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'The Legend Of Sleepy John Estes' was recorded on March 24, June 3, and June 4, 1962, at the Women's Club Hall (of all places), in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was released in January 1963 on the Delmark Records label (then known as Delmar). It was produced by the label founder, Bob Koester, and recorded/engineered by E. D. Nunn.
The backstory to this album is a familiar one: a Blues artist whose career was sidelined by World War II, falls into obscurity, and thought to be possibly dead gets rediscovered. In this case it was documentary filmmaker David Blumenthal who on a tip from Blues legend Big Joe Williams "rediscovered" Sleepy John in 1962, living in poverty near Brownsville, Tennessee.
'The Legend Of Sleepy John Estes' was the first of several recordings Sleepy John Estes made in the 60s, and it remains a cornerstone in his catalog. This album also led to international tours and a late-career resurgence.
The freeload is a 24bit/192kHz vinyl rip of a 1974 reissue of the 1963 release. This Japanese stereo pressing from The Button Factory Archives sounds sweet, with crystal clear stereo separation, and a warm and intimate soundstage.
As a teenager I suffered from Insomnia, and spent many a night listening to a transistor under my pillow as not to disturb my parents in the next room. Of course the Dexamyl aka "Greenies" (a mix of amphetamine and barbiturate), that Denise "The Grease" stole en masse from her mother didn't help my sleeping situation. But I digress. The first time I heard Sleepy John Estes was one late sleepless night on either the radio station WWRL "The Big RL" or WLIB, both stations' target audience was African Americans in New York City, and my favorites. Their mix of Jazz, Blues, (early) Rock and R&B shaped my taste in music.
So, for the freeload, what were your favorite radio stations when you were a teenager?
Late 70s early 80s there was not much choice. Hilversum 1 and 2 were news and Music For The Millions, while Hilversum 4 was classical, so Hilversum 3 was the to go to radio station. In the south you could also hear BRT 2 with good programs. For us it was not the station, but the day of the week, and the hours. Sunday and wednesday for Hilversum 3 (thursday evening for the Soul Show) and saturday evening Dominoes/Dominoes The Originals
ReplyDeleteHad several. One was Beaker Street on KAAY AM, a 50k watt station in Little Rock, that I could pick up on a pocket transistor late at night - great rock music selections. For NO music, I listened to WBOK, which at one time even featured Joe Tex as a disc jockey (wwoz didn't start until I was in my 20s). Finally, there was a strange, low watt AM station, WWIW, in NO that only lasted for about 4 years, but it exclusively played big band music of ally types: Quincy Jones, Benny Goodman, Duke, etc and also carried the radio broadcast of NY Yankees games, complete with the NYC based radio commercials (still recall the Luis Tiant radio ads for Nathan's hot dogs).
ReplyDeleteIn the 60s there were only 2 Rock-n-roll stations on the AM dial in San Antonio. KTSA & KONO which switched from top 40 to oldies (they called souvenirs) at some point. They just stopped playing new stuff and kept playing whatever they had on hand.
ReplyDeleteThen when "underground" started there was KEXL FM, that played whatever the DJs wanted and claimed to never repeat a song for at least 24 hours!
There was another FM station who's call letters I can't recall. The DJs were so lame and/or stoned that they would play a song & a few seconds of the next track before picking up the needle. If it was the end of the LP, you'd hear the outer groove til they came back from their smoke break...
DeleteLike pmac Beaker Street on KAAY AM outta Little Rock was pretty much everything. WLSU, which somehow was "magically" (or so it seemed to the young me) only available through the electrical outlets on the LSU campus--I do know how crazy that sounds--but I could listen in my dad's office in Coates Hall.
ReplyDeleteFrom 1958 to 1962 there was only one radio station of note and that was Radio Luxembourg. AM broadcasting in English starting 7 pm. Record shows sponsored by record companies with DJs pre-recording shows in London and sending the tapes out for broadcast. Payola at its finest. Records faded out after 45 seconds to thwart taping.
ReplyDelete1962 onwards I'd discovered the real abroad. The Voice of America Jazz Hour every weeknight, Salut Les Copains on RTL after school, Pour Ceux Qui Aiment Le Jazz on Paris Inter, Jazz Sur Seine on RTL.
Thanks BBC. Oh there was Humph on Monday night,
1964 pirate radio. Radio London was the best. Total payola.
During my childhood and adolescence up here in northern Germany, there were only a handful of radio stations to listen to. While you could pick up Danish stations, since I don't speak a word of Danish despite living very close to Denmark, they weren't for me. English-language stations were more common in the Ruhr area, where the American military bases were located. Back then, I listened a lot to "NDR2 am Vormittag" (from 9:00 to 12:30), the NDR Hitparade every Sunday at 2:00 PM, and the "Werner Voss Rock'n'Roll Museum" with its fantastic rock 'n' roll and rockabilly music. There wasn't much else in northern Germany at that time (1970s). The other stations and private broadcasters came much later. There were also one or two music programs on TV (Ilja Richter's Disco, ZDF Hitparade, Ronnie's Pop Show). Those were, of course, essential viewing. Kind regards, Mike
ReplyDeleteANON RF: Easy. All in NYC. Early days: 77-WABC (transistor radio, under the pillow). Later 60's, early 70's: WNEW FM, WBAI, WQXR
ReplyDeleteANON RF: Oh, and any time Bob & Ray were on WOR NY.
Deletemumbles
ReplyDeleteSorry about that. Another KAAY fan here, could pull it in on car radios at night in northeastern Kansas. Beaker Street taught the willing to learn how to smoke pot, with Jaimie Brockett's Titanic song. KAAY was the first place I ever heard that! Also, KOMA, WLS & there was a station (I've forgotten the call letters) from K State that had their version of Beaker Street, the intro included It Can't Happen Here by Frank & The Mothers. They frequently played entire albums. Thanks Babs
DeleteGrowing up in South Africa, the only broadcasts available, aside from Springbok Radio, the government's official outlet, were via shortwave. Though much of the programming on Springbok was in Afrikaans, there were Sunday broadcasts of Bantu music that my father would regularly tune in to, and which I loved too for the rhythmic singing of the choral groups.After we'd emigrated to Southern California, I listened to a lot of different stations, both local and distant.
ReplyDeleteWolfman Jack kept me up late at night with his mix of rock, R&B, and blues, with an occasional country tune thrown in. If memory serves, I mainly heard him on XERB, one of the megawatt stations blasting their programming from below the border. Later, I think I heard him from another station on the Texas border, with essentially the same mix of music and ads for charms and lotions to boost your ahem, manpower. I also liked listening late at night to KFI, a 50,000-watt so-called "clear channel" station that legally blasted up the entire Western United States out of its LA studios. The fare was mostly talk shows, with denizens of the night calling in with flamboyant conspiracy theories and ludicrous political observations. The local pop stations, KFWB and KRLA, were also okay, or at least some of their disc jockeys were. I remember one called B. Mitchell Reed, who had a cool persona. The conceit of which was that he was hanging out by his pool, while spinning vinyl. Later, I became hooked on Joe Frank, the humorist who created incredible pieces of radio theater on KCRW, a local NPR affiliate. If you like your humor served extremely dry and acidic, I would recommend Frank to anyone unfamiliar with his work. Nowadays it's available widely—just Google Joe Frank.
I had the pleasure of listening to Los Angeles radio in the 1960s. That means I started with the top 40 of KHJ and KFWB on the AM side, but also with my parents looking for classical music on the Pacifica station, KPFK-FM, and other strange inhabitants of the left end of the FM dial. (WBAI is the NY affiliate of Pacifica.) The former gave me a somewhat-bland start, but the latter included some folk, blues, and (yes, really) world music.
ReplyDeleteAs that decade ended and the '70s began, I mostly moved to KMET and KLOS, both FM album-oriented rock stations. They are why I went to college having already heard at least one song from Joy of Cooking and the Flying Burrito Brothers. So, I was well primed to learn a lot by running shows on WOBC, "the sore throat of Lorain County" when I went to college. Not only did I play rock and jazz records, I participated in some radio plays, and I became the News Director for the station, coordinating a small crew of readers. It was good fun, and I've thought about getting back into it at my town's low-power FM station.
I like radio a lot, and I'm glad that the modern era allows us to listen to streaming stations anywhere. Strangely, all I ever listen to are the local FM broadcasters, and occasionally KPIG (the successor to the legendary KFAT) and KZAP (from Sacramento).
D in California
I've listened to WBAI daily for longer than I'll admit to, it's where I get where I get my news. Robert Knight (RIP) was a close friend.
DeleteKPIG also bought KOTR, a truly free-form station in loverly (sic) Cambria; the deal at the Otter was "if you show up for your shift, you can play what you want", and consequently I heard lotsa stuff I'd been unfamiliar with, and even enjoyed visiting while my bud hosted his own show. Once I got to grad school, I DJed at the college station (Sonoma State's KSUN), which was cable, allowing us to not fear backlash for salty language or the like. Aside from playing the obligatory few cuts we had to each hour (not specific cuts, just things like two songs from current releases, one cut from the current CMJ list, etc), I brought my own collection in in a cooler for my shifts so I could present a theme for my few hours.
DeleteC in California
WBCN-FM in Boston. Not only great music, it also featured Pulitzer winning news from Danny Shechter "The News Dissector" which incorporated audio clips directly into the newscast to create audio collage. I also liked what I heard on KMET in LA and WNEW in New York.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I listened to them too. They didn't just play "White Rabbit" and "Sunshine of Your Love" but deep album tracks as well, and thematic sets with lots of surprises. They did get stodgy, as I was getting more adventurous, and I found myself tuning in to the numerous college stations around, especially WMBR from MIT. (Also got to deejay myself at Tufts.)
DeleteI did a stint on WMBR in the mid nineties. Fun!
DeleteKLON - FM on the campus of Cal State Long Beach with the great Chuck Niles!
ReplyDelete"...the only jazz DJ to be on the Hollywood Walk of Fame."
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-mar-17-me-niles17-story.html
~ Jon in Cali
As a pre-teen, I lived in Winnipeg (approximately the geographical centre of the continent). On clear nights (especially in winter) my little transistor radio could pick up stations from Canada to Northern Mexico , the Appalachians to the Rockies. In other words, no coasts except for that of the Gulf of Mexico. Many stations didn't play early 60s commercial music, so the delights were innumerable and definitely had a great influence on my listening habits as I moved from my teens to beyond. As a teenager still living at home (Kamloops BC) there were 2 AM and 1 FM stations locally. One of the AM stations would play a wide variety of popular music without much regard to genre, but rarely would you hear a B-side. Moving to the west coast of BC exposed me (occasionally) to free-form FM of varying descriptions, but that was a limited time offer, and by the time my teens officially ended radio had little impact on my life.
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Yeah, the magic of the little transistor radio, one moment I just remember, was the Cassius Clay - Sonny Liston fight in Lewiston, Maine in '65 and the chaos ensuing, coming from a station hundred miles away. Take Care.
ReplyDeleteA station called WWOD in central Virginia. I remember for a time in 1970 they billed themselves as 'The home of Led Zeppelin III' and they were an AM station!
ReplyDeleteLate to the party for once but to answer the question Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg were still broadcasting and of course there was bbc Radio One at probably its height. Tony Blackburn, Noel Edmonds, Dave Lee Travis, Kenny Everett, Alan Freeman doing the chart countdown on a Sunday and so forth and of course the legend that was John Peel on late at night.
ReplyDeleteKAAY Little Rock. "Beaker Street" with Clyde Clifford.
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