sweartotellthetruth

October 7, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 150 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 11:54 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, October 7th, (1:00-2:30 pm)

Conclusion of our three week survey of rhythm & blues before 1950. The records we will be featuring today were issued in 1949. As in the previous two weeks of our survey, the records include hits and misses. For the recording industry, the return to making records meant a return to regular business. As in the case of the previous “Petrillo Ban” of 1942-1944 and the dip in recording activity in the early 1930s, there was a certain amount of turnover in company artist rosters but, in the case of the 1948 strike, which lasted 11 1/2 months, the companies relied first on established artists, whose stockpiled recordings they had been releasing throughout the recording ban. 1949 saw certain trends in the R&B charts–the honking tenor came to the fore and instrumentals were big in the charts; a few gospel recordings, by artists like Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight sold well enough to appear as regional or juke box hits; down home blues by artists like L.C. Williams and Mercy Dee also showed up as national or regional hits. The charts were dominated by records by male artists. Our show will take us part of the way through 1949’s significant artists and recordings. We’ll leave this series for a while and return to it in a few weeks.

On the Show:

Paul Williams Sextet – Andrew Tibbs – Ivory Joe Hunter – Piney Brown – Big Jay McNeely – Ray Charles – Joe Turner – The Five Scamps – Marion Abernathy – Jimmy Preston – Little Miss Cornshucks

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 November 5th.

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 (October 14th)

We’ll take a break from three weeks of concentrating on R&B and mix things up on the show.

cmc

 

September 30, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 149 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 2:37 pm

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

This week we continue our survey of rhythm and blues, begun last week, through the years 1947 and 1948. Commercial recording was interrupted by the second American Federation of Musicians strike, the second so-called “Petrillo Ban”, which lasted most of 1948. For that reason, most of what was released by the record companies in 1948 was recorded in late 1947 and stockpiled for later release. 1947 saw the emergence of new down-home blues performers, including Muddy Waters, Smokey Hogg and Lightnin’ Hopkins on independent labels as Columbia and Victor carried on with limited blues recording based in Chicago and diminishing rosters. That’s not our focus on this week’s show. Mostly, the record companies continue to concentrate their resources upon the new urban-based music, “jump” R&B combos, with musicians versed in playing jazz and  that’s the music that we are featuring in this three-week series of programs.

On the Show:

Todd Rhodes & His Orchestra – Albert Ammons – Hadda Brooks – Gene Phillips – Nellie Lutcher – Bull Moose Jackson – Jimmy Witherspoon – Wild Bill Moore – Louis Jordan = Roy Milton – Dixieaires

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 October 28th.

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 (October 7th)

Our survey of R&B continues through the music’s great year, 1949.

Errors and Omissions

Two weeks ago we played a version of the song “Today I Started Loving Your Again” by Bettye Swann. We anoounced that it was a George Jones song.  Of course, it was not.It was written by Merle Haggard.

cmc

 

September 28, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 148 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 5:29 pm

 

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

Last week’s program began as what was intended to be a representative survey of rhythm & blues from the beginning to about the mid-fifties. The i.d. “rhythm & blues” has been misapplied over the decades and we’re sure there are people who aren’t sure exactly what we are referring to when we use the term. The idea was for last week’s program to let the playlist describe the scope of classic rhythm & blues. “Rhythm & Blues” is first an industry term, used for marketing purposes, but it aptly captures the phenomenon of blues music blended with elements of jazz. Of course, it was used as a blanket term to describe all the records on the African-American charts, formerly known as “race” or, later, as “sepia”. The best-seller chart was known for a while as the Harlem Hit Parade. Thus the term embraced popular jazz records, down-home blues and popular ballads sold to African Americans, as documented by the industry publication, Billboard Magazine. The term was invented by Jerry Wexler while he was a writer for Billboard and applied retroactively to records issued in the post-World war 2 era and to a few records issued in the war years.

When we assembled the program, we wound up taking a different track from the one we had started with. We wound up concentrating on the early years of R&B, starting with a few records from the war era and proceeding barely into 1947. We’ll resume this survey with next week’s program, taking us further into the R&B era.

On the Show:

Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra – Cecil Gant – Erskine Hawkins – Joe Turner – Gatemouth Moore – Helen Humes – Roy Milton – Wynonie Harris – Julia Lee – Amos Milburn

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 October 21st..

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 (September 30th)

We continue into the late 1940s with our R&B survey.

cmc

September 15, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 147 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 11:32 pm

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

This will be one of gap-filling programs, a show where we tie up some loose ends arising from some recent programs we have aired. Some gospel, some blues and some soul on the show this week.

We follow up on a thread we mentioned last week in our special on 78 collectors and the records they value most highly. Specifically, we look at the duo of Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas in response to an article published earlier this year by John Jeremiah Sullivan in the New York Times Magazine, an article which sheds considerable light on a pair of artists who have been the subject of much speculation and theorizing. We also fill out the picture of pre-war blues in Alabama from a show three weeks ago with some examples of Birmingham piano.We close the program with a selection of soul recordings, most of them recorded at Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals.

On the Show:

Viola James & congregation – Cat-Iron – Jewel Gospel Trio – Earl Hooker – Elvie Thomas – Barbecue Bob – Jabo Williams – Clarence Carter – Erma Franklin – Candi Staton

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 October 14th.

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 (September 23rd)

No plan as yet, but we will likely feature some R&B.

cmc

September 9, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 146 on 93.3, CFMU-FM (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 6:26 am

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

Amanda Petrusich recently published a book called Do Not Sell At Any Price: the Wild Obsessive Hunt For the World’s Rarest 78 RPM Records. Much of this book has to do with the search for early blues records. We have a playlist mostly based upon the particular records Petrusich selected to discuss in the book and we key on a few of the issues she raises about the role of 78 collectors in forming our understanding of the blues and making the world aware of early blues styles in the first place. We have a few points of disagreement with the author and some questions about emphasis but the book is an informative and balanced account of where blues 78 collecting began and where it led, although that part of the story in Petrusich’s account seems incomplete to us. In any case, we recommend the book to anyone interested in the story of how we came to appreciate and value a music that was a marginal part of the music industry, widely disrespected, if not ignored completely outside of a small community of followers. At the same time the book also deals with issues of the collector aesthetic that tended to set value on the rare and the obscure and disdained music that was broadly popular.

On the Show:

Clifford Hayes’ Louisville Stompers – Willie Brown – Skip James – Ma Rainey – Charley Patton – Geeshie Wiley – Rev. F. W. McGee – Long Cleve Reed & Papa Harvey Hull (The Down Home Boys) – Kelly Harrell – Amede Ardoin

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 October 7th.

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 (September 16th)

We have absolutely no idea at this point.

Correction

The extra track which closed the program was by Jerron Paxton, not “Jerred” as we stated on air. He sometimes calls himself “Blind Boy” Paxton. The track we played came from an album called The Best of the Brooklyn Folk Festival, issued by Jalopy Records in 2014. We’re not aware of any other recordings besides the pair of live performances on this album.

cmc

September 6, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 145 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ont

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 7:31 pm

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

A special program for Welcome Week at McMaster University.We were live in the atrium of the McMaster University Student Union. No theme, just a selection of blues, R&B, gospel and soul. As well, a couple of examples of the hybrid music known sometimes as soul-blues, music sustained by a loyal audience but which survives without much attention from the larger music industry or the blues media.

On the Show:

Smiley Lewis – Sam “Highpockets” Henderson – Eddie Kirkland – Ginger St. James & the Grinders – Joe Pullum – Little Smokey Smothers – Loving Sisters – Bettye Swann – Willie Clayton – Little Booker

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 October 7th.

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 (September 9th)

A review program based upon Amanda Petrusich’s book Do Not Sell at Any Price, about the pursuit of the rarest 78 recordings and the influence that blues 78 collectors have had upon what we understand about early blues. The show will feature many fine recordings from the twenties and thirties.

cmc

Blues and Rhythm Show 144 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

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

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, August 26th (1:00-2:30 pm)

This week, a program devoted entirely to blues and quartet gospel from Alabama in the 1920s and 1930s. Generalizations about blues from Alabama are difficult. There is simply a dearth of information even about relatively well-known figures like Ed Bell (aka Barefoot Bill). Birmingham was a location visited by record companies as early as 1927 and as late as 1937 but without really reflecting the local blues scene in any depth and there isn’t much hard information about some recording artists believed to be from Alabama. Blues historians and album compilers tend to group recordings and performers regionally. Alabama was the state where a lot of a pre-blues music could be found in the 1930s and still in the 1940s and 1950s when researchers like Harold Courlander and Frederick Ramsay were active recording traditional performers. Indications are that there was a healthy blues scene in Birmingham, including boogie piano, but it isn’t well-represented in commercial records.

We can be more certain about gospel quartet. Birmingham and Bessemer, both in Jefferson County, were the home of a distinct quartet culture, especially in the 1920s and thirties. Mobile on the Gulf Coast also had a gospel scene. We offer a selection of quartet gospel mostly recorded between 1928 and 1932. Two of the quartets in this set recorded in the post-World War 2  era and our set does not include the Heavenly Gospel Singers, whose records were all made between 1935 and 1941.

The years 1930 to 1932 witnessed a shaking out of the record industry and most blues and gospel performers–like most country artists who recorded in the twenties—would not record again when the labels began to build back their catalogues. The first five quartets in our survey did not record after 1931.  The Famous Blue Jay Singers first recorded in 1932 but not again until 1947.

On the Show:

Tampa Red – Daddy Stovepipe – Bogus Ben Covington – Jaybird Coleman – Walter Roland – Mobile Strugglers – Mount Zion Baptist Quartet – Bessemer Sunset Four – Slim Duckett & Pig Norwood – Famous Blue Jay Singers of Birmingham – Jimmy Hughes

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 September 30th.

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 (September 2nd)

Next week is Welcome Week at McMaster University. We will present a live show from the Atrium of the McMaster Student Centre. Blues, R&B, Gospel and Soul will all be represented in the mix.

cmc

August 19, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 143 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — cmcompton @ 5:18 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, August 19th (1:00-2:30 pm)

No theme or feature to this week’s show. Mix of blues, R&B, soul and gospel. Show includes a postscript for our B.B. King special of three weeks ago. Also a couple of original African-American songs that have connections to songs in last week’s Cajun special. After that, a brief set of rhythm & blues, a bit of soul, and some Chicago gospel.

On the Show:

Roy Hawkins – B.B. King – Little Joe Blue – George E. Lee & His Orchestra – Little Willie Littlefield – Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers – Steve Freund – Ted Taylor – Barrett Sisters

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 September 16th.

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 26th)

After several weeks of features and,specials, we think next week’s program may be an eclectic, gap-filling 90 minutes. We’ve yet to plan what we’re going to do.

cmc

Share this:

August 12, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 142 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 5:09 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, August 12th (1:00-2:30 pm)

This week we take one of our occasional looks at Cajun music. Most of the show will feature Cajun tracks with a few zydeco tracks in the latter part of the show. Record companies began recording Acadian records in 1928 when Joseph Falcon recorded for Columbia. We begin our survey in 1929 and we feature recordings made over 66 years of Cajun music. The Cajun market represented an opportunity for the companies to capture new and discrete markets by bringing what seemed to be popular in these communities to record. Columbia, Brunswick and Victor all entered the Cajun market and regular field sessions were organized and new artists sought. After the war, these specialty markets were largely dropped by the majors and independent labels filled the vacuum. As a result, the field of Cajun music was pretty well covered by the record industry, if somewhat unevenly at times. The story of Cajun music seems to have connections to perceptions of Acadian identity, linguistic pride and community aspirations. Many early recordings featured the accordion but taste in the mid to late thirties seemed to favour Western-Swing style fiddle bands. The late fifties saw the return of the accordian to its place in the music and with it perhaps a wave of ethnic and linguistic pride, which has solidified in subsequent years.

On the Show:

Beau Thomas and Cajun Power – Dennis McGee – Lawrence Walker – Hackberry Ramblers – Iry Lejeune – Balfa Brothers – Bruce Daigrepont – Good Rockin’ Sam – Buckwheat Zydeco – Jimmy C. Newman

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 September 9th.

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 19th)

After several weeks of features and,specials, we think next week’s program may be an eclectic, gap-filling 90 minutes. We’ve yet to plan what we’re going to do.

cmc

August 5, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 141 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 1:31 pm

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, August 5th (1:00-2:30 pm)

We play a pretty broad variety of blues and blues artists on this program but a hurried survey told us we hadn’t played a number of significant blues artists from Chicago in not quite three years on the air. We decided to devote one of our midsummer specials to correcting the situation so far as we could in 90 minutes. Blues recordings began to disappear from the R&B charts in the late fifties. In Chicago, a number of clubs closed and blues performers retired or took on full-time employment. For all the disruption that occurred in the club scene and to the lives of individual performers, blues continued to be a source of entertainment in Chicago. It retained an audience in south and west side clubs and a new audience helped support blues in places it might not have been heard before. Some performers not only met the challenge of soul music but made elements of soul part of their style. Our special will feature a selection of blues performers from the 1970s and ’80s. We’ll try to present a fairly representative selection of the blues styles that could be heard in Chicago in this twenty years span, featuring music mostly from blues specialist labels.

On the Show:

Hound Dog Taylor – Willie Williams – Mighty Joe Young – Good Rockin’ Charles – Luther Allison – Big Time Sarah – Artie “Blues Boy” White – Gloria Hardiman

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 September 2nd.

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 12th)

We don’t know for sure but we’re think we’re going to take our attention down south next week.

cmc

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Blog at WordPress.com.