Brook Benton (19 September 1931 — 9 April 1988) was an American singer and songwriter most remembered for his mournful R&B ballad, "Rainy Night in Georgia."
Born Benjamin Franklin Peay in Camden, South Carolina in 1931, he became a gospel singer at a young age. While still a child he worked delivering milk in the morning and joined the Camden Jubilee Singers.
He enjoyed writing songs and in 1948, at age 17, journeyed to New York City to try to sell some of them. With his gospel singing background, it was not long before he drifted in and out of gospel groups such as Bill Langford's Spiritual Singers, the Langfordaires, the Golden Gate Quartet, and the Jerusalem Stars. Brook returned to South Carolina and drove a truck for a while while continuing his music career. He joined an R&B singing group, the Sandmen, and once again went north in search of a big break.
Brook found steady work making hundreds of demo records for such established singers as Nat "King" Cole, Clyde McPhatter, and Roy Hamilton. He co-wrote a number of songs with Clyde Otis. He first recorded under his own name for the Okeh label in 1953. Brook signed as a solo act with Epic and had his first minor hit with A Million Miles From Nowhere on Vik. He went on to Mercury along with Clyde Otis and arranger Belford Hendricks, and it was at Mercury that he would meet with his greatest success.
In 1959 he broke through with two hits, It's Just A Matter Of Time, and Endlessly. The former reached number 3 on the pop charts and the latter number 12, and those were the first of 23 top forty hits that Brook Benton would record, either as a solo or a duet, from 1959 to 1964.
Brook had a certain warmth in his voice that attracted a wide variety of listeners. He sang ballads that led to comparisons between Brook and such established performers as Frank Sinatra, Nat Cole, and Tony Bennett. He had another top ten hit with So Many Ways, then was teamed with another emerging Mercury star, Dinah Washington. In 1960 this duo put two songs in the top ten, Baby [You've Got What It Takes] and A Rockin' Good Way [To Mess Around And Fall In Love].
In the early 60's the hits that he recorded kept coming. These included a string of top ten pop hits such as Kiddio, The Boll Weevil Song, and Hotel Happiness. He was prolific in issuing records that sold, one of which was Shadrack. The Boll Weevil Song was Brook's only successful novelty song, and his highest charting song ever as it held the number two slot for three weeks in the summer of 1961.
His string of successful hits began to slow down somewhat in about 1963, although he still managed to reach the top forty with records such as I Got What I Wanted and Two Tickets To Paradise, and Going Going Gone in 1964 for Mercury. The arrival of the Beatles marked a change in taste by the record buying public. Brook began to go from label to label, recording for RCA, Reprise and Cotillion. He managed to come back with one more top ten song in 1970 on the Cotillion label, Rainy Night In Georgia, which had been written by Tony Jo White [who had a top ten hit of his own the previous year with Polk Salad Annie]. Brook Benton remained popular as a performer, particularly in Great Britain, into the 80's. He died in New York City in 1988 of complications from spinal meningitis. (info from Tom Simon)
2. CALL ME - 2:31
3. BABY (YOU'VE GOT WHAT IT TAKES) - 2:43
4. LOVE WALKED IN - 2:08
5. NOT ONE STEP BEHIND - 2:22
6. A ROCKIN' GOOD WAV (TO MESS AROUND AND FALL IN LOVE) - 2:25
7. SOMEONE TO BELIEVE IN - 2:36
8. THIS I PROMISE YOU - 2:36
9. I DO - 2:21
10. BECAUSE OF EVERYTHYNG - 2:25
11. AGAIN - 3:22
12. I BELIEVE - 3:21
I3. NOTHING IN THE WORLD - 3:14
14. WHILE WERE YOUNG - 2:23
I5. UNHUNG BACK - 2:25
16 WE HAVE LOVE - 2:24
17. EARLY EVERY MORNING - 2:IB
18. LOVE WALKED IN - 2:13
19. SOMEONE TO BELIEVE IN - 2:13
Monday, 5 May 2008
Monica Lewis (born For nearly two decades throughout the 1940's and 50's Monica Lewis reigned as one of America's most popular songbirds, with a career that encompassed not only nightclubs and recordings, but also movies, theatres, radio and TV. An accomplished pop and jazz stylist, her blonde beauty graced magazine covers and her million dollar legs helped get
Having studied voice with her Mother since a toddler, Monica quit junior college at 17 to work as a radio vocalist and her rapid ascent to stardom began in the mid 1940's with her own show on
She signed with record labels such as Signature, Decca and Capitol. Her early recordings ranged from Gershwin, Kern and Coward favourites to such saucy items as "I'm Gonna Be a Bad Girl" which she co wrote and "Put The Blame on Mame". The musicians heard on these sessions included such greats as Billy Butterfield, Yank Lawson, Bob Haggart and Teddy Wilson. Her television appearances included Ed Sullivan’s very first broadcast in 1948 in its initial run as Toast of the Town. During the 50’s she accompanied Danny Kaye entertaining troops during a USO tour of
Monica's success brought her a movie contract with MGM as their new "threat" to Lana Turner. She romanced Victor Mature in "Affair With a Stranger," and danced with Gower Champion in "Everything I Have Is Yours". She joined a roster of jazz stars including Louis Armstrong in "The Strip" from which we include her rare recording of "La Bota" and sang to the marines in Jack Webb's "The D.I." In 1957, at the height of her career, Monica temporarily gave it all up to become the wife of producer Jennings Lang but in the 1970's, she gradually began accepting occasional TV and movie offers, most notably in the blockbusters "Earthquake," "Airport '77" and "The Concorde Airport '79".
In 1987, she made a triumphant comeback as melodist at
01 - But Beautiful
02 - Isn't This A Lovely Day?
03 - You Don't Know What Love Is
04 - You Make Me Feel So Young
05 - You'd Better Go Now
06 - What'll I Do
07 - Do It Again
08 - But Not For Me
09 - Fools Rush In
10 - Am I Blue?
11 - I'd Do Anything For You
12 - People Will Say We're In Love
Above link from Singin' & Swingin' blogspot
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Desperately seeking Dolores Ventura
A TV and Disc Jamboree
Johnny StewartMaxine DanielsDon FoxDolores VenturaBobby LimbRon Scott
Maxine Daniels & Dolores Ventura
Johnny Stewart recorded for HMV in 1958. Maxine Daniels was a jazz and cabaret singer who recorded for Oriole. Don Foz made several singles for Decca including a version of Be My Girl. Dolores Ventura was recording for Parlophone in 1956. Bobby Limb is probably an Australian who later had his own tv show in Australia.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Denver was born Angus McKenzie in Glasgow. He left school at 15 to join the Norwegian merchant navy. In 1951 he enlisted in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and fought in the Korean war. Wounded, he practised guitar during his convalescence and developed a taste for country and folk music. After being discharged from the army he again went to sea. By this time he had set his sights on a career as a singer, and he jumped ship in the United States and made for Nashville, the centre of country and western music. Taking the stage name Karl Denver, he appeared on radio and television, and the prestigious Grand Ole Opry show, before the immigration department caught up with him and he was deported in 1959.
Back in Britain he settled in Manchester, where he teamed up with Gerry Cottrell and Kevin Neill to form the Karl Denver Trio. They toured the Northern clubs and appeared on Granada Television's Band Stand. In1961 the trio was 'discovered' by impresario Jack Good, who presented them on his television series Wham! and got them on to a national tour headed by Jess Conrad and Billy Fury.
Good also negotiated a record deal with Decca and acted as producer on the series of hit singles enjoyed by the group over the next three years. This was an interregnum in British pop; after rock 'n' roll and before the Beatles. During it Karl Denver found a niche. He appealed to the curious British penchant for yodelling cowboys exemplified in the1950s by Slim Whitman, whose signature tune Indian Love Call was part of the Denver stage act. Denver himself was hailed in the New Musical Express as 'an artist with a totally different and distinctive approach'.
Above photo taken in 1962 shows Peter Jay, Marty Wilde, Karl Denver and Billy Fury.Denver's hits included a pre-1914 Victor Schertzinger song Marcheta, an equally antique French song, A Little Love A Little Kiss, the hillbilly tune Mexicali Rose and Wimoweh. Denver claimed to have discovered the song in South Africa during his days as a seaman but it had already been a hit in the hands of American folk group The Weavers, and The Tokens had re-recorded it with new lyrics as The Lion Sleeps Tonight. The Karl Denver Trio version displayed Denver's vocal gymnastics to full effect and its success propelled the group into the upper reaches of British show business. Denver's song "Never Goodbye" was an entry in A Song for Europe in 1962.
There were small hits for the Trio in 1964, but their music sounded decidedly old-fashioned compared with that of the Fab Four and the numerous beat groups who now dominated the pop scene. Although The Karl Denver Trio faded from the media limelight, they continued to perform in cabaret at home and overseas. There was a brief, unexpected return to the charts in 1989 when the eccentric Happy Mondays had them guesting on their track Lazyitis and on an updated recording of Wimoweh on the fashionable Factory label. This made no impact on the psyche of the acid house generation, however, and Denver returned to the cabaret circuit.
Karl Denver died of a brain tumor a few days after his 67th birthday at the end of 1998 although Karl had claimed that he was born during 1934- probably because he liked to appear younger than he really was.
(info mainly from Dave Laing, The Guardian, 1998)
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
first attempt
I have an established one on Multiply, which is nearly up to it's second anniversary.
I post a daily celeb birthday bio, playlist and video. Mainly stars from the 30's 40's and 50's.
