Air Week: December 23-29, 2024

1945: Jukebox Rhythm Review

This week, the “Juke In The Back” brings the jukebox into the spotlight as we journey back 80 years and dig on the top requested jukebox records from the entire year of 1945. This was a pivotal year for Rhythm and Blues Music as 1945 marked the beginning of a new sound in Black Music. As the war raged on, many of the African-American big bands found it hard to afford such large ensembles, so they slimmed down to rhythm combos. Around the same time, blues singers were expanding their sound to go beyond just a guitar or piano accompaniment. They began adding rhythm sections and thus, Rhythm and Blues was born. 1945 marked the first year that this new style of music dominated the Black Community and the juke joints they patronized. 1945 was a strong year for jump blues cats like Louis Jordan, Joe Turner and Lionel Hampton. The blues cats faired well this year as Pvt. Cecil Gant had one of the year’s biggest hits with his self-penned, “I Wonder,” which was also successfully covered by Roosevelt Sykes and Louis Armstrong. Joe Liggins burst on the scene with “The Honeydripper,” the biggest selling record of the year and quite possibly the entire decade! Matt The Cat’s got a pocket full of nickels and he’s ready to warm up the “Juke In The Back,” so we can all dig that big beat jive of 1945!

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Air Week: December 16-22, 2024

Juke Christmas Party!

Christmas, like you’ve never heard it before. This year, the “Juke In The Back” cordially invites you to join us at Rosie’s Juke Joint for an intimate Christmas Celebration. Miss Rosie, Bobby The Bobcat and of course, Matt The Cat will be there to make your yuletide bright and present an hour of Christmas tunes that have never been spun before on a “Juke In The Back” holiday program. B.B. King, Gatemouth Brown and Jimmy McCracklin will make sure you have plenty of Christmas Blues, while The Larks, The Soul Stirrers and Pilgrim Travelers provide glorious vocal group harmonies on some obscure Christmas tunes. Jesse Belvin sings about Christmas love while Johnny Moore stops by WITHOUT Charles Brown for a change. Now that’s something you don’t hear every Christmas. So freshen up your ears with a solid batch of hep, cool and groovy holiday records as you join Rosie’s Juke Joint for a jumpin’ Christmas Party!

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Air Week: December 9-15, 2024

Joe Liggins

There were so many important figures in post WWII Rhythm & Blues that helped build what would become Rock n’ Roll. Today’s popular culture has left so many musical pioneers behind and this week the “Juke In The Back” features Joe Liggins, one such pioneer who’s been largely forgotten. Liggins scored one of the biggest hits of all-time when his “The Honeydripper” hit #1 on the R&B Chart for 18 staggering weeks in 1945. Singer/songwriter and music historian, Billy Vera drops by the “Juke” to tell us how “The Honeydripper” became such an enormous hit. Liggins scored 10 solid hits for Leon Rene’s Exclusive Records before moving to Art Rupe’s Specialty Records in 1950. At Specialty, Liggins had the biggest R&B hit of 1950 when “Pink Champagne went to #1 for 13 weeks and ended up selling more copies than “The Honeydripper.” It looked like Joe Liggins’ career couldn’t be stopped, but soon Rock n’ Roll, the music he helped create, pushed him and his contemporaries aside to make way for the youth movement. Last week, we spotlighted Joe’s younger brother Jimmy and this week, “Juke In The Back” is proud to honor one of the great musical pioneers of the last century as Matt The Cat plays every chart hit from the fantastic Joe Liggins.

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Air Week: December 2-8, 2024

Jimmy Liggins

Jimmy Liggins didn’t have the chart success or popularity of his older brother Joe Liggins, but he did have a killer band, a raw sound and quite possibly the “first rock n’ roll record.” Both brothers traveled to California from their native Oklahoma in order to make it in the music business. Jimmy started out as a professional boxer before hanging up the gloves in order to drive his older brother around after the success of Joe’s “The Honeydripper” in 1945. By the end of ’46, Jimmy told Joe that he was cuttin’ out on his own to form his own band and make his own records. He hit the charts with his 2nd single “Teardrop Blues” in 1948. Its flipside was “Cadillac Boogie,” which was Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston’s inspiration for “Rocket 88.” Jimmy Liggins only scored four R&B chart hits during his career, but he cut a trove of groovy plattahs worth hearing. He is definitely one of R&B’s unsung heroes. Get Jimmy Liggins’ story and all the great music that comes with it on this week’s “Juke In The Back” with Matt The Cat.

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Air Week: November 25-December 1, 2024

Buddy & Ella Johnson

Bandleader, pianist, composer and sometimes vocalist Buddy Johnson and his chanteuse sister Ella are in the spotlight on this week’s “Juke In The Back.” Johnson was a superstar and one of the hottest live acts of the 1940s in the Black Community, but he barely made a dent with White audiences, though a few of his records actually did cross over into the Pop Chart. Raised in South Carolina, Buddy moved to New York when he was 23 and began touring the world with the Cotton Club Revue. A professed lover of Classical Music, Buddy found his bread n’ butter was playing Big Band Swing and Jump Blues to audiences coast to coast. His touring band was widely popular after WWII, when most large ensembles had paired down to smaller combos. Buddy Johnson always put entertaining the people first and he changed with the times, keeping his style fresh and relevant. He scored numerous R&B hits with “Let’s Beat Out Some Love,” “When My Man Comes Home,” “That’s The Stuff You Gotta Watch,” “(Gotta Go) Upside Your Head” and many more. His sister Ella Johnson was the featured vocalist on many of Buddy’s biggest hits, but he also discovered a young Arthur Prysock, who would go on to greater fame after leaving Johnson. Buddy Johnson wrote some of the era’s most endearing tunes, including “Fine Brown Frame,” “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball” and “Since I Feel For You,” which is now a jazz standard. Matt The Cat loads the ol’ Rockola Juke with Buddy Johnson’s biggest Decca and Mercury sides, spanning 18 years on this week’s “Juke In The Back.” 

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Air Week: November 18-24, 2024

Bo Diddley, Pt. 2 – 1956-59

Last week, the “Juke In The Back” featured every recording made by the innovative BO DIDDLEY during the year 1955. This week, the Juke picks it up in early 1956 and showcases BO DIDDLEY’s influential and diverse releases through 1959. He remained mostly off the R&B Charts during this period. That’s inexplicable, since many of the singles issued by Checker Records became R&B, Rock n’ Roll and Blues standards. Many Blues greats have recorded and interpreted Bo’s “Before You Accuse Me (Take A Look At Yourself)” and countless garage bands have taken a crack at “Who Do You Love.” Matt The Cat also highlights the previously unreleased original recording of “Love Is Strange,” recorded almost a whole year before Mickey & Silvia made it a #1 R&B smash. Why didn’t Checker ever issue Bo’s original? We close the program with Bo Diddley returning to the R&B and Pop Charts in 1959 with the doo wop ballad, “I’m Sorry,” the Latin-tinged “I’m Crackin’ Up” and the signifying “Say Man,” which would become BO DIDDLEY’s biggest selling record. Don’t miss BO DIDDLEY: 1956-59 on this week’s “Juke In The Back.”

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Air Week: November 11-17, 2024

Bo Diddley, Pt. 1 – 1955

This week’s “Juke In The Back” takes a look at the breakthrough year of one of rock n’ roll’s true architects and innovators, Bo Diddley. His first recording session was held at Chess Records in Chicago on March 2nd and 3rd, 1955, where he laid down 4 original tunes. One of those songs, “I’m A Man,” would inspire blues great Muddy Waters’ “Manish Boy,” while the other, “Bo Diddley,” would be the igniting spark for rock n’ roll. Diddley was a complicated and compelling artist, who’s talents go way beyond his signature “hambone” rhythm, his vibrato guitar and his crazy lyrics. Bo’s spirit is the spirit of rebellion, the true ingredient for rock music. It all began in 1955 and this week’s “Juke In The Back” will explore those roots. This is part 1 of a 2 part special on the great Bo Diddley. 

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1940s & â€50s Rhythm & Blues

At the end of the Second World War, economics forced the big bands to trim their once great size and thus, the Jump Blues combo was born. Between 1946-1954, rhythm and blues laid the tracks for what was to become Rock n†Roll. So how come, 70 years later, this vibrant and influential music is still so unknown to so many?

Matt The Cat is going to change that with the radio program, “Juke In The Back.†These were the records that you couldnâ€t hear on the jukebox in the front of the establishment. To hear all this great 1950s rhythm & blues, you had to go to “Juke In The Back.â€

Click below to hear a demo episode of “Juke In The Back.”