#soundies — Public Fediverse posts

Open the Door, Richard (1947) — a pioneering Soundies-era music video! 🎶
Featuring Count Basie and Stepin Fetchit, this short film brings early jazz and visual jukebox history to life — long before MTV.

Watch on #YouTube ⬇️
https://youtu.be/tGKvEK300ng

or #Rumble
https://rumble.com/v6zn20g-open-the-door-richard-1947-a-pioneering-music-video-from-the-soundies-era-.html

#OpenTheDoorRichard #CountBasie #JazzHistory #Soundies #MusicVideo #1940sMusic #StepinFetchit #BoogieWoogie #SwingEra #ClassicJazz #FilmHistory #VisualJukebox #MusicalShort #RetroMusic #AmericanCulture #music

Joe Turner was the father figure for all of the 1940s and 1950s rhythm & blues shouters. He honed his craft in the bars and night clubs of Kansas City during the late 1920s and early 1930s, and by the time he appeared in the 1938 "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall and made his first records with pianist Pete Johnson, he was already at the peak of his powers.

Turner achieved his greatest commercial success in the 1950s when he joined the roster of Atlantic Records and recorded a lot of contemporary material penned by writers like Jesse Stone, Doc Pomus and Leiber & Stoller. Although he was already in his forties, he became an unlikely rock'n'roll star and recorded a a few teen-oriented songs. But like just about all of his Atlantic releases, even these were excellent records.

Turner's wife, Lou Willie Turner (real name: Luella Brown) was credited as the writer of "Oke-She-Moke-She-Pop" (1953). As the song was released on the flip side of "TV Mama", one of Turner's major hits, it did not make the R&B charts on its own, but it is still a very entertaining record, with Turner fully in charge even in this live video version from 1954:

Joe Turner: "Oke-She-Moke-She-Pop" (1954)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnytNEuw3VE

#music #rhythmblues #joeturner #bigjoeturner #atlanticrecords #soundies #bluesshouters #bluesmusic #1950s

Amos Milburn was one of the major rhythm & blues stars of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

"Bad, Bad Whiskey" was a #1 R&B hit for Milburn in 1950. Credited to the profilic arranger/producer Maxwell Davis, it was the first in a series of drinking songs recorded by him. Many of these were hits, including "Thinking and Drinking", "Let Me Go Home, Whiskey", "Good Good Whiskey" and the original version of "One Scotch, One Bourbon and One Beer".

There is a wonderful video of Milburn playing the song in 1954, backed by an orchestra led by saxophonist Paul Williams. As you can see in the video, Milburn was an excellent singer and pianist, and obviously a charismatic performer as well:

Amos Milburn: "Bad, Bad Whiskey" (1954)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCX--0wJQkQ

This is only one of several very nice live video performances by Milburn captured around this time.These were apparently filmed by a company called Studio Films in New York (although not at the Apollo Theater as was claimed). Together with other similar three-minute videos, they were shown on TV channels and included in low-budget movies.

There is an extensive review of these videos (with lots of impressive background information) in these two blog posts:

http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-amos-milburn.html
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-rhythm-blues-review.html

#music #rhythmblues #amosmilburn #soundies #drinkingsongs #piano #1950s #maxwelldavis #aladdinrecords