Buddy Ace - The Duke Recordings

Another repost by request:

I've finally found a collection of Buddy Ace's Duke singles! They have not yet received any modern remastering so they are still mixed for jukeboxes, but it is better than nothing.

Born Jimmy Lee Land in Jasper, TX, on November 11, 1936, bluesman "Buddy Ace" was known as "The Silver Fox of the Blues". His name was changed to "Buddy Ace" by Duke's Don Robey after Johnnie Ace's younger brother (St. Clair Alexander) had no success with the handle. Lee Land started out singing in gospel groups (at least one of which also contained Joe Tex) before going into R & B in the early 50s. He toured in Bobby Bland and Junior Parker's bands before he finally got a record contract of his own with Duke/Peacock in 1955. In the mid-'60s, Ace had several R&B hits including "Nothing in the World Can Hurt Me (Except You)" and "Hold On (To This Fool)," but he never scored a major breakthrough. Buddy relocated to Los Angeles in 1970 (after the sale of Duke and death of Don Robey) and later moved to Oakland; he spent much of this period touring in and around the Bay Area. (including Eli's Mile High Club, Jack's and Larry Blake's) Ace continued to perform and record into the '90s with 3 albums released on Leon Haywood's Evejim imprint. Ace passed away on December 26, 1994, at 58 while performing in Waco, TX.

Junior Parker - Ride With Me, Baby (The Singles 1952-1961 +bonus)

A repost from a couple years ago.....

Murphy's Law is a powerful thing.

Some of y'all will remember that back around last Thanksgiving, I had spent a weekend assembling an upgraded version of MCA's less-than-great re-issues of Junior Parker's Duke sides. Literally the following week, Cliff found and ordered this newly re-mastered double disc set that covers EVERYTHING, Sun and Duke, from 1951 to 1961. Once again it was time to figure out what to keep and what to pitch. Sigh....Oh, well it was no where near as complicated for having done the previous work.

This set does a really nice job on the period it covers, BUT this one too is mysteriously pulled up at least one disc short of completing the entire Duke era. Perhaps they are working on a second set, but in the meanwhile I have attached a new 20 track supplement to cover as much of that material as I have now. Hopefully this will trigger a second Murphy's Law response and a second package will be issued that finally does Junior full justice.

Sorry to revamp your files yet again, but I think you'll find it is worth it.

Clarence Carter - The Early Fame Singles 1966-70

Now you may ask yourself 'why is he re-posting this?' - Well for two reasons: A) This one is in FLAC with cover scans (finally got around to it) and B) It is a prelude because my friends Volume 2 has finally been released! Oooo Yeah!

"Born in Montgomery, Alabama on January 14, 1936, Carter attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, Alabama, and Alabama State College in Montgomery, graduating in August 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in music. His professional music career began with friend Calvin Scott, signing to the Fairlane Records label to release "I Wanna Dance But I Don't Know How" the following year. After the 1962 release of "I Don't Know (School Girl)," Carter and Scott left Fairlane Records for Duke Records, renaming themselves the CL Boys for their label debut, Hey. In all, the duo cut four Duke singles, none of them generating more than a shrug at radio.

In 1965, they traveled to Rick Hall's FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals to record "Step by Step" and its flip side, "Rooster Knees and Rice." Atlantic Records took notice and released "Step by Step" on its Atco Records subsidiary, but it flopped. Carter continued as a solo act, signing to the Fame Records label for 1967's Tell Daddy. Several more solid singles followed, until Carter released "Slip Away," which hit number 6 on the Pop Charts. "Too Weak to Fight" hit number 13. Several more soul singles followed, like "Snatching It Back," "Making Love (At the Dark End of the Street)", "The Feeling Is Right," "Doing Our Thing" and "Patches." "Patches" (first recorded by Chairmen of the Board) was a UK number 2 and a U.S. number 4 in 1970, and won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1971. This disc sold over one million copies, and received a gold disc awarded by the R.I.A.A. in September 1970, just two months after its release. Following "Slip Away" and "Too Weak to Fight", it was Carter's third million-seller.

With the advent of disco in the mid 1970s, Carter's career suffered, before he found a new audience with songs such as "Strokin'" and "Dr. C.C." in the 1980s and 1990s, which appealed (and still appeal) to a primarily African-American working-class audience that was also interested in contemporary blues and soul artists such as Denise LaSalle, Bobby Rush, Marvin Sease and Sir Charles Jones. "Strokin'" was given great acclaim when it was used in the Eddie Murphy film The Nutty Professor. Carter's strong soul sound also found an audience within the then-nascent hip-hop community. Most notably, the horn break from Carter's song "Back Door Santa", is sampled in the Run-D.M.C. Christmas song "Christmas in Hollis"

Joe Hinton - Funny (How Time Slips Away)

Yet another Unkie Cliff special!

"Joe Hinton (November 15, 1929 – August 13, 1968)  Hinton was born in Evansville, Indiana. He began as a gospel singer with the Chosen Gospel Quartet and the Spirit of Memphis Quartet. Producer Don Robey asked the singer to try doing secular tunes, and Hinton began recording for Robey's record label, Peacock Records, in 1958. It was not until 1963, with his fifth single on the label, that he managed to chart with "You Know It Ain't Right"; the next single, "Better to Give Than to Receive", also hit the lower regions of the charts. His biggest hit was 1964's "Funny How Time Slips Away", written by Willie Nelson; the tune (simply credited as "Funny" on the original record label) peaked at #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year. Cash Box magazine listed "Funny How Time Slips Away" as #1 for four weeks on their R&B chart. The track sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. "I Want a Little Girl", the next single, also charted, but it was his last hit.

Hinton died of skin cancer in 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of 38, while still in the prime of his recording career."

Bobby Bland - That Did It!, The Duke Recordings, vol 3

The final volume of Bobby's great Duke recordings. As I sit in the office today and listen I am wondering how in the hell he didn't have any breakthrough hits out of this stuff. Remember that this is largely 1965-66 when you are listening and tell me why none of these great songs ever manages to cross over. Bobby always does well on the R&B charts but he is absent from the Pop charts. At least one answer is that he is still mostly singing adult songs for adults and the path to crossover is the Teen market.

" That Did It is the third and final installment in MCA's series of double-disc compilations of Bobby Blue Bland's Duke recordings. This set collects everything he recorded between 1965 and 1972, including two unreleased tracks and several alternate takes. Although the music on That Did It isn't quite as strong as the songs on the first two installments of the series, it does collect a full 16 singles that have never appeared on an album before, as well as featuring several top-notch album tracks. For Bland fans, the collection remains a necessary purchase -- this is Bland's final set of essential recordings."

Bobby Bland - Turn On Your Lovelight (The Duke Recordings, vol 2)

The coolest thing about writing this blog is the listening to prepare! Each time one of these guys has totally knocked me out and I'm sitting there thinking 'well what the hell tops that' and I pull up the next item on my list (yeah, there is a list and no I ain't giving anyone a peek) and as soon as it starts to play my grin spreads and I say 'Okay, that will work'.

The amazing thing to me is that I am being very picky about what goes up here and yet there is no issue with material, I could easily maintain this pace for a year without scraping for quality stuff.

I think I mentioned in part one of 3B that I have personally referred to him as The Voice' for a long time. Given the recent posts here I was certain I would be rethinking that moniker as I wrote this one. Well I'm sitting here listening to disc one of this pair and I am not moved to recant a damn thing! This here is one Singin' Mo Fo! Listening to Bobby and Junior Parker (who is up next) I am at a complete loss to explain how neither guy ever crossed over to the white market. They always did well on the Circuit and in the Race Market but despite singing far superior songs that others had hits with, the Pop charts ignored them.

I frankly thought that as I sat here certain tracks would elicit special raves but this stuff is so uniformly excellent that it is hard to single tunes out (I should, however, mention that Stormy Monday is currently kicking my ass). Bobby's band leans heavily on Jazz on many tracks with some absolutely killer trumpet and saxophone solos on the ballads.

Bobby Bland - The Duke Recordings, Vol. 1 (2 discs)

They most often call him "Bobby Blue" but to me he is better called "The Voice". Here is a man who is so DAMN good that even after he develops his 'frog' or 'chicken bone', an at least partially involuntary kind of throat feedback that results in this awful 'BLAT', but we choose to ignore it because what he sings in between is too pretty to believe. In his prime he is simply an unmatched Blues Crooner whose liquid pipes quickly exceed even his former boss Junior Parker! (yeah, HE is coming soon too!) 

Here is volume one (2 discs) of The Complete Duke Recordings. These are all released as singles between 1952 and 1960, although some are later bound into subsequent albums. At times in this early material you hear shades of Jackie Brenston and Rosco Gordon.

"Robert Calvin Bland (born January 27, 1930) better known as Bobby "Blue" Bland, is an American singer of blues and soul. He is an original member of the Beale Streeters, and is sometimes referred to as the "Lion of the Blues". Along with such artists as Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Junior Parker, Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the blues and R&B.

Bobby "Blue" Bland was born in the small town of Rosemark, Tennessee. Later moving to Memphis with his mother, Bland started singing with local gospel groups there, including amongst others The Miniatures. Eager to expand his interests, he began frequenting the city's famous Beale Street where he became associated with an ad hoc circle of aspiring musicians named, not unnaturally, the Beale Streeters.

Bland's recordings from the early 1950s show him striving for individuality, but any progress was halted by a spell in the U.S. Army. When the singer returned to Memphis in 1954 he found several of his former associates, including Johnny Ace, enjoying considerable success, while Bland's recording label, Duke, had been sold to Houston entrepreneur Don Robey. In 1956 Bland began touring with Little Junior Parker. Initially he doubled as valet and driver, a role he reportedly fulfilled for B. B. King and Rosco Gordon. Simultaneously, Bland began asserting his characteristic vocal style. Melodic big-band blues singles, including "Farther Up the Road" (1957) and "Little Boy Blue" (1958) reached the US R&B Top 10, but Bobby's craft was most clearly heard on a series of early 1960s releases including "Cry Cry Cry", "I Pity The Fool" and the sparkling "Turn On Your Love Light", which became a much-covered standard. Despite credits to the contrary, many such classic works were written by Joe Scott, the artist's bandleader and arranger.

Bland continued to enjoy a consistent run of R&B chart entries throughout the mid-'60s. Never truly breaking into the mainstream market, Bland's highest charting song on the pop chart, "Ain't Nothing You Can Do" peaked at #20 during the same week The Beatles held down the Top 5 spots. Bland's records mostly sold on the R&B market and he had 23 Top Ten hits on the Billboard R&B charts and in the 1996 Top R&B book by Joel Whitburn, Bland was rated the #13 all-time best selling artist.

Financial pressures forced the singer to cut his touring band and in 1968 the group broke up. He suffered from depression and became increasingly dependent on alcohol. He stopped drinking in 1971; his record company Duke was sold by owner Don Robey to the larger ABC Records group. This resulted in several successful and critically acclaimed contemporary blues/soul albums including His California Album and Dreamer, arranged by Michael Omartian and produced by ABC staff man Steve Barri. The albums, including the later "follow-up" in 1977 Reflections in Blue, were all recorded in Los Angeles and featured many of the city's top sessionmen at the time.

The first single released from His California Album, "This Time I'm Gone For Good" took Bland back into the pop Top 50 for the first time since 1964 and made the R&B top 10 in late 1973. The lead-off track from Dreamer, "Ain't No Love In the Heart of the City", was a strong R&B hit. Later it would surface again in 1978 by the hard rock band Whitesnake featuring singer David Coverdale. Much later it was sampled by Kanye West on Jay-Z's Hip Hop album The Blueprint (2001). The song is also featured on the soundtrack of the crime drama The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) starring Matthew McConaughey. The follow-up, "I Wouldn't Treat A Dog" was his biggest R&B hit for some years, climbing to #3 in late 1974, but as usual his strength was never the pop chart (where it hit #88). Subsequent attempts at adding a disco/Barry White flavor were mostly unsuccessful. A return to his roots in 1980 for a tribute album to his mentor Joe Scott, produced by music veterans Monk Higgins and Al Bell, resulted in a fine album Sweet Vibrations, but it failed to sell well outside of his traditional "chitlin circuit" base.

In 1985, Bland was signed by Malaco Records, specialists in traditional Southern black music for whom he made a series of albums while continuing to tour and appear at concerts with fellow blues singer B. B. King. The two had collaborated for two albums in the 1970s. Despite occasional age-related ill-health, Bland continues to record new albums for Malaco, perform occasional tours alone, with guitarist/producer Angelo Earl and also with B.B. King, plus appearances at blues and soul festivals worldwide.

Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog & Ball N' Chain

It is time continue with more of the great women of this music. Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984)

Thornton was born in Ariton, Alabama, near Montgomery. Her father was a Baptist minister and her mother a gospel singer. She and her six siblings began to sing at very early ages in the church. Following her mother's death in 1941, Thornton left the family home at age 14. She spent the next seven years touring the south with Sammy Green's Georgia-based Hot Harlem Revue, gaining experience as a singer, harmonica player and sometime drummer. In 1948, she settled in Houston, Texas, where she further honed her skills in the local clubs.

Thornton began her recording career in 1951, signing a contract with Don Robey's Peacock Records. While working with fellow Peacock artist, Johnny Otis, she recorded "Hound Dog,"  a song written by young songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. (they were teenagers with whom Otis had a sort of mentoring relationship.) The record was produced by Otis, and went to number one on the R&B charts. She never repeated that success but continued to record for Peacock until 1957 performing in the Chitlin Circuit R&B package tours with Little Richard, Junior Parker, Bobby Bland and Esther Phillips.

In 1954, Thornton was one of the eyewitnesses to the accidental suicide death of singer, pianist Johnny Ace. Thornton's account was that Ace was sitting with girlfriend Olivia on his lap, waving his pistol around, pointing it at Willie Mae. "Don't snap that on me," she told him. Johnny grinned and put the gun to Olivia's head. "Stop that, Johnny, you'll git someone killed," Willie Mae shouted at him. "Nothin' to worry about," Johnny replied, coolly, "ain't but one bullet here and I know exactly where it is." He turned the gun on himself, put it to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Other stories from the Peacock/Duke era reveal that Thornton was a huge, intimidating woman with a foul temper. She was known to beat men to a pulp in bar-room brawls and usually collected her gig pay and royalties through sheer physical intimidation (and the rumored pistol in her purse), but she was known to resort to direct violence to extort her payments when necessary.

Big Mama is most often described as a hard drinking 'bull dyke' who loved to party but was prone to violent temper explosions. She allegedly once chased Little Richard for most of an evening with murder on her mind when he took his teasing over her sexual preferences too far. Thornton once even faced down the notoriously tough Don Robey when he pulled his famous pistol on her, telling him that if he failed to kill her on the first shot, they would be surgically removing the pistol from his ass. Robey put the pistol away and pulled out the checkbook.

In a later event she reportedly beat one white record executive relentlessly about the head with her purse whilst onlookers begged her to stop until someone from accounting finally arrived with a check to diffuse the incident. I imagine she didn't have to ask for her check twice after that.

Thornton's career followed the arc of many of the R & B stars, declining through the late 50's and early 60's with the advent of soul and rock and roll, but she was amongst those who were 'rediscovered' in the mid to late 60's in the packaged American Folk tours in Europe. A new recording contract with Arhoolie followed which resulted in Ball N' Chain and the other recordings in the second part of the post.

Throughout the 70's Big Mama continued to perform at festivals with the likes of Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins and B.B. King but her health steadily declined from hard living. Her last appearence was at the 1980 Newport festival. She died in 1984 in Los Angeles at only 57 years old.

Junior Parker - The Duke Recordings Volumes 1, 2 and bonus

Okay...let's try this again and hopefully the links last more than 10 minutes. eh?

When last we were listening to some Junior Parker, I mentioned the deplorable job that MCA had done on their remasters of Junior's Duke material, not to mention that they quit the set without finishing it. Well by using some data base tools I came to realize I had alternate sources for a good many tunes; around 60%. I sat down one night and opened the 5 sources in as many windows and started a-b-ing to find the best version. It turned out that nearly every one of what I considered the worst examples, I was able to replace with a superior mastering. A couple I tweaked myself, but only a couple. To my surprise, there were a good number of songs on disc 2 where the version from the set was actually the best of the lot but a large portion of disc 1 was replaced. Once I was done constructing my new improved sets I had 10 whole tracks left over from various sources and they are good stuff that should have appeared on the abandoned Volume 3. Those of you who downloaded the earlier "Driving Wheel" single disc will want to delete that one and grab this far more complete set from Junior's great Duke era.

Johnny Ace - The Memorial Album

 Johnny Ace (June 9, 1929 – December 25, 1954), born John Marshall Alexander, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. Alexander's father was a preacher in Tennessee. After serving in the navy during the Korean War, Alexander joined Adolph Duncan's Band as a pianist. He then joined the B. B. King band. Soon King departed for Los Angeles and vocalist Bobby Bland joined the army. Alexander took over vocal duties and renamed the band The Beale Streeters, also taking over King's WDIA radio show.

Becoming "Johnny Ace", he signed to Duke Records (originally a Memphis label associated with WDIA) in 1952. Urbane 'heart-ballad' "My Song," his first recording, topped the R&B charts for nine weeks in September. ("My Song" was covered in 1968 by Aretha Franklin, on the flipside of "See Saw".)

Ace began heavy touring, often with Willa Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. In the next two years, he had eight hits in a row, including "Cross My Heart," "Please Forgive Me," "The Clock," "Yes, Baby," "Saving My Heart for You," and "Never Let Me Go." In December, 1954 he was named the Most Programmed Artist Of 1954 after a national DJ poll organized by U.S. trade weekly Cash Box.

Ace's recordings sold very well for those times. Early in 1955, Duke Records announced that the three 1954 Johnny Ace recordings, along with Thornton's "Hound Dog", had sold more than 1,750,000 records.


After touring for a year, Ace had been performing at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas on Christmas 1954. During a break between sets, he was playing with a .22 cal revolver. Members of his band said he did this often, sometimes shooting at roadside signs from their car.

It was widely reported that Ace killed himself playing Russian roulette. Big Mama Thornton's bass player Curtis Tillman, however, who witnessed the event, said, "I will tell you exactly what happened! Johnny Ace had been drinking and he had this little pistol he was waving around the table and someone said ‘Be careful with that thing…’ and he said ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded…see?’ and pointed it at himself with a smile on his face and ‘Bang!’ – sad, sad thing. Big Mama ran outta that dressing room yelling ‘Johnny Ace just killed himself!"

Thornton said in a written statement (included in the book The Late Great Johnny Ace) that Ace had been playing with the gun, but not playing Russian roulette. According to Thornton, Ace pointed the gun at his girlfriend and another woman who were sitting nearby, but did not fire. He then pointed the gun toward himself. The gun went off, shooting him in the side of the head.

According to Nick Tosches, Ace actually shot himself with a .32 pistol, not a .22, and it happened only a little more than an hour after he had bought a brand new 1955 Oldsmobile.

Ace's funeral was on January 9, 1955, at Memphis' Clayborn Temple AME church. It was attended by an estimated 5000 people.

"Pledging My Love" became a posthumous R&B #1 hit for ten weeks beginning February 12, 1955. As Billboard bluntly put it, Ace's death "created one of the biggest demands for a record that has occurred since the death of Hank Williams just over two years ago." His single sides were compiled and released as The Johnny Ace Memorial Album.

Junior Parker - Driving Wheel

I had intended to begin with the two volumes of Duke singles that MCA/Universal issued prior to abandoning their complete Junior Parker on Duke set, but frankly the remastering is so hideous I'm going to start with this far better sounding MCA Canada set while I see if anything can be done for the 2 US discs. 

Junior Parker (May 27, 1932 – November 18, 1971) was an American Memphis blues singer and musician. He is best remembered for his unique voice which has been described as "honeyed," and "velvet-smooth". He was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001. One music journalist noted, "For years Junior Parker deserted down home harmonica blues for uptown blues-soul music"

Junior Parker was born West Memphis, Arkansas.

He sang in gospel groups as a child, and played on the various blues circuits beginning in his teenage years. His biggest influence as a harmonica player was Sonny Boy Williamson, with whom he worked before moving on to work for Howlin' Wolf in 1949. Around 1950 he was a member of Memphis's ad hoc group, the Beale Streeters, with Bobby 'Blue' Bland and B.B. King.
   
In 1951 he formed his own band, the Blue Flames, with the guitarist Pat Hare. Parker was discovered in 1952 by Ike Turner, who signed him to Modern Records. He put out one single on this record label, "You're My Angel." This brought him to the attention of Sam Phillips, and he and his band signed onto Sun Records in 1953. There they produced three successful songs: "Feelin' Good" (which reached # 5 on the US Billboard R&B chart), "Love My Baby," and "Mystery Train", later covered by Elvis Presley. For Presley's version of "Mystery Train", Scotty Moore borrowed the guitar riff from Parker's "Love My Baby", played by Pat Hare. "Love My Baby" and "Mystery Train" are considered important contributions to the rockabilly genre.

Later in 1953, Parker toured with Bobby Bland and Johnny Ace, and also joined Duke Records. Parker and Bland headed the highly successful Blues Consolidated Revue, which became a staple part of the southern blues circuit. He continued to have a string of hits on the R&B chart, including the smooth "Next Time You See Me" (1957); re-makes of Roosevelt Sykes' song "Driving Wheel" (1961), Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home Chicago", Guitar Slim's "The Things That I Used to Do" (1963), and Don Robey's "Mother-in-Law Blues" (1956); plus his own "Stand by Me" (1961).

His success was limited after he left Duke in 1966. He recorded for various labels, including Mercury, Blue Rock, Minit, and Capitol.

Parker died on November 18, 1971, at age 39, in Blue Island, Illinois, during surgery for a brain tumor.