Tad Richards' odyssey through the catalog of Prestige Records:an unofficial and idiosyncratic history of jazz in the 50s and 60s. With occasional digressions.
Jimmy Witherspoon was the most eclectic of blues singers. In that, he reminds me of Jerry Lee Lewis, who could and did take songs from every genre of American popular music, and -- without perverting their essence--turn them into Jerry Lee Lewis songs. 'Spoon did much the same, taking schmalzy pop, Delta blues, urban rhythm and blues, Kansas City Blues (he had four years with Jay McShann to internalize that genre), and making them into Witherspoon blues. When he joined McSha, early in his career, he replaced the hugely popular Walter Brown. McShann, Witherspoon would reminisce, told him there were three songs that had become signature songs for Brown: "Confessin' the Blues," "Hootie Blues" and "Lonely Boy." Audiences would
expect to hear them the way Brown sang them, and Witherspoon was to sing them just the Brown had. Beyond that, he was on his own, and he could find his own interpretation. Which is what he did with McShann, and what he did for the rest of his career.
This session shows the full range of Witherspoon's eclecticism. He starts out with Big Bill Broonzy's "I Had a Dream." Broonzy was from the Delta, but had built a career as a jazz guitarist in Chicago during the 1930s-40s. Then when folk music became popular in the 1950s, Broonzy reinvented himself as a "folk blues" artist. "Folk blues" was a term with wandering definitions. Sometimes it was synonymous with "country blues," which referred to the acoustic, primarily guitar-based blues of the Mississippi Delta and other rural regions, distinct from the "classic blues" of Bessie Smith and other jazz-based performers. In the 1950s it meant, more or less, the blues singers who played the folk festival and coffee house circuit, to largely white audiences. In the 1960s, as the rhythm and blues musicians from Chicago and Detroit, largely centered around Chess Records, began to decline in popularity with black audiences, while at the same time the sound they had pioneered was sweeping the globe as interpreted by young British musicians, the Chess brothers made a move to market their electric blues sound to a new audience by issuing a series of records by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and others entitled The Real Folk Blues.
Big Bill Broonzy reached his peak of popularity as a folk blues performer and composer. His best-known composition, "Black, Brown and White," took on racial prejudice, but "I Had a Dream," also known as "Just a Dream," ran it a close second, with shifting lyrics in different performances, but the same song at root. Witherspoon had recorded it earlier with Ben Webster, for Frank Sinatra's Hollywood-based Reprise Records; here he gives a straight, pretty much folk blues reading, albeit with some first rate jazz musicians following his lead.
It's jazz all the way with Count Basie's "Goin' to Chicago," brought into the 1960s and organ-based soul jazz by King Curtis organist Paul Griffin.
"You Made Me Love You" is a music hall tune from 1913, written by James Monaco and Joseph McCarthy and popularized by Al Jolson, later to become a beloved classic when sung by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St, Louis. Witherspoon gives it his best blues crooner rendition.
"My Babe" and "Around the Clock" are from two of the leading figures of the golden age of rhythm and blues in the 1940s and 1950s, Little Walter Jacobs and Wynonie Harris. "My Babe" was a huge hit and Little Walter's signature song, "Around the Clock" lesser known but still tasty. 'Spoon knows how to sing that rhythm and blues.
"S.K. Blues" is from 1942, the beginning of that golden age, when it was a hit on the Race Records charts for Saunders King. There have been a lot of blues singers named King, and Saunders may not have been as well known as B. B., Albert or Freddie, but he deserves to be. "S. K. Blues" became a hit again in 1945, in perhaps the definitive version by Big Joe Turner, with a band including Pete Johnson, Don Byas and Frankie Newton, and it became a favorite of Witherspoon's, who first recorded in 1959, and was to record it for a third time in 1967 with Brother Jack McDuff. "S. K. Blues" is a singer's song--you can put your individual stamp on it without distorting it, and Witherspoon does just that.
"Goin' Down Slow" is from the same era. Like Saunders King, St. Louis Jimmy Oden is not remembered as well as he should be. And as with King, if he's not quite remembered, his most famous song certainly is. "Goin' Down Slow" has been recorded by nearly everyone who ever sang the blues
(including a reprise on Prestige by St. Louis Jimmy in 1960), and it's had instrumental jazz treatments by Hank Crawford and Archie Shepp. This is just a great song. Singers love to sing it, audiences love to hear it, and Witherspoon does it justice. It's another one that he has recorded a number of times: with Eric Burdon, with Ben Webster, with Robben Ford, and with Duke Robillard.
Finally, the session included three originals by Witherspoon, himself no slouch as a blues composer,
Ozzie Cadena produced the session. The Prestige LP was entitled Blues Around the Clock. It spun off two 45 RPM singles, "I Had a Dream" / "S. K. Blues" and "You Made Me Love You" / "Goin' to Chicago Blues."
Clea Bradford's obituary (2008, conflicting reports as to her age) describes her as a perfectionist and a
Renaissance woman of sorts—a world class chef (her culinary skills were documented in the Washington Star), a formidable painter, social activist, and composer, even penning blues numbers like “One Sided Love Affair” and “I’ve Found My Peace of Mind” for famed guitarist Pee Wee Crayton.
Bradford, of Choctaw-Cherokee-Ethiopian descent, was the daughter of a minister whose parish was in rural southeastern Missouri, but when she was seven, her parents separated and she moved with her mother to St. Louis. She'd been exposed to church music at home, and had loved to sing it, but St. Louis opened up a new door for her. That door was next door, and her next door neighbor in the Gateway City was Jimmy Forrest.
Forrest's house was more or less an ongoing jam session, and when Clea ventured next door, she was likely to meet other young St. Louisans like Oliver Nelson and Miles Davis. Or Clark Terry, down on a pass from Great Lakes Naval Base. And gradually, as a young teenager, she began to join in. By 17, she was a part of the St. Louis club circuit, and then, hearing that there were more musical opportunities, she moved to Detroit--a great apprenticeship for any young musician. She made her first recording, a 45 RPM rhythm and blues single, for Detroit's Hi-Q label.
Then on to New York, and a reunion with old friend Oliver Nelson, who got her a recording date with Prestige. and brought Clark Terry along to play on the gig, a collection of standards. It's a curious record, in that neither Nelson or Terry does a lot on it. It is musically interesting, because Bradford is a good singer, but mostly because of the piano work of newcomer Patti Bown.
Bown was 29 at the time of the session. She had made a record for Columbia in 1958. This was her second recording session, and her first for Prestige. She would go on to be very much in demand throughout the decade, frequently on Bob Weinstock's label. Like Clea Bradford with Oliver Nelson, Bown was able reconnect in New York with an old friend from childhood, who would hire her for his big band and connect her to others. In her case, it was Quincy Jones.
Bradford reportedly was not satisfied with her performance on the album, which I guess is one of the problems with being a perfectionist. She actually sounds quite good. There's a debt to Dinah Washington, but that's hard to avoid for a young jazz and rhythm and blues singer coming up in the 1950s. But in later interviews, she never spoke of it. But the dissatisfaction appears to have been just with herself, not with Oliver Nelson. She remained close friends with him, and they would work together years later in Los Angeles.
The album was released on Tru-Sound as These Dues, that being one of the two new songs from the session. I think a Bradford original; I'm not sure. Tru-Sound being Prestige's pop and "modern rhythm and blues" label, most of their recording sessions yielded at least one single, and "These Dues" would have been the logical choice, but no single was released, so maybe Weinstock wasn't excited enough with the results either. It would later be rereleased on New Jazz as Clea Bradford with Oliver Nelson and Clark Terry.
There would be one more jazz record for a New York label, Mainstream (Clark Terry was involved in that session too), and then at the end of the decade, a session for Cadet, a subsidiary of Chicago's Chess Records, By that time, she had become a mainstay of the various Playboy Clubs, a door opened for her by another old friend from St. Louis, comedian Dick Gregory. The Playboy Clubs, a very hot franchise in the 1960s, did not cater to a musically sophisticated audience but did feature top jazz names. Bradford had worked with, and become friendly with Kenny Burrell, who was on Cadet at the time.
Her album for Cadet was called Her Point of View. It was essentially a soul album, and its single, "My Love's a Monster," got good air play, and might have been a hit. Might have been, but it turned out that while Bradford may not have been satisfied with her performance on the Prestige album, the musical selections represented what she wanted to sing. On the strength of "My Love's a Monster," she got booked for soul reviews...where she refused to sing "My Love's a Monster," instead delivering jazz standards to a dissatisfied audience.
She continued to tour and sing through the 1970s and 1980s, then coming in off the road, she took a degree at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, and became a minister. Also in these years, she grew more in touch with her Native American heritage, changing her name to Clea Bradford-Silverlight.
Annisteen Allen, as she was known through most of her career, had a good run in the 1940s and early 1950s, singing with Lucky Millinder and other top rhythm and blues ensembles. She was discovered singing in a club in San Antonio one night when Duke Ellington and Louis Jordan went out clubbing, and wouldn't you like to have been along for that ride? They both dug her singing, but as neither was in the market for a girl singer, they recommended her to Lucky Millinder, who hired her without even hearing her on the strength of their recommendations. Wouldn't you?
Her recording career with Federal/King ended on an odd note, when King Records was sued by another rhythm and blues label, Apollo, for copyright infringement over one of Allen's recordings. She did have a minor hit for Capitol in 1955 with "Fujiyama Mama," outsold, as many songs were in those days, by white pop singer Eileen Barton, later covered most successfully by Wanda Jackson. Still later, the Clash would perform it live in Tokyo with a vocal by bassist Paul Simonon's wife, Pearl Harbour.
She would continue to record, for Capitol and Decca and a couple of very small independents, but in 1958 she gave up touring and performing, taking a job in a hospital office.
The session for Prestige was her first full length album session, and the first under her real name. Perhaps her career over the previous five years had been obscure enough that Prestige felt "Annisteen" no longer had any drawing power, or perhaps she simply convinced Bob Weinstock not to use a name which she had acquired from a typographical error on an early press release, and which she had never liked. In any event, this resurrection, and this album, is one more thing we can thank Prestige for.
Allen had always played with first rate musicians, so this is not a rarity for her, but her producer--perhaps Ozzie Cadena, who worked most of the Tru-Sound sessions--surrounds her with an excellent supporting cast here, starting with King Curtis, and musicians who played with him regularly: Paul Griffin on piano, guitarists Al Casey and Chauncey "Lord" Westbrook, bassist Jimmy Lewis and drummer Belton Evans.
The session was released on Tru-Sound rather than Bluesville, and that makes sense. Tru-Sound was variously described as modern R&B or Prestige's pop label. The King Curtis combo gives it rhythm and blues credentials, and while there are some blues in the mix -- her Lucky Millinder hit, "Let it Roll," the R&B standard "I Want a Little Boy" (or girl, as in the best-known versions by Big Joe Turner and Ray Charles) and an original, "Miss Allen's Blues" -- most of the selections come from Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.
We have a lot to thank Prestige Records for--being in the center of some of the most important jazz movements of the American Century in music, creating a record of the creative growth of older musicians who were not part of the bebop revolution...and mixing it up. In so many ways. Weinstock's decision to record Miles Davis with different musicians, rather than having form a regular group as he was to do later, gives us a different and important context for this giant of 20th Century music. Bringing in contemporary jazz musicians
to record with blues singers. And sessions like this one. King Curtis's band brings a new bite to some old standards. With their kicking tempo and Allen's exuberant vocal, they give a new twist to the Gershwin brothers' "The Man I Love." In the classic versions by Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, there's such yearning for an unrealizable ideal. Both of these great singers give us hope against hope--that big and strong man is never going to come along, and they know it. Allen, with Curtis and the boys, are out for a good time. She kinda likes the idea of the man she'll love coming along, but she's having a good time now, and she doesn't really care all that much if he never does.
But the remake of "Let it Roll" is where they really let it roll. And rock. And they throw in some scat. And they stretch it out to nearly seven minutes, so while this is clearly the jukebox pick from the session, they have to put it on both sides of a 45.
Let it Roll is also the title of the Tru-Sound album. It was to be her last recording, In 1986, after she retired from her hospital job, she did play a few dates with Bull Moose Jackson (as Annisteen Allen). She died in 1992.
Listening to Prestige Vol 4, 1959-60, now available from Amazon! Also on Kindle! Volumes 1-3 are also available from Amazon. The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT. – Terry Gibbs
This was Mildred Anderson's second and last album for Prestige, and after that...nothing. Nothing at all. Never recorded again for another label. There is virtually no record of her existence after this session, not even an obituary. I can find no record of where or when she was born. There is only a small handful of recordings, best documented by the French novelist and blues scholar Gerard Herzhaft in his blog, Blue Eye. A 78 RPM single with Albert Ammons, another one with Hot Lips Page and one with Bill Doggett, that last one in 153. Then nothing till the two Prestige sessions, and then nothing. Herzhaft offers this
further information sent to him by blues scholar Bob Eagle:
Post-recording info re Mildred Anderson: Mildred and Hortense worked together at the Key Club, 1325 Washington Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota during April 1961, backed by Gene (Bowlegs) Miller and his band. Mildred married Philadelphia-based businessman Bob Freeman in about September 1961. Hortense Allen was also involved with Rufus Rockhead at Montreal, Quebec, Canada, during July 1962, also featuring Mildred Anderson. Mildred almost lost her voice in the 1960s. In November 1970, having recovered her voice, she substituted for Candy Rae at Cyrus Scott’s Sahara Supper Club, Philadelphia.
The Ammons recording, "Doin' the Boogie Woogie," was a minor hit. Her own composition, "No More in Life," a torchy ballad, was one of the Bill Doggett cuts, and is the title track for this album.
And it's impossible to say why. As a showcase for her talents, you couldn't ask for better than these two Prestige albums. The first, with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott, was amazing, with two jazz musicians who were unparalleled in their approach to working with singer. And this one is pure gold. I love everything about it.
Her backing band is led by Al Sears, the tenorman who replaced Johnny Hodges with Chick Webb and Ben Webster with Ellington. and who led Alan Freed's stage bands for his all star rock and roll shows. His one earlier Prestige date was with the Swingville Allstars, co-led with Taft Jordan and Hilton Jefferson, and he would be back for a couple more Swingville dates.
Organist Robert Banks would do a lot of Prestige blues sessions. He was best known for his work in the 1960s with Solomon Burke. Guitarist Chauncey "Lord" Westbrook made his Prestige debut here. He was an active session man across the spectrum of jazz, pop and rhythm and blues.
Mildred Anderson takes on a broad spectrum of songs and handles them all in a way that is both direct and artful. Her first obligation is always to the song, and that means that simplicity and directness can take different forms, depending on the demands of the song. Her musicians do the same.
Her musicians? She was a nobody, with a career that had been not much of anywhere and was destined to go absolutely nowhere after this late summer day in 1960. Prestige had given her its A list of musicians for her debut album; for this one, musicians with not quite the same marquee value, although of undeniable quality, brought in for a gig. But yes, her musicians is what it feels like, because you get the sense of dedication to the song from all of them.
Here's a look at each, in the order in which they appear on the album.
She starts with a tune of her own composition, one of two on the album. Her first session, Person to Person, had also included two originals, which seems to suggest that Prestige was taking her seriously as an all-around talent, which once again makes you wonder what happened. "Everybody's Got Somebody But Me" is a torchy 12-bar blues with a bridge, a good, satisfying lament. It starts with a lengthy opening vamp by Banks with a solid backbeat by Gaskin and Donaldson that sets a modern, 1960 feel for a more traditional, 1940s-style vocal, all of which fits together. Al Sears comes in for a searing instrumental break in which he interacts with Banks's organ in much the same way Anderson has been interacting with it, and then she comes back with powerhouse final verse to tell the world in no uncertain terms that it's a lowdown dirty shame the way her lover treats her.
"I Ain't Mad at You," credited Count Basie, Freddie Greene, and Milton Ebbins, a music business professional who was Basie's manager, and whose own musical background suggests that he was a lot more than just one of those guys who slaps his name on someone else's work. He was highly respected in the industry, and he was also the guy who escorted Marilyn Monroe onstage at Madison Square Garden to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," and how many of us can make that statement? This is a classic riff and vocal line, put together in a song first by Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore in 1943, then by Jesse Price in 1946. Basie, Ebbins and Greene take a songwriting--and given that Ebbins was involved, almost certainly a publishing credit. Well, why not? It's one of those traveling blues that comes up different every time someone does it, and credit was fluid back in that more innocent era. In any event, the riff pops up all over. It's interpolated into Sarah Vaughan's scat classic, "Shulie a Bop." It's the basis of Huey "Piano" Smith's "Roberta," also recorded by the Animals. And it becomes the refrain of a very strange patter song by Frances Faye, a daisy chain of unrequited lust, LGBTQS-style (that's Lesbian-Gay-Bi-Trans-Queer-Straight). In other words, it's about fun, even though the guy is every bit as rotten as the one in the previous song ("Just as soon as my back was turned / Another chick stepped in") and if anything, even worse. He takes out insurance on her, hoping that she'll soon die. Anderson and her boys know that a no-good, mistreating man can be funny as well as tragic, and they hit it, Basie-style.
Lord Westbrook steps forward on "Hard Times," another 12-bar blues, and Anderson gets into into it, answering the elaborate guitar-blues improvisations with some straightforward blues wailing. The song is credited to Esmond Edwards, so he must have been around, even though he does not take producer credit for the session, and it shows that you can have hard times even without a no-good man ("My rent is overdue, landlord is gonna put a padlock on my door / But it don't make no difference nohow, 'cause I ain't got no clothes no more").
So, the picture is starting to become clear. Anyone can take a straightforward approach to a song about a foggy day in which even the British museum has lost its charm, trusting in the musical and lyric genius of the Gershwins to carry the day. Anderson and her cohorts are finding the simple truth in songs where you have to look for it. Good songs. But not ones where half the work is done for you.
"No More in Life" is the other Anderson original, and she does seem to gravitate toward songs of lost love, this one with an "I Will Survive" vibe. It's short (2:42), showcasing the vocal, and it builds up to a belting finish.
"Roll 'em Pete" was written by boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson and blues shouter Big Joe Turner, and it's inextricably tied to them, although in latter years it's become a blues standard. Not so in 1960. It had been recorded twice more, once (superbly) by Count Basie and Joe Williams, once by Jimmy Witherspoon with Gerry Mulligan and Ben Webster. In other words, plenty macho stuff from some of the best male blues shouters. Anderson takes them on and comes out unscathed, using the new sound of the soul jazz organ instead of the Kansas City piano of Johnson or Basie. She takes the leering seduction invitation of "You're so beautiful but you've got to die some day / Gimme a little lovin' before you pass away" straight on--with a sliding note along "die" which will stop you in your tracks. Turner's happiness comes from his baby buying him a brand new choo-choo toy, which i s undeniably salacious. Williams--and Anderson follows his lyric--gets, instead, a Hydramatic kiddie car, which certainly must be salacious, because this is the blues, after all, and anything can be a metaphor for sex, but it's less clear how, exactly. Al Sears has an appropriately dirty solo, and this is one of the highlights of the album.
"What More Can a Woman Do? was written by Peggy Lee and her husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, so you might think Lord Westbrook would be stepping more out in front, but it's primarily Banks. Lee's version does feature Barbour's guitar, and it's cool where Anderson is hot, but both of them tell the story.
"That Old Devil Called Love" is by the songwriting team of Allan Roberts and Doris Fisher, who had a string of hits in the 1940s, most notably "You Always Hurt the One You Love." This one has the lilting arrangement of a 1930s collaboration between the young Billie Holiday and Lester Young, with Anderson capturing some of the vulnerable yet plucky spirit Billie had. "Mistreated"is the third Anderson original, and it has a nice blues vocal part, but it's mostly the showcase for Lord Westbrook that "Old Devil" turned out not to be. And the title alone should tell you that it's another reworking of Anderson's favorite theme.
Ozzie Cadena produced No More in Life, and it was released on Bluesville. Most Prestige releases got recycled in one way or another, but neither of the Mildred Anderson releases did. Person to Person did yield one 45 RPM single; none from this session. Maybe stepping away from Davis and Scott meant that Weinstock had already decided not to extend a two-record deal. Concord's Original Blues Classics line has released both of them on CD, but my guess is they'd be hard to find. So goodbye, Mildred Anderson, and I hope you found joy in your anonymous life. Those who find your recordings will be rewarded.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon. The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT. – Terry Gibbs
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-12554352-1537521871-8684.jpeg.jpg)
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4219801-1482257390-1358.jpeg.jpg)
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-11364066-1516045515-2606.jpeg.jpg)