Olde-time music on KAOS: Imbibing the Audiological Phantasmagoria of Dr. T. G. Hokum

Dr. Thaddeus Gideon Hokum pulls the microphone to his face and addresses the audience:

Friends, let’s tie it all up with an Invigorating Medicinal to keep you cruising through the week ahead. It’s a powerful dose of swift, lickety-split blues and raucous, kickin’ jazz that will keep you fleet of foot, brighten your smile, and keep your mind topped up with mirth! Hokum’s High Steppin’ Stimulant – oh friends, let’s all feel the wonderful working power!

Big Bill Broonzy and his band strike up the “Stove Pipe Stomp.” They are followed by the Five Hot Chocolates playing “Alabama Shuffle,” Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five with “Sugarfoot Strut,” and Slim Lamar’s Orchestra jumping into “Memphis Kick Up,”

Dr. Hokum busies himself with paperwork in the KAOS studio – filling out play sheets, queing up songs, organizing his papers. It’s another Saturday afternoon of “the finest in old time blues, country, jazz and gospel with a dash of the exotic.”

A few of the names are familiar: Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Bob Wills. But most are virtual unknowns for all but aficionados of music from the 1920s and 1930s. As you may have guessed by now, or you may know because you are a listener, Dr. Hokum’s weekly medicine show peddles the old-time music at the roots of American culture.

The good Doctor punches in his last tune, packs up his gear, and heads out of the studio. We sit down for a chat.

“I love all kinds of music” he says. “I find the older I get, the older the music I listen to.”

He is beginning his seventh year of his show at KAOS. “I started doing radio in 1982 while at Evergreen,” he reminisces. “First I just did public affairs stuff. Eventually, I started doing “Hello Olympia” with my wife (now ex-) and son.”

“I remember Schmedly!,” I exclaim.

“He’s all growed up now,” says the Doctor. “I did a mix tape ‘Rambler, Rounders, and Hayseeds’ with a mixture of jazz, blues, and country. My friends liked the mix of styles, so I kept on collecting. After Hello Olympia went dark, I became the Doctor, and my Medicine Show was born.”

I was hoping I could see his collection. Was he a big collector, like the legendary R. Crumb? “Unfortunately no,” says the Doctor. “It’s all on CDs.”

Then where does the music come from? “Well, there’s Joe Bussard, the king of record collectors. And Jack White has just released a huge Paramount collection, but I don’t have the $500 for it! And there’s the Yazoo series of blues and country – it’s early American rural music. There are other small labels, too, like Old Hat, Dust-to-Digital, and Tompkins Square.”

The Doctor warms to his subject. He leans back in his chair and his eyes glitter behind his glasses. “Music is routine now. But then it was new, musicians were exploring new things. EMI, a British company, dispatched people around the world to record musicians. Paramount Records was a originally a furniture company. Then they made Victrolas, and from there they started recording. They have fantastic recordings of early African-American blues musicians, like Charley Patton.”

I mention his disclaimer about the scratchy sound on the records. Don’t they have technology to clean up the sound?

“If you take out the scratches, you lose the quality of the music too. Back then they recorded straight through, it was all the first take.”

“Laying down tracks started in the 1960’s, didn’t it?,” I ask.

“That’s right! Those old recordings were great, it was just the record players that were poor. But the records get worn out – it’s hard to find them in good shape after all these years.”

Sadness enters the Doctor’s voice. “Paramount was a tragedy. They went bankrupt in the 1930s during the Depression. So much was lost! The masters were melted down for the metal in the War. Records were dumped in the river.” He sits up and points in the air. “But then there were the Great Explorers!  They walked the streets canvassing homes, knocking on doors to find old records. Unknown records are found in people’s attics, or in estate sales.”

What’s it like to do his show? “I start Sunday afternoon, pull music, organize sets,  writing my comments. I have my little rules!,” he says, eyes twinkling. “I try not to do two instrumentals in a row, and avoid the same artist twice in a show. I keep archives of everything so I don’t get too repetitious. I did an interview once, but felt it tanked the show. I like the immediacy of just presenting the music.”

Does he know who’s listening out there? “I like to think people are listening  in their car, doing stuff on a Saturday, working in the garden.” Sounds like me, I think. “I get emails and phone calls once in a while. I think there’s a growing interest with young folks in this music.”

If he could get in a time machine and go sit in on one musical experience, what would it be? “Oh, any place, anywhere! It would be great to go hear King Oliver and Louis Armstrong in Chicago in the early 1920s. Or I wish I could be a dormouse at Paramount Studios when they made all those great recordings.”

We are running out of time. I shake his hand and we walk out of the studio. As he heads out the door I watch in wonder as he mysteriously transforms into his alter ego, the genial Eric Brinker. And next Saturday at noon, he’ll be back on my radio with his wonderful time machine to the musical genius of the past: Dr. Hokum’s Audiological Phantasmagoria! ◙

Listen in on KAOS 89.3 FM, Saturdays at noon. More info at kaosradio.org