Welcome, Visitor Number

Translate

4 August 2015

Post 243: GEORGIA WHITE, TUBA SKINNY AND 'LATE HOUR BLUES'

Tuba Skinny has introduced into its repertoire yet another of those simple, bouncy 16-bar tunes (essentially 8 + 8). They have catchy themes and are easy to play because they hardly need more than three basic chords.

The song is Late Hour Blues.

Written by the New Orleans-born pianist Richard M. Jones in 1939, it was recorded by Georgia White in 1940 for Decca (the company for which Richard Jones was a record producer at the time). It was Decca's catalogue number 7741B (65756).

Georgia White
Late Hour Blues, described on the Decca label as 'Blues Singing With Orchestra' has Georgia White alternating 16-bar choruses with members of the 'orchestra', which seems to comprise percussion (Walter Martin), a very fluent cornet (Jonah Jones), a clarinet (Fess Williams), and piano (Lil Armstrong, no less). Vocals alternate on the 16-bar theme with instrumental 16-bar solos. It seems to work on a familiar chord pattern:  IV - IV -  I  -  I - V7 - Vdim - V7 - V7 - IV - IV -  I  -  I - V7 - V7 - I - I.

Tuba Skinny take the song briskly in Bb. They make a great job of it. Like Georgia White, Erika sings choruses between instrumental solos. Georgia sings four 16-bar choruses. Erika sings five. The final two are sung without an instrumental break. They appropriately include the 'Oh Me! Oh My!' Chorus for a second time - thereby achieving the five choruses in all.