BIRMINGHAM RECORD COLLECTORS
DEDICATED TO THE COLLECTING OF MUSIC, ITS PRESERVATION AND LASTING FRIENDSHIP
MONTHLY MEETING THIS SUNDAY, JANUARY 12th, 2020 – 2:00 PM
HOMEWOOD LIBRARY – 1721 OXMOOR ROAD 35209
NEXT MEETING SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9th, 2020 THE SECOND SUNDAY
THIS MONTH’S MEETING

This month Elvis would have been 85 on January 8th. Hard to believe that but all we have to do is take a look at the birth date on our drivers license and we believe. We will play some of Elvis’ music, a few obscure covers, some answer songs and some songs from the 1950’s-60’s written about Elvis that you may have never heard. We will also watch a short video about his beginnings in Memphis and at the Memphis Record Service. Hope you can be with us. Feel free to bring some of your favorite Elvis music.

MORE FROM THE ‘BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC PROJECT 1954-59’

I printed in the November newsletter Part 1 of a research project BRC member Mike Maddox was writing entitled The Birth of Rock and Roll Project 1954-59. Below I have put in the next three parts and will continue to print other parts as time goes on. These parts are all about people who were the early influences in R&R.

PART 2 – Question: Who was Arnold Shultz? I’ll tell you the answer directly. First, some information about the attached mp3 of a 78 rpm record released by Columbia in 1946, featuring Bill Monroe & The Blue Grass Boys. It is an up-tempo Blues number with a steady boogie rhythm. You will notice that the bass fiddle player is featured playing the boogie bass line by himself for five bars in the middle of the record. I stumbled into a copy of this 78 and purchased it for 25 cents earlier this year at the Second & Charles Bookstore in Hoover.

Arnold Shultz was the son of a former slave. He was born in Ohio County, Kentucky in 1886 into a family of musicians who played square dances and on riverboats that traveled up and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, from Kentucky and Ohio to New Orleans. He learned the rudiments of Fiddle and Guitar in his childhood. He also learned the blues, ragtime and folk music of the time. Around 1900, Schultz began to learn from his uncle how to play the bass, rhythm and melody parts simultaneously on the guitar with his thumb and fingers. He played professionally in Kentucky in the 1920s with Bill Monroe’s uncle Pendleton Vandiver and his brother Charlie Monroe. Bill Monroe’s first professional gig as a boy was at a square dance where he played alongside Schultz, his uncle Pendleton, and his brother Charlie. Bill learned blues vocal and instrumental licks from Schultz. Schultz also played with, taught and influenced the guitar playing of fellow Kentuckians Merle Travis and Ike Everly, the father of the Everly Brothers. Travis became a virtuoso of this guitar style and himself influenced innumerable guitarists including Chet Atkins, Doc Watson, Scotty Moore (Elvis Presley’s guitarist) and many more Rock & Roll and Country Music guitarists. Monroe became the father of Bluegrass music, characterized by a steady flowing rhythm and instrumental improvisation played at breakneck speed. Monroe was one of the musical idols of Elvis Presley, who recorded one of his tunes on his first commercially released record.

Arnold Schultz died on April 14, 1931. It is believed that he was never recorded, either as a fiddler or a guitarist. He is buried in Morgantown, Kentucky. Pendleton Vandiver died one year later, in 1932.
In 1997, Bill Monroe was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. He was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971. Monroe died in 1996.

Rocky Road Blues
Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys

PART 3 – Hank Williams, born in Butler County, Alabama on September 17, 1923, singer, songwriter and musician. Hank was given a guitar at about 10 years of age. He was taught how to play the chords, progressions, and bass lines and turns in Blues and Folk Music on his guitar by Rufus Payne, an African American Blues guitarist and street musician in Georgiana, Alabama. The Williams family paid Payne for his guitar lessons by serving him meals prepared by Hank’s Mother. Hank claimed that Payne was his only teacher. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1070, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence in 1987.
At this point in our little project, we reach a point where the guitars are plugged in and amplified. The electric 6 string and lap steel guitar are prominently featured in both Move It On Over (1947) and Mind Your Own Business (1949), both tunes written by Hank. The Boogie rhythm is apparent in both tunes, although it is slowed down in Mind Your Own Business, which is more of a blues song. In Move it On Over, Hank writes the melody line by taking the eighth notes of the Boogie progression and putting them to good use in the verses.
Hank Williams died at age 29 in Oak Hill, West Virginia, before dawn on New Year’s Day, 1953, en route to his next scheduled performance that evening in Canton, Ohio. There were several other Country Music artists booked to perform in Canton that evening, with Hank scheduled to close the show. At the Canton show, the MC opened by announcing to the audience that Hank had passed away. The audience began to laugh, thinking that Hank had had too much to drink and was unable to perform. Then, all the performers came on stage and began to sing “I Saw The Light”. Before the end of the first stanza, the crowd was standing and singing with the performers. Hank Williams is gone, but his music and his musical influence live on here. In the next post we add a horn section to the piano, electric guitars and vocals.

Move It On Over
Hank Williams

Mind Your Own Business
Hank Williams

PAERT 4 – We turn now to two very important records in the late ‘40s-early ‘50s gestation period leading to the birth of Rock & Roll Music in the mid-‘50s.
Chicken Shack Boogie was written and recorded by Amos Milburn, R&B/Jump Blues singer, self-taught piano player, and songwriter. Milburn was born in Houston, Texas on April 1, 1927. He died there 52 years later. He was a combat veteran of World War Two. After the war he settled for many years in Los Angeles. In 1947 he composed and recorded this tune in Los Angeles for Aladdin Records. The recording session took place on November 19, 1947. The record was released in 1948. The saxophone player was Maxwell Davis. Milburn handled the piano and vocal duties. The string bass player and drummer were unidentified. The electric guitar was played by Frank Haywood. It was buried deep in the mix and is very hard to hear.
Good Rockin’ Tonight was composed and recorded, first by R&B singer and piano player Roy Brown in 1948, then covered by established Jump Blues singer Wynonie Harris in 1948. Brown was largely unknown in 1948. This song was his first record. Harris’ recorded version is a clearly superior performance by a seasoned professional. There are two saxophones, player by Hal “Cornbread” Singer and Tom Archia. The piano player, drummer, electric guitarist and string bass player were not identified in the recording documents. We can hear that the boogie rhythm line is doubled and played in unison by the piano player and the bass player, giving the record a strong bottom end driving rhythm. Again, the electric guitar is very hard if not impossible to hear.
These two records were made by Jump Blues and R&B musicians, but neither of them are blues. They are something else which was developing in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s into what we know as Rock & Roll Music. These early influences let us know that there was actually no one recording that we can say was “the first Rock & Roll record”. The creative contributions came from both the black and the white musicians who drew on the Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Folk, Pop, Country, Western Swing, Boogie Woogie and Ragtime that they grew up listening to on the radio and in the juke boxes, and that made them play and sing the way we hear them in these early records. From this point forward, vocals, electric guitars, and electronic effects such as echo, reverb and overdriven amplifiers are going to gradually become more prominent in the records we hear. We still have several more early influences before we get to “D-Day” (July 5, 1954).

Chicken Shack Boogie
Amos Milburn

Good Rockin’ Tonight
Wynonie Harris

See ya,

Charlie