Brother Ray

I missed it until now, but on September 23, Ray Charles joined other jazz and blues greats like John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Otis Redding and Muddy Waters, among others, as the face on a postage stamp. It's a “Forever” stamp, so if you buy it now, you'll still be able to use it after the prices go up. Here's what it looks like.

It's hard to think of any American musician who deserved this honor more.

Video of the Week #32

This week's video is by Texas bluesman Aaron "T-Bone" Walker, a pioneer of blues electric guitar, playing with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic in Great Britain in 1966. He sings two songs, "Woman, You Must Be Crazy" and "Goin' to Chicago." Granz does the introduction. A number of jazz legends, such as Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody, stand in the background, but the only soloist (besides Walker) is Clark Terry, playing the mute (!).

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Video of the Week #29 (Lonnie Johnson)

The Soundies #6 (Big Bill Broonzy)

Video of the Week #31

Organist Jimmy Smith helped me make the transition from being a rhythm and blues fan to someone who also liked jazz.  Blue Note used to release abbreviated versions of their album cuts as singles, which sometimes received radio play.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that listening to Smith play "Back at the Chicken Shack," with Kenny Burrell on guitar and Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax, was not very different from listening to Bill Doggett play "Honky Tonk," with Billy Butler on guitar and Clifford Scott on tenor sax.

Here Jimmy Smith plays "The Sermon," with Quentin Warren on guitar and Billy Hart on drums, for BBC television in 1964.

Video of the Week #30

This is a soundie of the Glenn Miller Orchestra playing "In the Mood" in 1946. It's a great example of big band choreography. The band is led by Tex Beneke. Miller died in a plane crash in 1944. Beneke is the saxophonist on the left. I don't know the Miller band well enough to identify the other soloists.

The October Downbeat has an article on the Glenn Miller Orchestra, still "the busiest band in America." They play one-nighters around the country, 48 weeks a year. A young musician can make about $30,000 a year; veteran band members make more. Of course, there's not much opportunity for creativity. The charts must be played exactly as written in the '30s and '40s. "It can't be Miller meets Coltrane," says one band member.

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The Soundies #11 (Count Basie)

The Soundies #4 (Jimmie Lunceford)

A Question of "Money"

It's no secret that '50s and '60s rhythm and blues artists were often ripped off by white record company owners, as well as by club owners, deejays, managers, and various other non-musicians making a profit from the music business. Unfortunately, black ownership of the means of production was not always a remedy for these abuses. Berry Gordy, Jr., was the owner of Motown, the most successful of the black-owned labels. From all that we know about how Gordy treated his artists, he is deserving of the title of “honorary white man.”

One way to cheat musicians was through manipulation of song copyrights. While musicians often wrote their songs, record executives sometimes required musicians to sign over part or all of the copyright to the songs to them or their cronies as a condition of allowing them to record. Barrett Strong, who recorded the 1959 R&B classic “Money (That's What I Want),”—ironically, a musical endorsement of materialism—is suing to have his name reinstated as one of the authors of the song. Mr. Gordy disputes his claims of authorship.

Barrett Strong claims that while working as a session musician for Motown, he developed the tune—a spinoff of one of the riffs in Ray Charles' “What'd I Say?”—and the lyric hook. A studio musician and a recording engineer confirm Strong's claim of authorship. Gordy liked the song and assigned staff writer Janie Bradford to help him with the lyrics. The copyright registration, filed in 1959, lists Strong, Bradford and Gordy as co-authors. The song was released went to #2 on the R&B charts in 1960 and also crossed over to the pop charts. It was one of Motown's first hits.

In 1962, Motown instructed the copyright office to remove Strong's name from the song, claiming that he was “erroneously listed” as a co-author. Under the law, he had three years to contest the change, but there was an important Catch-22. The copyright office has no obligation to inform authors of such changes, and he did not know about it.

There are some additional twists and turns to the story. For example, when the copyright was renewed in 1987, Strong's name was restored, but then removed the following year. (He didn't know about those changes either.)

The song has made a pile of what Mr. Strong wanted. It was covered by other artists, including the Beatles; it appeared on film soundtracks, in a Broadway play, and in television commercials. Strong was a one-hit wonder, retired from the music business, and spent most of his life working in an auto plant. In 2009, he suffered a stroke. Now 72, he lives in a retirement home and is unable to pay his rent or medical bills. He says he also wants to set the record straight and receive proper credit for his composition.

Legal experts say he has little chance of success due to the statute of limitations. If this story were to receive more publicity, I suppose there's always a chance that the multimillionaire Berry Gordy, Jr., could be publicly embarrassed into doing the right thing.

Video of the Week #29

Lonnie Johnson was a blues singer and guitarist whose career spanned the years 1925 through the mid-'60s. Although born in New Orleans, his finger picking style was more typical of the Piedmont area of the Carolinas and Virginia. In addition to the blues, he played jazz guitar duets with Eddie Lang and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. He had a #1 rhythm and blues hit, "Tomorrow Night," in 1948. Here he is doing "Another Night to Cry" in 1963, introduced by Sonny Boy Williamson #2, and accompanied by Otis Spann, piano; Willie Dixon, bass; and Bill Stepney, drums.

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Video of the Week #24 (Skip James)

Video of the Week #19 (Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee)

The Soundies #6 (Big Bill Broonzy)