JAZZ GILLUM, "SIGNIFYING WOMAN" C/W "TAKE A LITTLE WALK WITH ME" (RCA-VICTOR 50-0004, REL. 2/1949)

RCA-Victor launched the 45-rpm record format in February 1949. Their various series of musical styles were color-coded in a rainbow of lurid hues. Most common specimens found today are in the classical series (cherry red) and country and western (a bluish green). The rara avis of this launch are the race records (as rhythm and blues was called into the mid-1950s), in a vibrant cerise with nigh-impossible-to-read gold text on military-green labels.

All these pioneering 45s have a common bond: super-low volume. A fear, in the first five years of this format, was that larger information in the grooves would lead to tonearm jumps—which, in turn, might scar the playing surface of these lightweight vinyl baubles.

Play any pre-1955 45-rpm disc on modern equipment and prepare to be unimpressed. The sound information is mastered at a near-whisper. To appreciate how well-recorded these seven-inchers were, one must boost the signal by almost 100%--and then adjust background tape hiss and surface noise, lest it overwhelm the music.

Magnetic recording tape was just becoming the industry standard in 1949. Smaller labels still used the original electric recording format—a larger turntable with a cutting lathe that etched the musical info onto a master disc made of soft wax. Curlicues of wax had to be brushed away with care during the recording process.

As with tape, the recording had to be transferred to a metal matrix, from which pressing plates were cast in metal. To modern musicians who can record albums in their bedroom with hand-held, pocket-size equipment, the older method must seem hysterical in its clunkiness and complexity. Recording tape remained the industry standard into the 1990s, when digital audio tape gave way to computer hard drives. Better men than I have written at length on this history of audio recording; this is a capsule view of a complex, on-going series of advances in the capture of sounds onto a semi-permanent medium.

Some of RCA’s first 45s were new material. Others, such as today’s record, were harvested from the label’s vast library of past masters. The label continued the 10-inch 78-rpm format into the late 1950s and introduced long-playing 331/3 discs (at first 10-inch, then the industry standard 12-inch) in the early 1950s. (They experimented with the format in 1931 and issued a few releases which were ill-timed for the depths of The Great Depression.)

With this choice of formats came new sources of confusion: RCA assigned different series and catalog numbers to each record size. The 78 issue of today’s record had the catalog number 20-3250; the seven-inch release was 50-0004—the fifth issue in the label’s race record series.

On the near-inaudible grooves of this platter are two 1947 performances by “Jazz” Gillum, a Mississippi-born singer, harmonica player and songwriter who made his first records for Victor’s budget label, Bluebird, in 1934. Gillum often recorded with other blues legends, including singer-guitarist Big Bill Broonzy, pianist Eddie Boyd and other stalwarts of the Chicago blues scene. Our studio-session guitar favorite George Barnes is present on several of Gillum’s late-1930s sides, where he holds his own in this most esteemed company.

By 1947, Gillum was one of many Black artists who assayed a tighter, sparer sound that evokes what would become rock ‘n’ roll within half a decade. The results have one foot in Black music’s past and another toeing towards the future.

“Signifying Woman” rocks and rolls with a joyous, relaxed gait. It’s a 12-bar blues, with the classic form: the first line is repeated, then followed by a rhyming second to complete each couplet. This account of a woman who’s got herself in Dutch via incessant gossiping and dirt-dishing pits Gillum’s folky harmonica against Bob Call’s house-rockin’ piano, electric guitar by William Lacey, Ransom Knowling on what is either a real bass or his simulation via the lower strings of a guitar—and Judge Riley on drums.

This is almost a Chuck Berry record; the same playful wit, percolating rhythm and instrumentation is used, but with the less rigid beat of the earlier blues style. It’s a masterpiece of this in-between style and still retains the freshness it must have had to 1949 listeners.

I had to boost the volume in several stages so as not to distort the information. Massive tape hiss was diminished, and thousands of clicks, pops and crackles were evicted. Save for the record wear heard at the end of the file, I think it turned out well enough. See what you think!

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

Billboard’s system of record reviewing was different in 1949: a bit more clinical, with the reviewer’s disdain for Black blues self-evident in each word.

“Take a Little Walk with Me” has such forbidding-looking damage to its opening grooves I was afraid to play it. After five cleanings, I held my breath and lowered the tonearm on this livid orange-pink translucent vinyl. As you can hear, there are still clunks and thunks evident, and a maddening repeat-loop skip that I corrected after four different attempts to record one 15-second section, but it plays with stronger sound than the A-side.

This is a more old-school Chicago blues that could have been recorded without a change a decade earlier. (The drummer might not have been on the session, and Riley’s presence is more restrained here.) Call’s piano is excellent here; he drives the tempo and complements Gillum’s appealing vocal with finesse. There’s a heartfelt magic to this side that gets me every time.

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

Jazz Gillum’s three singles in the 50-0000 series are all classics, and I hope to acquire them via luck and/or pluck. Victor retired the colored discs, save for country and classical, by the end of 1950, due to a shortage of dyes needed to produce the still-impressive hues. All of Gillum’s singles are on this cerise format. Victor released a final 45/78 combo for their Groove imprint in 1954; that ended Gillum’s long association with the biggest record label in the world. He continued to record and perform until 1961, at which time he retired; he passed on in 1966.

Tomorrow: Tony Williams, lead singer of The Platters, makes popcorn magic with the help of songwriters Van McCoy and Helen Miller on a 1962 Philips release.