Customer Reviews

Jukebox Hits 1949-1955

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Collectors of Golden Oldie hits will be delighted with Acrobat Music & Media Ltd. and their Jukebox Hits series of individual artists and multi-artist compilations focusing on these greats of R&B and Jazz: Lucky Millinder, The Clovers, Erskine Hawkins, Andy Kirk & His Clouds Of Joy, Ivory Joe Hunter, Johnny Otis, Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five (2 volumes), Buddy Johnson, T-Bone Walker, Jimmie Lunceford, Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine, Count Basie, Muddy Waters, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Nat "King" Cole. There are also multi-artist R&B compilations dealing with the years 1942 to 1956.

Many contain upwards of 26 tracks, and in some cases the collection of hit singles for the period covered is complete. Others, such as this one for Ruth Brown - the Grand Lady of R&B who single-handedly built Atlantic Records - contain just 20 tracks as it strives to deliver her hits from 1949 to 1955 (she would add another 9 to 1962). Unfortunately, although including two that were never hits for her (Sentimental Journey, released on Atlantic 905 in 1950, and Shine On (Big Bright Moon), released on Atlantic 948 in 1951), along with two uncharted B-sides, they omit Mend Your Ways which, as the flip of Wild Wild Young Men in 1953, also charted at # 7 R&B.

All the remaining 16 hit singles in this period are, however, included, with excellent sound quality and informative liner notes. Her first, in the fall of 1949, was So Long, a # 4 on what then passed as the R&B charts - the Most-Played Juke Box Rhythm & Blues Records/Best Selling Retail Rhythm & Blues Records, produced by Billboard. The record was billed as Ruth Brown with Eddie Condon's N.B.C. Television Orchestra. It would then be over a year before she charted again. But what a hit! Teardrops From My Eyes, with the Budd Johnson orchestra backing, went all the way to # 1 R&B - and stayed there for 11 weeks, spending a total of 25 in all on the charts.

The following March I'll Wait For You got as high as # 3 R&B, and in July 1951 I Know reached # 7. The Johnson orchestra backed both. No other hits ensued until the spring of 1952 when 5-10-15 Hours also soared to # 1 and spent 7 weeks there, followed early that fall by Daddy Daddy, which peaked at # 3. In the early part of 1953 she then had her first Pop cross-over hit with (Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean which, in addition to becoming her third R&B # 1 (5 weeks at the position), also made it to # 23 Pop. The studio band accompanying her featured Taft Jordan on trumpet.

That summer she scored her first 2-sided hit billed as Ruth Brown & Her Rhythmakers when Wild Wild Young Men made it # 3 R&B and the above-mentioned missing hit, Mend Your Ways, settled in at # 7. A year would then pass before she entered the charts again, this time with the # 1 R&B (8 weeks) Oh What A Dream, written by the great Chuck Willis. Yet another # 1 then followed in the late fall of 1954 with Mambo Baby b/w Somebody Touched Me, later a hit in 1958 for Buddy Knox & The Rhythm Orchids. 1955 began with Bye Bye Young Men (# 13), followed that summer by the 2-sided hit As Long As I'm Moving (# 4) b/w I Can See Everybody's Baby (# 7). All these hits were billed as Ruth Brown & Her Rhythmakers.

In the fall of 1955, billed as just Ruth Brown, she had It's Love Baby (24 Hours Of The Day) top out at # 4, while in December her duet with Clyde McPhatter, Love Has Joined Us Together, made it to # 8 b/w I Gotta Have You. It was also in late December that Atlantic released the last hit presented here, I Want To Do More, which peaked at # 3 early in 1956. This was billed as Ruth Brown & Her Rhythmakers. Of her remaining 9 hits to 1962, 7 would cross over to the Pop charts.

Ruth Brown, who also had acting roles in the TV series Hello Larry and Checking In, appeared in the films Under The Rainbow and Hairspray, and did several Broadway and Lss Vegas musicals, was inducted into the R&R Hall Of Fame in 1993, some 8 years after its inception, and the Blues Hall Of Fame in 2002, a full 22 years after it came into being. And so eight years and 22 years too late in my estimation.