WPRB Princeton 103.3 FM

New Jersey's Only Radio Station

WPRB is a community-supported, freeform radio station. Our FM signal (103.3) serves central New Jersey, Philadelphia, eastern PA and the northern tip of Delaware. We reach a global audience at wprb.com.

Blues, Off The Record

Apr 18, 2022 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

With Sonny Boy Williamson III

10:02 AM		Mississippi Jook Band Hittin' the Bottle Stomp Blind Roosevelt Graves
10:04 AM		Lonnie Johnson and Jack Erby Four Hands are Better than Two 50 Years of Jazz Guitar St Louis, 1927
10:06 AM		Joe Sodja's Swingette Limehouse Blues 50 Years of Jazz Guitar NYC, 1937
10:08 AM		Rene Hall Two Guitar Boogie The RCA Victor Blues & Rhythm Review NYC, 1953
10:11 AM		Milt Trenier and his Solid Six Squeeze Me The RCA Victor Blues & Rhythm Review Lieber and Stoller composition, Hollywood, 1953
10:14 AM		Johnny Adams A Losing Battle Carnival Time - The Best of Ric Records, Vol. 1 Rounder 1988 New Orleans, 1961, written by Dr. John
10:16 AM		Jan Bradley Mama Didn't Lie Chess Sisters of Soul Written by Curtis Mayfield
10:20 AM		Set Break: ----------------------------------------------------
10:20 AM		Billy Stewart Summertime Chess Pieces: The Very Best of Chess Records UMC (Universal Music Catalogue) 2005
10:23 AM		Wilbert Harrison Florida Special Listen to My Song
10:26 AM		The Ravens The Cadillac Song Rarities Savoy 1976
10:29 AM		Istanbul Blues Kumpanyasi Pick a Bale of Cotton N Live at Efes Pilsen Blues Festival 1997 EP Bone Union Records 2022
10:35 AM		Sam Collins Yellow Dog Blues Jailhouse Blues Yazoo 1990
10:35 AM		Set Break: ----------------------------------------------------
10:39 AM		Robert Nighthawk Annie Lee / Sweet Black Angel Live On Maxwell Street 1964 New Rounder 2000
10:45 AM		Piano Red Corinne, Corinna Piano Red
10:48 AM		Ry Cooder Mutt Romney Blues Election Special Nonesuch 2012
10:53 AM		Set Break: ----------------------------------------------------
10:53 AM		Mahalia Jackson It Don't Cost Very Much Bless This House Columbia/Legacy 1956 Thomas Dorsey composition
10:55 AM		Blind Willie Johnson Let Your Light Shine on Me Sweeter As the Years Go By Yazoo 1990
10:59 AM		Set Break: ----------------------------------------------------
11:00 AM		Muddy Waters Unk In Funk Unk In Funk Hip-O Select 2006
11:03 AM		Junior Kimbrough Sad Days, Lonely Nights Sad Days, Lonely Nights Fat Possum 2002
11:07 AM		Bobo Thomas Catfish Blues Downhome Delta Blues
11:10 AM		Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater Peggy Sue (feat. Los Straitjackets) Rock 'N' Roll City (feat. Los Straitjackets) Bullseye Blues 2003
11:13 AM		Taj Mahal Light Rain Blues De Ole Folks at Home
11:16 AM		Set Break: ----------------------------------------------------
11:18 AM		Sleepy John Estes Milk Cow Blues The Legend of Sleepy John Estes Delmark Records 1990
11:21 AM		Clifton Chenier Josephine par se ma femme (Josephine is Not My Wife) King of the Bayous: I'm Coming Home Arhoolie Records 1992
11:24 AM		Little Brother Montgomery No Special Rider Blues Blues Piano Orgy Delmark 1996
11:27 AM		Memphis Slim Beer Drinking Woman Fantasy Blues Sampler
11:30 AM		Mama & Friends Come on in My Kitchen N This is Bone Union Records, Vol. 1 Bone Union Records 2020
11:37 AM		Set Break: ----------------------------------------------------
11:37 AM		Robert Johnson If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day King of the Delta Blues Singers Columbia/Legacy 1937
11:40 AM		John Lee Hooker Louise The Cream
11:45 AM		Big Joe Turner Feeling Happy Greatest Hits Rhino Atlantic 2005
11:47 AM		James Reed Dr. Brown Anthology of the Blues: West Coast Blues
11:50 AM		Willie Guy Rainey Old Time Religion Willie Guy Rainey
11:54 AM		Pink Anderson He's In the Jailhouse Now Gospel, Blues and Street Songs Fantasy Records 1991
11:57 AM		Pee Wee Crayton Blues After Hours West Coast Blues

Chat is archived.

Hello everyone!

Hello SBW3!

Limehouse Blues!

Or a sound alike related tune

Spot on Brian!

@ Sonny Boy III (host) And hello to you, SBW3. Oh, my, that Lonnie Johnson and Jack Erby track from 1927. I gotta think that Django and those European acoustic jazz cats were listening very closely to American discs like that one.

I know! What a track.

O that's right there was another inst after the theme song. I thought that had to be Limehouse. Very quick paced take! Loved by blues, old time folk, Jazz, bluegrassers etc. Great tune

Loving the direction we're headed right outta the gate!

@ Sonny Boy III (host) Sometime when you or anyone here HAS time ... Joe Sodja's killer version of "Limehouse Blues" makes me wonder again about the title's origin. Some jazz scholars insist it was named after the Limehouse district of London which had lots of jazz clubs. But I have to think ... in the old days, a "lime house" was a charnel house, a morgue, where the mineral lime was sprinkled over corpses to retard purification while burial was being arranged. Now THAT'S the blues!

Great info Richard

Very interesting Richard!

@ Sonny Boy III (host) Thanks so much for crediting the songwriters on the last few classics. Lieber & Stoller, Dr. John, and Curtis Mayfield -- what a pantheon of composers, and I had no clue they'd written those AND that far back.

Thanks Richard! Try to note composers where I can and where notable

@ Brian D Thanks, Brian, but I must admit it's major speculation on my part. I've never seen anyone with that explanation of the limehouse in "Limehouse Blues."

Swing Low Sweet Cadillac... (no va!). An El Dorado coming after me.... Old Cadillacs never die... the finance company just takes them away...

sounds like "Lee Scratch Perry" got ahold of the

"Caddilac Song"

How do you mean joe?

thought I heard a bit of the Reggae treatment in there .. it was released in '76 afterall

Recorded March 1950!

I guess it was more Calypso sounding to me ears .. that or my brain is finally frying ! either was it was a great track !

Bob Weir's "yellow dog joke".... when the amps and/ or PA fails.... the audience gets the yellow dog joke.... too long look it up

Yeah the playlist gives year of the release or... the playlist just makes up a year! (manatees reach into a pool of numbers to make up the year....)

In the Ravens' case the release year was right... but the recording year was much earlier (it only came out on a later comp)

This Nighthawk is great!

And what Joe was picking up on is that the song cycles through different accents, musical styles, and ethnic stereotypes (including Jamaican/Caribbean) to portray different groups as irresponsibly spending money on a Cadillac

yeah what SBWII just wrote ! but my brain might still be fried .. great show as per usual SBWIII never disappoints

Yep definitely Calypso and other sounds in the Cadillac song

Used to hear Marvin Bradshaw often play Dizzy Gillespie's "Swing Low Sweet Cadillac " in WPRB Sunday Jazz. And Will Constantine as well.

@ Sonny Boy III (host) YEAHHHH!!! "Unk In Funk" has just rocketed into the shortlist of my all-time favorite Muddy Waters tracks. Thank you, SBW3!

And we can all thank Richard for helping to make sure we're hearing it in proper stereo

This Kimbrough track down home real stuff

Yeah i emailed the station a dozen times or more about the stereo problem too. They'll be glad to not have the constant emails coming in ha

Started back in September or so

As soon as we started coming back into the studio

Yep. Cables were just unraveling in that Covid interim... and for years before i guess....

@ Sonny Boy III (host) Aw, shucks ... Well, it seems that in my email about the problem to the station manager, I described it as only one of the two stereo channels on the recordings being broadcast into BOTH home speakers. Which led the WPRB engineer to deduce the culprit wasn't a bad cable but a misprogrammed sound board. Least I can do to thank this fab radio station and our WPRB listeners' community.

These Taj lps from this era are near and dear. Used to listen to these all the time in college. About 20 years after the lps were realeased but still very appreciated

Clifton Chenier! Zydeco master

now there's "quoting" during a song and then there's this tune !

@ Sonny Boy III (host) Thanks for the shoutout on us Blues Off The Record Chat regulars. May we remain "stalwarts" and not be warts!

Warts! Never.

Warts and all. Love to hear Big Joe Turner

Great show SBW3!

Thanks for listening all!

@ Sonny Boy III (host) And thank YOU! See you at pledge drive ...