2/19/11: Featuring the Love Affair

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From a music historian’s point of view, it may be difficult to take the Love Affair seriously. None of the five members was over twenty years old when they hit, the group had been put together by the drummer’s doting father, and they didn’t even play on their best-known songs. But they had a fantastic singer, released catchy and memorable singles, and in 1968 only the Beatles outsold them in Britain.

The band was originally called The Soul Survivors and was formed around drummer Maurice “Mo” Bacon. Mo came from a family of drummers: his father was a semi-professional and his cousin was a noted session player who played on Steely Dan’s records. Mo’s dad was thrilled that his son was going into the family business and started taking out ads to find bandmates for his boy.

A competent group came together fairly quickly, but it was the addition of singer Steve Ellis that made them all believe that they could hit the big time. Ellis auditioned for the Soul Survivors on a dare in early ’66, singing the Spender Davis group number “Keep On Running”. It was a prophetic choice, as Ellis’ voice would later be compared to that of Steve Winwood.

Mo Bacon’s father got excited and, being a man of means, pulled out all the stops to pave the way for the band. He bought the guys all the gear they needed, rented a warehouse for them to rehearse in, and provided a van for traveling to gigs.

In the beginning, the band’s “gigs” were a bit impromptu: To get some experience under their belts, they would crash bar mitzvahs and weddings by arriving unannounced claiming to be “the band you hired”. As the confused host of the event stammered something about not having hired a band, the guys would smile and say, “Oh well, since we’re here we might as well play!”

The performances, expected or not, served to tighten up the band’s sound, and soon Mr. Bacon brought in a couple of professional managers. The management’s team’s first move was to change the band’s name to the Love Affair. The guys weren’t too crazy about it, but it was better than another idea that was floated. Someone had suggested calling them the “Thin Red Line”, and painting a red line from the tops of their foreheads down to their pants!

After a new name was settled on, the band was taken into the studio to record. Their first song was written by Kenny Lynch, who had written “Sha La La La Lee” for the Small Faces. The Love Affair recorded his song “Woman, Woman” at Abbey Road, and everyone in the group was enthused about its potential. However, management decided something a little more tried-and-true would be best for a first outing and had them record a version of the Rolling Stones’ “She Smiled Sweetly”. The band hated the results, but it was released. The record died with barely a whimper.

Although they weren’t selling records, the Love Affair was packing out the London soul clubs, performing covers of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, and Lee Dorsey. Despite the fact that they were all still in school, they were on stage three or four nights per week.

After a few more stiffs, their record label dropped them, so they began to send out demos. One found the ears of Island Records’ Muff Winwood, formerly of the Spencer Davis Group. He signed them, mostly on the strength of Steve’s voice.

After a few false starts, Muff suggested they cover “Everlasting Love”, which was doing well in the US for soul man Robert Knight. They loved the tune and jumped at the chance. The cut was recorded with a rather stripped-down sound compared to the original, with all members of the Love Affair performing. The label brass weren’t very impressed but believed in the song, so superstar producer Mike Smith was brought in to spruce it up.

Smith did a lot more than a little sprucing up, re-recording the song with a 40-piece orchestra added to the mix. Everyone in the band except for Steve was told to stand down for the session, and the hit version of “Everlasting Love” was signed, sealed, and delivered in just three takes. It was released in December of ’67 and took the British charts by storm. It hit #1 in February 1968, just after Steve Ellis turned sixteen.

2/5/11: Featuring Timi Yuro

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In 1961, pop music was in a bit of a holding pattern. The wild rock ‘n’ roll that had exploded in the ’50s had been tamed, and Beatlemania was still a few years off. Lawrence Welk, Pat Boone, and Bobby Vee were scoring #1 hits, making a spin across the radio dial for the most part a rather sedate experience. But right in the middle of this sea of calm, in the summer of ’61, a powerful, emotion-filled, rich voice exploded out of the radio with “Hurt”, leaving listeners assuming that the singer was black or male or both. But “the voice” belonged to a 4’11 eighteen-year-old girl named Timi Yuro.

Timi was born Rosemarie Timotea Aurro in Chicago in 1940. As a child, she spent a lot of her time with her family’s African-American neighbors, listening to Dinah Washington records, attending church, and even sneaking into blues clubs on occasion. She naturally took to singing, but her father harshly discouraged it. On the other hand, her mother arranged for her to take operatic training.

The Aurro family moved to Los Angeles in 1952 and opened a restaurant. Meanwhile, Timi came to the attention of famous vocal coach Lillian Goodman (Frankie Laine, Kirk Douglas), who was so impressed by the twelve-year-old’s talent that she offered to work with her free of charge. Two years later, Timi was singing in Hollywood nightclubs. Her mother did not approve of that career path and once interrupted a performance by yelling from the audience, “This is your last song, young lady!”.

In the interest of peaceful family relations, Timi took her act to her parents’ restaurant. It was a good move for all concerned, with Timi getting great exposure while the eatery became a Hollywood “destination” due to the teenager’s explosive performances. A Liberty Records talent scout caught Timi’s show one night, and awarded her a recording contract in ’59.

Excitement soon gave way to frustration, however, as the label executives spent the next two years choosing lightweight fluff for Timi to record against her will. Her protests fell on deaf ears, so she stalked the label headquarters. Finally, on a Friday afternoon in July of ’61, the secretary went to the ladies’ room, and Timi rushed in to crash an executive meeting, threatening to tear up her contract if she wasn’t allowed to record material more suited to her talents. The suits called her bluff, saying “Well, show us whatcha got”… and she broke into an impassioned delivery of “Hurt”, a ballad that had been a rhythm and blues hit for Roy Hamilton in 1954.

Al Bennett, the president of Liberty, was so impressed that he assigned Timi to producer Clyde Otis, who also worked with Dinah Washington and Nat King Cole. Bennett wanted “Hurt” for a single, and it was recorded post haste after Otis was convinced that a white girl could sing with soul. The song (listen here) was released in early summer of 1961 and climbed all the way to #4 on the Top 100. The flip side, “I Apologize”, got up to #72. (“Hurt” also got into the Top 20 on the national Rhythm and Blues charts.)

Timi was personally chosen by Frank Sinatra for a concert tour of Australia in 1961, winning out over Connie Francis and Brenda Lee. While she was performing to a crowd of 15,000 during the tour, the PA system went dead. Timi asked the audience to let her continue, promising that if everyone was quiet they would still be able to hear her sing. So she continued as the crowd watched and listened in awe. Sinatra walked out on stage and began circling her with a quizzical look. Timi finally asked , “Whatcha doing, babe?” to which Sinatra replied, “Nothing, kid- I’m just looking to see where they plug you in”.

In keeping with their less-than-daring corporate personality, Liberty decided that since “Hurt” had been such a big hit, Timi should stay on the emotional ballad track, preferably with songs with one-syllable titles like “Cry” and “Smile”. But none of her follow-ups generated much interest until “What’s a Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You)”, produced by an up-and-coming Phil Spector, barely missed the Top Ten in ’62. The flip side, “I Ain’t Gonna Cry No More”, didn’t chart at all, but a listen now usually elicits a one-word response: WOW. The singer’s and the producer’s sense of drama seemed to mesh perfectly. Unfortunately, Yuro and Spector would not have the opportunity to work together again.

1/29/11: Featuring Willis Alan Ramsey

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• “The Ballad of Spider John”, a favorite song from Jimmy Buffett’s 1974 classic album Living and Dying in ¾ Time
• “Satin Sheets”, recorded by Waylon Jennings in 1977
• “Geraldine and the Honeybee”, a concert favorite for Widespread Panic
• “Northeast Texas Women”, which shows up on many “Best Of” Jerry Jeff Walker compilations
• …and “Muskrat Love”, a #5 smash in 1976 for The Captain & Tennille

Despite the improbability of there being any reasonable explanation for Widespread Panic and the Captain & Tennille appearing on any list together, all the songs above do have one thing in common: They were included on Willis Alan Ramsey’s 1972 self-titled debut. And not only was Willis Alan Ramsey his first album- it was his only album.

Willis Alan Ramsey was born in 1949 in Birmingham, Alabama. His mother was musically inclined, his brother collected rhythm and blues records, and the family never missed a Grand Ole Opry broadcast. Willis Alan was also deeply steeped in African-American traditions, spending much of his time with the black women who took acre of him. In a 2000 interview with the St. Louis Riverfront Times, he recalled, “We had maids back then- everybody in the South had maids-and they were singing all the time. So that music was in the air. Segregation didn’t mean that people didn’t associate with one another. I was raised more by my black maid Letty. I spent more time with her than I did my parents.”

The Ramseys moved to Dallas, Texas in 1960, much to the dismay of young Willis Alan, who thought too many people there “were always acting like they better than everybody else”. By the late ’60s, he began to make a name for himself in front of those big shots by turning in memorable performances at the folk clubs in Dallas, Houston, and Austin.

During an engagement at the Villa Capri hotel lounge in Dallas, Ramsey found out that Leon Russell and the Allman Brothers were checked in. Armed with his songs and not a small amount of chutzpah, he knocked on their doors: “Leon was nice and receptive, and I was kind of cocky at that point. I thought I was writing some tunes that he should hear. Leon told me to break out my guitar. He and his road manager listened and gave me their numbers in California.”

1/22/11: King Pleasure and the Art of Vocalese

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In jazz, the line separating a singer’s voice and a soloing instrumentalist can often be blurred . Great scat singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme improvised melodies and rhythms using nonsense syllables, creating the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voices. On the other hand, vocalese artists like the Manhattan Transfer or Annie Ross adhere strictly to a previously-improvised jazz instrumental solo and “translate” the notes into words, often choosing lyrics that tell a story about the originating soloist. The vocalese singer must possess just as much agility and fluidity as much as does the scat singer, but while the scat singer roams freely within the broad confines of the tune, the vocalese singer stays true to the original solo, note-for-note.

The best example of scat singing you’ll probably ever witness: And here’s some vocalese:Most sources agree that vocalese was invented by Eddie Jefferson, who put words to James Moody’s sax solo in “I’m in the Mood for Love” around 1949, and later did the same for Lester Young’s solo on “I Cover the Waterfront” and Coleman Hawkins’ turn on “Body and Soul”. (Listen to Jefferson here.)

Although not the originator, the best-known vocalese pioneer is the flamboyant, gold-toothed King Pleasure. His real name was Clarence Beeks, and he was born in Oakdale, Tennessee in 1922. He grew up in Cincinnati and worked outside of the music business until he was almost 30. He seemed to come out of nowhere when he won amateur night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1951 singing Jefferson’s “Moody’s Mood for Love”. After his win, Beeks decided to change his name to something a little more interesting, and he succeeded on that count by dubbing himself “King Pleasure”.

Eddie Jefferson had never recorded “Moody’s Mood”, and the Apollo win gave King Pleasure the opportunity to do so. It was a surprise national hit, sitting near the top of Billboard magazine’s “Most Played Juke Box Rhythm and Blues Records” in early ’52, sandwiched in between the Dominos’ “Have Mercy, Baby” and Lloyd Price with “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”. Soon, Jet magazine was reporting that King Pleasure had paid $2500 for a custom-made throne from which he sang on stage. (Listen to “Moody’s Mood” here.)

Pleasure followed up by writing his own words to “Parker’s Mood”, and then turned in memorable versions of “Red Top” (with Betty Carter, based on a Gene Ammons sax solo), and Lester Young’s “Jumpin’ with Symphony Sid” (a tribute to New York disc jockey Sid Torin). He moved to Los Angeles in 1956, cut a few singles that year, and made full albums in ’60 and ’62.

At the age of forty, however, King Pleasure seemed to drop off the face of the earth. When he died in 1982, many people were shocked: They thought he had been deceased for years.

King Pleasure’s complete recorded catalog fits on just three CDs. However, his influence has been much greater than what that rather meager output might suggest. Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross, Al Jarreau, and many others closely studied King Pleasure’s technique and have paid obvious homage to him on their own recordings.

…and backstage at Woodstock in 1969, Van Morrison was photographed carrying an LP. It was Original Moody’s Mood by King Pleasure.

1/15/11: Featuring Alan Price

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Alan Price was born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, an industrial city in the northeast of England in 1942. He began playing the piano when he was seven, and was proficient on keyboards, guitar, and bass by the time he entered double-digits. Like many British teens, he was swept up into the skiffle craze in the 1950s, and had his own band called the Black Diamonds. Then he made the shift to rock ‘n roll, particularly inspired by the piano-pounding Jerry Lee Lewis.

In 1961 when he was nineteen, he formed the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo, which also included guitarist Hilton Valentine, bassist Chas Chandler, and drummer John Steel. They became a popular attraction in Newcastle clubs, and vocalist Eric Burdon was brought on board in ’62. Burdon had been hanging out with a rebellious gang led by an army vet calling himself Animal Hog, and suggested that the band change its name to “The Animals” when word came back from London that the whole idea of a “combo” had become quite stale. Everyone except Alan approved of the idea, and a serious power struggle between Price and Burdon began.

Burdon was the front man on stage and in the press, but it was Alan’s arrangements and organ-playing that was setting the band apart from its contemporaries. In a Melody Maker interview, Alan explained his style: “I use a lot more chords than most organists and I’m careful to phrase them with the guitar. I tend to think of the organ as part of the rhythm section, rather than a frontline voice. The only time it dominates is during a solo, or when we play a low blues and I put figures in behind Eric’s vocals.”

The Animals became quite popular locally, and record producer Mickie Most facilitated a move to London. He also got them a spot as the opening act for Chuck Berry’s UK tour. Most of Berry’s material was light and perky, and the group decided to provide a counterpoint with the slow, almost hypnotic arrangement that Alan Price devised for the traditional blues song “House of the Rising Sun”. It went over well, and when Most got the band a contract with EMI Records, “House” was the first song that they recorded.

1/8/11: The Flirtations

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By 1969, soulful “girl groups” had for the most part become passe, especially on the American charts. The last ensemble left standing was the Supremes, and by the end of the ’60s even they had moved toward more ”relevant” material such as “I’m Livin’ in Shame” and “Love Child”. Despite all trends away from the sound, however, 1969 had dawned with a hit from one of the most talented and powerful old-school female groups to ever step into a studio- The Flirtations. It’s too bad that the Flirtations are rarely remembered now except by hardcore soul enthusiasts and relentless record collectors.

The Flirtations were originally called “The Gypsies”, and consisted of sisters Earnestine, Shirley, and Betty Pearce along with their friend Lestine Johnson. The ladies were all from South Carolina, but the Pearce sisters made the acquaintance of Lestine in New York City. The foursome signed to the tiny Old Town record label in 1964 and had a minor hit with the perky dance number “Jerk It”- written by JJ Jackson, who would later have his own smash with “But It’s Alright”. Their first professional engagement was at the Apollo Theatre in New York, and it seemed that they were going places. Despite the promise of success, Lestine soon left the group and was replaced by Alabama-born Viola Billups.

The Gypsies released a few more solid records in ’65, and ’66 and won a Supremes sound-alike talent contest but kept hitting a brick wall when it came to record sales. The group, none of whom had ever traveled outside the US, decided to move to England, where their style of soul was still in high demand. Betty Pearce elected not to make the trip, and they scaled down to a trio. Since they were in effect re-inventing themselves with their move abroad, the group decided to also change its name as well. Viola suggested “Flirtations”, playing off the fact that each member of the group was sexy in her own unique way.

Once in England, the Flirtations were signed to Parrot Records, which was also the home of Tom Jones and the Zombies. They had one song on the label, “Someone Out There”/”How Can You Tell Me” which garnered decent airplay, but few sales. Parrot didn’t keep them around for a second try.

Manager Barry Marshall, who also handled Paul McCartney, got the Flirtations signed to the Deram label, a Decca subsidiary that mostly concentrated on “progressive” artists like David Bowie, the Moody Blues, the Move, and Procol Harum. Teamed up with producer Wayne Bickerton (Petula Clark, Tom Jones) and writer Tony Waddington, the group recorded a song in late 1968 that has since been referred to as “the best Motown record that Motown never released”.

1/1/11: The Death of Hank Williams

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“I got off (the stage) just in time to see this pathetic, emaciated, haunted-looking, tragic figure of a man being assisted through the stage door- not too gently- by a male nurse. The nurse had undoubtedly had enough problems to warrant being impatient…but it upset me to see my friend handled that way. I ran to him and hugged him. He threw his arms around me and clung to me, crying. I tried to comfort him, to tell him that everything was going to be all right, just as you would try to comfort a child crying in the dark.”

-Minnie Pearl, on seeing Hank Williams at a show in San Diego in late spring of 1952

During the five years following his recording debut in 1947, Hank Williams released thirty songs, half of which hit the top of the country music charts and nearly all of which would soon be considered essential entries in the great American songbook. His performance of “Lovesick Blues” on the Grand Ole Opry in 1949 had the frenzied audience demanding a record six encores, but less than three years after that triumph he was fired from the show for missing too many performances due to “excessive drunkenness”. By 1952, Hank Williams’ hard-drinking and hard-living ways, along with a run of bad luck, were conspiring to bring his career- and life- to a premature end.

After his dismissal from the Opry, Hank went back to performing on the Louisiana Hayride, where he had gotten his first big break just a few years before. Even there, he began drinking away the money that was due his backing musicians, and eventually his band the Drifting Cowboys deserted him. He attempted to carry on on but became so undependable that few promoters would risk booking him, and when they did he had to make all his own arrangements. The times that he did show up for a gig, it was common for him to botch it terribly and end up in a shouting match with the audience. At one fairgrounds show, the promoter dragged a hopelessly drunk Hank from his car and up on the stage for the audience to see. They literally chased him out of town.

Even though Hank was still ruling the country music charts (in part because he never, ever showed up at a recording session drunk), he had been reduced to living at his mother’s boardinghouse in Montgomery. He was in constant pain due to congenital spina bifida made worse by heavy drinking, frequent brawling, and an unsuccessful back surgery. He was in and out of the North Louisiana Sanitarium throughout the summer and fall of ’52 in a series of half-hearted attempts to dry out.

In October of that year, Hank had also gotten involved with H.R Toby Marshall, a fake doctor who had served time for forgery and armed robbery. Marshall had bought his “diploma” for $35 and wrote his prescriptions on stolen pads. He claimed to be alleviating Hank’s back pain and also “treating” his alcoholism with strong sedatives and painkillers. The “doctor” kept Hank supplied with amphetamines, Seconal, morphine, and the dangerous sedative chloral hydrate. His last prescription for Hank was for 24 grams of the drug, which depresses the central nervous system and is potentially fatal when mixed with alcohol. Hank filled and then refilled the chloral hydrate prescription in Montgomery less than a month before he died.

On top of everything else, during the 1952 Christmas holiday, Hank had visited a few of his old stomping grounds and had bragged himself into a fight. In the days just after Christmas, he was seen favoring a bandaged left arm. He said it was badly sprained, but that Dr. Marshall was helping him with the pain.

Hoping to revive his career and his reputation, Hank had accepted a last-minute offer to play a New Year’s Eve show in Charleston, West Virginia and two New Year’s Day performances in Canton, Ohio. These would be major shows, and Hank hoped that they would signal a comeback for him.

He was responsible for getting himself to the venues, and he asked around for a cab driver who might want to pick up an extra 400 bucks to drive him. None of the Montgomery regulars wanted to be on the road over the holiday, but a loyal friend of Hank’s who ran a taxi service volunteered his son for the trip. Nineteen-year-old Charles Carr was a college freshman, and the money would cover most of his expenses for the coming school term.

12/11/10: Featuring Bobby Hebb

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It was inevitable that Bobby Hebb would have a career in music.

He began his life in a musical family in a music town, born in 1938 in Nashville to a trombone-playing father and a guitarist mother, both of whom were blind. The whole family sometimes performed on the streets in a washboard band humorously tagged “Hebb’s Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra”. Older brother Hal was a tap dancer, and Bobby became part of that act before his fourth birthday. The boys appeared on national television in 1942 and were regulars on the Nashville nightclub scene when Bobby was in first grade. One of Bobby’s childhood friends was neighbor Pat Boone.

Hal Hebb had a hard time staying out of trouble, and ended up in the Tennessee State Penitentiary in the early 1950s. There he met singer Johnny Bragg, who had founded the group the Prisonaires. (The Prisonaires’ “Just Walkin’ in the Rain” was released while they were still behind bars and was the first hit for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records.) When Johnny and Hal got out of prison, they established the doo-wop group the Marigolds and did well with the song “Rollin’ Stone”.

Meanwhile, little brother Bobby performed on a local TV show hosted by country music record producer Owen Bradley. The appearance earned him a place in Roy Acuff’s Smokey Mountain Boys, playing spoons and tap dancing. When he was fourteen, Bobby became one of the first African-Americans to appear on the Grand Ole Opry. While hanging around backstage at the Opry, he picked up guitar tips from Chet Atkins and songwriting pointers from Hank Williams.

Bobby migrated to Chicago in 1954 to try to carve a place out for himself in blues or jazz, and did manage to work on the Bo Diddley tune”Diddly Diddly Diddly Daddy” with the Moonglows and Little Walter. Shortly after that Leonard Chess-produced session, Bobby joined the Navy.

After his stint in the service, Bobby recorded his first solo single, “Night Train to Memphis”. His bluesy take on the old Smokey Mountain Boys tune attracted the attention of New York disc jockey John Richbourg and the airplay got it into the NYC Top Fifty. Richbourg helped Bobby win a slot as opening act for Mickey and Sylvia (“Love is Strange”), and when Mickey Baker moved to Paris, the act became Bobby and Sylvia. They released a couple of singles, including the notoriously poorly-conceived “You Broke My Heart and I Broke Your Jaw”.