Flashbacks 1920's - 1940's Novelty Songs Of An Era Long Gone Bye. Drug Songs. The Harlem Hamfats was a Chicago jazz band formed in 1936. Initially, they mainly provided backup music for jazz and blues singers, such as Johnny Temple, Rosetta Howard, and Frankie Jaxon for Decca Records,[1] but when their first record "Oh Red" became a hit, it secured them a Decca contract for fifty titles.[2] They launched a successful recording career performing danceable music.