Frank Culley - Rock And Roll

Side 1:

01. The Snap

02. Floorshow

03. Cole Slaw

04. Central Avenue Breakdown

05. Waxie Maxie Boogie

06. After Hour Session

07. Rumboogie Jive

Side 2:

01. Hop'N Twist

02. My Silent Love

03. Mona Lisa

04. Gone After Hours

05. Little Miss Blues

06. I've Got You Under My Skin

07. Culley-Flower

Download from:

http://www47.zippyshare.com/v/aGAjwTzN/file.html

Hold it! Where did that Frank Culley front cover come from? A reissue of one of the Atlantic Rock & Roll series of albums from 1956 / 1957? Nope, there never was such an LP. It's a clever 1989 pastiche created for this compilation of Frank's Atlantic sides recorded between 1949 and 1951. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, where reissue companies make the effort to "get in period." But if Frank Culley was honking and hooting in the late 1940's and early 1950's, surely it's stretching things a bit to pass his music off as "rock and roll"?

Well, Atlantic themselves set the precedent back in 1957 when a couple of Culley sides turned up on the LP with the worst ever cover in the history of rock and roll -

A rock and a roll, geddit? It was in fact a compilation of R&B instrumentals from the late 1940's to the mid 1950's' including sides by Tiny Grimes, Willis Jackson, Joe Morris, and Arnett Cobb among others. I reconstructed the LP for the blog in 2014 (using tracks from the "Atlantic Honkers" collection) and you can download it from here:

http://bebopwinorip.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/dance-rock-roll-atlantic-lp-8013.html

In the first half of the 1950's Atlantic was probably THE R&B record company which helped to get rock and roll going with its roster of artists such as Ruth Brown, The Clovers, Joe Turner, Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters, Lavern Baker and Ray Charles. Frank Culley belongs to the earlier phase of Atlantic when they were peddling a jazzier form of R&B via the bands of Tiny Grimes and Joe Morris, featuring tenor sax men Red Prysock and Johnny Griffin respectively.

Some of his tracks turned up on Atlantic retrospectives such as the aforementioned "Atlantic Honkers" and the first volume of "Atlantic Rhythm and Blues 1947 - 1974." That's where I first heard Frank Culley and I was immediately taken with his warm toned sound. He could do the honkin' wild man stuff, but without going overboard and his handling of ballads and moody after hours blues material was very good, as you can hear on this collection.

There's no need for me to go into any great detail about Frank Culley as the admirable sleeve notes by Peter Grendysa have it all covered. You can get Frank's 1955 sides for Baton Records on another Be Bop Wino post here:

http://bebopwinorip.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/frank-culley-and-buddy-tate-rockn-roll.html

... and it's a good read too!

And to finish, a couple of questions. 

Question one - Frank recorded four sides for Lenox in 1948. Does anyone know if these sides ended up on the infamous Hen Gates and his Gaters budget LPs? Some Lenox sides by Lockjaw Davis certainly did.

Question two - the 1999 Ace CD "Let The Boogie Woogie Rock and Roll" has an instrumental track listed as "Rhumboogie Jive" by Frank Culley. It obviously isn't the real "Rumboogie Jive" as you can hear from listening to this LP or going to this blog post. Does anyone know what that track on the Ace CD is?

Keep a-blowin' and a -bluesin', fellow groovers!

Clubbing, Early 1950s Style

Sunday double of sides about nightlife. The way the youth of today (and I mean anyone under 40) go on about "clubbing" you'd think they'd invented all night dancing /drinking / socialising. Well here's a couple of early 1950s R&B tracks to demonstrate that there's nothing new under that lucky old sun. Oh, and by "R&B" I mean REAL R&B.

First up, Frank Culley and Harry Van Walls rap about the Rhumboogie Club in Columbus, Ohio. Recorded in late 1949, "Rumboogie Jive" was the B Side of "After Hours Session" (Atlantic 888) which reached number 10 in the R&B charts in February 1950.



The "Coffee Grinder" referred to was a dance. Wonder what it was like?

After boogieing our woogies for a few hours, it's time to move on to an after hours joint where we can chill out to some slinky sax and hear Jimmy Coe and his drummer Earl "Fox" Walker exchanging hip observations. The scene described on the record was inspired by Jimmy and the band's visits to an after hours joint called "The Royal Roost" in Indianapolis. "After Hour Joint" was released on States 118 in June 1953. There was a follow up a few months later, "Raid On The After Hours Joint." We're gonna split before that happens, but remember, if the cops grab you, don't give your real name.



As an aside, the excellent Ace CD "Let The Boogie Woogie Rock And Roll" has a totally different track under the title "Rhumboogie Jive." Does anyone know what that track really is?

Great article on Jimmy Coe on Red Saunders Research Foundation here:

http://myweb.clemson.edu/~campber/coe.html

Have a restful Sunday.