R&B | All About Blues Music

LUCKY MILLINDER

Lucky Millinder had a great stage presence, a good ear for a hot tune, and a knack of making chart topping records. He made those talents go a long way because he didn’t sing or play an instrument, and he couldn’t read music. As a band-leader, however, he put together The Lucky Millinder Orchestra that…

LITTLE RICHARD

If you took a Gospel shouter, some pounding New Orleans piano R&B, some very cheeky lyrics and an outrageous stage personality, you still wouldn’t quite have the phenomenon that is Little Richard. As R&B and jump-blues transformed into Rock’n’Roll in the mid-50s, Richard was at the cutting edge, all over the radio, the juke-box and…

RUTH BROWN

Ruth Weston sang Gospel in her father’s church before she joined Lucky Millinder‘s band while still a teenager. On the road, she married trumpeter Jimmy Brown, but a couple of years later she was fired from the band over an alcohol related incident. Ruth was one of Atlantic Records’ first signings, but her debut was…

WILBERT HARRISON

When Wilbert Harrison left the Navy in 1950, he played calypso guitar and his first recordings for Rockin’ Records had a decidedly country feel. His switch to the Savoy label in 1954 did not bring any hits, but that situation changed in 1959 when his version of Leiber and Stoller’s ‘Kansas City’ was a big…

DOROTHY MOORE

‘Misty Blue’ was a big cross-over hit for Dorothy in 1976, as the perfect vehicle for her Southern flavoured soul-blues voice. Born in Jackson MS, the daughter of Mississippi Blind Boys’ Melvin Hendrex, Dorothy began singing in Gospel choirs, eventually emerging as a soloist. As a student at Jackson State University she formed a girl-group…

MAMIE ‘GALORE’ DAVIS

This feisty Mississippi lady knew she wanted to be a Blues singer, even as a schoolgirl. As soon as she was old enough, Mamie joined touring shows with Little Milton and Ike & Tina Turner before picking up her own deal with St. Lawrence Records in Chicago. Her soulful 1966 hit ‘It Ain’t Necessary’ was…

FAYE ADAMS

Faye Adams started young as a singer when she performed in her father’s Gospel choir on the radio in their hometown of Newark NJ at the age of five. By the late 40s she was a regular on the New York club circuit, and Atlantic recording artist Ruth Brown recomended Faye to Joe Morris, trumpeter…

LITTLE BROTHER MONTGOMERY

Little Brother Montgomery was a little known but hugely influential Blues pianist from Louisiana. He learned to play piano just after he learned to walk and talk, and his endless stories of his long life on the road and on the club scene made him an invaluable source in the oral history of the Blues.…

PERCY MAYFIELD

Often called ‘The Poet Laureate of the Blues’, Percy Mayfield had a warm, rich voice that scored a string of hit Blues Ballads in the early 50s for Art Rupe‘s fledgling Specialty label in LA. His song ‘Two Years of Torture’ got Percy started when he sent it to Jimmy Witherspoon‘s record company and they…

JIMMY WITHERSPOON

Jimmy Witherspoon was a Blues Shouter in the Kansas City tradition, but his versatility gave him the chance to excel in other settings, notably with jazz and swing bands as well as in soulful and funky styles. He explored the borderlands between jazz and the Blues so successfully over such a long career, his genre…