THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday, Jimmy Reed

 

Mathis James Reed, better known in this world as Jimmy Reed, would have been 98 years old today. However, he died at the age of 50 back in 1976 at the age of 50.

Happy birthday, Boss Man!

Reed, who like so many of his generation of blues singers migrated from Mississipoi to Chicago, left behind an amazing catalogue of songs, some of the most recognizable blues tunes this side of Muddy Waters.

He began recording on the Chicago-based label Vee Jay in 1953  (Hey, they had The Beatles for a short time!) Encyclopedia Brittanica --not usually my first go-to blues history source --described his tunes: 

"They almost invariably featured the same basic, unadorned rural boogie-shuffle rhythm accompanied by his thickly drawled "mush-mouth: vocals and high, simply phrased harmonica solos."

Mush-mouth? I dunno ...

Jackie Meyers of Mississippi Writers & Musicians wrote:

Much of his success can be credited to his friend Eddie Taylor, who played on most of his sessions, and his wife, Mama Reed, who wrote many of his songs and even sat behind him in the studio reciting his lyrics into his forgetful ear as he sang. His hits appealed  to blacks and  whites. Many of his blues songs were even adopted by white R&B groups during the early 60’s.  He was the first of the Chicago electric bluesmen to break through to the pop/rock market. Reed  had fourteen  hits for Vee Jay on the R&B charts between 1955 and 1966.

Among those who have covered Reed tunes are Elvis Presley, Count Basie, Willie Nelson, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Grateful Dead, Waylon Jennings Sonny James and scores of others.

But nobody sounded like mush-moth Jimmy!

Here are a few of my favorite Reed songs.

Honest, I do love this one:

And if you don't love Jimmy Reed I'm going to ask you to Hush:

I'm amazed no insurance company never tried to use this one in a comercial:

But my favorite has always been Big Boss Man. I always have imagined some bone-weary Egyptian slave defiantly shouting this into the air while working on some pyramid.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Classic American Filthy Songs

 

Today is Robert Crumb's 80th birthday! I've saluted Crumb's musical career a couple of times on his birthday on a couple of previous Wacky Wednesdays (CLICK HERE and HERE), so today let's do something different.

I was reminded recently of a song I first heard done by Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders many decades ago. It was Harry Roy's "Pussy," sometimes known as "My Girl's Pussy"  from back in 1931. And that reminded me how, despite all the moral outrages over music through, well since the recording industry began, smutty songs have been part of American life.

Makes me proud to be an American!

First let's look at a tune by Gov. Jimmie Davis, years before he became Louisiana's chief executive. Though he's far better known for his signature song "You Are My Sunshine,"

The late Nick Tosches wrote of Davis in his book Country: The Biggest Music in America (1977): "He sang a country music that drew heavily  from the blues of the deep South, more heavily even than that of his idol, Jimmie Rodgers."

 Here's a tune describing the interactions between a pussy and a cock:

Here's a classic by Butterbeans & Susie (Jodie and Susie Edwards), which received frequent airplay on the KUNM blues show back when I was at the University of New Mexico in the early '70s:

O.K., this one, "Shave 'em Dry" by Lucille Bogan, which opens with the notorious rhyme, "I got nipples on my titties big as the end of my thumb / I got somethin' 'tween my legs 'll make a dead man come" is perhaps the raunchiest tune in the American songbook. But it doesn't really count because it never was publicly released in her lifetime. 

Bogan, under the name of "Bessie Jackson," recorded "Shave," (which had been done previously by Ma Rainey as well as Papa Charlie Jackson)  in the mid '30s (I've seen it listed as 1933, 1934 as well as1935). But Melotone Records released a relatively mild version (no reference to nipples, etc.) in 1935.

According to Dick Spotwood's liner notes to Columbia Legacy's 2004 CD, Shave ’Em Dry: The Best of Lucille Bogan:

Bogan made two triple-X rated pieces for her own amusement and that of others in the studio. `Shave `em Dry' and `Til the Cows Come Home' were surreptitiously entered in the [American Record Corporation] recording book as trial recordings with no indication of their contents. A few pressings were made for studio workers and friends and the masters destroyed. Until recently, no copies were known to have survived.

The dirty version started appearing on blues compilations inn the early 1990s. But even though there were no available versions back in the early '70s, I remember hearing about the song when I was in high school. You can hear it now:

But now let's get back to that song that Crumb taught us:

And, like I said above, something recently reminded me of this classic. It was when I watched the movie Babylon a couple of weeks ago. Actress Li Jun Li sings a reimagined lesbian version (with the help of soundtrack composer Justin Hurwitz.) 

Later in the film a snatch (sorry) of the original Harry Roy version can be heard.

But Babylon wasn't the first time the song has appeared in a drama in recent ears. Here's Michael Zegen as Bugsy Siegel in Boardwalk Empire in 2014

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 27 , 2023
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres

Star Collector by The Monkees 

Bloody Mary by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages

Bigger and Better by The Fleshtones

Ain't No Pussy by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons

Out Of Our Tree by The Wailers 

Without You by The Grawks

Rocky by Butthole Surfers

Love by Country Joe & The Fish

John Henry by Snakefarm

Dreaming Party by Degurutieni

Drop Dead Gorgeous by Knoxville Girls

Leaning On The Everlasting Arm by Rev. Gatemouth Moore and His Gospel Singers

Like A Chicken by WITCH

Streets Of Lusaka by WITCH

Black Rat by Big Mama Thornton

On Trial by The Fugitives 

Fire Walk With Me by Archie & The Bunkers 

Huboon Stomp by Devo

Bad She Gone Voodoo by Chief Fuzzer

I'm In With) The Out Crowd by The A-Bones

Banned in Boston by Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs 

Waking The Lion by Iriebellion

Torn Curtain by Television 

Cosmic Queries by Willis Earl Beal 

So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad) by The Everly Brothers 

Through It All by Lady Wray 

You Were A Friend of Mine by Eilen Jewell

Murder's Crossed my Mind by Desdemona Finch

CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

All instrumental "bed" music on this show is by Dave Del Monte & The Cross Country Boys

The Twisted Groove

Saturday, August 26, 2023
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Saturdays Mountain Time
Substitute Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist:

Earth Died Screaming by Tom Waits

Masquerade by Willis Earl Beal

Love Is Like Gravity by Pere Ubu

Chimelong by Danger Cutterhead

Pinky's Dream by David Lynch with Karen O 

13th Floor City by Degurutieni

Dropout Boogie by Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band 

Heartbreak Hotel by The Residents 

That's When Your Heartaches Begin by James Chance & Pill Factory 

Draygo's Guilt by The Fall

Stuttering Wind by Johnny Dowd 

I Gotta Get A Fake I.D. by Barnes & Barnes

Evil Alligator Man by Jad Fair

Pyschoticbumpschool by Bootsy Collins 

Nude Sexuality in the Afternoon by John Trubee & The Ugly Janitors Of America

Life Drawing by Old Time Relijun

AFRO-PSYCHEDELIA SET 

Home Town by WITCH

WITCH at Meow Wolf last week

Avalanche Of Love by WITCH 

Acid Rock by The Funkees

Akoko Ba  by Gyedu Blay-Ambolley

Ekassa 25 by Victor Uwaifo

Ifa by Tunji Oyelana & The Benders 

Extraordinary Woman by The Psychedelic Aliens

Brand New Special and Unique by Stan Ridgway

Starlight by Lou Reed & John Cale

Emergence Of The Spirit by Harry Partch

Lightning’s Girl by Lydia Lunch

Camp Orange by Cornershop

Tikor by Cankisou

Valerie by Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention

The Beat Goes On by Giant Sand

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday, Wynonie Harris

 

On this day, August 24, in 1915 in Omaha, Nebraska, Wynonie Harris was born.

Happy Birthday, "Mr. Blues."

Harris isn't nearly as famous as he ought to be. But those familiar with his works know a special joy, a special dirty joy!

As Bill Dahl wrote in AllMusic:

No blues shouter embodied the rollicking good times that he sang of quite like raucous shouter Wynonie Harris. "Mr. Blues," as he was not-so-humbly known,  joyously related risque tales of sex, booze, and endless parties in his trademark raspy voice over some of the jumpingest horn-powered combos of the postwar era.

Harris started out his show biz career as a dancer, but, inspired by the like of Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing, he soon became a professional singer. And he left Omaha for Los Angeles in 1940.

He made his recording debut in 1944 fronting Lucky Millinder's band on the song "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" -- though by the time it was released the next year, Harris had left the band. Here's that song:

By 1945, Harris had a solo career, signing first with Philo Records. Most of the tunes I know and love, however, came from Harris' time on King Records. 

Harris had many R&B hits in the late '40s and early '50s. But his career began to fade. Harris died at the age of 53 of esophageal cancer in 1969.

Here are some songs from Wynonie Harris' glory years. Let's start with "Good Morning, Judge":

Here's a sweet ode by Harris to his grandmother:

I don't know how much air play this song, "Kept on Sittin' on It" actually got back in 1947. But I'd like to think a lot.

And finally, here's one in which Harris expresses his fondness for sweet, gelatin-based desserts: