I am pretty much forced to move these forward when I refresh the links just to get enough action on them to make it worth the trouble.
It has taken me quite awhile to assemble this piece as the information that is out there is sparse, often contradictory, and just as often outright wrong. The most common errors that I've found were elements of the story out of place on the actual discography timeline and thus conclusions are drawn that prove false when the actual sequence of events is considered. Even the liner notes to both of these releases had glaring errors. I have resolved the elements as much as I can against the timeline from the Blues Discography and articles sourced from Minden, LA, but I have been forced to speculate in several areas where more detailed information is needed. Personal memoirs from both Mayfield and Rupe would go a long way to making it possible to tell this story properly.
Percy Mayfield (August 12, 1920 – August 11, 1984) Mayfield was born in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana.
Mayfield grew up in the piney forest area of northwest Louisiana near Shreveport. He must have had exceptional gifts from the start because here was a young black man in the 1930's, in an area not known for it's progressive views on race, who is actually
recognized as having genuine poetry writing talent and so is encouraged to become a professional songwriter.
Songwriting usually leads to singing as it is awfully hard to sell someone on a song until they hear it, so after high school Percy heads to Houston to start a music career whilst taking odd jobs to keep food in his stomach and a roof over his head. Like many a southern black man during the war years he finds his way to Los Angeles for work in 1942, continuing to take odd jobs while gigging with what ever band he could while also trying to shop his songs to whomever would listen.
During this era of balancing day jobs and music, Mayfield manages to get 4 sides cut up in Oakland at Gru-V-Tone in 1947 (publishing date is 48, likely recorded in 47) including the powerful "Two Years of Torture". It is likely that it is with that record in hand as a demo that he approaches Supreme Records about using the song as a vehicle for Jimmy Witherspoon. The deciders at Supreme like Percy's demo enough that they have
him record the song instead, it is released in 1949. It is at that Supreme session that Mayfield begins a fruitful relationship with saxophone player and arranger Maxwell Davis, the architect of the West Coast Blues sound.
'Torture' sells consistently in southern markets for an extended period of time thus attracting the attention of Art Rupe of Specialty Records who signs Mayfield in 1950, reuniting him in the studio with Maxwell Davis. Rupe releases "Please Send Me Someone To Love" in the fall of 1950 to explosive success. The personal
and social lament captures the conscious of Korean War America, reaching number 1 on the R&B charts. That same session produced "Strange Things Happening", "Life Is Suicide", and "Praying for Your Return". Two more sessions before the close of 1950 produce 5 more singles (out of 8 possible!) and in early 1951 "Two Years of Torture" is leased and re-released on both Swing Time and King, doing even better this time as it rides the coattails of the first Specialty releases. Percy is on his way at the relatively late age of 29.
Although his vocal style was certainly influenced by Charles Brown, Cecil Gant and the other L.A. Club Blues singers, Mayfield never
pursued the white market, much like Bobby Bland he seemed content to be an R&B success. Percy remained true to his bleak fatalist songs and the keen intelligence and penetrating insight of his lyrics. His languid baritone was perfectly suited to his writing but he could perk it up and give some Nat Cole swing to a more up-beat song when it was needed.
Mayfield likely spent the rest of 1950 and the first half of 1951 touring the bars and theaters of the chitlin circuit in support of his opening salvo at Specialty. He quickly became a major female draw with his tortured, emotional songs and matinee idol good looks. Personal appearances were heavily attended by dewy-eyed young ladies but the working parents dug him too. Within the 'race market' Percy is the new, younger, deeper alternative to Wynonie Harris as a chick magnet.
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| The caption here is even in error as the song mentioned was recorded in 1954 |
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In July of 1951 Rupe finally gets Mayfield and Davis back into the studio for a double session which produces 5 new singles: "Cry Baby", "Nappin' the Nickles (Hopeless)", "I Dare You Baby", the magnificent "Lost Mind" and "How Deep is the Well". One must assume that another torrid round of promotion and touring follows because Mayfield does not return to the studio until January of 1952, but then the magic continues with "The Hunt is On", "The Big Question", "My Heart" and "The River's Invitation". A March 1952 session adds "Lonesome Highway", "Wasted Dream", and a subtle indicator that the pace may be getting to Percy with his wistful remembrance of home in "Louisiana".
Throughout 1952 Mayfield is riding high, each new single release adds to his success and popularity, every release is his own song so he is getting the big money too and now other artists are beginning to cover his songs, thus fulfilling his original dream of being a successful songwriter and providing an independent stream of income. The future is so bright he must need shades; he even has a successful European tour, he is relatively young, still pretty, and he is getting rich, and then....
In September of 1952 Percy is involved in a horrific auto accident while returning home to L.A. after a show in Las Vegas. Mayfield is critically injured, his face disfigured and his skull cracked and mashed out of shape. Miraculously he lives without brain injury or even much noticeable effect on his singing or diction. Most sources refer here to a long (he may have been unconscious as much as a month) period of recuperation which is certainly what one would expect after so horrible a trauma. (
Reports that Mayfield returned to Minden, Louisiana during this period are incorrect.) The period of recuperation, however, is no where near what one would expect and somehow Mayfield is back in the studio
within 5 months of the accident; still penning phenomenal tunes and sounding essentially the same vocally as before the accident, perhaps a scosh deeper in tone.
One of the tracks laid down in that first session back clearly speaks to the trauma of his accident and recovery, his immortal "Memory Pain". A second session follows in April of 1953 with 3 more singles including 'Get Way Back', 'Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye', 'Advice (for Men Only)' and a second version of 'Memory Pain'.
Understandably Mayfield was reluctant to tour or do promotional appearances, the psychological damage of his disfigurement had to be every bit as devastating as the physical damage, particularly given the previous circumstances of his life, but I have yet to read a single author who even discusses it! It is generally stated that his subsequent touring was drastically curtailed after the accident, but we will see that even
that is not
entirely true either.
Somehow by September of 1953, one year after the accident, Percy found the courage to agree to a short tour in support of the records, culminating in a holiday show in Los Angeles. One can only guess what sort of toll it must have cost the once matinee idol handsome man, his face now mashed and twisted nearly Quasimodo like, to appear in public and sing each night. The strength and courage it must have taken is unimaginable.
In 1954 Mayfield enters the last 17 months of his Specialty contract, at least to some point at odds
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| Perrcy and the Maytones |
with owner Art Rupe and his business model for how the industry works. Percy keeps what would seem to most of us a busy schedule of appearances from Texas to L.A. and up the West Coast but admittedly nothing near the schedule of before the accident. Rupe only sent him into the studio two more times and the last six months of the contract elapse without a session. Rupe is reportedly beginning to lose interest in the record industry around this time, and has some pressures of his own that are leading to some poor choices. (It was around the same time that he fired Sam Cooke and Bumps Blackwell abruptly and allowed them to leave with what turned out to be Sam's first secular hits) For his own part Percy is clearly depressed and drinking heavily, so his behavior may well have become erratic.
The March 1954 session is uncommonly sparse for Percy but it yields an incongruous duet with Joy Hamilton called "Sugar Mama, Peachy Papa" that is somewhat bizarre, and the eerie and magnificent "You Don't Exist No More". The final October session produces "You Were Lying To Me", "My Heart Is Crying", "Baby Your Rich" and his final Specialty triumph, "The Voice Within". Mayfield's contract expires in May of 1955 with no additional recordings.
Given the paucity of decent songwriting talent in relation to the swelling number of artists in the mid-50's it is hard to fathom how it did not occur to Rupe to retain Mayfield in some sort of in-house role. Perhaps the personal relationship had become too complicated by this time. The two maintain a correspondence, at least in part around the mailing of royalty checks and periodically Mayfield sends Rupe new songs that he allows the singer to record in hopes of generating some new money or landing a new contract. 1 and 2 track sessions show up later in the discography in 1956, 57 and 60.
Once he is contractually free in May of 1955, Mayfield shops himself around for a new label and makes a somewhat puzzling choice in Chess Records; puzzling both from his point of view and the label's since Chess had demonstrated no ability whatsoever to deal with anything other than their own style of Chicago Blues. Their only success in the Club Blues area was Lowell Fulson whose success was predicated on staying away from Leonard Chess and Willie Dixon and literally mailing in his finished sessions from Los Angeles. Percy likely only considered the financial aspects at the time. It isn't clear exactly how many sides he laid down for Chess, but only one 45 'Are You Out There/Double Dealing' gets released and the year-long contract expired with nothing more to show.
Through the remainder of the 50's Mayfield gradually slips further and further into obscurity, punctuated by the occasional unsuccessful singles coming out on various independents like Cash and Imperial. It is during this time (circa 1955) that he finally acts on the wistful longing for home expressed in 1952's 'Louisiana' and he builds himself a house repleat with home studio in Minden. Sadly the return to his roots doesn't go so well, old friends and family don't warm up to the long absent, returning native son and neither does the local constabulary. Mayfield is unhappy in Minden, he is busted on pot charges and otherwise harassed. Around this time (1959) that Percy pens a heartbreaking letter to
Rupe begging both financial help and help with getting a recording session because he is "too
ugly to tour". Rupe sends Percy some money and arranges a session even
though he is nearly through with the business and is busy becoming an
oil man. Mayfield eventually moves back to Los Angeles in early 1961 bearing at least two important souvenirs of his failed attempt to go home...'Stranger In My Home Town' and 'Hit The Road Jack', a song that would jump start his life and his career.
The period following the RCA recordings in the early 70's saw Percy Mayfield once again slip into obscurity and poverty; there was, however, one final chapter to his career. In the early 80's Bay Area blues musician Marc Naftlin discovered that Percy was living in the East Bay somewhere and was able to provide Percy with a sensitive band and an appreciative audience for live performances around several Marin County and East Bay clubs. The songs on the live disc are extracted from some of those shows between 1981 and 1983. The exposure also led to this 1982 Timeless studio date with the excellent Phillip Walker Blues Band. Percy sounds old on these recordings and his baritone has slipped to the very bottom of the range, but he also sounds very happy to be performing too. It's nice to know that his final chapter included some long overdue appreciation and love from the Bay Area Blues community, even if the national recognition he so richly deserved never came.
