Geater Davis - Sadder Shades of Blue

Let's rerun Preslives original post and get another dose of Geater
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Geater Davis is one of those voices from the Chitlin’ Circuit  that is much loved by his peers and hard core Blues/Soul fans, but hardly known to the general music-loving public.  Fortunately, his recorded legacy has been issued on CD on a couple of fine compilations.  His first recordings can be found on a CD from Soundscape Records that I believe is still in print, “I’ll Play the Blues For You: The Legendary House of Orange Sessions.”   This older compilation on West Side, which is now out of print, compiles mostly recordings done in Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals for John Richbourg’s Sound Stage 7 label.    There is only a small overlap between these two compilations.  If you really like this one, be sure and buy the other one!   One song that is on both compilations is the first recording of a number that later became closely associated with Albert King – “I’ll Play the Blues For You. “

 

--> Geater Davis owes an obvious strong debt to Bobby Bland.   But his sound is more rural, with more Southern sanctified grit.   The voice is unique.  Once it grabs you, you’re hooked.    I can still remember the very first time that I heard Geater Davis on “Sadder Shade of Blue,” while listening to a "Lost Soul" compilation LP.   It blew my mind right from the get go.  I've been hunting down everything that I could find by Geater Davis ever since.   

  Geater Davis was born and raised in Texas.  He worked the Circuit for most of the 60s without a recording contract.   Allen Orange heard Davis in the late 60s and was so impressed that he started his own record label to record him: House of Orange.  In the early 70s, Davis moved to the Sound Stage Seven label where he recorded most of the tracks found here. Geater Davis died in 1984 at the young age of 38.

Ella Washington - He Called Me Baby

A repost by request: This originally came from PresLives and all thanks go to him.

The famous Nashville DJ John Richbourg (John R) had an exceptional ear for blues and R&B.  When he created his own Sound Stage 7 label, he brought a number of first rate singers to Muscle Shoals for the production of some classic Southern Soul.   With the exception of Joe Simon, none of these singers had much commercial success, which would appear to be due to the lack of promotion that Sound Stage 7 received outside of the local market.   An earlier post here was devoted to the unique Geater Davis.  We have here a CD collection from Soulscape Records that gathers together virtually all of the Sound Stage 7 recordings of the great soul diva, Ella Washington.  Ella was probably John R's single favorite artist at Sound Stage 7.  She sang at the latter's funeral in 1986.

Ella Washington was born and raised in Miami, Florida.  Her talents first came to the attention of local R&B artists Paul Kelly and Clarence Reid, who helped launch her recording career in the mid-1960s and secured her a few local hits.   She came to the attention of John R in 1967, who recorded her for Sound Stage 7 from 1967-1971.  "He Called Me Baby" brought her the greatest commercial success, making #38 on the National R&B chart and #77 on Billboard.   As you can hear from this collection, however, there are plenty of tracks here that could have been big hits if they had received the proper promotion.

In 1973, Ella Washington retired from secular music and became a gospel singer.   Since that time, she has released only one album, the quite good and obscure "If You Can Take It, You Can Make It."

Ella Washington has just about everything that you could want in a soul diva: a full and powerful voice, impeccable pitch, an ability to move from soft sexy croon to sanctified roar, and the taste to subordinate all of that to the
effective delivery of a song.   She also has a lisp that, in my opinion, actually adds a endearing personal quality to her singing.   Thank God that John R had the sense to take her to the Southern Soul heaven of Muscle Shoals to make this timeless music.  

Joe Simon - Better Than Ever & Simon Sings

I've been kind of waiting to start Joe Simon with more of his Vee Jay and Sound Stage Seven stuff but neither Cliff nor I have them. Instead we will start the last Sound Stage Seven album from 1969 and the Monument album of the same year. There are 3 other SS7 albums and a Buddha release of the Vee Jay material....anyone?

"Simon was born September 2, 1943 in Simmesport, Louisiana. Similar to many other African-American artists from the era, Simon began singing in his father's Baptist church. He pursued his vocal abilities full-time once the family moved to Richmond (near Oakland, California) in the late 1950s. There Simon joined the Golden West Gospel Singers and became influenced by Sam Cooke and Arthur Prysock. With this, the group decided to turn secular and recorded "Little Island Girl" as the Golden Tones in 1959.

Hush Records label owners Gary and Carla Thompson urged Simon to record on his own, and in 1964 Simon scored considerable success on the Vee-Jay label with "My Adorable One". Simon scored again in 1965 on the Chicago based label with "Let's Do It Over", which landed a #13 spot on the US Billboard R&B chart. However, the Vee-Jay label folded soon after the latter song's release and Simon found himself traveling across the country singing.

Simon caught the eye of Nashville, Tennessee, R&B disc jockey John Richbourg during this time, and Richbourg not only became Simon's manager/record producer but also brought the singer to Monument Records' subsidiary label Sound Stage 7 in 1966. That year Simon released "Teenager's Prayer", which peaked at #11 on Billboard's R&B chart. Within the next two years, Simon released a string of hits: "(You Keep Me) Hanging On", "The Chokin' Kind" (Billboard Hot 100 #13), "Farther On Down The Road", and "Yours Love". "The Chokin' Kind" was written by Harlan Howard, spent 12 weeks in the charts, and had sold one million copies by 16 June 1969. In addition, Simon was given a Grammy Award in 1970 for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

Under the encouragement of Richbourg, Simon moved to the Polydor distributed Spring Records label in 1970, which paired Simon with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The team scored a #3 R&B hit in 1971 with "Drowning In The Sea of Love" and a #1 R&B hit in the summer of 1972 with "Power Of Love". Both songs reached #11 on the Hot 100. "Drowning In The Sea of Love" sold over 1.5 million copies and the R.I.A.A. on 6 January 1972 gave a gold disc. "Power of Love", written by Gamble, Huff and Simon was Simon's third million seller, and the R.I.A.A. awarded gold disc status on 29 August 1972.

Simon continued to release R&B hits with "Pool Of Bad Luck", "Trouble In My Home", "Step By Step", "I Need You, You Need Me", "Music In My Bones", "Carry Me", and 1975's "Get Down, Get Down (Get On The Floor)", which gave Simon his third #1 R&B hit, and also a #8 Hot 100 hit. Simon's success escalated with his writing/producing the theme tune for the film, Cleopatra Jones in 1973.

In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Simon decided to remove his tenor/bass-baritone voice from the secular music world and devote it and his life to Christianity. Simon began evangelist preaching in Flossmoor, Illinois. In 1983, he produced the album Lay My Burden Down for former Davis Sisters second lead Jackie Verdell. Simon released a gospel album titled This Story Must Be Told in the late 1990s.