On Lenox.”

I am still not totally convinced that all the tracks on the “Let’s All Dance To Rock and Roll” LP are Freddie Mitchell masters from Derby. The only two tracks I could identify for sure as such are “Great Gates Rock” and “Lose” which are “Cold Heat” and “Doby’s Boogie” respectively. These are the two tracks which aren’t listed on the LP sleeve and in my opinion the remaining 12 tracks sound different, more like mid 50s tracks than recordings from 1949 – 1952 which were the years Freddie Mitchell was at Derby. The two definite Mitchell tracks also turn up again on the “Rock and Roll” LP. Here is an update on the list of tracks from “Rock And Roll” whose origins are now known:

Track 1, “Stop” is “Pony Express”, recorded 1950/51, originally released on Derby 725

Track 3 "Look Out" is "Lockjaw's Bounce" (Lockjaw Davis), recorded in 1947, unreleased on single

Track 4 “Hold It” is “Hot Ice” (minus intro), recorded December 1951, originally released on Derby 777

Track 5 “The Creep” is “Doby’s Boogie”, recorded in 1949, originally released on Derby 713

Track 8 “Rockin’ and Rollin’ Hop” is “Madera Hop”, recorded in December 1951, originally released on Derby 807

Track 9 “Back Bone” is “Minton’s Madhouse” (Lockjaw Davis), recorded in 1947, originally released on Lenox 515

Track 10 “Look And Listen” is “Leapin’ On Lenox” (Lockjaw Davis), recorded in 1947, originally released on Lenox 502

Track 11 “Bunny Rock” is “Cold Heat” (minus intro), recorded in 1952, originally released on Derby 793

Track 12 "Bear Walk" is "Lockjaw's Bounce" (Lockjaw Davis), recorded in 1947, unreleased on single

The Chronological Classics CD lists several Lockjaw Davis tracks recorded for Lenox being released on Remington and Plymouth. See the comments section on the “Rock And Roll” post for details. Can anyone add any more information which could help us nail the mystery of Hen Gates for once and for all?

PS - sorry for the slightly misleading and sensationalist headline. I'm hoping to get a job on "The Scotsman" newspaper. Or failing that, a position with BBC Scotland.