Jump Blues as Popular Music in the Late 1940s-Early 1950s
Louis Jordan
By far, the “king” of Jump Blues, was Louis Jordan who had so many hits in the 1940s that he was dubbed “the King of the Jukebox”. Jordan started out in swing but soon went to Jump Blues and R&B with his Tympani Five groups. They sold millions of records and made him one of the top R&B artists of all time, as well as crossing over to mainstream popularity, alongside such greats as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie.
Some of Jordan’s biggest #1 hits were “Caldonia”, “Buzz Me Blues”, the comic classic “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens”, “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman (They’ll Do It Every Time)”, the multi-million seller “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”, “Beans & Cornbread”, “Saturday Night Fish Fry” (a contender for one of the first Rock & Roll records) and “Blue Light Boogie” just to name a very few. All in all, Jordan scored 18 number one R&B hits and 11 mainstream crossovers, top 40 hits. This was a great feat by an African American performer/writer in his day.
He had a great voice and rhythm for using many verbal techniques like heavy syncopation, jive styled, story-telling, verbal asides, with narrative humorous lyrics. He was also very notable for using a prominent, amplified (sometimes distorted), electric guitar on most of his hits. The band was versatile, switching between hot “8 to the bar” jumpers to occasional slow blues songs and for incorporating the “back-beat” in his later songs. He wrote in a very humorous manner that would often make one laugh, with funny imagery and comedic rhythm. His bands emphasized rhythm and would use smaller brass combos (as opposed to the “Big Bands” of the day that were still in vogue). His music would be very influential to the upcoming genres of Rock & Roll and 50s R&B.
Big Joe Turner
Another great Jump Blues artist was “blues shouter” Big Joe Turner, who started out in both Boogie Woogie and Jump Blues but went on to be one of Rock & Roll’s greatest pioneers who scored hits well into the late 1950s. Dubbed “The Boss of The Blues”, Kansas City’s Joe Turner first became famous by teaming up with Boogie Woogie pianist Pete Johnson and their hit song “Roll ‘Em Pete”. The song was featured in the John Hammond produced Carnegie Hall presentation “From Spirituals to Swing” in 1938. This song catapulted Pete Johnson’s career in Boogie Woogie and Jump Blues in the late 1940s.
His Jump Blues contribution started out with songs from the late 1940s like “S.K. Blues” with Pete Johnson and the humorous “My Gal’s A Jockey”. In the early 1950s he had the million selling R&B #2 hit “Chains of Love” and his first R&B #1 hit “Honey Rush” just to name a few.
Then he helped turn R&B into popular music with the Rock & Roll hit and original version of “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, (later covered by Bill Haley & the Comets). The popular hits just kept coming with “Flip, Flop & Fly”, “Hide & Seek” and “Corinne Corrina” which was also a mainstream crossover hit. Big Joe Turner would be named as one of Rock & Roll’s architects by many of the great Rock & Roll artists during the late 1950s. He then returned to the blues after the fifties to perform and record with many of the pioneering blues artists. He continued up until his death in 1985. Big Joe Turner truly had a long, enduring and remarkable career.
Other Great Jump Blues Artists
Other great notable Jump Blues artists and their respective songs, are New Orleans own Roy Brown with his first R&B #1 hit “‘Long About Midnight”, the popular “Rockin’ At Midnight” and his other R&B #1 hit “Hard Luck Blues”; Charles Brown had 2 R&B #1 hits with “Trouble Blues” and the 1951 hit “Black Night”; Wynonie Harris had many Jump Blues hits including his 2 R&B #1 hits, “Good Rocking Tonight” and “All She Wants To Do Is Rock”; the great electric blues guitarist T -Bone Walker brought us many ground breaking top ten R&B hits like “Bobby Sox Blues”, “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)” and the “T-Bone Shuffle”.
Then there was Roy Milton and His Solid Senders who had a string of 19 top ten R&B hits including “RM Blues” which was a R&B #2 hit and a crossover hit reaching #20 in the mainstream chart in 1946; the popular hits “Hop, Skip & Jump”, ” Information Blues” as well as the Helen Humes recording and R&B #6 hit “Million Dollar Secret”; and also Billy Wright with “Blues For My Baby” who was very influential on a young Little Richard, who would become one of Rock & Rolls biggest stars.
Another notable song was the extremely popular Paul Williams 1949 R&B #1 hit “The Huckle-Buck”. The song was credited to Andy Gibson, who originally wrote the song for Lucky Millinder’s band as “D Natural Blues”. Millinder would later take Gibson to court over the songs title, but it was later dropped. Also, the song was originally inspired by Charlie Parker’s BeBop Jazz hit “Now’s The Time” (notice Parkers sax phrasing and “The Huckle-Bucks” chorus melody). The lyrics were later added by Roy Alfred and the song became a favorite of many vocal artists. The song was not only a big crossover hit for both Frank Sinatra & Tommy Dorsey (and other covers by Roy Milton, Lionel Hampton and Louis Armstrong among others), but also a nationwide dance craze. The song was also hilariously featured by Art Carney (as Ed Norton) in the Jackie Gleason hit comedy TV show of the early 50s, “The Honeymooners”.