Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday February 22, 2022: A Tribute to Fats Waller

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Stranger Songs was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/55286.html

Theme: A Tribute to Fats Waller

Thomas Wright Waller, better known as Fats Waller, died in 1943 at age 39 after an all-too-brief career as an influential pianist, singer, and composer and as one of the most popular performers of his era. Some of the songs and instrumentals I played on this show were written by Waller, some were not, but all of them were performed and recorded by him at some point or another.

Fats Waller- Ain’t Misbehavin’
Happy Birthday Fats (True North)

Jackie Washington & Mike Regenstreif (2008)

Jackie Washington- The Joint is Jumpin’
The World of Jackie Washington (Borealis)
Jeff Healey- I Wish I Were Twins
Among Friends (Stony Plain)
The Hot Sardines- Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now
Welcome Home, Bon Voyage (Eleven)
Fats Waller- The Minor Drag
The Joint is Jumpin’ (Bluebird)

Scarlett, Washington & Whiteley- Sweet Sue
Sitting on a Rainbow (Borealis)
Martin, Bogan & Armstrong- If You’se a Viper
That Old Gang of Mine/Martin, Bogan & Armstrong (Flying Fish)

Allen Toussaint- Viper’s Drag
American Tunes (Nonesuch)

Fats Waller- When You and I Were Young Maggie
Happy Birthday Fats (True North)
Roberta Donnay & The Prohibition Mob Band- I’ve Got A Feeling I’m Falling
A Little Sugar (Motema)
Michael 'Earnie' Taylor- You’re Not the Only Oyster in the Stew
Folk ‘n’ Western (Laughing Cactus Music)
Maria Muldaur- Squeeze Me
Waitress in a Donut Shop (Reprise)
Leon Redbone- I’m Crazy ‘Bout My Baby
Whistling in the Wind (Rounder)

Dinah Washington- (What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue
Dinah Washington Sings Fats Waller (EmArcy)
Louis Armstrong & Velma Middleton- All That Meat and No Potatoes
Satch Plays Fats (Columbia)
Susie Arioli Swing Band featuring Jordan Officer- Honeysuckle Rose
Pennies from Heaven (Justin Time)
Fats Waller- Blues
The Joint is Jumpin’ (Bluebird)

Catherine Russell & Mike Regenstreif (2007)

Mose Scarlett- Lulu’s Back in Town
Precious Seconds (Borealis)
Catherine Russell- Everybody Loves My Baby
Strictly Romancin’ (World Village)
Dave Van Ronk- Your Feet’s Too Big
Sweet & Lowdown (Justin Time)
Fats Waller- After You’ve Gone
Happy Birthday Fats (True North)
Time Sparks- The Alligator Crawl
Sidewalk Blues (ToneWood)

Jack Radcliffe & Al Oliveira- S’posin’
Two Hot to Handle (Wepecket Island)
Fats Waller- You’re Slightly Less Than Wonderful
Happy Birthday Fats (True North)
Loudon Wainwright III with Vince Giordano & The Nighthawks- Ain’t Misbehavin’
I’d Rather Lead a Band (Search Party)

Fats Waller- Yacht Club Swing
The Joint is Jumpin’ (Bluebird)

Next week: A musical visit to New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day, Volume 2.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Duke Robillard – Duke Robillard and his Dames of Rhythm

DUKE ROBILLARD

Duke Robillard and his Dames of Rhythm

M.C. Records

dukerobillard.com

mc-records.com

As I mentioned in my 2009 review of an album by Sunny and her JoyBoys, “I’ve been listening to bandleader, guitarist and producer Duke Robillard since he fronted the first Roomful of Blues album in 1977. I was very happy to have Duke as a guest a couple of times on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show; once in the company of Kansas City legend Jay McShann, the late, great swing and blues pianist and singer. Of all of Duke’s many and varied recordings, my favorites are his swing and jazz albums. And this is one of his best swing and jazz albums.”

And the constantly delightful Duke Robillard and his Dames of Rhythm may well be his best swing and jazz album yet. Duke plays acoustic archtop guitar throughout the 15 tracks and sings lead on three songs – and duets with Sunny Crownover (of Sunny and her Joy Boys fame) on another. There are absolutely fantastic rhythm and horn sections (including my old friend Billy Novick on clarinet and alto sax) and most of the lead vocals are handled by rotating cast of extraordinary Dames of Rhythm: the aforementioned Sunny Crownover, Maria Muldaur, Kelley Hunt, Madeleine Peyroux, Catherine Russell, and Elizabeth McGovern.

These songs – all, I believe date from the first half of the 20th century – swing hard in the hands of Duke and the band. The interplay between the musicians is always a delight and each of the singers more than rises to the occasion.

Even though these songs are all familiar, they all sound terrific. Some of my favorites include Maria Muldaur’s versions of “Got the South in My Soul” and “Was That the Human Thing to Do,” two more of the several Boswell Sisters numbers she’s done over the years; Madeleine Peyroux’s versions of Fats Waller’s “Squeeze Me,” and “Easy Living,” a Billie Holiday standard (she has the perfect voice to sing Billie Holiday songs); Kelley Hunt’s versions of “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”; Sunny Crownover’s duet with Duke on “From Monday On”; and “Blues in My Heart,” sung by Catherine Russell, one of my favorite jazz singers.

The album ends with the band blazing through a hot version of “Call of the Freaks,” a great old New Orleans tune composed by Paul Barbarin and Luis Russell (Catherine’s father).

From beginning to end Duke Robillard and his Dames of Rhythm is filled with nothing but great stuff.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Steve Gillette -- The Man

STEVE GILLETTE
The Man
Compass Rose Music
abouttheman.com

The Man is a very different kind of album for Steve Gillette – one of the finest folk-oriented singer-songwriters since the 1960s. (His best-known song is “Darcy Farrow,” a standard of the folk repertoire since Ian & Sylvia recorded it about 45 years ago.)

The Man is a concept album that tells the story of Danny Murrow, a guitar player who was there at the dawn and flowering of the jazz age in the early decades of the 20th century leading up to and including the Great Depression and Second World War. Steve uses a combination of spoken word narration on top of instrumental versions of songs from that era, songs from those days he sings in Danny’s character, and several original songs that he wrote – and one Bessie Smith song that he rewrote – to move the story along.

Steve tells Danny’s story using a combination of fact and fiction. The fictional Danny interacts with all kinds of real musicians including the likes of Paul Whiteman, Bix Biederbecke, Bessie Smith, as well as John Hammond, the legendary talent scout and record producer. He picks up songs from Fats Waller, Count Basie and Yip Harburg and is affected by the contemporary events of the world from the racism of the era to the stock market crash and the loss of his son in the war – an event that leads him into a period of intense soul searching in which he concludes (in one of Steve's original songs) that "God is love, only love, nothing more, nothing less."

Steve surrounds himself with some great musicians on these tracks including the likes of Bill Shontz, Peter Davis, Dave Davies and Peter Ecklund on horns; Randy Wolchek and Steve’s late father, George Gillette, on piano; Jack Williams on guitar; Scott Petito, Glen Fukunaga and David Jackson on bass; Mark Graham on harmonica; and Paul Pearcy on drums. Among the all-star back-up singers are Cindy Mangsen; Kim and Reggie Harris; and Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino (Magpie).

I love what Steve has done with this album. In telling Danny’s fictional story, he’s also giving us a small slice of the early jazz world.

Steve has also put together a website about the project that is well worth checking out.

--Mike Regenstreif

Catherine Russell -- Inside This Heart of Mine

CATHERINE RUSSELL
Inside This Heart of Mine
World Village
catherinerussell.net

In the spring of 2006, an album called Cat by Catherine Russell, a singer I’d never heard of before, landed on my desk. As a radio host and producer, and as a music reviewer for Sing Out! and several other publications, a lot of albums by artists I’ve never heard of before land on my desk. Every once in a while, one of those albums jumps out at me from the first track and I know I’m hearing someone special.

And so it was with Catherine Russell. She grabbed me from this first track, an old jazz tune called “Sad Lover Blues.” Cat’s version – Cat, short for Catherine, has been her nickname since childhood – blends classic blues, swing, R&B and country influences into something a jazz-loving folkie like me was going to take to right away. As I listened to the other 14 songs on the album, it quickly became obvious that this was a great singer who’d certainly been exposed to all of those kinds of music and much more.

It was easy to tell – from the sound of her voice and the maturity of her delivery, and from the pictures on the CD cover that showed an attractive, middle-aged woman – that Cat couldn’t be a newcomer to the world of music. But why, I wondered, hadn’t I heard of her before? How could it be that this 50-year-old singer was releasing her very first album?

Montreal has the world’s largest jazz festival and in my review of Cat for The Montreal Gazette, I said, “Russell needs to be here at the jazz festival next year.” Somebody at the jazz festival was paying attention and there she was, in June 2007, wowing a crowd of 10,000 or more at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. And her trip to Montreal for the jazz festival gave me the opportunity to sit down with Cat and find out about this fabulous singer I’d never heard of before that album landed on my desk.

I found out from Cat that she’d spent the first three decades of her career as a side person, helping make other artists sound good. “People ask me all the time why I waited so long to do my first record,” she said. I wasn’t waiting. I was a side person.”

Those are the opening paragraphs to “Blues & Country & All That Jazz: The Genre Fusing Music of Catherine Russell,” an article I wrote for the Winter 2008 issue of Sing Out! Magazine.

When I interviewed Catherine Russell on Folk Roots/Folk Branches and for that Sing Out! article, Cat was preparing to record Sentimental Streak, her second CD. Released about the same time as the article was published, Sentimental Streak was every bit as good as that inspired debut that grabbed me in 2006.

I could say the same about Cat’s third release, Inside This Heart of Mine. But, I won’t, because, if anything, it’s even better. Her alto, sounding even more relaxed and confident than before, pulls you right into this set of mostly classic jazz and blues tunes anchored by inventive arrangements steeped in all of the kinds of music she grew up listening to – her parents are the late Luis Russell, a jazz legend who was Louis Armstrong’s bandleader in the 1930s and ‘40s, and Carline Ray, a bass player and singer, who was a member of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, a band that made history in the 1940s as the first all-female big band – and all the different kinds of music she’s played and sung over the years.

I love the whole album, but if I had to pick a few highlights they’d certainly include what is now my all-time favourite version of Willie Dixon’s oft-recorded “Spoonful,” featuring some wonderful blues banjo playing by Matt Munisteri (who’s heard on guitar for most of the album and on banjo on a couple of others) and the tuba of the always-wonderful Howard Johnson; “We the People,” a delightful Fats Waller tune from 1938 that swings like mad that I’d never heard before; “Long, Strong and Consecutive,” a sassy song filled with double entendres which seems like it could be a Bessie Smith song but was actually written by Duke Ellington in the 1940s; and “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue,” a great old tune that Cat’s father must have played hundreds of times with Louis Armstrong.

Along with the classic material, Cat also includes a couple of great contemporary songs that fit right in. “November,” is a sad song of separation written by producer Paul Kahn; and “Just Because You Can,” written by Rachelle Garniez, sounds like something Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli might have played (if Reinhardt played banjo).

Catherine Russell is always a joy to listen to. Inside This Heart of Mine will be released on April 13.

Pictured: Catherine Russell and Mike Regenstreif at CKUT during Folk Roots/Folk Branches (June 28, 2007).

--Mike Regenstreif

Harlem Parlour Music Club -- Salt of the Earth

HARLEM PARLOUR MUSIC CLUB
Salt of the Earth
Harlem Parlour
harlemparlourmusicclub.com

When I first heard the name Harlem Parlour Music Club, I thought it might be a revival band playing the great tunes of Harlem music masters like Fats Waller or James P. Johnson from generations past. But, that’s not what this terrific band is about. They’re a collection of New York-based musicians – some of them solo artists, others key band members for pop artists like Cyndi Lauper, or ace studio musicians – who’ve come together to play rootsy, mostly original songs in the Harlem living room of drummer Sammy Merendino and occasional club dates.

The names of a couple of the musicians and singers in the Club jumped right out at me. Dobro and mandolin player David Mansfield has played on lots of records on my shelves and he played with Bob Dylan for several years. I met him briefly back in 1975 when I was a backstage guest of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott at a Rolling Thunder Revue concert. Speaking of Dylan, singer-songwriter-guitarist Mary Lee Kortes has a band called Mary Lee’s Corvette that did a live album I liked covering all the songs, in order, from Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks.

The focus here is on original tunes by various members of the band – the only cover is a folk-meets-funk version of Sly Stone’s “Thank You (forlettinmebemiceelfagin)” – that usually feature the writer on lead vocals, with stirring harmonies from other singers, and instrumental back-up from a great rhythm section and stellar instrumental soloists.

Among my favourite tracks are Darden Smith’s neo-gospel “Dyin’ to be Born Again”; Allison Cornell and Ann Klein’s “Runaway Train,” a topical song about a world out of control set to a hyper-bluegrass arrangement; and Kortes’ “Truck of Pennsylvania,” an almost-epic description of scenes and encounters on the road.

--Mike Regenstreif