480 Earl Scruggs (1924-2012), Lester Flatt (1914-1979), and the Foggy Mountain Boys “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” 1949

“The rockabillies were drawn to the rough-edged, rural-sounding performances in both black and white music, to the older styles closer to folk origins than to those of pop music—Bill Monroe, not Eddy Arnold; Big Boy Crudup, not Nat King Cole. Elvis Presley…grew up listening to the Opry. Elvis could sing a number of Monroe’s songs, particularly those performed and recorded with Monroe by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs back in the mid-forties” (Neil Rosenberg, Bluegrass: A History, 2005). 

Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”

479 Muddy Waters (1913-1983) “I Feel Like Going Home” 1947

“‘Muddy was playing when I was plowing,’ B. B. King remembered, ‘mules that is. When I first heard of Muddy Waters, I had never left Mississippi. Then finally we started to get records on him—“I Feel Like Going Home.” He had something that no one else had, and I loved to hear him play’” (Robert Gordon, Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, 2002). 

Muddy Waters “I Feel Like Going Home”

478 Louis Jordan (1908-1975) and his Tympany Five “Let the Good Times Roll” 1946

After a seemingly successful show, Jordan told his band, “There were too many goofs tonight. I want to have a rehearsal at midnight when the theatre’s empty.” When the young tenor sax complained, the trumpet player told him Jordan was “’a perfectionist; everyone in the business knows that. He won’t stand for any horseplay or sloppy musicianship’. The saxist bristled. ‘Perfectionist? God damn it, I’ll show him what wrong notes are.’ The trumpeter sighed. He knew then that the band and the young man would soon be parting company” (John Chilton, Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music, 1994). 

Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five “Let the Good Times Roll”

477 Louis Jordan (1908-1975) and his Tympany Five “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” 1946

The song “was one of many songs Louis devoted to domestic fowl, but its lyrics were a shade sharper and more humorous than his other salutes to the feathered world. The record was often played on the American Forces’ Network and became a great favorite with US troops stationed abroad” (John Chilton, Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music, 1994). 

Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”

476 The Dixie Hummingbirds “Amazing Grace” 1946

“generosity, devotion to family, loyalty, perseverance, sacrifice, mentoring, and a wealth of immeasurable talent. Of all the groups that traveled the gospel highway, none succeeded better than the Dixie Hummingbirds at living up to these latter qualities.” Isaac Hayes said: “In the beginning, after the word, before rock ‘n’ roll, and before there was rap, hip-hop, disco, punk, funk, metal, soul, Motown, rock-a-billy, before bebop, doo-wop, and the big band swing, there was the Dixie Hummingbirds. The mighty Dixie Hummingbirds. They sang through the Great Depression, the terms of thirteen presidents, four major wars, five generations of Americans, and seven decades of the twentieth century” (Jerry Zolten, Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds, 2003).

The Dixie Hummingbirds “Amazing Grace”

475 Big Maceo Merriweather (1905-1953) “Worried Life Blues” 1946

“Big Maceo (Major Merriweather) was simply the most important blues pianist of the ‘40s and the greatest influence on Chicago’s postwar blues.” His wife, Rossell, said of him, “Everybody like him—all the policemens—he was a good condition person. He was very nice—he wasn’t a person to raise sand, fight, or nothing…I think he’d have been well, but he didn’t stop drinking.” A stroke in 1946 partially paralyzed him, ending his piano playing. He died of a heart attack (Mike Rowe, Blues Unlimited: Essential Interviews, 2015). 

Big Maceo Merriweather “Worried Life Blues”

474 The Duke Ellington (1899-1974) Orchestra “Take the ‘A’ Train” 1941

When composer Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967) and “Ellington first met at Pittsburgh’s Stanley Theater back in 1939, Strayhorn had inquired of Duke what was the best way to get to Harlem when he got back to New York. He was told ‘Take the A train,’ a route of the recently opened Eight Avenue subway line. This inspired him to use this line as the title of his composition.” Ellington made it his signature theme (A. H. Lawrence, Duke Ellington and His World, 2001). 

The Duke Ellington Orchestra “Take the ‘A’ Train”

473 Big Bill Broonzy (1893/1898?-1958) “Key to the Highway” 1941

“Broonzy was drafted into the army during the First World War and shipped to France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces. He returned to Arkansas with a different outlook on life’s possibilities, seeing little opportunity in working as a field hand as farmwork became increasingly mechanized. Broonzy joined the trek of sharecroppers to the smokestack cities of the North—in his case, Chicago. Over time, he adjusted to urban life as a laborer and part-time musician, gaining a reputation as a blues singer who articulated the new outlook of the black working class. Broonzy later had the opportunity to introduce the blues of the black urban folk to white youths in the United States and Europe” (Roger House, Blue Smoke: The Recorded Journey of Big Bill Broonzy, 2010). 

Big Bill Broonzy “Key to the Highway”

472 The Andrews Sisters “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “(I'll Be with You in) Apple Blossom Time” 1941

“As Universal Studios cranked out movies featuring the sisters”—LaVerne Sophia (1911-1967), Maxene Angelyn (1916-1995), “Patty” Marie (1918-2013)—“happily singing the boys off to battle or camping it up in comedy escapist fare, the faces of the Andrews Sisters became increasingly familiar to the nation. Their upbeat songs filled the jukeboxes and distanced their listeners from the tragedies of the war. Live performances at military bases and appearances on the Armed Forces Radio Service personalized them to thousands of enlisted men at home and overseas…They are still the most successful female singing group in history, and until the Beatles came along they were the top-selling music group ever” (Arlo Nimmo, The Andrews Sisters, 2004). 

The Andrews Sisters “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”

The Andrews Sisters “(I’ll Be with You in) Apple Blossom Time”

471 Bukka White (1909-1977) “Fixin’ to Die Blues” 1940

“Two years in prison could have left ruinous scars on a less powerful personality than Bukka’s. The loneliness and brutality could have embittered him to a point where further creative work would have been impossible. Instead it matured him. His ideas became deeper and more complex. Bukka emerged from prison with a head full of some of the finest classic bleus songs ever written…” “Fixin’ to Die Blues” “was inspired  by a friend and fellow guitarist who went into a coma and died in 1938, evidently in Parchman [prison]” (F. Jack Hurley and David Evans, Tom Ashley, Sam McGee, Bukka White, Tennessee Traditional Singers, 1981). 

Bukka White “Fixin’ to Die Blues”

470 The Cats and the Fiddle “I Miss You So” 1940

“The mid-tempo shuffle, with high tenor harmonies carried through the entire recording, included a tipple-led instrumental (a tipple is a long-forgotten 10-stringed instrument that looks like a small acoustic guitar and sounds like a ukulele). The song, later slowed down and recorded by the Orioles, is now a standard, but in early 1940 it was just another excellent black vocal-group recording unknown to the mass market. Still it was popular in black communities and enabled [lead singer] Austin Powell and company to continue their whirlwind schedule of national one-nighters, from the Apollo Theatre to elegant supper clubs” (Jay Warner, American Singing Groups: A History from 1940 to Today, 2006). 

The Cats and the Fiddle “I Miss You So”

469 Glenn Miller (1904-1944) and his Orchestra “In the Mood” 1939

“No Glenn Miller recording illustrates more dramatically Glenn’s remarkable ability  to take an arrangement, cut out all the extraneous parts, and reduce it to a beautifully constructed, workable gem…How those kids loved to jitterbug to ‘In the Mood’!” (George Simon, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, 1974). 

Glenn Miller and his Orchestra “In the Mood”

468 Gene Autry (1907-1998) “Back in the Saddle Again” 1939

“As children, each of the Highwaymen”—Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson—“like so many others, had gone to Gene Autry movies on Saturday afternoons, listened to his music on the radio, and learned to play guitar on a Gene Autry Roundup Guitar ordered from the Sears catalogue…Serving as a road map out of rural poverty for Cash—and for so many other future artists—Gene Autry shone as the singing cowboy star whose radio programs, recordings, and movies in the 1930s and ‘40s made him one of America’s most celebrated entertainers” (Holly George Warren, Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry, 2007). 

Gene Autry “Back in the Saddle Again”

467 Benny Goodman (1909-1986) and his Orchestra “Sing, Sing, Sing” 1938

At this historic first performance of swing music in Carnegie Hall, “the kids in the audience were jitterbugging in their seats, and even some of the gentry in the boxes and dress circle had gotten up on their feet and were shagging in the aisles.” The 1950 recording release of the 1938 concert energized Goodman’s flagging career and reputation (Ross Firestone, Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life & Times of Benny Goodman, 1993).  

Benny Goodman and his Orchestra “Sing, Sing, Sing”

466 Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter 1889-1949) “Rock Island Line” 1937

Leadbelly learned the song while visiting prisoners at the Cummins Prison Farm in Arkansas and made it a staple of his performing repertoire. “So eager were they to hear and see Leadbelly that at times some stood on the shoulders of others. When the twanging of his guitar strings rang out, supporting his rich booming voice, silence fell in the rows of cells suddenly and completely…For the moment Leadbelly’s ‘sinful songs’ became more powerful than the ‘spirituals’” (Charles Wolfe, Kip Lornell, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly, 1992). 

Leadbelly “Rock Island Line”

465 Bob Wills (1905-1975) and his Texas Playboys “Steel Guitar Rag” 1936

“Bob is a genuine father to his boys.” Wills said, “if you’ve got some mules that ain’t fed enough or well taken care of and treated right, and you try to make ‘em plough cotton, why, they’ll get about five or six acres a day done. But you take those same mules and feed ‘em and treat ‘em fine and then switch a harness on ‘em  and put ‘em to a plow and they’ll step out and plow 10 or 12 acres a day. Musicians are just the same way as them cattle and mules” (Ruth Sheldon, Hubbin’ It: The Life of Bob Wills, 1938).

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys “Steel Guitar Rag”

464 Roy Acuff (1903-1992) and the Crazy Tennesseans “The Great Speckled Bird” 1936

“Roy Acuff states that ‘The Great Speckled Bird’ is the Bible and the Church. The interpretation of the song’s meaning, which probably concerns some fundamentalist allegorical symbol, is certainly up to the individual person and has been the subject of great discussion, especially in the South, for a long, long time…Of course ‘The Bird’ as the Acuff group has nicknamed the song, became Roy’s most requested number and his second biggest record seller. Its name graced his DC-3 airplane” (Elizabeth Schlappi, Roy Acuff: The Smoky Mountain Boy, 1978).

Roy Acuff and the Crazy Tennesseans “The Great Speckled Bird”

463 The Carter Family “Can the Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye)” 1935

“A.P. (1893-1960), as he was best known to his listening audience, provided an inexhaustible supply of songs, many of which he collected from Appalachia’s remote mountain homesteads…and then ‘worked up’ with his wife, Sara (1899-1979), and sister-in-law Maybelle (1909-1978). It was Sara’s rich, expressive alto that had first attracted a producer from Victor records. At forty, she was still a riveting, dark-eyed beauty. Maybelle, the twenty-nine-year-old guitar player, was the virtuoso of the group, a fact which astonished many listeners of the 1930s, who would not believe that the agile licks and infectious rhythms were conjured by a woman” (Mark Zwonitzer, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone, 2002).

The Carter Family “Can the Circle Be Unbroken”

462 Ethel Waters (1896-1977) “Stormy Weather” 1933 & Lena Horne (1917-2010) “Stormy Weather” 1943

The Cotton Club management signed Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, “and for the first time the club landed Ethel Waters as the headline entertainer. Waters was apparently on the fence about whether or not to do the Cotton Club show until she heard ‘Stormy Weather’…She wanted to put everything she had into it, but she knew she could handle doing that only once a night. Therefore, even though it was the club’s policy to give multiple shows, Waters stipulated that she would sing ‘Stormy Weather’ only once per evening….But finally it was the 1943 film, titled Stormy Weather, that made the song into an all-time classic, and also firmly established it as the property of Lena Horne” (Will Friedwald, Stardust Melodies, 2002).

Ethel Waters “Stormy Weather”

Lena Horne “Stormy Weather”

461 Fred Astaire (1899-1987) “Night and Day” 1932

Cole Porter (1891-1964) wrote “Night and Day” for Fred Astaire to perform in the 1932 Broadway musical, The Gay Divorce. “Astaire was first skeptical about its being a song for him and undecided about accepting a role in the show...” The tune was allegedly inspired by a friend who said “That drip, drip, drip is driving me mad” during a rainstorm. “Cole leapt up with a shot of elation on finding the perfect start for his lyric” (William McBrien, Cole Porter, 1998). The song has been recorded by Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, and Shirley Bassey among many pop luminaries.

Fred Astaire “Night and Day”

460 Paul Whiteman (1890-1967) Orchestra “Body and Soul” 1930

“It is incontrovertibly true that the Whiteman outfit lacked the rhythmic power and complexity of the King Oliver, Fletcher Henderson, or Count Basie bands, just as the Beatles lacked the rhythmic power and complexity of Motown, Stax, and James Brown. On the other hand, both the Whiteman orchestra and the Beatles pioneered a melodic and harmonic richness that was considered revolutionary for their genres, most dramatically in works arranged by Ferde Grofe, Whiteman’s main arranger, and by the Beatles’ producer, George Martin, who considered Grofe one of his musical heroes” (Elijah Wald, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll, 2009).

“We have a racy, idiomatic, flexible American language all our own, suited to expressing the American character...Every human being has his own value, his own character. It is when this variety is released into music that music strives and grows” (Paul Whiteman, Popular Culture in America, 1926).

Paul Whiteman Orchestra “Body and Soul”

459 Mississippi Sheiks “Sitting on Top of the World” 1930

“sometimes the artists resisted what they perceived as paternalism form company men who knew little about the music. Bo Carter recalled: ‘Tell ya, we was the Mississippi Sheiks and when we went to make records in Jackson, Mississippi, the feller wanted to show us how to stop and start the records. Try to tell us when we got to begin and how we got to end. And you know…I started not to make ‘em cause he wasn’t no musicianer, so how could he tell me how to stop and start the song? We was the Sheiks, Mississippi Sheiks and you know we was famous’” (Jeff Titon, Early Downhome Blues, 1977). Listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.

Mississippi Sheiks “Sitting on Top of the World”

458 Eddie James “Son” House (1902-1988) “My Black Mama” (parts 1 & 2) 1930

“Son” House and Charley Patton “made an unlikely pair: while Patton was an incorrigible kidder who ‘didn’t believe in what he’s sayin’ his-self,’ House was a relatively gloomy man who was guilt-ridden about singing blues. They passed considerable time as drinking companions, and their friendship on House’s part was (he stated) solely due to Patton’s generosity with a liquor bottle” (Stephen Calt, Gayle Wardlow, King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton, 1988).

“Son” House “My Black Mama” (part 1)

“Son” House “My Black Mama” (part 2)

457 Charley Patton (1891?-1934) “Pony Blues” 1929

“Patton’s uncanny liveliness as a performer gave his music an intangible and inimitable dimension that elevated it above ‘house’ entertainment and probably made him the singular attraction he was…Jazz guitarist Woody Mann terms Pony Blues ‘the most perfect blues recording ever made’…It was obviously a song that was very dear to Patton, for he played it with sheer love” (Stephen Calt, Gayle Wardlow, King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton, 1988).

Charley Patton (1891?-1934) “Pony Blues”

456 Gus Cannon’s (1883/4?-1979) Jug Stompers “Walk Right In” 1929

“The strength of the Jug Stompers was the variety of their material.” They “produced a stunning set of records that covers nearly the whole gamut of black American music of the time.” Gus “Banjo Joe” Cannon “was the son of a slave and some of his records retain archaic overtones from the years before the blues.” His song, “Walk Right In,” became “an international pop hit in 1963 for the Rooftop Singers” (Encyclopedia of the Blues, 2006).

Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers “Walk Right In”