Freddie Mitchell

As the giant green saxophone suggests, this Boogie Bash is a honkin' sax outing for Freddie Mitchell, with his band of New York musicians.

Although this collection appeared on the "X" label in about 1957, the recordings were made for Derby from 1949-52, when Mitchell was its music director.

Mitchell had a propensity to update old tunes in jump style, so here we have everything from Mendelssohn's wedding march, to jazz riffs like Till Tom Special, to Maurice Chevalier's Louise.

In addition to the 10 numbers on the LP, I've added six from 78s, including Freddie's take on Easter Parade (below) and his hit, Doby's Boogie. The latter was a tribute to Larry Doby, the first African American baseball player in the American League. For a tribute, it isn't much of a tune, seemingly completely improvised.

The LP contains two vocals that are attributed to Sarah Dean (although I wouldn't have guessed they are by the same vocalist).

This post is a follow-up to the Todd Rhodes material below. Like Rhodes, one of Mitchell's records was adopted by disk jockey Alan Freed for theme music. Freed used Rhodes' Blues for the Red Boy when he was in Cleveland, and Mitchell wrote Moon Dog Boogie for Freed.

R&B with Todd Rhodes

One of the first LPs ever presented here was an R&B album (by Steve Gibson), but I've neglected the genre since then. The reason is largely that 10-inch R&B LPs are scare (and very expensive). So I've decided to break out 12-inch LPs from a few of the R&B bands that were so popular after the war. These LPs in themselves can be rare and pricy - this original King issue by Detroit pianist and bandleader Todd Rhodes has auctioned as high as $900.

The LP collects singles Rhodes made for Vitacoustic, Sensation, and King from about 1949-53. Rhodes' basic style was post-Hampton riff blues, but he varied that with pretty ballads reminiscent of the kind of thing that Johnny Hodges did with Duke Eillington. It's a good band, although its tuning can be adventurous.

Rhodes also had vocalists, including the young LaVern Baker, but only Connee Allen is featured here, with an opus called Rocket 69. Double-entendre records were quite popular on the R&B charts back then.

The sound here is pretty good, although whoever did the LP transfer for King slapped on a bit of reverb.

I'll be back later on with Freddie Mitchell's band and perhaps some others.

Cash Box ad, November 1947

The Charioteers

The Charioteers made many excellent records in the 1940s, some of them collected on this very early Columbia LP.

Forgotten today, the group was prominent in the post-war era, regulars on Bing Crosby's radio show and making records with the likes of Frank Sinatra.

The Charioteers started out as a gospel group and made records in the 1930s for Vocalion. Signed to Columbia in 1940, they began recording pop music in a style similar to the Ink Spots.

The group's lead vocals were by Billy Williams, who went on to form a group under his own name in the 1950s, and to have a big solo pop hit with I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter in 1957.

This was quite a good group. Most of these sides have not been re-released, to my knowledge.

The cover is an example of Columbia's first generic house style.

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