the "B" side

Darryl Carter - Looking Straight Ahead

2012-01-31T12:50:00.000-05:00

When Preston Lauterbach and I booked Hi Rhythm and Otis Clay to perform at the O.V. Wright Memorial Benefit in 2008, they invited us to a rehearsal the night before, way uptown at Fred Hodges' house. I was truly in awe, as there seemed to be a Memphis Soul Legend everywhere I looked... besides Otis, there was Percy Wiggins, Floyd Newman, every Hodges brother, Howard Grimes, Mickey Gregory, Archie Turner, Tommy Lee Williams, and a guy hanging out on the sidelines who seemed somehow to be the center of gravity. I had no idea who he was, and it wasn't until later on that someone told me it was Darryl Carter. I knew the name, but it was difficult for me to place him.

At the show the following night at the (now defunct) Ground Zero, he knew just about everybody, and seemed to be everywhere at once. Even though I had just met him, I felt like I knew him my whole life.

When The Masqueraders took the stage, Darryl was up there with them singing at the top of his lungs. As I said, I wasn't sure of what the connection was, but it was obvious that he had been an integral part of the Memphis Soul scene for many years.

At the graveside Memorial dedication the next morning, he gave me his number and told me to call him. "I'm the only one who cut hits at all three major studios in Memphis," he said. Intrigued, I spoke with him again soon after I got back to New York, and started up a conversation that's been going on ever since.

In 2009, when I brought Sir Lattimore to Memphis on the fabled Road Trip, we got to hang out with Darryl and his good friend Howard Grimes. Darryl remembered Lattimore from when he recorded at American back in 1967 and '68... we'll talk more about that night a little later on.

At the Willie Mitchell Memorial Celebration in January of 2010, the impeccably dressed Darryl Carter was there in the middle of everything, right where he belonged. I am honored to call him my friend, and I've been working on this post, which I hope will shed a little light on the man and his music, for something like three years...

Darryl came up on Chicago's West Side, a product of the blues that echoed up and down Maxwell Street when he was a kid. He knew he wanted to sing and, the way he tells it, he met a guy in the Post Office one day who told him, "Son, if you really want to get into music, you need to go to Memphis. Memphis is where it's at..." and that's exactly what he did, arriving in the Bluff City in early 1965. Asking around, he heard about a funky little studio that some guy had just opened up in North Memphis, and got up the courage to go knock on the door.

According to Darryl, when Chips Moman heard him sing the Johnny Mathis number he had rehearsed, he told him, "With a voice like that, maybe you should become a songwriter!" Moman encouraged him to 'hang around' the studio nonetheless and, in addition to working on his songwriting, Darryl gradually learned the nuts and bolts of working the board and making records from him, something he remains grateful for to this day. He was in 'on the ground floor' at American, and was an old hand by the time Chips put together the 827 Thomas Street Band, and truly opened for business in 1967.

OSCAR TONEY, JR. (Bell 1011)

No Sad Song

It was only natural that one of the first songs Chips pitched to his new customers was one Darryl had written. First recorded by Paul Revere & the Raiders for their Goin' To Memphis LP, Papa Don Schroeder was the next one to pick up on it, cutting it on Oscar Toney, Jr for the album For Your Precious Love. The 1967 date stamp on this B Side of a UK single we have here places its release prior to the #22 R&B hit Joe Simon would have with it in early 1968.

John Richbourg liked No Sad Songs so much that he would make it the title track of Simon's next album. He had been sending Sound Stage 7's entire roster of artists to American since shortly after Papa Don had broken the ice in April of 1967. Darryl recalls working closely with Allen Orange as he brought in folks like Ted Ford, Arthur Alexander, Ella Washington, Roscoe Robinson, Sam Baker, Roscoe Shelton and good ol' Sir Lattimore Brown, cutting some of the best Soul records ever made in the process. With the chart success Bell and Monument were having at the studio, it was only a matter of time before Atlantic showed up. Chips told me, "I loved it every time they sent Tom Dowd down to us, because I knew I'd be getting my equipment upgraded for free!"

THE SWEET INSPIRATIONS (from Atlantic SD-8155)

Oh! What A Fool I've Been

Jerry Wexler booked Esther Phillips into American for a couple of sessions in the Spring of 1967, but things really heated up in July when they brought Wilson Pickett in with a full entourage that included Bobby Womack and King Curtis. The music they cut that Independence Day weekend (songs like I'm In Love and Memphis Soul Stew) will never die. When they bought The Sweet Inspirations down there that August to finish their first album, they cut this little known gem, composed by Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham and Darryl Carter. Amazing.

L.C.COOKE (Wand 1171)

Half A Man

When Pickett left American that Summer, Womack decided to stay. He and Darryl Carter hit it off right away, and when Florence Greenberg sent Sam Cooke's brother L.C. down to Memphis soon afterwards, he cut this tune, which may have been the first song that Darryl and Bobby wrote together. Produced by Chips, you can hear Carter singing back there in the 'Moman Tabernacle Choir' (the flip of this sought after 45, by the way, was the Penn/Oldham classic Let's Do It Over, which Joe Simon cut at American around the same time).

BOBBY WOMACK (Minit 32030)

Broadway Walk

All four songwriters - DanPenn, Spooner Oldham, Bobby Womack and Darryl Carter - got together shortly after that and came up with this unreal 45 which, in my opinion, should have been a smash hit. Again produced by Chips Moman, this record is just da bomb, and yet it remains virtually unknown. Talk about cookin' on all burners! That's Darryl who asks "Hey Man, What You Doin' Up Here On Broadway...? With shout outs to Pickett and the Godfather, this one should have been as big as Funky Broadway or Skinny Legs and All! ...except that the Disk Jockeys still had a problem with playing Bobby's records, Darryl said, and so it was relegated to the B Side of his second Minit single, Somebody Special, instead.

WILSON PICKETT (from Atlantic SD-8183)

Let's Get An Understanding

When The Wicked One himself returned to American in March of 1968 to cut his next album (presumably around the same time Broadway Walk was cut), he got together with Womack and composed the eternal title track, then proceeded to cover five more Womack tunes, two of which were written with Darryl; Remember, I Been Good To You, and this one on which Pickett is also credited as a co-writer. "I think I'll just step back and let the band cook a little bit, alright fellas?" Yeah, you right!

When Womack's third Minit single, What Is This, actually charted, reaching #33 R&B in May of 1968, the company finally sat up and took notice (we'll talk more about that one in a moment). They suddenly wanted an album's worth of material from Bobby. I'm not sure why they decided to neglect the other four sides they had in the can already on the three issued 45s (especially Broadway Walk), but the only ones they wanted were Somebody Special and What Is This. Womack cut his own versions of the two biggest hits he had given Pickett and then (as we mentioned back in 2007),"He started fooling around with a few standards with the guys in the studio, and the album that Minit finally received contained covers of Fly Me To The Moon, Moonlight In Vermont and California Dreamin'. They were none too thrilled..."As it turned out, though, two of those would hit the R&B top twenty, and the heat was on from Minit for a follow-up album.

BOBBY WOMACK (Minit 32071)

It's Gonna Rain

Getting back down to business with Darryl at that point, together they would compose some of Bobby's most enduring material. This rockin' little number we have here would be the first of the new songs they wrote together to be released, and would break into the R&B top fifty in early 1969. Check out the interplay between Bobby's guitar and Tommy Cogbill's unbelievable bass line... just top shelf stuff, boys and girls!

Bobby's next two singles were co-written with Darryl as well, the infectious Oh How I Miss You Baby, which clocked in at #14 R&B, and More Than I Can Stand which climbed to #23. All are taken from Womack's landmark second LP, My Prescription, which also contains another of their compositions, the hauntingly beautiful Thank You. Produced by Chips Moman, this essential album represents, in my opinion, the high water mark of R&B music recorded at American Sound. By the time it was released, however, both Womack and Carter were gone. I'm not sure exactly why, but Soul had pretty much left the building by the time Elvis showed up in early 1969...

When Womack returned to California, Darryl followed shortly after.

Ready to make a go of it as an artist, he signed on with Mickey Stevenson's Venture Records. Known as 'Motown West', Venture was an MGM subsidiary run by Stevenson after he left Berry Gordy in Detroit. He brought some heavy hitters out to Los Angeles with him, like Clarence Paul, Willie Hutch and Leon Ware. Opening his own studio in Beverly Hills, Stevenson brought in tight local outfit The Seven Souls as his house band, and was ready to make a little noise.

DARRYL CARTER (Venture 611)

L-O-V-E

Part of a West Coast scene at the label that included cool cats like Johnny Watson and Larry Williams, Darryl continued to write with Womack and his collaborator at Minit, Jimmy Holiday. According to Darryl, this rockin' dancer they came up with was starting to hit out on the coast, but MGM had no clue how to promote a black record, and didn't even press enough copies to keep up with demand. Disillusioned, he headed home to Memphis. Up until now the next part of the story seemed a little hazy, but thanks to my compadre Dan Phillips over at Home of the Groove, I think I'm beginning to see the light...

MARGIE JOSEPH (Volt 4037)

What You Gonna Do

In his excellent post about Margie Joseph last year, Dan put up her second Volt single (released in October of 1969), What You Gonna Do, which, he pointed out, was written by Bobby Womack. The song didn't really ring any bells, so I googled it. Although Womack's version didn't make it onto his first album, it turns out it had been released as the B Side of What Is This (Minit 32037). I found the original posted on YouTube and, according to the label scan, Womack had co-written it with Masquerader David Sanders and Darryl Carter... well, what do ya know! Once again, how this awesome track could have been left off Fly Me To The Moon remains a mystery.

Now... Margie Joseph was married to influential Crescent City DeeJay Larry McKinley, who had been producing her records down there with underground wünderkinds Wilson and Earl Turbinton, under the name of something called 'Colsoul of New Orleans'. After a couple of Okeh singles that went nowhere, he managed to get her signed by Volt in Memphis, with the apparent understanding that her records would still bear the 'Colsoul' name (so he could continue to collect on the production royalties, one would imagine). According to Dan, "McKinley told Rob Bowman... that Isaac Hayes actually did the main production work on What You Gonna Do." Hayes, much like our man Darryl, hung around American with Chips in the early days of the studio, and it's not much of a stretch to imagine that they were good friends. It makes sense, then, that Isaac would have pitched this underachiever of a tune (that his recently returned prodigal pal had written) to McKinley.

MARGIE JOSEPH (Volt 4037)

Your Sweet Lovin'

It also makes sense that when Don Davis brought Freddie Briggs down from Detroit, it was Hayes who partnered him with Darryl Carter to produce Margie (for Colsoul) from then on. They took her down to Muscle Shoals Sound and cut this killer number they had written especially for her. It would become her first chart hit, climbing into the R&B Top 50 in the Summer of 1970. Their follow-up single on Joseph, just an amazing cover of Stop! In The Name Of Love, did even better. The Volt LP Margie Joseph Makes a New Impression was so good that Atlantic signed her away from them in 1972...

THE MAD LADS (Volt 4041)

Seeing Is Believin'

While Margie was still ascending the charts, Volt put Darryl and Freddie together with Al Jackson, Jr. to produce this smooth number they had written with Mad Lads lead singer Gary Williams. According to Rob Bowman, "By this point, The Mad Lads were down to a threesome... and did an impressive job, but radio support was simply not forthcoming." Carter told me (just as Jimmy Hughes had a couple of years ago) that it was easy to kind of get lost in the shuffle during this period at Stax, especially if you weren't on the main imprint, as there didn't seem to be much in the way of promotion beyond their top selling artists.

JOHN KaSANDRA (from Respect 2602)

(What's Under) The Natural Do

I'm not sure if Carter viewed it as a step down from Volt (although I guess that's pretty much what it was), but the company next called upon him to produce the first single on their new Respect subsidiary (and the album it was taken from, Color Me Human) with a guy Al Bell had hired, Tom Nixon. It was Nixon who had built Mickey Stevenson's aforementioned studio out in Beverly Hills, so I imagine he knew Darryl well. That's Larry Lee playing that funky guitar on this one which, predictably, went nowhere. Darryl read the handwriting on the wall at that point, and decided to kiss Memphis (and Stax) goodbye, and go somewhere himself.

This time, though, he was headed for New York.

Perception had grown out of (of all things) a psychedelic-era production company started by a guy named Jimmy Curtiss. By 1969, the firm had started a record label and was looking to expand their horizons into R&B and Jazz, signing heavy hitters like Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody. Renowned Chicago disk jockey, and former A&R chief at Chess and Mercury, Boo Frazier, was made Perception's vice-president, and he was the man that brought Darryl into the fold.

DARRYL CARTER (Perception 500)

Crying

I don't own this 45 and, despite years of looking, have never even seen one offered for sale. I ripped this B Side off of YouTube, and it's great, but for some reason the flip is nowhere to be found. According to Darryl, Perception had pulled out all the stops for that top side, Never Forget Where You Came From, sending him down to Sigma Sound in Philadelphia to record it in 1971, and adding strings later on in Detroit. "It got the number one pick in the country," he said, "and it looked like it was going to hit big, but the label put all their promotional efforts behind some kid..." I'm not sure who that might have been but, within a year the company had hit the big time with King Harvest's Dancing In The Moonlight, and their attention had definitely drifted away from R&B. Darryl was on his way back to Memphis.

BOBBY WOMACK (United Artists 50902)

Woman's Gotta Have It

Yes, I know I have this up on The A Side, but I have 'repeated it here for emphasis', so to speak. As I was saying over there, "In my opinion, this is one of the best records ever made. Released in April of 1972, It was Bobby Womack's first number one hit, and the last truly great recording cut at American Sound in Memphis." The fact that they were able to re-capture the magic, and send this record to the very top of the R&B charts (after having been absent from the studio for almost four years), shows what important figures both Darryl Carter and Bobby Womack are in the history of 827 Thomas Street... a fact that needs to be further acknowledged, I think.

QUIET ELEGANCE (Hi 2223)

I'm Afraid Of Losing You

Willie Mitchell, who had worked on Womack's first two albums at American (before vowing never to return), knew a thing or two about number one hits in those days, and liked what he heard. After signing Frankie Gearing and Quiet Elegance to the label, he cut this beautiful song Darryl had written with Isaac Hayes' cohort Helen Washington (presumably while still at Stax) as their debut single. Check out Teenie Hodges and Howard Grimes. Excellent stuff, man.

OLLIE NIGHTINGALE (Pride 1002)

How Far Am I From New York City

Across town at Jerry Butler's Mark XVI studio, 'Bowlegs' Miller was also paying attention, and cut another of Darryl's Stax era compositions (this time co-written with Freddie Briggs) on Ollie Nightingale for MGM subsidiary Pride. Ollie had left Stax around the same time as Darryl citing, once again, their lack of promotion (among other things). This great side also appeared on the glorious LP Sweet Surrender, which our hero Sir Shambling calls "a must have for any self-respecting Soul fan." I concur.

DARRYL CARTER (TTC 101)

The Only Thing That Saved Me (Was The Love She Gave Me)

Back in New York, Darryl hooked up with a small time record man (with apparent delusions of grandeur) named Lonnie Kaufman. He was starting up something called the 'Transworld Telefilm Corporation', which would include a subsidiary label called TTC. He hired former Jubilee producer James Shaw (who had worked with Little Buster, and a host of others) to run the label, and when Darryl brought them a song he had written, Shaw 'took a piece' of the record, listing himself as a co-producer, arranger and conductor.

"Don Crews was the backbone of American," Darryl told me, and with Chips gone to Atlanta, he brought Shaw out to Don's 'American East', Onyx Studios in East Memphis, to cut TTC's lone release. Don told me that Darryl was a 'good fella', and he was happy to have him. Pretty funky stuff, it's got this kind of atmospheric blues thang goin' on... wonder who's blowing that harp? Despite Kaufman's (albeit dated) Big Apple connections which secured Darryl an appearance on The Joe Franklin Show (!), and a mention as 'the next big thing' in Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town column in the Daily News, the record (and the corporation) was sinking fast. Darryl knew some people at United Artists in New York, who had just purchased the industry giant Robbins Publishing from MGM. They offered Darryl a job working with Buddy Kaye in their Los Angeles office and, just like that, he was headed back to the Left Coast.

Darryl told me he showed up for work one day and Willie Mitchell was sitting there waiting for him. He couldn't believe it. They went into his office and Willie played him the record he had just cut on Syl Johnson, We Did It. They both agreed it was good (it would eventually hit #23 R&B in early 1973), but Willie thought it could be better. "I'm spreading myself too thin," Willie told him, "I can't do all this work myself. Why don't you come back to Memphis and help me out? We both know that's where you belong." He was right, of course, and Darryl knew it. It didn't take him long to make up his mind, and his arrival at Hi inaugurated the most consistently creative period in the label's history.

O.V. WRIGHT (Back Beat 628)

I'd Rather Be (Blind, Cripple & Crazy)

Soon after he got back home, Darryl told me, he decided to go over to the studio to check things out. When he got there, O.V. Wright was standing out there on South Lauderdale Street, taking a break between sessions for his forthcoming album. As we discussed back in 2009: "He and O.V. were... shooting the breeze back and forth, when one of them said something like 'I'd rather be Blind, Crippled and Crazy than to ever do that again...' Carter recalls telling O.V. 'There's a song title right there...' and they went back into the studio and found Charles Hodges sitting at the organ. 'We wrote that song together, the three of us, in about 25 or 30 minutes,' Darryl said, 'and we cut it that same day.'" Imagine?

This is just about as good as it gets, as is the album they were working on, Memphis Unlimited, which is universally acknowledged as O.V. Wright's defining work, and one of the greatest Soul albums of all time. In addition to I'd Rather Be... (which hit #33 R&B when it was released as the first single pulled from the record), Darryl would contribute the song that had been his ill-fated TTC 45, The Only Thing That Saved Me, which O.V. just absolutely nailed, making it his own forever in the process. Memphis Unlimited represents, to me, the full maturation of Willie Mitchell's 'Sound of Memphis', and it was the addition of Darryl Carter to the team that helped pull it all together. He was home.

OTIS CLAY (Hi 2239)

I Can't Make It Alone

Now that Darryl was in the house, Willie cut a song he had written with Johnny Keyes (who had been a Magnificent with L.C. Cooke, and Isaac Hayes' road manager) on Otis Clay, whose vocal approach was similar to Darryl's. Check out the amazing Rhodes-Chalmers-Rhodes spacey background, James Mitchell's punchy horn lines and, as always, Howard Grimes immaculate percussion. Overshadowed by one of Reverend Al's biggest hits (Call Me - Hi 2237), this great record never stood a chance.

DARRYL CARTER (Hi 2244)

Looking Straight Ahead

As part of the deal that brought Carter back to Memphis, I'm sure Willie had promised him a chance to record again under his own name, and they got right down to it, cutting this one in the Spring of 1973. Most significantly, Darryl shares production credits with Willie, which is something that as far as I know had never happened before, and must have been part of the package as well. Written with Hi stalwart Earl Randle and Memphis disk jockey Bernard Miller (who would also be listed as a co-writer on Ann Peebles' mega-hit I Can't Stand The Rain around the same time), this one took a little getting used to, I think, and wound up being his only release as an artist for the label (the mellow flip, Sunshine, although it had been written with Buddy Kaye out on the Coast, didn't fare any better).

SYL JOHNSON (Hi 2250)

Back For A Taste Of Your Love

At this point, Darryl rolled up his sleeves and got down to the business of doing what Willie had initially hired him to do, work with Syl Johnson. Both originally from Chicago, it was a perfect match-up, and Johnson took this great number they wrote together (which was released as the follow-up to the 45 Willie had played for Darryl out in L.A.), to #16 R&B in the Fall of 1973, when Al Green just owned the top five. Not bad.

Darryl would work with Syl on his next 45, I'm Yours, which also charted, and on Johnson's first Hi LP, Diamond In The Rough, co-writing great songs like Let Yourself Go and I Want To Take You Home (To See Mama) (both of which made the R&B charts when they were pulled from the album as Johnson's next two singles) as well as the magnificent B Side, I Hear The Love Chimes, with the rest of the Royal Studio crew. It was reviewed as a Top Album Pick by Billboard in October of 1974; "He has a style quite his own, mixing smooth vocals against funky backgrounds... While the cuts on this LP are good for the disco market, they are more than simple dance records." Indeed.

When The Masqueraders came to Memphis in 1967, it was Bobby Womack and Darryl Carter who convinced them to forego Stax and come work with them at American, resulting in some amazing records. As they told Heikki Suasalo, "Chips and Don Crews, who were the owners of the American Group, busted up, and we left. That was in 1970. We went back to Texas... Darryl Carter at American went over to Royal, producing over there... Darryl and Willie had been talking about us, and if we weren't with anybody at the time, then we could come down there and we could probably get something going. When we got there, Willie just kinda stepped aside and let Darryl produce us."

MASQUERADERS (Hi 2251)

Now That I've Found You

Actually, I think the promise of being a producer at Hi was part of the initial package that Willie had offered Darryl, and he had his sights on his friends the Masqueraders all along. Released as the B side of both of the singles they would cut at Royal, this minor keyed pleader just kind of rolls along until it gets under your skin and takes you there with it. Written and produced by Darryl, it is as far as I can tell, the first time anyone but Willie Mitchell received a sole production credit on a Hi 45.

MASQUERADERS (Hi 2264)

Wake Up Fool

This fantastic record here is one of the best things ever cut on South Lauderdale Street. Written by the group, and produced by Darryl, that's the great Sam Hutchins (who had those two awesome AGP releases under his own name) on the lead vocals. Were these guys great or what? With Charles Hodges and Howard Grimes just locked in, this one is definitely in the pocket! "At Hi they were basically just concentrating on Al Green," Tex Wrightsill told Soul Express, "so we got lost in the shuffle." They would sign with Isaac Hayes' new HBS label soon after this killer record got lost as well.

ANN PEEBLES (Hi 2271)

Do I Need You

Darryl Carter had become an integral part of Willie Mitchell's songwriting team at Hi, and got together with Don Bryant and Ann Peebles to compose this one which, despite (or maybe because of) it's similarity to I Can't Stand The Rain stalled at #57 on the R&B Hot 100 in the Summer of 1974. According to John Ridley, "DJs and some commentators were beginning to say that Mitchell's productions had become formulaic... that all the releases on Hi sounded the same.

WILLIE CLAYTON (Pawn 3802)

It's Time You Made Up Your Mind

"Part of the response to this was to set up a new label... so Pawn Records was born." Willie brought in the Bradley brothers' tight band (and subject of the ongoing Case Seven over on Soul Detective) The Memphians for the label's inaugural release, then brought in a young kid named Willie Clayton to cut this solid soul belter that Darryl, Don Bryant and Earl Randle wrote for him. Still sounding pretty much like those aforementioned 'formulaic' Hi releases, it didn't get much airplay at the time.

SILK STORM (Pawn 3805)

Love Will Make You Feel Better

Going for that seventies falsetto Blue Magic type of vocal group sound on this one, Willie tried changing things up a bit by calling on Hi Rhythm bassist Leroy Hodges to produce this Bryant/Carter collaboration he had already cut on Quiet Elegance earlier in the year. Neither record charted, and at this point, I think Darryl began to question his place in the organization. With The Masqueraders gone, and no apparent plans to continue to cut him as an artist or use him as a producer, it looked like it was time to move on... again.

Things were changing in Memphis, and Darryl knew it. American was already boarded up and, within a year, the mighty Stax Empire would fall as well. Shortly after that, Willie sold Hi to the highest bidder, and things were never quite the same... "If I worked there, they went out of business," he told me. He moved around a bit, and continued to write. As we've seen, he has composed songs with some of the greatest names in the business, as well as others we haven't mentioned, like Don 'Juan' Mancha and Sir Mack Rice. In a way, perhaps that has been his greatest strength, the rare ability to truly collaborate with other people, and create something greater than the sum of its parts. This last number I offer you here may just be the one that Darryl is most proud of.

DARRYL CARTER & the ATLANTA UNDERGROUND (from HCD 002)

Baby Use A Dime

Back when he was working at Robbins Publishing in California, he noticed that one of his heros, Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Otis Blackwell, was a client. He came into the office one day and Darryl said "We should write a song together," to which Otis replied, "OK, how about right now?" and the two of them sat down at the piano and knocked this one out. Incredible. Darryl said he's been saving it for the right artist all these years, and finally cut it himself on an album of his songs that he put together "sort of as a collection of demos," ...And Then I Wrote in 1995.

Darryl is still going strong, and just kind of knocked me out that night in Memphis, when we hung out with Sir Lattimore at Howard Grimes' house in 2009:

Darryl Carter is awesome.

ETTA JAMES LIVES ON

2012-01-21T17:09:00.001-05:00

"On the day she died it was blaring from every car radio in America..."

ETTA JAMES 1938-2012

2012-01-20T16:48:00.000-05:00

I just heard the news. Although we all knew this day was coming, it still hits pretty hard. She was truly incomparable, and we just loved her...

For now, anyway, please allow me to repost this appreciation of the Great Lady I wrote back in 2006:

Etta James - I'm Gonna Take What He's Got (Cadet 5594)

I'm Gonna Take What He's Got

Jamesetta Hawkins was born in South Central Los Angeles in 1938. Her mother, Dorothy, was 14 years old. Her father, she maintains, was celebrated pool hustler Minnesota Fats. Raised by family friends, her vocal abilities were soon noticed at their church, St. Paul Baptist.

The Echoes of Eden Choir at St. Paul's was the "biggest, baddest and hippest" in L.A., and the Church was a favorite with gospel greats such as Sallie Martin and Rosetta Tharpe, as well as with 'slumming' Hollywood types who filled the back pews. The choir director, Professor James Earl Hines, knew talent when he saw it and took the young Jamesetta under his wing. He coached his young vocal student in what he called "dynamic singing", urging her to "never back off those notes... claim those suckers, sing 'em like you own 'em!" (advice she would clearly take to heart!). The choir was broadcast every Sunday on KOWL, and it wasn't long before the little girl soloist up front became famous in her own right.

She went to school with people like Jesse Belvin and Richard Berry, and became a part of the crowd that hung out on Central Avenue. When her adoptive mother, Mama Lu, died in 1950, Dorothy Hawkins took her daughter to live in the projects of San Francisco. She made friends with a girl named Jean Mitchell, and began harmonizing with her and her sister, Abye at the rec center near their apartment. She eventually moved in with them, and they began calling themselves "The Creolettes".

In the summer of 1954, Hank Ballard and The Midnighters had a huge hit with Work With Me Annie, a suggestive rocker that would hold the number one slot on the R&B charts for 7 weeks. Jamesetta re-wrote the lyrics and came up with an 'answer song' she called "Roll With Me Henry". The Creolettes performed the tune all over town, and people ate it up. Abye, who was older than the other girls, got herself introduced to west coast R&B legend Johnny Otis, and talked him into letting her group audition for him. He was duly impressed, and offered to make them a part of his act. Jamesetta forged her mother's signature on a permission form, and headed back to L.A..

Otis renamed the group "The Peaches", and was also the one responsible for switching the syllables around and coming up with 'Etta James'. He landed the group a deal with the Bihari brothers' Modern Records, and they released Roll With Me Henry in the fall of 1954. Radio stations were refusing to play it because of the suggestive title, and King Records, who had released The Midnighter's original hit was threatening to sue Modern. They pulled the record, paid Sid Nathan off, and changed the name of the song to The Wallflower, agreeing to credit Ballard as a co-writer down the line. The song, with old pal Richard Berry playing the part of Henry, went straight to number one, spending 19 weeks on the R&B charts. A follow-up single, Good Rockin' Daddy (with Jessie Belvin on background vocals), would also crack the top ten. Etta James was in the house!

She began traveling the country in package tours like the Top Ten Revue, working with everyone from Little Willie John to Bill Doggett, Bo Diddley, Little Richard and even Clifton Chenier. She forged lifelong friendships with folks like kindred souls Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Larry Williams, and truly 'went to school' on the R&B road ("Man, I saw some stuff", she says).

The Biharis sent Etta down to Cosimo's studio in New Orleans in 1956 and again in 1957 to try and capture some rock & roll magic. Although songs like Tough Lover and The Pick-Up featured Matassa's 'A' team of crack studio musicians like Lee Allen and Earl Palmer, they failed to make the charts.

It was around this time that Etta fell in love with the suave and sophisticated Harvey Fuqua who, along with his group The Moonglows, seemed to own the top ten at the time. They told her that if she wanted to make some real money, she should get herself signed by their record company, Chess. Broke and hungry, she and her old friend (and original 'Peach') Abye made their way to Chicago.

It took three thousand dollars to buy out her contract from Modern (her last Bihari single was actually released on their new label, Kent), and Leonard Chess, who was always on the look-out for female talent, advanced her another five grand. He assigned ace arranger Riley Hampton to work with her on a song written by Billy Davis and Berry Gordy called All I Could Do Was Cry. It was a huge hit, climbing to number 2 R&B, and paving the way for the lush orchestration of most of her early Argo sides.

She and Harvey would appear together on a couple of Chess releases (as Etta and Harvey), and were also living together at The Sutherland Hotel, working on some old songs. Leonard was so impressed by what he heard that he had Hampton work up arrangements for an entire album of standards. At Last was a huge success, and both the title track and Trust In Me would crack the top five in early 1961.

Etta continued to chart regularly, with great songs like Something's Got A Hold On Me and Stop The Wedding showing off her gospel shout. She also managed to become a full-fledged junkie by this time, and problems in her personal life began piling up. Leonard Chess was always there to catch her when she fell, it seemed, and although she found it hard to trust him completely, they basically needed each other.

Leonard was jealous of the success the "New York Jews" were having recording down South, and once Jerry Wexler had his famous falling out with Rick Hall down in Muscle Shoals, Chess was happy to step in. He signed an agreement with Fame Studios that guaranteed them more money, and began by sending new label signees Irma Thomas and Laura Lee to record there. Lee's Dirty Man broke into the top 20, and set the stage for what was to come.

In August of 1967, Etta James arrived in Florence, Alabama with her entourage, trunks of furs and fancy clothes, two french poodles, and Leonard Chess in tow. By her own admission, she was "pregnant and cranky and ready to blow the doors off the studio".

That's just what she did.

Over the course of a 3 day period, "Rick Hall & Staff" (which included Gene "Bowlegs" Miller on trumpet, Spooner Oldham on keyboards and Jimmy Johnson on guitar) produced some of the most powerful soul music to ever rise out of Muscle Shoals. When Tell Mama was released in November, it just ate up the charts, breaking into the top 10 R&B and top 40 pop. The B side of that single was a song Etta had written with old friend Ellington "Fuggie" Jordan while he was in prison. When Leonard Chess first heard her sing I'd Rather Go Blind, he had to leave the room, so nobody would see him cry. It really is that good, man.

They returned to Fame Studios in December to finish recording tracks for the Tell Mama album, which was released in January 1968. Our current B side was the flip of Etta's cover of Otis Redding's Security, and was released as the second single from the record in March, rising as high as #11 R&B. Written by the great Don Covay (who, of course, would soon contribute his Chain Of Fools to Aretha's southern soul legacy), it's the real thing, baby! Recorded at the original August sessions (the same day as I'd Rather Go Blind), it just cooks! Check out the Fender Rhodes, the guitar, Etta just beltin' it out! I'll take it. The original album has been re-packaged with 12 more tracks she recorded in Muscle Shoals on her first two visits, as well as on her last session in 1968. Buy it.

When Leonard Chess died in January of 1969, Etta lost her friend and biggest fan. Within a few weeks. a faceless executive visited Etta with the deed to her house, which Leonard had held for her for years so she wouldn't lose it... she was amazed. Although she stayed with Chess (which was now owned by something called GRT corporation) until it all fell apart in the mid-70s, things were never the same.

Jerry Wexler (who has called James "the greatest of all modern blues singers... the undisputed Earth Mother") produced an album on Etta for Warner Brothers in 1978 called Deep In The Night, with both of them agreeing to steer clear of the "disco bullshit". Although it's a great record, it didn't sell much, and she moved on.

In 1980, she would team up with Allen Toussaint in New Orleans to produce an album for MCA called Changes that featured great Sea-Saint session men like Leo Nocentelli, Sam Henry and Herman Ernest. Once again, it was a great record that didn't sell much, and remains out of print to this day!

Etta continued to perform throughout the eighties, although her recorded output didn't amount to much. MCA, which now owned the Chess masters, started re-issuing her material. Ace Records in the UK, which had the rights to the Modern and Kent catalogues began doing the same with her earlier output. My girlfriend (now my darling wife) became a HUGE fan, and we went to see the great "Miss Peaches" whenever we could. At a show at the Beacon Theater in NYC in 1989, she somehow worked her way backstage, and when she saw Etta she just broke down and cried. The great lady hugged her and said, "I know, honey, I know..." .

She signed with Island Records around this time and her albums were perrenial Grammy nominees. When she returned to Muscle Shoals with Jerry Wexler to record The Right Time, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally took notice and she was inducted in 1993. She signed with Private Music in 1994, and finally won her a (long overdue) Grammy for her first album for them, Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday. She continued to turn out quality records for them for the next ten years.

In 2003, Etta was awarded her own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, as well as receiving a Liftetime Acheivement award at the Grammys. She was awarded another Grammy the following year for her Blues To The Bone album. She had become serious about losing weight at this point, and underwent gastric bypass surgery.

This past March 14th, Etta released a critically acclaimed album on RCA Victor called All The Way that has her covering everyone from Sinatra to Prince. She has lost over 200 pounds, and embarked on an ambitious tour in support of the record on April 8th. Reviews of her first shows have been excellent, and she's scheduled to perform everywhere from Jazz Fest in New Orleans to Carnegie Hall in Manhattan...

That's what I wrote over five years ago.

May She Rest In Peace.

The End

2011-12-27T22:23:00.000-05:00

When my friend and partner Sir Lattimore Brown was killed early this year, it felt like the end of something. As I stood there in the cold Florida sun and attempted to deliver some kind of eulogy for him, my words rang hollow in my ears. The March winds rose up and blew them all away. This life, this music, this very real art that Lattimore and his generation had created was fading swiftly and inexorably into the past, and it seemed all I could do was watch as it slipped through my fingers.

That's what it felt like.

I believe we are witnessing 'the end of an era' here. In the most recent issue of In The Basement (which will cease to exist itself this Spring), John Waters wrote that "Soul is in its last death throes... the great names that made the music we love are becoming ever thinner on the ground." Indeed, as each week seems to bring some more sad news...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It's like Hyman Roth tells Michael; "This is the business we have chosen..." As the 'Soul Era' recedes further and further in the rear view mirror, I think we need to continue to celebrate the vibrant and living music this generation is leaving behind them, but accept the fact that it comes from a time and place that we will never see again.

The Robins - Smokey Joe's Cafe (Atco 6059)

Smokey Joe's Cafe

Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller had made a name for themselves out on the West Coast, writing songs for folks like Charles Brown, Ray Charles and Little Esther, but it was the number they composed for Big Mama Thornton that put them on the map. After Don Robey refused to pay up when Hound Dog took the country by storm, they decided to start their own label, Spark. Although they cut some great records, it was the last one they released on the label that made all the difference, and it's hard to imagine a more significant recording than this one. As Lieber said in Hound Dog - The Lieber & Stoller Autobiography: "The Robins got it... Carl Gardner sang a perfect lead."

When friend and fellow Central Avenue Jazzbo Nesuhi Ertegun heard it, he proclaimed it "nothing short of sensational," and sealed the deal with his brother Ahmet back in New York that brought Lieber & Stoller to Atlantic. Re-issued on Atco in October of 1955, Smokey Joe's Cafe would cruise into the R&B top ten and change the face of American popular music forever. Carl Gardner made the trip back East with Jerry and Mike, and would form the foundation of The Coasters for the next fifty years, singing lead on all of their big hits. He passed away on June 12th, Jerry Lieber died on August 22nd.

Howard Tate - You Don't Know Nothing About Love (Atlantic 2860)

You Don't Know Nothing About Love

Another of the great New York based songwriters and producers left us on July 13th, Jerry Ragovoy, who was the force behind some of the greatest records ever made. He wrote Time Is On My Side (along with Jimmy Norman who also died this year), for instance, and Piece Of My Heart and Cry Baby (with Bert Berns). He was a genius in the studio as well, building his own trademark sound to crescendos that few have ever equalled. The records he cut with Lorraine Ellison in the late sixties have remained underground favorites for years, but it is his work with Howard Tate that captures one's imagination. Get It While You Can is, as Larry Grogan says,"an example of all that was great about 60's Soul... alongside great soul ballad tours de force like Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness and James Carr’s Dark End of the Street"

I couldn't agree more, and it is Tate's Verve material that deservedly gets the most attention. This great B Side we have here however, cut for Atlantic in 1972 after Jerry Wexler picked up Howard's contract, is right up there in the same league, in my opinion. It's kind of been 'under the radar', as it didn't sell much at the time, and comes from the period when Atlantic's promotional singles were double A sided affairs, with the 'plug' (in this case, She's A Burglar, which sank like a stone) in stereo and mono. Both sides were taken from the excellent LP Howard Tate, which would soon be deleted as well, as Atlantic's focus had pretty much shifted away from its Soul artists by then.

In any event, this great Ragovoy written and produced number would surface years later as the cornerstone of Irma Thomas' excellent Rounder LP The Way I Feel. The reunion of Howard and Jerry for the 2003 album, Rediscovered, is one of the great stories to come out of this whole Soul revival thing, and I'm thankful to the folks at the Ponderosa Stomp for making it possible for me to have seen him perform live. He was awesome. Howard Tate passed away on December 2nd.

Howlin' Wolf - Three Hundred Pounds of Joy (Chess 1870)

Three Hundred Pounds of Joy

What Can I Say? The Wolf's high voltage delivery of some of Willie Dixon's greatest lyrics ever make this one of my favorite records of all time (there are those who would tell you it's actually my 'theme song'). Be that as it may, it is Hubert Sumlin's stinging, incisive guitar work that keeps it from ever leaving the ol' jukebox. Released in 1963, it is Hubert's clean tone that launched the British invasion, and is (as he would gladly tell you himself) the place where Eric Clapton got it from. After Wolf died in 1976, Hubert went on to get some of the recognition he deserved, and was a fixture on the 'Blues Circuit', where I caught him every chance I got. The last time I saw him was at the Crawfish Fest out in New Jersey a few years ago, where I took my kids by the hand and planted them in front of the stage. "Remember this moment," I told them, "this man is living history." Hubert Sumlin left us on December 4th.

Please join me in saying goodbye to those who have gone on to glory before us here in 2011:

SIR LATTIMORE BROWN

BENNY SPELLMAN

WARDELL QUEZERGUE

J. BLACKFOOT

HOWARD TATE

DOBIE GRAY

BOBBY PURIFY

JERRY LIEBER

JERRY RAGOVOY

CARL GARDNER

BOBBY ROBINSON

HUEY P. MEAUX

RANDY WOOD

MARVIN SEASE

GIL SCOTT-HERON

GENE McDANIELS

JIMMY NORMAN

HUBERT SUMLIN

PINETOP PERKINS

DAVID 'HONEYBOY' EDWARDS

GEORGE 'MOJO' BUFORD

WILLIE 'BIG EYES' SMITH

BIG JACK JOHNSON

SYLVIA ROBINSON

FAYE TREADWELL

HEAVY D

NICK ASHFORD

RALPH MacDONALD

GLADYS HORTON

DON MANCHA

ESTHER GORDY EDWARDS

MARV TARPLIN

ERNEST KELLEY

ALPHONSO MIZELL

LOLEATTA HOLLOWAY

ANDREA TRUE

CLAY HAMMOND

CORNELL DUPREE

CALVIN SCOTT

EDDIE KIRKLAND

HENRY LEE 'SHOT' WILLIAMS

HERMAN 'ROSCOE' ERNEST III

ISAAC BOLDEN

JOHN BERTHELOT

LARRY HAMILTON

COCO ROBICHEAUX

MANUEL GALIBÅN

CLARENCE CLEMONS

ALTON 'BART' HOLLOWELL

PHOEBE SNOW

AMY WINEHOUSE

VESTA WILLIAMS

AL GREEN

MELVIN SPARKS

ODELL BROWN

RAY BRYANT

GEORGE SHEARING

SNOOKY YOUNG

SAM 'EARTHQUAKE' BOOKER

CLARENCE MURRAY

JESSY DIXON

DeLOIS BARRETT CAMPBELL

ROSZETTA JOHNSON

ALAN RUBIN

JOHN WALKER

SEYMOUR ROSENBERG

SKIP McQUINN

CHARLIE FACH

LEROY HURTE

DON KIRSHNER

FRANK DRIGGS

BOBBY POE

MACK SELF

DON DeVITO

ALEX STEINWEISS

OWSLEY STANLEY

May They Rest In Peace.

Jimmy Donley - Santa! Don't Pass Me By (Tear Drop 3007)

2011-12-22T21:28:00.000-05:00

Santa! Don't Pass Me By

If you know anything about me, you know that I don't believe in coincidences. Every once in a while something happens that kind of spooks me, because it just feels like it was meant to be... I was flipping through some 45s this afternoon, trying to put something together for my annual year end post, where I try to honor some of the folks who have gone on before us.

One of those people was my friend Huey P. Meaux who passed away on April 23rd. No matter what you may have thought of him, he was truly an American original, and an indomitable force in the music industry for many years. Many of the records he cut along the way will live on forever. He cared deeply about that legacy, I think, as witnessed by the fact that he had his own headstone engraved and installed years before he was called upon to lie beneath it. "Producer Extrordinaire," it reads, "Did it My Way! No Regrets! Love Ya - Bye Now!" On the back, he lists the names of the people who stood by him and remained in his corner while he was in prison, among them the two men he considered his brothers, Jerry Wexler and Shelby S. Singleton.

I was introduced to the Crazy Cajun by another record man, Chuck Chellman. We'd spend hours on the phone sometimes, while Huey told me his stories. Some of the most amazing ones had to do with Jimmy Donley. Meaux had signed Jimmy to his fledgling Tear Drop label after Decca let him go in 1962. Donley was a violent, wife-beating drunk who also happened to be a genius, writing some of Fats Domino's best records in the 1950s. He was a household name in those days on the Gulf Coast, and songs like his own Born To Be A Loser spoke the lovesick language of the Cajun Prairie. By the time Huey signed him, Donley was spinning out of control, and was basically homeless. After his mother died in early 1963, Huey found him seriously drunk, hysterical and playing guitar at her graveside. He cleaned him up and got him a hotel room, telling him to get some sleep, and that he'd see him in the morning. Only by the time the morning rolled around, Donley had hooked up a hose to the exhaust pipe of his car and killed himself. "I cried like a baby," Huey told me, "the more talent they have, it seems like they have a little tornado running inside their head..."

Now, as some of you know, my kids and I put together a Christmas CD that we send out to family and friends every year. In 2006, before I met Huey Meaux, or had any clue who Jimmy Donley was, we included this incredible song you're listening to now on the CD. It has grown to be one of our all-time favorites and gets played to death around here every December. I'll be honest with you though, I still never put two and two together until I looked up the Sunny and the Sunliners 45 I was going to use next week in the Tear Drop discography I found on Wikipedia, and saw this record on there. It stopped me in my tracks, man, and I knew I had to post just one more Christmas song. Huey would have wanted me to...

One of the conditions of his parole was that, in addition to being required to wear an ankle monitor, Huey was not allowed to have a computer. He was, however, heavily into his Fax Machine, and I miss the cryptic typewritten notes that would show up unannounced at all hours of the day and night. The last one I received from him was on New Year's Day:

March 4th was the date that his parole was due to expire, and the ankle monitor was to be removed. The last time I spoke with him was on his 82nd birthday, March 10th. He sounded weak, and had been confined to a sick bed when they came to take the monitor off the week before. He never got up again.

The Ramsey Lewis Trio - Mary's Boy Child (Cadet 5662)

2011-12-14T17:23:00.005-05:00

Mary's Boy Child

The Ramsey Lewis Trio came roaring up out of Chicago in the early sixties and brought their unique style of cool Jazz into the mainstream of popular culture. They busted things wide open when their swingin' cover of (the recently deceased) Dobie Gray's The "In" Crowd climbed higher on the charts than the original ever did, parking itself at #2 R&B for three weeks in the Summer of 1965 (only kept from the top slot by the Godfather's monster, Papa's Got A Brand New Bag).

The Trio would continue to chart for the rest of the decade with their hip renditions of current hits. This movin' and groovin' take on a traditional Christmas song we have here was released as the flip of My Cherie Amour in 1970 (go figure). It's hard to say enough about the importance of a group that has given us both Young-Holt Unlimited and Earth, Wind & Fire, and has remained current right into the present day. The Great Performer marches on!

...and now, as the usual insanity around here is about to be taken to the next level, please allow me to extend my wishes to you and your family for a happy and a healthy Holiday Season. I hope Santa treats you good!

J. Blackfoot - Hiding Place (Sound Town 15)

2011-12-01T10:42:00.013-05:00

Hiding Place

I first met 'Foot' in 2007, when he stopped in at the studio to see Willie Mitchell the day before the Soul Children reunion at the 50 Years of Stax concert in Memphis. With his ebullient personality and infectious smile, he soon had all of us in stitches as he poked fun at Pop and just about everyone else he could think of. He was just kind of larger than life, if you know what I mean, and it was a moment I will never forget. That 'Star Quality' shone through his set with the Soul Children the next day, but I don't think I fully appreciated what an incredible singer he was until he positively channeled O.V. Wright at Willie's Memorial Celebration a few years later...

I know I included most of this in the video I put up back then, but it was honestly one of the greatest 'Deep Soul' performances I have ever witnessed. When Percy Wiggins told me in October that 'Foot was suffering with cancer, it just kind of knocked me down. He was so full of life.

Rest In Peace, Soul Man.

The Bo-Keys featuring John Gary Williams - Congratulations (Norton 9659)

2011-10-18T12:30:00.018-04:00

Congratulations

The Bo-Keys are the real deal. Here in this post Willie Mitchell era, this is the place where Memphis Soul lives.

Fresh off their triumphant appearance at this year's Ponderosa Stomp, where they provided the soundtrack to their Tribute to Stax and Memphis Soul, backing up such luminaries as Sir Mack Rice, Eddie Floyd, William Bell and their good friend Otis Clay, they rocked the house last night at Joe's Pub in New York City.

With the incomparable Percy Wiggins handling the vocals, it does my heart good to see that (unlike it was back in the days when he was fronting Hi Rhythm) Percy is now performing some of his own material. It was a rare treat indeed for those of us on this side of the Atlantic to hear him sing both sides of his great 1967 ATCO 45, Book Of Memories and Can't Find Nobody (To Take Your Place). At 68 years of age, Mister Wiggins remains a shining example of what it means to be a Soul Man.

I really can't say enough about how much I appreciate what Scott Bomar has done, opening the doors of his Electraphonic Recording to bring new life and hope to people like our hero Howard Grimes who, at 70 years old, is finally being recognized for the legend he is.

This sweet record we have here, on which Scott brought in Mad Lads leader John Gary Williams to contribute to Norton Records cool Rolling Stones 45 project, offered a glimpse of what he had up his sleeve, the fantastic Got To Get Back. Released last June (and available on glorious vinyl), this stellar LP features Percy, William Bell and Otis Clay on the vocals, along with Memphis stalwarts like Skip Pitts, Floyd Newman, Ben Cauley, Archie Turner, Marc Franklin, and Kirk Smothers.

As I said, this is the place where Soul lives.

The Bo-Keys are currently on tour, and will be joined by Otis Clay when they play Chicago this Saturday, October 22nd. You should go.

King Floyd - Please Don't Leave Me Lonely (Chimneyville 437)

2011-09-07T09:52:00.006-04:00

Please Don't Leave Me Lonely

HOME AT LAST - part four: Blues for the Brothers

2011-08-07T08:06:00.033-04:00

We were headed out on I-40, the well worn highway of hopes and dreams that runs from Memphis to Nashville. It was a route that Sir Lattimore had traveled time and again with John R, a man who knew a thing or two about Soul. Those drives must have seemed quite something to the mid-sixties segregated South, as a black man and a white man shared their stories and the front seat as the miles wore on and the ashtrays overflowed.

It had been about a week since I last spoke with Marion James, so I decided to give her a call and let her know we were on our way. What she told me just kind of blew Mo' and I away. The day after I had spoken with her the first time, Johnny Jones had been found dead in his apartment. Jones, legendary guitarist and leader of seminal bands like the Imperial Seven and the King Casuals, was just such an integral part of the whole Nashville R&B scene, and the focus of much of the renewed interest in Jefferson Street in the wake of Night Train to Nashville. I had been looking forward to meeting Johnny, and now, tragically, it looked like we were on our way to his funeral.

There was something particularly moving about walking the Music City streets with Lattimore later that day... "This used to be my city. This is where my music started at, but things have just changed so much, it's been so many years. It's forty years, man. The whole world changed... the Good Lord has blessed me to be here again and meet some of my old friends. I'm very saddened to lose a friend of mine just a few days before I get here, all the years I knew him. A bandleader, wonderful guitar player... I hadn't planned to be here, but God sometimes will put you where he needs or wants you to be. So I'm here for a reason after forty years... I'm just asking God to please receive my friend Johnny up in Heaven, Father, he was a good man."

I tried to visit some of Lattimore's old haunts with him that afternoon but, like he said, things have changed so much. A housing project stood on the site where Buzzard's apartment used to be - the apartment where he had 'made up pallets on the floor' with Jimi Hendrix. The address that once housed Ernie's Record Mart, where he had cut his first recordings in an upstairs room, had been swallowed up by a municipal parking garage. The run-down storefront that had been The Club Steal-Away, where he had first put the Twirlers through their paces all those years ago, was just barely standing up there on Jefferson Street, but that was about it.

We were sharing a cheap hotel room out on the fringe of downtown (the non-existent soul detective budget being what it is), and once we checked in, I grabbed the local directory and started working the phones. After a couple of wrong numbers, I was able to locate Earl Gaines, who had been friends with Lattimore since his days with Jimmy Beck back in the late fifties. I told him about our plans for a Jefferson Street reunion the next day. He really wanted to make it, he said, especially in light of what had just happened with Johnny Jones, but he couldn't because he was scheduled to go into the hospital for a minor procedure that afternoon. Sadly, he too would pass before the year was out.

I took Sir Lattimore down to the strip on lower Broadway later that night but, just as on Beale Street, the glare of the neon was wrapped around a lot of nothing... only the music was even worse. I don't know, maybe it's me, but these sort of re-manufactured downtowns leave me cold. It feels almost as if they are sneering at whatever actual history they might have had, while insuring at the same time that nothing genuinely interesting will ever happen there again. After an overpriced burger and some warm beer, we hightailed it back to the Comfort Inn.

The next morning, 'Mo asked me to take him to the 'ethnic' aisle at a local drugstore. There was no way he was going to meet up with the old crowd without taking care of something first. He told me that he had schooled himself in the art of African-American hair care back in the day, and had become the go-to guy out on the road for many an entertainer who needed some work on their 'conk'. Over the next few hours I watched in amazement as he emerged, in his words, "fried, died, and laid to the side!" We were ready for anything.

One of the nicest human beings I've met in the course of doing all of this has been Chuck Chellman. Chuck, as you may recall, was the producer of Lattimore's excellent FAME recorded Renegade sides. He has remained a vibrant and energetic part of the Nashville music scene, and was kind enough to buy us lunch at the fabled Pie Wagon which, as it turned out, was literally around the corner from our hotel. He brought along his brother Ed Mascolo, himself a music industry veteran who was currently riding high with his protégés Rascal Flatts. Like his brother, he hadn't seen 'Mo since the days of the Saturday night fish fries at Chuck's house some forty years before. You could feel the genuine love and respect these guys had for Lattimore, and how truly glad they were to see him again. His Music City roots ran deep.

We had arranged to meet at Marion James' house up off of Jefferson Street that afternoon at three o'clock. The first person on the scene was Clifford Curry. He and Lattimore (the man he calls 'the Mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee') had been inseparable back in his K-Town Silver Slipper days. It does my heart good to see that this warm and wonderful man, who has managed to continue working the Beach Music crowd all these years, is finally being recognized as the legend he is with an appearance at this year's Ponderosa Stomp.

Next up was Billy Cox, who came thundering in on his Harley with Albert King's Crosscut Saw blaring over the roar of the pipes. "I come in with the blues, I'm leaving with the blues!" he said, and Lattimore's eyes lit up as he figured out who he was. It was somewhere around in here that I realized how much 'Mo represented to these guys. Almost a decade older, he and Buzzard had kind of paved the way for them as up and coming musicians, and they weren't about to forget it.

Jimmy Church, who has remained active throughout the mid-South with the Jimmy Church Band, rounded out the bill. Jimmy was handling Johnny Jones' funeral arrangements, which were being delayed by some government red tape, so this was as close to a memorial service as we were going to get. It was a privilege for me to stand by and watch as the years melted away, and these brothers got on down.

'Big Marion', as Bob Wilson knew her back then, had become something like a den mother to the gang that hung out at Buzzard's, and you could still see that in her eyes as she welcomed us into her home. The walls were hung with all kinds of music memorabilia but, she said, there are no surviving pictures of her husband. That, my friends, is a lowdown dirty shame.

Jimmy 'Buzzard' Stewart was, in the words of Billy Cox, "...my mentor [who] was always there to help show Jimi and me the way..." He is about as under-appreciated a figure as you will find in the history of rock & roll. Everything Marion James has done with her Musician's Aid Society has been, in her words, "in honor of Buzzard". To be there with Billy, in that place, with Stewart's widow and best friend was, in a word, priceless.

You know, I don't know what I was thinking, really. When I brought Lattimore back to Nashville, I hoped that somehow he might have decided to stay. But he was too proud for that, I can see that now. There was no way he was going to show up there with his hand out, looking for a favor from anybody. I had initially offered to take him to Knoxville as well, but he wanted no part of it.

"Biloxi is a hard luck town," I told him, "there's nothing for you to go back to but a whole lot of misery. If you go back down there, I'll never come to visit you!"

But it didn't work.

Ultimately, I had to buy him a ticket for the Mississippi bound Greyhound that leaves under cover of the night. It kind of broke my heart to let him go. As I watched him disappear into the seedy bus depot, I didn't know if I'd ever lay eyes on him again.

...to be continued

The Memphis Boys

2011-06-30T08:39:00.001-04:00

The Kingpins - In The Pocket (ATCO 6516)

2011-06-20T07:59:00.007-04:00

In The Pocket

GET EXCITED

I'm heading out on a Road Trip the end of this week to attend the sold out Memphis Boys concert at the Franklin Theater in Franklin, Tennessee. I am just so like amped, bro! Woo-Hoo! They are, without question, the most under appreciated of the Southern Soul 'rhythm sections', but somehow it's just not cool (perhaps it's even considered a sacrilege) to say that they were the best. What's that, Red? Better than the MG's, you say? Better than the 'Swampers'? Better than Hi Rhythm?

Yes.

There, I've said it... this absolutely untouchable B side we have here today is a case in point. Cut in August of 1967, the staggering amount of talent in the building at 827 Thomas Street at that moment just boggles the mind. Tom Dowd and King Curtis showed up with a young bass player named Jerry Jemmott, which freed up Tommy Cogbill to co-produce the sessions with Dowd, resulting in some of the best music ever recorded at American. In addition to all of that, Bobby Womack had just recently arrived and decided to stay a while, composing this incredible song with King Curtis on the spot. They honestly don't come any better than this, folks! This was the first recording credited solely to The Kingpins, the group that Jemmott would continue to anchor for Curtis for years, only in this case it's really the American Group with Jemmott and Womack along for the ride. So, who's playing that towering, shimmering, utterly fantastic electric guitar - Reggie Young, Bobby Womack, or both of them? Hmmm...

In any event, this record shows just how tight a band these guys were, and how, as I said, they continue to turn up in the most unexpected places. Reggie, of course, came up out of Bill Black's Combo, and was the cornerstone of Hi Records for years, playing on virtually every record cut at Royal Studio before Willie Mitchell brought in Hi Rhythm in 1968. It was a studio band that would also include Bobby Emmons, Tommy Cogbill and Mike Leech at one time or another, and whose influence on Memphis Soul is simply incalculable.

You know, I've put up almost 600 45s since I started this thing almost six years ago, and I got this idea to go through them and pull together every one of 'em that featured The Memphis Boys in one form or another. Here goes:

Willie

Woodchopper's Ball

I'll Do The Rest

Prayer Meetin'

Forgetting You

Old Friend

Crying Baby Baby Baby

The Dark End Of The Street

You're Gonna Make Me Cry

This Hurt Is Real

Missing You

I Want Everyone To Know

I Was Born All Over

Ain't That True Love

I Don't Want To Have To Wait

Cry Like A Baby

Don't Look Back

Nobody Has To Tell Me (You Were Meant For Me)

One Bo-Dillion Years

(You Keep Me) Hangin' On

I'm Alright Now

Comin' To Bring You Some Soul

Everyday I Have To Cry Some

How Many Times Must I Knock

Show Me

Temptation Was Too Strong

Somebody's Got To Love You

Cheater Man

I'm Blue

Save It

Meet Me In Church

Memphis Underground

New Orleans

So Much Love

This Is Soul

8th Wonder

Burning Fire

People Sure Act Funny

Hey Little One

The High Times

I'm Tired Of Pretending

Tell Me You Love Me

When I started working on this post, I honestly had no idea how many there really were. Wow! Even when taken with the earlier American Soul Mix that I posted a few years back, these records only begin to tell the story of this greatest of all Southern Soul rhythm sections.

As their work with more mainstream artists like B.J. Thomas and Neil Diamond began to bring some well deserved attention to American, things began to change... Once the King entered the building in January of 1969, there was no turning back.

Any Day Now

Here's the number one smash hit that sealed the deal. Arguably Chips and the Boys greatest work, it represented a high water mark that was tough to top.

Suspicious Minds

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that these guys don't deserve all the accolades they've gotten over the years for being the force behind the well documented Elvis Resurrection, I just feel that these kudos tend to obscure the amazing wealth of music that got them there... and just how exceptional they really are.

After the move to Nashville, they continued to be used as a cohesive studio unit on great R&B records like this one by folks like Papa Don Schroeder and Buddy Killen...

I Wanna Be Your Main Squeeze

...and as Chips got down to business in Nashville, and brought his own unique gift to the Outlaw Country movement in the mid-seventies, he brought Reggie and the Boys along with him as well.

Just To Satisfy You

There is no other band with as varied and consistently excellent output, period.

The Memphis Boys stand alone.

Benny Spellman - I Feel Good (Atlantic 2291)

2011-06-06T09:11:00.010-04:00

"Unbind him, and let him go..."

I just got the news that Benny Spellman, who (as I mentioned just recently) was 'one of the last remaining cornerstones of New Orleans R&B' died this past Friday, June 3rd. For over twenty years he had lived as a prisoner inside a body he could no longer control, and yet he remained positive and full of life. He was an inspiration to all who knew him.

As you may know, I visited Benny in the Pensacola nursing home where he lived in 2009. I was in awe of him.

He is free now. He is with God.

I Feel Good

...here's a short appreciation of Benny I wrote back in 2006:

If You Love Her

Today's post just goes to show ya how, in so many ways, Allen Toussaint is like the Patron Saint of The "B" Side. I mean, here's a guy who was just so GOOD that even his B sides crackled and sizzled... there were no "throw-away" songs. He just couldn't produce one.

When Joe Banashak and Larry McKinley hired him as the arranger and producer for their new Minit label, at the infamous WYLD studios audition in January of 1960, they got more than they bargained for. As we've mentioned before, one of the first records he produced for them, Jessie Hill's Ooh Poo Pah Do (MINIT 607), just ate up the charts.

Two other guys that passed the audition had already had releases on the label (MINIT 604 and 606) that went nowhere. Those guys, Ernie K-Doe and Benny Spellman, were always hanging around the studio waitin' for the next big thing. As Irma Thomas said in I Hear You Knockin', "They sang background on a lot of my records, and I did the same on theirs. It didn't seem like work then... it was just a whole lot of fun to me."

Benny Spellman had come to New Orleans in 1959 when Huey Smith and the Clowns had a car accident in his home state of Florida, and he gave them a ride home. As legend has it, their first stop was at the fabled Dew Drop Inn, and when owner Frank Painia heard Spellman sit in with Edgar Blanchard and the Gondoliers, he hired him on the spot. Huey also used him on a few 'Clowns' recordings at Ace Records before he struck out on his own, becoming quite the local smash. As Banashak remembers; "He was by far the most popular Rhythm & Blues artist in New Orleans. He always was working even when nobody else could find a job. He had those teenagers mesmerized..."

When his next release on Minit (613) failed to hit, he began moonlighting at Ace, providing background vocals for people like Roland Stone. He was in the studio as usual, however, for Ernie K. Doe's next session. Toussaint grabbed him and had him lay down those deep baritone 'mother-in-law's that would propel K-Doe's record all the way to #1 on the pop charts in the spring of 1961. (Something Benny felt he never got enough credit for...) In typical Johnny Vincent fashion, he attempted to cash in by releasing Roland Stone's next Ace single "Roll On Big Wheel", to which Benny had contributed his baritone 'rrroll on's, under Benny's name. It didn't help.

As Toussaint tells it, Spellman kept bugging him to come up with a big record for him too and, partly to shut him up, he came up with two of 'em. The great Lipstick Traces, (with it's deep 'don't leave me no more's) made it to #28 on the national R&B charts in the Summer of 1962 (it would also hit #28 when the O'Jays covered it three years later...), and the novelty B side, Fortune Teller, would go on to become a favorite in the UK, being covered by both the Stones and the Who. That's what I mean about Toussaint, not only was he the producer and arranger of all this stuff, he could write great songs like these seemingly at will. Truly amazing!

Benny's next two Minit releases failed to keep up the pace, and after Toussaint was drafted in 1963, he began working with Earl King on Joe Assunto's WATCH label. Two solid singles sold well locally, but that was about it.

When Allen got his discharge from the Army in 1965, he was back working for Joe Banashak, on his new ALON label.

Benny came back too. His second single for Alon was another incredible Toussaint two-sider, The Word Game b/w I Feel Good. After the record started to make some noise down in Sugar Town it was picked up by Atlantic for national distribution. It bubbled under the Hot 100 for a while, but never did hit the charts.

Two more Alon singles on Spellman died on the vine as well, and by 1966 Toussaint had left Banashak behind and formed "Sansu Enterprises" with the infamous Marshall Sehorn. Sehorn had worked with Bobby Robinson up in New York, and it was his connections with Larry Utall's Bell Records that got their company off the ground.

Benny stuck with his man Toussaint and, in December of 1966, was back in Cosimo's Jazz City studios cutting yet another smokin' two-sided gem. The A side, Sinner Girl, is a great track, and I like it a lot... but the B side of the record (today's selection) is, in my opinion, the best thing Benny Spellman ever recorded, and a real Toussaint masterpiece. Talk about yer basic catchy tune! I'm not sure if it's Leo Nocentelli and George Porter Jr. on here or not, but how about that guitar and that bass? Whew! They say that Allen was a perfectionist in the studio, and essentially wrote out EVERY NOTE for each instrument involved. What a workout they get here (check out the horn charts)! The lyrics are so cool, and the brilliant call and response thing between him and Benny on the chorus just rocks. As you can tell, I just LOVE this song and consider it one of the absolute high points of New Orleans music. (Both sides of this single have recently become available again, along with some 48 other awesome Sansu era sides, on the phenomenal Sundazed Records 2 CD set, Get Low Down. You should buy one. [...which is now, inexplicably, out of print! -.ed])

Benny Spellman apparently only recorded one more tune, Don't Give Up Love, on the local Mor Soul label. I don't know anything about the label, or even exactly when this single was released (it's not even listed in the Benny discography on Soulful Kinda Music). The scan comes courtesy of the lovely and talented Larry Grogan over at Funky 16 Corners.

In 1968, Benny took a job in the promotion department at Budweiser, and threw in the towel on his career in music. He returned to New Orleans in the 1980s, and was performing again when he suffered a debilitating stroke towards the end of the decade. He's been living in his home town of Pensacola, Florida ever since.

Every memory lingers with us yet...

They certainly do.

HOME AT LAST - part three: Memphis Blues

2011-06-01T08:41:00.007-04:00

It was a rough morning. I was supposed to be in Memphis by 10 o'clock for a Soul Detective thing, only I had one of those cheap draft beer and whiskey hangovers that leave you wondering what the hell you were thinking about in the first place...

Lattimore, on the other hand, was fine - up early and ready to go. We headed out looking for someplace (anyplace) to get some coffee, and ended up at some gas station 'in the 'hood'. Before I knew what was happening, 'Mo was talking with some woman, who was explaining to him how she missed her ride to work, and would it be alright if we gave her a lift... I'll be honest with you, I was in no mood for it, and in a hurry to get the hell out of there, essentially annoyed (in my New York way) that he was even talking to her to begin with. At that moment I realized I had left the charger for my digital camera (with which I was chronicling this epic road trip) back at the Ground Zero, and had to turn around and drive back there. Suddenly, the woman was in the car with us. I was not a happy camper.

As it turned out, the woman worked at one of the casinos in Tunica, some fifty miles away... lovely. Well, it was on the way (more or less) I told myself, and tried to calm down. It was just this sort of thing, however, that made being with Lattimore Brown so interesting. He genuinely cared about others, and would never have left that woman stranded, no matter what I said. He was right, of course, and as I listened to them talk about the reality of present day life in the Mississippi Delta, I began to relax. This was what this trip was supposed to be about, after all, connecting with real people and hearing their stories. As we dropped her off somewhere inside the massive casino complex, Sir Lattimore had made another friend, and I had more or less settled into being along for the ride.

A ride that would take us, (just as it had the year before) up Highway 61, tracing the route Lattimore had traveled almost sixty years ago, when he left his wife and daughter behind in Cleveland, Mississippi and headed for the bright lights of Memphis. He didn't like to talk much about that, and I began to sense that there was more to that tale than he had let on. It was kind of like that, hanging with Lattimore... just when you thought you had heard all his stories, he'd come up with something that left you totally amazed. The ones he did repeat on a regular basis, however, never changed. "That's because I keep it real," he told me, and I believe he did.

One I (and everybody else) heard on a regular basis was about his arrival in Memphis in 1953, when "B.B. King was playing on the streetcorner for nickels and dimes, and Elvis Presley was driving a furniture delivery truck, wearing these raggedy-ass overalls..." Yes, walking the streets of Memphis with Lattimore was like stepping inside an Ernest C. Withers photograph, as his tales of nights spent at the Hippodrome and the Flamingo Room with guys like Roscoe Gordon, Junior Parker, Bill Harvey and Fred Ford captured the imagination, and kind of brought that whole scene back to life. Withers, like Lattimore, was fresh out of the army in those days, and was the only photographer working the crowd on the dark side of the street. I was there," Withers told Daniel Wolf in The Memphis Blues Again, "being seen, making pictures..." His formidable body of work serves as just about the only witness to those heady days that created Rock & Roll. The days when Sir Lattimore Brown first came to town.

When we took him into Royal Studio in 2008, the first person Lattimore asked Willie Mitchell about was 'Sunbeam' ("He's been dead for twenty years!" Willie told him). Andrew 'Sunbeam' Mitchell, the man B.B. King calls 'the Godfather', pretty much ran the roost in Black Memphis in the 1950s, and his fabled Domino Lounge and Mitchell Hotel had become the crossroads for musicians looking for work - and a good time. To Lattimore, it was like a second home, and his mouth watering tales of eating Ernestine's legendary chili at all-night jam sessions made me long for a glimpse of those long gone days. The person I was supposed to meet that morning in Memphis never showed, and so Lattimore and I had a little more time to poke around. I asked him to show me where Sunbeam's actually was. "Hernando and Beale," he shot back, only I soon found out that that intersection no longer exists. As the photograph above (of WDIA disk-jockey Dwight 'Gatemouth' Moore) shows, however, it most certainly did back in the day. After a little more exploration, we finally figured out that Hernando, at the point where it met Beale, was now known as Rufus Thomas Avenue.

...and there it was. How it could possibly be that this place that played such a pivotal role in the development of Memphis Music does not have some kind of plaque or historical marker is beyond me. The Domino, Lattimore told me, occupied the second floor above the Pantaze Drug Store at street level, while the hotel (which always had a few rooms available with 'hourly rates') was up on the third. In the mid-fifties, Sunbeam would change the name of his second-story digs to the Club Handy, but Lattimore was already gone by then. When I asked him to tell me a little more about that, here's what he had to say:

"Above all, you understand, I was a singer. I used to sing with a couple of guys in the army, just for fun, so when I got to Memphis, I wanted to organize me a little vocal group like I had back home with the Shady Grove Specials, only this time I was gonna sing R&B, you know, kind of like The Moonglows or The Drifters, who were all the rage at the time. I knew Louis Williams, and the Del-Rios were just starting out, but the big group in Memphis at the time was The Veltones (pictured in the Withers promotional photo above). I got together with three other guys, and we called ourselves 'The Valentinos'."

After I asked him if he was sure about that, because that was the name The Womack Brothers used when they crossed over to R&B some ten years later, he told me to "Shut up and listen..."

"We had trouble getting work in Memphis because the Veltones pretty much had things sewn up. I was talking with some of the musicians at Sunbeam's, and they told me things were wide open down in Houston, Texas, so I set out there and found myself a place in the Fifth Ward. Before long I had me a car and a regular job, so I sent for the other three guys to come on down. I was living with a pretty young lady named Lavern, and she welcomed those boys in like they were family. We rehearsed every night, and before long we got good enough so that I was able to borrow some money to buy us matching uniforms. Now in those days, there was an amateur night and talent show at the Club Matinee run by a disk jockey named Trumpet Kane."

"We were so good that we won it five weeks in a row, which earned us the top prize, a chance to compete on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts on the TV. This was gonna be our big break, I thought, only I come home from work one day, and I find Lavern crying. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I come to find out later on that J.D., one of the group members that was staying with us, tried to climb into bed with her every day when I left to go to work in the morning. This J.D. was just a nasty person, and mean. When I asked him about it later on, he had the nerve to tell me 'F@#k that bitch' I had to beat him up, man"

"One day soon after that I came home with a mess of crabs and crawfish to boil up for everybody, and I sent Lavern out to the bar down the street to pick up some drinks. She was gone a long time, so I went out looking for her. Here she comes walkin' barefoot along a ditch on the side of the road. She's cryin', and she won't tell me what's wrong. I go down to the bar, and there's J.D. drunk as hell. He tells me that after Lavern bought the bottle I paid for, he told her to give him and his friends a drink. When she refused, he took it from her, poured drinks all around, then spilled the rest on the floor. 'F@#k that bitch!' he says, and grabs for his pistol. I just saw red, man. I pulled out my knife and just kept stickin' him. When I seen what I'd done, I set out runnin'. Lavern found me and hid me in the back of the car. We didn't stop driving till we got to this little town where her people lived - Marshall, Texas, over near the Louisiana line."

"I got work in a sawmill there, but I was always looking over my shoulder, waiting for the law to catch up with me, man. After a while, a carnival train from the James E. Strates Shows came to town, and I got me a job in their minstrel show. When that train pulled out, I was on it, and I never looked back. Years later, when I came through Houston with my band, I was still nervous, but a cop I recognized from back then saw me and told me the only thing I done wrong was to not kill that son-of-a-bitch, that they'd been locking him up ever since."

He went on to tell me that the house band that backed the Valentinos up at the Club Matinee in those days included Grady Gaines and Clifford Burks, who would go on to form Little Richard's incendiary road band, The Upsetters.

Incredible.

Meanwhile, back in present day Memphis, we continued on with our Soul Detective Fact Finding Mission, and I took Lattimore with me to visit with original Memphian keyboard man Kurl McKinney, and Charisse Sales, the daughter of Memphian drummer Oscar Sales, to lay the groundwork for Case Seven (which is still ongoing, by the way). Our meeting was held at the home of my compadre Preston Lauterbach (author of the soon to be released blockbuster The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'N' Roll), who helped put the whole thing together. Thanks, Pres!

That afternoon, Howard Grimes invited us over to his house to hang out and listen to music with him and Darryl Carter, and I'll tell you, 'Mo had a blast! "This is just what it was like back at Sunbeam's, or hanging out at Buzzard's place in Nashville," he said, "When musicians get together they know how to have a good time!" They sure do, and both of these guys have gone on to get some of the respect they deserve in their hometown, thanks to Scott Bomar and Electraphonic Recording. Howard has since become the drummer for The Bo-Keys (whose killer new album Got To Get Back is due to be released on June 21st), while Darryl continues his songwriting and producing, and has just completed a Gospel two-sider on Spencer Wiggins at the studio (both sides of which Darryl sang for Lattimore and I that day - to which 'Mo replied, "The hell with Spencer Wiggins, man. I want to cut them myself!").

We went down to Beale Street later that night, but nothing much was going on. It was, once again, kind of poignant to see the glitzy tourist trap it has become through the eyes of somebody who can actually remember when the strip really had it goin' on. Wobbly Wahoos with Big-Ass Beers stumbled by as terrible music spilled out of over-priced dives and built into this cacophonous wall of sound all around us.

We went back to the hotel and got some sleep.

The next day was Sunday, and I awoke to the sounds of Sir Lattimore singing Gospel in the bathroom. Songs like The Canton Spirituals' 'Send Me I'll Go', brought me right back to Mississippi, and what it must have been like at his backwoods Shady Grove Baptist Church. This was real Soul, right there in front of me, man. I asked him if he wanted to go to Al Green's Full Gospel Tabernacle, and he got kind of quiet. He told me no, and that he meant no disrespect, then proceeded to tell me a couple of stories that stood my hair on end... I decided to leave it alone.

I left Lattimore back at the hotel while I took care of some more Soul Detective business. I didn't want to leave Memphis without paying my respects at O.V. Wright's grave, and checking on the headstone we all worked so hard to put in place the year before. While I was out there in Germantown, I stopped by to visit with O.V.'s wonderful sister Ada Bell, and left with some previously unseen photographs of him for inclusion in Reel Music's excellent reissue package of A Nickel & A Nail and the Ace of Spades.

This was also the day that my good friend 'Blade', who had opened so many doors for us in the past, made it possible for me to speak with both Julius Bradley (who, I had just recently found out, was the bass player for The Memphians), and Willie Mitchell one last time. Both men would be dead within a few months, and he knew it. I really can't say enough about how much that meant to me. Thank you, my brother.

When I got back to the room, Lattimore was already asleep, which was just as well. We had a long drive in the morning...

...continued in Part Four

HOME AT LAST - part two: Mo' Better

2011-05-17T10:10:00.012-04:00

When Hurricane Katrina literally blew the President Casino's Biloxi barge away, and damaged virtually all of the other 'floating' gambling houses on the Gulf Coast in 2005, the Mississippi State legislature acted almost immediately to approve a law that the casino owners had been lobbying for all along. They were now able to build on shore, 'up to 800 feet inland', instantly increasing waterfront property values around ten thousand-fold.

This set off a veritable feeding frenzy, and there was little incentive to rebuild the hundreds of historic homes that occupied those 800 feet before the storm, as property owners sat back and watched as the corporations moved in. There was big money to be made on this suddenly vacant peninsula, and the big boys from Vegas and Atlantic City were on their way. Citing the 'creation of jobs' and increased tax revenues, the City and State were all for it.

It's a nice idea, only it doesn't seem to work. If anything, the East Biloxi ghetto off of North Main Street where Lattimore was living has only grown more neglected and desperate, as large portions of it were not rebuilt by the absentee landlords that own the houses there. They are, I imagine, waiting for their own piece of the pie.

The house Lattimore was renting with his wife when the storm hit is a case in point. It remains a vacant, mildewed shell to this day. The building he was living in that October of the Road Trip had been given a new coat of paint and some sprucing up by some post-Katrina volunteers but, Lattimore told me that next morning when I picked him up, the guy who owned it was 'ignorant', and would rather spend the money he gets from renting out rooms on booze than on paying the light bill. He was, he said, a 'stone alcoholic' and a bad influence on him. "I've got to get out of there," he told me, and I couldn't have agreed more.

Just as he had promised, Sir Lattimore didn't let me down, and he was ready to roll by nine o'clock. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to have suffered too much wear and tear from the previous night's festivities, and was his usual charming self. It looked like things were gonna be alright after all, and I settled in for the long drive ahead, with this most unusual of passengers filling my ear with his amazing stories.

I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

We were headed for Clarksdale, that mythic epicenter of 'the Blues' that drew Lattimore back like a magnet, only this time we weren't taking Highway 61, we were going to Jackson first. I had just written about Tommy Tate the week before I left, and learned that he was living in a 'Nursing Center' there. He was happy to have Lattimore and I as visitors, and has managed to keep his sense of humor in those somber surroundings. It was an honor to shake the hand of this man who means so much to Southern Soul.

We had one more stop to make.

One of the most influential R&B dee-jays in the South during the 'Soul-Era' was a gentleman named Sonrose Rutledge. Broadcasting on KOKA out of Shreveport, Louisiana, his 'on-air' name was 'Gay Poppa' (that's him in the shades next to the Godfather in the photo above). As many radio personalities were in those days, he was also a promoter, and helped make the Port City a regular stop on the Chitlin' Circuit.

As we drove on, Lattimore filled me in on some of the chilling details of the supposed mob hit that caused him to walk away from the music business in 1975; "Gay Poppa had organized a show at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium one weekend with a bunch of acts, and it was gonna be huge, man! Just sold out! I was living in Jackson at the time and, the morning of the show, I'm packing my things and getting ready to go, and the phone rings. It's Gay Poppa telling me 'Lattimore, I don't want you to come to the show tonight, I just got the word that there's some people out here that are out to kill you, and if you come to Shreveport, you're going to be shot down like a dog. I know I'm gonna lose money on the show and everything, but I don't want that on my head... please, just stay home.' I couldn't believe what I was hearing, it was like my whole world just fell apart on me, man."

It all came to a head, he told me, when the poster printing company he had been using for years messed up on some of his advance publicity and mistakenly advertised one of his gigs as a 'Latimore' performance. The promoters, he told me, had accused him of trying to capitalize on the sudden success Latimore had when Let's Straighten It Out went to the top of the R&B charts in 1974, and this only served to convince them they were right. Nothing could have been further from the truth, he told me, "Shit, I had been out there on the road doing my own thing for twenty years by then, I didn't need to steal nothin' from nobody else. Wherever I went, I turned the place out, man. They used to call me 'The Tennessee House Rocker'! I didn't need to copy no Benny Latimore!"

"After I got that call from Gay Poppa, I didn't know what to do. I went downtown to see Johnny Vincent, who had just put that record out on me, Warm and Tender Love, and he got on the phone to some people he knew that were in the Mob back in Louisiana, and they told him that yes, sure enough, there was a contract out on me, and that they didn't like no raggedy-ass singer messing with their money. Johnny went to bat for me man, told those people that I had been out there under my own name of Lattimore for years, and that the whole thing was just a mistake. They told him all that was alright and everything, but the only way they were gonna cancel the hit on me was if I agreed to stop performing... they didn't leave me much choice!"

Sam Baker was scheduled to appear at that fateful show in Shreveport that day as well. The two had been singing together since their days at Sound Stage 7, and often shared the bill wherever they went. In Lattimore's words, they were "like brothers." After Johnny Vincent's phone call, however, he found it hard to trust anyone, even Sam. Benny Latimore had been in Jackson only a few weeks earlier... he began to suspect anybody and everybody. He just couldn't live his life looking over his shoulder. Lattimore walked away from Chimneyville and never looked back.

That is until I dragged him there. I had no idea about any of this, really, and as he relayed all of it to me in the car, my jaw began to drop. I had arranged to stop by and visit Sam Baker on the Road Trip, but hadn't mentioned I'd be bringing Lattimore. It was going to be a surprise for both of them, and after I told Lattimore what I had in mind, he got kind of quiet, and began sort of dragging his feet the closer we got to Sam's apartment. I think he associated both Jackson and Sam Baker with what must have been the worst time of his life, and had been content to let sleeping dogs lie. Now here comes this overweight white guy out of nowhere stirring things up... I didn't know what to expect.

As it turned out, both men were genuinely glad to see each other, and the memories of the good times far outweighed the bad. "God brought us together one more time," Lattimore told him, and I have to believe that was true. Sam told me he always called Lattimore 'Mo back in the day, and from that moment on, so did I... As we pulled away in the car, 'Mo got kind of emotional, "I want to thank you, Red, for making me do this. To see Sam again in that wheelchair and everything... well it just kind of puts so much to rest in my mind. I feel like I can finally make peace with all that happened, and move on after all these years."

Their reunion was a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Sir Lattimore admired Morgan Freeman, and hardly a day went by when he didn't mention him and his continued connection with the Mississippi Delta. I had booked the same room above the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale that we had stayed in with Chase Thompson the year before, and after we checked in that evening we headed downstairs to the bar. As the beers began to pile up, it kind of broke my heart to see this genuine Mississippi R&B legend being ignored by this room full of 'blues tourists' who had no idea who he was, and honestly couldn't care less.

I don't remember how we got back upstairs...

continued in Part Three

Sir Lattimore Brown - Home At Last

2011-05-09T10:47:00.006-04:00

In 2007, the Coast Transit Authority in Biloxi started up a bus route called the 'Casino Hopper'. Painting the buses with a bright green logo of a frog, they then hired Clarence 'Frogman' Henry to help them publicize the new service, in both television and radio advertisements. The campaign captured Sir Lattimore Brown's imagination and, if he told me about it once, he told me about it a thousand times; "Here's a guy ain't had but that one hit record - a guy I used to work with back in the day, and here he is fifty years later on the side of every bus, and on the TV every time you turn it on, with that little frog next to him, and the frog says 'Ribbit! I finally found a home!' It just goes to show you that anything can happen!"

The fact remained, however, that Lattimore didn't have a home. Not really. Not since Katrina had come and blown his life away. As you may recall, he had lived for a while in a FEMA trailer but, after they towed those away in the wake of that whole formaldehyde thing, they moved him to a motel. Once the government stopped footing the bill in late 2008, he moved into a run-down boarding house back in his old neighborhood of East Biloxi, which is where he was living when we picked him up in April of 2009 to bring him to New Orleans.

It was a trip that would change both of our lives, and gain Lattimore some of the recognition he so richly deserved. Before it was over, he would be interviewed on WWOZ, perform at The House of Blues, and get his picture in the New York Times! Not bad at all... he surely must have felt like he was well on his way to his own endorsement deal, and having his picture on the side of a bus somewhere. He started calling me his manager, no matter how many times I told him I wasn't. He would call me up and ask about his next gig... and I honestly tried to make things happen. Just like he always told me, however, I found out that this is one tough business. Possible performances in Chicago, Brooklyn and Mississippi fell through for one reason or another that Summer and, to be honest, I felt like I was somehow letting him down.

Sir Lattimore was still eating at the Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen, where his new found popularity had made him a bit of a celebrity. When they were in danger of being shut down in July of 2009, he went to bat for them on local television, and convinced me to run a fund drive here on the site. One night that August, he came home to find himself locked out of his room at the boarding house, and his meager possessions (including his trademark green straw hat) thrown out in the rain. He had been evicted without notice, and warned at gunpoint to never return. I never really learned the full story behind all of that, but suffice it to say that things were not good. Lattimore was out on the street, and the best Social Services could do was place him on a waiting list for Section 8 affordable housing - along with hundreds of other people that were displaced by Katrina and left with no resources once FEMA pulled out.

I knew I had to do something, but I had no idea what it was.

By September, Lattimore was renting a room with no electricity, heat or hot water in what can only be described as a 'shack' in East Biloxi. He could hardly meet even his most basic needs, let alone charge his cell phone. It became increasingly difficult to get a hold of him, and I felt like I was about to lose him again.

It was time for a road trip.

I had just started up The Red Kelly Channel thing on YouTube that summer, and I had this idea of kind of broadcasting live from the road as the miles rolled along, rather than writing about it here on the site. Although this seemed like a good concept, I don't think more than a handful of people watched the live updates back then. Even now, almost two years later, they have less than like 200 'views', which is fine, really... but I'd like to try and talk a little bit about what I was trying to accomplish.

I had a couple of things on the Soul Detective back burner for a while, and when my pal Nathan Williams invited me to hang out with the Zydeco Cha-Chas and ol' El-Sido at the Rounder Records Fortieth Anniversary concert at The Grand Ol' Opry that October, I knew I had to go. I formulated a plan to fly into Nashville, rent a car, go get Lattimore and bring him back with me to Music City, in hopes that he would decide to stay.

I got an early flight, and poked around a little in what's left of the Jefferson Street neighborhood where Lattimore used to hang out until I found someone who knew where Marion James lived. Marion, known locally as the 'Queen of the Blues', had married Lattimore's best friend, Jimmy 'Buzzard' Stewart in the mid-sixties, and continues the tradition of his 'open-door' policy with her Musician's Aid Society to this day. When I told her what I had in mind, she was all for it, and promised to make some phone calls and try to round up as many of the old gang as she could to welcome Sir Lattimore back.

The Rounder show, which was filmed for an upcoming PBS Presents episode, was great, and it was very cool indeed for someone like me to have been invited backstage at The Opry. The Cha-Chas stole the show, man! The next morning, I was up early, and went searching for the site of Woodland Studio, where so many great Nashboro and Excello records were cut. Although it houses something else now, it was good to see that the building is still standing. As I drove through Atlanta later in the day, I called Sister Lucille Pope and spoke with her about the timeless music she created there with Shannon Williams. God Bless that woman!

I made it as far as Augusta that first night, and after paying my respects at the Godfather statue downtown, and seeking out his legendary digs the next morning, I set out for a rainy drive through South Carolina on my way to meet with Benny Gordon's wonderful family in Allendale. They in turn directed me to one of Benny's southern 'Soul Brothers', V.C. Sanders, who was kind enough to speak with me about their days with Trudi Heller in Palm Beach, where they would become 'Nobody's Children'. After stopping in to visit Roy C, I was on my way, making it as far as Dothan, Alabama.

Biloxi, at that point, was only about 250 miles away, but I had one more stop to make. Shortly after I first wrote about Benny Spellman in 2006, I learned that he was confined to a nursing Home in his hometown of Pensacola, Florida. He is, quite simply, one of the last remaining cornerstones of New Orleans R&B, and one of my all-time favorite singers. I resolved then and there that if I ever got the chance, I would visit him, and I did. It was an incredibly deep and humbling experience that I will never forget. We love you, Benny!

After a post I put up about James & Bobby Purify in 2007, Papa Don Schroeder left me a comment; "This is the most accurate account of how 'I remember it all'. I don't need to write my memoirs...you did it for me! If you ever come to Pensacola, Florida, Mama Gail and I would love to have you as a guest in our home..." Hey, you don't have to ask me twice - I took him up on the offer, and after we did lunch (and he insisted on picking up the check), Papa Don showed me around his town a bit, and played me some of the amazing Gospel music he had just finished producing in Nashville. It was a great visit, and one that seems now like it was meant to be.

I arrived in Biloxi as the sun was going down, and found Lattimore at The Loaves & Fishes. He was in rough shape, babbling on without making much sense, and rather obviously in the midst of an extended bender. Within about ten minutes, he asked to borrow twenty five bucks, and disappeared for over an hour. I was not impressed. What the hell had I gotten myself into? Once he finally did come sauntering back (even more wobbly than before), I told him I'd be back to pick him up early in the morning.

"I won't let you down," he said...

continued in Part Two

Barbara Lynn - Watch The One (That Brings The Bad News) (Tribe 8322)

2011-04-23T22:43:00.007-04:00

Watch The One (That Brings The Bad News)

Rest In Peace, My Cajun Brother.

Somebody's Gonna Miss Him

2011-04-01T11:03:00.004-04:00

SIR LATTIMORE BROWN FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS

2011-03-31T09:00:00.003-04:00

SIR LATTIMORE BROWN 1931-2011

2011-03-26T23:35:00.006-04:00

Ann Sexton - It's All Over But The Shouting (77-125)

2011-02-13T13:14:00.028-05:00

It's All Over But The Shouting

Alright... the last time we featured an Ann Sexton record up here it was as part of our post about Gene (Bowlegs) Miller back in 2007, where I said:

"In 1971, John Richbourg had leased a single by a South Carolina singer named Ann Sexton from a small label called Impel for release on his new Seventy Seven imprint. He would send her to Memphis (along with David Lee, who was apparently the owner of Impel and Sexton's manager) to record with Miller, and the resulting single is one of my (and O Dub's) favorite records ever. As far as I can tell, You're Gonna Miss Me (now up on The A Side) is the first record where 'BoLegs' is given credit as the producer. It would crack the R&B top fifty in the fall of 1973... I don't have any session info here, but It actually sounds more Muscle Shoals than Memphis to me."

Well there's been a couple of new developments since then, and I figured it was time to take a closer look...

First off, our good friend (and walking history lesson) Howard Grimes told me that he played drums on those 'BoLegs' produced Ann Sexton singles, and that they were indeed cut in Memphis at Mercury's former Universal Studio on Chelsea Avenue. This is the studio that we've been focusing on over at Soul Detective, where Ed Crawley cut those great Memphians backed Joe Perkins singles around the same time. According to Google Maps, that's the building pictured above, on the corner of Chelsea and Fifth. It would later become Isaac Hayes' H.B.S. complex. I'm not sure what's there now.

Anyway, the second major development, and pretty much the entire reason for this post, is the man listed as Miller's co-producer on that earlier 45, David Lee.

At the time, the only information I could find on him was that he was "apparently the owner of Impel, and Sexton's manger..." Well, Paradise of Bachelors has changed all that. Made up of indefatigable champion of Carolina Soul Jason Perlmutter and his partner Brendan Greaves, these Bachelors have left no stone unturned in their quest to bring Mister Lee some of the recognition he so richly deserves. They are now into the second pressing of their positively excellent LP, Said I Had A Vision - Songs & Labels of David Lee, in which they had this to say; "Paradise of Bachelors... largely owes its existence to the artistic legacy of David Lee, a veritable impresario who has doggedly pursued a variety of roles over the last fifty years; songwriter, performer, producer, preacher, record label entrepreneur and record store owner, working man, family man."

Obviously a labor of love, this stunning re-issue package has been done right. Pressed on heavy vinyl, and accompanied by a full-size booklet of in-depth liner notes and photographs, there's even a download code so you can import it right to your iPod. Very, very cool, indeed - but the real star of the show is the music.

Originally released on Lee's own Impel, Washington Sound and SCOP imprints, it runs the gamut from driving Rock & Roll and Funk to achingly beautiful Soul and haunting Gospel that grabs you and won't let go. The common thread, of course, being the unique genius and uncompromising heart of David Lee. Just amazing, and virtually unknown, material from groups like The Constellations (who dared to be integrated long before the rest of the South was ready for it) and Carolina Gospel stalwarts The Singing Melleraires make this album a joy to listen to and an absolute must-have.

With that said, I don't want to try and summarize the Bachelors' hard-won liner notes here (I'll let you buy your own), but let's talk a little more about David and his biggest star, Ann Sexton.

Lee opened a record shop and audio supply store in the small town of Shelby, North Carolina in the late sixties. It was located directly across the street from a chitlin' circuit venue called the Washington Center. In 1971, David attended a show by a Greenville, South Carolina band called the Masters Of Soul, and was just knocked out by the lead singer. The wife of bandleader Melvin Burton, she agreed to come back and listen to a demo of a song Lee had written that he thought would be just perfect for her. She and Melvin agreed, and they all made the trip back to Greenville for a session at Mark V Recording.

The resulting 45, released on Lee's own Impel label, started to make some local noise, and Lee got up the courage to play it for fabled WLAC dee-jay John R, who was visiting a record store in Charlotte. Always on the lookout for new material, John knew a good record when he heard one, and leased it for distribution on his own fledgling Seventy-Seven label. Richbourg began playing it on his radio show and 'stayed on it', making You're Letting Me Down a bona-fide regional smash, selling almost 100,000 copies in the process. The phenomenal B Side, You've Been Gone Too Long, has gone on to become one of those 'northern soul' records. Both sides are included on the 'Vision' LP.

With David Lee as producer and Melvin Burton as the arranger, John R financed a few sessions at as yet unknown locations over the next few years (prior to the aforementioned 'BoLegs' sides), resulting in two truly excellent follow-up 45s. This smokin' number we have here today was the flip of the second of those, Have A Little Mercy. A cover of a song Johnny Bristol penned for Gladys Knight and the Pips at Motown the year before, this version is even better. One thing I can say about David Lee's productions for sure is that he understood the importance of a good guitar part... I'm not sure who's playing it, but check out that Wes Montgomery inspired break there - word! This is great music, friends, and when viewed in context with the previously unheard body of work (by most of us, anyway) uncovered by the Bachelors in their Said I Had A Vision retrospective, it gives you an idea of just how talented David Lee really was. Wow!

As mentioned in that earlier post, Ann Sexton would go on to chart for Seventy-Seven with the Memphis Sound of You're Gonna Miss Me, and once more for Sound Stage 7 after John folded his own label. She has remained a fan favorite in Europe, where she's been booked regularly at the Baltic Soul Weekender in recent years. This past October, she returned to Shelby to perform along with David Lee as part of their Art of Sound Festival. Now, how about that?

David Lee has continued to live an unassuming and steadfast life of faith with his beloved family in the Cleveland County borderland where he was born. Perhaps the deepest insight into his singular sense of Soul can be found in his own I'll Never Get Over Losing You, which has been re-issued on the LP. "Sure, there's a lot of heartache in those songs, but that's what sells. It relates to people. If it don't relate, they soon forget about it."

Thanks to Paradise of Bachelors, we won't soon forget about him.

Go buy this record right now. You won't be sorry.

[all photographs in this post are used with the kind permission of Paradise of Bachelors, and remain their own copyrighted property. Thanks, guys!"]

Ricky Lewis and the Afro Band - Welcome Home (Enjoy 5001)

2011-01-10T08:35:00.013-05:00

Welcome Home

New York legend Bobby Robinson passed away on Friday, January 7th. This is one of the 45s I picked up at Bobby's Happy House that cold January day almost three years ago when the corporations closed it down forever. I have no clue who Ricky Lewis was (or The Afro Band, for that matter), but hidden gems like this illustrate what a great producer Robinson was.

Here is an appreciation of Bobby I wrote in 2007:

"Originally from Union, South Carolina, Robinson settled in New York just after World War II. He opened a record store on 125th Street in Harlem, a couple of doors down from the Apollo Theatre, in 1946. Along with his brother Danny, he soon became a fixture in the neighborhood, and was on a first name basis with the performers and music industry types that hung around the Theatre. In the liner notes for the now out-of-print The Fire/Fury Records Story, Bobby goes on to say "I also got to know the fellows who had their own record labels. I remember spending a lot of time with Ahmet Ertegun and his partner, Herb Abramson, when they founded Atlantic Records. They would come up to the store and ask me for advice."

In What'd I Say, Ertegun (pictured here with Robinson and Clyde McPhatter around 1954) says that he used to give Bobby 25 free copies of their releases if he agreed to play them on his outdoor speakers. As Atlantic's records began flying out of the store, Bobby soon decided to start his own company. Ertegun told him "Listen Bobby, you are making such a mistake. You've done so well out of the record shop, you're going to sink all your money into this ridiculous idea. Please, please don't do it..."

Robinson didn't listen, of course, and started up his own Robin label in 1951. That was soon replaced by Red Robin, and a succession of others that were run by Bobby, Danny or both. Local Doo-Wop and Jazz releases on Whirlin' Disc, Holiday, Everlast, Vest and Fling would follow, and the records sold well locally. Bobby longed for national distribution, however, and made a series of bad deals that caused him to close down most of his original labels in 1957.

He would start up Fury Records (and its accompanying Fire Publishing Company) later that year, and business continued as usual. As we mentioned last month, Bobby hired a young southerner named Marshall Sehorn as his new A&R and promotion man in 1958. It was Sehorn that brought in Wilbert Harrison to record Kansas City at the Bell Sound Studios in New York in March of 1959. The record just took off, going straight to number one on both the R&B and pop charts while selling over 4 million copies (something Ahmet Ertegun had yet to do with Atlantic), and Bobby was on top.

Only it didn't last. Harrison was already under contract to Savoy Records (although he neglected to tell Robinson that) and they sued him for a million dollars. Although they eventually worked it all out, Bobby was unable to release a timely 'follow-up' record on Harrison, and he never charted again. Undaunted, Robinson took the name of his publishing company, and started up a new label at that point so he could continue to record. He would hit the #1 R&B spot again in early 1960 with Georgia transplant Buster Brown's smokin' Fannie Mae (Fire 1008).

He would go on to record classic Blues records by people like Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup, Sam Meyers, Lightnin' Hopkins and Elmore James (James even cracked the R&B top 20 that year), while making it to #1 once again with the amazing Bobby Marchan's There Is Something On Your Mind. The Savoy lawsuit was finally settled in 1961, and Bobby was able to fire up his Fury label once more. One of the first artists he recorded was a recent high school graduate from Georgia who, along with her brother and two of her cousins, made up Gladys Knight & the Pips.

The great Every Beat Of My Heart had been released on the small Atlanta based Huntom label first, but Bobby flew Gladys and the Pips to New York to re-record it. After the song began to hit, Vee-Jay records in Chicago leased the original master from Huntom, and with their superior distribution network, took it to #1 R&B (the Fury single stalled at #15). Bobby sued this time, and the courts forced Vee-Jay to pay him a nickel for every record they sold. Not bad (the white guy in the above photo is Marshall Sehorn, by the way).

We've already spoken about the circumstances regarding the label's next #1 R&B smash, Lee Dorsey's Ya-Ya. Sehorn and Robinson's southern connections were paying off big time as the record even broke into the pop top ten. His next big chart successes were to come from closer to home, however. Small's Paradise was a legendary Harlem nightspot located just ten blocks from his record store, and Bobby was a regular. In 1962 he made a bet with the saxophone player in The Noble Knights that he could deliver him a hit.

He started a brand new label called Enjoy just for that purpose, and its very first release took King Curtis all the way to #1 R&B with Soul Twist. Curtis had lost the bet, and so had to sign a contract with the new label. The house band at Small's featured Don Gardner on drums and Dee-Dee Ford on keyboards. Bobby heard them singing an incredible song called I Need Your Lovin', and put it out on Fire in the summer of 1962. It coasted to #4, and the follow-up Don't You Worry broke into the top ten as well. Robinson would close out the year with Les Cooper And The Soul Rocker's #12 smash Wiggle Wobble on his Everlast imprint.

I'm not sure what happened at this point, but Bobby's chart days all but dried up. In Jeff Hannush's great I Hear You Knockin' he says that "By early 1963, Robinson's labels were in financial difficulty. One of Robinson's silent partners, Fats Lewis, pulled out of the operation just as a major deal with ABC was about to consummate."

Whatever the case may be, Robinson kept on keepin' on, continuing to make great records, some of which, in my opinion, are even better than the hits. He had developed into a great producer, and it was said that he had 'the best ear in the business'. Deep soul by the likes of Willie Hightower and Joe Haywood went nowhere, as did cool proto-funk sides by groups like The Ramrods. He remained a much respected figure in Harlem, and often held court backstage at the Apollo. As I've said before, legend has it that he pitched Warm And Tender Love to Jerry Wexler on one such occasion. As near as we can figure it over on soul detective, the last sides he recorded back then were on his new Front Page label circa 1969... [ed. note: I've since found out - yesterday while I was digging through the crates - that this is inaccurate. Bobby was releasing records on a variety of labels right through the seventies.]

That is until he started it all back up again ten years later to record the first wave of Rap as it happened on the streets around him. This is a seminal figure, folks. This is the man that ties it all together... the missing link, if you will. He is still around, working most days at his 'Happy House', which (like we talked about a couple of weeks ago) remains an important cultural focal point in the Harlem community...

Sadly, as we've seen, this is no longer true.

From Doo-Wop to Hip-Hop, Bobby Robinson has been an integral part of the New York music scene for over sixty years. What will it take to get myopic institutions like The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and (amazingly) The Rhythm & Blues Foundation to sit up and take notice?"

Maybe now they will...

May God Rest His Soul.

Sammy Gordon & The Hiphuggers - Breezin' (Archives 1-69)

2010-12-28T08:16:00.041-05:00

Breezin'

I've just learned that Sammy Gordon, leader of the legendary Hip Huggers, passed away in Florida on December 1st due to complications from diabetes.

First cousin to our man Benny Gordon, they were raised together as brothers down in Estill, South Carolina. Benny told me that he had lost track of Sammy after he moved north to Brooklyn, until one day he saw him just walking down the street. It seemed like some kind of sign, and Benny (whose career as a Gospel singer had just been shut down by Claude Jeter) asked him to form an R&B band with him, a band they would call (what else?) The Soul Brothers. Acclaimed as the 'best band in New York' by the Daily News, the Soul Brothers held down a gig at Trudi Heller's famed night spot in Greenwich Village, where they would influence a generation of up and coming white kids who were looking for the real thing.

Sammy's excellent guitar can be heard on the 45s that Benny cut for a bunch of different labels in the sixties, like the amazing Gonna Give Her All The Love I Got, or the funky Give A Damn (About Your Fellow Man). In 1969, Benny decided to move back home to South Carolina, but Sammy stayed behind in Brooklyn, forming his own band, The Hip Huggers.

This airy treatment of Bobby Womack and Gabor Szabo's Breezin' is (as far as I can tell) Sammy's first recording under his own name, and pre-dates George Benson's smash hit by about four years. Later on in 1972, Sammy & The Hip Huggers would release the underground funk classic, Upstairs On Boston Road, which alluded to their regular sold-out appearances at the Boston Road Ballroom in the Bronx. In 1976, Sammy cut a couple of disco-era releases - Jungle Bump followed by Making Love, which has become somewhat of a cult favorite.

Ronnie Greico, another alumni of Benny's Soul Brothers, had this to say: "Very sad ...a kind and very gentle man, no anger, good as it gets, great bandleader, always smiling and laughing, he had as good a kickin' funky in the pocket band as anyone that I know of. They worked up in the Bronx... for a lifetime, until his health wasn't good anymore."

May God Rest His Soul.

Hal Hardy - House Of Broken Hearts (Hollywood 1116)

House Of Broken Hearts

Clifford Curry called me today and gave me the sad news that Nashville R&B pioneer Hal Hardy lost his battle with cancer on December 2nd. A founding member of The Neptunes, Hardy went on to become a featured regular on the groundbreaking Night Train television series, where his caped appearances were the stuff of legend. He recorded this Northern Soul favorite in 1965 for Hoss Allen's Rogana Productions with Billy Cox's tight house band. Hardy made the move to Knoxville with Sir Lattimore Brown shortly after cutting this record, and called it home ever since, performing at the Hard Knox Blues Bash every summer.

May He Rest In Peace.

I'll tell ya, it's been a rough year over here on The B Side. We've lost some folks who meant a great deal to us, and at times it feels like I have nothing left to say... except goodbye.

Solomon Burke
Willie Mitchell
Julius Bradley
Val Thomas
Bobby Charles
Dale Hawkins
Alex Chilton
Don Van Vliet
Bobby Hebb
General Johnson
Ollie Woodson
Teddy Pendergrass
Harvey Fuqua
Al Goodman
Weldon McDougal III
Albertina Walker
Major Roberson
Marva Wright
Marvin Isley
Barbara Brown
Sylvia Shemwell
Myrna Smith
Ella Brown Avery
Abbey Lincoln
Lena Horne
Ernie Mae Miller
Robert "Squirrel" Lester
Ron Banks
Bernie Wilson
Joseph Jones, Jr.
James Phelps
Teena Marie
Johnny Maestro
Bobby Farrell
Dorothy Jones
Gentleman June Gardner
Rockie Charles
Bunchy Johnson
Diamond Joe
Walter Payton
Benny Powell
James Moody
Roy Carrier
Ned Theall
Sandra Wright
Hank Jones
Lil' Dave Thompson
Mississippi Slim
Tuli Kupferberg
Phillip Walker
Pearl Woods
Bill Willis
George Melvin
King Coleman
Gene Ludwig
David Blumberg
Mickey Moody

May Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them.

Solomon Burke - A Christmas Prayer (Savoy SCS-0002)

2010-12-15T16:35:00.011-05:00

A Christmas Prayer

You know, Solomon Burke was all about Christmas. In December of 1954, when he was fourteen years old, he wrote a song as a gift for the Grandmother he loved so much. As it turned out, she had bought him his first guitar for Christmas that year, and gave it to him a week early so he could sing it to her. As fate would have it, this beloved Grandmother would die the very next day. When some local Church people heard him sing at her funeral, they asked him to perform at their Christmas program the following weekend. Solomon brought the house down with his heartfelt version of The Old Ship of Zion, and was approached after the show by fabled New York record label owner Bess Berman, who signed him on the spot. Before the year was out, she would cut him singing that song he had written for his Grandmother, Christmas Presents From Heaven, and release it as Apollo 485 in early 1955. It was Solomon Burke's first record.

For Christmas 1966, Atlantic would release another song Solomon had written, the rollicking Presents For Christmas, which remains one of the mainstays of those 'Soul of Christmas' type compilations you see all the time. I love when he does that Sam Cooke thing there in the middle, and says "that's from my old friend, y'all - my old Soul friend..." Yes, Solomon was deep. He could surprise you, like releasing the self-penned "All I Want For Christmas" as the B side of "I Can't Stop Loving You" on an MGM single in 1972... suffice it to say that this most spiritual of Holidays was never far from his heart.

When Solomon decided to 'go Gospel' in the 1980's, it wasn't long before he convinced his new label, Savoy, to let him do something for Christmas. In 1982, they would release a 12 inch single (which were all the rage back then) of the most profound Christmas music Burke had ever recorded. I've put his incredible version of Silent Night (which also leads the list of the twenty most Soulful Christmas Songs over at Deep Soul Heaven) up on The A Side, and it never fails to knock me out. This B side of that 'Big Single' we have here today provides an even deeper glimpse into the heart of this greatest of all Soul singers, and the genuine love he had for all mankind.

This Christmas, the first one in seventy years without Solomon Burke, may you and your family find something in his prayer that speaks to you, and helps to light the way.

"All Is Well... Peace."

The Definition Of Soul

2010-10-25T10:03:00.000-04:00

It's So Hard

The Homegoing Celebration for Bishop King Solomon Burke was held out in California this past Friday. There was simply no way for us to make the cross-country trip, so we decided to go to Philadelphia to the simulcast of the service that was held at the Sharon Baptist Church. Led by Minister Lester Fields and Solomon's sister, Apostle Laurena Burke Corbin, we joined with members of Solomon's extended East Coast family and viewed the video feed from the House Of Refuge. All twenty of Solomon's children had gathered together to honor him as he was laid to rest. As his daughter Victoria told me, "He was alright with every one of us. None of his children had any issues with him... to us he represented Unconditional Love."

If you knew Solomon Burke, you knew that he was all about Family. He was so proud of the ever growing number of his progeny, and he prayed for them 'one by one, and name by name' every day. As I'm sure you know by now, my wife and I were married by Bishop Solomon some seventeen years ago, and as our own children were born, he welcomed them as his 'God-Babies'. Words really cannot express how it felt for us when we would visit him backstage and hear him say something like 'Here's my family coming through the door right now'.

Solomon Burke was like that. He had a way of carrying you with him, of lifting you up and holding you there in his heart... of somehow believing in you, and never letting you down.

In 2003, when he was touring with Van Morrison in support of the Grammy-winning Don't Give Up On Me, my wife and I went to see him at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. He hadn't been performing in the U.S. that much in recent years, and we hadn't spoken with him for some time. As we stood there lost in the crowd outside the stage door on 33rd Street, it felt like Solomon had finally hit the big time. When his black Town Car pulled up, and his son Selassie began wheeling him towards the door, my wife called out 'Doctor Burke!', to which Solomon immediately replied 'Mrs. Keller!'. After all those years, he knew who she was, sight unseen, merely by the sound of her voice. As John Schiller said in his heartfelt eulogy on Friday, he made you feel like you were the only person in the room.

He had soul.

You know, Jerry Wexler is often quoted as saying that Solomon Burke was the greatest Soul singer - 'with a borrowed band' (a quote which Wexler actually attributed to Jimmy Bishop), but the fact is that Solomon kept his own. For over twenty five years, his Souls Alive Orchestra has backed him all over the world, and developed into one of the tightest outfits still playing today. Led by Sam Mayfield and Rudy Copeland, they never took the stage without joining hands and bowing their heads in prayer with Bishop Solomon.

It was Carla Thomas who said to me "Why do you think they call it Soul music?," and she was right. Solomon Burke's continued involvement in his Church, and his unwavering belief in the power of prayer colored everything he touched. His music couldn't help but reflect that. It was a window into his Soul. Summoned to perform before two Popes, he was a prophet that used his magnificent voice to convince us of the reality of Faith, and the steadfast truth that Love does indeed conquer all.

As I walked into the Church for Willie Mitchell's funeral this past January, Solomon was there in his wheelchair. He grabbed my hand and told me he loved me. At the cemetery later on, he opened the window of the Town Car as I walked past and asked me about the family. We had driven to Memphis from opposite coasts, and backstage after the Memorial Celebration the following day, he joined hands with me and prayed for our safe journey home. He made me promise to call him as soon as I got back, and when I did he held the cell phone up to his GPS as it intoned 'You Have Reached Your Destination'. We had arrived home at exactly the same time.

He could make you feel so special... he had that kind of magic.

On Friday Victoria quoted her Aunt Barbara who said, "If you met Solomon Burke, and your life wasn't changed, then you never met Solomon Burke."

I met him... and he changed my life forever.

HOMEGOING CELEBRATION for SOLOMON BURKE

2010-10-18T19:20:00.016-04:00

WAKE and MEDITATION SERVICE
Thursday, October 21, 5-9pm

Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Griffin Mortuary
5600 Lindero Canyon Rd
Westlake Village, CA 91362
818-889-0902

The Burke family will be there, and this is your time to give your well wishes and share stories, hugs and prayer.

FUNERAL SERVICE
Friday, October 22, 10am
City of Refuge
14527 South San Pedro Street
Gardena, CA 90248

Funeral Services will be streamed live via the world wide web at www.thekingsolomonburke.com

LIVE FUNERAL SERVICE SIMULCAST
Friday, October 22, 1pm EST
Sharon Baptist Church
3955 Conshohocken Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19131
215-473-3000

Solomon Burke always said, "Give me my flowers while I'm livin'!"
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to:

The Burke-Maynard Foundation (Solomon Burke Scholarship Award) and/or
Solomon's Temples of the World House of God for All People
P.O. Box 2044
Beverly Hills CA. 90213

Solomon Burke - Oh What A Feeling

2010-10-18T08:45:00.009-04:00

Oh What A Feeling

If you don't own this CD yet, you really need to go out and buy one. It is, quite simply, a work of genius - in Solomon Burke's own words, a masterpiece. It's not Solomon doing a Rock album, or a Country album, it's this greatest of all Soul singers doing a Soul album at the last true Soul studio with the greatest of all Soul producers. It is as good as it gets and, in my opinion, sure to be a Grammy winner next February. If that weren't enough of a reason for you to pick one up, I just found out that Newbury Comics is still shipping the album with the personally autographed CD booklet that I mentioned during the YouTube interview last week.

It was released on a small label, through a New York based company that Willie was working with. As Solomon says in their own promotional video for the album (which was also posted on YouTube just last week), "I hope that this record reaches out to millions of people around the world. I'm sure that whatever time it will take, it will make it, it will get to where it will be. Willie already projected what it was to be. He's in charge now, and on a higher height, and on a higher level. So we have to do our job here on earth because, you know - on earth as it is in Heaven..."

As it is in Heaven, indeed.

This wonderful opening track from the album we have here today holds a special place in my heart. You can just picture Poppa Willie coaching King Solomon there outside the vocal booth, and getting him to really sing. Willie (along with Spencer Randolph) co-wrote the song with another good friend of ours who passed on this year, the kind and gentle Julius Bradley. Julius had worked with Willie at Royal since the days when The Memphians cut for Pawn in the mid-seventies. I just can't believe they are all gone.

Do your job here on earth. Nothing's Impossible.

Solomon Burke - You Can Make It If You Try (Atlantic 2185)

2010-10-13T13:09:00.003-04:00

You Can Make It If You Try

Nothing's Impossible

2010-10-12T15:44:00.001-04:00

2010-10-10T22:45:00.005-04:00

Closer To You

James & Bobby Purify - I Don't Want To Have To Wait (Bell 685)

2010-09-27T06:53:00.010-04:00

I Don't Want To Have To Wait

Papa Don Schroeder is the real deal. As I said over on Soul Detective, he was the one who reached out and lifted Lattimore Brown out of the gutter, and brought him home to spend Christmas with his family when he didn't have anywhere else to turn. Papa Don was the one who rallied his friends and fellow members of the congregation at Olive Baptist Church to work together to find him some affordable housing and help him furnish it. When it looked like Lattimore had cancer, it was Papa Don who got him an appointment with the best oncologist in town.

A Cancer Survivor himself, Don Schroeder spends most of every day in excruciating pain from an inoperable back condition, yet his seemingly boundless drive and energy keep him interested and involved in one project after another. It is an honor to know him, and count him among my friends.

In addition to all of that, Papa Don was also one hell of a producer. As we've discussed in the past, his work with James & Bobby Purify and Oscar Toney, Jr. put Chips Moman's American Sound Studio on the map.

After Shake A Tail Feather spent the summer of love high on the charts (#15 R&B, #25 Pop), the pressure was on from Larry Uttal at Bell to come up with an album. Schroeder told me he hated the idea of having to go back in the studio while a record was hot and cut a bunch of 'throwaway' tracks just to fill out an LP (which is what he had pretty much been forced to do with I'm Your Puppet). These sessions at American were different, however, and would produce two more smash hits that were pulled from the album, I Take What I Want and Let Love Come Between Us.

This great number we have here (the flip of 'Let Love Come Between Us'), was Papa Don's favorite cut from those sessions. Here's what he had to say about it:

"I never understood why more people didn't pick up on that track, it's really one of the best ones we did with James & Bobby. You know we cut all those hits with just the original four guys {Reggie Young, Tommy Cogbill, Gene Chrisman and Bobby Emmons}, and with the Memphis Horns of course. I always did the horns in Memphis with Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love. Anyway, let me tell you a funny story about this song. I flew to New York with the multi-track tape for the album in the box that Moman gave me. In those days I always wore cut-off shorts, no matter what the weather, so I get to New York and it is just pouring down snow, I mean it's like a blizzard out there, so now here I am in my shorts with my London Fog raincoat and hat and the cab lets me off in front of my hotel, which is right across from the Stage Delicatessen. I'm a big fan of Lox and Bagels, so I go inside and grab one, and as I come out onto the street the tape comes rolling out of the box like a tire, unwinding down Seventh Avenue in the snow as I'm frantically trying to stop it and wind it back up. This is the whole 'Shake A Tail Feather' album. Oh my God, I ruined the record! If Moman had only put a piece of scotch tape on there or something... anyway, I go back into the Stage and ask a waiter for a hand towel and I have to sit there and dry off the tape inch by inch and roll it back up while the whole place is watching me..."

"Now, the funny thing is I cut at American in both cities {actually, the studio was located in the basement of The American Hotel on Eighth Avenue - ed.}, but the studio wouldn't open up for some time, so I'm waiting there in a doorway for the string players to show up in my shorts and London Fog outfit, and the hookers passed me by a couple of times before accusing me of being a cop, but anyway, I finally get into the studio and get the tape on the machine, and the only damage that was done was a little nick out of the edge on the outside track of the first song, which turned out to be the horns for 'I Don't Want To Have To Wait'. If you listen closely, you can hear a little blip there in the horn parts - there was nothing I could do about it... but, hey, it could have been a lot worse!"

Wild, huh? I asked Don if he knew anything about the songwriter, Don Colver, but he said he couldn't remember.

This incredible song was also cut twice more in Memphis, both times with Charles Chalmers producing. The first of these was on Barbara and the Browns, which was released on Cadet in 1966, followed by a version on Detroit's Revilot label by someone named Terry Felton in 1968 (both of which can be heard over at Deep Soul Heaven). As it turns out, a friend of Charlie's named Mike Durff emailed me recently and told me he was going to visit with him in Branson, Missouri, where he has a studio. Mike asked him about the three versions of this song for us.

Charlie said that the Barbara & the Browns version was cut at the Sam Phillips' Recording Service on Madison Avenue in Memphis, and picked up by his friend Max Cooperstein at Chess. He said that he wrote the horn charts for the James & Bobby record, but that Chips wouldn't let him cut them at American, so he put the horns on at Sam Phillips' as well. Chalmers said he has no recollection of the Terry Felton record, and the only thing he remembered about the songwriter (the correct spelling of his last name apparently being 'Culver') was that he used to play at a Memphis club named 'Vapors'.

Thank You Mike and Charlie, and Special Thanks to Papa Don for everything!

Jessie Hill - Ooh Poo Pah Doo - Part II (Minit 607)

2010-09-07T12:09:00.020-04:00

Ooh Poo Pah Doo - Part II

CREATING A DISTURBANCE

As fate would have it, I found myself in New Orleans for the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29th. The mainstream media guys were all over the place with their satellite trucks and all of that, but the feeling I got from most of the local people I spoke with was that they had already moved on, and they didn't need anybody to remind them of the incredible ordeal they've lived through these past five years. Remnants of the flood are still visible, especially in places like the Bywater and the Lower Ninth, yet New Orleans has managed to survive - with its unique character, and sense of humor, intact.

The work that the Make It Right Foundation has been doing has been simply top shelf, and the affordable housing they've been creating just east of the Industrial Canal has been built to last. When I last visited that Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood (where Fats Domino was born) in 2006, it was hard to imagine that it would ever be rebuilt, and the powers that be were talking about just bulldozing the whole place... you go Brad Pitt!

Anyway, I was happy to support the Foundation by attending the benefit concert that was held at The House of Blues on August 28th, A Night Of Treme. As I'm sure you know, in addition to being the name of the oldest African-American neighborhood in the United States, Treme has also become the name of the highly acclaimed HBO series about post-Katrina New Orleans that 'finally got it right'. The concert, in anticipation of the Treme Soundtrack CD (which will be released later this month), was a raucous celebration of this culture that refuses to die.

The band - much to HBO's credit - was anchored by The King of Treme (and heir to the Smokey Johnson legacy) Shannon Powell, and also featured Davis Rogan (the guy they based the over the top WWOZ DJ character on in the series) on keyboards and a host of other local talent. Favorites like Irma Thomas, Lloyd Price (!), John Boutté, Kermit Ruffins and Jon Cleary did their thing before giving way to the grand finale, an unbelievable blowdown with the Rebirth Brass Band being joined by James Andrews, surrounded by Guardians of the Flame Mardi Gras Indians and Treme Sidewalk Steppers just funkin' it up. We had us a time up in there, bra!

It was James Andrews that stole the show, however, with the high energy trumpet playing and vocals that have earned him his nickname of Satchmo of the Ghetto working the crowd into a frenzy. At the 'after-party' later on he wasted no time, jumping in there and playing with the brass band out on the patio, and just kicking things up a notch. Suddenly the light bulb went on... I had mentioned him in something I wrote way back in 2005. It was no wonder he was such an incredible performer - he was Jessie Hill's grandson!

James, in addition to coming from a musical family that also included Papoose Nelson and Prince La-La, studied with the man who is credited with breathing new life into the Brass Band tradition, Danny Barker. Along with his younger brother Troy (now known as Trombone Shorty), Andrews came up out of Barker's legendary Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band and just kept on blowing. Strongly rooted in the tradition, he would hang around Preservation Hall as a kid and kind of soak it all in, learning from legends like Milton Baptiste and Percy Humphrey.

He is the real deal.

As we walked out of the House of Blues, James - in true New Orleans fashion - couldn't resist strolling into the first bar we passed that had a live band, and sitting in. His genuine passion for the music and his gregarious personality combine to make him one of the most-loved figures to come out of the Treme Brass Band scene, and one of its greatest ambassadors. As he told Ken Burns some years ago, "A lot of people try to portray Jazz as being intellectual... but for us in New Orleans, it's more of a down-home thing. I look for the more extreme feeling... that's what makes us so well known - we put the horn stuff on top of that fabulous beat, man."

...just like his legendary Grandfather, James told me that he's all about 'creating a disturbance' - yeah you rite!

James Andrews will be performing all this week as part of the Generations in Jazz Festival at Lincoln Center in New York, where they will be celebrating The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong. Don't Miss It!

Below is my original post about Jessie Hill from November of 2005 (which had been taken down in one of those DMCA corporate raids)... thanks!
______________________________________________

The importance of the disc jockey in the R&B market cannot be overstated. If a hot DJ liked your record and plugged it on the air, you were pretty much guaranteed a hit. The hottest DJ in New Orleans back in 1960 was a cat named Larry McKinley. Many's the R&B classic he "broke" on his show and sent on it's way to the top of the national charts (not the least of which was Ray Charles' "What'd I Say"). It was a stroke of brilliance when vinyl distributor Joe Banashak asked him to be a partner in his new label, MINIT records. Talk about air time!

In January of 1960, McKinley arranged to hold an open audition at WYLD studios as a way of scouting talent for the new company. That one night resulted in the signing of Benny Spellman, Aaron Neville, Allen Orange and Jessie Hill (Irma Thomas and Joe Tex also tried out but were still under contract to other labels). Allen Orange brought along a piano player to accompany him, one Allen Toussaint. He ended up playing behind most of the other folks who had shown up, and so impressed McKinley and Banashak that they asked him to be the new label's producer and arranger.

Jessie Hill was a drummer that had worked with such luminaries as Professor Longhair, Bobby Marchan, and Huey "Piano" Smith as well as with his own group, "The House Rockers" (Longhair claimed he was the only drummer who could keep up with him!). He brought a "raggedy" tape to the audition with him of a tune he had written that was just tearin' it up at his live gigs. That song was the immortal Ooh Poo Pah Doo, and Minit decided to go with it. Toussaint produced the session, playing piano along with Jessie's regular band.

The record broke big in New Orleans, and absolutely buried poor Al Johnson's Carnival Time as the big Mardi-Gras record in 1960. After Banashak worked out a few kinks with national distribution, the song just ate up the R&B charts. Although it was the truly incredible Part 1 that was creating a disturbance in everyone's mind, and has become a perennial Carnival classic, it was today's B side, Part II, that crossed over to the pop charts and actually is listed as #28 in Billboard's Hot 100 for 1960 (I guess white America just wasn't ready for Jessie's vocals...)! This track provided the first national exposure of Toussaint's piano based productions and laid the groundwork for Minit's string of big hits. It also is one of the first recorded examples of true "9th Ward Music" - that infectious call and response funky thang that guys like Eddie Bo and Oliver Morgan (who jammed with Jessie as neighborhood kids) would run with so well.

In addition to good ol' Alvin Robinson on guitar, The House Rockers at this point also included the awesome David Lastie on sax, as well as future AFO Executives John Boudreaux on drums and Richard Payne on the bass. They went out on a national tour to support the record, making it as far as the famed Apollo Theater in New York City. Jessie had never seen that much money in his life, and apparently was blowing it as fast as it was coming in, without saving too much for the rest of the band. Before they even got back to New Orleans, the group had broken up for good. Minit released a few more singles on him, but Jessie never was able to match the success of his first hit.

In 1961 he discovered a young singer named Barbara George and brought her around to Harold Battiste's newly formed AFO records along with his brother-in-law, Lawrence "Prince La-La" Nelson. George went on to score the number 3 record on the pop charts that year, while La-La would become the stuff of New Orleans legend.

The following year Jessie left town on a tour with Joe Jones and just walked away, winding up in California. By the mid-sixties he was working with Battiste, Rebennack and the rest of the NOLA in exile crowd in L.A.. He had never stopped writing music, and teamed up with Rebennack to form a publishing company called "I Found It Music". They would hole up for days at a time and crank out tunes for Battiste's productions on ATCO and PULSAR. BMI lists Jessie as the author or co-author on 132 tunes covered by artists ranging from Sonny & Cher to Ike & Tina Turner to Paul Revere & the Raiders!

He teamed up with Shirley Goodman (of Shirley & Lee fame) to record some duets for Wand records (Jessie and Shirley also became founding members of Dr. John's "Night Trippers", appearing on the voodoo classic Gris-Gris), and released a few singles of his own on Pulsar and Chess, without much success. A universally panned album, "Naturally", was released on Blue Thumb records in 1972.

By the mid-seventies, Jessie's fortunes in California seemed to be on the decline (punctuated by a trip to jail and a stolen Cadillac), and in 1977 he returned home to New Orleans. Despite the occasional gig at Tipitina's and the annual dual-tambourine shakin' second line at Jazz Fest, Jessie wasn't doing much musically. He actually began operating a black Caddy nicknamed "The Poo Cab" as a way of making some money...

Some time in the eighties I saw a show upstairs at The Village Gate (now a CVS pharmacy...ugh!) in NYC; Dr. John along with Allen Toussaint and Jessie Hill... My, My! Toussaint on piano, Rebennack on guitar, and Jessie just brought down da house!

The 90s were some hard times for "Poo". Years of heroin addiction and booze began to take their toll. Despite a few benefits held for him around the Crescent City, there were reports that he was actually homeless for a while. When he died in 1996, Antoinette K-Doe made matching outfits for herself, Ernie, and Jessie (as pictured in the truly bizarre, only in New Orleans photo at right...). He left behind 14 children, and 50 grandchildren (one of whom, James Andrews, is following in his footsteps, making records with Allen Toussaint and Mac Rebennack!).

Jessie's Minit material is available on CD.

They called him The Most!

________________________________________________

One more thing, while were on the subject of Treme...

I found our friend Tony Owens down by Jackson Square, where he is most weekends, working his 'Trap & Mule' for the tourist crowd. He is fondly remembered by everyone in the neighborhood as possibly the greatest Soul singer to ever rise up out of the Treme, as well as being the proprietor of the sorely missed Tony's Lounge up by Armstrong Park. When I asked him how come he wasn't asked to be in the TV show, he just kind of shrugged. If anybody from HBO ever reads this, do yourself a favor and sign him up!

Bobby "Blue" Bland - Loan a Helping Hand (Duke 185)

2010-08-08T20:53:00.012-04:00

Loan A Helping Hand

In 1984 Dan Greer and Fred Ford got together and formed an organization named 'Friends United To Preserve Musical Heritage International'. The idea, Dan told me, was to relate the rich history of Memphis music in the words of the people who made it in the first place. They created an event called the Music Pioneer Awards and Ford, the go-to baritone man in Memphis for generations, became their first honoree (once Dan convinced him it was alright). Fred has since left us, but the organization (now called simply United Music Heritage, Inc.) continues on with a board that includes folks like Percy Wiggins and Earl Randle.

I met Dan Greer at the Willie Mitchell Memorial Celebration in January, which is where he started thinking about putting together the incredible Twenty Fifth Anniversary Music Pioneer Awards that will be held at The New Daisy Theater on Beale Street this Thursday, August 12th. "Too many of us are passing," he said, "it's time to do something." The event will honor Carla Thomas, Don Bryant, Ann Peebles, The Mad Lads, The Temprees, Ruby Wilson and The Lee Twins among many others all backed by the incomparable Hi Rhythm, along with a horn section led by Ben Cauley.

In a word, Wow!

As if that weren't enough, the centerpiece of this year's awards will be a tribute to one of the cornerstones of Memphis music, Bobby "Blue" Bland. Bobby, who turned eighty this past January, was one of the original Beale-Streeters, and his absolute giant of a voice has influenced all those who came after him. The show will feature killer vocalists like J. Blackfoot and Percy Wiggins performing his music... can you imagine?

As Greer told the Commercial Appeal; "You won't find another show like this, you couldn't pay these people enough to come in and do this. But they come in and do it out of love for the city and the music."

This is one of those many, many times I wish I lived in Memphis.
______________________________________________

The Twenty Fifth Anniversary Music Pioneer Awards:

August 12, 2010
New Daisy Theater, 330 Beale St.
Reception: 6 p.m. Show starts at 7 p.m.
Tickets: $50, available at the New Daisy box office
(901) 949-4927
United Music Heritage, Inc

The Tikis Vocal by Len Wade - I Was Doin' Alright (Minaret 111)

2010-08-04T10:40:00.008-04:00

I Was Doin' Alright

Hey there, folks, I'm reposting this awesome record I wrote about three years ago because there's been some very cool new developments...

First of all, I am pleased to announce that my man Len Wade, along with his legendary band The Tikis, was inducted into the Birmingham Record Collectors Hall of Fame in 2009. Former inductees have included other Magic City giants like Roscoe Robinson and Eddie Kendricks. Len and the band got together for the first time in many years at the induction ceremony last August, and had such a good time that they decided to get the group back together and take it on the road!

That's right, after some marathon rehearsals at Len's place down in Georgia, the Tikis are ready and rarin' to rip it up once more. In their first full length performance in over forty years, Wade will be joined by original members Clyde Masters, Hayes Hooper, Big John Taylor, DeWight Anderson, Phillip Scott and Bo Fowler at Jim Porter's Good Time Emporium in Louisville, Kentucky on Friday, August 20th at 7pm.

The Tikis were among the best of the 'fraternity circuit' white R&B bands that roamed the South in the early sixties. Along with groups like Rick Hall's Fairlanes, Dan Penn's Pallbearers, Tim Whitsett's Imperials and Ben Atkins' Nomads, they introduced Black music to a whole generation of college kids, and helped change the world in the process.

This reunion is big news.

Although Len Wade may not exactly be a 'household name', he has been selected as number three of the Top 25 Blue Eyed Soul Winners by no less an authority than our hero Sir Shambling, who had this to say:

“It Comes And It Goes” (Dial)

A near perfect deep soul piece. As Len pours his heart out the falsetto shrieks are enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. He was a big draw in the south eastern US with his band the Tikis and more of his recordings are coming to light thanks to the efforts of Jim Lancaster at Playground studios. These tracks show just what a wonderful vocalist he was.

He still is.

Here's my original post from back in 2007:
____________________________________________

Len Wade grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, singing Gospel along with his mother while his older brother accompanied them on the guitar.

While still in grammar school, he began hanging around on Graymont Avenue, out near Legion Field. Bars like The Quarterback and The Touchdown let him sing along with the jukebox for tips, and he did pretty good. Before long, the young kid with the big voice got to be somewhat of a fixture down there, and the owners of the establishments would sneak him a few beers. Len loved performing for the crowd, and by the time he reached high school, he was playing the bass and leading his own band.

In his senior year, The Len Wade Band was holding down a regular gig at Carmichael's, a popular 'show-bar' in town. As fate would have it, a group that had recently been formed down in Florida was passing through town, and caught Len's act. Their keyboard player, a bonafide original by the name of 'Obed', had just banged himself up pretty bad in a car wreck, and they were looking for somebody to take his place. Despite Len's protestaions that he didn't know how to play the piano, they convinced him to come along and, as soon as he finished school, he went down to join them in Fort Walton Beach on the Florida 'Panhandle'.

Founded by their drummer and road-manager, Billy Self, The Tikis included Clyde Masters on bass, Phil Scott on trumpet and Hayes Hopper on the saxophone. With the addition of the soulful Wade on vocals, the band became quite popular, drilling themselves on the tight dance routines and horn lines that made them kind of like a deep-south version of the Mar-Keys. Working with Clyde, Len began to develop his own bluesy piano style, and they'd bring the house down every night as he led them to the 'big finish' behind his high octane R&B delivery.

Carmichael's opened up a branch office on the Panhandle called the Club Lido, and The Tikis soon became the house band. They got to know the movers and shakers on the local music scene, including Tom Smith, the program director at Pensacola's WNVY, and a guy named Finley Duncan, who operated a regional jukebox and pinball machine operation. In those days, the guys with the jukebox routes were considered an important part of the record game, and so developed a lot of 'connections' inside the industry. Duncan liked The Tikis a lot, becoming almost like a father figure to the band, and began taking them up to Nashville to record.

Finley had formed the Minaret label in 1963, and began collaborating with Herb Schucher, who had been the drummer in Brenda Lee's band, The Casuals. Together they owned Chu-Fin, the label's publishing company, and Herb also ran a booking agency called 'One-Nighters Incorporated' that represented the band. Today's cool selection (the flip of My Bonnie, the Tikis first 45 for Minaret) was produced by Schucher, and arranged by the ubiquitous Cliff Parman. Len's really going off there at the end, huh?

Herb kept The Tikis out on the road, playing gigs all over the place as they followed other R&B and 'blue-eyed soul' acts around 'the circuit'. In addition to recording them in Nashvillle, Duncan and Schucher also began bringing them down to a new facility that had just opened for business, Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals. They'd also record in the office of Duncan's amusement company down in Florida when they had to.

Len was told by many in 'music city' that he sounded 'too black'. That didn't bother the great Buddy Killen, and he signed The Tikis to his Dial label in 1966. It was Killen who decided to record Wade as a solo act as well, creating one of the true masterpieces of southern soul in the process. Produced by Finley Duncan himself at Fame that summer, It Comes And It Goes is just an amazing song. It was written by R.J. Benninghoff, a Nashville songwriter who would go on to work full time for Duncan later on. Killen would also release one subsequent Tikis single but, despite Dial's superior distribution agreement with Atlantic, neither record did anything.

By the end of the decade, Len had signed with United Artists, waxing what would become a big 'northern soul' record later on, The Night The Angels Cried. The big label wasn't quite sure what to do with him, however (their biggest selling artist at the time was Bobby Goldsboro), and by the early seventies, Len had moved on to Louisville to study music theory at Bellarmine College.

His professor, a 'jazz cat' named Don Murray was amazed at the chords and voicings Len had developed back when he was 'learning piano by the seat of his pants', and the two men taught each other. Len would hook up with other Louisville blue-eyed soul brothers like Wayne Young and Marvin Maxwell of Soul Incorporated, and play regulary in the area. He got work in TV, and made Kentucky his second home.

In the mid eighties, Len Wade decided to give it one more go, and signed with Mercury-Polygram, in a deal put together by old Nashville friends in 'the industry' (like Brenda Lee's husband Ronnie Shacklett). Despite sympathetic production from Jerry Kennedy, syrupy singles like Close Enough To Love and It Sure Feels Like Love Tonight reflected the vision the record company had for him. It was just too much for the guys in the front office to think of a white guy recording in Nashville as anything but Country.

Appearences on Nashville Now and all of that kept his records kicking around the bottom of the Country charts, but Len just couldn't deal with the image they were projecting - somewhere between Kenny Rogers and David Clayton Thomas. His R&B self was just dying on the inside and eventually he just walked away, building himself a place out in the Georgia piney woods, far from Music Row...

Back in 1969, Finley Duncan had become partners with Shelby Singleton in building a recording studio adjacent to Duncan's amusement office. They named it Playground, and set about recording some incredible music. With the death of Duncan in 1989, the studio fell into major disrepair. When new owner Jim Lancaster set about the formidable task of restoring the facility, he discovered hours and hours of tapes from 'back in the day'. On a tape from 1966, he found Len Wade performing an alternate version of It Comes And It Goes and another incredible R.J. Benninghoff tune, Everybody's Clown. Unreal. Those two amazing songs, along with a slew of other great stuff, have been released by Lancaster on a CD called Soul Resurrection Volume One. You need to own one.

When I heard Everybody's Clown I was just knocked out. How could something this good have gone unreleased? How could somebody with a voice like this not have been huge? Whatever became of him? Well folks, thanks to the wonders of the internet, your very own soul detective was able to track Len down (due in large part to the efforts of Marvin Maxwell - thanks, bro!), and he consented to meet with me this past June, after I left Nashville. Len was kind enough to share his story with us over catfish and cornbread, and have me back to his house so I could take pictures of all this cool memorabilia (like the 3 foot square oil painting of The Tikis pictured above!).

Len said he couldn't believe it when he got a call from R.J.Benninghoff recently telling him to expect a check in the mail. The producers of The Sopranos had decided to use Everybody's Clown during their last season on HBO. Now, how cool is that? We talked for a while about the resurgence of interest in soul music, and how there seemed to be an audience out there that was ready for it. He told me that he still performs from time to time, and had just had a gig that past weekend at the local Mexican restaurant (they loved him).

Then Len did something that totally blew me away. He sat down at his piano and played for me. I was in awe as he worked his way through some Brother Ray, Fats Domino, and even some Ernie K-Doe! He was GREAT! I mean, he's more than kept up his 'chops' on the keys... and that VOICE! Just as good as it ever was, man. I'll tell ya what, if I owned a record company, or was any kind of a promoter or anything, I'd sign this guy up in a New York minute! Seriously, here is a major talent just waiting to be rediscovered, folks.

He's the real deal.
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The Tikis Reunion:

August 20, 2010 - 7pm
Jim Porter's Good Time Emporium
2345 Lexington Road
Louisville, KY 40206
(502)452-9531
Email: porters@jimporters.com

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