Sep 11, 2022
A couple of cheery and cheeky wartime songs. George Formby with Ukelele Man. Not nearly enough ukelele playing on it quite frankly. Next Dave Willis with ARP( Air raid patrol.) More commonly known as My Wee Gas Mask. Probably the best known Scottish song from WW2. Joe Corrie was a Fife coal miner, poet and playright. His style was naturalistic and his subject matter the working class. He was pretty much ignored by the Scottish theatre establishment of the time. Here we have The shilling a week man. A humerous tale of money owed, performed in broad Scots. Humerous it maybe but for many life was 'hand to mouth' and the shilling a week man was a fact of life. Bunny Berigan's blues boys with Chicken and Waffles and then he plays trumpet on Gold diggers of 1933 with The bell boys of Broadway. Two from the magnificent Mildred Bailey with her orchestra- St Louis Blues and with her Oxford Greys- Arkanas Blues. Great vocals from her. We split those two tracks with Charlie Barnet and Wandering blues, vocals by Mary Ann McCall. Ring dem bells from The Harlem Footwarmers(1929.) They also performed under 25 aliases and members included Duke Ellington and Cottie Williams. Johnny Dodds and his orch- Red onion blues. His brother 'Baby' Dodds is on drums. Bit of Boogie from Will Brady's six Texan hot dogs- Basin Street boogie(1941) Not the best condition but Taft Jordon and his mob play Devil in the moon. Taft only made two records with own group but played with the best, from Ella to Ellington. His trumpet can be heard on Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain. Quite an acolade to be asked to play trumpet with Miles! E.C Kirkeby Wallace bandleader, songwriter, vocalist and manager. He looked after Fats Waller. He also started the Californian Ramblers while working at Columbia. Benny Goodman with Blues in the night, vocals by Peggy Lee. Early peggy. She certainly hits some uncharactistic high notes toward the end. We finish with Freddy Gardner and his Swing Orch. The self composed 10am Blues from 1939. A great track from this forgotten British saxphonist, who died young at 39. Its an Indian pressing on the Rex label.