Kim Tolliver - The Rojac and Tay-Ster Recordings / Come And Get Me I'm Ready

It is time for this blog to pay tribute to Kim Tolliver, a great singer who was very active in the 60s-80s, but never managed to get the break she deserved that could have made her a household name.  She will nevertheless always be highly appreciated by lovers of classic R&B/Soul music.  Kim Tolliver could move gracefully from a deep sexy purr to an explosive raspy bluesy shout, and all in full service of delivering the emotional message of a song.  In other words, Kim Tolliver was solidly in the grand tradition, and bears comparison to others in the elite pantheon of soul divas.

This post contains two very short but sweet Kim Tolliver collections that were finally released on CD in 2008 and 2011, respectively.  One contains all of the dynamite recordings that Tolliver made for Rojac and Tay-Ster  
during the 1960s and 1980s.  The second collection contains her fine album that was released for Chess in the 1970s: Come and Get Me I'm Ready.

Kim Tolliver was born in Tennessee near Nashville in 1937, but grew up mostly in the Cleveland area, where she made her home.  She cut a few records in Houston for Don Robey at Duke in the mid-1960s before being signed by Rojac records, where she was very skillfully produced by Jack Taylor.   She was unfortunately only able to release a handful singles for Rojac in 1968-1969, which comprise the first precious tracks on the compilation shared here.

Kim Tolliver finally had the chance to release two LPs under her own leadership.  Ironically, the first recorded for Fantasy was not released under her name, but under an assumed name "Kimberley Briggs."   It was a good record, but did not really do Kim Tolliver justice (I can post it later here if there is interest).   The second album for Chess and presented here, "Come and Get Me I'm Ready," was another story: a fine overall document of the art of Kim Tolliver.

In 1980, Kim Tolliver fortunately had one last opportunity to record under the production of Jack Taylor for Tay-Ster records.  The last three tracks of the collection here come from that session, including the very moving "Where Were You?"

Kim Tolliver had the misfortune of being struck down by Azheimer's disease in the 1990s, and died in 2007.   Her legacy lives on.