'Baby Doll' - Lavern Baker

I first heard this song to an instructor demo that Julie Brown and Shawn Hershey gave at Baltimore Blues. It quickly became my practice partner and my favorite song to dance to; one we would often end the practice session with.

The song itself I enjoy because of the brassy introduction and continued horns throughout. The textures change throughout the recording as well: quieter sections set the stage for her voices to pick up the lyrical story, muted trumpets punctuate the ends of phrases, and amid the driving feel of the song moments of stillness. Ultimately the song is also accessible. It's a song I like to use to introduce dancers to the jazzier side of blues movements and concepts.

It's also a cover off the album LaVern Baker Sings Bessie Smith released in 1958. I've included a link to Bessie Smith's original at the end of this post. It's interesting to compare the versions (setting aside the difference that 30 years of improvements in recording technology can make) for where the voices fall in the phrases, instrumentation, and what movements and ideas are supported.

Like many singers of the time Lavern Baker was a stage name for the woman born Delores Evans, in Chicago. In the mid to late 1940s she sang and recorded an album under the name 'Little Miss Sharecropper'. While recording for Okeh Records she changed her name to Bea Baker, and when she recorded with Todd Rhodes in 1952 she was billed under the familiar moniker of Lavern Baker. In 1953 she signed on to Atlantic Records and recorded 'Soul On Fire' (also one of my favorite songs she has done). She had a number 4 hit on the charts with 'Tweedle Dee' in 1954, which resulted in an attempted lawsuit against Georgia Gibbs who covered the song exactly and made it to number 1. This resulted in a suit to Congress to change the copyright laws. This is the third artist I've researched who has petitioned Congress with issues related to copyright law.

Baker had more success with Atlantic Records, with songs that reached into the top ten of the charts throughout the 50s and 60s. She later became the entertainment director of Marine Corps Staff NCO at a Phillipines naval base. She was recovering there from a bout of pneumonia after a USO tour in Vietnam. She ended up staying on as director for 22 years, returning to the United States after the base closed in 1988. Baker was among the first eight recipients of the Pioneer Award in 1990 from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, and the second female artist to be inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame (the first being Aretha Franklin). She died in 1997 at the age of 67.

I tried to find additional covers of Baby Doll, but I could only find Lavern Baker's and Bessie Smith's original. If anyone has found other versions of this song I would love to check those out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0FX1l7jdfk - Lavern Baker - 'Baby Doll'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSSsPZG3UOc - Bessie Smith - 'Baby Doll'


Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaVern_Baker
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1109573

On Movement Cross-Training

Cross-training is largely beneficial both for social dancing and competition. Socially, I feel more aware as a lead and better able to respond. Competition-wise, I feel better prepared to take certain risks, more confidence in my ability to move, and regardless of tempo or duration dance without fatigue. This is not to say that anything goes. I want to draw these points this way because I think of cross-training as distinct from Fusion as a philosophy/dance. Cross-training gives rise to options, abilities, and inspirations that accomplish better blues idiom dancing.

In reading Steppin' on the Blues by Jacqui Malone, cross-fertilization is discussed in reference to music: "Many African American musicians developed their artistry by composing and playing in several different, but mutually enriching arenas , including back minstrel bands, military bands, dance bands, marching bands, and bands that performed in traveling shows and musical theater”[emphasis mine] (pg. 144). Further, "many jazz musicians merged their vernacular training with the education they received from women and men schooled in European music." Historically, there has been cross-training within the music, and I do not think it is a stretch to suggest, given the writer's emphasis on the closeness of music and movement (in the same section the emphasis of cross over between military drill groups and dancers) that a person wouldn't just do one dance or kind of dance, rather participate in a range of dances and movement styles. While dancers have the ability to move in a number of ways, that movement is expressed based on the music supports..  

I'm defining cross-training as training in other movement sets outside of a primary set of movements and/or aesthetic. Granted, this is pretty general, so I turned to Wikipedia, which defines cross training as 'athletic training in sports other than the athlete's usual sport. The goal is improving overall performance. It takes advantage of the particular effectiveness of one training method to negate the shortcomings of another.' Dictionary.com offers a similar definition, though with the caveat of 'to learn different, usually related, tasks, skills, jobs, etc.'

In our modern blues scene many of our leaders, teachers, and organizers have multiple dance backgrounds while still being grounded in blues idiom movement. Looking at the BluesSHOUT 2016 All-Star JnJ in particular, most of the finalists have backgrounds or experience in addition to the modern iteration of blues dances. Our competition formats are interesting in that dancers are expected to know and adapt their movement to the genre of blues that is being played (see competitions like Nocturne’s 2016 Challenge Strictly and Snowbound Blues’ All Star Strictly).

I'll divide this into two major themes: cross-training as ability and cross-training as inspiration. I think of these ideas as two broader categories that have intersections, but I will provide few examples for each from my own and other’s experiences.

Cross-training as ability (CTaA)

CTaA I think of as getting access to strength, stamina, or movement I wasn't capable of doing before, mostly coming from non-dance activities like weight lifting, running, yoga, martial arts, etc. This might be in terms of flexibility, ability to dance for longer periods of time, or in my experience comfort with weight sharing. An aspect of the personal and group training I have done at my gym is strength training. We don't skip leg day. I've found that the number of people I can do various forms of weight sharing movements with has increased, more comfort and security in lunges, basing, and other kinds of supported forms. This kind of cross-training ultimately makes me feel like I can keep up or simply be more physically present, both in social dancing and competition.

Another, less physical, example of CTaA would be musical training. Do you have an ear for what the rhythms are likely to do? Laura Chieko, for example, has an ear for clarinet tonality as well as a marching band background. She cites this as her first movement style. Marching band, for those who may be less familiar, is basically about being on beat and keeping up with the tempo of the music.

Cross-training as Inspiration (CTaI)

CTaI I think of as pulling ideas from other dance styles. This could come in two models: the surprise 'hey this thing my body knows how to do works here' or the calculated 'I wonder if I can make this fit here'. Damon Stone gave a talk on the history of Struttin' and Lonestar Strut 2016 in Austin, TX and made a comment about a dance changing naturally over time versus specifically trying to change the dance from the inside.

One example of the 'surprise' idea for me is balboa footwork in Struttin'. This can be tricky, because struttin' has a particular aesthetic, the drop and roll through the hips, whereas balboa is more upright, moving as a unit without the isolation of the hips or torso. One idea I have pulled naturally into my blues movement from balboa is moving through the entire foot, rolling from the ball to the heel or side to side. Certain triple step ideas can be modified as well. These ideas make sense with a certain kind of music. Since these things have sprung up into my dancing I can reflect on how the movements appear within aesthetic and make modifications. These aren't tactical decisions when they happen the first time, but generally happy accidents that can be refined. Early incorporation of Argentine Tango ochos and similar movements into our shared vocabulary might also fall under this framework.

An example of the calculated approach is an idea to reimagine the Dean Collins Shim Sham in the blues aesthetic, humorously dubbed the Blues Collins Shim Sham. A group of us were exploring different choreography ideas and I happened to be learning a Balboa routine at the time which involved learning the whole Dean Collins Shim Sham. The whole break at slow tempos kept inspiring me as I collected under my left foot to drop further into the ground, breaking lines and engaging my hip in a more bluesy kind of way. We came up with a modified take on the line dance thinking about how grounding, posture, and musical structure (12 bar phrases versus 8) impacted how the dance. That was a very targeted and calculated approach when drawing inspiration.

Stepping outside of our normal movement routines can be a great way to get out of a dance rut. If nothing else, spending some gym time with a workout buddy or personal trainer can be a good way to correct movement technique and protect the all important knees. Try the fencing class, some running, yoga, or something else. Ultimately, our understanding of how we move can be informed by working another skill set and give us a different kind of ability and inspiration.

Boogie Chilluns Playhouse - Donnie Williams

Boogie Chilluns Playhouse by Donnie Williams
-Subtitled: when the internet doesn't have all the answers

I found this song off the album 'Fernwood Rhythm 'N' Blues From Memphis'. I originally bought this album to get a song by Willie Cobb (see this post on You Don't Love Me, Baby). I finally got around to sorting the rest of it, and I got to this song that I kept coming back to listen to. It has some similarities with Mississippi Hill Country blues, in that it vamps with sparse vocals. A harmonica and saxophone line bring in different layers, providing a driving melodic line that the vocals do not carry. It has a hypnotic groove punctuated by occasional stops, the electric guitar sustaining a note until the drums kick back in. It was a surprise find from this album, and one I wanted to write about.

The challenge? There is very little I could find about the artist, Donnie Williams. Most references to the song point to a John Lee Hooker song called 'Boogie Chillen' written in 1948. There are some rhythmic similarities, the vamp or repetition of the song. John Lee Hooker's version is just his voice, guitar, and foot stomps without any additional instrumentation. The stops are evident as well, with great opportunities for rhythmic play (from a dancer's perspective).

Wikipedia does have an article on the song itself. Like my initial reactions, "it resembles early North Mississippi Hill country blues rather than the boogie-woogie piano-derived style of the 1930s and 1940s". The chillen/chillun part of the name comes from 'is a phonetical approximation of Hooker's pronunciation of "children"'.

Donnie Williams' version, recorded in 1964, is almost certainly a cover of Hooker's. While the lyrics are absent or don't line up, the characteristic groove of the song is hard to dismiss. 'Boogie Chillen' has been extensively covered, ultimately leading to a suit against ZZ Top for their song 'La Grange', a suit that was settled out of court in 1997. Congress, in 1998, amended the Copyright Act protections for 'many songs recorded before 1978 from entering the public domain'.

As far as the album, Steve Leggett has a review on Allmusic.com, saying this history of the album stems from a garage recording studio set up by Slim Wallace on Fernwood Street in Memphis. Most of the songs apparently never saw reprinting after their initial release. Fernwood also had subsidiary studios, Pure Gold among them, and it was on the Pure Gold label that 'Boogie Chilluns Playhouse' was released.

I couldn't find anything more on Donnie Williams. As far as I could find he had two songs cut on the subsidiary of Fernwood. I really enjoy this recording, and it was a good exercise in research where the information isn't readily available. Hopefully someone will be able to find something more on this artist.

Sources:
http://www.allmusic.com/album/fernwood-rhythm-n-blues-from-memphis-mw0000040952
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie_Chillen'#cite_note-Koda-6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie_Chillen'
http://www.45cat.com/label/pure-gold-us
http://www.45cat.com/record/nc912861us
http://www.rockabillyhall.com/fernwood.html

"It's Love Baby (24 Hours Of The Day)" - Ruth Brown

While in Grand Rapids in October I was inspired to dig into artist Ruth Brown thanks to a phenomenal swing & blues DJ, Andi Hansen. A song Andi loves to listen to is Ruth Brown's "It's Love Baby (24 Hours of the Day)". As a consequence, I really enjoy it too.

Ruth Brown first signed with Atlantic records. Throughout the fifties Ruth Brown had hit after hit on the Billboard R&B chart. According to Wikipedia, between 1949 and 1955 records by Brown stayed on the R&B chart for a total of 149 weeks: 16 top 10 records, along with 5 number one hits. During the sixties she receded from the public view to care for her family. In 1975 she came back to a musical career that eventually included winning a Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical as well as a Grammy for Best Female Jazz Artist.

Other notable awards include:  recipient of the Pioneer Award (1989), inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall Of Fame (1992), inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1993), and another Grammy nomination for R + B = Ruth Brown (1997).

Ruth Brown had hosted a program carried by NPR affiliates called BluesStage. I wasn't able to find any recordings of the program itself, but I did find an interview she did with NPR from 1993. In this interview Brown talks about her early life, admiration for Billie Holiday, and she sang as well while the host, Marian McPartland, accompanies on piano. One quality Ruth Brown highlights is the joy she injects into the songs she sings. In discussing Fine & Mellow she says she can't help but add more life and playfulness to the song than the Billie Holiday version, similarly with the song that got her inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, "Mana, He Treats Your Daughter Mean".

According to Second Hand Songs the song itself was originally recorded by Louis Brooks and His Hi-Toppers in May of 1955. Brown's version was released in August of that year. I enjoy this song because of the energy. It's a driving song with a consistent rhythm section and a playful saxophone. There is a buoyant quality to her version that makes me want to dance (it's now going in the practice rotation).

Some Additional Versions:

It's love Baby - Earl Gaines with Louis Brooks & his Hi-Toppers

The Midnighters - It's Love Baby (24 Hours A Day)

Earl Gaines - It's Love Baby 24 Hours A Day

================
Sources
https://secondhandsongs.com/work/34960/originals#nav-entity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Brown
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/ruth-brown
http://www.npr.org/event/music/358587932/ruth-brown-on-piano-jazz

'You Don't Love Me, Baby' - Junior Wells

While at Bring Your Own Blues in Lansing, MI I was able to hear Mr. Harrison, a Lansing based blues band. The band was a welcome surprise.I'd never heard them before, or known them to play for dancers, but they are one of the most enjoyable blues bands I've heard in a long time. In part, I thoroughly enjoyed their breadth of blues sub-genres they played. Specifically, they played a cover of 'You Don't Love Me, Baby' by Junior Wells - a song I haven't heard covered by any other contemporary band, at least live (upon doing research Magic Sam has a fun version of this song, and the song itself is a cover of earlier artists such as Billie Cobb and Bo Diddley - though there is apparently some claim that Cobb covered a similar song by Diddley, but I digress).

This song is off of Junior Well's 1965 debut album, Hoodoo Man Blues. Personally, this is one of my favorite albums (along with Southside Blues Jam). This album was an early collaboration between Buddy Guy and Wells. The innovative album become one of Delmark Record's best sellers and has been included for preservation in the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."

Junior Wells himself moved to Chicago in 1948 with his mother from West Memphis, AK. He began playing for house parties and bars with the local musicians. Influenced by Little Walter, he played harmonica with an 'amplified style' that is on full display in Hoodoo Man Blues. On the cover of Hoodoo Man Blues, Wells tells the story of how he came to possess a harmonica: "I went to this pawnshop downtown and the man had a harmonica prices at $2.00. I got a job on a soda truck... played hookey from school ... worked all week and on Saturday the man gave me a dollar and a half. A dollar and a half! For a whole week of work. I went to the pawnshop and the man said the price was two dollars. I told him I had to have that harp. He walked away from the counter – left the harp there. So I laid my dollar-and-a-half on the counter and picked up the harp. When my trial came up, the judge asked me why I did it. I told him I had to have that harp. The judge asked me to play it and when I did he gave the man the 50 cents and hollered "Case dismissed!" (1948)

In 1952 he began to play and recorded a session with Muddy Waters for Chess Records. Wells went on to record several records including Southside Blues Jam, On Tap, and Come On In This House. He died in Chicago in 1998.

The song opens with Buddy Guy on the guitar, kicking into a high energy groove. Junior Wells comes in singing soon after. I love the energy of this song, the rhythm in the guitar, and the stops where the band drops out. The tempo also gradually increases as the song continues. Wells' harmonica comes in the last thirty or so seconds of the song.

Musicians on the album:

Junior Wells - Harmonica, Vocals
Buddy Guy - Guitar, Vocals
Jack Myers - Bass
Bill Warren - drums

Below are two additional versions of the song I think are worth a listen:

Bo Diddley - You Don't Love Me (You Don't Care)

Willie Cobb - You Don't Love Me

Junior Wells - You Don't Love Me, Baby

=============
Sources:
http://www.allmusic.com/album/hoodoo-man-blues-mw0000208353
https://www.facebook.com/MrHarrisonBlues/about/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo_Man_Blues
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Don%27t_Love_Me_(Willie_Cobbs_song)
https://secondhandsongs.com/work/58716
http://www.delmark.com/rhythm.junior.htm

Marty Grosz's 'Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You'

Love makes me treat you
The way that I do
Gee baby, ain't I good to you

Today's research was inspired by Marty Grosz's version of 'Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You', linked here.

'Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You' was written in 1929 (according to Wikipedia) by Andy Razaf and Don Redman and later popularized by the King Cole Trio in 1944. It has been covered ad infinitum since by artists like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Rushing, Ruth Brown, and the artist I'm interested in today: Marty Grosz. 

Grosz is an American jazz guitarist, banjoist, and composer who was born in Berlin. He has a long history of creating and performing with a variety of artists. He studied at Columbia University in New York and started recording in 1950. He afterwards moved to Chicago for 20 years before returning to New York City. I became aware of his work because of the Fat Babies in Chicago, who still play weekly at the Green Mill. In exploring more of the local Chicago music (and the music of the Fat Babies in particular) I found the album ,Diga Diga Doo, Grosz recorded with the Fat Babies and James Dapogny, a Michigan based jazz pianist who still plays on Sundays in Ann Arbor. In looking into Grosz's music I found this version of 'Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You' off the album Ring Dem Bells. 

From a dancer's perspective, this is a jazz song that I'll have a ballroomin' dance to (Slow Drag as well). The song has a languid and relaxed feeling throughout. In the notes I keep for the song I think of it as flowing, but with moments of tension and release. Opening with a couple bars of Grosz's guitar, it's an instrumental version. Since there is not a vocal line different instruments take turns with the melodic 'verse'. A muted trumpet carries much of the lyrical burden followed by a woodwind instrument-likely clarinet-and Marty Grosz on guitar. All of this is backed by brushes on the drums, a steady bass, and piano. As a DJ, I love this song as a slower number that still has consistent and ever present energy. 

The musicians for this album:

Marty Grosz - Guitar, vocals
Jon-Erik Kellso - Trumpet
Scott Robinson - Clarinet, soprano sax, baritone sax
Martin Litton - piano
Greg Cohen - Bass
Chuck Riggs - Drums

For the interested a few notable versions of the song are below, as well as Marty Grosz's:

Nat King Cole Trio

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Billie Holiday

Marty Grosz

Sources and Links

-----------------------------

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee,_Baby,_Ain%27t_I_Good_to_You

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Grosz

http://www.allmusic.com/album/diga-diga-doo-hot-music-from-chicago-mw0002809003

http://www.martygrosz.com/biography.htm

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/marty-grosz-mn0000858488/biography

Robert Belfour's 'Go Ahead On'

I've been inspired by Katie Alexa of the Blues Dance World podcast to do my own digging into the history of an artist or a particular song I have been enjoying. This led me to thinking about the artist Robert Belfour and his song 'Go Ahead On'. It's one of my favorite songs to listen and move to. I've tried to quote him where I can to let his description of his work and music speak.

Belfour's music is characterized as Hill Country Blues. Other artists that exemplify this sound are Junior Kimborough, R.L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill [1]. Branching off from the wikipedia page I found http://www.hillcountryharmonica.com/hillcountryblues.html, a site that offers more detail and history. Hill Country Blues is described in contrast to the Chicago style blues of Muddy Waters, and also as distinct for Delta blues, as a subgenre of country blues "characterized by a strong emphasis on rhythm and percussion, steady guitar riffs, few chord changes, unconventional song structures, and heavy emphasis on the "groove" - more affectionately known as "the hypnotic boogie.""[2] Another description that stood out to me was "Hill country blues is functional:  it's all about the groove, and the dancers who move to the groove." [1]

In an interview with BluesinLondon.com Belfour said in response to a question about his career, "I'd been playing all my life - I thought myself by ear listening to the radio... started off by chord and I changed over - I wanted to do notes... I wanted something somebody else wasn't doing, because everybody was imitating somebody else you know - chords and stuff - and I wanted my own thing".  Belfour is distinguished by his own style of "percussive attack and alternate tunings" [3]. In the same London interview he described his tuning as 'cross tuned Spanish so that's the reason why can't nobody tune their guitar to find what I do - because it's cross tuned Spanish tuning." [4] 

Belfour expands on how he learned to play by telling a story about an older woman teaching him John Lee Hooker.'s 'Crawling Kingsnake'.  As he tells it "she told me "I'm gonna show you how to play this song, I want you to learn this." I sat there and she showed me. She did it about three or four times and then she handed me the guitar". He continued practicing and playing for his community, eventually in the 80s playin on Beale Street. He was able to tour extensively at home and abroad before his death in 2015 [4]. 

I credit Anna Washenko for introducing me to Robert Belfour during the BluesSHOUT 2015 Solo Cuttin' finals. For the final pairing, Anna threw on a song with a different character and feel than I'd heard all weekend, 'Breaking My Heart' by Robert Belfour. I purchased the album 'Pushing My Luck' the next day. 

BluesSHOUT 2015 Cuttin' Finals - 21:40 for Song

More information about Report Belfour is available from the Fat Possum label:
http://fatpossum.com/robert-belfour-1940-2015/

--------------------------------
[1] http://www.hillcountryharmonica.com/hillcountryblues.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_country_blues#cite_note-1
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Belfour#cite_note-2
[4] http://www.bluesinlondon.com/interviews/robert_belfour_2007.html