September Records

In the cow towns of the Southwest, in the honky-tonks of Memphis, in mountain hamlets in the Blue Ridge and the Cumberland, a perennial visitor for 25 years has been a lean, loquacious man, with a slight British accent and a portable recording apparatus. Grey-haired Arthur Edward Satherly is paymaster, musical coach, father confessor to the blues singers, hillbilly fiddlers, guitar-strummers, jug-players, washboard-slappers who make Columbia's Okeh* records by the dozen. In this grass-roots musical field, only Decca competes with Columbia. Decca's hillbilly man is David Kapp.

Last week, while most record buyers eyed the month's output of commercial jazz and symphonic music, plenty of country folk, and a great many juke-box operators, were more interested in the latest offerings of Messrs. Satherly and Kapp. Decca, which identifies such discs simply as "hillbilly" and "race" (Negro), had such items as Right Now and Essie Mae Blues by The Honey Dripper (Roosevelt Sykes); Pocket Knife Blues and Machine Gun Blues by Peetie Wheatstraw, "The Devil's Son-in-Law"; Cuckoo Cuckoo Chicken Rhythm and Birthday Party by Doctor Sausage and His Five Pork Chops. Okeh, which more elaborately describes this division as "Novelty Dance, Country Dance, Folk Songs and Race" offered I Don't Want No Skinny Woman and Thousand Woman Blues by Blind Boy Fuller; Down and Lost in Mind and Messed Up in Love by Big Bill; Shady Green Pastures and Walk Around by the Wright Brothers Gospel Singers; I'm Tired of Mountain Women by Wiley Walker and Gene Sullivan; many & many another. On these lists, collectors of Americana might find some rewarding items; jazz addicts would be overpowered by the prevailing corny fla vor. But Decca and Columbia would no more scrap their hillbilly catalogues than they would Bing Crosby and Benny Good man. Scout Kapp used to spend a month on a recording trip. Now, with ten trunks full of recording equipment, he camps in a city hotel for ten days, and the musicians come from miles away to play for him. Bandsmen, who must join the musicians' union, get the standard minimum, $30 for three hours of recording. Soloists, who do not have to join the union, are paid from $10 to $50 a side, or earn royalties if their names are big.

With a larger stable than Decca's to look after, Columbia's Scout Satherly gets around more, operates on a more intense and personal basis. Once, says he, he closed a deal with the Norfolk Jubilee Quartet (Negro) by producing four gaudy scarves and neckties at a strategic moment. Some of his talent, like Blues Singers Bukka White and Buddy Moss, periodically land in jail, where Mr. Satherly does not care to make recordings. Popular Blind Boy Fuller, a lazy, not too bright North Carolina Negro, has been totally blind for 14 of his 32 years, totes a gun and has a good sense of direction. He says he "loves all the women in the world," and sounds that way when in his wailing, rackety voice he sings something like Big Leg Women Gets My Pay. Blind Boy is sometimes accompanied by his friend Sonny Terry, who is nearly blind, and whose noises on the harmonica, interspersed with incoherent shouts and screams, are some thing to hear.

Another blues singer, Big Bill, sells well wherever there are Negro workers; like wise, oddly, among Pennsylvania miners. Big Bill has a "dirty" voice, composes songs which have a fine primitive quality. Among Art Satherly's female singers, most egregious is the Yas, Yas Girl, a convivial artist (born Merline Johnson) who sings in Chicago honky-tonks such numbers as I'd Rather Be Drunk. Her name derives from a double-entendre song.

Smart Art Satherly will not make a disc unless, from his knowledge of regional tastes, he can be sure it will sell some where. Cowboy Singer Gene Autry and numerous Southwestern bands -- among them the Light Crust Doughboys, offshoot of the group in which Texas' Governor Lee O'Daniel once recorded -- are the backbone of Satherly's catalogue. Negro Singer Huddie Ledbetter ("Lead Belly"), admired by connoisseurs of folk art, does not sell, remains tied up by Columbia contract only so that other companies can not get him. Nevertheless, many a collector watches the Okeh list, periodically strikes it rich in a Sonny Terry or Blind Boy Fuller disc, or in a syncopated gospel song, recorded after Coach Satherly has worked his singers into a religious lather. A notable hillbilly record collector: the Library of Congress.

Other records of the month:

POPULAR

Chain Gang (Columbia). Four-disc al bum of seven racking Negro laments, eloquently moaned by Joshua White and his Carolinians.

Friendship and The Wrong Idea (Victor). Giggle-of-the-month. "The T. Dorsey Family (Mountain Branch)" sings a hillbilly version of a Cole Porter song, while Charlie Barnet, adopting the slogan "Sing and Sweat with Charlie Barnet," does a biting parody of "icky" bands.

Dusk and Blue Goose (Victor). Duke Ellington originals, blazingly scored.

Fat and Greasy (Victor). Hoarse, coarse Mr. Thomas ("Fats") Waller vulgarly lampoons an unfortunate fat, greasy some body, obviously not himself.

Ferryboat Serenade (Decca). Dick Robertson plays another bastard polka, aimed at the jukeboxes, by the authors of the Woodpecker Song.

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

A Program of Mexican Music (Orchestra conducted by Carlos Chavez, with chorus of the National Music League; Columbia: 8 sides). Fine recording of the shrilling flutes, sounding brasses, clattering kitchenware heard in Manhattan last spring when Conductor Chavez gave Mexican music the once-over at the Museum of Modern Art (TIME, May 27).

Dvorak: Symphony No. 5 in E Minor ("New World") (All American Youth Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting; Columbia: 12 sides). In his disc debut with his youngsters, Stokowski sets forth the warm, familiar tunes inspired by Czech Dvorak's stay in the U. S. When he conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stokowski is still under contract to Victor, for which he made a "New World" that is still tops.

Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major (Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; Victor: 12 sides; and New York Philharmonic-Symphony, John Barbirolli conducting; Columbia: 10 sides). Before beating down Victor's prices, Columbia did some raiding, detached Barbirolli and his men, among others, from Victor's lineup. Most collectors will prefer Ormandy 's broad treatment of Brahms 's lushest melodies, even though Barbirolli's nervous beat saves the buyer $1.

Schubert: Die Winterreise (Excerpts) (Lotte Lehmann, soprano, with Paul Ulanofsky, pianist; Victor: 8 sides). Eleven of Schubert's 24 songs about the "Winter Journey" of a jilted lover, beautifully sung by a lieder expert.

Haydn: Concerto in D Major for Harpsichord and Orchestra ( Wanda Landowska, with orchestra conducted by Eugene Bigot; Victor: 5 sides). Mme. Landowska, No. 1 tinkler-tickler, romps with Papa Haydn in his last, best keyboard concerto.

*An old independent label, in disuse for several years, which Columbia bought, substituted last month for its Vocalion label.

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