DJ Lucky Lang

Above is a scan of the cover of the Lucky Lang Original Song Folio. My copy is in poor, maybe even vile condition. It's been stored in a moist place, it's biodegrading at the spine and bears strange brown and purple stains related to the moisture. It could be mold, possibly Stachybotrys leprosus. The staples are even rusted and have further stained the pages. It's a tad gross really. But the hand notations on the cover make up for all that. I had to soak it in bleach to proceed.

This copy is  Book #1, and I've seen that there actually is a Book #2. Interestingly it's cover is identical except for the "No. 2" text. Both editions list the following radio stations: WLS, WSBA, WSAL, WDBJ, WAPO, WSB, WJAX, WNAX, WGST, and WAGA. My copy continues with hand notations: WORK, WHBB(?) WHHB, and WLBR. I was able to corroborate the WLBR reference from January copies of the Harrisburg Evening News, and the Lebanon Daily News.

He appears to remain in the music biz through about 1959 and then he disappeared. In this songbook is a very short biography. I'll paraphrase: Lucky was born in Georgia on January 27th 1913. He's 5 foot 9 inches tall, and has brown hair and brown eyes. He didn't finish medical school but did take music lessons from Bob Burns in his home town.  The first radio station he played on was 740 WSB-AM in his home town where he teamed up with Chuck Swain.

So we can infer from this that Lucky is from Atlanta, or at least near Atlanta. Chuck Swain is much better known Lucky. Swain also played on WLS with Langdon L. Howe on the Smile-A-While program, and the National Barn Dance as the Blue Grass Boys. In the folio Lucky refers to it as the Blue Ridge Boys. One may be wrong, or perhaps both are right. But it's clear that Langdon L. Howe is Lucky Lang.  After they parted ways, Swain later played on WZIP in Covington, KY back in 1948.  He was a member of the Fiesta gang which also included Shorty Hobbs.  An October 1943 Billboard article notes that Swain had come to WLS from WLAV in Grand Rapids, MI, and Lang had come from WAPO in Chattanooga, TN.

Also notable about the song book; Lucky isn't listed as the author on all the lyrics. Some are unattributed, but the last few are by Mary Jean Shurtz. She was a well-known another country song-writer, and poet, but more importantly one of the earliest journalists in country music. So in addition to writing songs for performers such as Webb Pierce, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and Hank Snow. In 1948 she signed an exclusive deal with Hill & Range Songs Inc. You may not know the name but they also controlled much of Elvis Presley's early recorded material. She has a short bio at Hillbilly-music.com HERE.

Excluding their mutual levels of concurrent fame, the only connection I've found between them is radio station WORK-AM. WORK is a very annoying station to research as it's one of those rare call signs which is a common word. 1000 WORK-AM signed on in York, PA on March 17, 1932. After NARBA in 1941 they moved to 1350.  Shorty Fincher and His Prairie Pals of WORK-AM played Shurtz's songs and even published her poems in their song books. When Lucky Lang's folio was printed he was playing with the 101 Ranch Boys who were also based in York PA and reputedly played at WORK-AM twice daily in 1947.  But their publicity photos usually bear the  900 WSBA-AM calls around the mic.  But WSBA didn't sign on until 1942.  It appears they played both stations at different times in the 1940s. (WORK changed calls to WOYK around 1983).  It's also possible that WORK is a red herring, and  Lucky thought it was just good business sense to score points with columnist Mary Jean Shurtz.

But back to 1946 and my folio: There is a notation on an interior page from 1946 that Lucky was playing in December with "Coco." The August 3rd, 1946 issue of Billboard does reference Coco...

"...Golden Valley Boys featuring Ray Myers, the armless wonder boy, headlined show at Mount Gretna (Pa.) Park, together with Mickie McKay, Pop Melchor and Marie, and The Blue Ridge Boys and Coco."

The Lebanon Daily News on August 30th also mentions Coco with the Blue Ridge Boys. Lucky Lang is on that same bill, so it's possible Lucky ran off into the sunset with Coco, whomever or whatever it was. But as far as the rest of Lucky's career, I see he played the West Coast Shows carnival in 1955 and again in 1959, then he disappears.
As for the folio, I've uploaded all 25 pages HERE

HP Lovecraft

I read recently that the World Fantasy awards intends to discontinue the use of their current trophy, a bust models after the face of writer HP Lovecraft. Their rational is that he was a racist, sexist bigot and anti-semite. One side argues that perhaps he can be forgiven in the context of the era. His racist epithet filled poems were published in 1912. This wasn't just before WWII, but before WWI and long before Civil rights. Hell, federal troops were stationed in the south to prevent "re-enslavement" until 1877. It wasn't until 1966 when President Lyndon B. Johnson abolished Peonage.

But on the other hand, there were active abolitionists going back to the early 1700s. The idea that human beings were equal and that the ownership of a sentient person is wrong is considered intuitive to most civilized people today. It's a bit revisionist to extend that expectation back to 1912, but his particular brand of ethnocentrism is just this side of vile. But in fairness I must mention that he disliked his own Human species in general as well once describung us all as "a bastard mess of stewing Mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to the eye, nose and imagination..."  So I'd add misanthrope to the list of charges.

But his contribution to the Sci-Fi cannon, and radio theater is without question. Rats In The Walls for example was published in 1924, and not rendered into a radio play until the late 1980s by Atlanta Radio Theatre Company and aired on WGST-AM.

Rats In The Walls (Part 1 and 2)

Paging Doctor Feel Good

In 1962 William "Willie" Lee Perryman cut a single called Doctor Feel-Good on the Okeh label. It actually crossed over from R&B to peak at number 26 on the Cashbox Hot 100 chart. The B-side Mister Moonlight was later covered by the Beatles. In the 1950s he had some lesser hits on RCA: Red Boogie, Diggin' The Boogie,  Wrong Yo-Yo and Rockin' With Red. These were both recorded at the WGST radio studios in Atlanta. Perryman was just a little known boogie-woogie piano man who recorded both as Piano Red and as Doctor Feel-Good. He didn't have a lot of hits He was not only a musician, but also a radio man.  It was his identity as Dr. Feelgood that he used in broadcasting.  Did I mention he was an albino?

William "Willie" Lee Perryman, was known professionally in music as Piano Red.  His older brother Rufus was a blues musician called Speckled Red. They are on occasion mixed-up which might explain some incongruous dates. Perryman had a few singles were recorded under as Piano Red.  He played and recorded with both Buddy Moss and Blind Willie McTell. He recorded with McTell at WRDW-AM. He was a self-taught pianist, and while a number of his songs certainly qualify as early rock n' roll, much of his catalog is boogie-woogie or barrel house blues. But there's something about his left hand that reminds me of Fats Domino. Today there are a few available compilation CDs which also use the Piano Red name. Wrong Yo Yo was his signature song and was recorded at least 8 times, Doctor Feelgood was just another version of it. 

Some accounts have him born in 1911 in Hampton Georgia, others as early as 1905 in Germantown, TN. He traveled a lot as a youth playing piano, but in the 1930s settled there for a while with a job loading steamboats. By 1934 he was in North Carolina, but it was the regular gigs in Atlanta playing at bars that eventually made that city his home. He wasn't yet known as Piano Red.  It was at the WRDW session in 1936 that producer Calaway  supposedly gave him that nickname. It was immediately following the success of his single "Doctor Feel-Good" that he began using it as his stage name. Because of that change, it gets difficult to connect the musician to the DJ.  But the name change clearly damaged his career prospects.  what name-recognition he had, for better or worst lay in Piano Red. Musicology wrote a bio of him with a bit of hyperbole.

"In the mid 1950s he also worked as a disc jockey on radio stations WGST and WAOK in Atlanta, broadcasting The Piano Red Show, later The Dr. Feelgood Show, directly from a small shack in his back yard."

It was a little more complicated than that. In Atlanta on WGST-AM there was a white DJ called Zenas "Daddy" Sears, who played Rhythm and Blues on a program called The Blues Caravan. Zenas was big locally, he booked and promoted shows and artists. In 1954 he left WGST-AM and bought 1380 WATL-AM and changed its  calls to WAOK. His new program was called "Diggin' the Discs" and it was syndicated. Daddy Sears didn't just play black music, he hired black DJs. Among those was Piano Red. Sears later produced those RCA recordings that made the charts. Spinning them on his own program probably helped. William Perryman did a weekday program from 3 to 4 in the afternoon. Red remained at the station until 1967, spending the last 5 of those years as Doctor Feelgood.

The good doctor stayed on the Okeh label through 1966, then languished as a nightly act at Muhelbrink's Saloon in Atlanta into the 1970s. His lingering fame led to a few short European tours late in life. He died of cancer in 1984.  Among those who attended his funeral were the Governor of Georgia and the Mayor of Atlanta.

Radio and Ray Charles

Lots of radio stations play Ray Charles today, his hits are a staple at the oldies format, urban oldies, and even some of the better Urban AC outlets. His rendition of "America the Beautiful" is played at sign off all over the country. His song "Georgia on my Mind" is the official state song of our 23rd state. ...And really, after the movie "Ray" who doesn't like Ray Charles? 

And what the hell does this have to do with radio?  In the 1940s he spent some time as talent on 1240 WFOY-AM, then just a 250 watt daytimer, but still a CBS radio affiliate. In 1948 he and his Maxin Trio did a few pay-to-play 15 minute spots on KRSC  in Seattle. KRSC actually launched an FM stick in 1947, and it was on this brand new FM station they played. After that he used radio more to record than to broadcast. 

When Ray Charles' career first began there were not a large number of recording studios around. Recording was expensive and most artists couldn't afford to cut a demo for vanity's sake. While he was on Atlantic records, studio time wasn't really an issue. But he still was using some odd ball studios. Atlantic records was an indie label. It was a move up for him, but he also became their first big artist. Ray Charles' early singles made him the bread winner for that label. Before he made it, they were nothing special. He outgrew the label quickly and moved over to ABC.

So, Ray got started in radio, not as a DJ but by recording his early singles at radio station studios. In Atlanta, Chicago and New Orleans.The classic "Rays Blues" was recorded at WDSU-AM in New Orleans in 1953 as were many other sides. I got a woman was actually recorded at WGST-AM in Atlanta (still owned by Georgia Tech at the time, ...and 4 sides were put to tape WMAQ-AM Miami. 

Not this WGST, the other one.

It was Zenas "Daddy" Sears, then only a local Atlanta deejay, got studio them time for on WGST they recorded some of his all-time classics including I've Got A Woman, Greenbacks, Come Back Baby, and Blackjack. The only reason Ray was in the WDSU studio is that Cosimo's was booked. He still managed to lay down a killer version of Don't You Know with a backing band of hired hands. More here, and here.  Sears went on to buy WOAK in 1956