Sugar Pie DeSanto - 'Go Go Power: The Complete Chess Singles 1961-1966'

 

The Forgotten Queen of Chess Records

Born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton of Filipino and African-American parentage, she was dubbed "Little Miss Sugar Pie" by the iconic hipster and bandleader, Johnny Otis, who signed her to her first professional contract in 1954.

Her first hit record, "I Want to Know" was in 1959, released on the Veltone label and produced by the Godfather of Oakland Blues, Bob Geddins, Sr.  "I Want to Know" rose to Number 3 on the Billboard charts, springboarding Sugar Pie into a lucrative contract with Chess Records.  At that time, Chess Records’ artists included Etta James, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and Bo Diddley.  During her tenure at Chess Records, she became the most prolific and highest paid writer in their organization.

Her songbook contains more than 100 compositions, which have been recorded by the likes of Minnie Riperton, Billy Stewart, Fontella Bass, The Whispers, Little Milton, The Dells, and Jesse James.  Also while at Chess Records, Sugar Pie recorded three historic duets with Etta James, "In the Basement" "Somewhere Down The Line"and "Do I Make Myself Clear", the latter song was featured in the 1999 movie, “The Hurricane.”

Sugar Pie's career spans six decades, and awards include:
"Best Blues Performer (Female) 1997"—Real Blues Magazine.
"Legendary Artist/Songwriter 1998"—Blues/Soul Summit Conference.
"Outstanding Blues Artist 1999"—Bammies Regional Award.
"In Recognition of Artistry 2000"—Panama Awards.

Judging from her name and looks, you might think Sugar Pie is a "Minnie Mouse" type of girl singer, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Not unlike Howlin' Wolf and her best friend, Etta James, Sugar Pie is a force of nature with a B-I-G booming, powerhouse of a voice.

Today's freeload, 'Go Go Power: The Complete Chess Singles 1961-1966', is truly rocking.  Sugar Pie reminds me of Tina Turner, when she was with Ike (before she became a strictly commercial MTV darling).  But Sugar Pie has a style all her own with better clarity than Tina especially on some of the slower type ballads on this set like "Ask Me," "Crazy Lovin'," "I Love You So Much", "Love Me Tonight," "Never Love A Stranger," and "Somewhere Down The Line" (one of three duets with Etta James).  The rest of the tracks are funky, with infectious beats, and explosive, and I know for a fact, Brian, Mick and Keef were fans of and inspired by Sugar Pie.

Ace Records did a fantastic job remastering the songs on this 2009 release, which all sound as though they were recorded last week (why Chess Records can't do this is beyond me), and there's a booklet (included in the freeload) with pictures of Sugar in action and wonderful liner notes by Mick Patrick that tells you all about Sugar, her career and her life.

For the freeload, what's your favorite kind of pie?

Charlie Parker - ''The Complete Norman Granz Master Takes'

 

Bird and Norman Granz

Norman Granz, the owner of Verve, signed Bird just a little too late, just after his contract with the Savoy label expired, where he recorded some of the most blistering and important jazz ever recorded.

At Verve, Norman Granz coupled Bird with studio musicians and string sections (rather than his regular touring band) for most of his sessions.  Plus, the same "individuality" that manifested itself in blistering solos on the Savoy sides, was hammering away at his personal life, thanks to Bird's crippling heroin habit.  Those two things added up to releases that, though still impressive, weren't possessed of the same intensity as the aforementioned sessions.  That said, and I can't emphasize this enough; the lesser work of a genius eclipses the best work of most others.  Freeload this and you'll hear ample evidence of that.

'The Complete Norman Granz Master Takes' is a 4CD set that contains all of Bird's master takes on Verve between 1947 and 1954.  It's been meticulously remastered and presented chronologically by session, this set is an excellent document of a master in his self-inflicted twilight.

The master takes are:

• Bird's very first Granz recording, made in Carnegie Hall without an audience.
• Bird's own big-band sessions.
• Bird's collaborations with Neal Hefti, Machito, Coleman Hawkins and trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Dorham, Miles Davis, Red Rodney and Benny Harris
• The three different "With Strings" sessions, that sound better than ever when not heard all at once, but in a chronological context.
• Bird's final quartet and quintet recordings.
• The truly awe-inspiring All-Star Norman Granz Jam Session with a frontline consisting of Charlie Parker with Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Flip Phillips and Charlie Shavers.

In addition to his excellent Savoy and Dial recordings, the Norman Granz Master Takes, should be in every Jazz collection.

For the freeload, tell us what albums that are considered classics, you just don't get or like.

Tom Waits - 'Small Change'

'Small Change' from 1976, was recorded at the height of when Tom was effectively method-acting his way through the 70s as the character of an alcoholic drifter.  It does however find him hitting a peak as a songwriter, writing about life’s impoverished and under-regarded characters (people Marx, termed as Lumpenprol) that he had either met the acquaintance of, or witnessed across a crowded room, bar, strip club or more probably, just a figment of his imagination.

It's a little bluesy, a little jazzy and all theater with a humorous approach.  Yet, you can’t help but feel sympathy, or sometimes even empathy, for the characters Tom writes about in the first and third person.  Small Change is a perfectly formed album exploring the experiences of people well versed in the seedier sides of society, and it's brimming with his rawest lyrics, which he sings with his heart on his sleeve.  Tom also wears his lyrical influences on his sleeve, and to me comes off as Charles Bukowski crossed with Hubert Selby Jr. and Raymond Chandler, whom are impersonating a piano bar singer.  But if you look past this facade, the music he sculpted was a superb blend of blues, jazz and its literary offshoot, beat poetry.

My favorite song on 'Small Change' is "Step Right Up", an upbeat number with Jim Hughart's smooth walking bassline, the jazz drumming courtesy of Shelly Manne and Tom playing the role of an amphetamine addled carnival barker rapidly firing out lyrics in a comical parody of sales pitches.  It just might be his single best vocal delivery of his career, proving his voice does have a unique, charming niche which often gives the music much character it would be lacking without it.

Speaking of Shelly Manne, his tom-tom heavy drumming is sublime on "Pasties and G-String" which is drunken beat poetry ramblings about strippers, peepshows and softcore porn.  As it turns out, Shelly had experience in this field; in his younger and leaner years, he drummed in strip clubs.

The title track is the favorite of many a Tom Waits fan, is an aggressively told story set to the score of a lone saxophone.  Waits spits out lyrics about a violent street hustler who gets what's coming to him (Small Change got rained on with his own .38) with some lyrics that are strong, metaphorical and venomous all at once.

Oh, and there's a duet with Bette Midler on the song, "I Never Talk To Strangers"

The mood of 'Small Change' reminds me of Times Square in the 60s and 70s, and old Long Beach, California, when "The Pike" was there.  A once family orientated amusement park, The Pike turned seedy and alcohol-soaked in the late 60s.  It had low-brow shabby cocktail dives, open front liquor stores, girly-shows and tattoo parlors that catered to workers and sailors from the nearby Long Beach Naval Shipyard.

While we're on the subject of tattoos, I got a tattoo at the legendary Bert Grimm's tattoo shop on The Pike from none other than Bert himself in 1969, more or less, on a dare.  The tattoo is a peace sign, on my upper right arm.  A few months later, while back in Brooklyn visiting my parents, my mother noticed it, when my tee shirt sleeve rode up and she went totally ballistic.

On the cover of 'Small Change' the stripper behind Tom is none other than Cassandra Peterson who would later be known as Elvira, "Mistress of the Darkness," though Cassandra will not claim authenticity to this, as she claims she "can't remember".

Also featured on the cover, is a glass bottle of Miller beer, a jar of Vaseline, an amber pill bottle [no doubt Quaaludes, which would explain Cassandra not remembering - Ed.], a Floral Design Tissue Box, a copy of Dxing Magazine, pack of Old Gold filtered cigarettes, can of Helen Reddy Hair Spray, a small circular makeup mirror with cocaine residue, and a box of Trojans... I'm sure there's much more, but this is this all I could discern.

Here's another picture from the photoshoot.

Tom Waits - vocals, piano
Shelly Manne – drums
Lew Tabackin – tenor saxophone
Jim Hughart – bass
with:
Harry Bluestone – violin, concertmaster strings
Ed Lustgarten – cello
Jerry Yester – arranger and conductor of string section

For the freeload (a Japanese remastered limited edition reissue), tell us about some of the seedy places and dive bars that you have visited.

Canned Heat - '1967-1976: The Boogie House Tapes'

"Crying, mama, mama, mama, you know, canned heat killing me."
Tommy Johnson's Canned Heat Blues

Canned Heat started as 1960s West Coast "heavy" blues band, and they're still around today with one 1960s member, drummer Fito De La Parra after 50 years.  At their best, the late 60s version of the band, with Bob The Bear Hite, Alan Wilson, Larry Taylor, Fito De La Parra, and either Henry Vestine or Harvey Mandel on guitar, was an unstoppable force, churning out their grungy brand of high octane blues’n’boogie. 

Because Canned Heat were blues purists at heart, and the original members were all collectors of blues 78’s, even when they were engaged in 40 minute fuzzed-out jams, there was always a blues base, and everything was always blues-drenched, no matter how far out they went, many of their tunes were “extensions” of 1930s Blues material.

Canned Heat's '1967-1976: The Boogie House Tapes' is a 2CD set, assembled by drummer Adolfo de la Parra and Walter De Paduwa aka "Dr. Boogie".  

Let me point out right from the start, this collection is aimed at long time fans of "The Heat".  If you're unfamiliar with Canned Heat, or a casual fan, these two CDs are not for you, but don't worry, I've got you covered below.

Here's Adolfo de la Parra liner notes:

"In the town of Overijse, Belgium. There is a very special place called The Boogie House'.  It is not a public location, but the home of musicologist, radio personality Walter De Paduwa aka 'Dr. Boogie'.  He has turned his home into a private museum, dedicated to the preservation of Boogie music.
This unique place is always 'hot' with shuffles and boogies roaring through the speakers, in contrast with the rest of the area, which is cold, cloudy and quiet like a good old middle class suburb in the center of Europe.
On occasion, Dr. Boogie has some strange guests. It is part of a ritual for a chosen group of local and inter-national Blues musicians, to visit the Boogie House and
rock with the Dr. until late hours of the night.
That's how we, as members of Canned Heat, eventually met the Dr. and were invited for the first time to the Boogie House after a show in Louvain-La-Neuve.
What a pleasant surprise, to discover that most of his museum was dedicated to us. It resulted in a life long friendship and a bond in our passion for this music and way of life.
This cd package is a collection of previously un-released tapes that Dr. Boogie and myself managed to collect and preserved throughout the years. With painstaking attention to detail and historical content we salvaged some of these very old tapes and mastered them digitally for this release.
This is the very last collection of Canned Heat music from the 60's and 70's you are likely to hear. We don't know of anymore tapes in existence from this era.
To welcome the 21st century we celebrate this great band's legacy and hope that you, the Blues and Boogie audience, will enjoy hearing this music as
much as we have enjoyed playing it...'Don't forget to Boogie'"

I'm also including in the freeload, 'The Very Best of Canned Heat' from 2005, it has sweet audio, and is a great place to start if you're unfamiliar with "The Heat", or if you just want a nice overview of the band.

 
For the freeload, make up a name for a blues band, from a title or line from old blues record.

Django Reinhardt - 'Pêche à la Mouche: The Great Blue Star Sessions 1947/1953'

 

One of the few genuine legends of the music, Jean Baptiste Reinhardt, was born at Liverchies in Belgium. He was something of a prodigy and played professionally before his teens. When he was eighteen, a fire in his caravan seriously damaged his hand, and for the rest of his life he had to work with two clawed fingers on his fretting hand. As erratic as he was brilliant, he seemed predestined to a short and spectacular career, and he died aged just 43 at Samois, near Paris.

On the evening of July 25, 1965, Django Reinhardt took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival in black jeans, black boots, and a black leather jacket, carrying a Fender Stratocaster in place of his familiar Selmer 503 guitar.

Wait, What? Sorry, I'm confusing Django Reinhardt with Bob Dylan. 

Be that as it may, after World War II, Django went electric, and I'll bet many a Frenchman thought to themselves, "Ce putain de Judas belge!"

When most people think of Django Reinhardt at his best, they think of the period between 1935 until the outbreak of war in 1939, which permanently broke up the original Quintette du Hot Club de France.  Stephane Grappelli, who was gay, understandably fled soon-to-be occupied France to wait out the war in Great Britain, while Reinhardt chose to stay with his Romani compatriots in the wagon camps on the outskirts of Paris.

During the war, there were many closet Jazz Fans among the German Officers (Jazz was not allowed in the Third Reich).  One of these was Dietrich Schulz-Koehn of the Luftwaffe, whom was a big fan Django’s, and who more than once got him out of a tight corner.  This allowed Parisian jazz fans to flock to hear him in dark, cramped "bal musette" nightclubs and large auditoriums alike, with the the Clarinet accompaniment of Hubert Rostaing instead of Stephane Grappelli's Violin.

Some people claim, "Django without Grappelli is like bread without butter" (myself, I prefer a baguette, with extra virgin olive oil).  As much as I adore the original Quintette du Hot Club de France, the Blue Star Sessions make a nice change of pace from "La Pompe" (the pump), sometimes called ‘La Pompe Manouche’, which is the standard 'choppy' rhythm in Manouche Jazz.

On these recordings Django transferred his fleet-fingered runs and advanced harmonic concepts from the acoustic to the electric, but he also realized how his style could evolve to take advantage of the tonal variety and, most importantly, the added sustain of the electric guitar.  In addition, this essential landmark of jazz guitar also shows in startling detail how he was absorbing the advanced ideas of Bebop.  It should also be pointed out how influential these recordings are, as Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, and George Benson (to name but a few) site these recordings as a major influence.

For the freeload tell us who's your favorite non-rock guitarist.

Little Richard - 'Here's Little Richard!' & 'Little Richard'

 

Richard Wayne Penniman, known professionally as Little Richard, had one of the longest and most bizarre careers in rock and roll history.  He set the standard for uptempo rock and roll in 1955 with "Tutti Frutti" and almost immediately every would-be hip singer was covering his every single.  But the cover versions always fell flat because the songs were designed especially for Richard's 12-cylinder vocal delivery, wild-eyed outrageous persona, the joyful abandon of his piano playing, and his top-flight backing band, the Upsetters. 

Following fifteen frantic months after hitting it big, he quit the devil's music for gospel.  After getting kicked out of Oakwood College seminary school, he started a comeback effort that lasted nearly forty years, scratching his way onto the charts a few times in the 60s before scoring one hit in the early 70s with "Freedom Blues" and one in the mid-80s "Great Gosh A'mighty", but never again coming close to his former glory either commercially or artistically.

By the time 'Here's Little Richard!' was released in 1957, he had already been recording hits for the Specialty for over a year, and the label put together a flat-out classic.  Aside from the historical impact, this contains several of the finest rock 'n' roll vocal performances ever recorded: "Long Tall Sally," "She's Got It" and especially "Tutti Frutti," Richard's first Specialty single and the tune which, more than anything except maybe "Rock Around The Clock," put rock music on the map.  'Here's Little Richard!' is mostly blistering fast rockers with "Rip It Up" and "Ready Teddy", though he includes a few slower numbers for balance, but all are belted out at a force of ten tons per square inch.  With the brief track times and Richard wailing like crazy, you may not notice the Upsetters, whom are tighter than a pair of Levi’s 501 shrink-to-fit jeans that are a size too small, and the tenor sax players get in some admirable honking, though neither gets a solo.

'Little Richard' released in 1958 is more consistent and varied than the first Specialty LP, from the ballad "Send Me Some Lovin'" to the ridiculously fast "Keep A-Knockin'."  It's also the source of his two best songs ever, "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Lucille," plus the hilarious, amazingly single-minded "Ooh! My Soul."  Half these tracks are from late 1956 and 1957 the rest were already in the can when 'Here's Little Richard' was released, but are far from "also-rans".  So despite the impact of Richard's debut and the brilliance of Chuck Berry's album 'Berry Is On Top', to my ears, this stands out as the best early rock and roll LP.

For the freeload tell us what your favorite 1950s rock 'n' roll song is.

Junior Wells - 'Messin' With The Kid 1957-1963' & 'Hoodoo Man Blues'

Junior Wells is the direct musical descendant of modern Blues' harmonica legends John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, "Sonny Boy" Williamson II (Rice Miller) and "Little Walter" Jacobs.  A devotee of blues, funk and soul music, Junior developed a style incorporating all of those genres, and was a consummate stage.

Born Amos Blakemore in 1934, Junior was raised on a farm in rural West Memphis and Marion, Arkansas.  He became intensely interested in the music flowing from the fertile blues culture of Memphis and learned harmonica from his cousin Little Junior Parker.  After his parents separated, the wild and rebellious Junior moved with his mother to Chicago in 1946.  There he discovered that music would be the most important thing in his life.  His teenage years were spent playing hooky from school, and practicing his harmonica.  His interest in the local blues musicians found the underage Junior sneaking into various clubs, vying to "sit-in" with bands.  Junior's earliest such escapade was in 1948 sneaking into the C & T Lounge where Tampa Red and Johnny Jones let the young harpist show his skills.  A now famous incident was when Junior convinced his sister and her then-boyfriend, a Chicago policeman, to escort him to Sam's Ebony Lounge where the Muddy Waters band (with Little Walter Jacobs and Jimmy Rogers) were playing.  As Junior tells it, "I went up to Muddy and told him I played harp. Muddy said he'd let me try." Little Walter said, "That little shrimp?" "They stood me on a coke box to reach the mike, and I made $45 in tips". When Little Water left the Muddy Waters, Junior was called to replace him. Junior stayed on with Waters until 1952.

'Messin' With The Kid 1957-1963' is a compilation by Paula Records and released in 2014.  These are the major sides Junior recorded for Mel London's Profile, Chief, and Age labels, they represent the earliest "Juke" sides of Junior Wells recorded in Chicago.  Sidemen on these sessions include guitarist Earl Hooker, saxophonist A.C. Reed, keyboardists Otis Spann and Johnny "Big Moose" Walker and Popsy Dixon.  These are raw, greasy, unfiltered, and passionate blues.  Junior's vocals are strong throughout, and the sidemen "tear the roof off".

'Hoodoo Man Blues' is the archetypal Chicago blues album; the standard to which all other Chicago blues albums are compared.  Recorded back in 1965, for Bob Koester's Delmark label, the record had high ambitions as the creators laid down songs meant to be played in order rather than as a collection of blues singles, this was one of, if not the first Blues LP.  Junior wails on harmonica and means every down-'n-dirty lyric he sings.  Buddy Guy’s guitar playing skillfully expresses the feeling behind the words as he riffs and complements Wells’ phasing.  Jack Myers on bass and Billy Warren on drums lay down a foundation so solid that Wells and Guy just know their playing will always have a base from which to soar.

On the original pressings, Buddy Guy is credited as "Friendly Chap", as Bob Koester thought Buddy was under contract to Chess. Also at one point during the sessions, Buddy's Fender amp died, so Bob Koester plugged him into a Hammond B-3 Leslie speaker for several tracks.  To this day, countless guitarists used and are still using this technique.

'Hoodoo Man Blues' Delmark's best-selling album, is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, was chosen by Living Blues magazine as one of the Top Ten Desert Island Blues Discs.  It is also regularly voted among the best blues album of all time by virtually everyone since its release. 

The freeload is a vinyl rip of my pristine copy of the Analogue Productions remastered release from 1996, and it sounds killer.  This is the release you should have.

For the freeload tell us what about your favorite current TV show.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - April 24, 2024 - San Diego, CA

 

Here's a nicely done audience recording from this past April, that finds everybody's favorite uncle, in fine form.

Neil Young - guitar, vocals
Ralph Molina - drums
Billy Talbot - bass
Micah Nelson - guitar

1. Cortez The Killer
2. Cinnamon Girl
3. Scattered (Let's Think About Livin')
4. Don't Cry No Tears
5. Down By The River
6. The Losing End (When You're On)
7. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
8. Powderfinger
9. Love And Only Love
10. Comes A Time
11. Heart Of Gold
12. Human Highway
13. Don't Be DeniedHey 
14. Hey, My My

Freeload, and discuss
Link
https://workupload.com/file/QRXTuQRVQ9L

Miles Davis - 'Miles Ahead'

 

'Miles Ahead' was recorded on May 6, 10, 23 & 27, 1957 at the Columbia 30th Street Studios, NY.

To be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans collaborations.  Yes, 'Sketches Of Spain', 'Porgy & Bess' and 'Miles Ahead' are beautiful albums.  All three show off what the academics have termed as the "Third Stream" movement, which is a blend between classical music and jazz but, the end results of these albums just don't have that inventive and spontaneous conversation between the improvising musicians, that I love so much.

All that said, 'Miles Ahead' is a great album, and undoubtedly a classic, as we do have the tremendous talents of Miles and Gil (who worked together earlier on the legendary 'The Birth Of The Cool' sessions) at a time when both were realizing the enormous possibilities for where their talents could take them.  Miles sounds fantastic on the flugelhorn, which is not surprising since he was coming off of the creative outburst marked by his time at Prestige with his first great quintet (the albums Workin', Steamin', Relaxin' and Cookin').  Miles is the only soloist on Miles Ahead, and while there are no real overpowering or memorable moments, when he does step up to the mic he rides the melodies laid down by the orchestra perfectly.  He is still very much in his lyrical "cool" mood, with his flugelhorn dancing and floating through Evan's arrangements.  'Miles Ahead' is my favorite of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans collaborations, and to my ears, also the jazziest.

When this album was released, Gil Evans was still an obscure figure to jazz audiences, although according to the liner notes he was not only well known to jazz musicians, but highly regarded as well. The notes quote Gerry Mulligan from a 1957 Downbeat interview with Nat Hentoff:

"Not many people really heard Gil; those who did, those who came up through the Claude Thornhill band, were tremendously affected, and they in turn affected others."

Obviously after his time spent with Davis at Columbia, Evans would become a household name in jazz, and while he would go on to make a couple great albums under his own name and produce some fine albums for others, his three Columbia albums with Davis will always remain his greatest jazz legacy.

A Note On The Cover:
The original cover artwork, had a white woman and child sailing along the water. The image is a somewhat appropriate metaphor for the music contained within, but definitely not a great cover for a Miles Davis record.  It led to the famous quote by Miles to Columbia Records executive George Avakian, "Why'd you put that white bitch on there?" Avakian later said the question was made in jest, and I don't doubt that, but I also don't fault Miles for asking, sarcastically or otherwise.

So, what did Columbia do?  They replaced the cover with what is, in my opinion, the least visually pleasing of all the album covers in Miles' discography.  It is a drab cover with a generic image of Miles blowing his trumpet, and to my eyes the way the text is laid out makes for an awkward reading of the title and artist information.  It's obvious the new artwork was rushed out with no regard for aesthetics.  Future releases reverted to the original cover.  Myself, I'm not thrilled with either cover.

Along with Miles on Flugelhorn, are:
Gil Evans - Arranger, Conductor
Johnny Carisi - Trumpet
Bernie Glow - Trumpet
Taft Jordan - Trumpet
Louis Mucci - Trumpet
Ernie Royal - Trumpet
Lee Konitz - Alto Saxophone
Joe Bennett - Trombone
Jimmy Cleveland - Trombone
Frank Rehak - Trombone
Tom Mitchell - Bass Trombone
Edwin Caine - Flute, Clarinet
Sid Cooper - Flute, Clarinet
Romeo Penque - Flute, Clarinet
Danny Bank - Bass Clarinet
Jim Buffington - French Horn
Tony Miranda - French Horn
Willie Ruff - French Horn
Bill Barber - Tuba
Paul Chambers - Bass
Art Taylor - Drums

The freeload, is the Sony Master Sound Reissue Series (SRCS 9703) mini-LP CD from Japan.  Moto Uehara was the Mastersound producer, and Kouji C Suzuki was the DSD engineer.  This is the release "Audiophools" like myself love.

To qualify for the free load, tell us, what are some of your favorite and least favorite album covers.

Announcement

 

We'll be closed for the extended 4th of July weekend.


Will return on July 15th

Ray Charles - 'The Atlantic Studio Albums In Mono'

 

As a teenager growing up in Florida, Ray Charles learned to read music using braille and played piano at school dances before graduating to gigging with big bands in Tampa and Orlando.  In 1948, he moved to Seattle, Washington, where he established himself as a star on the juke circuit, where he released around 20 singles and notched a handful of minor R’n’B hits.



At 22 years old, and already an industry veteran, Ray was signed to Atlantic Records.  Ahmet Ertegun (Atlantic Records co-founder and president) gave Ray complete freedom to record whatever and whenever he pleased.  Ray, with his new-found freedom, tinkered with blues, jazz, pop, R’n’B, even country.  He also adapted hymns and old gospel numbers to a nightclub setting, altering the words to extol romantic instead of heavenly love. “I Got A Woman” and “Hallelujah I Love Her So”, which at the time were simultaneously highly controversial and incredibly successful.



‘The Atlantic Years – In Mono’ is a 7LP box that covers his days at the label, shows how Ray built on that modest success through experimentation and uncompromising innovation, not only becoming one of the biggest artists of the decade but exerting an incalculable influence on the next 60 plus years of American popular music.  None of these records have been in print in their original mono for over half a century, which is a shame because they’re much more forceful and insistent in this setting.  These mono versions intensify the interplay between Ray and his backing musicians.



Due to the nature of the recording industry in the 1950s, the chronology of the recordings is skewed.  Atlantic Records was releasing compilations of singles released months and even years apart, but the label continued mining Ray’s sessions even after he had defected to ABC-Paramount.  Although his tenure with Atlantic Records ended in 1959, much of this music wasn’t officially released until the early 1960s, when “Georgia On My Mind” and “Hit The Road Jack” had sent him hurtling up the pop charts.



Even though, some of these recordings are almost 70 years old, they still sound as lively, mischievous, ingenious, innovative, wild and as sophisticated as ever.

For the freeload, What are some of your favorite 1960s top ten hit singles?