sweartotellthetruth

August 19, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 93 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 1:21 pm

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, August 20th, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

This week’s lineup includes fifties and sixties blues and R&B from both coasts, some hard blues and a couple of tracks on the poppish side of things. We have something from the new CD from Mark “Bird” Stafford (Live At the Delta) and an older track from Charlie Musselwhite, lately touring with Ben Harper. Also, some sacred steel and something from a fine retro singer who appears to have a new CD on the way.

On the show: 

Jackie Wilson –  Larry Dale  –  Ray Agee – Camille La Vah – Margie Evans – Harry Van Walls – Charles Brown – Rev. Lonnie Farris – Snooks Eaglin – and more

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 17th.

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 27th)

Our last program of the summer will be our repeat of the John Lomax Southern Journey feature, which first aired in May. The following week, September 3rd, will emanate from the lobby of the McMaster Student Union building and we’ll be shopping all of our musical wares for those who are present live at the MSU and those of you listening at home or at work.

cmc

 

August 12, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 92 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 12:54 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

No feature this week, but we do have a couple of rare boogie tracks and a brief set of blues from the thirties. Later in the program, soul from Quinn Ivy’s Broadway Sound Studios of Sheffield, Alabama and a couple of tacks from Memphis. There’ll be some golden era gospel along the way , as well

On the show: 

Joe Turner –  Robert Johnson  –  Big Bill – Rosetta Howard – Downchild Blues Band – Tony Borders –  Bill Brandon – Timmy Thomas – Dixie Hummingbirds – Montreal Jubilation Choir – Booker T. Jones – 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 September 10th.

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 20th)

Another general program next week. No feature. We have more loose ends to tie. We have decided to postpone our repeat of the John Lomax Southern Journey feature and reschedule for August 27th, last Tuesday of the summer.

Zydeco

For anyone interested in Zydeco music after our special on Cajun and Zydeco, two weeks ago, there is a pretty comprehensive full-length study of the music by Michael Tisserand–The Kingdom of Zydeco (Avon, 1998).

cmc

 

August 5, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 91 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 2:48 pm

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

Hoodoo Party: Just at the time when blues’ decline as African-American popular music was beginning, Louisiana became a source of popular blues recording, reflecting an active and varied blues scene. An independent local record industry developed in response to the unique musical traditions in the state and several of those independent labels persisted long past the time when small labels in other parts of the U.S. ceased operation or sold out to larger interests. Louisiana became associated with the Excello Sound, the blues recordings made at Jay Miller’s Crowley, Louisiana Studio but sold by Ernie Young’s Nashville-based Excello label. What Miller didn’t or couldn’t sell to Excello, he issued on his own labels. Not always so immediately identifiable were records made in Lake Charles, for Eddie Shuler’s Goldband Records. Jin Records of Ville Platte, Louisiana and Carol Rachou’s La Louisianne label in Lafayette were later entrants to the R&B market. We’re going to look at blues and R&B from the Pelican State, starting in 1954. Some of these records reached the national market while others had only local distribution. Whether the records sold nationally or not, what came out of these recording studios was an expression of local music scenes and musical cultures.

On the show: 

Katie Webster  –  Clarence Garlow  –  Al Ferrier – Lonesome Sundown – Smoky Babe –  Lazy Lester – Margo White – Rockin’ Sidney – Whispering Smith – 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 September 3rd.

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 13th)

No feature next week. Some kind of eclectic mix with likely a bit of gospel and soul and some more recent sounds than we’ve featured in the past couple of weeks.

cmc

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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

 

June 30, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 86 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 12:40 pm

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

We were putting together our program and having some difficulty doing it when we happened to learn of the passing of Bobby Bland–Bobby “Blue” Bland. So, the latter part of the program will be a hastily assembled tribute to “The Man”. We’ll also have some blues and gospel with a Texas connection and an example of the earliest commercialization of blues as sheet music.

On the show: 

Fathead, W.C. Handy Preservation Band, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Louisiana Red, Hosea Hargrove, Jo Ann Kelly, Reverend K.M. Williams, Bobby “Blue” Bland. 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 July 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 (July 9th) – Victor label blues

Following up on our Bluebird label special of several months ago, we plan to present a feature on the Victor label’s entry into blues and gospel recording before the program was transferred to the Bluebird logo. This feature would cover the years 1926-1932,  roughly.

cmc

June 24, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 85 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 1:25 pm

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, June 25, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

Part of our mandate on the Blues & Rhythm Show is to present classic Rhythm & Blues on a regular basis. This week, we present a loose survey of the R&B scene between 1944 and early 1950, with an emphasis on the blues side of Rhythm & Blues. In our survey, many of the prominent artists of the era and a few obscurities, as well.

On the show: 

Jack McVea with Rabon Tarrant, Saunders King, Buddy Johnson, King Perry, Joe Liggins, Martha Davis, Tiny Bradshaw, Earl Jackson, Little Miss Cornshucks, Dinah Washington, 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 July 23rd.

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 2nd)

No plan yet for next week but we’re thinking about some summer specials for July and August, including a program devoted to Louisiana traditions, including Cajun and zydeco music.

cmc

 
 

June 16, 2013

Blues and Rhythm Show 84 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 7:26 pm

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, June 18, 2013 (1:00-2:30 pm)

This week, a full-length feature on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, her life and music, forerunners, and her place in musical history. Few performers reached the heights that Sister Tharpe attained but that did not mean that her future was always secure or that her finances were not precarious. Claims that one artist or another influenced the direction of musical history are often bogus but it seems pretty clear that Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s influence extended well beyond the gospel field. Beyond that, there’s the obvious fact that she was an outlier within gospel as a woman who not only accompanied herself on guitar but flaunted her virtuosity. Many African American artists have been cited as though their alleged contributions to the evolution of rock and roll were their most significant achievement. This program is concerned with Sister Tharpe’s contribution to gospel music but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that she helped shaped rock and roll style–for whatever that is worth.

On the show: 

Blind Willie Johnson, Arizona Dranes, Thomas Dorsey, Lucky Millinder, Katie Bell Nubin, Marie Knight, Red Foley

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 July 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 (June 25th)

We’re thinking about putting together a classic R&B special, featuring many of the biggest names in the music–names like Joe Liggins, Roy Milton and Dinah Washington, for next week’s program.

cmc

 
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