It is always nice to turn up a page in a newspaper where a promotion for a recording occurs by the company that will turn out the 78 rpm record. The artwork behind some of these ads is quite good, and I thought about sharing this one for Clarence Williams Washboard Band, for the Vocalion race series, picked from the April 23, 1927 edition of The Pittsburgh Courier.
From the motion picture “On With The Show” comes Jimmie Noone and his Apex Club Orchestra’s interpretation of “Am I Blue”, and, “Birmingham Bertha”. The promotion for his recording on the Vocalion label was advertised in The Afro-American, Baltimore, Maryland on October 5, 1929.
A master of the boogie woogie style of blues piano, Clarence “Pinetop” Smith recorded for the Vocalion label in 1928 and 1929. His style was the essance of ragtime and influenced many future pieces in that style. Vocalion advertised record number 1245 in The Afro-American, Baltimore, Maryland, on April 6, 1929.
In an earlier post today, I illustrated the Louis Armstrong Okeh Records promotion for the same song. Here is the Vocalion Race Records version promoting Jimmie Noone, which was inserted in the March 16, 1929 Afro-American.
Vocalion Race Records 1180, for Jimmy Blythe’s Washboard Wizards, is announced in The Afro-American newspaper, Baltimore, Maryland, on June 16, 1928.
During the course of my search for advertisements, this October 1, 1927 Brunswick insert in the Baltimore Maryland Afro-American, is the largest promotion I have come across for Brunswick and Vocalion records together. Look! King Oliver and Fess Williams in the same ad!
Vocalion records announces the appearance of King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators at Wonderland Park, and the June 4, 1927 edition of the Afro-American also contains its own article about the forthcoming concert.
Shake That Jelly Roll
written by Junie Cobb and Lester Melrose
performed by Junie C. Cobb & his Grains Of Corn
recorded in Chicago, 9 February 1929
issued as Vocalion 1263 circa March 1929
Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Junius C. “Junie” Cobb was competent on tenor saxophone, clarinet, banjo, piano, violin, and drums. He played with Johnny Dunn as a teenager, and after moving to Chicago he led his own ensemble in 1920-21 at the Club Alvadere. In the 1920s he played with King Oliver (1924-27) on banjo and with Jimmie Noone (1928-29). Following this Cobb put together another band of his own, and recorded with this ensemble for Vocalion and Victor. He played in Paris briefly in the early 1930s, then returned to lead groups in Chicago.
Jimmy Cobb – cornet
Junie Cobb, Cecil Erwin and/or Darnell Howard – reeds
Bob Waugh – violin
Alex Hill – piano
Eustern Woodfork – banjo
probably Bill Johnson – bass
Jimmy Bertrand or Harry Dial – drums
| Ida Cox | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Ida Prather |
| Born | February 25, 1896 |
| Origin | Toccoa, Habersham County,Georgia, United States |
| Died | November 10, 1967 (aged 71) Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Genres | Jazz, blues |
| Instruments | Vocalist |
| Years active | 1910s–1960 |
Ida Cox (February 25, 1896 – November 10, 1967) was an African American singer andvaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as “The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues”.
Cox was born in February, 1896 as Ida Prather in Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia,United States (Toccoa was in Habersham County, not yet Stephens County at the time), the daughter of Lamax and Susie (Knight) Prather, and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia, singing in the local African Methodist Church choir. She left home to tour with travelingminstrel shows, often appearing in blackface into the 1910s; she married fellow minstrel performer Adler Cox.
By 1920, she was appearing as a headline act at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia; another headliner at that time was Jelly Roll Morton.
After the success of Mamie Smith‘s pioneering 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues”, record labels realized there was a demand for recordings of race music. The classic female blues era had begun, and would extend through the 1920’s. From 1923 through to 1929, Cox made numerous recordings for Paramount Records, and headlined touring companies, sometimes billed as the “Sepia Mae West”, continuing into the 1930’s. During the 1920’s, she also managed Ida Cox and Her Raisin’ Cain Company, her own vaudeville troupe. At some point in her career, she played alongside Ibrahim Khalil, a Native American and one of the several jazz musicians of that era who belonged from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
In the early 1930s “Baby Earl Palmer” entered show business as a tap dancer in Cox’s Darktown Scandals Review.
In 1939 she appeared at Café Society Downtown, in New York‘s Greenwich Village, and participated in the historic Carnegie Hall concert, From Spirituals to Swing. That year, she also resumed her recording career with a series of sessions for Vocalion Records and, in 1940, Okeh Records, with groups that at various times included guitarist Charlie Christian, trumpeters Hot Lips Page and Henry “Red” Allen, trombonist J. C. Higginbotham, and Lionel Hampton.
She had spent several years in retirement by 1960, when record producer Chris Albertson persuaded her to make one final recording, an album for Riverside titled Blues For Rampart Street. Her accompanying group comprised Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, pianist Sammy Price, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Jo Jones. The album featured her revisiting songs from her old repertoire, including “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues“ which found a new audience, including such singers as Nancy Harrow and Barbara Dane, who recorded their own versions. Cox referred to the album as her “final statement,” and, indeed, it was. She returned to live with her daughter in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she died of cancer in 1967.
| Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra | |
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Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra
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| Background information | |
| Genres | Jazz, Big band |
| Years active | 1926–1930 |
Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra was the main band of clarinetist Fess Williams from 1926–1930
In 1926 Williams formed the Royal Flush Orchestra. The popular hot jazz outfit held residency at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom for most of its life and recorded on the Victor, Vocalion, Gennett, Okeh, Brunswick, Champion, and Harmony labels. Williams, Frank Marvin, and Perry Smith supplied vocals. The flamboyant Williams typically performed wearing a white suit and top hat.
In 1928 Williams traveled to Chicago where he temporarily fronted Dave Peyton’s band at the Regal Theatre. Calling the group Fess Williams and His Joy Boys, he recorded two sides with them for Vocalion. The Royal Flush Orchestra continued to operate in his absence, and in 1929 he returned to New York to resume his duties.
The Royal Flush Orchestra recorded its last side in 1930.
Here is a cross section of Race Record advertisements that ran between 1922 and 1931 for Paramount, Okeh, Victor, and Vocalion records.
Irene Taylor (1906–1988?) was an American singer best known for her recorded work with Paul Whiteman. She was married to singer and bandleader Seger Ellis.
Taylor came from Muskogee, Oklahoma, but seems to have begun her musical career in Dallas. There she made her recording debut for Okeh Records in 1925, resulting in two sides where she is accompanied by local bandleader Jack Gardner. After that Taylor worked for a while with another local band, the Louisiana Ramblers, before going to New York City.
In New York in 1928 Taylor made what is probably her best known and most frequently reissued recording: Mississippi Mud (Victor 21274) with Paul Whiteman‘s orchestra, also featuring Bix Beiderbecke and The Rhythm Boys (including a young Bing Crosby). This was the first Whiteman recording ever to feature a female vocalist. Taylor would work briefly with Whiteman again during the early 1930s, replacing Mildred Bailey who had left the band due to disagreements regarding her salary. During this latter period, Taylor’s recordings with Whiteman included Willow Weep for Me (Victor 24187). This was the second recording ever of this future jazz standard by Ann Ronell and became a hit. She was also the vocalist on one of Whiteman’s hottest 1930’s recordings, “In The Dim Dim Dawning” (Victor 24189).
Otherwise Taylor worked mostly in radio during the 1930s, including regular appearances in Bing Crosby’s radio shows, and seems to have had her main base in Chicago. She also made a few records in her own name, first for Victor Records (which were never issued) and later for Vocalion Records. She also appeared on Broadway and in the Vitaphone short film Listening In where she sang I Ain’t Lazy, I’m Just Dreamin’.
Probably in the 1930s, Taylor married pianist, crooner and bandleader Seger Ellis. She appeared as vocalist on several of her husband’s big band recordings during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Facts about her life after that period are very scarce, and her estimated year of death is based on an interview with Ted Parrino, former pianist in the orchestra of Jack Gardner.
| Recording location and date | Title | Author | Issue | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas, c. October 18, 1925 | I Did Wanta, But I Don’t Wanta Now | Gardner | Okeh 40527 | Accompanied by Jack Gardner’s Orchestra |
| Dallas, c. October 18, 1925 | I Ain’t Thinkin’ ‘Bout You | Gardner | Okeh 40527 | Accompanied by Jack Gardner’s Orchestra |
| Chicago, July 20, 1928 | My Castle In The Clouds | – | Victor (unissued) | Accompanied by unknown quintet |
| Chicago, July 20, 1928 | I Must Have That Man | – | Victor (unissued) | Accompanied by unknown quintet |
| New York City, July 12, 1933 | Shadows On The Swanee | Young-Burke-Spina | Vocalion 25003 | Dorsey Brothers Orchestra |
| New York City, July 12, 1933 | Don’t Blame Me | – | Vocalion 25003 | Dorsey Brothers Orchestra |
| Leroy Carr | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Born | March 27, 1905 Nashville, Tennessee, United States |
| Died | April 29, 1935 (aged 30) Indianapolis, Indiana, United States |
| Genres | Chicago Blues, Piedmont blues |
| Instruments | Piano |
Leroy Carr (March 27, 1905 – April 29, 1935) was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist, who developed a laid-back,crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. He first became famous for “How Long, How Long Blues” on Vocalion Records in 1928.
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Carr was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Although his recording career was cut short by an early death, Carr left behind a large body of work. He had a long-time partnership with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. His light bluesy piano combined with Blackwell’s melodic jazz guitar to attract a sophisticated black audience. Carr’s vocal style moved blues singing toward an urban sophistication, influencing such singers as T-Bone Walker, Charles Brown, Amos Milburn, Jimmy Witherspoon, Ray Charles among others.
Count Basie and Jimmy Rushing used some of Carr’s songs and Basie’s band shows the influence of Carr’s piano style.
His music has been covered by notable artists such as Robert Johnson, Ray Charles, Big Bill Broonzy, Moon Mullican, Champion Jack Dupree, Lonnie Donegan and Memphis Slim.
Carr died of nephritis shortly after his thirtieth birthday.
| Memphis Minnie | |
|---|---|
 Portrait (ca. 1930) on Minnie’s gravemarker (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Portrait (ca. 1930) on Minnie’s gravemarker |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lizzie Douglas |
| Born | June 3, 1897 Algiers, Louisiana, United States |
| Died | August 6, 1973 (aged 76) Memphis, Tennessee, United States |
| Genres | Blues |
| Occupations | Guitarist, vocalist, songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar, electric guitar, bass,banjo, drums |
| Years active | 1920s–1950s |
| Labels | Okeh, Columbia, Vocalion,Decca, Bluebird, Checker, JOB |
Memphis Minnie was a Blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter from the early 1930s to the 1950s. She was born in Algiers, Louisiana in 1897 as Lizzie Douglas. She had many songs, some of the most famous being “Bumble Bee”, “Hoodoo Lady”, and “I Want Something For You”. Her performances and songwriting made her well known in a genre dominated mostly by men. She died on August 6, 1973 and is buried in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Lizzie Douglas (a.k.a. Memphis Minnie) was born on June 3, 1897 in Algiers, Louisiana. She was the eldest from her 13 other siblings. Her parents Abe and Gertrude Douglas nicknamed her the Kid during her early childhood. At the age of 7 she and her family moved toWalls, Mississippi, which was just south of Memphis. The following year after she moved, she received her first guitar for Christmas. She began to practice and learn how to play both the banjo and the guitar and it was seen that she had a great talent as a musician. When she first began performing she did not use her first name Lizzie, but played under the name Kid Douglas. When she was 13 years old she ran away from her home to live on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. She would play on street corners for most of her teenage years and would eventually go home when she ran out of money. She began to get noticed singing and playing guitar on the street corners. This brought an opportunity for her to tour, travel, and play with the Ringling Brothers Circus. Eventually she came back to Beale Street and got consumed in the blues scene. At the time, women, whiskey, and cocaine were high in demand with the people and places she would be around. She made her money by playing guitar, singing, and prostitution, which was not uncommon at the time. Most of the female performers were prostitutes because of financial desperation. It was said “She received $12 for her services-an outrageous fee for the time.” (Memphis Minnie Biography,1). She was known as a woman that was very strong and that could take care of herself.
She had been married three times in her life; first with Will Weldon (a.k.a. Casey Bill) sometime in the 1920s, then Joe McCoy (1929 – 1934), and finally to Earnest Lawlars (a.k.a. Little Son Joe), in 1939. She and McCoy would perform together during their marriage. During this time, a talent scout from Columbia Records discovered her. When she and McCoy went to record in New York, she decided to change her name to Memphis Minnie. During the next few years she and McCoy released many singles and duets. She released the song “Bumble Bee” in 1930, which ended up being one of her favorite songs, and led her to a recording contract with the labelVocalion. Under this label, they continued to produce recording for two years, one of them being “I’m Talking About You”, which was one of her more popular songs. They soon decided to leave Vocalion and move to Chicago. She and McCoy introduced country blues to the urban environment and became very well known.
Memphis Minnie continued to have success throughout the years recording under many different labels like Decca Records and Chess Records. Some believe her fame was the reason for her divorce with McCoy due to jealousy and resentment towards her. She remarried after to Earnest Lawlars (a.k.a. Little Son Joe) and began recording material with him. She became very well known in the blues industry and ended up being one of the most famous blues performers of all time, competing with both men and women.
She continued to record throughout the 50’s, but her health began to become a problem for her. She retired from her musical career and ended up going back to Memphis. “Periodically, she would appear on Memphis radio stations to encourage young blues musicians. As the Garons wrote in Women With Guitar, “She never laid her guitar down, until she could literally no longer pick it up.”” She suffered a stroke in 1960, which caused her to be bound by wheelchair. The following year her husband, Earnest “Little Son Joe” Lawlars died. She had another stroke a short while after and eventually ended up in the Jell Nursing Home. She could no longer survive on her social security income so magazines wrote about her and readers sent her money for assistance. On August 6, 1973 she died of a stroke. She was buried in an unmarked grave at the New Hope Cemetery in Memphis. A headstone paid for by Bonnie Raitt was erected by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund on 13 October 1996 with 35 family members in attendance including her sister, numerous nieces (including Laverne Baker) and nephews. After her death some of her old work began to surface and some of her songs were featured on blues compilations. She was one of the first 20 blues artists that were inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.
There’s a famous anecdote from this period regarding a guitar contest between Minnie and Big Bill Broonzy. In 1933, when Big Bill Broonzy was very popular in Chicago, a blues contest between him and Memphis Minnie took place in a nightclub. As Broonzy tells the story, in his autobiography Big Bill Blues, a jury of fellow musicians awarded Minnie the prize of a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin for her performance of “Chauffeur Blues” and “Looking the World Over”.
Before renewing her contract with Vocalion in 1934 she recorded twenty sides for Decca and eight for Bluebird, her last session for Bluebird accompanied by Casey Bill Weldon. Minnie and Joe recorded recorded for the last time together in September 1934. According to several reports, McCoy’s increasing jealousy of Minnie’s fame and success caused the breakup. Minnie toured a great deal in the ’30s, mostly in the south. It was during this period that Bob Wills and some of his Texas Playboys saw her playing in Texas; they would later make her “What’s The Matter With The Mill?” a part of their repertoires. By 1935 Minnie had settled in under the supervision of Lester Melrose and was able to easily handle the transition from rural-downhome blues to a more sophisticated sound. Back on her own, Minnie began to experiment with different styles and sounds. She recorded four sides for the Bluebird label in 1935 in August of that year, she returned to the Vocalion label. Minnie had teamed up with manager Lester Melrose, the single most powerful and influential executive in the blues industry during the 1930s and 1940s. By the end of the 1930s, Minnie had recorded nearly 20 sides for Decca Records and eight sides for theBluebird Records.
In 1939, Minnie returned to the Vocation label. Her recordings with Son Joe are in duet style, with piano, bass or drums added on some sessions. Minnie and Little Son Joe also began to release material on Okeh Records in the 1940s. The couple continued to record together throughout the decade. In May 1941 Minnie recorded her biggest hit, “Me And My Chauffeur Blues.” A follow-up date yielded two more blues standards, “Looking The World Over” and Son’s “Black Rat Swing (issued as by Mr. Memphis Minnie).” At the dawn of the 1940s Minnie and Joe continued to work at their “home club”, Chicago’s popular 708 club where they were often joined by Big Bill, Sunnyland Slim, or Snooky Pryor. They also played at dozens of the other better known Chicago nightclubs. The forties treated Minnie and Son Joe well and they performed both together and separately depending on finances, (they could make more money playing separate gigs). Minnie, presided over Blue Monday parties at Ruby Lee Gatewood’s Tavern playing an electrified National arch top in front of a band that included bass and drums. The poet Langston Hughes saw her perform New Year’s Eve 1942, at the 230 Club, and was thoroughly overwhelmed by her “scientific” (i.e. loud) sound. He described the sound of her electric guitar as “a musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill”. Clearly she had by that time embraced the next phase of the blues.
Later in the 1940s Minnie lived in Indianapolis, Indiana and Detroit, Michigan, returning to Chicago in the early 1950s. From the 1950s on, however, public interest in her music declined, and in 1957 she and Lawlers returned to Memphis. Lawlers died in 1961.
Her family called her “Kid” throughout her childhood because she never liked the name “Lizzie.” Her younger sister Daisy is the only surviving sibling of the Douglas family. Daisy and Kid atttended elementary school together in Brunswick, Tennessee at a school called Morning Grove School. At the age of seven, her family moved to Walls Mississippi, a town not too far from Memphis, Tennessee. In 1910, at the age of 13, she ran away from home to live on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee although she would periodically return to her family’s farm whenever she ran out of money. The majority of the time, she played her guitar and sang on the street corners.
Her sidewalk performances eventually led to a four year tour of the South with the Ringling Brothers Circus from 1916 to 1920. She was known for being an independent woman who knew how to take care of herself and when a man ever tried to pester her or do her wrong she would go after them with a pocket knife, her guitar, or anything she can get her hands on. She chewed tobacco all the time including whenever she sang or played her guitar. She always had a mug at hand in case she ever wanted to spit. Most of the music she made was autobiographical; Minnie expressed a lot of her personal life in through her music. In the 1930s when she would finish traveling and performing in several different states, Minnie would go back to her friends’ homes with nowhere else to go. Minnie’s mother died in 1922 when Minnie was 25 years old. Her father decided to move back to Walls Mississippi where he died thirteen years later in 1935.
Minnie was married three times. Although there is no evidence of their marriage certificate, her first husband was Will Weldon who she married in the early 1920s. Her second husband was guitarist and mandolin player Joe McCoy (aka Kansas Joe McCoy) whom she married in 1929. That same year, she and Kansas Joe McCoy began to perform together. They were discovered by a talent scout of Columbia Records in front of a barber shop where they were playing for dimes. Together, they went to New York to record their music and this is when she decided to change her name to Memphis Minnie. They filed for divorce in 1934 because McCoy became increasingly jealous of Minnie’s rise to fame and success. In 1939, she met guitarist Earnest Lawlers (aka Little Son Joe). He became her new musical partner and they married shortly thereafter. Son Joe attributed songs to her including “Key to The World” in which he addresses her as “the woman I got now” and calls her “the key to the world.” By the late 1940s, clubs began hiring younger and cheaper artists to play shows at their venues so Columbia began dropping Blues artists including Memphis Minnie.
Minnie was not religious and seldom went to church, in fact the only time she would ever go to church was to see Gospel groups perform (Garon 36). She had a stroke in 1960 which made her bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life which ended on August 6 of 1973. The home she once lived in still exists today at 1355 Adelaide Street in Memphis, Tennessee.
Memphis Minnie’s grave (2008)
After her health began to fail in the mid 1950s, Minnie returned to Memphis and retired from performing and recording. She spent her twilight years in a nursing home in Memphis where she died of a stroke in 1973. She is buried at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in Walls, DeSoto County, Mississippi. A headstone paid for by Bonnie Raitt was erected by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund on 13 October 1996 with 35 family members in attendance including her sister, numerous nieces (including Laverne Baker) and nephews. The ceremony was taped for broadcast by the BBC.
Her headstone is marked:
Lizzie “Kid” Douglas Lawlers
aka Memphis Minnie
The inscription on the back of her gravestone reads:
“The hundreds of sides Minnie recorded are the perfect material to teach us about the blues. For the blues are at once general, and particular, speaking for millions, but in a highly singular, individual voice. Listening to Minnie’s songs we hear her fantasies, her dreams, her desires, but we will hear them as if they were our own.“
| Texas Alexander | |
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| Birth name | Algernon Alexander |
| Born | September 12, 1900 Jewett, Texas, United States |
| Died | April 18, 1954 (aged 53) Richards, Texas, United States |
| Genres | Country blues, Texas blues,blues |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 1927–1950 |
| Associated acts | Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin’ Hopkins |
Alger “Texas” Alexander (September 12, 1900 – April 18, 1954) was an American blues singer from Jewett, Texas. Some sources claim that he was the cousin of Lightnin’ Hopkins, but no direct kinship has ever been established. It was also claimed that he was the uncle of Texas country blues guitarist Frankie Lee Sims.
A short man with a big, deep voice, Alexander started his career performing on the streets and at local parties and picnics in the Brazos River bottomlands, where he sometimes worked with Blind Lemon Jefferson. In 1927 he began a recording career that continued into the 1930s, recording sides for the Okeh and Vocalion labels in New York, San Antonio, and Fort Worth.
In November 1928, Alexander recorded what has been believed by some to be the earliest version of “The House of the Rising Sun.” Other songs he recorded include “Mama’s Bad Luck Child,” “Sittin’ on a Log,” “Texas Special,” “Broken Yo Yo” and “Don’t You Wish Your Baby was Built Up Like Mine?”
His early records for Okeh are notable not only for the personal originality of his songs, but for the musical motifs against which they are set. On April 9, 1934, Alexander recorded backed by the Mississippi Sheiks. Their line-up featured Bo Carter on violin, plus Sam Chatman and Walter Vinson on guitar. The eight tracks recorded included “Seen Better Days”, and “Frost Texas Tornado Blues”, the latter of which spoke of the tornado which destroyed Frost, Texas on May 6, 1930, leaving 41 dead.
Alexander did not play an instrument himself, and over the years he worked with a number of other musicians, including King Oliver, Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson, Little Hat Jones, the Mississippi Sheiks, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. He sang in the free rhythm of work songs, such as the migrant cotton pickers he performed for might have sung, which posed a challenge for those accompanying him. Indeed, his singing is difficult to follow, and on his gramophone records his accompanists can often be heard resetting their watches to ‘Alexander Time’. His finest collaborator was Lonnie Johnson, who devised free-form guitar melodies in counterpoint to the vocal lines.
In 1939, Alexander murdered his wife, resulting in a stay in the state penitentiary in Paris, Texas from 1940 to 1945. After that he returned to performing and recording, and Alexander made his last recording in 1950 with Benton’s Busy Bees (Leon Benton, guitar and Buster Pickens, piano), before dying at the age of 53 of syphilis in 1954.
Alexander’s body is buried in Longstreet Cemetery, Montgomery County, Texas.
William Rogers Campbell “Sonny” Clay (May 15, 1899, Chapel Hill, Texas – April 13, 1973, Los Angeles) was an American jazz pianist, drummer, and bandleader, who had an unusual impact on the development of Australian jazz.
Clay’s family moved to Phoenix when he was eight years old; he played drums and xylophone early in life. From 1915 he studied piano, playing with Charlie Green and Jelly Roll Morton in Mexico around 1920. He drummer for Reb Spikes in California in 1921, and had his first recording experience backing Camille Allen in 1922. Later that year he played withKid Ory at the Hiawatha Dancing Academy in Los Angeles.
In 1923 he formed his own band, the Eccentric Harmony Six; this ensemble recorded on Vocalion Records as the California Poppies in 1923 and the Stompin’ Six in 1925. He also performed under the band names Plantation Orchestra and Hartford Ballroom Orchestra. His band scored a regular gig broadcasting on radio stations KNX in 1925 and KFI in 1926.
In 1928 Clay took his band on a tour of Australia, with Ivie Anderson (later a vocalist with Duke Ellington) as one of the singers accompanying the orchestra. The group played inSydney and Melbourne to great success, but problems with unions and with venue changes (their initial bookings were on vaudeville stages, but additional dates in dance halls led them into race-related trouble with local authorities) resulted in their gaining some notoriety. As rumors of drug use and miscegenation between the black band members and whitewomen flew, the group was subject to a police raid which became a national press sensation. As a result, Clay and his band were deported and the Australian government resolved to bar the entry of all black musicians into the country, a ban which kept Louis Armstrong from touring the country until 1954.
Upon Clay’s return, he held a residency at the Vernon County Club in Los Angeles, then broke up this band and formed a new one, which counted Teddy Buckner and Les Hite among its members. Clay played solo and led bands until 1941, at which time he led a band as a member of the Special Services Division. He retired from music in the 1940s but returned around 1960 to record solo and play in clubs.
Broadcast Twelve Records (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Broadcast Twelve Records was a United Kingdom based record label introduced in 1928 to partner the regular “Broadcast” brand records introduced in 1927. “Broadcast” discs were 8-inch (later increased to 9-inch) and “Broadcast Twelve” discs were 10-inch 78rpm gramophone records, but with small labels and a fine groove pitch so they would play as long as regular 10- and 12-inch discs respectively. They ceased production in 1934.
The label was a subsidiary of the British branch of Vocalion Records.
the78rpmrecordspins 