Oh, well

[Wilson Gray]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:57 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Oh, well
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>
> An issue of Billboard magazine on July 11, 1953 mentions a song with
> the title "That's Fat Jack" in the Rhythm & Blues listing on Page 22.
> I do not know if this has any connection to the Tammy James song.
>
> JIMMIE LEE AND ARTIS
> Â That's Fat Jack
> Â  MODERN 907 - Ditty built around a
> Â  routine riff is waxed effectively.
> Â  (Modern, BMI)
> Â That's What Love Can Do
> Â  So - so warble of a slight ballad.
> Â  (Modern, BMI)
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=WwoEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Fat+Jack%22#v=snippet&
>

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As a matter of fact, it was actually Jimmie Lee & Artis that I was
researching. During The War and till the early '50's - 1945-55 - they
were very big in the 'hood. And, they being fellow East-Texans from
Longview (according to a 1952 issue of Billboard citing them as
_Jimmy_ Lee and Artis Brewster, they were from Texarkana; but, in
cases like this, it's hard to know; perhaps they were born in Longview
and lived in Texarkana or vice-versa), my mother's birthplace, I was
interested in whether any of their music was still to be found. I
wasn't looking for That's Fat, Jack, but I came across it as you cite
it and I  found it re-recorded as part of a compilation-album by them
and other now-a-days nobodies, available on Amazon for under ten
bucks.

Is the *possible* acquisition of knowledge worth the *certain*
expenditure of ten bucks?

Well, *is* it, punk?

Of course, it's the words that matter. But the only such title that I
found with words is the one by Tammy. Since it was reasonably likely
that her record would turn out to be a cover of the one by Jimmy Lee &
Artis, I checked it out.

I was sixteen in 1953 and, by that time, the duo had become as
old-school as MC Hammer is today. The music now known and "R&B,"
"doowop," and "(golden) oldies" was fresh and new and where it was at,
when I was a teener. I remember Jimmie Lee & Artis primarily as
popular with those who were teenagers and young adults when I was
still a pre-adolescent - though they were still popular enough that
they were in EBONY's version of The Top Forty well into the '50's;
clearly, if they were cited by Billboard in *1953*, they must have
been *extremely* popular! - and I have no memory of any particular
song by them, including That's Fat, Jack.

The name _Artis_ was so rare that Saint Louis's black DJ pronounced it
"ar-TEZZ." Only when i saw the name in EBONY in the '50's did I learn
the spelling. (Their record was no.2 after Howling Wolf's "I'm Gonna
Kill That Woman" on the blues chart. The title of Howling's song
caught my buddy's attention and he pulled my coat to it. As a
consequence, I happened to note the spelling of "ar-TEZZ."

However, if the name was stressed on the second syllable, then
"ar-TEZZ" was and is the proper BE pronunciation.

_Artis_ is still very rare and not just in Saint Louis. It also
appears to be a masculine name. At the time, I assumed that Jimmie Lee
was the stud and Artis the figure, solely because of the
sexistly-natural assumption that the man's name would always be first.
(April and Nino come to mind as a counterexample. But they were white.
OTOH, there was the black duo, Mickey and Sylvia, not to mention the
white duo, Dick and DeeDee and also the black duo, Shirley and Lee.
Youneverknow.) There's really no way to tell which was which, without
serious research into the matter. It's not even clear whether they
were [Jimmie Lee and Artis[Brewster]] or [[Jimmie Lee] and [Artis
Brewster]].

FWIW, on the label of their record on YouTube and on eBay, it's
_Jimmie_ and not _Jimmy_.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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