CLARENCE WILLIAMS 1933 Vocalion 2736 / washboard tune

$

33

CLARENCE WILLIAMS
1933 washboard band number

THE BASICS
ARTIST : Clarence Williams
LABEL : Vocalion 2736
SELECTIONS : After Tonight
Old Street Sweeper
RECORD DATE : Sept. ‘33/ Jan. ‘34
CONDITION : E

This is an original 78rpm recording of Clarence Williams. It's a wonderful and rare piece of audio memorablila from one of jazz's earliest stars. Who was he? From the book 'From Cakewalks to Concert Halls' :
Clarence Williams was both an artist and an entrepreneur. Highly energetic and adept at all sides of the music business from writing, publishing, and performing to managing other artists, he worked with the most famous early female blues singer, Bessie Smith. The songs he wrote were popular across the United States; some of his compositions in the Dixieland style have become classics.

He began playing piano in the honky-tonks of New Orleans's Storyville. In this legendary red-light district, Williams, also managed his own cabaret, and wrote his first money-making composition, "Brownskin, Who You For?" recorded on Columbia Records. The $1,600 check he received for it in 1916 was, according to Williams, the most money anyone in New Orleans had ever made for a song. About this time, Williams claimed to be the first songwriter to use the word jazz on a piece of sheet music, and his business card began touting him as "The Originator of Jazz and Boogie Woogie."

Anticipating the exodus of talent from New Orleans to the northern cities spurred on by the closing of Storyville, Williams moved to Chicago in 1920. The music store he opened near the Vendome Theater proved so lucrative that he eventually owned three music stores in the city, but Williams did not confine his energies to mere proprietorship. 1920 was the year Mamie Smith recorded Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues" and "It's Right Here For You". When the public got their first hearing of a black woman's voice singing the blues, they wanted more, and Williams's entrepreneurial skills enabled him to profit from this next phase in the entertainment business: selling recordings of black female blues singers.

Clarence Williams was responsible for 'discovering' and recording Bessie Smith for Columbia Records. He even got writing credits on several of her songs. Then, from 1923 to 1928, Williams was the artist and repertoire director for Okeh Records, and from this powerful position he was able to seek out and develop new talent. During this time, he organized numerous sessions which advanced the careers of many early jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. He also employed a number of other jazz musicians including Don Redman, King Oliver, and Coleman Hawkins [ Thomas L. Morgan ]

This record is from Vocalion Records and pairs songs from two different sessions. The topside to me is the novelty number “After Tonight” which has a nice washboard rhythm and what sounds like a kazoo part too. It’s from a session on September 1, 1933. The other side is a vocal number called “Old Street Sweeper.” It’s from a session on January 10, 1934.

LISTEN TO PART OF THIS RECORD HERE!

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