'WASHBOARD BILL,' "IN THE MORNING" C/W "RIVER BOAT DOCK" (KING 45-4983, REL. 11/1956)

Today’s record was selected because I thought it would be an easy post. “No heavy lifting here,” I said with foolhardy conviction. These two sides are instrumental jams with an all-star cast: guitarist-composer Mickey Baker, sax man Curtis “King Curtis” Ousley, pianist Herman Foster, bassist Jimmy Lewis and Dave “Specs” Bailey on drums. And Washboard Bill, who could have been one of a thousand performers, all but buried in the sea of sound created by these able-bodied studio denizens.

We have this information thanks to a 1960 French EP which collected the four sides this “Washboard Bill” made for King Records in 1956 and ’57 and gave session details for the recordings—something American records didn’t do save for jazz artists. I think that lack of information was a plus for popular music at the time. So many session musicians played on records that the buyer might have gotten wise to the system. “Gee, Hal Blaine is everyone’s drummer!”

These Washboard Bill recordings were made in large for the roadhouse trade. R&B instrumentals went down well in beer halls, lounges and highway nightspots that couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for a live band. A jukebox well-stocked with such sides gave habitués a steady stream of music, long as someone had plenty of nickels and dimes on hand.

Who this “Washboard Bill” was is open to debate. Discogs proffers that it’s Billy Valentine, who had a solo career as a vocalist in the 1950s. Other sources suggest it was a Florida-born itinerant musician whose usual trade was passerby as he and his band played for change in town squares or transit centers. One “Washboard Bill” had a presence on the long-defunct MySpace. A pause to reflect on how different our modern world might be if Facebook never happened and the eden of MySpace continued to this day. It represented the old Internet—an egalitarian place not yet corrupted by big business and politics. I miss that Internet. We shall never see its like again.

On that MySpace page, this “Bill” claimed to be the person on these King Records sides and complained that the label never paid him any royalties. King recycled some of the four tracks on various-artists LPs and licensed them abroad. I wish that MySpace profile still existed—it might clear up some now-unanswerable questions. C’est la Bobby Vee.

Onto this record. “In the Morning” is an effective blues with excellent turns by Curtis and Baker and a thrilling moment when this “Washboard Bill” emits a wild howl, followed by the song’s title shouted into the studio rafters. You can almost hear shuffling feet on a hardwood floor in some roadhouse club. Outside, amidst a wall of humidity, crickets and frogs drone in the night; the rustle of tires against asphalt swooshes past in the night. Smells like rain, don’t it?

Hear it >>>>> HERE. <<<<<

“River Boat Rock” sounds like a continuation of the A-side. The washboard is more present in the mix here, and the arrangement gives this percussionist more of a showcase, though their playing is easy-going and unassuming.

Baker takes a superb guitar break; how that man could play! It’s King Curtis’ show, though, and he burns down the house with his dulcet tones. The song’s tempo does evoke a toodling watercraft easing down a murky river in no great hurry to get anywhere.

Hear it >>>>> HERE. <<<<<

The follow-up single, “Washboard Story,” goes for a larger price than this single, so there must be something special—probably on the minor-key or ‘popcorn’ side—going on there. I’ll keep an eye out for it. One never knows…

Tomorrow: the seldom-seen failed follow-up to Chuck Jackson’s 1961 hit “I Don’t Want to Cry.” This 1961 Wand release is hard to find; it was swept under the rug when it failed to make the charts. One side is a little masterpiece of big-city r&b/early soul.