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.

Sun Southern Soul (?)

To be honest, this is a compilation I NEVER saw coming! In everything I've read and heard, there just isn't any Southern Soul-Blues chapter at Sun Studios!! What the Hell?

Well at least some of this stuff (like Johnny Adams and Danny White for sure!) must have been licensed or sold to them post the original release, because I've compared them to the originals that I have and while they are superior modern remasters here (quite welcome), they are still the same versions of the songs.

That said there is plenty of good stuff here and while I remain confused as to the history behind how this music ends up being issued by Sun, that does't mean it isn't a fascinatin' listen.

Bill Yates - Blues Like Midnight

"Bill Yates belonged to the final wave of Sun recording artists, the acts that comprised the very last singles released by Sam Phillips' legendary label in the early '60s. Memphis-based Yates was a piano player and a soulful singer, so it's not surprising that his closest antecedent was Charlie Rich, who left Sun not long before Yates signed. None of Yates singles were hits but he did wind up with some of the better singles Sun released during this closing act.

Yates was born on December 21, 1936 in Columbus, Georgia, the son of an evangelist. Bill sang in church as he grew up and, as a teen, he and his brother Vance started to seriously pursue music, planning to earn a living as traveling musicians. They began by touring in Georgia and Alabama and, at some point in 1958, it appears Bill Yates wound up making his recording debut playing piano on the Phantom's rockabilly cult classic "Love Me." Around this time, Bill relocated to Memphis, where he became friends with drummer and bandleader Billy Adams, who became a close associate of Yates' for a number of years. Memphis led him to a loose association with Elvis Presley and he headed out to Hollywood in 1961 as part of the King's entourage, working as a bodyguard. This was irregular work and Yates often came back to Memphis to gig, often working with Adams, usually at the south Memphis club Hernando's Hide-A-Way. This Yates-Adams band also featured a number of players who became fixtures around Memphis, playing regular gigs and sessions for a variety of labels. Soon, Yates and Adams were both cutting sessions at Hi Studios that wound up being released either on the upstart Home of the Blues or its sister imprint 1st Records in 1961. "All I Need Is You"/"Mojo" was Yates first release, which didn't do much, then the label folded so the next Yates singles culled from Home of the Blues sessions -- "Fool Around with Love" and "Blues Like Midnight" -- were licensed to King Records in 1962...see more

Junior Parker - Mystery Train

There are a whole lot mess of white folk that would dearly love to believe that Elvis didn't learn nothin' from black folk. That Professor Longhair warble, the Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris influences in both sound and showmanship, the Junior Parker influences? "Naw, HE made ALL that shit up and THEY copied him." (this is where my eyes roll back in my head)

Now I have actually had this conversation and more than once I might add! When I pointed out that Fess, Wynonie, and Roy all pre-dated Elvis, I was, after a bit of incoherent sputtering, challenged to a fight! The last refuge of that sort of idiot. I have similar experiences with Tea Party-ers who value their ignorance so highly that they will fight for it when presented with actual facts and cogent argument.

So here we have a photo that kind of gives lie to the story that racists love cite in which Elvis is purportedly quoted as saying that a black man is only fit to carry his luggage. (btw I have a whole lot of black friends who point to that and so they refuse to HEAR Elvis. The stupidity works both ways!) So to ALL these fools I offer this picture. Elvis showed up at these guys shows all the time when he could sneak away. You think he got the hair, clothes, voice and swinging hips from White Folks? PLEASE!! Elvis is known to have shown up in Chitlin Circuit bars and to have even gotten up on stage! Particularly in his early years.

All of which only has to do with the photo so let's get to the music. You will remember from the earlier bio that Parker was discovered by Ike Turner, did a pair of tracks with Ike at Modern and then was quickly snapped up by Sun. Something tells me Ike made money on every step of that process. The Sun period too, was short before he moved on to Don Robey and Duke but there are enough tracks to make this set with a little filler from James Cotton and Pat Hare. The Cotton tracks aren't all that exciting but the Hare tracks are killer, especially 'I'm Going To Kill My Baby'. Hare actually did kill his woman a year or two latter and spent the rest of his life in jail! He was a R&B guitar hero pioneer using distortion tricks unknown at the time. The Junior tracks are all first class including the oft covered (including by Elvis) 'Mystery Train'.

Ike Turner - Before Tina, Parts 2 & 3

There are two links here, the first covers the session material from 1954-56, the second focuses on the reformed Kings of Rhythm with front men Billy Gales and later Tommy Hodge. I've run out of pictures so I've included the covers of some of the sources for this material.

 After recording Rocket 88, Turner became a session musician and production assistant for Sam Philips and the Bihari Brothers, commuting to Memphis from Clarksdale. He began by contributing piano to a B. B. King track "You Know I Love You", which brought him to the attention of Modern Records' Joe Bihari, who requested Turner's services on another King track 3 O'Clock Blues. It became King's first hit.

Wishing to utilize Turner's Delta music connections, Bihari contracted him as a talent scout, paying him to search out southern musicians who might be worth recording. Turner also wrote new material for the artists to perform, which, unknown to him the Bihari Brothers registered the copyright on. Turner estimated he "wrote 78 hit records for the Biharis." Artists Turner sourced for Modern included Bobby Bland, Howlin' Wolf and Rosco Gordon. He played piano on sessions with them and other lesser known artists such as The Prisonaires, Ben Burton Orchestra, Little Milton, Matt Cockrell and Dennis Binder. Turner was contracted to the Bihari Brothers, but he continued to work for Sam Phillips at Sun Studios, where he was effectively the in-house producer. This sometimes created conflicts of interest. Turner cut two Howlin' Wolf tracks, "How Many More Years" and "Moanin' at Midnight," which Phillips sent to Chess Records. Turner then took Wolf across the state border, re-recorded the tracks without Phillips' or Chess's knowledge, and sent the results to Modern/RPM. Turner also attempted to poach Elmore James from Trumpet Records and record him for Modern. Trumpet found out and Modern had to cancel the record. However James did eventually sign for Modern, with Turner playing piano on a recording of James at Club Desire in Canton.

In 1956, Turner took a reformed version of the Kings of Rhythm north to St. Louis, including Kizart, Sims, O'Neal, Jessie Knight Jr and Turner's third wife Annie Mae Wilson Turner on piano and vocals. It was at this time that Turner moved over to playing guitar to accommodate Annie Mae, taking lessons from Willie Kizart to improve.

Turner maintained strict discipline over the band, insisting they lived in a large house with him so he could conduct early morning rehearsals at a moment's notice. Up until the age of 30, Turner was teetotal and had never taken drugs. He insisted all members of his band also adopt this policy, and would fire anyone he even suspected of breaking the rules. He would also fine or physically assault band-members if they played a wrong note and controlled everything from the arrangements down to the suits the band wore onstage. Starting off playing at a club called Kingsbury's in Madison, Illinois, within a year Turner had built up a full gig schedule, establishing his group as one of the most highly rated on the St. Louis club circuit, vying for popularity with their main competition, Sir John's Trio featuring Chuck Berry. The bands would play all-nighters in St. Louis, then cross the river to the clubs of East St. Louis, Illinois, and continue playing until dawn. In St. Louis for the first time Turner, was exposed to a developing white teenage audience who were excited by R&B. Clubs Turner played in St. Louis included Club Imperial, which was popular with white teenagers, The Dynaflow, The Moonlight Lounge, Club Riviera and the West End Walters. In East St. Louis, his group played Kingsbury's, Club Manhattan and The Sportsman.

In between live dates, Turner took the band to Cincinnati to record for Federal in 1956 and Chicago for Cobra/Artistic in 1958, as well as fulfilling his contract as a session musician back at Sun. He befriended St. Louis R&B fan Bill Stevens, who in 1958 set up the short-lived record label, Stevens, financed by his father Fred. Turner recorded numerous sessions for Stevens with various vocalists and musician lineups, of which seven singles were released (these are collected on the Red Lightnin' compilation "Hey Hey- The Legendary Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm"/RL0047). Turner was not credited on any of the Stevens releases as he still had months to run on his Sun contract and did not want to cause friction with Sam Philips. He recorded a solo rockabilly country single under the anagrammatical name Icky Renrut. None of the Stevens records had wide distribution and the operation ceased after a year.

In 1959 Turner was charged with what he described as "interstate transportation of forged cheques and conspiracy", and was forced to stand trial in St. Louis. At the first trial the jury failed to reach verdict, and at the retrial a year later Turner was found not guilty.


It is kind of amazing how much there is to Ike long before that girl whom he christens "Tina Turner" (he made up the name and owned the rights to it) ever enters the picture, eh? People in the modern world tend to believe the ridiculous Disney fiction of her book and movie which even Tina has acknowledged is utter trash. Ike did indeed run his band with an iron fist, it is in large part why they were so much better than the competition and more successful. I have no doubt that when he began using Cocaine and alcohol that he became an abusive personality, as nearly EVERYONE does behind that powerful pair of personality twisting drugs. The picture of him as some sort of parasite ridding her coat-tail, however, is FAR from the truth. He made her as an artist after she badgered him for months on end to let her sing and even then he did not want her in the band. Only her dogged insistence eventually broke him down.

Ike Turner - Early Ike 1951 - 1953

It is hard to think of ANYONE more seminal and influential in the beginnings of R&B than Ike Turner. He is just EVERYWHERE and playing with everyone while writing and producing for them
 and he is discovering and developing new talent for multiple labels. His own bands are the tightest, most hardworking groups around and he does not tolerate drugs or excessive drinking in his own working bands. (Later he developed a 15 year cocaine habit with the drinking that accompanies it but initially he is a straight arrow.) He was a perfectionist who drove his touring bands hard and wasn't always well liked for that long before Disney concocted their tales that branded him a national villain. (even Tina has admitted publicly that almost nothing  shown about Ike in the movie was factual, she was just mad because he owned the copyright on her stage name!) If Dave Bartholomew was the Architect of New Orleans R&B then Ike Turner fills that roll everywhere else but the West Coast where it was Johnny Otis and Maxwell Davis. 

Turner was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on November 5, 1931, to Beatrice Cushenberry (1909–195?), a seamstress, and Isaiah (or Izear) Luster Turner, a Baptist minister. The younger of two siblings, Turner had an elder sister, named Ethel May. Turner believed for many years that he was named Izear Luster Turner, Jr. after his father, until he discovered his name was registered as Ike Wister Turner while applying for his first passport. He never got to discover the origin of his name, as by the time he discovered it, his parents were both dead.

Turner said when he was very young, he witnessed his father beaten and left for dead by a white mob. His father lived for 3 years as an invalid in a tent in the family's yard before succumbing to his injuries. Writer and blues historian Ted Drozdowski has told a different version of the story, stating that Turner's father died in an industrial accident. His mother remarried to a man called Philip Reeves. Turner said his stepfather was a violent alcoholic and they often argued and fought, after one fight Turner knocked out his stepfather with a piece of wood. He then ran away to Memphis where he lived rough for a few days before returning to his mother. He reconciled with his stepfather years later, buying a house for him in the 1950s around the time Turner's mother died.

Turner recounted how he was introduced to sex at the age of six by a middle-aged lady called Miss Boozie. Walking past her house to school, she would invite him to help feed her chickens, and then take him to bed. This continued for some years. Turner claimed to not be traumatized by this, commenting that "in those days they didn't call it abuse, they called it fun". He was also sexually molested by two other women before he was twelve.

Around his eighth year Turner also began frequenting the local Clarksdale radio station, WROX, located in the Alcazar Hotel in downtown Clarksdale. WROX was notable as one of the first radio stations to employ a black DJ, Early Wright, to play blues records. DJ John Frisella put Turner to work as he watched the record turntables. Soon he was left to play records while the DJ went across the street for coffee. Turner described this as "the beginning of my thing with music." This led to Turner being offered a job by the station manager as the DJ on the late-afternoon shift. The job meant he had access to all the new releases. On his show he played a diverse range of music, playing Louis Jordan alongside early rockabilly records.


Turner was inspired to learn the piano on a visit to his friend Ernest Lane's house, where he heard Pinetop Perkins playing Lane's fathers' piano. Turner convinced his mother to pay for him to have piano lessons with a teacher; however he did not take to the formal style of playing, instead spending the money in a pool hall, then learning boogie-woogie from Perkins. . He taught himself to play guitar by playing along to old blues records. At some point in the 1940s, Turner moved into Clarksdale’s Riverside Hotel, run by Mrs. Z.L. Ratliff. The Riverside played host to a great number of touring musicians, including Sonny Boy Williamson II and Duke Ellington. Turner associated and played music with many of these guests.

In high school, a teenage Turner joined a huge local rhythm ensemble called The Tophatters, who played dances around Clarksdale, Mississippi. Members of the band were taken from Clarksdale musicians, and included Turner's school friends Raymond Hill, Eugene Fox and Clayton Love. The Tophatters played big-band arrangements from sheet music. Turner, who was trained by ear and could not sight read music, would learn the pieces by listening to a version on record at home, pretending to be reading the music during rehearsals. At one point, the Tophatters had over 30 members, and eventually split into two, with one act who wanted to carry on playing dance-band jazz calling themselves The Dukes of Swing and the other, led by Turner becoming the Kings of Rhythm. Said Turner: "We wanted to play blues, boogie-woogie and Roy Brown, Jimmy Liggins, Roy Milton." Turner would keep the name of the band throughout his career, although it went through considerable lineup changes over time. Their early stage performances consisted largely of covers of popular jukebox hits. They were helped by B. B. King, who helped them to get a steady weekend gig and recommended them to Sam Phillips at Sun Studio. In the 50s, Turner's group got regular airplay from live sessions on WROX-Am, and KFFA radio in Helena, Arkansas.
Sun Studio at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, where in 1951 Turner and the Kings of Rhythm recorded Rocket 88, one of the first Rock and roll records. Turner would later work at the studio as in-house producer for Sam Phillips.

Around the time he was starting out with The Kings of Rhythm, Turner and Ernest Lane became unofficial roadies for blues singer Robert Nighthawk, who often played live on WROX. The pair sat in playing drums and piano on radio sessions and supported Nighthawk at blues dates around Clarksdale. Playing with Nighthawk allowed Turner to gig regularly and build up playing experience. He would also provide backup for Sonny Boy Williamson II (Alex "Rice" Miller), playing gigs alongside other local blues artists such as Howlin' Wolf, Charley Booker, Elmore James, Muddy Waters and Little Walter. Performances typically lasted for about twelve hours, from early evening to dawn the next day. Turner described the scenario to an interviewer:
“ We played juke joints; we'd start playing at 8.00pm and wouldn't get off till 8.00am. No intermissions, no breaks. If you had to go to the restroom, well that's how I learned to play drums and guitar! When one had to go, someone had to take his place.

It was around this time that Turner and his band came up with the song, "Rocket 88". The song was written as the group drove down to Memphis to record at Sam Phillips' Sun Studios. Turner came up with the introduction and first verse, the band collaborated on the rest with Brenston, the band's saxophonist, on vocals. Phillips sold the recording to Chess in Chicago, who released it under the name "Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats". The record sold approximately half a million copies. In Turner's account book he recorded that he was paid $20. The success of Rocket 88 caused tensions and ego clashes in the band, causing Jackie Brenston to leave to pursue a solo career, taking some of the original members with him. Turner, without a band and disappointed his hit record had not created more opportunities for him, disbanded the Kings of Rhythm for a few years.

After recording Rocket 88, Turner became a session musician and production assistant for Sam Philips and the Bihari Brothers, commuting to Memphis from Clarksdale. He began by contributing piano to a B. B. King track "You Know I Love You", which brought him to the attention of Modern Records's, Joe Bihari, who requested Turner's services on another King track 3 O'Clock Blues. It became King's first hit.

I've broken some 5 cd's worth of compilations down into three digestible bites that do not overlap and are sorted by the vocalist. I think it makes for a much better listen that way and it let's you see Ike's Kings of Rhythm in a variety of settings, this first set covers 1951 to 1953 and has two killer vocalists in Jackie Brenston and Johnny O'Neal. I have left the covers from the original compilations on the files but there is no real point in being album-centric when all of this material was released as singles.  KC