Savin' Those Sounds - Blues On 78 (re-up)

Side One

1. Rockin' With Red - Piano Red

2. Possum Hunt - Smokey Hogg

3. Off The Wall - Little Walter

4. Don't Start Me Talking - Sonny Boy Williamson

5. Boogie Chillen' - John Lee Hooker

6. Honey Honey Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins

7. Walking The Blues - Willie Dixon

Side Two

1. If You're Mine - Willie Dixon

2. Tell Me Mama - Little Walter

3. Sally Mae - John Lee Hooker

4. Moonrise Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins

5. Red's Boogie - Piano Red

6. Let's Get Together And Drink Some Gin - Smokey Hogg

7. All My Love In Vain - Sonny Boy Williamson

Ripped from shellac at 128 kbps by El Enmascarado

New download link:

http://www84.zippyshare.com/v/tbde3l2o/file.html

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NEW NEW download link with no password:

http://www12.zippyshare.com/v/thsW6mgP/file.html

Original post (November 2011):

http://bebopwinorip.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/blues-on-78-album.html

This re-up of the blues "LP" compiled from El Enmascarado's rips from shellac 78 rpm discs represents the last-but-one stage in the recovery of the posts featuring the "mp3s from 78s" sent in by The Masked One. At present the "latest news" section in the blog sidebar contains the complete list of posts of these 1940s/50s 10 inch shellac discs, all of which have had new streaming audio installed following the collapse of Divshare.

Of course this will soon no longer be "latest news" and therefore I am presently constructing a new page which will list links to all the 78 posts plus links to the downloadable compilations of these rare discs. It will be a "one stop shop" for this unforgettable series of glimpses into R&B history.

The demise of Divshare has been a heavy blow to the blog as its streaming audio widget was on many posts. I've prioritized El Enmascarado's rips for new streaming audio, just as I prioritized the Joan Selects series for re-ups following the final disintegration of Rapidshare. I feel that this is only fair as both Joan and The Masked One put in a tremendous amount of work to bring rare sounds to Be Bop Wino.

Re-ups have dominated the blog for months now, but I hope to post some new stuff soon. One thing I noticed while uploading the 78 rpm singles to Box, was that in general they had more audio presence than rips from 1980s reissue vinyl. This was especially noticeable when listening to Sonny Boy Williamson's "Don't Start Me Talking" / "All My Love In Vain". The 78 version just had so much more whomp than the mp3s I had of these tracks from a 1980s "Chess Masters" 2LP set. And this was the despite the fact that the vinyl rips were at a much higher bit rate.

There's much talk these days of a vinyl revival, but c'mon folks, let's get back to shellac! That's where the action is!

Everything I Do Is Wrong / Don't You Want A Man Like Me - B.B. "Blues Boy" King And His Orchestra (RPM 411)

Both tracks recorded in Los Angeles in February / March 1954. Released on RPM 411 in June 1954.

Listen to "Everything I Do Is Wrong"

Listen to "Don't You Want A Man Like Me"

We're back with another El Enmascarado "Blues on 78" post. Sound quality is a bit rough on these shellac rips but the Masked One has performed a minor miracle to fashion listenable mp3s, especially on "Don't You Want A Man Like Me" which had a persistent sticky on the disc surface. Over to the Masked One who has consented to address his adoring R&B public in between suffering horrendous defeats in the wrestling ring, usually at the hands of tag teams consisting of small shrieking girls:

Don't You Want a Man Like Me has a bit of the dreaded Victrola Tonearm syndrome, but I went with it. B.B.'s chords behind the tenor sax solo are interesting- on first listen I thought it was a steel guitar of some sort. Notice how much the band speeds up at 1:58 when they shift back to the Latin feel. You gotta love old school Everybody In The Room At Once-style recording!

"Don't You Want a Man Like Me" was a rerecording of a number first recorded by B.B. in 1951. The title harks back to Walter Brown's "Confessin' The Blues" recorded with the Jay McShann Orchestra in 1941. The line also occurs in another 1941 recording, "Take Me Back Baby" sung by Jimmy Rushing with the Count Basie Orchestra.

1954 was a good year for B.B. King. He had two big hits with "You Upset Me Baby" and "My Heart Beats Like a Hammer." This disc wasn't quite up there with the other two, but still sold well in some locations.

Rockin' And Rollin' / Peace Breaking People - Lil' Son Jackson (Imperial 5113)

Recorded on the 16th December, 1950, in Houston, Texas. Personnel: Lil' Son Jackson (vocal, guitar).

Listen to "Rockin' And Rollin'"

Listen to "Peace Breaking People"

Blues on 78 is back with another El Enmascarado offering, ripped from the original 78 rpm shellac disc.

Released in March 1951, "Rockin' and Rollin'" was a territorial tip in Billboard for the Dallas area. Although it wasn't a big hit, this record became very influential, generating a good cover version by Jesse Allen in 1954 and various versions by Muddy Waters throughout the 1950s, including "I Want You To Love Me" in 1954 and "Rock Me" in 1956.

The best known version is probably "Rock Me, Baby" by B.B. King which was a hit in 1964. The relaxed but insistent beat also inspired several Slim Harpo recordings such as "I'm A King Bee" and of course Jimi Hendrix performed a 100 mph version at Monterey.


Billboard, May 5th, 1951

It's probable that Lil' Son Jackson had a 1944 recording of "Rock Me Mama" by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup in mind when he composed "Rockin' and Rollin'. Anyway it's a great blues which has little to do with what we think of as rock and roll music but leaves us in little doubt as to what that phrase really meant.

With thanks once more to El Enmascarado.

Blues on 78 - the album!

By popular demand - the seven shellac 78 rpm discs sent in by El Enmascarado have now been collected into LP form for downloading, complete with album art! As well as the music in mp3 format, the download contains a folder of the label shots of each side. Carefully programmed for your listening pleasure, this virtual LP will delight both the discerning connoisseur and the drink sodden. It's been played continuously on my Windows Media Player (with cross fading switched on) for the last week.

Track details are on the blog posts for each disc, so go copy and paste. Let's just sum up the "album" as a cornucopia of "real" blues, a style which was an important ingredient in the R&B scene of the 1940s and 1950s.

El Enmascarado has supplied enough shellac rips for a second volume of "Blues on 78" but before we embark on another blues session we have a rendezvous at the Pythian Temple ...

Side One
1. Rockin' With Red - Piano Red
2. Possum Hunt - Smokey Hogg
3. Off The Wall - Little Walter
4. Don't Start Me Talking - Sonny Boy Williamson
5. Boogie Chillen' - John Lee Hooker
6. Honey Honey Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins
7. Walking The Blues - Willie Dixon

Side Two
1. If You're Mine - Willie Dixon
2. Tell Me Mama - Little Walter
3. Sally Mae - John Lee Hooker
4. Moonrise Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins
5. Red's Boogie - Piano Red
6. Let's Get Together And Drink Some Gin - Smokey Hogg
7. All My Love In Vain - Sonny Boy Williamson

Ripped from shellac at 128 kbps by El Enmascarado

Download from here:

http://www12.zippyshare.com/v/thsW6mgP/file.html

Let's Get Together And Drink Some Gin / Possum Hunt - Smokey Hogg (Modern 20-783)

Listen to "Let's Get Together And Drink Some Gin"

Listen to "Possum Hunt"

Recorded in Los Angeles on July 18th, 1950. Personnel: Smokey Hogg (vocal and guitar); Dorothy Broyles (piano); Bill Davis (bass); Edward Hall (drums).

Released in December 1950. The Billboard review on the 9th December 1950 was less than enthusiastic: "Hogg does a so-so southern shout blues in slow tempo. Melody is in the "How Long" vein, lyric not especially strong."

However there was a much more enthusiastic review for the B-side, "Possum Hunt": "Romping boogie blues in the old tradition. Material is real southern back country stuff, honest and earthy. Hogg and combo do a zestful, happy job."

Billboard, December 9th, 1950

Fans of Young Jessie will recognise that "Possum Hunt" is the same song as "Rabbit On A Log" which was released by The Hunters on Flair in 1953. The country blues song was transformed into a frantic R&B rocker with stand out vocals by Richard Berry and Young Jessie, plus yelping hound dog sound effects and disorderly yelling by the rest of the group. It's hard to imagine a more different interpretation of the song which Smokey Hogg performs here.

Modern 20-783 didn't make any chart noise although "Possum Hunt" was a territorial tip in Atlanta in the January 27th 1951 edition of Billboard. In February 1951 Smokey left Modern and signed up with Mercury Records.

And with this disc my bluesin' and boozin' friends, we come to the end of the first round of El Enmascarado's "Blues On 78." I hope you've enjoyed these sounds as much as I have. Many thanks, oh masked one!

Honey Honey Blues / Moonrise Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins (Aladdin 3077)

Listen to "Honey Honey Blues"

Listen to "Moonrise Blues"

Both sides were recorded in Houston, Texas, in February 1948. This single was released in February 1951.

This is another in the "Blues on 78" series where we showcase rips from original shellac 78 rpm discs provided by El Enmascarado, and this time we're really going "down home." These sides are probably the rootsiest sounds to hit the blog so far. Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins' musical career began in the 1920s with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander. In 1946 he was discovered by Lola Anne Cullum who got him signed to Aladdin Records out in LA - she had already scouted Amos Milburn for the same label.

Although Lightnin's style harked back to the rough country blues of the 20s and 30s, he had a series of entries in the R&B charts in the late 1940s and early 1950s for Aladdin, Modern, Gold Star and Sittin' In With. This disc didn't chart, but it's a belter - with "Moonrise Blues" being an especially powerful doom-laden performance.

Says El Enmascarado: "A listen to the lyrics of Moonrise Blues makes it easy to guess that the song Bad Moon Rising "borrows" from it. It's one of the darkest Lightning Hopkins songs I can remember. He must have had a big fight with his girlfriend before leaving for the studio."

By way of contrast, "Honey Honey Blues" is an attractive little pleader with lovely guitar playing. There's more Lightnin' coming up in the series, so keep looking in on Be Bop Wino, the blog where the blues reigns!

Don't Start Me Talkin' / All My Love In Vain - Sonny Boy Williamson (Checker 824)

Recorded in Chicago on August 12th, 1955. Personnel: Sonny Boy Williamson (vcl and hca); Otis Spann (p); Muddy Waters (g); Jimmy Rogers (g); Willie Dixon (b); Fred Below (d).

Listen to "Don't Start Me Talkin'"

Listen to "All My Love In Vain"

Recorded at Sonny Boy Williamson's first session for the Chess label, and released on the Chess subsidiary Checker, "Don't Start Me Talkin'" hit the R&B charts in October / November 1955. On the November 12th issue of Billboard, it stood at number 9 in the retail sales chart, number 3 in the juke box plays chart and number 5 in the disc jockey plays chart. The record didn't start slipping down the charts until early December, so Sonny Boy's Chess debut was a considerable success.

1955 was an excellent year for Chess with a whole heap of hits for Sonny Boy, Little Walter, Willie Mabon, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and of course Chuck Berry whose "Maybellene" was the third top selling R&B disc of the year.

Many thanks to El Enmascarado for this post. Special mention must be made of his sterling persistence in getting a decent rip from the Victrola - worn shellac disc, especially from skip-skip afflicted "All My Love In Vain." Luckily for us El Enmascarado has a hi-tech solution to such problems - increase the tone arm weight. Back when a record was a record and not a mere intangible concatenation of bits and bytes, I used to sellotape coins to my tone arm so that it could plough through skips. Happy days.

Off The Wall / Tell Me Mama - Little Walter And His Jukes (Checker 770)

Listen to "Off The Wall"

Listen to "Tell Me Mama"

This double sided hit for Little Walter was recorded in Chicago in March 1953. The personnel were: Little Walter (harmonica, vocal); Louis Myers (g); Dave Myers (g); Willie Dixon (b); Fred Below (d).

"Off The Wall" / "Tell Me Mama" was one of a series of chart successes for Little Walter in 1953. In May 1952, while still a member of the Muddy Waters band, he had recorded the instrumental "Juke." Released as by "Little Walter and his Night Cats," it became a massive R&B hit in the autumn of 1952, spending two months in the number one spot. Little Walter left the Muddy Waters outfit to launch his own solo career, recruiting a band he christened "The Jukes" with Louis Myers on lead guitar, his brother Dave Myers on bass and Fred Below on drums.

"Juke" was no one off hit, for further success came in late 1952 and early 1953 with "Mean Old World" / "Sad Hours", both sides of which charted. The band toured intensively in the spring of 1953, returning to the studio in March. "Off The Wall" / "Tell Me Mama" was another double sided hit for Little Walter, with "Tell Me Mama" charting in April 1953 and "Off The Wall in May. In the autumn of 1953 there was another double sided hit for Little Walter with "Blues With A Feeling" / "Quarter To Twelve." As 1953 turned to 1954, "You're So Fine" continued the run of hits.

Ripped from the original 78 rpm shellac disc. Many thanks to El Enmascarado for this latest post in the "Blues On 78" series. There's even more in the pipeline!

Rockin' With Red / Red's Boogie - Piano Red (RCA Victor 22-0099)

Listen to "Rockin' With Red"


Listen to "Red's Boogie"

Both sides recorded in Atlanta on July 25th, 1950. Willie Lee Perryman (aka "Piano Red"), piano and vocal; William Jones, bass, William Green, drums.

Imagine my  deep joy when I wended my way home from the pub last night (with a belly full of Deuchar's IPA) to find this gem in my email inbox courtesy of El Enmascarado. Piano Red has been a longtime favourite of mine and pretty soon I was regaling the neighbours with multiple plays of "Rockin' With Red." Both sides of this disc were big R&B hits in early 1951, with "Rockin' With Red" reaching number 5 and "Red's Boogie" reaching number 4. Piano Red had three further chart hits in 1951, including the immortally risque "Right String But The Wrong Yo-Yo."

It's not just a cliche to say that this kind of music is timeless. Piano Red's musical career stretched back to the dawn of the 1930's and carried on through the R&B era into the early Rock and Roll period when he attracted a big following of rockers and then on into the early 1960s when he was reincarnated as Doctor Feelgood. He was still recording in the 1980s almost up until his death in July 1985.

You can imagine Piano Red pounding out these tracks in a saloon or bordello in the 1890s, never mind the 1950s!

Thanks to El Enmascarado for theses rips from a 78 disc and the label scans. I've added some 1950s EP covers on RCA and its subsidiary Groove sent in by Joan K. Thanks Joan.

And lastly we've just got time for another visit to El Enmascarado's record room where we can admire a heap of his latest shellac acquisitions - a sight to gladden the eye.

Walking The Blues / If You're Mine - Willie Dixon and The Allstars (Checker 822)

                                       

Listen to "Walking The Blues"

Listen to "If You're Mine"

Our "Blues on 78" series continues with this latest gem from El Enmascarado.

Released in July 1955, this disc was Willie Dixon's first solo disc. "If You're Mine" was recorded in May 1955 with Harold Ashby (tenor sax), Lafayette Leake (piano) and Fred Below (drums). "Walking The Blues" was recorded in June 1955 with Lafeyette Leake (piano) and Fred Below (footsteps).

"Walking The Blues" was a cover of the Champion Jack Dupree single on King, which had Mr. Bear doing the walking sounds. Champion Jack's version was the more successful, reaching number seven in the R&B best seller charts, and number six in the most played R&B records on juke boxes at the end of August 1955. In the same week the Willie Dixon version made it to number nine in the juke box plays chart.

Many thanks to El Enmascarado for these rips from the original 78 rpm shellac disc and also for the label scans.

Boogie Chillen’ / Sally May – John Lee Hooker (Modern 627)

Listen to "Boogie Chillen'"


Listen to "Sally May"

Recorded in Detroit in the second half of 1948, and released just before New Year, this primitive solo blues stomper by John Lee Hooker reached the number one spot in the R&B charts in 1949. It stands in complete contrast to the jump blues combos of Paul Williams, Louis Jordan and Amos Milburn who dominated the R&B scene at that time.

The good news for blues fans is that El Enmascarado has taken a break from getting his ass kicked in wrestling rings the length and breadth of Mexico and has devoted his time to acquiring even more 78 rpm shellac discs which he is working round the clock to convert to a bloggable format. This is the first in a series of  "Blues on 78" posts which will feature streaming audio ripped directly from battered 78s. Don't expect hi-fi sound quality but do expect the REAL blues.

Many thanks to El Enmascarado for the sounds and label scans. There hasn't been much activity on the blog lately as real life has kept me from the keyboard. Not only have there been no posts, but I've let a pile of unanswered blog related emails and comments build up. I'll get back to you all, I promise. A special thanks to the son of Calvin Boze for taking the time to leave a comment on "Choo Choo's Bringing My Baby Home." That certainly came as a very pleasant surprise!