Good Rocking Roy Brown

Roy Brown was one of the giants of the post-war rhythm and blues era and while he was initially influenced by Bing Crosby, his vocals were among the earliest to show strong gospel influence. His crying vocals presaged others like Billy Wright, B.B. King and others. His “Good Rocking Tonight” was the first of a number of major hits he had and wrote. Wyonnie Harris would even have a bigger recording with “Good Rocking Tonight,” and Elvis would also record it. He wrote many other great songs and one “Mighty, Mighty Man” would lead to his backing band be known as “The Mighty Mighty Men.” A later reworking by Brown of “Good Rockin’ Tonight” as “Rockin’ at Midnight” was reworked by The Honeydrippers, a Robert Plant project, while Brown’s “Hard Luck Blues” also became a blues standard with Howlin’ Wolf recording it two decades later. A pioneer of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues as well as post war R&B, Roy Brown’s The following review (of a CD I purchased) appeared in the May/June 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 282).

The late Roy Brown was one of the legends of rhythm and blues who left an impressive body of blues that foreshadowed modern soul and urban blues with his high-end blues crying and shouting style. English Ace Records has inaugurated the initial release in its The King & Deluxe Acetates Series with Good Rocking’ Brown, which provides at least one version of every surviving acetate that Brown recorded for Deluxe No. 1 1947. 17 of the performances are previously unissued and include unused tracks and alternate takes.

In fact the CD opens with an alternate take to Browns celebrated Good Rocking’ Tonight, along with unused or alternates of such celebrated tracks as Mighty Mighty Man, Deep Sea Diver, Miss Fanny Brown, Special Lesson No. 1 and ‘Long About Midnight. He was backed by some terrific jump blues bands. Copiously annotated (although one wished Ace would include discographical details) and with very good sound, this terrific disc will be of great interest to those who are fans of jump blues and this great blues pioneer.

Looking Back at Some Classic Specialty Rhythm and Blues Reissues

Specialty Records was one of the great labels of the late forties through the fifties documenting the classic jump blues and gospel of the time and the emergence of rock’n’roll. These reviews appeared as a composite review back in the April 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 190).I have updated the review to include the CD title in the body of the review and other info as apprpriate. The Wyonna Carr is currently available on amazon as a download or CD, the Camille Howard is available used or as a download while the Lloyd Price reissue may be difficult to find.

Three more reissues from the Specialty catalog make some classic 50’s rhythm and blues available. While none of these might be termed indispensable, the releases by the women, Camille Howard and Wyonna Carr, are particularly valuable in making available recordings by some of the women who have been unrepresented in such reissues.


Lloyd Price should be familiar from his highly successful recording career, starting with Lawdy Miss Clawdy that was recorded at his first Specialty session with Dave Bartholomew’s band which included Fats Domino, Ernest McLean, Herb Hardesty and Earl Palmer. This collection, Vol. 2 Heavy Dreams, is the second collection of Price’s Specialty recordings and includes a couple of songs from the March 1952 session that produced Lawdy Miss Clawdy (including an alternate take of Chee Koo Baby), and surveys his recording career for Specialty which ended in April 1956. Most of these sessions were recorded in New Orleans with many of the same musicians, except other pianists replaced Domino while Lee Allen’s booting sax is added to some of the later recordings. Much of this is stomping R&B, full of that Crescent City Bounce with Earl Palmer riding the cymbals while rocking out a second line rhythm, and some is Roy Brown influenced blues although by the time of his last session, some of the songs clearly are oriented to the rock and roll market, for which he would have many hits on for his own labels and ABC-Paramount. Most of the Specialty hits are on the earlier collection.Generally this is solid stuff, although there are a few lesser titles here.

Best remembered as Roy Milton’s pianist, and sometimes vocalist, Camille Howard was a formidable member of Milton’s Solid Senders, one of the more popular and influential rhythm and blues groups of the late forties. She sang on several of Milton’s hits, and made a number of recordings under her own name on Specialty, many with Milton and members of the Solid Senders. Many are included on Vol.1 Rock Me Daddy, the first album devoted to her music. She is still alive (actually when I wrote this, this was not true as she passed in March 1993 at the age of 79), although her current religious affiliation leads her to be reticent in talking about the rhythm and blues heyday. Camille Howard certainly was an excellent boogie woogie pianist, on a level with Sammy Price, Lloyd Glenn, and, dare I suggest, Jay MacShann. Her clean, deft touch helped her providing an easy rocking, solid foundation for her recordings, and those with Roy Milton. A relaxed singer, she handles the easy going blues and jump tunes along with ballads. Compared to Hadda Brooks, her vocals on ballads and torch songs strike me as less melodramatic, although I have only heard a smattering of Brooks’ recordings. The 25 recordings here are solid performances and makes this more than simply a fine supplement to the two Roy Milton collections on Specialty. (Specialty did issue a subsequent compilation of her recordings, X-Temporaneous Boogie, and of course she can be heard on those classic Roy Milton jump blues, also on Specialty. She was truly a wonderful pianist and singer).

Cleveland native, Wyonna Carr, originally recorded for Specialty as a gospel singer, enjoying some success with The Ball Game. In 1955 she convinced Specialty’s owner, Art Rupe, to record her on pop material. Jump Jack Jump! brings together 23 of her pop tunes along with one gospel song. The opening three songs, the title cut, the rocking ;Till the Well Runs Dry, and Boppity Bop (Boogity Boog), shows that Specialty at first envisioned her as their answer to Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker, while Hurt Me, sounds like an effort to capture the sound of the Platters, and It’s Rainin’ Outside, has a strong gospel flavor. Her rendition of Should I Ever Love Again is a nice version of a ballad some will associate with New Orleans’ singer Tommy Ridgely, and probably her biggest record. Carr was a strong songwriter as well as a fine singer, and certainly of her many songs these hold up as well as some of the better known hits of the times. Her Please Mr. Jailer where she entreats him to treat her man all right, is fairly memorable as is her clever lyrics on the perky Nursery Rhyme Rock. Most of these were produced by Art Rupe or Bumps Blackwell, although some later sides were produced by Sonny Bono. Some of Bono’s songs such as, I’m Mad at You, are forgettable. For a variety of reasons including lack of luck, her career never took off, and she did not have a rhythm and blues smash. After Specialty, she recorded an album for Reprise Records, and eventually moved back to Cleveland. Billy Vera mentions she suffered depressive periods, and ‘retreated into her shell and faded from sight.’ When she died in 1976, she generally had been forgotten, but this collection will certainly generate a reassessment of her music. (Specialty also reissued a fine album of her gospel sides that is well worth checking out.)




For FTC purposes, Fantasy Records sent me the review copies of these.

Eddie Daye RIP

Eddie Daye IMG_0514
Originally uploaded by NoVARon

Steve Kiviat has blogged on the City Paper's Music Blog that Eddie Daye passed away this past Thursday at the age of 78.Here is the link to Steve's obituary.

Vocalist Eddie Daye was a fixture on the DC music scene for about five decades. While leader of a 1950s vocal group, the Good Time Band, that included his wife, Denise, Daye and his group the Four Bars served as house band for Gee's 400 Club in Brentwood, MD, and Chuck & Billie's in Washington, D.C. Originally formed in the mid-fifties, they were influenced by groups like The Ravens and The Orioles and recorded for Jubilee and Shrine. Later he started Dayco to record the group. In more recent years he and Denise established themselves as DC rhythm & blues royalty.

This picture is from June, 2006 when Eddie Daye (and Denise) entertained the crowd at Lamont's as part of a bill headlined by Theodis Ealey. Highlight of his performance was him singing his blues, "(I Ain't No Dirty Old Man I'm a) Sexy Senior Citizen."

Roy Milton's Miltone label delighted both musically and visually

The British Acrobat label has been issuing a number of very intriguing public domain reissues of classic rhythm & blues, often focusing on a specific label. While these releases may duplicate reissues of various recordings, such reissues often have a lot of unfamiliar material. Also, the releases gather together a variety of material that ranges from blues to gospel quartet, vocal group, pop, swing jazz and more. I point to reissues from vintage labels as Trilon, Big Town, Olivet or Irma as examples.

One reissue of special note is of the Miltone label that the great Roy Milton was a co-owner of. The attractive labels often sported illustrations from cartoonist William "Alex" Alexander that made them a treasure trove for collectors. The label was centered on Roy Milton and His Solid Senders, one of the premier jump blues bands, but included a number of other terrific recordings. Like other Acrobat label reissues, this disc contains a detailed label history and artist notes from Opal Louis Nations as well as some terrific sounds. The liner booklet also contains plenty of label illustrations.

The set opens with four solo sides by The Blues Troubadour, Jesse Thomas, who had recorded for Victor in 1929. Thomas, from Shreveport Louisiana, superficially comes off as a country blues artist as a solo performer, but his dazzling single note guitar and bop-tinged vocals (the delightful D. Double Due Love You being one example), sound modern six decades later. Then there is Jimmy Grissom, the Mississippi born singer who fronted the Blenders and Miltone vocal groups as well as share solo spots with Camille Howard, Milton's featured pianist. One interesting single was Miltone 4001 which coupled You Look So Good To Me b/w The Signifying Monkey, two early Willie Dixon classics with the Big Three Trio. Some of the sides with The Blenders featured comedienne and singer Effie Smith who sang Answer to R.M.Blues, an answer song to one of Milton's biggest hits.

Of course there are a number of Milton's big hits like Milton's Boogie, Red Light, Sunny Side of the Street, and Rainy Day Confession Blues, although some of the transfers here are noisier than those reissued on Specialty. Other delights are five stunning vocals from Little Miss Cornshucks and a number of sides from New Orleans legends like Roy Brown, Paul Gayten and Annie Laurie. So included here is Chubby Newsome's Hip Shakin' Mama; Roy Brown's Long About Midnight; Paul Gayten's Hey Little Girl; and Paul Gayton with Annie Laurie doing the classic Since I Fell For You. Through in some down home blues by Wright Holmes, and blues shouting from The Great Gates, and one has a real fine sampling of late forties R&B with many terrific recordings.

This is available from various Internet retailers like bluebeatmusic.com or amazon.

Plenty of Life in Fathead's Horns

The High Note Recordings by David ‘Fathead’ Newman certainly add to his considerable body of work that has been recorded over six decades. There are the tenor solos he added to Zuzu Bollin’s Texas R&B guitar boogies, and his standout work with Ray Charles’ band in the late fifties as well as many albums under his name including some for Atlantic while with Charles’ Band. Life is his latest disc and produced by Newman & Houston Person, Newman is the only horn on this date, playing alto, tenor and flute. Others on this session are Steve Nelson on vibes, David Leonhardt on piano, Peter Bernstein on guitar, John Menegon on bass and Yoron Isreal on drums. Its a session of classic songs and standards from the lovely opening ballad, Girl Talk, with some rhapsodic tenor to the closing rendition of John Coltrane’s, Naima. John Hicks Life is a brisk waltz with Newman switching to flute is the only song that is not a ballad. Other numbers on which Newman displays his fluency on the flute are I Can’t Get Started, and What a Wonderful World, the latter number being a wonderful interpretation of a song best associated with Louis Armstrong as he improvises off the lyrics, an approach that characterizes his tenor playing on Alfie and his alto sax on Autumn in New York. Other highpoints include lovely renditions of Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday, and John Coltrane’s lovely Naima. Pianist Leonhardt provided the arrangements including the pleasing voicings he provides Newman’s horn along with the piano, guitar and vibes that enhance the performances. Newman comes off as a ballad master with a terrific band here. Certainly a wonderful disc to relax and listen too, although some might have wished a couple more numbers had been included with a brisker tempo.