WELCOME to Part IIIb: Pre-World War II Jazz Blues
Most of the artists in this series are very well known and have played roles on some TV or Radio variety shows and early sitcoms such as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” or the “I Love Lucy Show”. This section appears to be very interesting; filled with many well known artists that you will most likely recognize. So, let’s get started . . .
Part IIIb: Pre-World War II Jazz Blues:
Name Birth Date Death Date
James Burke "St. Louis Jimmy" Oden (June 26, 1903 – December 30, 1977) was an American blues vocalist and songwriter.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, Oden sang and taught himself to play the piano in childhood. In his teens, he left home to go to St. Louis, Missouri (c. 1917) where piano-based blues was prominent. He was able to develop his vocal talents and began performing with the pianist, Roosevelt Sykes. After more than ten years playing in and around St. Louis, in 1933 he and Sykes decided to move on to Chicago.
In Chicago he was dubbed St. Louis Jimmy and there he would enjoy a solid performing and recording career for the next four decades. While Chicago became his home base, Oden traveled with a group of blues players to various places throughout the United States. He recorded a large number of records, his best known coming in 1941 on the Bluebird Records label called "Goin' Down Slow." Oden wrote a number of songs, two of which, "Take the Bitter with the Sweet" and "Soon Forgotten," were recorded by his friend, Muddy Waters.
In 1948 on Aristocrat Records Oden cut "Florida Hurricane", accompanied by the pianist Sunnyland Slim and the guitarist Muddy Waters. In 1949, Oden partnered with Joe Brown to form a small recording company called J.O.B. Records. Oden appears to have ended his involvement within a year, but with other partners the company remained in business till 1974.
After a serious road accident in 1957 he devoted himself to writing and placed material with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf ("What a Woman!") and John Lee Hooker. In 1960 he made an album with Bluesville Records, and sang on a Candid Records session with Robert Lockwood, Jr. and Otis Spann.
Oden died of bronchopneumonia, at the age of 74, in 1977 and was interred in the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, near Chicago.
St. Louis Jimmy Oden 1903 1977
Meade Lux Lewis (September 1905 – June 7, 1964) was a American pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style. His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band arrangement. Early recordings of the piece by artists other than Lewis include performances by Adrian Rollini, Frankie Trumbauer, classical harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe, theater organist George Wright (with drummer Cozy Cole, under the title "Organ Boogie"), and Bob Zurke with Bob Crosby's orchestra. Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer often included it in his repertoire and recorded it in 1972.
Lewis was born Meade Anderson Lewis in Chicago, Illinois, United States, in September 1905 (September 3, 4 and 13 have all been cited as his date of birth in various sources). In his youth he was influenced by the pianist Jimmy Yancey.
A 1927 rendition of "Honky Tonk Train Blues" on the Paramount Records label marked his recording debut. He remade it for Parlophone in 1935 and for Victor in 1937 and a recording exists of a Camel Caravan broadcast, including "Honky Tonk Train Blues" from New York City in 1939. His performance at John Hammond's historic From Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938 brought Lewis to public attention. Following the event, Lewis and two other performers from that concert, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson often appeared as a trio and became the leading boogie-woogie pianists of the day.
They performed an extended engagement at Café Society, toured as a trio, and inspired the formation of Blue Note Records in 1939. Their success led to a decade long boogie-woogie craze. with big band swing treatments by Tommy Dorsey, Will Bradley, and others; and numerous country boogie and early rock and roll songs.
He became the first jazz pianist to double on celeste (starting in 1936) and was featured on that instrument on a Blue Note Quartet date with Edmond Hall and Charlie Christian. Lewis also played harpsichord on a few records in 1941. After the boogie-woogie craze ended, Lewis continued working in Chicago and California.
Lewis appeared in the movies New Orleans (1947) and Nightmare (1956), Uncomfortable typecast as a boogie-woogie and blues pianist, Lewis spent his later years playing rags and old-time pop songs. He also appeared, uncredited, in the movie It's a Wonderful Life, playing piano in the scene where George Bailey gets thrown out of Nick's Bar.
Lewis died in a car accident in Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 7, 1964, aged 58
Meade Lux Lewis 1905 1964
Eurreal Wilford “Little Brother” Montgomery (Kentwood, Louisiana, April 18, 1906 – Champaign, Illinois, September 6, 1985) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and blues pianist and singer.
Largely self-taught, Montgomery is often thought of as just a blues pianist, but he was an important blues pianist with an original style. He was also quite versatile, however, and worked in jazz bands including larger ensembles that used written arrangements. Although he did not read music, he learned band routines by ear, once through an arrangement and he had it memorized. He was a singer with an immediately recognizable, rather affecting wobble: an oral historian as full of musical anecdotes as Jelly Roll Morton.
Montgomery was born in the town of Kentwood, Louisiana, a sawmill town near the Mississippi Border, across Lake Pontchartrain from the city of New Orleans, where he spent much of his childhood. As a child he looked like his father, Harper Montgomery, and was called Little Brother Harper. The name evolved into Little Brother Montgomery, a nickname which stuck. He started playing piano at the age of 4, and by age 11 he was playing at various barrelhouses in Louisiana. His own musical influences were Jelly Roll Morton who used visit the Montgomery household.
Early on he played at African American lumber and turpentine camps in Louisiana and Mississippi, then with the bands of Clarence Desdunes and Buddy Petit. He first went to Chicago from 1928 to 1931, where he made his first recordings. From 1931 through 1938 he led a band in Jackson.
In 1942 Montgomery moved back to Chicago, which would be his base for the rest of his life, with various tours to other United States cities and Europe. His repertoire alternated between blues and traditional jazz (he played Carnegie Hall with Kid Ory’s Dixieland band in 1949). In the late 1950s he was “discovered” by wider white audiences. He toured briefly with Otis Rush in 1956. His fame grew in the 1960s, and he continued to make many recordings, including on his own record label, FM Records (formed in 1969). FM came from Floberg, his wife Jan’s maiden name and Montgomery, his own surname.
These and other recordings added momentum to Montgomery’s career and he became a world traveller, visiting the UK and Europe on several occasions during the 1960s, cutting several of his 20-odd albums there, while remaining based in Chicago. Montgomery appeared at many blues and folk festivals during the following decade and was considered a living legend, a link to the early days of blues and New Orleans.
Among his original compositions are “Shreveport Farewell”, “Farrish Street Jive”, and “Vicksburg Blues”.
In 1968, Montgomery contributed to two albums by Spanky and Our Gang; Like to Get to Know You and Anything You Choose b/w Without Rhyme Or Reason.
Montgomery died on September 6, 1985, in Champaign, Illinois, and is interred in the Oak Woods Cemetery. Paul Gayten is his nephew.
Little Brother Montgomery c.1906 1985
Big Maceo Merriweather (March 31, 1905 – February 23, 1953) was an American Chicago blues pianist and singer, active in Chicago in the 1940s.
Born Major Merriweather (or Merewether) in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, he was a self-taught pianist. In the 1920s he moved to Detroit, Michigan and began playing parties and clubs. In 1941, a desire to record led him to Chicago where he met and befriended Tampa Red. Red introduced him to Lester Melrose of Bluebird Records, who signed him to a recording contract.
His first record was "Worried Life Blues" (1941), which promptly became a blues hit and remained his signature piece. Other classic piano blues recordings such as "Chicago Breakdown", "Texas Stomp", and "Detroit Jump" followed. His piano style developed from players like Leroy Carr and Roosevelt Sykes, as well as from the Boogie-woogie style of Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. He in turn influenced other musicians like Henry Gray, who credits Merriweather to helping him launch his career as a blues pianist.
His style had an impact on practically every post World War II blues pianist of note. His most famous song, "Worried Life Blues" is a staple of the blues repertoire, with artists such as Eric Clapton featuring it regularly in concert. "Worried Life Blues" was in the first batch of songs inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame "Classic Blues Recordings - Singles or Albums Tracks" alongside "Stormy Monday," 'Sweet Home Chicago," "Dust My Broom," and "Hellhound On My Trail."
His career was cut short in 1946 by a stroke. Poor health and a lifetime of heavy drinking eventually led to a fatal heart attack. He died on February 23, 1953 in Chicago, and was interred at the Detroit Memorial Cemetery in Warren, Michigan.
His sparse recordings for Bluebird were released in a double album set as Chicago Breakdown, in 1975. They have since been reissued on a variety of labels.
In 2002 he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
On May 3, 2008 the White Lake Blues Festival took place at the Howmet Playhouse Theater in Whitehall, Michigan. The event was organized by executive producer, Steve Salter, of the nonprofit organization Killer Blues to raise monies to honor Merriweather's unmarked grave with a headstone. The concert was a success, and a headstone was placed in June, 2008.
Big Maceo Merriweather 1905 1953
Kansas Joe McCoy (May 11, 1905 – January 28, 1950) was an African American Delta blues musician and songwriter.
McCoy played music under a variety of stage names but is best known as "Kansas Joe McCoy". Born in Raymond, Mississippi, he was the older brother of the blues accompanist Papa Charlie McCoy. As a young man, McCoy was drawn to the music scene in Memphis, Tennessee where he played guitar and sang vocals during the 1920s.
He teamed up with future wife Lizzie Douglas, a guitarist better known as Memphis Minnie, and their 1929 recording of the song "Bumble Bee" on the Columbia Records label was a hit. In 1930, the couple moved to Chicago where they were an important part of the burgeoning blues scene. Following their divorce, McCoy teamed up with his brother to form a band known as the Harlem Hamfats that performed and recorded during the second half of the 1930s.
In 1936, the Harlem Hamfats released a record with the song "The Weed Smoker's Dream" on it. McCoy later refined the tune, changed the lyrics and titled the new song "Why Don't You Do Right?" for Lil Green, who recorded it in 1941. It was covered a year later by both Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee, becoming Lee's first hit single. "Why Don't You Do Right?" remains a jazz standard and is McCoy's most enduring composition.
At the outbreak of World War II Charlie McCoy entered the military, but a heart condition kept Joe McCoy from service. Out on his own, he created a band known as 'Big Joe and his Rhythm' that performed together throughout most of the 1940s. The band again included his brother Charlie on mandolin and Robert Nighthawk on harmonica. In 1950, at the age of 44, McCoy died of heart disease in Chicago, only a few months before his brother Charlie. They are both buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant took his and Memphis Minnie's recording of "When the Levee Breaks," which was in his personal collection, and presented it to guitarist Jimmy Page, who revamped it and slightly altered it lyrically, and help record it on Led Zeppelin's 1971 album, Led Zeppelin IV.
In addition to those mentioned earlier, McCoy's songs have also been covered by Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, The Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Ann Kelly, Cleo Laine and A Perfect Circle.
McCoy also performed and recorded under the names Bill Wither, Georgia Pine Boy, Hallelujah Joe, Big Joe McCoy and His Washboard Band, and The Mississippi Mudder. Other names he used from time to time included Hillbilly Plowboy, Mud Dauber Joe and Hamfoot Ham
Like many blues musicians of his era, Joe McCoy's grave site is currently unmarked. A tribute concert took place in October 2010 to celebrate the music of Joe and his brother Charlie and to buy gravestones for each of them; they were installed on may 31st, 2011.
Kansas Joe McCoy 1905 1950
Papa Charlie McCoy, (Born in 1909, Died in 1950), Musician, born in Jackson, Mississippi, he was delta blues guitar, mandolin player and songwriter. He began playing in the early 1920s, in the Mississippi area with his band, The Mississippi Hot Footers and later joined Bo Carters' Mississippi Mud Steppers. In 1928, he first recorded in Memphis in 1928, in an all-star session that saw him backing Rosie Mae Moore, Tommy Johnson and Ishman Bracey.
Later that year, he played on the first recording of "Corrine Corrina" with Bo Chatmon and Walter Vincson. In addition, he recorded his own written versions of "The Jackson Stomp", "The Lonesome Train, That Took My Girl From Town" and "The Vicksburg Stomp". By the mid-1930s, he followed his brother guitar play Joe McCoy to Chicago, joined the Harlem Hamfats, where he blended his mandolin style with their swing rhythms and jazz horns. He also contributed mandolin to recordings by Sonny Boy Williamson, Peetie Wheatstraw, Big Bill Broonzy and Will Weldon. He again teamed up with his brother in Big Joe's Washboard Band and Big Joe and His Rhythm in the early 1940's. In the late 1940s, he was institutionalized with neurosyphilis and died six months later in Chicago, Illinois.
(bio by: John "J-Cat" Griffith)
Search Amazon for Charles McCoy
Burial: Restvale Cemetery | Worth, Cook County; Illinois, USA
Plot: Sec. 1-E, Row 13, Gr. 125
Papa Charlie McCoy 1909 1950
Jay McShann (January 12, 1916 – December 7, 2006) was an American Grammy Award-nominated jump blues, mainstream jazz, and swing bandleader, pianist and singer.
During the 1940s, McShann was at the forefront of blues and hard bop jazz musicians mainly from Kansas City. He assembled his own big band, with musicians that included some of the most influential artists of their time, including Charlie Parker, Bernard Anderson, Ben Webster and Walter Brown. His kind of music became known as "the Kansas City sound"
McShann died on December 7, 2006, at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City. Jay McShann was survived by his companion of more than 30 years, Thelma Adams (known as Marianne McShann), and three daughters - Linda McShann Gerber, Jayne McShann Lewis, and Pam McShann.
Jay McShann 1916 2006
Roy Milton (July 31, 1907 – September 18, 1983) was an American R&B and jump blues singer, drummer and bandleader.
Milton's grandmother was a Chickasaw. He was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, United States, and grew up on an Indian reservation before moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma. He joined the Ernie Fields band in the late 1920s as singer and, later, drummer.
Moving to Los Angeles, California in 1933, he formed his own band, the Solid Senders, with Camille Howard on piano. He performed in local clubs and began recording in the 1940s, his first release being "Milton's Boogie" on his own record label. His big break came in 1945, when his "R.M. Blues", on the new Juke Box label, became a hit, reaching number 2 on the Billboard R&B chart and #20 on the pop chart. Its success helped establish Art Rupe's company, which he shortly afterwards renamed Specialty Records.
Milton and his band became a major touring attraction, and he continued to record successfully for Specialty Records through the late 1940s and early 1950s. He recorded a total of 19 Top Ten R&B hits, the biggest being "Hop, Skip And Jump" (# 3 R&B, 1948), "Information Blues" (# 2 R&B, 1950), and "Best Wishes" (# 2 R&B, 1951). He left Specialty in 1955. However, releases on other labels were unsuccessful, and the development of rock and roll had rendered him something of an anachronism by the middle of the decade.
Nevertheless he continued to perform, appearing in 1970 as a member of Johnny Otis' band at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and resumed his recording career in the 1970s with albums for Kent Records (# KST-554), "Roots Of Rock, Vol. 1: Roy Milton" and the French label, Black & Blue (# 33.114), "Instant Groove".
Roy Milton ("The Grandfather Of R&B") died in Los Angeles, California, on 18 September 1983, aged 76.
Roy Milton 1907 1983
Ferdinand Joseph LaMotte (October 20, 1885 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer.
Widely recognized as a pivotal figure in early jazz, Morton is perhaps most notable as jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential spirit and characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues" was the first published jazz composition, in 1915. Morton is also notable for naming and popularizing the "Spanish tinge" of exotic rhythms, and for penning such standards as "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say", the latter a tribute to turn of the 19th to 20th century New Orleans personalities.
Reputed for his arrogance and self-promotion as often as recognized in his day for his musical talents, Morton claimed to have invented jazz outright in 1902 — much to the derision of later musicians and critics.However, jazz historian, musician, and composer Gunther Schuller writes about Morton's "hyperbolic assertions" that there is "no proof to the contrary" and that Morton's "considerable accomplishments in themselves provide reasonable substantiation".
Morton was born into a Creole of Color community in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. A baptismal certificate issued in 1894 lists his date of birth as October 20, 1890; however Morton himself and his half-sisters claimed the September 20, 1885, date is correct. His World War I draft registration card showed September 13, 1884 but his California death certificate listed his birth as September 20, 1889. He was born to F. P. Lamothe and Louise Monette (written as Lemott and Monett on his baptismal certificate). Eulaley Haco (Eulalie Hécaud) was the godparent. Eulalie helped him to be christened with the name Ferdinand. Ferdinand’s parents were in a common-law marriage and not legally married. No birth certificate has been found to date. He took the name "Morton" by anglicizing the name of his stepfather, Mouton.
Jelly Roll Morton 1890 1941
James Andrew Rushing (August 26, 1901 – June 8, 1972), known as Jimmy Rushing, was an American blues shouter and swing jazz singer from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, best known as the featured vocalist of Count Basie's Orchestra from 1935 to 1948.
Rushing was known as "Mr. Five by Five" and was the subject of an eponymous 1942 popular song that was a hit for Harry James and others -- the lyrics describing Rushing's rotund build: "he's five feet tall and he's five feet wide". He joined Walter Page's Blue Devils in 1927, then joined Bennie Moten's band in 1929. He stayed with the successor Count Basie band when Moten died in 1935.
Rushing was a powerful singer who had a range from baritone to tenor. He could project his voice so that it soared over the horn and reed sections in a big-band setting. Basie claimed that Rushing "never had an equal" as a blues vocalist. George Frazier, author of Harvard Blues, called Rushing's distinctive voice "a magnificent gargle". His best known recordings are probably "Going to Chicago" with Basie, and "Harvard Blues", with a famous saxophone solo by Don Byas.
Rushing was born into a family with musical talent and accomplishments. His father, Andrew Rushing, was a trumpeter and his mother, Cora, and brother were singers. Rushing toured the Mid-West and California as an itinerant blues singer in 1923 and 1924 before moving to Los Angeles, California, where he sang with Jelly Roll Morton. Rushing sang with Billy King before moving on to Page's Blue Devils in 1927. He, along with other members of the Blue Devils, defected to the Bennie Moten band in 1929.
Moten died in 1935, and Rushing joined Count Basie for what would be a 13-year tenure. Due to his tutelage under his mentor Moten, Rushing was a proponent of the Kansas City jump blues tradition, best evinced by his performances of "Sent For You Yesterday" and "Boogie Woogie" for the Count Basie Orchestra. After leaving Basie, his recording career soared, as a solo artist and a singer with other bands.
When the Basie band broke up in 1950 he briefly retired, then formed his own group. He also made a guest appearance with Duke Ellington for the 1959 album Jazz Party. In 1960, he recorded an album with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, known for their cerebral cool jazz sound, but the album was nonetheless described by critic Scott Yanow as "a surprising success."
Rushing appeared in the 1957 television special Sound Of Jazz, singing one of his signature songs "I Left My Baby" backed by many of his former Basie band compatriots.
His 1970 album, The You And Me That Used To Be, was named Jazz Album of the Year by DownBeat Magazine in 1971.
After he became ill with leukemia in 1971, Rushing's performing career ended. He died on June 8, 1972, in New York, and was buried at the Maple Grove Cemetery, Kew Gardens, in Queens, New York
Jimmy Rushing 1902 1972
Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906 – July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as "The Honeydripper". He was a successful and prolific cigar-chomping blues piano player, whose rollicking thundering boogie-woogie was highly influential.
Born in Elmar, Arkansas, Sykes grew up near Helena but at age 15, went on the road playing piano with a barrelhouse style of blues. Like many bluesmen of his time, he travelled around playing to all-male audiences in sawmill, turpentine and levee camps along the Mississippi River, gathering a repertoire of raw, sexually explicit material. His wanderings eventually brought him to St. Louis, Missouri, where he met St. Louis Jimmy Oden.
In 1929 he was spotted by a talent scout and sent to New York to record for Okeh Records. His first release was "'44' Blues" which became a blues standard and his trademark. He quickly began recording for multiple labels under various names including 'Easy Papa Johnson', 'Dobby Bragg' and 'Willie Kelly'. After he and Oden moved to Chicago he found his first period of fame when he signed with Decca Records in 1934. In 1943, he signed with Bluebird Records and recorded with 'The Honeydrippers'.
In Chicago, Sykes began to display an increasing urbanity in his lyric-writing, using an eight-bar blues pop gospel structure instead of the traditional twelve-bar blues. However, despite the growing urbanity of his outlook, he gradually became less competitive in the post-World War II music scene. After his RCA Victor contract expired, he continued to record for smaller labels, such as United, until his opportunities ran out in the mid 1950s.
Roosevelt left Chicago in 1954 for New Orleans as electric blues was taking over the Chicago blues clubs. When he returned to recording in the 1960s it was for labels such as Delmark, Bluesville, Storyville and Folkways that were documenting the quickly passing blues history. He lived out his final years in New Orleans, where he died from a heart attack on July 17, 1983.
Sykes had a long career spanning the pre-war and postwar eras. His pounding piano boogies and risqué lyrics characterize his contributions to the blues. He was responsible for influential blues songs such as "44 Blues", "Driving Wheel", and "Night Time Is the Right Time".
He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in 2011.
Roosevelt Sykes 1906 1983
Big Joe Turner (born Joseph Vernon Turner Jr., May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", Turner's career as a performer stretched from the 1920s into the 1980s. Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
Known variously as The Boss of the Blues, and Big Joe Turner (due to his 6'2", 300+ lbs. stature), Turner was born in Kansas City and first discovered his love of music through involvement in the church. Turner's father was killed in a train accident when Joe was only four years old. He began singing on street corners for money, leaving school at age fourteen to begin working in Kansas City's nightclub scene, first as a cook, and later as a singing bartender. He eventually became known as The Singing Barman, and worked in such venues as The Kingfish Club and The Sunset, where he and his piano playing partner Pete Johnson became resident performers. The Sunset was managed by Piney Brown. It featured "separate but equal" facilities for white patrons. Turner wrote "Piney Brown Blues" in his honor and sang it throughout his entire career.
At that time Kansas City was a wide-open town run by "Boss" Tom Pendergast. Despite this, the clubs were subject to frequent raids by the police, but as Turner recounts, "The Boss man would have his bondsmen down at the police station before we got there. We'd walk in, sign our names and walk right out. Then we would cabaret until morning".
His partnership with boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson proved fruitful. Together they headed to New York City in 1936, where they appeared on a bill with Benny Goodman, but as Turner recounts, "After our show with Goodman, we auditioned at several places, but New York wasn't ready for us yet, so we headed back to K.C.". Eventually they were spotted by the talent scout, John H. Hammond in 1938, who invited them back to New York to appear in one of his "From Spirituals to Swing" concerts at Carnegie Hall, which were instrumental in introducing jazz and blues to a wider American audience.
Due in part to their appearance at Carnegie Hall, Turner and Johnson scored a major hit with "Roll 'Em Pete". The track, basically a collection of traditional blues lyrics featured one of the earliest recorded examples of a back beat. It was a song which Turner recorded many times, with various combinations of musicians, over the ensuing years.
He died in Inglewood, California in November 1985, at the age of 74 of a heart attack, having suffered the earlier effects of arthritis, a stroke and diabetes. Big Joe Turner was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
Big Joe Turner 1911 1985
Sam Taylor (October 25, 1934 – January 4, 2009) was an American jump blues musician and songwriter.
Taylor's more popular recordings included "Funny", "Drinking Straight Tequila" and "Voice of the Blues". He variously worked with Joey Dee and the Starliters, Otis Redding, B.T. Express, The Drifters, Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Sam & Dave, Tracy Nelson, Mother Earth and The Isley Brothers. Taylor was inducted to the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
Born Sam Willis Taylor Jr. in Crichton, a suburb of Mobile, Alabama, Taylor began singing gospel at the age of three. His Long Island connection began in 1957, during his service in the United States Air Force. He was stationed at the Westhampton Beach Air Force Base, which was a short distance from the Blue Bird Inn.
After leaving the service in 1959, Taylor lived in Riverhead. His first major professional gig was as Maxine Brown's bandleader at the Apollo Theater and his first #1 R&B hit single was "Funny". Taylor himself, often going using his fuller name of Sammy Taylor, recorded for various labels including Capitol, Enjoy and Atlantic Records.
The songwriter of hundreds of songs, many of them hits such as "Peace Pipe", performed by the B.T. Express, Taylor's efforts were recorded by Freddie King, Chubby Checker, Son Seals, Jimmy Witherspoon, Brook Benton, Jay and the Americans, Joey Dee, Maxine Brown and Joe Tex. Taylor also was the bandleader and/or guitarist for Big Joe Turner, The Isley Brothers, Tracy Nelson, Otis Redding and Sam & Dave.
Taylor and his songwriting partner, Bennie Earl, mentored young Florida duo Sam & Dave wrote two of their early hits "People in Love" and "Listening For My Name", when the duo recorded for Roulette Records, predating their later success with Stax/Volt. Taylor was also a original member and guitarist/songwriter for Joey Dee and the Starliters. With fellow Starlight Dave Brigatti, Taylor had a strong influence on The Rascals, which included Brigatti's younger brother Eddie. He also wrote some of the first songs for The Vagrants which included Leslie West who would later go on to form Mountain. After recording and appearing in two films with the Starliters including Two Tickets to Paris, Taylor took his friend Jimi Hendrix with him to tell Joey Dee and Morris Levy to let the young upstart take his place in the group.
At the start of the 1970s, Taylor and Earl were hired as staff songwriters for The Beach Boys record label, Brother Records, until Brian Wilson burned the studio with Taylor and Earl's demos for the group going up in flames. At that time, Taylor released his first solo album Tunnels Of My Mind on the GRT Corporation label. He was later hired by Roadshow Records as an A&R/songwriter for the acts they were signing. He was told by the record producer Jeff Lane that, in exchange for helping them build up the company, he would be granted a solo deal for three albums. The most notable of these artists was King David House Rockers who became B.T. Express. Taylor played rhythm guitar on all tracks of the group's first five albums, with the first three being million sellers, "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)", "Non-Stop" and "Energy to Burn". He also played the organ on the group's million seller, "Do It Your Satisfied". Taylor's song "Peace Pipe" became one of the group's biggest hits.
Taylor also produced and wrote songs for Norma Jenkins debut album, Patience is a Virtue.
By the late 1970s, he moved to Santa Monica, California, where at Venice Beach he attracted fellow artists such as Rickie Lee Jones and Albert Collins, but drug addiction and medical problems dulled his musical edge.
Taylor moved to Tucson, Arizona and became a prime figure in Arizona's heavy music scene, where he hosted his own television program, Down To Earth. It was also in Arizona that Taylor began a modest acting career appearing with Lou Gossett Jr, Mario Van Peebles and Barbara Eden. He also appeared in the film, Tape Heads, with two of his compositions used in the film.
Taylor's music has been sampled by rap artists. "Everything That's Good To Ya (Ain’t Always Good For Ya)" became a popular hip hop sample used by EPMD, Beanie Sigel, Mase and more notably DMX's first #1 hit "Get at Me Dog".
Upon his son Bobby's death, Taylor returned to New York. He was a resident of Central Islip until his own demise. There Taylor released five albums including Blue Tears, Voice of the Blues (a live recording from his 2004 Riverhead Blues Festival set), Bluzman Back Home and Portrait: The Funk Side Of Sam which featured the song "Freaks". Taylor also hosted WUSB (FM)'s Blues With A Feeling radio show. Along with Joan Jett, Billy Joel, Vanilla Fudge, KISS, Mountain, Shadow Morton, Run–D.M.C. and Twisted Sister, Taylor was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Arizona Blues Hall Of Fame in 1997. Just before his death, he released his autobiography, Caught in the Jaws of the Blues.
Taylor died on January 4, 2009, at his home in Islandia, New York, of complications associated with heart disease. He was aged 74.
Sam Taylor 1916 1990
Well this post was VERY DEMANDING to assemble but I sure learned a lot of new information about these blues/jazz artists. Now the next section in this series is called: Part IV: World War II Jazz Blues. As always, I hope you found this post inspiring and that you’re as anxious to go forward with this research as I am.
Until next time ~ ~ ~
Musician By Night . . .
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