The Stuff Is Here and it's Mellow

THE STUFF IS HERE (and it's Mellow) is what you would call a REEFER song. Songs about Marijuana, otherwise known as ‘Jive’, ‘Texas Tea’, and ‘Viper’ among a few... were popular in 1930's jazz culture.  Weed was legal until 1933 when it was then banned. This music was pretty much considered to be the POP records of the day... short, catchy and sweet. Of course there were songs about other drugs and booze as well. "The Stuff is Here and it's mellow" was written by Walter Bishop Sr., a Jamaican composer and songwriter. His "Swing, Brother, Swing" was recorded by Billie Holiday with Count Basie in the 1939.

There are only a few versions of the song that I've heard, initially it was the Georgia White version, recorded in 1937, that inspired me to interpret it. She was known as a Barrelhouse blues vocalist who recorded risqué blues songs from the 1930s through the early '40s including "I'll Keep Sitting on It" and "Hot Nuts", among a few.

She did sing a more popular tune that we Canadians may recognize being used in a Labbats Blue Beer TV commercial. An advertising campaign that began in the late 1960's through the 70's that was extremely successful for the brand. The song "When You're Smiling, the Whole World Smiles With You", was recorded by Georgia White in 1930 for the Vocalion label with the Jimmie Noone's Apex Club Orchestra.

Georgia White (born in Georgia in 1903) was considered a blues revivalist covering the likes of Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Ma Rainey and Lucille Bogan. In the early 1940s the Decca recording label billed her as "The World's Greatest Blues Singer".

A Blues scholar named Paul Oliver said about White "Undeservedly neglected in recent years, Georgia White was one of the most popular of the recording blues singers in the thirties. She had a strong contralto voice with a keen edge to her intonation and was a capable pianist in the barrelhouse house tradition."