Original Recordings from the Mainspring Press Collection
Vintage Record Playlist • Some Late February Arrivals
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FAMOUS HOKUM BOYS: That’s the Way She Likes It (V++)
New York: April 9, 1930
Homestead 16098 (mx. 9598 – 2; ctl. 19598)
No personnel are listed in what remains of the American Record Corporation files, but this group normally comprised Thomas A. “Georgia Tom” Dorsey (piano, vocal); Bill Bill Broonzy (guitar, vocal); and Frank Brasswell (guitar, vocal). Although 78 Quarterly magazine claimed that no copies of this recording are known on the Homestead label, this is the third we’ve encountered. Those 78Q stats cannot be depended upon — only a very small handful of collectors were surveyed, so many records were ranked as far rarer than is actually the case.
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MOZELLE ALDERSON & THOMAS A. DORSEY (as Jane Lucas & Georgia Tom): Terrible Operation Blues (E–)
Richmond, IN: November 19, 1930
Champion 16171 (mx. GN 17276 – B)
Thomas A. Dorsey — “the father of Black gospel music” — in an earlier incarnation (and a highly lucrative one, until it wasn’t anymore, at which point he got religion) — as “the grand-daddy of raunch.”
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BLIND BOY FULLER: Blue and Worried Man (EE+)
New York: March 5, 1940
Columbia mx. W 26594 – A (10¾” original untrimmed test pressing)
Acc: Sonny Terry (harmonica); Oh Red (washboard). Issued on Vocalion 05440 as “Blue and Worried Man” (probably the correct title, although the test-pressing rim and label both show “Blue and Worried Mama.”
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JAZZ BABY MOORE & COMPANY: Morning Prayer (E)
St. Louis: July 28, 1926
Vocalion 1045 (mx. E 3620)
Phillip “Jazz Baby” Moore and unidentified others. Paul Oliver had this to say in his Songsters and Saints (Cambridge University Press, 1984): “A mock prayer, delivered in a fair imitation of a Baptist preacher. The extravagance of language of Baptist and Sanctified Preachers and their concern with contemporary references was sharply observed in Moore’s mimicry.”
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ALLEN BROTHERS: Pile Drivin’ Papa (EE–)
Charlotte, NC: May 20, 1931 (Ralph Peer, session supervisor)
Victor 23578 (mx. BVE 69326 – 2)
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ALLEN BROTHERS: Monkey Blues (EE–)
Charlotte, NC: May 21, 1931 (Ralph Peer, session supervisor)
Victor 23578 (mx. BVE 69332 – 2)
Both sides: Austin Allen (banjo, vocal); Lee Allen (guitar, kazoo). The RCA files do not show a kazoo present, obviously in error.
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THE ORIGINAL WOLVERINES (Richard Voynow, director): The New Twister (E+)
New York: October 12, 1927
Brunswick 3707 (mx. C 1306)
No personnel listed in the Brunswick files other than Voynow; those listed in Rust’s Jazz Records and elsewhere are from uncited sources, and as such cannot be verified. Voynow managed the actual original Wolverines, the band with which Bix Beiderbecke made his earliest recordings, but this is a later, unrelated group.
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ELMER SCHOEBEL & HIS FRIARS SOCIETY ORCHESTRA: Prince of Wails (E+)
Chicago: October 18, 1929
Brunswick 4652 (mx. C 4560 – )
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ELMER SCHOEBEL & HIS FRIARS SOCIETY ORCHESTRA: Copenhagen (E+)
Chicago: October 18, 1929
Brunswick 4652 (mx. C 4559 – )
Both sides: No personnel are listed in the Brunswick files; those listed in Rust’s Jazz Records and elsewhere are from uncited sources, and as such cannot be verified.
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THE VINTAGE RECORD PLAYLIST: 78-RPM AND CYLINDER RECORDS 
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