Traveling Blues show no.66, October 10, 2012

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Traveling Blues show no.66, October 10, 2012


Traveling Blues, show no. 66, October 10, 2012

On tonight's show, we celebrated the birthdays of John Lennon and Nappy Brown (Napoleon Culp).
I also "dug up" some historic recordings by the sadly under-recognized guitarist Hollywood Fats (Michael Mann).
We featured new recordings by Blues diva Shemekia Copeland, harmonica ace Sugar Blue, young Brit Blues lady Joanne Shaw Taylor,
and the deep voiced Hans Theessink with Terry Evans  (not Terry King as I may have said on air) and Ry Cooder.

here's our playlist:

01. Hollywood Fats (Michael Mann) - Hideaway
02. Liz Mandeville - Corner Bar Blues
03. The Beatles/John Lennon - Yer Blues
04. Nappy Brown - Keep On Pleasin' You
05. Nick Gravenites - Buried Alive In The Blues
06. Sugar Blue - One More Mile
07. Hans Theessink/Terry Evans - Blues Stay Away From Me
08. Hans Theessink/Terry Evans - Pouring Water On A Drowning Man
09. Joanne Shaw Taylor -
10. Shemekia Copeland - I Sing The Blues
11. Hollywood Fats (Micheal Mann) - Sidetracked

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Robert Lockwood Jr. dies at age 91

Robert Lockwood Jr., 91, a Delta blues guitarist who became the torchbearer of Robert Johnson's guitar legacy and a revered musician in his own right, died Nov. 21 at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. He had a brain aneurysm and a stroke.

Robert Lockwood Jr. was born in Turkey Scratch, a hamlet west of Helena, Arkansas. He started playing the organ in his father's church at the age of 8. The famous bluesman Robert Johnson lived with Lockwood's mother for 10 years off and on after his parents' divorce. Lockwood learned from Johnson not only how to play guitar, but timing and stage presence as well. Because of his personal and professional association with the music of Robert Johnson, he became known as "Robert Junior" Lockwood.

Lockwood’s first recordings came in 1941, with Doc Clayton, on his famous Bluebird Sessions in Aurora, Illinois. During these sessions, he cut four singles under his own name. These were the first incarnations of “Take A Little Walk with Me”, and “Little Boy Blue,” Lockwood staples sixty years later.

Lockwood was a King Biscuit Boy on KFFA’s ground-breaking King Biscuit Time radio program.

Lockwood moved around, the usual route was Memphis, St. Louis, to Chicago. By the early 1950’s, he had surfaced in the Windy City, where he became the top session man for Chess Records, the epitome of blues labels. He recorded with the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson II, Little Walter, Roosevelt Sykes, Sunnyland Slim, and Eddie Boyd, whom he toured with for six years, you can hear his smooth chords on their recordings. He was also an early influence on B.B. King, and played with King during his early career in Memphis, Tennessee.

Lockwood’s solo recording career, exclusive of the 1941 Bluebird Sessions, began in 1970 with Delmark’s Steady Rollin’ Man, backed by old friends Louis Myers, his brother Dave Myers, and Fred Below, collectively known as The Aces. In 1972, Lockwood hooked up with famed musicologist, Pete Lowry to record Contrasts, the first of two for Trix Records. Does 12 followed in 1975. They have been remastered and repackaged by Fuel 2000 Records.

In the early 1980s Lockwood teamed up with another long-time friend, Johnny Shines, to record three albums for Rounder, which has been comprised into 1999’s Just the Blues. Plays Robert and Robert, a Black and Blue recording of a solo show in Paris in 1982, was re-issued on Evidence in 1993.

Lockwood’s recordings earned Grammy nominations in 1998 and 2000.
He was well-known to Arkansas audiences for his frequent appearances at festivals in the state.

Ruth Brown, Blues and R&B Queen - gone at age 78

Ruth Brown, 78, a Blues and Rhythm-and-Blues singer whose hits in the 1950s made Atlantic Records "the house that Ruth built" and who revived her career decades later as the Tony Award-winning star of the musical revue "Black and Blue," died Nov. 17 at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Henderson, Nev., after a stroke and heart attack.

Ms. Brown, who lived in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb, became known as a persistent and vital activist in the musicians' royalty reform movement of the 1980s. Her efforts brought aging, often ailing musicians payments that major music companies had long denied them.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Ruth Brown,
Background information
Born January 12, 1928
Portsmouth, Virginia
Died November 17, 2006
Las Vegas, Nevada
Genre(s) Blues, Rhythm and Blues
Instrument(s) Vocals
Years active 1949 - 2006


Ruth Brown (born Ruth Alston Weston, January 12, 1928 [1] in Portsmouth) was a singer who brought a popular music style to rhythm and blues in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s.

Following a resurgence that began in the mid-1970s and peaked in the eighties, Brown used her influence to press for musicians' rights regarding royalties and contracts. Her performances in the Broadway musical Black and Blue earned Brown a Tony Award, and the original soundtrack won a Grammy Award.

Ruth Brown's father was a dockhand who directed the local church choir, but the young Ruth showed more of an interest in singing at USO shows and nightclubs. In 1945, Brown ran away from her home in Portsmouth along with a trumpeter, Jimmy Brown, whom she soon married, to sing in bars and clubs. She then spent a month with Lucky Millinder's orchestra, but was fired after she brought drinks to the band for free, and was left stranded in Washington, D.C.

Blanche Calloway, Cab Calloway's sister, also a bandleader, arranged a gig for Brown at a Washington nightclub called Crystal Caverns and soon became her manager. Willis Conover, a local DJ, caught her act and recommended her to Atlantic Records bosses, Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Brown was unable to audition as planned though, because of a serious car accident that resulted in a nine-month hospital visit. In 1948, however, Ertegun and Abramson drove to Washington from New York City to hear her sing in the club. Although her repertoire was mostly popular ballads, Ertegun convinced her to switch to rhythm and blues. His productions for her, however, retained her "pop" style, with clean, fresh arrangements and the singing spot on the beat with little of the usual blues singer's embroidery.

In her first audition, in 1949, she sang "So Long", which ended up becoming a hit. This was followed by Teardrops from My Eyes in 1950. Written by Rudy Toombs, it was the first upbeat major hit for Ruth Brown, establishing her as an important figure in R&B. Recorded for Atlantic Records in New York City in September 1950, and released in October, it was on Billboard's List of number-one R&B hits (United States) for 11 weeks. The huge hit earned her the nickname "Miss Rhythm" and within a few months Ruth Brown became the acknowledged queen of R&B.[2]

She followed up this hit with "I'll Wait for You" (1951), "I Know" (1951), "5-10-15 Hours" (1953), "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" (1953), "Oh What a Dream" (1954), "Mambo Baby" (1954) and "Don't Deceive Me" (1960). She also became known as Little Miss Rhythm and the girl with the teardrop in her voice. In all, she was on the R&B charts for 149 weeks from 1949 to 1955, with 16 top 10 blues records including 5 number ones, and became Atlantic's most popular artist, earning Atlantic records the proper name of "The House that Ruth Built."

During the 1960s, Brown faded from public view to become a housewife and mother, and only returned to music in 1975 at the urging of Redd Foxx, followed by a series of comedic acting gigs, including a role in sitcom Hello, Larry and the John Waters film Hairspray, as well as earning a Tony Award for her Broadway performance of Black and Blue and a Grammy award for her album Blues on Broadway, featuring hits from the show.

Brown's fight for musicians' rights and royalties in 1987 led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. She was inducted as a Pioneer Award recipient in its first year, 1989. In 1993, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as The Queen Mother of the Blues.

According to an article in JazzImprov Magazine by Stephen Thanabalan, she has become an iconic symbol to many black women for later generations, where she is also a favorite artist and inspiration for later blues artists such as Bonnie Raitt. Brown recorded and sang along with fellow rhythm and blues performer Charles Brown, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and toured with Raitt on Raitt's tour in the late 1990s, "Road Tested". Her 1995 autobiography, Miss Rhythm, won the Gleason Award for music journalism.

In 2006, Hummer used her song "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'" in one of their H3 commercials.