| ARTIST | SONG | ALBUM |
|---|---|---|
| Joe Turner & Pete Johnson | Goin' Away Blues | Pete Johnson - Radio Broadcast 1939-1947 |
| Pete Johnson & Albert Ammo | Boogie Woogie Prayer | Pete Johnson - Radio Broadcast 1939-1947 |
| Skip James | Devil Got My Woman | Devil Got My Woman: Blues at Newport 1966 |
| Mississippi John Hurt | Spike Driver Blues | Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest |
| Furry Lewis | Brownsville Blues | KCTS-TV Studios |
| Son House | Death Letter | KCTS-TV Studios |
| Sister Rosetta Tharpe | This Train | Sister Rosetta Tharpe Vol. 2 1942-1944 |
| Lucky Millinder Orchestra | Big Fat Mama | Jubilee |
| Lightnin Hopkins | Lonesome Road | Lightnin' Hopkins: Rare performances 1960-1979 |
| Lightnin Hopkins & Billy Bizor | It Hurts Me So Bad (Morning Train) | Blues Accordin' to Lightnin Hopkins |
| Mamie Smith | The Jail House Blues | Mamie Smith Vol. 4 1923-1942 |
| Mamie Smith | Harlem Blues | Mamie Smith Vol. 4 1923-1942 |
| Montana Taylor | I Can't Sleep | Montana Taylor & 'Freddy' Shayne 1929-1946 |
| Bertha Chippie Hill | How Long Blues | Jazzin' The Blues 1943- 1952 |
| Howlin' Wolf | How Many More Years | Shindig! |
| Howlin' Wolf | Meet Me In The Bottom | Devil Got My Woman: Blues at Newport 1966 |
| Howlin' Wolf | Dust My Broom | Devil Got My Woman: Blues at Newport 1966 |
| Montana Taylor | Five O Clocks | Montana Taylor & 'Freddy' Shayne 1929-1946 |
| Albert Ammons | Boogie Woogie Stomp | Albert Ammons - Alt. Takes, Radio Perfs & Uniss. Home Recordings |
| Sonny Boy Williamson II | Keep It To Yourself | I Hear The Blues |
| Memphis Slim | All By Myself | I Hear The Blues |
| Matt Murphy | Matt Guitar Murphy Boogie | I Hear The Blues |
| Joe Turner & Pete Johnson | Honey Dripper | Rare Live Cuts |
| Joe Turner & Pete Johnson | Roll 'Em Pete | Pete Johnson - Radio Broadcast 1939-1947 |
| Sister Rosetta Tharpe | That's All | Jubilee AFRS |
| Sister Rosetta Tharpe | Didn't It Rain | The Blues and Gospel Train |
| Leadbelly | Almost Day; Blues in My Kitchen, Blues in My Dining Room; I Went Up on the Mountain; Good Morning Blues; Baby, Don't You Love Me No More; T.B. Blues; Irene | The Smithsonian Folkways Collection |
Show Notes:
That the topic of this show, and the inevitable sequels, didn’t dawn on me until recently is somewhat surprising considering that there’s a fairly large body of video and radio material out there involving blues artists, some of which I’ve played over the years. During the recent holidays I took time to re-watch some favorite blues videos which sparked the idea for what will be and ongoing series of shows. The problem with a show like this is that’s it’s a far more involved process going through film than it is to simply peruse my record collection. While I have a fair amount of video in my collection, there is a vast amount of material that I don’t have, a vast amount that is not easily available and of course the practical problem of actually extracting this video in a format I can play on the radio. I also realize the irony of playing film segments on the radio, but I think the material is not only musically great but historically important, and might not otherwise be heard. These shows would not be possible without Paul Vernon’s indispensable book, African-American Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel and Zydeco on Film and Video, 1926-1997. As Vernon notes: “For the collector or enthusiast it may be especially frustrating to realize that he or she will be denied access to much of this material unless it is used by a film-maker and then released for public consumption. Particular attention, therefore, has been paid to the material available on commercially released videotape aimed at the consumer domestic market.” A couple things to note since this book was published in 1997 (there have been no subsequent editions): One was the demise of videotape which has resulted in a good deal of material once available on VHS much harder to locate; the rise of DVD’s (the first players were not affordable and widely available available until 2000), eventually resulting in previously hard to find video now available, as well as bonus material that couldn’t fit due to the time limitations of videotape; and finally, and most democratically, the dominance of YouTube, making available a wide variety of blues video previously almost impossible to view. While Vernon’s book briefly covers soundtracks, blues artists preserved on radio broadcasts are somewhat difficult to determine; labels like Document and Classics have issued some of this material while the internet has preserved much of the Jubliee recordings made for Armed Forces Radio (AFRS) over the course of a decade. Similarly, there were V-Discs (also preserved on the internet) which were a mix of concerts, recitals, radio broadcasts, film soundtracks, special recording sessions, and previously issued/issued commercial records. Our first two -part look at blues from film and radio is somewhat arbitrary, although we do spotlight a few artists in-depth such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Big Joe Turner, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Howlin’ Wolf. The recordings span the 1920’s through the 1970’s, featuring some historically important performances by Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, the Black Ace, Whistler & His Jug Band, Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy to several selections from the blues revival of the 1960’s with wonderful performances from Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt and others.
| Big Bill Broonzy from Low Light and Blue Smoke, 1956 |
Paul Vernon notes that “the early history of African-American vernacular music on film is essentially one of random attention and accident. That we have Whistler’s Jug Band but not the Memphis Jug Band, that Elder Michaux received media attention while Reverend J.M. Gates did not, is due to the general lack of interest displayed by contemporary film-makers.” The 1920’s and 30’s saw very little blues on film (Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith among the few) while the 1940’s benefited from the Soundies corporation “who from 1941 to 1946 produced three minute monochrome film shorts designed to be played in coin-operated machines installed in public places.” Artists like Louis Jordan, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Roy Milton and others all appeared in Soundies. The 40’s were a good time for artists on radio primarily due to Jubilee which was an Armed Forces Radio Services program (AFRS) that featured African-American musicians and singers. It was broadcast to servicemen via AFRS from 1942 to 1953. Among the artists featured on the program were Louis Jordan, Jimmy Witherspoon, Jimmy Rushing, Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, Josh White and others. There doesn’t appear to be much documented blues on radio prior to the 40’s, at least little that has survived, outside of a few broadcasts from New York City’s Cafe Society. Other surviving radio broadcasts from the 40’s include Rudi Blesh’s This Is Jazz program, a series of performances by Leadbelly that appeared on New York’s WYNC radio and the launching of King Biscuit Time on Helena’s KFFA, most famously featuring a live performances 5-days a week by Sonny Boy Williamson II (however little seems to have been preserved). By the mid-50’s blues, R&B and rock and roll found increasingly more outlets. As the folk boom began in the late 50’s, rural blues artists like Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and J.C. Burris were filmed. The Studs Terkel Program featured interviews and performances by Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Son House. Things accelerated in the 1960’s when the blues revival gradually gained steam and became massively popular in Europe. The launching of the American Folk Blues Festival in 1963 propelled many blues artists into television studios throughout the 60’s. In the US there were several shows such as Shindig! and The Beat which showcased blues and R&B. There were also several fine documentaries in the 60’s such as groundbreaking film work by Dietrich Wawzyn, Les Blank’s Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin Hopkins, Sam Charter’s The Blues, Mike Shea’s And This Is Free, valuable short films by William Ferris and continuing in the 70’s with import projects like another Les Blank film, A Well Spent Life about Mance Lipscomb, Harley Cokliss’ Chicago Blues, Alan Lomax’s The Land Where The Blues Began and the BBC’s The Devil’s Music. Subsequent noteworthy films include Louie Bluie, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: The Travels of Gatemouth Moore, Robert Mugge’s Deep Blues, Martin Scorsese’s flawed The Blues and most recently American Epic.
| Lightnin’ Hopkins & Billy Bizor, Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin Hopkins, 1969 |
We feature some historically important early film performances by Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Whistler & His Jug Band, the Black Ace and Big Bill Broonzy. St. Louis Blues is a 1929 two-reel short film starring Bessie Smith filmed in June 1929 in Astoria, Queens. The early sound film features Smith in a black speakeasy of the prohibition era singing “St. Louis Blues.” Directed by Dudley Murphy, it is the only known film of Bessie Smith, and the soundtrack is her only recording not controlled by Columbia Records. Bessie Smith had a hit on the song in 1925 and Handy himself asked Bessie Smith to appear in the movie. Handy co-authored the film and was the musical director. The film was a dramatization of the song, a woman left alone by her roving man. It features a band that included James P. Johnson on piano, Thomas Morris and Joe Smith on cornet, as well as the Hall Johnson Choir. The film has an all African-American cast.
Jailhouse Blues is a 1929 motion picture released by Columbia Pictures. This musical short film features Mamie Smith, who was a top star in Black Vaudeville and a recording artist with Okeh Records, although by the time Jailhouse Blues was made her contract with Okeh had ended.
The footage of Whistler & His Jug Band performing “Foldin’ Bed” was originally part of a Hearst newsreel and supposedly this was filmed at Churchill Downs in Louisville KY in 1930. The film was not originally used and remained in storage until the mid-1980’s. The version that first appeared on Yazoo video was edited together by Sherwin Dunner from fifteen takes the Hearst crew originally made. The group recorded “Foldin’ Bed” for Victor a year later, cutting 21 sides in all between 1924 and 1931.
Babe Kyro Lemon Turner, better known as the Black Ace, performed on station KFJZ out of Fort Worth, Texas in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. He cut two sides for the ARC label in 1936 which were never issued but had better luck the following year cutting six sides for Decca in 1937 all of which were released. Turner had no interest in playing blues full time again during the blues revival, although thankfully he was persuaded to record two sessions at his Fort Worth home in 1960 which were issued as The Black Ace on Arhoolie. He was also captured on film for the 1962 documentary The Blues. Turner can be heard briefly in a 1941 film called the The Blood Of Jesus playing “Truck ‘Em On Down” at a juke joint. The song was recorded in 1960 as “Golden Slipper.” The Blood of Jesus was the first film directed by Spencer Williams, who was one of the few African American directors of the 1940’s. A film of Turner playing his signature song, “I Am The Black Ace”, was captured in 1963 by German filmmaker Dietrich Wawzyn.
| Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Blues and Gospel Train, 1964 |
Big Bill Broonzy arrived in Brussels in early December of 1956. Yannick Bruynoghe, who wrote Big Bill Blues with Broonzy, and his wife had a project lined up for him. A friend of Yannick’s, a filmmaker named Jean Delire, was a blues fan and was eager to make a film featuring a blues musician. Yannick suggested Bill as the subject, pointing out that it would keep expenses down if they filmed Bill during his visit to Brussels. The need to raise money for the movie dictated the length and format: it had to be a short film rather than full-length, and it could not be a documentary, which they believed would have no commercial appeal. The nearly seventeen-minute film, titled Low Light and Blue Smoke, achieved critical success after its 1956 release, winning the Silver Bear award for Short Documentary at the 1957 Berlin Film Festival. While it was shown in a few clubs and on Belgian TV, it never generated much of a financial return. There are also some film of Broonzy captured by Pete Seeger in 1957.
We spotlight some fine radio performances by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Big Joe Turner with Pete Johnson and Josh White broadcast for AFRS. Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson were also captured on broadcasts from Café Society in New York City in 1939. Pete Johnson and Joe Turner joined Billie Holiday, Albert Ammons, and Meade Lux Lewis had extended runs at Café Society in 1939. “Boogie Woogie Prayer”, heard on our program from a 1941 radio broadcast, was recorded commercially in 1938 for Columbia featuring three pianos: Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, and Albert Ammons. This number remained a feature number in their repertoire. Called “Boogie Woogie Dream”, the duo arrangement of the ”Boogie Woogie Prayer” is the main musical feature in the short movie of the same title, in which also Lena Horne and Teddy Wilson’s orchestra participated. Turner is heard but not seen in one 1944 Soundie singing “Low Down Dog.” Another broadcast that has some blue interest was Rudi Blesh’s Just Jazz program which featured some blues including performances by Bertha Chippie Hill and Montana Taylor. There is some footage of Leadbelly from 1935 and 1944 respectively, and several radio broadcasts that have been preserved. Throughout 1941 and early 1942, Lead Belly had a weekly show on WNYC’s The American School of the Air called Folk Songs of America, which was produced by anthropologist Henrietta Yurchenco. He would start and end each show with his theme, “Irene,” apparently by then a key song in his repertoire and a crowd pleaser.
| Howlin’ Wolf from Devil Got My Woman: Blues at Newport 1966, 1966 |
The 1960’s found many blues artists stepping in the studio or the focus of documentaries. Lightnin’ Hopkins and Howlin’ Wolf were two such beneficiaries and we feature several selections from both men. Les Blank spent the early part of his thirties, and much of his twenties, putting together industrial movies, basically educational films for the corporate world, movies to promote the venture to investors and employees. Blank called them “insipid” and moved quickly to get his career on a different track. He set up his own production company, and started making short observations on film. The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins was only his second effort and it stands as one of his best. Blank took the approach to simply film the culture in action and later, in the editing booth, put the pieces of the puzzle together. Hopkins was also filmed by by Dietrich Wawzyn in Houston in 1960. Wawzyn was a German filmmaker who set out to shoot a series of films for German television that took him through the southern US in search of American jazz and roots music. He contacted Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz, who jumped at the chance to join him. Hopkins was filmed prolifically between 1960 and 1980.
Howlin’ Wolf was filmed several time in the 60’s and 70’s. In 1964 Wolf had just returned from his 1964 tour of Europe and the UK with the American Folk Blues Festival, playing to large, appreciative crossover crowds. The following year the Rolling Stones appeared on ABC’s popular TV show Shindig! and opened the door for Howlin’ Wolf’s first mainstream TV appearance. Bill Wyman recalled how this came about. “We had requested that blues artists Howlin’ Wolf and Son House should be on the show with us. We were in hysterics when Jack Good persistently referred to him in his proper English as ‘Mr Howlin”.” Wolf is also featured prominently in Devil Got My Woman: Blues at Newport 1966. Shot at Newport in 1966, this is a prime document of the blues revival. By 1966, there had already been three summers of extraordinary blues rediscoveries at the Newport Folk Festival. by the time this footage was shot, John Hurt had only months to live, and Skip James, already frail, would see only three more summers. Even the youngest and most robust of these men, Howlin’ Wolf, would last only a decade more. (Son House, ironically, outlived them all.) Alan Lomax filmed them, though not in a conventional ‘concert footage’ context. Lomax aimed instead to recreate the atmosphere of a Delta juke joint, and outfitted a place where several of the musicians were rooming to that end.
| Mississippi John Hurt from Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest, 1966 |
Also featured are some prime selections from footage recorded in 1963 and 1964 in England. The television program I Hear The Blues featured today contains performances by Memphis Slim, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Lonnie Johnson and others recorded in Manchester, England in 1963 as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. One of the most unique and intimate concerts from the British blues revival of the 1960’s was the The Blues and Gospel Train, filmed in a suburb of Manchester, England. The Blues and Gospel Train was staged on May 7, 1964 by Granada TV. Fans who were lucky enough to get tickets – some 200 of them – were instructed to meet at Manchester’s Central Station at 7:30 that evening for a short train ride to the abandoned Wilbraham Road Station in Whalley Range. When the train pulled in at Wilbraham Road, the audience poured out and found seats on the platform, making their way past Muddy Waters, who was singing “Blow Wind Blow.” The opposite platform, decorated to look like an old railway station in the American South, served as a stage for a lineup of blues artists including Waters, Sister Rosetta Sharpe, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Cousin Joe, Otis Spann and Reverend Gary Davis.
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