Scott English born 10 January 1937

Sheldon David "Scott" English (January 10, 1937 – November 16, 2018) was an American songwriter, arranger and record producer. He is best known as the co-writer of "Brandy" which he wrote with Richard Kerr. The song became a No. 1 hit for Barry Manilow in 1974, with the title changed to "Mandy". English had also released a single of "Brandy" which reached No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1971, and entered the US charts in March 1972. 

English was born in Brooklyn, New York City. In 1960, he released his first single, "4,000 Miles Away", on Dot Records. In 1964, English had a regional doo-wop hit called "High on a Hill", written by Frank Cariola and A. Mangravito. "High on a Hill" has consistently been voted an all-time top song on oldies radio stations in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. It also reached No. 3 in popularity on the San Francisco Bay Area radio charts, and peaked at #4 in Los Angeles (source: KRLA Top 30 Survey, Feb.-Mar. 1964). 

                                       

With Larry Weiss, he wrote "Bend Me, Shape Me", which became a hit for the Chicago-based band the American Breed, reaching No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968 and also becoming a hit in the UK for Amen Corner. The song had been recorded a year earlier by the Outsiders as an album track on In (1967). 

English and Weiss, whom he met through arranger Claus Ogerman, became good friends. Together, they penned "Help Me Girl" (1966), which was a hit for two acts in late 1966: Eric Burdon (solo for Decca, a UK No. 14 hit) and the Outsiders. They also penned Lynne Randell's "Ciao Baby" (1967) and Jeff Beck's hit "Hi Ho Silver Lining", originally recorded by English group the Attack in early 1967. 

English produced the song "West Virginia" by the Elves in 1969 (a band later known as Elf) which featured Ronnie James Dio on bass and vocals. He later produced Thin Lizzy's eponymous debut album Thin Lizzy (1971). He co-wrote the song "Words Don't Mean a Thing" with Lynsey de Paul, who released her version of the song on her album Just a Little Time. The song was also featured on the 2008 album Songs from the British Academy, Vol. 1. A Spanish version was released by Cadafal on their album En La Carretera. 

In 1998, English was credited as a co-writer with Simon Stirling and Phil Mankiza on the UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, "Where Are You?", performed by Imaani. In 2014, English appeared on BBC Radio London's Jo Good Show, debuting new song "Holla" which he wrote for WestWay Beats. 

English died in England on November 16, 2018, at the age of 81, from liver disease. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & IMDb)

 

Frank Hovington born 9 January 1919

Franklin Hovington (January 9, 1919 – June 21, 1982), also known as Guitar Frank, was an American blues musician. He played the guitar and banjo and sang in the Piedmont blues style. He lived in the vicinity of Frederica, Delaware. 

Hovington was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to a working class family in an industrial area although he spent much of his childhood in the Frederica area of Delaware, where his family owned a farm. Little is known about his parents or any siblings, though the family faced the economic hardships common to many in the post-World War I era, including limited opportunities for African American residents. 

Music was present in his family background, with his grandfather belonging to a fife and drum corps and his paternal uncle playing piano and organ, providing early exposure to musical traditions within the household. Hovington's childhood in Delaware's African American community, including attendance at local house parties with his father, shaped his worldview amid the social conditions of the time. Hovington's introduction to music occurred during his childhood, shaped by the oral storytelling traditions in his family. His father played a significant role in fostering this interest, passing down stories and songs that would later influence Hovington's repertoire. 

At around age seven, Hovington received his first instrument, a ukulele, marking the beginning of his musical exploration. Inspired by the sound of a local banjo player named William Walter Stanley. Hovington persistently asked his father for one until he acquired a banjo. He was also influenced early on by neighbor Adam Greenfield, a former Pullman porter and guitarist, whom he watched play at age five or six during Saturday night gatherings. This progression from ukulele to banjo highlighted his early fascination with stringed instruments and self-directed learning through observation of community musicians. 

                                  

By early adulthood, Hovington had expanded to the guitar, adapting his banjo-picking technique—known as the "banjo roll"—to the new instrument. He absorbed songs informally from traveling migrants and elders in his community, including tales like that of Railroad Bill, which he encountered through locals such as Steamboat Charlie. These formative experiences in family and neighborhood settings, without formal training, laid the groundwork for his distinctive Piedmont blues style, rooted in the folk and blues traditions of his surroundings. 

In the late 1930s and 1940s, Frank Hovington partnered with fellow musician William Walker to perform blues and related music at house parties and local dances in the Frederica area of Delaware. These informal venues provided key opportunities for Hovington to develop his Piedmont blues style amid the vibrant but undocumented regional scene.

Following his move to Washington, D.C., in the late 1940s, Hovington contributed guitar work to several ensembles, including backing Stewart Dixon's Golden Stars and Ernest Ewin's Jubilee Four, as well as collaborating with Billy Stewart's early band. This era, spanning the post-World War II years through the 1960s, saw Hovington maintain a low-profile presence in music circles, with performances largely confined to local and supporting roles before his relocation to Delaware in 1967. 

In the years that followed Hovington participated in the 1972 Festival of American Folklife, performing blues on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and was interviewed in December 1971 as part of related fieldwork. He was rediscovered in the mid-1970s during the folk-blues revival, when musicologists Bruce Bastin and Dick Spottswood sought out traditional Piedmont blues performers in the Delaware region. Their fieldwork led to intimate recording sessions at Hovington's home near Felton, in Frederica, Delaware, capturing his raw, expressive style unadorned by studio production. 

The album “Lonesome Road Blues” was released on Flyright Records in the UK in 1975 and on Rounder Records in the US. His LP was a masterpiece, and alerted many in the blues community to his abilities. Hovington disliked travel and did not play away from his Delaware home, afraid that he would lose his welfare support payments, and so did not get the publicity from music festival appearances alone that his talent deserved. In his final years, Frank Hovington resided near Frederica, Delaware, where he had lived for much of his adult life, and he performed infrequently, occasionally playing guitar for church programs in the local community and working sporadically as a truck and bus driver while supporting his family on a small plot of land he owned. 

He died from heart failure at Milford Memorial Hospital in Milford, Delaware in June 1982, at the age of 63 and was buried at Gibbs Memorial Gardens, Woodside, Delaware

(Edited from Grokipedia, AllMusic & Wirz’s American Music)

Marcy Lutes born 8 January 1927

Marcy Lutes ( born January 8, 1927) is a former big band and jazz singer, and radio and television personality, active mainly from the mid 1940s until the late 1950s.

Marcy and her brothers

Marcella 'Marcy' Love Lutes was born in the town of Edinburg, Indiana, to John Ralph Lutes, an insurance salesman, and Verna Essa Jones, a homemaker. She had three brothers, all of whom have predeceased her, Lyman Curtis, Wendell Ralph, and Marvin Lee Lutes. 

She is a former American big band and jazz singer, and radio and television personality, who began her career in 1945 as a singer and radio host of W.A.K.E. radio at Wakeman Hospital in the U.S. Army's Camp Atterbury in Indiana. She got her first big break in 1947 when she joined Ray McKinley and his orchestra. 

                                    

They achieved their first commercially successful recording together with, "A Man Could Be A Wonderful Thing," in December of that year. She would continue to tour with McKinley's orchestra on and off throughout her brief career, when she wasn't attached to another orchestra or project. 

She left Ray McKinley's orchestra in 1949 to pursue a television career alongside Artie Malvin, the two going on to produce a show for New York City's Mutual Broadcasting System, which broadcast its first episode in October of 1949. However, her television opportunities vanished by the mid 1950s, and so, she once again began to tour as 'Vocal Stylist' with the likes of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Tex Beneke, and later smaller groups such as the Jack Keller Trio and Herbie Fields and his Sextet. 

In early 1952, her father died of a heart attack while on a train just outside of Jacksonville, Florida. The tragic year was tempered, however, by her marriage to Joseph Barrett 'Barry' Galbraith on July 23rd of that year in Greenwich, Fairfield, Connecticut, and the couple settled into their new home in New York state. Barry Galbraith was a freelance, session guitarist with bands and for radio and television shows, and at the time of his marriage to Marcy Lutes was working with the Perry Como Show's band. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't last long and the couple divorced in 1955. 

Marcy Lutes brought out only one solo album in her lifetime entitled, "Debut," which 'debuted' in 1956 on Decca Records. The album was arranged by Gil and Marion Evans (no relation to each other), and the twelve-track project was overseen by Ralph Burns. It received lukewarm response in the newspapers, and a search online now, will still offer mixed reviews about her vocal abilities. By late 1956, Lutes was again touring with Ray McKinley and his orchestra. One of Lutes' last advertised performances was at the Commodore Club in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, in February of 1960, as mentioned in "The Windsor Star," on the 29th of February. 

She would marry one last time, in November of 1961, to Lloyd Carville Nickerson, an executive with General Electric's Corporate Communications Division, a widower with two children. Nickerson would be put in charge of General Electric's pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair, collaborating with Walt Disney in designing an 'animatronic' theatre telling the history of electricity. This marriage too, would end in divorce in late 1964. 

Marcy Lutes was one of the brightest and most promising new voices of the late 1940s and early 1950s, sought after by band leaders, and radio and television shows alike. However, by the early 1960s her star was fading quickly as evidenced by her lack of appearances on television and radio programs, and her name being visibly absent from the newspapers. 

It is unknown why her career made such a sharp fall, but contrary to what some current music critics believe, she is still alive and living quietly in New York City (A.T.O.W. - April 2024). 

( IMDb mini biography by: Hans Victor von Maltzahn)

Danny Williams born 7 January 1938

Danny Williams (7 January 1942 – 6 December 2005) was a South African-born British pop singer who earned the nickname "Britain's Johnny Mathis", for his smooth and stylish way with a ballad. He is best known for his 1961 UK number one version of "Moon River" and his 1964 U.S. top ten hit, "White on White". 

Born in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa, he sang his first solo with a church choir at the age of six. His father, a professional soldier, died in the Korean war, and Williams was brought up by his grandmother. At 14, he won a talent contest and joined a touring show called Golden City Dixies that played throughout South Africa. Its members included jazz saxophonist Harold Jephtah and, in later years, the singer-songwriter Jonathan Butler. 

The musical King Kong and the Golden City Dixies were among several black South African shows to come to Europe; and, in London in 1959, Williams impressed Norman Newell, the recording manager of EMI's HMV label. Newell was a composer and arranger of the Tin Pan Alley old school, and was unhappy at being the British executive responsible for issuing Elvis Presley's early hits. In Williams' good looks and mellifluous high tenor, he saw the makings of a new Johnny Mathis, and signed him to a recording contract. The first single was Tall a Tree, but it was not until 1961 and his fifth record, We will Never Be as Young as this Again, that Williams achieved a minor hit. 

                                   

That was also the year of the Blake Edwards film Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Audrey Hepburn. The film's catchy theme tune, Moon River, composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, won an oscar. The American hit record of Moon River was by another tenor, the soul singer Jerry Butler, and, at first, Williams was unwilling to record the song - mainly, he later explained, because he did not understand the lyric reference to "my huckleberry friend". 

After seeing the film, however, he relented, and his Moon River outsold the instrumental version by Mancini himself and replaced Frankie Vaughan's Tower of Strength at No 1 in the charts at the end of December. Williams was fond of telling the story that his boyhood hero Nat "King" Cole had declined to record the song because he regarded Danny's version as unsurpassable. The following year brought some Top 20 hits for Williams: Jeannie (based on a Russ Conway instrumental), the Wonderful World of the Young .(by Sid Tepper and Roy Bennett, composers of several Cliff Richard hits) and Tears.

These led to his appearance in the film Play It Cool (1962), directed by Michael Winner and starring Billy Fury as pop singer Billy Universe. Then, in February 1963, he joined a 20-city package tour headed by a new star, Helen Shapiro. Also on the bill was a guitar group, the Beatles. By the end of the tour, Please Please Me was No 1 and the beat group era was born. Also in 1963 Williams appeared in the Tommy Steele film It's All Happening. 

It was an uncongenial era for ballad singers, and Williams had no more British hits, although White on White reached the US Top 10 in 1964. He continued to record for HMV until 1967 and worked steadily in nightclubs. In 1968, he had a nervous breakdown followed, two years later, by bankruptcy, a consequence of a profligate lifestyle that centred for several years on the Playboy Club in Park Lane. 

Williams resumed his singing career in the early 1970s but did not come to national attention again until 1977, when his record Dancin' Easy, based on a jingle from a well-known Martini commercial, reached the Top 30. After the collapse of apartheid in 1990, Williams returned to South Africa on several occasions, but continued to live in Britain.  In the early 1990s, he recorded for the Prestige label and, in 1994, starred in a Nat "King" Cole tribute show. Scripted and narrated by Elliot Brooks, this was taken by Williams on several more British tours, the last being in 2004. 

He died in December 2005 of lung cancer, at the age of 63 in London after a short hospitalization. Williams was married three times, and is survived by his two daughters (Natali and Melody Williams) and two sons, the actor Anthony Barclay and Michael Stewart.

(Edited from Dave Laing obit @ The Guardian  & Wikipedia) 

 

Bob King born 6 January 1934

Bob King (January 6, 1934 - January 20, 1989) was a country singer, guitarist and songwriter, who was one of Canada's first country stars to earn recognition beyond national borders. 

Robert George King was born in Ottawa, Canada on January 6, 1934. His mother, Katie Brown King emigrated from the United Kingdom to Canada during the First World War. Bob's father, a native Canadian named Roy King, abandoned his wife and son and moved to the U.S. when Bob was only three years old. Bob's mother soon remarried and they moved to a farm in the Joyceville area, outside Kingston, Ontario where Bob spent most of his childhood years. The family later moved north to nearby Ottawa after a fire destroyed their home. 

He got his first guitar from his mother when he was seven years old and quickly developed a love of country music, most notably the work of Hank Williams. His other idols included Canadian country stars Hank Snow and Wilf Carter (aka Montana Slim). With the support of his stepfather, Bob mastered the guitar during his teenage years and formed a trio with two friends—soon dubbed the “Country Cousins.” The group quickly made a name for themselves by winning a series of amateur contests throughout the Ottawa Valley. At just 16, King decided to pursue a full-time career in country music. His solo talent quickly shone through, and in one memorable competition, he bested a young Paul Anka for first place. 

                                   

Ottawa DJ “Long John” Corrigan helped arrange Bob's first big break—a guest spot with Mac Beattie and the legendary Ottawa Valley Melodiers. Then, in 1954, King released his debut single “Laurel Lee,” which sold over 40,000 copies—an extraordinary feat for a Canadian country artist at the time. 

The single’s success caught the attention of American country stars Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, who invited him to join their Clinch Mountain Clan. Bob became a featured performer on their daily West Virginia radio broadcasts, where he also toured with artists like Doc Williams and Hawkshaw Hawkins. A highlight of this period was sharing the stage with Elvis Presley during a show in Norfolk, Virginia. 

Upon returning to Canada, Bob toured briefly with Canadian country pioneer Wilf Carter before settling back in Ottawa. At the invitation of Ken Reynolds, he became a founding member of the CFRA Happy Wanderers, alongside “Papa” Joe Brown and virtuoso fiddler Ward Allen. From 1957 to 1965, the Happy Wanderers became a fixture of Ottawa radio and television, performing on thousands of live radio shows and 59 nationally broadcast television episodes. Bob’s warmth and charisma earned him the affectionate nickname “Mr. Sunshine.” 

Bob and Marie

Bob King’s recording career blossomed in the 1960s and 1970s. Moving from RCA Victor to Rodeo Records, he released over 40 singles and 13 full-length albums. His 1965 single “Texas Leather and Mexican Lace” reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts and remains one of his best-known recordings. Germany’s Bear Family Records later recognized King’s importance with a series of retrospective compilations, including Rockin' the Jukebox (2013), which celebrated his contributions to early Canadian rockabilly and country music. 

Beyond his own career, Bob King was instrumental in launching and nurturing the musical career of his wife, Marie King (née Farley). As her manager and producer, he oversaw the recording and promotion of her breakout single “The French Song,” which sold over 50,000 copies. He produced Marie’s first ten albums, including the gold-certified Allo Mon P’tit Bobby, and was central to the development of her career in both English and French-language markets. 

Bob also encouraged the musical paths of his children, supporting them in their creative endeavors. In the later years of his career, he toured extensively as road manager and featured singer with the Marie King Road Show, bringing country music to communities across Canada. . He was inducted into the Ottawa Valley Country Music Hall of Fame in 1984, in recognition of a lifetime of contributions to the country music landscape. 

Bob King passed away on January 20, 1989, in Ottawa, following a short battle with lung cancer A gifted performer, compassionate mentor, and true pioneer of Canadian country, Bob King’s legacy endures in the music he left behind and in the generations of artists he inspired. 

(Edited from Citizen Freak & Bear Family notes)

Ben Wiley Payton born 5 January 1948

Ben Wiley Payton (5 January 1948 - 4 December 2020) was a Mississippi bluesman who became an important guitar player and singer on the acoustic blues scene.    

Ben Wiley Payton was born in Coila (pronounced co-why-la), Mississippi, a small community in the hill country of Carroll County, just east of the Mississippi Delta.  The middle of five children, Payton worked in cotton fields when he was not in school. His father was a gravel truck driver and was killed in a truck explosion in 1954, just before Payton’s 6th birthday. Following his father’s death, the family settled in the Delta town of Itta Bena, where his mother worked as a cook in both local restaurants and private homes. 

Payton’s early musical influences include his pianist grandmother, Mabel Johnson, and his uncle Wiley, who played guitar and sang in gospel quartets. Payton’s mother and father also played guitar casually at family gatherings, and he credits the narrative style of his performance style to his mother’s storytelling skills. Payton was given a toy guitar as a young boy living in the Delta, but it was not until his family moved to Chicago in April 1964 that he became immersed in music. 

At 17 he began working as a bassist and backup vocalist in a soul band, which practiced on the porches of their homes in the south side of Chicago, in the neighborhood of 45th and Michigan. After the band was fired from a gig, Payton committed himself to learning to play guitar in a skillful manner. He began taking private guitar lessons with retired DuSable High School music instructor John House, and later continued to school himself through instructional books and practice. 

             Here’s “Back With My Baby Again” from above album.

                                     

Payton was in a variety bands throughout the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, playing contemporary soul music in small clubs and at private parties.  He worked regularly with groups including Bobby Rush and Joe Evans and the Supersonics, and as a member of house bands backed many prominent artists at clubs including Peyton Place.  During this time Payton began to seriously study sounds and chords, and ultimately found his musical direction during a seven-month long stay in Tangier, Morocco in 1970, where he performed in a review featuring famed jazz pianist Randy Weston. 

Payton recalls that when he returned to the Chicago deejays were taking over he club scene, but he nevertheless found work playing with groups including the Wolf Gang, the late Howlin’ Wolf’s backing band, replacing an ill Hubert Sumlin. In 1977 Payton became interested in acoustic blues music after hearing Robert Johnson recordings for the first time. 

Around this time he married and started a family, and although he stopped performing in clubs he continued to play guitar and sing at home and served as Minister of Music at the New Mount Vernon MB Church.  Through listening to public radio programs Payton explored various musical genres, including blues, and continued to study the sounds and styles he had been exposed to in Morocco. 

In 2002 Payton returned to music and his home state of Mississippi. Over the past decade, he had developed a distinctive guitar style that nods to pre-War War II blues style while displaying an innovative and artistic technique all his own. His 2006 debut album, “Diggin’ Up Old Country Blues,” exhibited his varied musical interests. In 2009 Payton played at the Chicago Blues Festival, but was diagnosed with colon cancer. Surgery soon followed and the respect he had gained among fellow musicians and blues fans was reflected in generous fund raisers to help cover his medical bills. He recovered successfully and in 2010 taught blues vocals at Centrum in Port Townsend, Washington and served as an artist in residence at the Berklee School of Music. He also toured England, performing at London’s blues festivals. 

Payton released another album, Caught Up In The Blues, in 2018 that updated his blues even more, incorporating some of the African influences that he picked up in Morocco on a couple of tracks. To find more gigs, Ben moved two more times, returning to Greenwood around 2015 and where he also resumed church preaching, and early 2020 to Clarksdale, Mississippi appearing as a speaker and panelist at several blues events.  But due to the Covid lockdowns and despite streaming videos, this project to be able to play more again could not succeed because he died there eleven months later on 4 December 2020.He was buried in Forest Park-Chicago, IL. 

(Edited from Mississippi Folklife, Living Blues Magazine, Jazz Hot & Blues Bytes)

 

Precious Bryant born 4 January 1942

Precious Bryant (née Bussey; January 4, 1942 – January 12, 2013) was an American country blues, gospel, and folk singer and guitarist. Bryant is described as one of Georgia's great blueswomen. She played Piedmont fingerstyle guitar. 

Bryant was born in Talbot County, Georgia, United States. She was the third child of nine and first became interested in singing by performing at her local Baptist church with her seven sisters. They initially dubbed themselves the Blue Moon Gospel Singers but later changed the group name to the Bussey Sisters. Bryant learned to play guitar from her father and uncle, blues musician George Henry Bussey, before dropping out of high school in eleventh grade. She began to perform wherever she could. 

At age 20 she wrote her first of many compositions, a song titled “Baby Tell Me Don’t You Want to Jump”. Her music was a blend of Piedmont finger-picking blues, blues from the Lower Chattahoochee Valley, urban blues, gospel, and folk. She also absorbed contemporary influences, including Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, and Elmore James.However, she was particularly “drawn to the blues,” because, in her words, “the blues tells the truth.” 

She got married in 1965, and moved to Juniper, Georgia with her then husband. She stayed there for about 11 years before returning home with her son Tony after her husband’s death. During her time in Juniper, Bryant met the blues researcher George Mitchell, who recorded a few of her songs in 1969. He described her as "Georgia musical treasure," but it was a combination of this chance encounter and the death of her husband that made her career possible. 

                                    

A decade after her first recording, Mitchell recorded Precious Bryant again for folklorist Fred Fussell’s In Celebration of a Legacy project for the Columbus Museum. By this point, she was back home in Talbot County living in a four-room trailer with her son Tony. In 1983, Mitchell persuaded Bryant to play at the Chattahoochee Folk Festival in Columbus and soon began playing at local, regional, and international venues to a growing fanbase. Bryant played the 1984 National Down Home Blues Festival in Atlanta, the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas, the Newport Folk Festival. In 1995, Bryant met Tim Duffy and became involved with the Music Maker Relief Foundation, who assisted her in booking global tours and shows and increasing her following through events like Blues to Bop in Lugano, Switzerland, Port Townsend Blues Festival, and Chicken Raid in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Precious Bryant released her first commercial album, Fool Me Good, in 2002 through Terminus Records, more than 30 years after George Mitchell first recorded her in Juniper. She was 60 years old. Fool Me Good was an instant success. The album was nominated for two W.C. Handy Awards, including Acoustic Blues Album of the Year and Best New Artist Debut, and won three Living Blues Awards. In 2004, she released The Truth, featuring her son Tony on bass, followed by My Name is Precious Bryant in 2005 through the Music Maker Relief Foundation label. She was once again nominated for two W.C. Handy Blues Awards for best Traditional Blues Female Artist in 2004 and 2006. 

Her song "Morning Train" was featured on the soundtrack of the 2007 film Black Snake Moan. While Bryant loved playing music, she disliked the travel that came with her career. Ultimately, she preferred performing at local gatherings and talent shows “within a six hour radius of her home.” Although Bryant’s Fool Me Good album helped to generate a loyal fan base and the recognition she deserved, she remained grounded, describing her music as an extension of her life.

“I will always be playing the blues, as long as I live. The blues tells the truth. Sometimes it is sad, sometimes it be happy – it works all kind of ways,” she said. She continued to perform for friends while making an occasional appearance at a local club or festival. 

Precious Bryant died at the age of 71 years on January 12, 2013, in Columbus, Georgia, from complications of diabetes and congestive heart failure. She left behind a legacy as a bridge between traditional and modern blues. Blues researcher Barry Lee Pearson called her “a woman who played the blues like folks want to hear it” Her recordings and performances have ensured her place in blues history as “Georgia’s Daughter of the Blues.” 

(Edited from Lady Plays The Blues Project, Wikipedia & AllMusic)