Haven’t Heard of June Richmond?

June Richmond, “Hey, Lawdy Mama. Rare Recordings: 1938-1961” (Jasmine Records, two CDs)June Richmond’s signature begins with a somewhat provocative line, “Meet me in the bottom, hey lawdy Mama. Bring my boots and shoes.” She left us with at least two definitive versions of this uptempo, major key blues. The first is with Andy Kirk and his orchestra, which is included on a wonderful new double CD that represents the first comprehensive collection of her work. The second is a Soundie — a 1944 music “video” produced for jukebox viewing, filmed in Los Angeles with a great Central Avenue band. Thankfully, it is readily viewable on YouTube. “Hey, Lawdy Mama” might be the single most exciting and representative video of the unique musical form known as rhythm and blues that I have ever come across. Richmond shouts the blues over an irresistible, swinging dance beat, driven by the enthusiastic drummer and bandleader, Roy Milton. After each chorus, a few of the instrumentalists solo briefly, starting with the celebrated bassist Red Callender. Some of her choruses are sad: There’s one about her man catching a train and leaving her (“he caught that limited …”) and another is a quote from Billie Holiday’s iconic “Fine and Mellow” (“My man don’t love me, he treats me awful mean”). Some are happy (“he’s got lots of money and kisses to spare”). It doesn’t matter, though. Sometimes she’s celebrating the joyous moments in life, and at other times she’s directly confronting the sad times and scaring them off with sheer exuberance and energy. She ends with a resounding, “Papa. Meet me in the bottom,” as she shakes her large frame with a few well-executed dance steps. You are to be forgiven if you’ve never heard of June Richmond, who, when she died in 1962 at the age of 47, was much better known in France than in her native country. Producer and historian Alan Eichler, who has just compiled the new package, “Hey, Lawdy Mama. Rare Recordings: 1938-1961,” for the British label Jasmine Records, describes her as “the voice that got away.” Born in Chicago in 1915, Richmond did just about everything that was possible for an African-American entertainer of her generation to do, and then some. She sang in opera, vaudeville, big bands, and became a star of the nascent genre of R&B. She also had a featured role in a hit Broadway show (“Are You With It”) and a memorable number in a big Hollywood musical (“Carolina Blues,” in which she co-stars with dance legend Harold Nicholas), all before settling in France and becoming an even bigger star in postwar Europe. Disc One contains Richmond’s work with swing bands, starting, remarkably enough, with Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra — she was, in fact, the first African-American vocalist to tour and record with a white band — and then Cab Calloway and Andy Kirk. The seven tunes with reed virtuoso Dorsey are a lovely microcosm of the multicultural diversity of the swing era: “Joseph, Joseph,” the hit adaptation of an older Yiddish song, “Yossels, Yossels”; a comedy rhumba by Johnny Mercer, “The Weekend of A Private Secretary”; a Tin Pan Alley torch tune that touches on the blues, “I Can’t Face the Music”; two numbers by Duke Ellington, starting with the classic “I Let A Song Go Out of My Heart”; and another touching saloon song, “I Haven’t Changed A Thing.”Still, the 16 tracks she recorded with the Kansas City-born Andy Kirk and his band are perhaps her hardest-swinging. On “Wham,” as well as two variations on the fast blues that would become her signature, “47th Street Jive (Hey Lawdy Papa)” and “Hey Lawdy Mama,” she shows she has a voice that, more than any other singer with the possible exceptions of Ella Fitzgerald and Anita O’Day, was designed by God for the sole purpose of propelling lindy-hoppers across the ballroom floor. The second volume is almost entirely from Richmond’s European sessions, starting with a remarkable date at Stockholm directed by an equally remarkable Danish violinist, Svend Asmussen. Here, Richmond’s output is distinguished by even more swinging genre hopping: She and the Scandinavian group do a jazzy reinterpretation of Lefty Frizzell’s country-and-western standard, “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time,” along with French pop songs like the riveting “La Danse Du Baiser” and Charles Aznavour’s dramatic “Call of the Wild.”There are also two French adaptations of contemporary show tunes, “Amour, Castagnettes Et Tango (Hernando’s Hideaway),” a Broadway approximation of an Argentine tango, and “Stranger In Paradise,” a Shubert alley appropriation of a Russian opera. There’s a segment of old time jazz standards in new arrangements by the rising orchestrator-conductor Quincy Jones, and a really charming quartet of songs from “Porgy and Bess” also delivered in French. Various aspects of Richmond’s life and work offer parallels to other larger-than-life female singer-entertainers of her approximate era, such as Mildred Bailey, Mae Barnes, and Velma Middleton, all of whom used their roly-poly physical stature as a vehicle for comedy, and especially Helen Humes, who made a comparable transition to R&B from big bands. There was no one like Richmond, though, with an energy and a high style all her own. Any one of the 57 tracks on this essential compilation will have you dying to meet her in the bottom — or anyplace she wants.

Haven’t Heard of June Richmond?

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