sweartotellthetruth

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

Five years ago a label called Big Legal Mess issued a set of gospel recordings on three CDs, presenting recordings for the Pitch and Gusman labels, labels that operated out of Waymon Jones’ Savannah, Georgia record shop through the sixties and seventies. This year, Big Legal Mess has just issued a 4 CD set of gospel recordings from a company in Memphis, called Designer Records, that issued a few recordings for which the artists were paid to record but which was, first of all, a custom recording service which artists themselves paid to record their music and produce 45 rpm pressings, or, in a few cases, albums, to sell to their audiences or use for promotion. A few of the artists went on to bigger things but most were never full-time professionals. They might travel on weekends to participate in gospel programs but they weren’t relying on singing and playing for an income and most probably didn’t expect to. We’re going to present a selection of tracks from The Soul of Designer Records. It’s a remarkable catalogue and this is a fascinating set of music and we thought we’d give the set some serious attention on the program

Also on the show, a couple of examples of one-string instrument performers, white pop blues from a couple of stars of the vaudeville era and a bit of soul out of Nashville and Memphis.

On the Show:

Mad Mel Sebastian – Willie Joe Duncan & His Unitar – Sophie Tucker – The Fantastic Alphonzo Thomas – Alberta Powell – The Canton Spirituals – Rev. Houston Potts – Five Singing Stars – Paul Kelly – Gene “Bowlegs” Miller

Listen to the program at FM 93.3 in Hamilton or on CFMU online at cfmu.msu.mcmaster.ca. The program will be available to stream or as a podcast until December 31st.

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 (December 9th)

Feature portion of the show will be a selection of classic-vaudeville blues from the 1921-1932 era. Emphasis on Southern barrelhouse and saloon blues from the period

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