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BIG DADDY!

March Is Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Month

Coming soon

"Big Daddy"!

Do the "Weirdo Wiggle" with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth!

Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos - WEIRDO WIGGLE

Fare thee well, Jack Dupree!

Thanks for checking out CDJ month, everybody!

Jack Dupree and King Curtis live on stage in Montreux

As CJD month winds down, here's a concert appearance from Montreux, Switzerland in 1971.  Check out Aretha in the audience in the red dress!

This was released on LP as well, but it's really the sort of thing YouTube was invented for.

Green Mosquito

Somewhere On Skid Row: Hobos, Bums & Other Urban Outdoorsmen

1 Felix Slatkin: Happy Hobo

2 Al Jolson with Guy Lombardo Orch.: Hallelujah I'm A Bum

3 The Coasters: D.W. Washburn

4 J.B. Lenoir: Slow Down Woman

5 Porter Wagoner: Sidewalks Of Chicago

6 The Cowsills: Newspaper Blanket

7 The Cowsills: The Candy Kid

8 Reparata & The Delrons: That's What Sends Men To The Bowery

9 Rags Rafferty: The Bowery

10 Gene Pitney: That's What Sends Men To The Bowery

11 Jerry Lee Lewis: Skid Row

12 Freddie Hart & The Heartbeats: Skid Row Street

13 Merle Haggard: Somewhere On Skid Row

14 Merle Haggard: Skid Row

15 Johnnie Allan: Somewhere On Skid Row

16 Pete Johnson Sextette: Skid Row Boogie

17 Bob Durham: Skid Row Boogie

18 Gene Marshall: Skid Row Bum

19 Frank Sinatra: Don't Sleep In The Subway

20 Nappy Brown: Skidy Woe

21 Earl Curry: Hobo

22 Link Wray: Hobo Man

23 Porter Wagoner: The Alley

24 Louis Armstrong & His Orch.: Hobo, You Can Ride Dis Train

25 The Four Seasons: Beggar's Parade

26 Rhubarb Red & His Rubes: The Dying Hobo

27 Art Hodes: A Selection From The Gutter

28 Danny Reeves: I'm A Hobo

29 Johnny Cash: The Hobo Song

30 The Fantastics: Millionaire Hobo

31 The Honeyman: Brother Bill (The Last Clean Shirt)

32 The Rockin' Berries: Brother Bill (The Last Clean Shirt)

33 Snakefinger: Here Comes The Bums

34 Leb Brinson: Hobo A-Go-Go

35 Porter Wagoner: Skid Row Joe

36 Lightnin' Jr. & The Empires: Raggedy And Hungry

37 Luke Gibbons: Queen Of Skid Row

SOMEWHERE ON SKID ROW

Champion Jack Dupree and T.S. McPhee: Groundhog in the Cabbage Greens

One of the most unusual recordings of Champion Jack's career was made in 1967 with T.S. McPhee from the Groundhogs. The 'hogs had backed up Champion Jack on a 1964 tour, and McPhee played on Champion Jack's first Decca recordings, alongside Eric Clapton and John Mayall.  When CDJ was signed to Decca blues spinoff writeoff Blue Horizon in '67, somebody had the bright idea to pair Champion Jack's voice with solo guitar accompaniment.

Jack doesn't play piano on these recordings at all - it's just him and McPhee's acoustic guitar.  The result is unique in the British-Blues-Personality-Plays-With-Blues-Legend genre, and it's a very pleasant listen. The songs are all short, and while some of them are readymades, they sound different than CDJ's usual readymades. Dupree's sounds warm and engaged, and McPhee is neither to staid or showoffy.

The recordings basically stayed in the vault until Ace released them on CD in 1997. A 45 of "Get Your Head Happy" came out in the late 60s in a limited white label only run.

You can hear the whole thing on Spotify.

The Snow Is on the Ground

Champion Jack Dupree - with no pants on!

Lest I give you the impression that Jack Dupree's European music was all sad sack introspection, here's an unreleased-until-the-Complete-Blue-Horizon-Sessions CD version of Fats Waller's "Sheik of Araby" wherein Jack and his mother-in-law finally settle the tension that's been building between them for something like 20 years.

SHEIK OF ARABY

Champion Jack splits the states

Dupree with pianist Curtis Jones and some unknown guide

Champion Jack Dupree left America for Europe in 1959. According to possibly sketchy internet/liner note lore, he made the decision to move to Europe when he went to the UK for his first appearances there. Apparently a customs officer called him "sir" and that token of respect was what sealed his decision.  Whether that tale is apocryphal or not, it's pretty clear from his recordings that his decision was based on the superior treatment and lack of racial segregation that he faced in the states.

His famous quote about racism, repeated many times in many variations in concert, goes like this:  "When you open up a piano, you see freedom.  Nobody can play the white keys and don't play the black keys.  You got to mix all these keys together to make harmony."

The first two albums Jack recorded in Europe were his 2nd and 3rd Atlantic LPs, Champion of the Blues & The Natural and Soulful Blues.  Champion, which is a solo LP and a fascinating record, contains a number of songs expressing his sorrow over the treatment of blacks in the US.  They were recorded in Denmark, and Jack was delighted to be there.  He even says, in "Daybreak Stomp" (which bears very little relation to the Mr. Bear song of the same title from his King era) that if he could live his life over, he'd stay in Copenhagen. In the liner notes to Champion of the Blues he describes his sense of what the blues meant to the people of the South.  

"You can go in them little country towns and hear the juke box playin' all night, nothin' but the blues. That satisfies their mind. That's the only thing that'll ease their minds, 'cause they're not happy people. Nobody in the South, in the line of colored people, is happy."

Jack eventually moved to Switzerland, then Denmark, the UK (where he got married for the third time),   then Sweden, and finally Germany. He'd record dozens of records while in Europe, and many of them would have songs expressing how happy he was to be out of the states.

There are numerous examples of Jack's sorrow over the condition of race relations in the states, including his eulogy to Martin Luther King and a sorrowful live cut called "Black and White Blues" (where he actually tells his European audience that they should be psyched to be white, making him one of the ballsiest of the blues revivalists of the late 60s playing to white college kids with romantic ideas of southern poverty).

Two non-youtoobabble examples I'll leave you with are the terribly sad "Poor Poor Me" and "I'm Happy to Be Free".  "Poor Poor Me" was cut in the Mid-60s for the first of his "jam with the popular British guitarists album", From New Orleans to Chicago, which featured John Mayall, Eric Clapton, and T.S. McPhee.  "I'm Happy to Be Free" was cut for a relaxed Mickey Baker session in the late 60s and appeared on the GNP LP of the same name.

Jack would not return to the states until the late 80s, when he recorded a couple of albums for Rounder in New Orleans.  He died in Germany in 1992.

"Poor Poor Me"
"I'm Happy to Be Free"
More thoughts on Copenhagen on "Roll Me Over Roll Me Slow"

A' Peelin' Music! (mp3 mix)

The Peel - Jim Pierce & the Pistols
Curb-Service - Billy Dee & the Super-Chargers
Bulldozer - Les De Merle & his Band
Goofin' - Robbie Robinson Orch.
Gibraltar Rock - The Rockets
Rat Trap - Ralph Grasso

Take it off!