March 30, 2016

Key to the Highway Fifth Wednesday     
3-30-2016                                                                  
Son Seals                                    1991, 1994
Slim Gaillard                              1937-1946
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So this is one of those fun shows for me, a fifth Wednesday of the month, which happens four times a year and it gives my alternating host and me the opportunity to get together and shoot the breeze as we alternate sets instead of weeks.  I don’t usually try to comment on Paul’s playlist but this show a lot of things caught my eye. 
I had considered putting in a set of Billy Boy Arnold, but since Paul included him in his set it seems I made a good decision in not doing so.  Let Me Love You Baby is likely my favorite Buddy Guy tune,, but what really put the smile on my face are the numbers from L.C. “Good Rockin’” Robinson and Lafayette “Thing” Thomas because they are from an album I used to have called Oakland Blues.  My recollection tells me that they were both guitarists who backed up each other’s vocal tracks.  Piano player on these selections was Dave Alexander, who changed his name to Omar Sharriff and actually held a Blues slot at KKUP before I got here.  I’m sure I still have the vinyl version but it got warped or for some similar reason is no longer playable.
As far as my two artists of the day, it is fortunate that I had one write-up already available and, since Ihave neither the time nor the inclination to put together my own essay, I will include the All Music post for the second.  Gaillard would fit in a timeline consistent with the Razzberry’s show The Swing Shift, which follows my normal show the second and fourth Wednesdays, while Seals is one of those Chicago singing guitar-slingers that I familiarized myself with when I first started at KKUP around 1990.  I got to see him perform at one of the San Jose State Fountain Blues Festivals.  Sons set combines selections taken from two of his early 90s albums, Living in the Danger Zone and Nothing But the Truth, while Gaillard’s sets come from the Proper Records 4CD set, Laughing in Rhythm.
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I’ve gotten into a lot of musicians I was totally unaware of in my twenty-five-plus years here at KKUP, and we are going to hear a good portion from one of my favorites today.  Slim Gaillard (1916-1991) was a guitar-playing small band leader who infused his music with a sense of humor not unlike his contemporary, Louis Jordan.  His recording career began in 1937 as vocalist for the Frankie Newton band, but shortly thereafter teamed up on guitar with bassist Slam Stewart, putting out their first record the next year as Slim and Slam.  The first sessions had the two musician\vocalists backed only by drums and piano, but within about six months they began adding horns, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Slim was born in January of 1916, either on the first or the fifth, and that is where the dubiousness of his stories just begins.  Detroit, Michigan is the most common listing as his birthplace, but some sources put it as Santa Clara, Cuba.  His father was a ship's steward, and one of Slim's tales is that, when he was twelve, his father's ship sailed off and left him on the Greek island of Crete, and that he survived on his own for six months without being able to speak the language before he made his way back home to Detroit.  He went on to become a boxer, light heavyweight champion of Michigan was the claim, and later the driver of a van that supposedly was used to smuggle liquor across the Canadian border.  Moving to New York in 1937, Gaillard made many appearances on the Major Bowes radio program, undergoing numerous name changes to allow more opportunities in these amateur contests.  Eventually, Slim acquired his own show singing and playing guitar.
Born Leroy Elliot Stewart in 1916, by the time Slam met Gaillard in 1937 he had a developed technique of humming an octave higher than the notes he was bowing on his bass.  In Slam's words, "He invited me to do a show with him.  It was the first time we had played together, but we fell into it with each other.  He played lead and I played rhythm bass and then one or two solos with my new singing and bowing style.  It was just the two of us going at it playing by ear, but disc jockey Martin Block was impressed and signed us up.  We decided then and there to team up and began looking for a name.  Seein' that I was slammin' around on the bass fiddle, and that word went nicely with Slim, Slam was produced. ...  I never did hear of another Slam."
Their first session was in January of 1938 and it produced what would become their signature song, The Flat Foot Floozie with the One Floy Joy, but the term Floozie was considered too controversial for Vocalion, so another session was done in February with the song's words and title changed to The Flat Foot Floogie.  As they searched for a publisher for the song, Slim tells us that Bud Green of Green Brothers and Knight told them, "'Ok, we'll publish it.  We'll give you two-fifty advance against royalties.'  I thought he was talking two dollars and fifty cents.  He wrote out a check for two hundred and fifty dollars.  I was running into walls looking at it all the way out."  The song charted for 17 weeks, reaching a high of second place, and was covered often n 1938, including by Benny Goodman, Wingy Manone, and the Mills Brothers, all of whom also charted with it.  The song became so popular that Gaillard said they "had to play Floogie a hundred times a night".
A few months later in August, they charted again with Tutti Frutti, the first of many food-based songs Slim would write, and it got as high as number three.  That same month, they were back in the studio with an alto sax added to the original band, and they came up with the nonsensical Laughin' in Rhythm as well as Vol Vist du Gaily Star, an early example of Slim creating  his own language.  November saw their last session of 1938 produce Buck Dance Rhythm featuring the feet of a tap dancer (possibly Slim) used as a solo instrument.  By the time of Gaillard's next session, Slam was spending more time playing with the Spirits of Rhythm than with Slim, so a whole new band was formed under the name Slim Gaillard and his Flat Foot Floogie Boys for the next few sessions.  Slam rejoined him for an April recording, but the release was still made with the newer band name.  He was back in the studio with Slim in August, 1940, and again in March of 1941, with the releases from that session listed with the even longer moniker having "Featuring Slam Stewart" added to the end.  In the summer, Slim relocated to California, and Slam joined him in Hollywood to record in July of 1941 and April of 1942, but that was to be the last session together as well as their last for the Okeh label, a Vocalion subsidiary.  1942 also marked Gaillard's film debut in the movie Helzapoppin', and later in the year he signed up for the United States Army Air Corps to serve as a bomber pilot while Slam returned to New York, where he became a highly-sought bass player, eventually forming his own trio.
1944 saw him back home in Hollywood, where he joined with bassist Bam Brown as the foundation of his Boogiereeneers, as well as smaller groups.  Slim became popular in Hollywood and earned a regular spot on Frank Sinatra's weekly radio show, and continued to appear in films like Star Spangled Rhythm, Almost Married, and Two Joes from Brooklyn, while acquiring the nickname "Dark Gable".  Although Gaillard had played vibraphone occasionally on earlier recordings, guitar was his main instrument, but in his early postwar recordings he was just as likely to be heard playing piano, and on Slim's Cement Boogie he might even be providing a harpsichord sound by slipping paper between the piano's strings. 
Slim's first recordings after his Army service were for Queen, the sister to Syd Nathan's King label, but he received many other independent offers as well.  In 1945, he did a session for Bee-Bee that included Boogin' at Berg's in tribute to Billy Berg's racially mixed L.A. nightclub, which Slim remembers thusly, "About then I was asked to do a record date for a small independent and out came Cement Mixer.  Then it all took off -- Billy's was bulging every night when film stars including Ronald Reagan and all the top columnists like Hedda Hopper -- they had all come to see the nutty guy with the Putti Putti.  The place got plusher and my money went from 65 dollars to 1200 dollars a week.  Yeah that mixer really vacuumed them in.  I was doing three gigs a day at the Orpheum, a network radio station, and several sets at Berg's and to cover these three locations Billy made an arrangement with LAPD to have a squad car with red lights flashing and siren wailing to get us around on time.  We had to sneak aboard in the alleys and get the bass down low on the floor and then zoomed up and down Hollywood Boulevard.  Billy Berg's was more than just fun -- it was a great pleasure."  And about the song that made them such a draw, "After we did three sides, the A&R man sent us out for some air.  I was glad to get it because I didn't have a fourth song -- figured we'd improvise something like Floogie.  Just outside the studio, they were repairing the street, and one of those cement machines was going put-put-put.  When we were back in the studio and the A&R man asks for the title, I says, 'Cement Mixer, put-ti put-ti'.  Everybody in the place broke up.  I started to sing Cement Mixer.....  That's why the lyric goes put-ti-put-ti, putti hootie, putti vouti, macaroonie.  That's all it is, ad lib."  The song, for Chess' Cadet subsidiary, peaked at #21 in May of 1946.
Berg booked the Charlie Parker\Dizzy Gillespie Sextet for a two month stay at the club along with Slim's band and Harry 'The Hipster" Gibson starting December of 1945, and on the 29th of that month Slim supplemented his quartet of Brown on bass, drummer Zutty Singleton and pianist Dodo Marmarosa while he played guitar (and piano on Dizzy Boogie) with trumpeter Gillespie, Parker on alto sax and Jack McVea on tenor for a session released on the Beltone label, represented here on my final set.  From Dizzy's biography, To be or not to bop, "Somebody asked me in the club one night, 'How do you like California?'  'I'll be glad when this eight weeks is over with', I said.  'I don't like this place.'  'What about it?'  'Man, it's a whole lotta 'Toms' and musical nothings and all that.'  Slim Gaillard's wife heard me say that. She heard me use the word 'Tom' and went and told her husband that I called him a 'Tom", and he accosted me in the men's room.  'Man, I ain't even mentioned your name since I been out here.  What are you talking about?'  'Don't tell me you didn't,' he said, and he wanted to get back about it.  I was just oozing over to the place in the bathroom where they sell all the bottles of cologne, and he was oozing up on me.  Finally, he hit at me, and I ducked, and he missed.  I hit him and he went down, and I was getting ready to walk through him.  The fight spilled outside, and his wife must have seen the scuffle; she went in the kitchen and got a butcher knife and was getting ready to stab me in the back with it.  'Look out!', somebody said.  So I grabbed a chair, an iron chair, because she had this knife in her hand, but before I could hit her somebody grabbed both of us and that was the end of it. ...  But since that time, we were great friends."
On April 22nd of 1946, Gaillard and Brown appeared at one of Norman Granz's renowned Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, sharing billing with Buck Clayton, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins where they performed the four-part Opera in Vout, a masterpiece of Gaillard's original nonsensical language.  This was also about when he opened his own record store, Voutville. 
1947 saw a slowdown in Slim's career as reports of drugs and a messy divorce affected his popularity.  With the second Petrillo recording ban about to take effect, Slim recorded his last session on the west coast in December before heading to New York in an attempt to revitalize his career.  This would also be the conclusion to his pairing with Bam Brown, whose career would take an extreme turn.  "You gotta know your own limits.  Unfortunately, Bam wasn't that cool.  Pot couldn't satisfy him, so he tried everything else that was going, but even that didn't seem to be of any use."  Gaillard continued, "It was when we were in a bar in a big St. Louis hotel (with Lena Horne) that Bam suddenly dashed off the stage into the kitchen only to return with a big long knife.  Then, he told the audience, 'I'm going to cut everyone of you up in little pieces.'  He'd completely flipped out.  Eventually, they got him in a straightjacket and took him to a hospital where he remained for the next eight years.  They let him out once but he almost killed his mother, so they put him back again, where he remained until he died."
With no recent popular success, Slim's recording career was essentially over after a 1953 session for Granz except for a 1958 album made for the DOT label, but he did make an appearance in the TV miniseries Roots: the Next Generation.  In 1982, he made a successful tour of the UK and wound up settling in London in 1983.  The British label HEP released some of his live 40s material as well as a new studio album, and he also starred in The World of Slim Gaillard, a 1989 four-part BBC production. Slim continued to perform at festivals, etc. until he died in London on February 22, 1991.
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It all started with a phone call from Wesley Race, who was at the Flamingo Club on Chicago's South Side, to Alligator Records owner Bruce Iglauer. Race was raving about a new find, a young guitarist named Son Seals. He held the phone in the direction of the bandstand, so Iglauer could get an on-site report. It didn't take long for Iglauer to scramble into action. Alligator issued Seals' eponymous debut album in 1973, which was followed by six more.
Son Seals was born Frank Seals on August 13, 1942 in Osceola, Arkansas. His dad operated a juke joint called the Dipsy Doodle Club in Osceola where Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, and Albert King cavorted upfront while little Frank listened intently in back. Drums were the youth's first instrument; he played them behind Nighthawk at age 13. But by the time he was 18, Son Seals turned his talents to guitar, fronting his own band in Little Rock.
While visiting his sister in Chicago, he hooked up with Earl Hooker's Roadmasters in 1963 for a few months, and there was a 1966 stint with Albert King that sent him behind the drumkit once more. But with the death of his father in 1971, Seals returned to Chicago, this time for good. When Alligator signed him up, his days fronting a band at the Flamingo Club and the Expressway Lounge were numbered.
Seals' jagged, uncompromising guitar riffs and gruff vocals were showcased very effectively on that 1973 debut set, which contained his "Your Love Is like a Cancer" and a raging instrumental called "Hot Sauce." Midnight Son, his 1976 encore, was by comparison a much slicker affair, with tight horns, funkier grooves, and a set list that included "Telephone Angel" and "On My Knees." Seals cut a live LP in 1978 at Wise Fools Pub; another studio concoction, Chicago Fire, in 1980, and a solid set in 1984, Bad Axe, before having a disagreement with Iglauer that that was patched up in 1991 with the release of his sixth Alligator set, Living in the Danger Zone. Nothing But the Truth followed in 1994, sporting some of the worst cover art in CD history, but a stinging lineup of songs inside. Another live disc, Spontaneous Combustion, was recorded at Buddy Guy's Legends club and released in June of 1996. Over the years, Seals had his share of hardship, bad deals, unemployment, and rip-offs that go on in the music business. However, his personal life took two devastating blows in the late '90s. On January 5, 1997, during a domestic dispute, Seals was shot in the jaw by his former spouse. He miraculously recovered and continued touring. Two years later he had his left leg amputated as a result of diabetes. What would have surely forced most performers into retirement only made Seals more dedicated to his music and audience. He came back in 2000, signing with Telarc Blues, and recorded Lettin' Go. Seals preferred to remain close to his Chicago home, holding his touring itinerary to an absolute minimum. Virtually every weekend he could be found somewhere on the Northside blues circuit, dishing up his raw-edged brand of bad blues axe to local followers. The blues ended for Son Seals on December 20, 2004; he passed away due to diabetes related complications.
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Since it is still relatively new, I thought I’d mention that KKUP is now streaming on the internet and, while it is still in a developing stage, we have been putting out the word.  I’m not all of that good with high-tech stuff, but it seems pretty easy to access.  If you go to our website at KKUP.org you will see on the home page a strip of options immediately above the pictures of the musicians the next to the last option being LISTEN ONLINE.  By clicking this, it brings up a choice of desktop or mobile.  I can only speak for the desktop but after maybe a minute I was receiving a crystal clear feed.  As already mentioned, this is still a work in progress and we are currently limited to a finite number of listeners at any one time.  I mention this so you will be aware to turn off the application when you are not actually listening.  (I put the player in my favorites bar for the easiest of access.)  Now we can reach our listeners in Los Gatos and Palo Alto, even my family in Canada.  Let your friends elsewhere know they can now listen to your favorite station, and while they have the home page open they can check out our schedule.
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Flat Foot Floogie
Tutti Frutti
Laughin’ in Rhythm
Buck Dance Rhythm
Queen’s Boogie
Bassology
African Jive
Rhythm Mad
Groove Juice Special
   Slim Gaillard   24min
Woman in Black
Little Sally Walker
I Can’t Lose the Blues
Frank and Johnnie
Arkansas Woman
The Danger Zone
Ain’t That Some Shame
Sadie
   Son Seals   36min
Dizzy Boogie
Slim’s Jam
Mean Mama Blues
Early Morning Bounce
Riff City
Santa Monica Jump
   Slim Gaillard   18min
1
I GET EVIL - ALBERT KING  BOBBIN 135  1962 Ngle(45)
2
EVERY DAY, EVERY NIGHT - BILLY BOY ARNOLD  rec.1957  Charly CRB 1016  (LP) 1981 Nran(33)
3
LONESOME - ROBERT DUDLOW TAYLOR  Kent KST-9007 LP 1969 rec.1952 Nran (33) NOT
4
AIN'T GONNA PICK NO COTTON - MCKINLEY JAMES  MACON 101  1966 Nran(45)
5
WHAT KIND OF MAN IS THIS - KO KO TAYLOR - CHECKER 1092  1964 Nste 1979 LP Blues Ball 2003
6
THE THINGS I'D DO FOR YOU - JUNIOR WELLS  CHIEF 7030  1961 Nyou(45)
7
TIGHT DRESS - GEORGE ALLEN (George 'Harmonica' Smith)  SOTOPLAY 0010   1960 Nkev(45)
8
TIN PAN ALLEY - HARMONICA SLIM  FLYING DUTCHMAN-BLUESTIME BT-29005) (LP) 1969 Nran(33)
9
(LET YOUR LOVE) WATCH OVER ME - LULU (LULA) REED AND FREDDY KING  FEDERAL 12471  1962
10
I HAD A DREAM - LAFAYETTE 'THING' THOMAS  WORLD PACIFIC WLP WPS-21893 (LP)  1968 Nran(33)
11
TRAIN TIME BLUES - L.C. 'GOOD ROCKIN' ROBINSON  World Pacific WPS-21893 (LP)  1968 Nran(33)ST
12
DON'T CUT OUT ON ME - TENDER SLIM  HERALD 571 1962 Ngle(45)
13
EVERYTHING I DO IS WRONG - WOODROW ADAMS rec.1961 Nste  rel.  1978, 1987 LP
14
GIVE HER PLENTY OF MONEY TO SPEND - J.T. BROWN  rec. c.1960 Nran DELMARK 624 1972 (LP)ST
15
SALT IN YOUR COFFEE - BETTY JAMES  CHESS 1970  1966 Nhea945)
16
THAT'S NOT RIGHT - CLARENCE JOHNSON and his Tom Cats  JEROME 7363  1963 Nsto(45)
17
I'M LOOKING FOR A LOVE ONE - HARRY BROOKS  JOB 601  c.1963 Nblu(45)
18
JUST DON'T CARE - SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS  ENRICA 1010  1962 Ngoy(45)
19
KOKOMO ME BABY - DANNY BOY and His Blue Guitar  TIFCO 824  1961 Ngle(45)
20
LITTLE BOY BLUE - CHICAGO BLUES ALL STARS  MPG LP 15.244  1969 Nran(33)
21
LAST TIME - HAZE HART w.GUS JENKINS ORCHESTRA   SWINGIN' 638 1962 Nran(45)
22
POP IT TO ME - Howlin' Wolf  CHESS 2009  1967 Njoe(45)
23
RON-DE-VIEW 36 - LITTLE BOYD  LAMGA 0002  1970 Nran(45)ST
24
STONES IN MY PASSWAY - HOMESICK JAMES  PRESTIGE 7388 (LP) 1964 Nran(33)
25
LET ME LOVE YOU BABY - BUDDY GUY  CHESS 1784  1961 Ncad(45)
26
FRISCO BLUES - JOHN LEE HOOKER  VEE-JAY 493  1963 Nksd(45)

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