sweartotellthetruth

April 28, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 77 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 2:30 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, April 30, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

The feature will be a selection of blues artists of the 1920s. Emphasis on guitars rather than pianos. (We avoid using the misleading term “country blues”.) We’ll be playing tracks recorded between 1926 and 1931. A surprising number of the artists who recorded in this time period never recorded afterwards and the recording industry of the 1930s was much different from the industry of the previous decade.

While the record companies could create a studio sound about the classic and vaudeville singers who made records in the twenties, blues and country records by southern artists on stringed instruments in the late 1920s had less of the studio and the songwriters’s hand in them. What came out on record was more exactly what the performers brought with them. This began to change significantly in the 1930s with the shift to combo sounds and, sometimes, studio groups who backed different artists from one session to another.

On the show: 

Blind Lemon – Jaybird Coleman – Peg Leg Howell & His Gang –  Sleepy John Estes – The Two Poor Boys – Katie Webster – Spade Cooley – Original Sloth Band – Jackie Shane & Frank Motley – and others, of course.

Listen to the program at FM 93.3 in Hamilton or on CFMU online at cfmu.mcmaster.ca. The program will be available to stream or as a podcast until May 27th.

Contact Us

To reach us with comments or queries, write us at sweartotellthetruth@gmail.com.

You can also follow the program at sweartotellthetruth@nosignifying on Twitter.

Next week (May 7th)

Our feature on Louis Jordan, tracking the full extent of his career as a recording artist. Louis Jordan can justly be called the father of Rhythm & Blues and the dominant figure of R&B’s classic era. He influenced many artists in the blues field not just as a musician and singer but as a performer.

Still waiting to hear about the soon to be available CFMU app, which will allow people to listen to CFMU programs on mobile devices.

cmc

 

April 21, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 76 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 11:08 pm

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

There’s no feature this week, but we will be playing some blues and R&B recorded  in New York between 1948 and 1959 in one segment of the program and some traditional gospel by evangelical preachers and, perhaps, one sidewalk evangelist. This music also from the post-World War 2  era, later in the show.

On the show: 

Stick McGhee – Big Chief Ellis – Big John Greer –  Faye Adams – Sarah Dean – H-Bomb Ferguson – Dutch Mason – Prophet Powers – Rev. Louis Narcisse – and many others

Listen to the program at FM 93.3 in Hamilton or on CFMU online at cfmu.msumcmaster.ca. The program will be available to stream or as a podcast until May 20th.

Contact Us

To reach us with comments or queries, write us at sweartotellthetruth@gmail.com.

You can also follow the program at sweartotellthetruth@nosignifying on Twitter.

Next week (April 30th)

Blues Figures of the 1920s – part 2. We look again at recordings made by so-called “country blues” artists between 1925 and 1930. In a further  week or two, we will be presenting a feature on Louis Jordan. Come back to this site for updates.

We’ll also let you know, when we find out, about the soon to be available CFMU app, which will allow people to listen to CFMU programs on mobile devices. Coming soon, we are told.

cmc

 

April 15, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 75 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 6:42 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, April 16, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

We mentioned a feature on Hi Records for this week and, as we prepared the program, that feature became the entire show.  We’re going to look at the Hi label over the company’s twenty-two year history from its early days representing Memphis rockabilly and R&B instrumentals to its emergence as an important source of southern soul music and its tenure as one of the last bastions of the style. Under Willie Mitchell’s direction, Hi came to develop a unique variant of southern soul, rooted in Memphis rhythm & blues. Contrary to the suggestion you’ll encounter in some commentaries, Hi managed to struggle through the disco era and lasted almost to the arrival of rap.

We’ll survey the better part of Hi’s twenty-two year history. We can’t cover every significant record, trend or artist in 90 minutes but we can fill in any significant gaps with future segments

On the show: 

Willie Mitchell – Bill Black Combo – Big Lucky Carter –  O.V. Wright – Ann Peebles – Al Green – Syl Johnson – Erma Coffee – and others

Listen to the program at FM 93.3 in Hamilton or on CFMU online at cfmu.msumcmaster.ca. The program will be available to stream or as a podcast until May 13th.

We are advised that the station is working towards the introduction of a CFMU app, which make it possible to listen to this and other CFMU programs on a smartphone.

“Clog Dance”

A note about the track that opened last week’s program “Clog Dance” or “Stomping Blues” by Champion Jack Dupree, from 1944. We mentioned that the Dupree’s piano playing seemed to approximate the style on records by Arizona Dranes, but, like us, you may have wondered about the percussion, especially in light of the song’s two titles. It could have been someone, even Dupree himself, stomping on a board, or, what sounds more likely, someone beating on a box or some other object. We don’t know but we meant to say something about it last week. 

cmc

 

April 6, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Hour 74 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , — cmcompton @ 11:01 pm

Program for Tuesday, April 9, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

We’ve had a couple of weeks heavy on rhythm & blues in the past two editions of the program. This coming Tuesday, we’re going to pick up some threads from the Gotham label special last week, showcase a few East Coast blues artists on Pete Lowry’s Trix label and sample some recordings made in Philadelphia and Chicago by Pete Welding for his Testament label. Along the way, we’ll be playing some great tracks.

On the show: 

Carolina Chocolate Crops – Bascomb Lamar Lunsford – Henry Johnson –  Willie Trice – Ironing Board Sam – Blind Connie Williams – Gospel Twins – Otis Spann – Eddie Taylor – Shakura S’Aida – and many others

Listen to the program at FM 93.3 in Hamilton or on CFMU online at cfmu.msumcmaster.ca. The program will be available to stream or as a podcast until May 6th.

cmc

 

 

Gotham Reissue series

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — cmcompton @ 2:30 am

Additional info after our Gotham label special

It’s not our role to publicize record companies or vendors but we’ll sometimes let you know about stuff that is newly available or going out of distribution. We gave out some misinformation on the air in our April 2nd program devoted to the Gotham Record Company of Philadelphia.  The company that has the Gotham reissue series is oldies.com. There is a company by the name we mentioned on the air but it is not the right company.

The Gotham reissue series consisted of straight reissues of the original Krazy Kat LPs from Interstate Music in the U.K. The CDs were issued around 1990. There are 14 to 16 tracks on each and the Collectables label  issued all of the 35 or so original LPs, including a couple of rockabilly compilations and another called White Gospel. They all appear to be out of print but all may still be available from oldies.com @ $2.98 apiece. Be forewarned that U.S. I.S.A.P. postage rates have recently been increased.

Our recommendations of the best albums in the series are

Gotham House Party – like an introductory compilation of Gotham R&B

Jimmy Preston, Vol. 1 & 2

Brown Gal – Camille Howard, Lil Armstrong, Dorothy Donegan

Dan Pickett – 1949 Blues

East Coast Blues – Pickett, Sonny Terry, Ralph Willis, Doug Quattlebaum

Amazing Grace – Davis Sisters, Harmonizing Four, Edna Gallmon Cooke, etc.

Frank Motley, Dual Trumpeter – early recordings of future Toronto R&B bandleader

Any of the 35 or so CDs are worthwhile, depending how deeply you want to go into the music. Tiny Grimes, Harry Crafton  and T.N.T. Tribble are among the other artists. Original liner notes from the LPs are included but the print size on some is a challenge.

We don’t necessarily recommend oldies.com but they also have cutout CDs from the Fuel 2000 label blues and soul series, including Introduction to Chicago  Soul, Introduction to Robert Pete Williams, Introduction to Snooky Pryor, Introduction to Johnny Adams, etc., mostly @$4.98.

cmc

Blog at WordPress.com.