User:Ghmyrtle/dirty

Dirty blues encompasses examples of blues and specifically hokum music that deal with socially taboo subjects, primarily referencing sexual acts. Although many recordings used lyrical double entendres, such music was often banned from radio and, when recorded, only available on a jukebox. The style was most popular in the years before World War II, although it had a revival in the 1960s, and some recordings, originally withheld because of their explicit lyrical content, were issued then and later.

Early recordings (pre WW2)

After the success of the first authentic African-American blues recording, Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" in 1920, record companies and entrepreneurs identified the commercial potential of issuing records targeted at a previously-ignored black audience and began recording locally successful entertainers.[Palmer] Many of the musicians performed songs that focused on emotional and sexual relationships, often using terms which were taboo in wider society. According to blues writer Robert Palmer: "Most of the leading record labels began exploiting the black market. They sold records by black artists only in black neighborhoods, and they tolerated, even encouraged, explicit lyrics." However, many recorded performances used lyrics that were couched in terms that were not explicit, but which would have been readily understood by their listeners, using innuendo, slang terms, or double entendres.

such as Lil Johnson's "Press My Button (Ring My Bell)" ("Come on baby, let's have some fun/Just put your hot dog in my bun").

Lil Johnson Lucille Bogan Bo Carter

Later recordings and influence Julia Lee Wynonie Harris Bullmoose Jackson

However, some were very explicit. The most extreme examples were rarely recorded at all. Lucille Bogan's obscene song, "Shave 'em Dry" (1935), being a rare example. It was noted by one music historian as "by far the most explicit blues song preserved at a commercial pre-war recording session".

The more noteworthy musicians who utilised the style included Bo Carter, Bull Moose Jackson, Harlem Hamfats, Wynonie Harris, and Hank Ballard and The Midnighters.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/arts/critic-s-notebook-early-blues-lyrics-were-often-blue.html CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; EARLY BLUES LYRICS WERE OFTEN BLUE By ROBERT PALMER Published: November 7, 1985 NOW that many members of the Recording Industry Association of America have agreed to put warning stickers or lyric sheets on the covers of record albums that include sexually explicit material, perhaps the Parents Music Resource Center and its allies can move on to cleaning up rock's ancestors - blues and country music from the 1920's through the early 1950's. Compared with today's pop and rock, innumerable disks from this earlier period contained some of the most salacious music ever made available to the American record-buying public.

The earliest cylinder and disk recordings were a luxury, aimed at an audience assumed to be genteel and almost exclusively white. Then, in 1920, the black vaudeville singer, Mamie Smith, recorded Crazy Blues, and several other black stage-show songs, with jazz band accompaniment. These were the first records made by and for blacks, and they sold like hotcakes. Most of the leading record labels began exploiting the black market. They sold records by black artists only in black neighborhoods, and they tolerated, even encouraged, explicit lyrics. In 1922, Trixie Smith recorded a somewhat-less-than-double entendre blues song, My Daddy Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll). In terms of lyrics, at least, the rock-and-roll era had begun.

Jimmie Davis, a white singer from Louisiana who began recording for Victor (now RCA Victor) in 1929, went further than many black singers: between 1929 and 1933, he made his reputation by recording some of the bluest blues of the period. Even Mr. Davis's titles were explicit. There was High Behind Blues, in which the singer bragged, No matter how big she is/I'm the man can hold her down; Red Nightgown Blues and Sewing Machine Blues left little to the imagination.

By the late 1930's, Mr. Davis had cleaned up his act. In 1939, he wrote, with the help of his steel guitarist, Charles Mitchell, one of the most beloved - and unarguably wholesome - of all American popular songs, You Are My Sunshine. In 1944, using it as his campaign song, Mr. Davis was elected Governor of Louisiana.

Compared with Jimmie Davis's early recordings, and many that were equally plain-spoken, most of the recent disks on the Parents Music Research Center hit list are tame, even innocent. Even Prince, one of the performers cited by the parents' group, fails to measure up to the standards for sexually explicit lyrics set by numerous hillbilly, blues, country, jazz and western swing performers during the 20's, 30's and 40's.

Attempts to censor, abridge or rate rock-and-roll are as old as the music itself. As long as hillbillies made sexually explicit records only for other hillbillies, and blacks for other blacks, there was little opposition. But by the early 1950's, a few white disk jockeys were playing black rhythm-and-blues disks for an audience that was primarily young and white. These disks, especially the ones with suggestive lyrics, became the preferred dance music among white students across the nation. The arrival of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley in the mid-50's made it possible for disk jockeys and concert promoters to contend that a new music was being born. It wasn't new - it had grown from country boogie and rhythm-and-blues. But a new, and newly marketed, music had to have a new name. And rock-and-roll was the name that stuck.

Rocking and rolling had been a common euphemism for lovemaking since the early 1920's. Perhaps the choice of the name was not a particularly wise one. When rock-and-roll first became big, parents objected to it for the explicitness its very name implied. With the changing atmosphere of the 80's, perhaps it was only natural that the objections would come to the fore again.

http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/dirty-blues-ma0000012302/albums The Dirty Blues is a bit of a cliché in some areas, and to many modern ears, it seems more a joke than a legitimate form. But the dirty blues has a long tradition in the blues, and it often resurfaces in modern blues and rock. During the early days of recorded blues, raunchy songs were recorded nearly as often as love songs and laments. These songs were distinguished by their often humorous double entendres and metaphors; in performance, the songs could actually flirt with the vulgar, but on wax, the meanings were suggested. The dirty blues primarily were about sex, but there were many songs about drugs and reefer that were essentially dirty blues -- namely, simple country blues with taboo lyrics. The dirty blues thrived in the days before World War II. After the war, many record labels concentrated on records that were commercially viable, and the dirty blues faded away, only to be resurrected during the blues revival of the '60s, when many white collegiates discovered the form.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3667846/How-sex-turned-the-blues-red-hot.html How sex turned the blues red hot Paul Slade12:01AM BST 13 Sep 2007 Are you a good jelly roll baker? Do you need a little sugar in your bowl? And does anybody here want to try your cabbage? These and a host of similar questions were put to American record-buyers in the 1920s and '30s, when a craze for surprisingly daring and witty sex songs dominated the early days of recorded blues. It was the big female stars of this era - women such as Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter - who made sure that the first blues records ever released were also some of the most sexually explicit in the history of popular music. This is documented in King Size Papas (& Mighty Tight Women), a documentary I produced for Radio 4. Recorded blues was born with Mamie Smith's 1920 song Crazy Blues, which sold in huge numbers to the black migrants fleeing the South for new factory jobs in the northern cities. Soon, every label had its own specialist "race" imprint, selling records by black performers to an almost exclusively black audience. Many of the singers had a background in vaudeville and this, combined with the white labels' fondness for comic minstrel numbers, produced a flood of joky sex songs. Others got their start in the brothels of gangster-era Chicago, where similar songs were used to keep the punters entertained while they waited for their favourite girl. Alberta Hunter began her career in just that setting, and continued working the clubs of Chicago until one fateful night at the Burnham Inn. The lights went out in the middle of her set there, a shot was heard, and, when the lights came back on, Hunter had a dead man at her feet. He'd been shot by a gangster rival, making this the third Chicago club Hunter had played to be closed after a murder on the premises. She left the city for New York. Enormous numbers of sex songs were released in the '20s, but the manners of the time meant sex could seldom be discussed directly, so black slang was used to preserve a veneer of respectability. Food metaphors were always popular, as in Lonnie Johnson's He's A Jelly Roll Baker, Lil Johnson's Sam The Hot Dog Man and Maggie Jones's Anybody Here Want to Try My Cabbage? Anything sweet like jelly roll - or jam roll as we'd call it - was used to describe the sweet pastime of sex and as cash, too, was sweet to have, the slang term for money ("cabbage") was similarly employed. The rise of radio in the late '20s hit record sales hard, so labels responded by making their blues discs dirtier than ever. This was one segment of the market where they knew radio could not compete. "My man taught me a lesson he never taught before," Bessie Smith confides in 1928's Empty Bed Blues. "When he got through teachin' me, from my elbow down was sore". By 1935, Lucille Bogan was recording her famously filthy version of Shave 'Em Dry, drunk as a skunk in the studio. It remained too obscene to be released for 50 years, and is still all but unbroadcastable. After the Second World War, the musical fashion shifted from basic blues to hard-driving R&B, but the suggestive subject matter stayed in place and so did the humour. Records such as Julia Lee's King Size Papa (1948) and the Swallows' It Ain't the Meat (It's the Motion) from 1951 were direct precursors of the hip-swinging suggestiveness of Elvis Presley and the template for rock and roll that followed. It was only when Presley introduced the blues to white teenagers in 1954 that a moral panic ensued and the explicit lyrics were finally removed. 'King Size Papas (& Mighty Tight Women)' is on Radio 4 at 10.30am on Sat.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IY5Xx2sjWA4C&pg=PA213&dq=explicit+blues&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbjL_SrvPMAhVlB8AKHT2KD2gQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=explicit%20blues&f=false

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fDmSuIsPM_8C&pg=PA28&dq=sex+imagery+blues&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjclLiHsPPMAhXkJsAKHZI1DDoQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=sex%20imagery%20blues&f=false

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5CFGmCf77DwC&pg=PR22&dq=sex+imagery+blues&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjclLiHsPPMAhXkJsAKHZI1DDoQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=sex%20imagery%20blues&f=false


 * Lucille Bogan (April 1, 1897 – August 10, 1948). Born in Amory, Mississippi, Bogan was a classic female blues singer who performed early country blues. Many of her songs were sexually explicit and she was generally considered to have been a dirty blues musician. Document Records has issued her complete recordings in a series of releases.


 * Bo Carter (March 21, 1893 – September 21, 1964). Born in Bolton, Mississippi, Carter was one of the first dirty blues musicians. Since the 1960s, Carter has become best known for his bawdy songs, such as "Let Me Roll Your Lemon", "Banana in Your Fruit Basket", "Pin in Your Cushion", "Your Biscuits Are Big Enough for Me", "Please Warm My Wiener" and "My Pencil Won't Write No More". However, his output was not limited to dirty blues. In 1928, he recorded the original version of "Corrine, Corrina", which later became a hit for Big Joe Turner and has become a standard in various musical genres. A country blues multi-instrumentalist who performed mostly early Delta blues, Carter played guitar, banjo, string bass, clarinet and sang. Document Records has issues devoted to his complete recordings.


 * Harlem Hamfats - Formed in 1936 by musicians that were not even from Harlem, New York and led by trumpeter Herb Morand, the group performed mostly Chicago blues and East Coast blues while backing jazz musicians. The members were Kansas Joe McCoy, Charlie McCoy, Odell Rand, John Lindsay, Horace Malcolm, Pearlis Williams and Freddie Flynn. The group's inclusion in the dirty blues genre is due to such songs as "Gimme Some of that Yum Yum" and "Let's Get Drunk and Truck", along with lyrics in various other songs dealing with themes including drug use, prostitution or criminal behavior.


 * Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969). Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Harris was an American blues shouter and rhythm and blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. His repertoire included "Lolly Pop Mama" (1948), "I Like My Baby's Pudding (1950), "Sittin On It All The Time" (1950), "Keep on Churnin'" (1952), and "Wasn't That Good" (1953).


 * Bull Moose Jackson (April 22, 1919 – July 31, 1989). Born in Cleveland, Ohio as Benjamin Joseph Jackson, Jackson was a rhythm and blues and jump blues saxophonist and singer. He also is included in the dirty blues genre due to his sometimes suggestive songs, like "I Want a Bowlegged Woman" and "Big Ten Inch Record". He recorded for the King Records label.


 * Julia Lee (October 31, 1902 – December 8, 1958). Born in Boonville, Missouri, Lee was a jump blues pianist and singer who also performed swing music. Her inclusion on this list is mainly due to two songs she performed, i.e. "King Size Papa" and "Snatch and Grab It". However, it would be misleading to characterize her music as always being in this vein.


 * Harry Roy (January 12, 1900 – February 1, 1971) performed several songs with suggestive lyrics including "My Girl's Pussy" (1931), and "She Had to Go and Lose It at the Astor" (1939).


 * Irene Scruggs (December 7, 1901 – probably July 20, 1981) was an Piedmont blues and country blues singer, who was also billed as Chocolate Brown and Dixie Nolan. Scruggs also sang and recorded sexually explicit material. "Good Grindin'" and "Must Get Mine in Front" (1930) were the better-known examples of her dirty blues, and some of her work appeared in The Nasty Blues, published by the Hal Leonard Corporation.


 * Dinah Washington (August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963). Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Washington's inclusion on this list is due to two songs. Otherwise she performed traditional pop, jump blues and ballads. The songs were "Long John Blues" about her dentist, with lyrics like "He took out his trusty drill. Told me to open wide. He said he wouldn't hurt me, but he filled my whole inside." She also recorded a song called "Big Long Sliding Thing", supposedly about a trombonist.


 * "Bow Wow Blues" – The Allen Brothers, 1927
 * "It's Tight Like That" – Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, 1928
 * "The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas" – James "Stump" Johnson, 1928
 * "I Had to Give Up Gym" – The Hokum Boys, 1929
 * "Rock That Thing" – Lil Johnson, 1929
 * "You'll Never Miss Your Jelly Until Your Jelly Roller Is Gone" – Lil Johnson, 1929
 * "Bumblebee" – Memphis Minnie, 1929
 * "Please Warm My Weiner" – Bo Carter, 1930
 * "Good Grinding" – Irene Scruggs, 1930
 * "Must Get Mine in Front" – Irene Scruggs, 1930
 * "Pin in Your Cushion" – Bo Carter, 1931
 * "Banana in Your Fruit Basket" – Bo Carter, 1931
 * "My Pencil Won't Write No More" – Bo Carter, 1931
 * "My Girl's Pussy" – Harry Roy, 1931
 * "Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl" – Bessie Smith, 1931
 * "Tom Cat and Pussy Blues - Jimmie Davis, 1933
 * "The Coldest Stuff in Town" – Whistling Bob Howe & Frankie Griggs, 1935
 * "Shave 'Em Dry" – Lucille Bogan, 1935
 * "Let Me Roll Your Lemon" – Bo Carter, 1935
 * "Get 'Em from the Peanut Man (Hot Nuts)" – Lil Johnson, 1935
 * "Anybody Want to Buy My Cabbage?" – Lil Johnson, 1935
 * "Press My Button (Ring My Bell)" – Lil Johnson, 1935
 * "Trucking My Blues Away" – Blind Boy Fuller, 1936


 * "Sam the Hot Dog Man" – Lil Johnson, 1936
 * "My Stove Is In Good Condition" – Lil Johnson, 1936
 * "They're Red Hot" – Robert Johnson, 1937
 * "Meat Balls" – Lil Johnson, 1937
 * "If It Don't Fit (Don't Force It)" – Lil Johnson, 1937
 * "Southern Whoopee Song" – The Anglin Brothers, 1938
 * "Don't You Feel My Leg?" – Blue Lu Barker, 1938
 * "I Want Some of Your Pie" – Blind Boy Fuller, 1939
 * "Let Me Play With Your Poodle" - Tampa Red, 1942
 * "Salty Papa Blues" – Dinah Washington, 1944
 * "Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got" – Julia Lee, 1946
 * "(Opportunity Knocks But Once) Snatch and Grab It" – Julia Lee, 1947
 * "Mother Fuyer" – Dirty Red, 1947
 * "Lolly Pop Mama" – Wynonie Harris, 1948
 * "King Size Papa" – Julia Lee, 1948
 * "I Want A Bowlegged Woman" – Bull Moose Jackson, 1948
 * "Long John Blues" – Dinah Washington, 1949
 * "Mountain Oysters" – Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, 1949
 * "Cadillac Baby" – Roy Brown, 1950
 * "Butcher Pete" – Roy Brown, 1950
 * "My Man Stands Out" – Julia Lee, 1950
 * "I Like My Baby's Pudding – Wynonie Harris, 1950
 * "Sittin On It All The Time" – Wynonie Harris, 1950


 * "I'm a Hi-Ballin' Daddy" – Tiny Bradshaw, 1950
 * "Silent George – Lucky Millinder, 1950
 * "Rocket 69" – Todd Rhodes, 1951
 * "Sixty Minute Man" – Billy Ward and His Dominoes, 1951
 * "Lemon Squeezing Daddy" – The Sultans, 1951
 * "The Walkin' Blues (Walk Right In, Walk Right Out)" – Fluffy Hunter, 1951
 * "It Ain't the Meat" – The Swallows, 1951
 * "Keep on Churnin'" – Wynonie Harris, 1952
 * "Pedal Pushin' Papa" – Billy Ward and His Dominoes, 1952
 * "Big 10-Inch Record" – Bull Moose Jackson, 1952
 * "Nosey Joe" – Bull Moose Jackson, 1952
 * "Little Girl Sing Ding-A-Ling" – Dave Bartholomew, 1952
 * "Saturday Night Daddy – Little Esther Phillips, 1953
 * "Wasn't That Good" – Wynonie Harris, 1953
 * "Laundromat Blues" – The "5" Royales, 1953
 * "Work with Me Annie" – The Midnighters, 1954
 * "Shake, Rattle and Roll" – Big Joe Turner, 1954
 * "Big Long Slidin' Thing" – Dinah Washington, 1954
 * "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box" – The Toppers, 1954
 * "Rotten Cocksuckers' Ball - The Clovers, 1954
 * "Toy Bell" – The Bees, 1954
 * "Sexy Ways" – Hank Ballard, 1954
 * "Salty Dog" – Blind Willie McTell, 1956


 * NB. According to AllMusic, this list of dirty blues songs also included "What the Blues Is All About" by Chick Willis, "Cigarette" by Backwards Sam Firk, and "Georgia Grind" (1926) by Louis Armstrong.