Kit & Brody's Asheville Picks

 Walter Hurdt-Claude Boone 

BB B-7008 

&

the Callahan Brothers

 Cq-9223. 

Well, here we are again folks.

Today, we're featuring two Hillbilly duo's from Asheville NC, and we also have Brody Douglas Hunt with us on this post too as a guest blogger!

We made transfers of a Callahan Brothers record of mine, and a Walter Hurdt & Claude Boone record of Brody's.

Both are great examples of Asheville's rich musical heritage, and Brodys record is the real highlight of this post.

Ok, we're gonna do this post like it's a t.v. show.... so let's check in with Brody and see what he has to say about his awesome record! (late night talk show music and thunderous applause ensues)

BRODY: BB B-7008 Walter Hurdt-Claude Boone I'm Ridin' Now/The Hobo Blues Recorded Friday, Febuary 19th, 1937 in Charlotte, NC. His final cuts of the day, these are from Walter Hurdt's first recording session and were recorded right after he interestingly recorded an unissued side (Just A Cottage) with none other than Cliff Carlisle. Hurdt went on to form his fantastically innovative "Singing Cowboys" band in Asheville, NC. Boone was later out of Knoxville, TN and wrote the country standard "Wedding Bells".

KIT: wow! fascinating Brody, Thats a pretty uncommon record! wonder how rare it is? Im so glad we have this ultra hip 78 record blog as a way to highlight great performances from the 20's and 30's, and share them with our viewers at home! (roaring applause and more late night music)

.....I brought with me Cq-9223. The Callahan Brothers. Lonesome Freight Train Blues/My Blue Eyed Jane. Recorded Friday, February 17th, 1939 in Chicago, Il. Homer & Walter Callahan later changed their names to Bill & Joe, so if you see any of their records, pick em' up. It's the same guys!

The Callahan Brothers are some of my favorites, especially their stuff from the 30's. This record has a fairly scratch free surface, but there is a bit of blasting on the louder vocal passages.

So, without further ado....

Download Kit & Brody's Asheville Picks!

the DJB boyee!

the DIXIELAND JUG BLOWERS

National Blues & Southern Shout

Victor 20954

Well, we're back again folks with another great record. The Dixieland Jug Blowers doing National Blues backed with Southern Shout.

An incredible record in excellent shape. A real file copy.... Rare too!

...But as my buddy Malcolm Vidrine would probably say: "yeah, but who would want it with all that label damage?!". HA!

I got this one, on a trade a few years back, from my buddy Brody Douglas Hunt, who Junked it in Seattle. Paid like 10 bucks for it! What a score!

Pretty soon here, Brodys gonna be a guest on Stack O' Sides, and we're gonna upload a few records from his collection.

He's got some great and uncommon stuff, especially in the Hillbilly department.

This Record was recorded on 6-16-1927 in Chicago, IL, and according to the

Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EVDR), National Blues features:

Clifford Hayes on violin,

Lockwood Lewis on alto saxophone,

Earl McDonald on jug,

Cal Smith on tenor banjo,

George Allen on alto and soprano saxophones,

Hense Grundy on trombone,

and Johnny Gatewood on piano

Southern Shout, basically features the same line up, with the only difference being, Cal Smith plays tenor guitar, and Dan Briscoe is listed as the pianist instead of Johnny Gatewood.

the Dixieland Jug Blowers

front row left to right: Lockwood Lewis, Earl Macdonald, Clifford Hayes. Back row left to right: unknown. -band personnel info and photo from redhotjazz.com

If you're not familiar with this band, you've either been living under a rock, or you're probably an asshole..... in the case neither of these apply to you, (which they don't, cause only people with excellent taste read this blog) .... The Dixieland Jug Blowers were an awesome Jazz/Jug band, that was based in the storied birth place of Jug Band Music: Louisville, KY.

Clifford Hayes and Earl McDonald are the two big names in this group. Both made records under their own names, and worked with a lot of really talented musicians that were in and out of the Louisville scene.

On September 16th, 1924, as part of Sara Martin's Band, they also made history, as they were the first musicians to record jug band music.

I got to visit Earl McDonald's grave when my band played at the Jug Band Jubilee in Louisville a few years ago. Walking around that graveyard was incredible.

...Also, Sylvester Weaver, the guitarist who recorded the first example of ragtime country blues finger style guitar(while also backing Sara Martin, incidentally) is also buried in this same cemetery but doesn't have a tombstone.

Sara Martin is buried there too...when I couldn't find her grave I was told she didn't have one either.

Ok, side note... It seems really wrong to me that so many legendary figures don't even have a marker indicating where their dead body is. Most of these performers received little success in their lives only to be praised as genius pioneers in death... but we can't even get em' a grave marker?

But you need to hand it to the Jug Band Jubilee for giving Earl McDonald a grave stone! I hear they're also trying to get tombstones for other pioneer blues musicians of Louisville.

It's a big undertaking, and they're doing it.

F-yeah A-holes. Win for humanity.

Ok, rant over, back on track here... This is a great record, and a hard one to find in this condition.

If you wanna find more of this stuff, the complete recorded works of the Dixieland Jug Blowers has been re-issued across a hand full of cd's as part of Document Record's "Clifford Hayes and the Louisville Jug Bands".

They're great and I highly recommend them. check em' out, but first....

click here to DOWNLOAD BOTH SIDES OF THIS SWEET RECORD!!!
Cheers ~Stymee

Update: Ok folks, upon posting this I was contacted by Heather from the Jug Band Jubilee, who informed me Sylvester Weaver DOES have a tombstone (we just didn't know about it at the time I was there) and we have the Kentuckiana Blues Society to thank for it. Also she informed me that the Jug Band Jubilee is working to get Sara Martin a tombstone this year!

Who were the Old Smokey Twins?

the Old Smokey Twins

Broadway no. 8128

Paramount no. 3036

You might ask yourself, like I have in the past, who were the "Old Smokey Twins"?

Why, the "Old Smokey Twins" was a pseudonym used on Paramount's budget label, Broadway, for an almost equally unknown band called the Kentucky Thoroughbreds!

As well as recording under their own name for Paramount, they were also known as "the Quadrillers". On Broadway, they went by the "Old Smokey Twins" and also as the "Lone Star Fiddlers", and as the Blue Grass Boys" for the Herwin label.

... Also, from reading Tony Russell's "Country Music Records" discography, it looks like the Old Smokey Twins were actually a trio on this record.

Doc Roberts-mandolin, Dick Parman-guitar and vocals, and Ted Chestnut-vocals.

They had two recording sessions in 1927 (April 13-14th and September 19th- 21st) that produced 18 recordings.

I've heard only a handful of this stuff! Has it all been re-issued and I don't know about it? Are there no known copies of this stuff?

Try googling Kentucky Thoroughbreds. It's depressing... Unless you like horses... Then you'll be like, "oh hell yeah!".

I've found a couple of their 78's, some stuff online (takes some digging), and one or two re-issue albums I've seen, have a small selection of their stuff. I thought the complete recorded works of Fiddlin' Doc Roberts would yield all his Kentucky Thoroughbreds recordings but alas.

So, I wanted to post both sides of this record but when I went through my collection, I realized I must of left it in storage back on the west coast (I'm in N.C.)... But have no fear my friends, I did bring with me, the Paramount record of the same titles.

I already had the "Preacher and the Bear" side recorded from the Broadway record, so I just recorded "In The Shade Of the Old Apple Tree" off the Paramount.

If there is any sound discrepancy between the two, you can chalk it up to being from two different pressings, recorded on two different set ups... And when you drop these mp3's into itunes, or whatever it is you use, they're gonna show up as being two different bands, even though they're not... Pseudonyms y'all.

Also, for those of you that don't collect 78's, like I said earlier, Broadway was a budget label of Paramount. Paramount cut costs wherever they could, and as a result, used the cheapest, most horrible materials they could find to make records.

Brand new, these things sounded like someone had played them with a rusty finishing nail for days!

Who knows how many cheap cost saving ingredients went into the record batch mix to fill it out.

I wouldn't be surprised, if in the next issue of 78 Quarterly I saw an article entitled: "disgruntled underpaid Paramount employees, defecating in "Batch" mix; partly responsible for poor audio quality".

... Or maybe I'd just like to see an article like that....

... Anyways, my point being, is they're a little worn sounding y'all... But they show improvement. "In the Shade Of the Old Apple Tree" starts out pretty quiet... but it gets louder and cleans up a little.

This is a great record.

Enjoy the music folks!

Cheers~Stymee

the INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER: "Kit gets serious for a second".

Im sure for most people this shouldn't be an issue but...

Sometimes in old music you will hear certain words, pertaining to race that were common place back in the day, but socially, they're not really kosher today.This might offend some people if they were to judge them by todays standards. If this is you, I remind you to please view these in their historical context or don't listen.

download these sweet sides!

the Wise String Orchestra

Vocalion no. 5360

Here is the only record made by the Wise String Orchestra.

It was recorded tuesday, August 27th, 1929

It features:

Newman Wise -Fiddle,
C.J. Wise -banjo-mandolin,
George Wise -Guitar,

and an Unidentified vocal duet on "How dry I am".

How a band this good only made one record is beyond me...

But then again, it's usually the snazzy streamlined stuff that sells enough to motivate the record companies to keep pumping out product.

I guess the Wise String Orchestra just wasn't commercial mainstream shlock enough to be successful in the record business... Well... That, and the people who mostly liked this kind of music, didn't have much money to buy records in the first place..... And also the fact that this was recorded about two months before the most devastating stock market crash the United States had ever seen, probably helped to ensure the certain doom of this great string band's recording career. ... Just as it did to many others.

The record companies dropped all their artists that weren't selling well during the depression.... That's probably why I have to look through endless piles of pop garbage before I find gems like this.

I found this one with my buddy Devin at a record store in Nanaimo, BC Canada of all places.

How a record recorded in Knoxville found it's way up so far north is anyones guess.

Anyways,

the record store guy told us they only had a small handful of 78's.

We were surprised they had any at all. We were even more surprised when we found boxes and boxes of them under all the cd racks in the store. we spent hours in there.

We had to wait till the next day for the owner to price them, but we must have bought close to 100 records. All really good prices too!

Most of them were $1-5 bucks!... A few of them were $10.

Lots of good hillbilly, jazzy 1920's novelty stuff, some foreign records, and I found one pre war blues record there too. Columbia 14639. Rufus & Ben Quillian. A real rarity!

It's like what you want to have happen every-time you're looking for records.

So, here it is folks!

Vocalion 5360 by the Wise String Orchestra.

Their recording career may have been short lived, but their music lives on forever in epic victory!!!

... and their version of Yellow Dog Blues rules ass! 

download both sides of this record

Baby Aristocrats Band & Tom Gates Orchestra

Gennett no. 6198

We'll folks, here's a genuine rarity!

78 quarterly list's this in their "rarest 78's" section but doesn't give an estimation of how many copies there might be floating around out there, so, it's any ones guess folks!

This copy came to me through a trade with Devin Champlin of the Gallus Brothers who said :

"I got that record in Aberdeen at a seriously messy junk shop. Was in a shopping cart with a bunch of random shit like a lamp...some cool Greek stuff there too. All of it was loose in the cart and some were broken. I think they we're 50 cents but he just gave me 3 for a dollar."

Devin has really good luck finding 78's. He once junked a Henry Thomas on Vocalion while we were record hunting... 

When I saw what he found, I went through all the 78's again....all I found was a cracked Vernon Dalhart. Damn you Devin! Dammmnnn yooouuu!!!!

Heh heh... jus' kiddn' buddy.

Anyway, Devin's a real pal, and he traded me this record.

It's a rare one, and unfortunately it comes to us in rare messy junk store shopping cart condition.

It's pretty crunchy in the beginning  (especially the Tom Gates side) but the sound improves as the record plays.

So... you be the judge.

In 78 Quarterly it only lists one copy owned by Jim Lindsay in "NM-" condition. 

For those of you that don't grade 78's, "NM-" (near mint) is just a hair below "NM+", and there is virtually no higher grade than "NM+"for 78's  (which means it's just about as clean of a copy as you're ever gonna hope to find).... so Jim, if your reading this, please record your record and post it....  cause your copy is probably way cleaner than mine.

Special thanks again to Devin Champlin for rescuing this little gem from the shopping cart gallows of Aberdeen.

cheers folks~Stymee

Download Both Sides of this record

Rev. J.M. Gates

Death Might be Your Santa Claus!!!!!

you know.... for Christmas!
well folks, I know this record is already out there but it was the only christmasy thing I could think of.... but you get both sides of the record! 
the flip side is standard sermon-spiritual stuff and doesn't stand out like "Death Might Be your Santa Claus" does....and it's a little scratchy but it's the whole package y'all. 

they made so many of these Christmas death sermon records. "Death Might Be Your Santa Claus", "Death Might Be Your Christmas Gift",  "Will The Coffin Be Your Santa Claus"... etc...
I'm still holding out that someones gonna find the record called  "Death will Grind His Shitty Boots Into Your Brand New White Carpet Come Christmas Day".

don't mess with death. 
or death gonna mess with your carpet.

so in the words of the imaginary gospel shouting reverend that lives in my head, I leave you with an excerpt from one of his sermons:

"you might have been planing a wonderful spaghetti dinner for Christmas. and sat and waited by the crock pot for hours while the meat balls cooked.
but while you were waiting, death was planing! he was on a bus on his way to your house. and you got everything cooked and all laid out and all the people are sitting around ready to have their Christmas meal. and your mouth is watering in anticipation because you can smell how good it's  gonna taste and you got the right amount of Parmesan on the spaghetti and it's perfect in every detail but right as you gonna take the first bite... DEATH bursts through the door flailing his arms and screaming some ancient battle cry that sounds like cookie monster charging into battle with Brave Hart and he kicks your plate right off your lap and spaghetti goes flying everywhere and the taste of how good everything was gonna be is gone from your mind. and the only thing left on your mind is: "man this is gonna take forever to clean up".
man plans, but death is a chaotic and disruptive sunovabitch that has no respect for other peoples schedules."

have a good holiday folks!!!!
and steer clear of anyone in a cape with a scythe and a skull mask.
...especially if pasta is on the menu for the holidays....
cheers~Stymee

download both sides of this record

the Dallas Jamboree Jug band. 

Vocalion 03092

here are both sides of Vocalion 03092.
an absolute masterpiece!
they recorded these sides in Dallas Texas in 1935
Dusting the frets on 9/25/35
and Elm Street Woman on 9/20/35
I haven't been able to find a recording of Dusting the frets anywhere online
so I uploaded it to youtube and you can also download it from the link below.
cheers y'all!~Stymee

hear Dusting The Frets on youtube
download both sides of the record from mediafire