sweartotellthetruth

October 20, 2015

Blues and Rhythm Show 201 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 3:50 am

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

It’s election day in Canuckistan. Not a lot of time on election night to put this blogpost together of the program itself, for that matter.  At the heart of the program this week, a brief and not entirely representative survey of Roosevelt Sykes‘ recording career.  The Southern Piano Ace was a star of the 1929-1942 era of blues and still an important name in blues and R&B in the post-war era, known as “The Honeydripper” after his 1936 recording with that title. He was also part of the Blues Revival (We don’t like the term but we don’t have a better one) of the 1960s and later. No piano player in the blues made more commercial singles.  He also contributed some memorable songs to the blues songbook including “Driving Wheel” and “The Night Time Is the Right Time”.  He worked solo and in duos, trios and quartets in the thirties, then adapted his style to approximate what the R&B jump combos were doing in the post-war era.  On this program we’re touching on a few points in Sykes’ career and we are likely underemphasizing his early recordings from the period when he was most popular but we’ll return to that period in a future program. Sykes could fairly have expected more recognition in the later years and he possibly deserves more recognition even today when almost all of his early music is available.

Product DetailsProduct Details

Also on this week’s program, a bit of African-American rock and roll, a pair of tracks collected by Art Rosenbaum, first recordings of a couple of songs whose origins interested us and some latter-day soul.

Image result for roosevelt sykes

On the Show: Eunice Davis – Willie Egan – Leon Bridges – Hokum Boys – Scrapper Blackwell – Lee Green – Roosevelt Sykes – Johnny Rawls & Otis Clay – et al.

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 November 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 (October 27th)

TBA

cmc

Leave a Comment

March 10, 2015

Blues and Rhythm Show 171 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 5:43 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, March 10th, (1:00-2:30 pm)

Women’s music is underrepresented in the blues, R&B and soul catalogues of the record companies except for the decade of the 1920s, which was devoted almost exclusively to female classic-vaudeville blues artists for five years while that style remained well-represented by the record companies until 1930 and a bit after. We try to present women’s music in every show although we very occasionally fail, as on our Mardi Gras special of two weeks ago, but we also make sure to present an International Women’s Day special each year. Some years our IWD show has been issue-oriented. This year’s is not issue-oriented for the most part. We have done a number of features on women’s blues and gospel but we think it’s important to devote one show a year entirely to women’s expression, especially when the weight of the commercial labels’ catalogues are so heavily weighted to music by men, who also have dominated in label ownership, production and A&R, as well as in record distribution and  radio. Even in the sixties, one encounters stories to the effect that a certain female artist’s records failed to get effective promotion and distribution because records by Aretha Franklin had been given precedence. Based upon prejudice or real experience, the distributors and radio programmers appear to have imposed a quota on female artists, even if the record labels had not.

On the Show:

Cleo Brown – Ida Cox – Lucille Bogan – Precious Bryant – Marilyn Scott – Eunice Davis – Famous Davis Sisters – The Georgia Peach – Irma Thomas – Betty Harris – and others

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 April 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 (March 17th)

We don’t have a plan yet for the show. We do promise nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day.

cmc

January 13, 2014

Blues and Rhythm Show 114 on 93.3 CFMU (Hamilton, Ontario)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — cmcompton @ 5:36 am

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, January 14, 2014 (1:00-2:30 pm)

We said on air this week’s show would be a grab-bag and so it is. Some R&B recorded between 1950 and 1959, including tracks from  the under-estimated Derby label; some 1950s Chicago blues especially for those who think we don’t play enough; a few live soul recordings. We try to bring you the essential tracks as well as the stuff you are unlikely to hear on other shows and, in spite of our haste in putting this program together, we think it qualifies.

On the Show:

The Majors – Eunice Davis – Titus Turner – Big Jay McNeely – Snooky Pryor – J.B. Hutto – Willie Mabon – Geno Washington – Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – Mel Brown – 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 February 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 (January 21st)

Haven’t had time to figure out next week’s show. We’ll try to provide some advance notice.

cmc

Blog at WordPress.com.