sweartotellthetruth

July 28, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 90 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 5:14 am

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

Allons jouer les blues. This week’s program was supposed to be devoted to Louisiana music but, in the course of preparing the playlist, we narrowed the scope to Cajun and zydeco music. We will come back and do a Louisiana special. looking at the whole spectrum of African-American in Louisiana, but, this week, we thought we’d look at French music, zydeco and Cajun music, in a bit of depth. Not the place to be if you hate accordions and fiddles. These musics are the musics of the rural areas and towns. You will often hear Louisiana music equated with the traditions of New Orleans but, historically, the city and the countryside had distinct musical cultures. On the other hand, when so-called Creoles moved to Houston or the Bay area, their music came with them. Similarly, although Cajun and Creole music have been close at times, they have inevitably followed different paths to the present and, while there have been many cross influences between two musical cultures, they have had different repertoire, instrumentation and style.

On the show: 

Fernest Arceneaux  –  Rockin’ Dopcee  –  Amedé Ardoin & Dennis McGee – Leo Soileau – Hackberry Ramblers –  Buckwheat Zydeco – Nathan Abshire – Lynn August – Wayne Toups & Zydecajun – and others

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 August 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 (August 6th)

Repeat of the Alan Lomax Southern Journey special for August 6th.

cmc

July 22, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 89 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 7:50 pm

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

We were late patching this show together. We’re going to be looking at some diverse R&B tracks but, in the middle of the program, we’ll be looking at Lightnin’ Hopkins and a few of his forerunners and contemporaries. As it happens, we finally got hold of the Alan Govenar biography of Sam Hopkins, which was published about three years ago and, since we don’t plan a Lightnin’ Hopkins feature in the near future, we thought we’d follow a few threads suggested by the book.  

On the show: 

Smiley Lewis  –  The Dixieaires  –  Amos Milburn – Earl King – Buster Pickens – J.T. “Funny Paper” Smith – Lightnin’ Hopkins – Floyd Dixon – Harrison Kennedy – Martha Bass – and others

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 August 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 (July 30th)

A Louisiana Music 90 minute special on July 30th and we plan to present a repeat of the Alan Lomax Southern Journey special for August 6th.

cmc

July 14, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 88 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 10:29 pm

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

This week’s program is a gap-filler featuring blues and soul. We’re going to round out our Victor special from last week, take a brief look at the alleged antecedents of hip-hop in blues & hokum of the twenties and thirties. We’ve also got  a few historic soul recordings lined up and variety of local recordings, including a couple of Canadian slide masters.

On the show: 

Frankie “Half-Pint” Jaxon  –  Rufus & Ben Quillian  –  Chick Willis – Ellen McIlwaine – Richard Newell – James Carr – Big Maybelle – Candi Staton – Ken Whiteley – and others

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 August 13th.

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 (July 23rd)

Not sure what we will be doing on next week’s show. We will present our Louisiana Music special on July 30th and we intend to present a repeat of the Alan Lomax Southern Journey special for August 6th.

Notes on  the Victor Special – July 9th

With YouTube and with downloads cheaper than albums, a lot of people don’t buy CDs any more. We only pursue downloads as a last resort. We like to have the physical album with liner notes and recording information. Anyone interested in the history of blues on the Victor label and its Bluebird logo, should check out the series called When the Sun Goes Down, subtitled, The Secret History of Rock and Roll, produced by Barry Feldman and Colin Escott.

Volume 1 and 2 of this series are the albums that include the pre-Bluebird era (1926-1931)

Volume 1: Walk Right In

Volume 2: The First Time I Met the Blues

Another album in the series covers Blind Willie McTell’s Victor output. It’s Volume 9: Statesboro Blues.

Three other albums from RCA’s earlier RCA Heritage Series from the early nineties also include early Victor material.

Four Women Blues: the Victor recordings of Memphis Minnie, Mississippi Mathilda, Kansas City Kitty and Miss Rosie Mae Moore – excellent Memphis Minnie sides

Canned Heat Blues: Masters of the Delta Blues  – Furry Lewis, Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey

Better Boot That Thing: Great Women Blues Singers of the Twenties – Alberta Hunter, Bessie Tucker, Victoria Spivey, Ida May Mack

All of the albums in the When the Sun Goes Down and RCA Heritage Series are worthwhile. The albums listed  appear to be available today as CDs. It’s hard to say how long they will remain available or if any similar compilations will be issued in the future, now that Sony and BMG, which owned RCA, have merged. Most pre-World War 2 blues recordings are available on Document and other reissue labels. It would be nice to see the historic rights holders continue to honour the Victor blues catalogue but we have no idea if that will happen.

cmc

 

July 7, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 87 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 3:47 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

It was in January that we presented a full-length feature on the the Victor label’s Bluebird subsidiary, the brand logo that included so much excellent blues, country music and jazz in the 1930s. Bluebird was a budget label, created in 1932 to sell music while the Depression was on and abandoned in 1944. We promised in January to present a feature on the Victor label’s full-price blues catalogue before the Bluebird logo was created and that will be the subject of this week’s program–Victor blues recordings between 1926 and 1931. Victor was a late entry to blues recording and the catalogue was not vast but it had quality. In addition, the venture into “race” recording came about the same time as Victor introduced a new electric recording system so Victor’s blues records were fine technically as well as artistically.  One factor that inhibited the development of an extensive blues catalogue is that few records were made in Victor’s home base of Camden, New Jersey, or in New York or Chicago. Most Victor blues recordings in the twenties were the result of “field trips” to locations like Memphis and Atlanta.

On the show: 

Dinwiddie Colored Quartet (1902) –  Mamie Smith  –  Julius Daniels – Bobby Leecan’s Need-More Band – Ishman Bracey – Jim Jackson – Cannon’s Jug Stompers – Sippie Wallace – Luke Jordan – and others

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 August 6th.

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 (July 16th)

No plan for next week beyond the promise of some kind of eclectic mix with blues, soul and gospel. We may present our Louisiana Music special  on July 30th and we are considering a repeat of the Alan Lomax Southern Journey special for August 6th.

cmc

 

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