Big Road Blues Show 4/23/17: Nashville Jumps – Nashville Blues Pt. 1

Show Notes:

For most people Nashville means Country Music and the Grand Ole Opry. It’s also the city where a sizable blues and R&B recording industry flourished throughout the late 1940’s and 1950’s. Labels large and small documented the city’s black musical scene during those years. In the 1960’s Nashville was also an early promoter of soul music. In the pre-war years there wasn’t much that got on record; a field recording unit led by Ralph Peer came to Nashville in October 1928 but only one black artist, harmonica player DeFord Bailey, was recorded. John Lomax made some recordings at the State Penitentiary in Nashville in 1933. Alan Lomax and John Work did some recording for the Library of Congress in 1941, recording the Nashville Washboard Band. Field recording in the post-war era was limited with Blind James Campbell the sole representative on today’s program but there was also blind street singer Cortelia Clark who was recorded in on the streets of Nashville in 1965. It wasn’t until after the war that commercial recording began in earnest. The first and most successful of these independents was Bullet Records, created by musician Wally Fowler, music publisher C.V. Hitchcock and deejay/artist manager Jim  Bulliet. Releases began in the Spring of 1946 with three series, 600 was for hillbilly records, 100 for gospel and a sepia series beginning at 250 – ‘blues recorded in the South as only the South can’. The 250 series was launched with Cecil Gant’s “Nashville Jumps’.” Other labels included World, Nashboro, the Bullelt subsidiaries, Delta and J-B. Tennessee Records (along with the Republic label) was owned by Alan and Reynolds Bubis with songwriter and producer Ted Jarrett head of A&R. The labels were out of business by the mid-1950s when the three men went into partnership to start the Calvert-Champion-Cherokee group of labels. In 1946 Ernie Young set up Ernie’s Record Mart and in 1952 got in the record business with Excello. Eventually Excello would be renowned for the Swamp Blues of Lightnin’ Slim, Lazy Lester, Lonesome Sundown and Slim Harpo, territory already mined on previous shows. The Dot label formed in 1950 as an outgrowth of Randy’s Record shop run by Randy Wood. As the decade ended, a host of small labels flourished in Nashville, including Cherokee, Spar, Poncello and Champion.

Today’s show moves along roughly chronologically, starting with Deford Bailey. In 1918 Bailey moved to Nashville and performed locally as an amateur. His first radio appearance was on June 19, 1926, on Nashville’s WSM. Several records by Bailey were issued in 1927 and 1928, all of them harmonica solos. In 1927 he recorded for Brunswick Records in New York City, and in 1928 he recorded eight sides for Victor in Nashville, three of which were issued on Victor, Bluebird and RCA. Bailey was a pioneer member of the WSM Grand Ole Opry and one of its most popular performers, appearing on the program from 1927 to 1941.

Billboard Ad, 1949

The Nashville Washboard Band were a group of street musicians discovered playing near to the Grand Ole Opry building. They were recorded by Alan Lomax and John Work in 1942. Twenty years after a group calling themselves Blind James Campbell And His Nashville Street Band were recorded by Chris Strachwitz for Arhoolie Records. The group members knew the earlier group, linking the two in a long, if largely undocumented, tradition of black street bands.

The Bullet Recording and Transcription company was formed in late 1945 by former Grand Ole Opry booking agent Jim Bulleit, in partnership with musician Wally Fowler and businessman C. V. Hitchcock. Their intention was to release recordings in every form of popular music (pop, hillbilly, R&B , gospel, sacred and even Mexican music). For the most part, Wally Fowler was in charge of the Hillbilly and Sacred recordings, and black music (R&B and Gospel) was overseen by Bulleit. The label had a huge pop hit with Frances Craig in 1947 but were unable to repeat that success so the company began to concentrate on Hillbilly and R&B recordings. 1949 they released B. B. King’s first  commercial single, “Miss Martha King” and put out a string of fine records by Cecil Gant, Shy Guy Douglas, Wynonie Harris, Max Bailey, Rufus Thomas, Christine Kitrell and others. Subsidiaries of the label included Delta and J-B. By 1952 the label was out of business.

Tennessee Records (along with the Republic label) was owned by Alan and Reynolds Bubis. Legendary songwriter and producer Ted Jarrett was head of A&R. The labels were out of business by the mid-1950s when the three men went into partnership to start the Calvert-Champion-Cherokee group of labels. The Champion label  was started in the mid-1950’s and released records by Christine Kittrell, Gene Allison, The Fairfield Four, Earl Gaines, Larry Birdsong, Shy Guy Douglas, Jimmy Beck and Charles Walker, amongst others. Champion was out of business by 1960, and other Jarrett labels such as Valdot, Poncello, Spar and Ref-O-Ree followed.

Dot Records was founded by Randy Wood and active between 1950 and 1979.The label was originally based in  in Gallatin, Tennessee a small town near Nashville. He started a 78 rpm mail-order business in 1948 by placing a short advertisement with “Hoss” Allen and Gene Nobles on WLAC in. The store had become “Randy’s Record Shop.” He and Gene Nobles started a business relationship which resulted in Wood’s own label, Randy’s and the Record Shop Special label. Basically, these were just an extension of the record store. Then came Dot. Early R&B artists on Dot included The Griffin Brothers with singer Tommy Brown, Ivory Joe Hunter, Joe Liggins, the Four Dots, the Big Three Trio, Brownie McGhee, Shorty Long, and the Counts. In addition to R&B and gospel, early singles included country artists.

Nashboro was founded in Nashville by Ernie Lafayette Young who was the owner of a record store, Ernie’s Record Mart, and sponsor of a weekly hit parade show on radio station WLAC. In 1951, Young founded Nashboro to issue gospel records, and the following year also created Excello Records to release secular music, especially R&B and blues acts. Some blues acts appeared on Nashboro  including Sherman Johnson and Jack Cooley.

Excello was a subsidiary label of Nashboro record and began recording regional artists like Kid King and ‘Little Maxie’ Bailey. An important factor in the Excello Records story is the radio station that helped spread R & B through the Eastern half of the country – WLAC. The fifty thousand watt clear channel beacon of the rhythm & blues express electrified many a listener far from the city of Nashville. Another major component of Excello’s success can be attributed to 1956 when record producer J. D. Miller began working with the label and developed the sound known as “swamp blues”, exemplified by Excello stars like Lightnin’ Slim, Lazy Lester, Slim Harpo, Lonesome Sundown and Silas Hogan.

James Campbell and His Nashville Street Band

We hear from, or about, a couple of the personalities on WLAC. John R. (born John Richbourg) was arguably the most popular and charismatic of the four announcers at Nashville’s WLAC who showcased popular black music in nightly programs from the late 1940’s to the early 1970’s. The other three were Gene Nobles, Herman Grizzard, and Bill “Hoss” Allen. Today we spin  John R’s swinging theme song.

Gene Nobles was a former carnival barker, bingo dealer, and announcer on several small Southern radio stations. He became the first white disc jockey on radio to play popular black music regularly. He started this practice before early rock-and-roll jockeys such as Alan Freed and before his fellow WLAC announcers. Nobles was celebrated by Richard Armstrong’s “Gene Nobles’ Boogie” cut in 1949 and Jimmy Sweeney’s “Boogie Woogie Jockey” in 1950 with some commentary from Nobles himself.

Today’s show title comes from a romping tune by pianist Cecil Gant who cut a stack of great records for Bullet in the late 40’s. In 1944, after performing at a War Bond rally in Los Angeles, California, Gant recorded “I Wonder” for the Bronze record label. When it started to become locally popular, he re-recorded it for the Gilt-Edge label. The Gilt-Edge release reached number one on the Billboard Harlem Hit Parade and number 20 on the national pop charts and its B-side, the instrumental “Cecil Boogie”, reached number 5 on the R&B chart. He also released material through King Records (1947), and recorded for Bullet Records in Nashville until 1949.