The Harmonizing Four 1950-1955

A second service this morning --

The Harmonizing Four was an American black gospel quartet organized in 1927 and reaching peak popularity during the decades immediately following World War II.

Sources disagree as to the original membership when the group was established in 1927 to sing for school functions at Richmond, Virginia's Dunbar Elementary School. Some sources include Thomas "Goat" Johnson and Levi Hansly as founding members, with others indicating they joined the group in the early 1930s after the departure of original first tenor Joe Curby and original bass Willie Peyton; likewise, eventual leader Joseph "Gospel Joe" Williams is identified as a founding member in some sources, and others claiming he joined as much as six years later. In 1937 the group added Lonnie Smith, who later became father to keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith.

The group recorded for Decca Records in 1943 and toured in the postwar years, performing at such high-profile events as the 1944 National Baptist Convention, to an audience of 40,000; the funeral ceremony for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945; and the wedding ceremony of gospel star Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Russell Morrison, an event recorded for a live album to which the group contributed four songs. During this period the group recorded for different labels, including Chicago company Religious Recording, Coleman, and MGM. As of the early 1950s, they signed with Philadelphia's Gotham Records, where they recorded some 40 songs before moving on in 1957 to Chicago's Vee-Jay Records, where they experienced their greatest popularity. Smith retired in 1962, and following a period in the late 1960s of recording for various labels in various membership configurations, the group was essentially semi-retired for the ensuing decades.

Holmes Brothers - Jubilation (1992)

Time for some upbeat church music too - this is the album of Gospel that the brothers recorded for Peter Gabriel and Real World Records during their stint with Rounder. You can get up and dance in THIS church! C'mon pmac, you gonna like this one!

"The Holmes Brothers – Wendell Holmes (guitarist/pianist/vocalist/songwriter), Sherman Holmes (bassist/ vocalist/songwriter) and brother-in-spirit Popsy Dixon (drummer/vocalist) – are true treasures of American roots music. For 35 years, The Holmes Brothers’ joyous and moving blend of blues, gospel, soul, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll and country has been captivating audiences around the world. Their spine-tingling three-part harmony singing, mixing Wendell’s gruff and gravelly vocals with Popsy’s soaring falsetto and Sherman’s rich baritone, brings the spirit of gospel-inflected deep soul music into every song they perform. Equally gripping is the rhythmic foundation laid down by Sherman’s bass playing and Popsy’s drumming, perfectly complementing Wendell’s blues-soaked guitar solos and church-inspired piano playing. The band expertly blends Saturday night’s roadhouse rock and blues with the gospel passion of Sunday morning’s church service. Rolling Stone says The Holmes Brothers play “impressive, fervent country soul.” Entertainment Weekly goes farther, declaring “The Holmes Brothers are juke joint vets with a brazenly borderless view of American music…timeless and rapturous.”

Blind Blake - All The Published Sides

In the course of this blog, there have been quite a few artists whom I had been unfamiliar with and was subsequently blown away by; Blind Blake certainly fits that bill for me. I find the way he manages to mimic ragtime piano on an acoustic guitar to be jaw-dropping. I was already pretty hip to Lonnie Johnson and many of the other guys, but this was new territory. I called Cliff and asked "Geeze, how is this guy not worshiped as one of the Gods of guitar?" His response was that it was most likely a combined product of the horrible condition of most Paramount 78's and the fact that he didn't spawn a school of disciples to carry on his style. My response to that last part would be that it is unlikely that many could even attempt to copy him given the unique pianistic approach he brought to the instrument. Between 1926 and 1932 he recorded an astonishing 110 tracks for Paramount in both Chicago and Milwaukee. To me that would seem a titanic output for the time.

Until quite recently there wasn't much information known about this genius and the much of what was printed was based on stories from other blues-men which turned out to be false. He was thought to be from Jacksonville, Fl, but his alleged use of Geechee dialect in a song (He refers to Geechie several times in Southern Rag but never changes dialect) also spoke to the south Georgia Sea Islands. Families have been found in both areas that appear to have some connection with him. He was known to have lived part time in Chicago in the late 20's by direct reports of his landlady, he reportedly spent the winters in Jacksonville. The date of his birth and even his real name were all in debate, not to mention the date, place and cause of his death. It seems clear that he drank heavily and enjoyed getting into periodic fights as a result. Different stories had him dying a violent death in the streets of 5 or 6 different places or being run over by a streetcar in one of two. The time span was 8 or 9 years, the locations usually from New York to Jacksonville and points between with little to no attention paid early on to Milwaukee. (Cliff points out that any credible genealogist would have had last known place of employment high on the list of search parameters)

 In 2011 a group of researchers finally put some pieces together when someone found a newspaper obituary, which led to a death certificate, and then to a coroners report. They even found the holy grail, the grave site. Those documents gave us quite a bit of solid information about the man including his true name (Arthur Blake), the year and place of his birth (1896 in Newport News, Va!), his parents names (Winter and Alice), the wife's name (Beatrice McGee Blake), and of course the date and cause of his death and his last address.

When their black artists came to record in Milwaukee for Paramount, they usually stayed in an boarding house where the studio had made long term arrangements with the landlord. Blind Blake died about a block from that place (Brewer Hill area) some 3 years after his last Paramount sessions (and the immediately subsequent bankruptcy of the label). He had been married in 1931 to Beatrice McGee and was still with her at the time of his death due to pulmonary tuberculosis on December 5th, 1934 at the age of 38. The obituary referred to him as "Arthur Blake, an old timer in Milwaukee". (Old Timer at 38!?) The coroners report indicates he had been unemployed and ill for most of the previous 3 years and had died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital in the wee hours of the night while coughing up blood. He had been hospitalized earlier in the year with Pneumonia.

The article ends here for now, but the researchers, Alex van der Tuuk, Bob Eagle, Rob Ford, Eric LeBlanc and Angela Mack, are now followings the leads of the parents names and the Newport News birth place to flush out the story. They finish with a promise that they have already picked up the trail there. The article also attempted to trace Beatrice and to find a marriage certificate. No certificate was found, but she does show up in the city directories as the widow of Arthur from 1935 to 1949. (Cliff points out that if Beatrice did indeed get the parents' names and birthplace correct, it speaks to a longer relationship than just the 2+ years they were married.)

I'm left with some questions and speculations and I really hope to someday see more of this story told. Did Blake meet and marry Beatrice in Wisconsin or did she come there with him? (that she stayed on in Milwaukee may indicate she had family there, but her intimate knowledge of his parents and birth contradicts that) Were there any children? Why would a man whose history shows a clear distaste for northern winters settle in frigid Milwaukee where the very strict local musicians union's records indicate there was no work for him? Is it possible he was stranded there due to the collapse of Paramount? Did his family work their way down the coast to Jacksonville and at some point stay in the Georgia Sea Islands area or is the reference to Geechie in Southern Rag merely a sort of musical travelog? (that would be MY guess) His style speaks much more to a structured larger band background than an itinerant solo bluesman, but no record exists to support that. The number of songs seems to indicate he was quite popular for the 6 years or so of his recordings, Paramount would certainly not have pressed so many sides if they didn't sell, and yet he couldn't get ANY work despite being a remarkable guitar player....WHY??

Swamp Dogg - 1972 Cuffed, Collared, & Tagged

Of the early albums of Swamp Dogg this is easily the one most often overlooked, maybe the tame cover is responsible. The music and songs remain smart, edgy, funny and angry. Listen carefully to the lyrics of Sam Stone, this song could have come from the pen of Gil Scott-Heron or Bob Dylan (it comes from John Prine). The radio wasn't ready for this song in 1972, the story was too strong, too real...in this era of a whole new wave of broken young men returning home to little hope, it could have been written yesterday.

Dogg follows with perhaps the strangest post apocalyptic pop ballad ever sung, 'Complication No. 5' (well it IS a somewhat limited catagory!). A funkified Lady Madonna follows and the Beatles lyrics fit seamlessly into spirit of this album. 'You Say You Trust Your Mother' offers another powerful commentary of the state of man in America followed by a funky good time nod to friend and influence Sly Stone.

 "I'm gonna be the first one at the graveyard, baby, I want to see the beautiful groove...I'm gonna throw the first shovel of dirt right down on you and make sure you know!" One of the best pissed-off breakup song lines ever from 'Your Last Dirty Trick' which opens side 2 - more good stuff follows but the most notable is 'Captain Of Your Ship', a song with some hit potential to my ear if done by someone like Pickett. Easy to see why the 'industry' would hate on this.

Swamp Dogg - Rat On! 1971

Yeah, yeah I know - bracketing the previous 3 posts with a pair from the Swamp Dogg makes me a sick puppy. No problem, I'll own that. 

Is there another album cover that regularly shows up on both best album cover lists and worst album cover lists? (I even have a t-shirt!) I imagine there probably is another candidate out there but I seriously doubt that album could hold a candle to this one musically. Plain and simple, this is a terrific album start to finish! The songs are smart, funny and infectious - listen a couple times through and tell me you don't find yourself singing along - I wish I could tell you my friends and I were hip enough to discover this one in it's day.... but it was 20 years later when I first heard it.


"The cover of this LP--Swamp Dogg riding a white rat, hands raised and fists clenched in triumph--lets you know that you're not in for any ol' R&B record, even before the needle hits the grooves. It's a satisfying continuation of the eclectic soul-singer-songwriter mix of his debut. Vocally, Swamp Dogg sounds like a cross between General Johnson (of Chairmen of the Board) and Van Morrison; as a songwriter, he's his own man. With the exception of Sly Stone, no other soul men of the period were investigating controversial topics with such infectious musicality and good humor. He takes on promiscuity with unbridled frankness in cuts like "Predicament #2," and bemoans the eternal delay of American justice for minorities in "Remember I Said Tomorrow," and twists Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" into a protest song (and also, bizarrely, covers the Bee Gees' "Got to Get a Message to You"). None of this endeared him to industry insiders, and Swamp Dogg was dropped by Elektra after the album's release." AMG

I suppose it shouldn't be all that surprising that the "industry" didn't have the sense of humor or the insight to see just how phenomenal this material was, but what a shame...had this gotten airplay in the 70's I would have been all over it like a cheap suit and I don't think I would have been alone. Still, despite being only sporadically in print, in 40 years as "cult" albums "Total Destruction..." has eventually gone gold and I have to think "Rat On!" can't be far away by now. As I sit listening this morning for the 3rd time in a couple days, I am struck by just how fresh this record sounds even today.

Swamp Dogg - Total Destruction To Your Mind

Jerry Williams, Jr. (born 12 July 1942) is an American soul music artist who is better known by his pseudonym Swamp Dogg.

Okay, that is the short info line....now...how do we even begin to discuss the Swamp Dogg?? A genuine southern funk/soul genius? Yeah, I'll buy that --- crazed, angry, funny, sweet, and funky as a mutha...--- Yeah, all that too --- a bizarre-ass blend of Zappa, Clarence Clemmons and Sly? --- that works as far as it goes --- a political poet ala Gil Scott-Heron? -- sometimes THAT too, Starting to get curious? -- a nearly unknown soul artist who nonetheless found his way onto the Nixon enemies list and somehow lives in a mansion with his own limo? Oh Hell Yes! All of this and much more is waiting for you when you board the Swamp Dogg mystery tour! 

The AMG bio for this guy is good, but too long so I'm just using the first half for now...

"Raunchy, satirical, political, and profane, Swamp Dogg is one of the great cult figures of 20th century American music. The creation of Jerry Williams, Jr., an R&B producer and songwriter of the '60s, Swamp Dogg fit no tidy category. In sheer musical terms, Swamp Dogg is pure Southern soul, anchored on tight grooves and accentuated by horns, but the Dogg is as much about message as music. Williams incorporated all the mind-bending psychedelic ideas of '60s counterculture -- drugs, sex, radical politics, social politics -- into the framework of deep soul, establishing his blueprint on 1970's Total Destruction to Your Mind, then spinning out variations over the next several decades, never having hits (although Total Destruction to Your Mind apparently went gold at some point), but earning a rabid cult following while raking in royalties through his behind-the-scenes work, which included penning the country standard "She's All I Got," popularized by Johnny Paycheck.A native of Virginia, Williams began his career recording under the name Little Jerry, releasing a jump blues single called "HTD Blues" in 1954 when he was just 12 years old. For the next decade-and-a-half, he was an R&B journeyman working under the name Little Jerry Williams in the early '60s, then leaving the "little" behind in the mid-'60s, having a minor hit in 1966 with "Baby, You're My Everything." By that point, Williams had made serious inroads into the industry. He was working A&R and he was writing and producing singles, usually for unknown artists but occasionally for big names like Gene Pitney. Eventually, he earned the attention of Jerry Wexler and Phil Walden and began working behind the scenes at Atlantic Records in 1968, engineering and producing singles for the label. He also worked as a writer, and as the decade came to a close, he had written "She's All I Got" with Gary "U.S." Bonds, a song that wound up bringing him royalties for decades.Also at the end of the '60s came Williams' first LSD trip and, with it, a properly blown mind that led him to create Swamp Dogg. Inspired by Frank Zappa's satire and politics but determined to still sing soul, Williams' Swamp Dogg was filthy and political, wrapped up in a cheerfully vulgar package...quite literally so, as he's seen sitting in his underwear on a pile of garbage on his 1970 debut, Total Destruction to Your Mind. All of Williams' studio skills are on display on Total Destruction -- the grooves are tight, not sloppy, the songs precisely written -- and although what he was singing about was firmly outside the mainstream, his deep southern soul sounded commercial, so it became an underground hit...." AMG, Stephen Thoms Erlewine

Ruth Brown - Miss Rhythm Greatest Hits and More

Ruth Alston Weston, singer and actress: born Portsmouth, Virginia 12 January 1928; married first Jimmy Brown (marriage disallowed; one son with Clyde McPhatter), second Earl Swanson (one son; marriage dissolved), third Bill Blunt (marriage dissolved); died Henderson, Nevada 17 November 2006.

The highs and lows of the American singer Ruth Brown's life merit a biopic. Dubbed the "original queen of rhythm'n'blues", she recorded hit songs like "Teardrops from My Eyes", "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean", "Lucky Lips" and "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin' ", and became the first big-selling artist on Atlantic Records in the 1950s.

Indeed, for a while, such was her success in the rhythm'n'blues charts that the label, which had been founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson and would eventually sign Ray Charles, the Drifters, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, became known as "the house that Ruth built".

When white rock'n'rollers began eclipsing black rhythm'n'blues performers and took a watered-down version of their gutsy, gritty blend of gospel, jazz and blues into the mainstream, Brown disappeared from view; throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, she did odd jobs to make ends meet and raised two sons on her own. She came back in the mid-Seventies, appearing on television and on Broadway, memorably portraying Motormouth Mabel in Hairspray, the John Waters teen-movie satire and won a Tony for her appearances in the musical Black and Blue and a Grammy for the album Blues on Broadway.

Brown was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and three years later published her autobiography, Miss Rhythm, after the nickname given to her by Frankie Laine. In the Eighties, she campaigned tirelessly for better accounting from record companies and eventually secured retroactive royalty payments for herself and a host of other artists. Given the influence she had had on everyone from Little Richard to Bonnie Raitt via Etta James, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, it was only fitting she should finally get her dues.

Born Ruth Weston in 1928, she was the eldest of seven children and first sang under the tutelage of her father, who worked on the docks but was also choir director in their local church in Portsmouth, Virginia. "I was always singing. That's all I ever done. It's my gift," she said:

I never thought that music would be my livelihood. I used to dump music class and I never learned to read music . . . I was a little rebel. When my daddy didn't know, I would sneak out and sing the so-called devil's music at the army bases. Then I fell in love, got married and ran away.

She later discovered that her "husband" the trumpeter Jimmy Brown wasn't exactly divorced but the name Ruth Brown stuck anyway.

In 1947, she had a short stint with the bandleader Lucky Millinder's orchestra until she was fired in Washington, DC, because she had taken a round of drinks to her bandmates on stage. Brown was rescued by Cab Calloway's sister Blanche, who hired her to perform at the Crystal Caverns night-club. When the Voice of America presenter Willis Conover accompanied Duke Ellington to the club, they were both impressed by Brown's performance and Conover called Ertegun to sing her praises, comparing her to Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.

Abramson came to check her out and offered her a contract. Brown was all set to appear at the Apollo in Harlem and sign with Atlantic when she was involved in a serious car crash. She spent nine months in hospital with both legs in traction and was visited by Ertegun on several occasions, with presents and a contract.

Atlantic paid her medical bills, kept their word and, in May 1949, she made her recording début on crutches with Eddie Cotton's NBC Television Orchestra backing her on the ballad "So Long". Next year, she topped the rhythm'n'blues chart with "Teardrops from My Eyes" and repeated the feat again with the million-selling "5-10-15 Hours" in 1952 and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" in 1953.

Even then, she later admitted, Brown wasn't sure the material was right for her: "I was singing torch songs, country, standards, Bing Crosby songs, everything. "Teardrops" was the one that turned it around. Ahmet brought me the demo of "Mama". For some reason, I just wasn't impressed with it. "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" felt kind of crude. It was one of those times where Ahmet insisted that this tune was for me."

Ertegun's hunch was proved right when the single crossed over and made No 23 in the US pop charts, further establishing Brown as Atlantic's best-selling artist in the Fifties era. She topped the R& B charts again with both "Oh What a Dream" and "Mambo Baby" in 1954, had an affair and a son with Clyde McPhatter and duetted with the Drifters singer on "Love Has Joined Us Together" in 1955, and took "Lucky Lips", a Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller composition (later covered by Cliff Richard), and "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin' " - written by Bobby Darin and Mann Curtis - into the Top Thirty in 1957 and 1958 respectively.

Though she paved the way for the black artists LaVern Baker and Etta James, like them Brown soon realised that white singers such as Georgia Gibbs and Patti Page could all too easily cover her repertoire for mainstream appearance. "Rhythm'n'blues was getting ready to be called rock'n'roll. It had become interesting enough; white kids were starting to pay attention to it," she explained:

And then on the scene came [the disc-jockey] Alan Freed, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis. But we already had Jackie Wilson, Bo Diddley, B.B. King. We had it all in place but it was not feasible for us as black artists to be the innovators or to be the performing acts that did this in person. Once you got rock'n'roll creeping in, the cover records got to be tremendous and we didn't get the media exposure. I never got to do The Ed Sullivan Show and I had never, ever, been on The Tonight Show, until September 1990!

Before that unlikely comeback, Brown struggled for over a decade. Having left Atlantic in 1961, she eventually stopped performing altogether. She drove a school bus, she washed dishes, she worked as a domestic, a cleaner, a cook and a teacher's assistant and she suffered at the hands of her third husband, a policeman. "I could pick a good song but I sure couldn't pick a man," she said.

Brown returned to show business in the mid-Seventies when the comedian Redd Foxx asked her to play Mahalia Jackson in the civil rights musical Selma. She went on to roles in the Hello, Larry sitcom and Little House on the Prairie. In the mid-Eighties, she began working with the New Orleans producer Allen Toussaint on a musical called Staggerlee and appeared in another show called Black and Blue, taking the production to Paris. She became a broadcaster too, presenting Harlem Hit Parade and Blues Stage on National Public Radio.

The cult director John Waters asked her in 1988 to portray Motormouth Mabel, the DJ and owner of a record store, in Hairspray, a satire on the teen movies of the early Sixties. However, she was unsure about the more outrageous side of the character. "I didn't want to wear a blonde wig and the crazy costumes that Motormouth Mabel wore," she recalled: " I felt kind of stereotyped. John had to convince me. He and Divine sat me down and said: "That's not Ruth Brown out there, that's Motormouth Mabel." That role was very possibly one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me because I really got a whole new audience of young people."

In 1989, she triumphed in Black and Blue when the musical transferred to Broadway and she won a Tony as well as a Grammy for the Blues on Broadway album.

However, she won her most personal battle after questioning the way royalties from her Fifties recordings for Atlantic had been accounted for. With the help of a lawyer, Howell Begle, Brown eventually recovered some of the royalties she was entitled to and also convinced Ahmet Ertegun to give $2m to help her set up the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in the late Eighties.

"We have paid a price to sing this music," said Brown: "As a young woman, I didn't sense what the lyrics really meant. I sing now because I know what I'm talking about. I was a singer in the beginning, but I'm a soul singer now. Meaning I sing from the soul."

Pierre Perrone, The Independent

The Five Keys - Capitol Hits

The Five Keys are generally regarded by aficionados of 1950s R&B vocal group harmony as one of the finest groups to ever record in this genre. They are best known for their Capitol recordings of "Wisdom of a Fool," "Close Your Eyes," "Ling Ting Tong," and "Out of Sight, Out of Mind." But in collectors' circles their earlier recordings for Aladdin such as "My Saddest Hour," "Glory of Love," and "Red Sails in the Sunset" are even more highly revered and sought after.

The group originally consisted of two sets of brothers; Rudy and Bernie West and Raphael and Ripley Ingram all hailing from Newport News, VA, part of the "Hampton Roads" area. This region had a rich history of high-caliber vocal music and had previously spawned great vocal ensembles like the Golden Gate Quartet and Norfolk Jazz Quartet. The West and Ingram brothers initially took on the name the Sentimental Four and soon decided to show off their talents by entering a local amateur program at the Jefferson Theater. After winning three consecutive weeks of amateur contests at the Jefferson, they were invited to perform at the prestigious Apollo Theater in New York City, where they also won.

This led to subsequent engagements at the Royal and Howard Theaters. As the group established their reputation along the Eastern Seaboard, they were noticed by Eddie Mesner, owner of the California-based Aladdin Records, who signed them to a recording contract. About this time, Raphael went into the army and was replaced by Maryland Pierce (formerly of the Avalons). Also added was another singer, Dickie Smith, and a sixth man, piano player Joe Jones. Reflecting the personnel changes, their name was changed from the Sentimental Four to the Five Keys. The Keys toured both the East and West Coasts and their Aladdin songs were recorded in New York and Los Angeles. Some of their approximately 17 Aladdin releases in the early '50s consisted of "Glory of Love," "How Long," "Someday Sweetheart," "Red Sails in the Sunset," and "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" with Rudy West and Dickie Smith on leads; and "My Saddest Hour" and "Serve Another Round" with Maryland Pierce on lead.

In 1953, both Rudy and Dickie entered the army and were replaced by Ramon Loper and Ulysses Hicks. By mid-1954, the Keys' contract with Aladdin was expiring and their last Aladdin release, "Deep in My Heart," was reviewed in June of that year. In July of 1954, the Five Keys found themselves in the RCA studios, where they recorded four tracks. Two remained unreleased, and "Lawdy Miss Mary" backed with "I'll Follow You" were issued in August 1954 on RCA's subsidiary Groove label. The Keys' manager, Saul Richfield, must have been working very hard for his group at this time, for on August 29, 1954, Capitol announced that they had signed the Five Keys. RCA immediately stopped production of the Groove release and it is now the rarest of the Five Keys recordings. Now recording for Capitol, the Five Keys released "Ling Ting Tong," with Pierce on lead. The record was successful enough to eventually land them a spot of the Ed Sullivan TV show. When Hicks died suddenly in 1954, and before Rudy returned home from the service, the lead tenor position was filled temporarily by Dickie Smith's cousin, Willie Winfield, of the Harptones.

But by 1955, Rudy West was back and the Five Keys were in the right place at the right time to be recorded using Capitol's advanced audio production techniques. With Rudy on lead, and backed by the Howard Biggs Orchestra (former Ravens arranger) , they recorded "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" and "Wisdom of a Fool." Another great Capitol release, "Close Your Eyes," featured Maryland Pierce on lead, echoed hauntingly by Rudy's high-floating tenor. Tired of touring, Rudy retired from the group in 1958. In 1959, with the addition of Dickie Threat in Rudy's spot, they recorded several sides for the King label, the most notable being "Dream On" and "One Great Love." Perhaps it was because the record market was changing, or maybe the Keys weren't quite the same without Rudy, but they could not sustain the success they had achieved at Capitol. During this time, Rudy also recorded on his own for King, covering the Passions' "Just to Be With You" and the Fireflies' "You Were Mine" with an unlisted group.

In 1962, Rudy West produced and re-recorded "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" with a new group of Keys consisting of Rudy, Bernie West, and Dickie Smith, along with John Boyd and Willie Friday, for Seg-Way Records. On this version, the group's background harmonies were more pronounced than the Capitol release. In 1965, Rudy recorded "No Matter" on the Inferno label with yet another configuration of Keys, consisting of Rudy, Edmond Hall, Ollie Sidney, Theodore Jones, and George Winfield (yes, another of Willie's cousins). This grouping was also from the Newport News, VA, area and had previously recorded as the Chateaus on Epic and Warner Bros.

The mid-'70s saw a resurgence of interest in 1950s doo-wop and Rudy West established another Keys group (similar to the Inferno group) that continued to perform through 1998. In 1992, the United In Group Harmony Association (U.G.H.A.) inducted the original Five Keys in to their Hall of Fame. All original members were present and performed together at the induction ceremony. This was their first time together in 40-plus years and would be the last time they would all take to the stage as a group. Rudy West passed away on May 14, 1998. His last performance was on April 18,1998, at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, NY. Even at that point in time, his voice was still magnificent, and his phrasing impeccable. The audience was justifiably thrilled at what would be the final performance of this legendary R&B artist. Ripley Ingram had previously passed away. The surviving original members are Bernie West, Dickie Smith, and Maryland Pierce. Fortunately, most of the Five Keys extensive recorded output is now available on various CDs. ~ Jim Dunn & Nikki Gustafson, Rovi

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This album was put out by a reissue label called Harlem Hitparade.  It's a straight reissue of the Capitol side, The Fantastic Five Keys, which was a collection of their best hits.

It's a wonderful batch of tunes.  The addition of major label polish doesn't take away from the songs, and isn't overdone.  My only complaint is that clearly Capitol saw only one real vehicle for The Five Keys style, the ballad.

We get a couple decidedly non ballad treatments with The Blues Don't Care, From The Bottom Of My Heart and Ling Ting Tong.  Outside of a love song, they had a really playful and fun sound.

This album is ultra minty, ripped at 24/44.1 wav and dithered to 16/44.1 FLAC.  These songs have been remastered to stereo, assumably as fold down mono.  They did a great job.  I am certain all of you guys will enjoy it!!!

Harlem Hitparade HHP-5004

1972

A1		Ling Ting Tong
A2		Out Of Sight Out Of Mind
A3		Close Your Eyes
A4		From The Bottom Of My Heart
A5		The Verdict
B1		Wisdom Of A Fool
B2		Let There Be You
B3		With All My Love
B4		The Blues Don't Care
B5		Just For A Thrill

Tiny Grimes and his Rockin' Highlanders

I count myself amongst the lucky folks who got to see Tiny play, he was marvelous! The dl has volumes one and two; I understand there is a volume three but I don't have it.

Lloyd "Tiny" Grimes (July 7, 1916 – March 4, 1989) was an American jazz and R&B guitarist. He was a member of the Art Tatum Trio from 1943 to 1944, was a backing musician on recording sessions, and later led his own bands, including a recording session with Charlie Parker. He is notable for playing the tenor guitar, a four-stringed electric instrument.


Grimes was born in Newport News, Virginia, and began his musical career playing drums and one-fingered piano. In 1938 he took up the electric 4-string tenor guitar. In 1940 he joined Cats and a Fiddle as guitarist and singer. In 1943 he joined the Art Tatum Trio as guitarist and made a number of recordings with Tatum. The early Tatum Trio recordings contain some of the more interesting early examples of Tiny Grimes’ guitar work.

After leaving Tatum, Grimes recorded with his own groups in New York and with a long list of leading musicians, including vocalist Billie Holiday. He made four recordings with his own group augmented with Charlie Parker that are considered excellent examples of early bebop jazz: "Tiny’s Tempo", "Red Cross", "Romance Without Finance", and "I’ll Always Love You Just The Same", the latter two featuring Grimes' singing. He was one of the 52d street regulars.

In the late 1940s, he had a hit on a jazzed-up version of "Loch Lomond", with the band billed as Tiny "Mac" Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders and appearing in kilts. This groups included top tenor saxman Red Prysock and singer Screaming Jay Hawkins. Grimes continued to lead his own groups into the later 1970s and he recorded on Prestige Records in a series of strong blues-based performances with Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Pepper Adams, Roy Eldridge and other noted players including, in 1977, Earl Hines.



With Paul Williams, he co-headlined the first Moondog Coronation Ball, promoted by Alan Freed in Cleveland, Ohio on March 21, 1952, often claimed as the first rock and roll concert. In 1953 he may have played on The Crows one-hit wonder, "Gee", that has been called the first original rock and roll record by an R&B group.

Grimes died in March 1989, in New York, from meningitis, at the age of 72