David Briggs born 16 March 1943

David Paul Briggs (March 16, 1943 – April 22, 2025) was a first-call American keyboardist, record producer, arranger, composer and studio owner. Briggs was one of an elite core of Nashville studio musicians known as "the Nashville Cats" and was featured in a major exhibition by the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015. 

David Paul Briggs was born in Killen, Alabama, northeast of Muscle Shoals. He was the elder of two sons of James and Myrtle (Myrick) Briggs. His father was a letter carrier. Classically trained, David began playing professionally at the age of 14. He worked in a local band called the Crunk Brothers and, through them, met Norbert Putnam and ultimately gained session work at Fame. Mr. Briggs and Mr. Putnam played on Tommy Roe’s chart-topping 1962 hit, “Sheila,” and were members of his backing band when Mr. Roe was an opening act for the Beatles in their first U.S. concert, in 1964.

As a member of the original rhythm section at Fame Recording Studios, he helped put the northern Alabama hamlet of Muscle Shoals on the musical map. He played on landmark R&B recordings like Arthur Alexander’s “You Better Move On” (1962), Jimmy Hughes’s “Steal Away” (1964) and the Tams’ “What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am)” (1963), all of which were Top 40 pop singles as well as R&B hits. Briggs, meanwhile, had begun writing songs and releasing the occasional record of his own as both a singer and keyboardist. One was a single produced by Owen Bradley, who urged him to move to Nashville in 1964 to do studio work.

                Here's "I Say A Little Prayer" from above album.

                                   

Along with Putnam they began infusing country recordings with the understated, groove-rich variant of the Nashville Sound that became known as “countrypolitan.” In May 1966, he was given the opportunity of recording on sessions for Elvis Presley's album How Great Thou Art when Floyd Cramer was running late. Briggs continued to record and tour with Presley until February 1977.

L-R : David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, Elvis, Al Pachuki,
Jerry Carrigan, Felton Jarvis, Chip Young, Charlie McCoy,
and James Burton. June 1970.

Other artists briggs worked with include Dean Martin, Joan Baez, Nancy Sinatra, B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, Tony Joe White, George Harrison, Todd Rundgren, Roy Orbison, The Monkees, J. J. Cale, Kris Kristofferson, Alice Cooper, Gary Stewart, Charley Pride, and many others.

In 1969, Briggs and Putnam opened Quadraphonic Sound, a much-in-demand studio that hosted projects by Neil Young, Dan Fogelberg, Jimmy Buffett and the Jacksons. Briggs joined Area Code 615 (from 1969-1971), a supergroup of session musicians, including Putnam and the guitarist Mac Gayden, who died April 2025. The band released a pair of albums of freewheeling country rock on Polydor Records.

Briggs and Putnam also founded their own publishing company, Danor Music, which had success with No. 1 pop hits like Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” and Whitney Houston’s “Didn’t We Almost Have It All.” The two men sold Quadraphonic Sound in 1979, but Briggs opened another studio, House of David, three years later. The Blasters, Norah Jones, Bootsy Collins and the indie-rock band Yo La Tengo were among House of David’s numerous clients, along with B.B. King, for whom Mr. Briggs wrote arrangements.

Briggs would go on to play everything from the funky organ on Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie” to the pealing barroom piano on Conway Twitty’s honky-tonk weeper “The Image of Me.” He provided empathetic accompaniment on Sammi Smith’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” a No. 1 country and Top 10 pop hit in 1971, and Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors,” which was also a Top 10 country single that year.

In the 1970s and ’80s, Briggs began writing and arranging (and sometimes singing) jingles for Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken and other products. In 1988, he became the music director for the Country Music Association’s annual television awards show, a position he held until 2001. Briggs was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and along with Putnam, Jerry Carrigan and the guitarist Terry Thompson, Briggs was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2019. He remained active as a musician and studio owner well into his 70s.

Briggs died from complications of renal cancer in a Nashville hospice facility, on April 22, 2025, at the age of 82. 

(Edited from an obit by Bill Friskics- Warren @ The New York Times & Wikipedia) 

Tommy McLain born 15 March 1940

Tommy McLain (March 15, 1940 – July 24, 2025) was an American musician, best known as a singer but who also played keyboards, drums, bass guitar, and fiddle.

Thomas Murray McLain was born in Jonesville, Louisiana. He began playing guitar when he was five years old, and would in time add keyboards, drums, bass, and fiddle to his repertoire. When the upbeat sounds of rock & roll began to take root in New Orleans thanks to artists like Fats Domino and Little Richard, McLain became an immediate fan, and he got his start as a performer in Red Smiley's group the Vel-Tones, alongside country singer turned fellow swamp pop legend Clint West. In the early '60s, McLain followed West into the Boogie Kings, local legends in Louisiana, and the association helped him land booking on Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars tours. McLain made his recording debut in 1964 with Clint West & the Boogie Kings on the single "Mr. Jeweler (I Won't Be Needing the Ring)" b/w "Try to Find Another Man." (McLain also landed a job as a radio DJ on KREH in Oakdale, Louisiana.)

 His first solo effort, "You Wouldn't Know a Love If You Had One" b/w "If You Would Be True," was released by the small MSL label in 1966 (McLain co-wrote the B-side), and a few months later, the same label brought out his cover of "Sweet Dreams." (Once again, one of McLain's tunes, "I Need You So," was on the flipside.) The song took off in Louisiana and followed suit in the rest of the United States, in time rising to number 15 on the national singles charts, higher than Don Williams or Patsy Cline fared with their versions on the pop survey.

                                    

Despite the success of "Sweet Dreams" (which went on to sell three million copies), McLain and MSL were not able to come up with another nationwide hit, though he would have regional success with "Before I Grow Too Old," "I Need You So," "Try to Find Another Man," and "No Tomorrows Now." McLain continued to record occasionally, and performed regularly with his group the Mule Train Band; he and the group made a brief appearance in the 1975 Paul Newman vehicle The Drowning Pool. By his own admission, as his career was almost entirely dominated by live work in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, he developed a dangerous appetite for alcohol and drugs. He experienced a spiritual rebirth, and credited his new faith with helping him turn his back on his bad habits. 

In 1973, Charlie Gillett, a British writer and radio host, compiled an album of classic swamp pop tracks, Another Saturday Night: Classic Recordings from the Louisiana Bayous, which featured several McLain numbers, including "Before I Grow Too Old," and the album developed a powerful reputation among U.K. music fans, and both Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe became McLain followers after discovering the disc, later getting to know the man personally. (Another British fan was Lily Allen, who not only cited "Before I Grow Too Old" as one of her eight favourite songs on the BBC Radio 4 program Desert Island Discs, but hired McLain and his band to perform the song at her wedding in 2011.)

The Louisiana guitarist, songwriter, and producer C.C. Adcock, whose father was a Tommy McLain fan after seeing him play with the Boogie Kings in the 1960s -- became friends with McLain in the 1990s, and included him in his ad hoc band of Louisiana legends, Lil' Band O' Gold, who cut a pair of albums in 2000 and 2010. Adcock encouraged McLain to focus on song writing, and as he was growing tired of his usual gigs in clubs and casinos, he was eager to explore new options. In October 2007, McLain was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. In 2019, an A&R rep from Decca Records heard rough demos of McLain's new songs during a meeting at the South by Southwest Conference, and declared the label's interest in a new Tommy McLain album. Both Costello and Lowe were eager to write songs with McLain, and the former offered to sing on the recording sessions.

 A variety of calamities interfered with the progress of the project as an arsonist burned down McLain's home, he suffered a life-threatening heart attack that required cardiac surgery, and the COVID-19 pandemic forced McLain and Adcock to put the sessions on hold for nearly a year. In time, the album was completed, and while Decca opted not to release it, the American roots music label Yep Roc stepped in to bring it out. Featuring instrumental contributions from Van Dyke Parks, Ivan Neville, swamp pop star Warren Storm, Willie Nelson harmonica master Mickey Raphael, and Sir Douglas Quintet and Texas Tornados keyboard player Augie Meyers, I Ran Down Every Dream was released in August 2022. McLain supported the release with a number of live dates, including an appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, several dates opening for Lucinda Williams, and a tour with Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets.

On August 26, 2022, McLain released his first album in over 40 years, entitled I Ran Down Every Dream. This collaboration included 11 songs written by McLain and credits with numerous others including Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe (both of whom contribute co-writes), plus Jon Cleary, Denny Freeman, Ed Harcourt, Roy Lowe, Augie Meyers, Ivan Neville, Van Dyke Parks, Mickey Raphael, Steve Riley, Speedy Sparks, Warren Storm and others. In 2023, McLain began work on a gospel album that would share his deeply held spiritual beliefs within the context of swamp pop. The long-gestating project finally saw the light of day with the release of 2024's Moving to Heaven, with McLain playing all the instruments himself and production assistance from his long-time partner Carol Skaggs. It proved to be his last major project -- Tommy McLain died in a nursing facility in Hessmer, Louisiana on July 24, 2025, at the age of 85.

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia) 

Rosa King born 14 March 1939

Rosa King (March 14, 1939 – December 12, 2000) was an American jazz and blues saxophonist and singer who made her fame in Amsterdam.

Rose Irene King was born in Macon, Georgia, United States. One of Rosa's high school friends in Georgia was Richard Peniman, who we now know as the famous "Little Richard". She didn't stay at school for long though: from the age of 14 she was a dancer. At the age of 17 Rosa left her parent's place to work with Charles Taylor & The Bronze Mannikens, a show that travelled through the southern parts of the USA.

Later she ended up in New York. After quite some jobs, like waitress, cab driver and wardrobe girl, she got a job as a dancer again. From that day on there was no life without music anymore for Rosa. She bought a guitar, taught herself how to play it. Eddie Coombs noticed this and offered her some work in his band. She always wanted to make music and sing, so she took the offer. A few years later she left the band and went her own way. Next to guitar she had taught herself to play saxophone and some drums by then. From this moment on she started a career as front lady in her own bands. For short periods she also played for others, like Little Richard, Cab Calloway, Ben E. King and Lionel Hampton.

In the early 70's Rosa came to Amsterdam with a soul show. She liked Amsterdam, a town that had a cosmopolitan feel to it while being much smaller than New York. She met bass player Rainer Bleck who wanted to form a band with her and "Upside Down" was created. Rosa King & Upside Down. Rosa turned out to be a colourful black saxophone player and singer with a love for blues, soul & funk, always making a party everywhere and successful on Dutch and international festivals. Rosa King & Upside Down played mainly own material and some covers.

                                     

In 1978 her name was finally made when Rosa stole the show at the North Sea Jazz Festival while suddenly jumping on stage where a tenor sax battle was going on with legends like Stan Getz, Archie Shepp, Illinois Jacquet, Fathead Newman, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and David Murray. The organization thought that Rosa didn't belong there and didn't let her play. But she went and did it anyway. "I blew like mad," she said later because these big guys weren't giving their best at all, "they were the greatest tenor players in the world, but they weren't playin' nuttin' ". It upset Rosa a lot, feeling that only Archie and Stan were giving a little effort. Rosa got the crowd going. "Not because it was that artistic and great what I was doing, but just because I was really working and giving my best."

Rosa King & Upside Down played all over Europe and beyond. Nine times she played on that North Sea Jazz Festival, she went to Poland for the Pori Jazz Festival in Lublin, to Indonesia for the Bintang Jazz Festival, to Lithuania, Lebanon, France, Switzerland, Norway, etc. In 1981 she had a gig at at Joe's Pier 52 in New York. She and her band were so successful there that they stayed for 2 months, playing at Joe's every night. "We could have stayed for a whole year, 6 days a week", Rosa said, "but that's sooooo long and I don't want to even think about that." So, she hit the road again, playing all over Europe. In 1996 Rosa celebrated her 25th anniversary as a band leader and singer/saxophone player in Holland. There was a big party especially for that at Holland's premier music stage Paradiso in Amsterdam. Her last CD "Still Going Strong" was presented there. Rosa's band turned out to be a stepping stone for many young new musicians. Quite some started their careers under the guidance of Rosa. Candy Dulfer, Saskia Laroo and Alex Britti for instance.

Although King was popular in Europe, she had little exposure in America except for brief periods when she lived in New York City, maintaining an apartment there for many years even while living in Amsterdam. Rosa worked hard her whole life and was known to be the hardest working lady in the business. At times she played at least 20 times a month with her band "Upside Down". She was an animal on stage and wanted the crowd to feel that "the band is cooking". The thought of retiring never appealed to her. "Music is in my blood. Sometimes I think: when I get older I am gonna live in Georgia, where my mother and I own a house. But then I think later: I am old already! And probably I have been too bloody long in Amsterdam to be able to return to the USA." But in 1999 she did return to Georgia to perform with a band under the name Rosa King and the Looters. Band members included J. Lyon Layden on guitar, Eric Layden on bass, Kristina Train on vocals and violin, Jeff Evans on drums, and Dan Walker on keyboards.

Late summer 2000 Rosa was trying to cut down a little on the gigs with the bands, wanting to concentrate on writing and recording music for a new CD. However in the week of December 4th she had severe pains in her chest ending up at the emergency department of the hospital at Wednesday night. They gave her some pills to sleep. Even those pains couldn't stop her from doing a gig all the way in the south of Holland, going to bed late and then getting up early again to fly to Rome for a surprise TV appearance for famous Italian singer songwriter Alex Britti, who played in Upside Down years ago.

Rosa gave it all on that TV show and surely left a big impression in Italy. After this TV appearance Rosa died on the 12th of December in Rome of a heart attack, leaving a huge gap in the Dutch music scene that will be felt for very long. A Rosa King Foundation was established in the Netherlands to help young female artists, and a memorial concert was conducted at the Melkweg concert house in Amsterdam.

(Edited  tsklab @ Live Journal & Wikipedia) 

Bobby Patterson born 13 March 1944

 

Bobby Patterson (born March 13, 1944, Dallas, Texas, United States) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer.

Like many other Dallas-based rhythm & blues musicians, Bobby Patterson is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who continued the deep soul tradition of people like Otis Redding, Joe Tex, and Wilson Pickett. But unlike some of these other singers, Patterson has worked in all aspects of the record business: as a songwriter, producer, promotion man, and label owner.

Bobby with The Mustangs

Patterson began performing when he was ten, playing guitar and drums. While still in his early teens, he formed a band called the Royal Rockers, who won talent contests in and around Dallas. In 1957, one of the talent contests led to a trip to California to track a single for Liberty Records, which was never released. Patterson then went on to nearby Arlington College, where one of his classmates was the son of a local record company owner. In 1962, Patterson recorded "You Just Got to Understand" for Abnak Records. The single wasn't terribly successful, but it convinced the label's owner, John Abnak, to start a soul division, called Jetstar Records. 

                                   

Patterson recorded for Jetstar for the next six years, becoming a talented songwriter, producer, and promotion man in the process. Patterson's regional hits, all self-penned, on the Jetstar label included "Let Them Talk" (also popularized by Little Willie John), and, with his Mustangs, "I'm Leroy, I'll Take Her" (an answer song to Joe Tex's "Skinny Legs and All"), "Broadway Ain't Funky No More," "T.C.B. or T.Y.A.," "My Thing Is Your Thing," "The Good Old Days," and "I'm in Love With You."

In 1969, after a string of regional hits, Abnak Records folded and Patterson recorded his own self-produced album. Shortly after that, he quit recording under his own name to produce and promote records for other artists. As a producer, Patterson worked with Fontella Bass, Chuck Jackson, Ted Taylor, Shay Holiday, Roscoe Robinson, the Montclairs, Tommie Young, and Little Johnny Taylor. Patterson's songs have been recorded by Albert King ("That's What the Blues Is All About") and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, who scored a hit with his "How Do You Spell Love?"

In 1995, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy gave Patterson's visibility a boost, recording his song "She Don't Have to See You (To See Through You)," on Down by the Old Mainstream, an album from his side project Golden Smog. A year later, Patterson hit the comeback trail as an artist, recording and releasing an album, Second Coming, for the soul revivalist label Ichiban. A second new album, I'd Rather Eat Soup, was released by Big Bidness Records in 1998, and while both new albums showed Patterson's voice and song writing chops were in fine shape, they didn't do much business. He recorded a live album at the Longhorn Ballroom in 2002.

Patterson worked as a DJ on the Dallas-based radio station KKDA 730 AM, until station owner Hyman Childs laid off most of KKDA's on-air staff, including Patterson, in May 2012. After appearances at several blues festivals and the annual vintage R&B and rock showcase the Ponderosa Stomp, Patterson's cult following grew, and in 2013 he teamed with producer Zach Ernst to cut a new album in the vintage soul style. In 2014, Patterson and Ernst struck a deal with Omnivore Recordings to release the album, and I Got More Soul! arrived in July 2014.

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia)

Hugh Lawson born 12 March 1935

Hugh Lawson (March 12, 1935 – March 11, 1997), was an American jazz pianist, composer and arranger from Detroit who worked with Yusef Lateef for more than 10 years.

In the vocabulary of the world of jazz music and it’s musicians, there is a word which is used to describe those musicians whose talents are well known among their contemporaries, but who are virtually unknown to the public. The word is “underrated”. But in Hugh Lawson’s case a more accurate term should be “under-exposed”.

Lawson first performed from 1956 and recorded as a member of quartets and quintets led by Yusef Lateef, first in Detroit, and from the late 1950s to 1960 in New York, where he later recorded as as a sideman with Harry “Sweets” Edison (1962), and Roy Brooks (1963, 1970), and again with Lateef (1966,1968) and Kenny Burrell (1971). He has also performed with Dinah Washington, Roy Eldridge, Stanley Turrentine and Sonny Stitt among others.

      Here’s “The Duke Ellington Sound of Love” from above album

                                   

He was a founding member in 1972 of the Piano Choir, a group of seven pianists for which he wrote compositions (including Ballad for the Beast from Bali Bali, recorded on the album Handscapes 2, in 1974) and arrangements. He toured Europe with Charles Mingus in the autumn of 1975, and, under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department, Eastern Europe with Mingus in 1977 and the Middle East in 1981-2; he also recorded with Charlie Rouse (1977), and his own trio (1977,1983), and two of Mingus’s former sidemen, George Adams and Dannie Richmond in Milan (1980, 1983)

Lawson has taught composition and jazz improvisations at the Henry Street Settlement in New York. He had a formidable technique and a style reminiscent of that of Bud Powell.

Lawson died of colon cancer in White Plains, NY, March 11, 1997, at the age of 61.

(Scant information edited from New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Liner notes)

Flaco Jimenez born 11 March 1939

Leonardo “Flaco” Jiminez (March 11, 1939 – July 31, 2025) was an American singer-songwriter and  accordionist  from  San Antonio,  Texas. He is known for having played  conjunto, norteño  and  tejano. Jiménez was a solo performer and  session musician, as well as a member of the Texas Tornados  and Los Super Seven. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received numerous awards and honors, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from the  Grammys,  Americana Music Awards, Tejano Music Awards, and  Billboard  magazine.

Born Leonardo Jiménez in San Antonio, he was known since childhood as Flaco (Spanish for skinny). He was the son of Santiago Jiménez, a successful accordion player, and his wife, Luisa (known as Mena), who ran a home filled with music. His grandfather, Patricio, had played conjunto, as did his father, who recorded several regional hits. Flaco started out playing bajo sexto guitar, a 12-stringed Mexican instrument, then switched to the accordion when he was seven. At 15 he started a band, Los Caporales, and began playing on local radio stations at the start of a career that would transform Texan music.

                                

Flaco's first instrument was the bajo sexto (a Mexican variation on the 12-string guitar), which he started to play at age seven, but after he became proficient enough to join his father on-stage, Flaco's interest turned to the accordion, and he developed a joyous, expressive style that was influenced by zydeco master Clifton Chenier  as well as his father and his Tex-Mex peers. 

Los Caporales 1957

At 15, Jimenéz formed his first band, Los Caporales, and the group soon won a sizable following in San Antonio, cutting records for a local label and earning a weekly spot on a local television variety show. By the early '60s, Jimenéz was already a Texas legend, playing clubs across the Lone Star State and regularly filling dancehalls in San Antonio with music that fused the classic Tejano sound with elements of blues and country.

Jiménez’s profile continued to rise, and in 1973 he was asked by the renowned Tex-Mex musician Doug Sahm to contribute accordion to his debut album, which included appearances from musical mainstays like Bob Dylan and Dr. John. These collaborations helped to establish Jiménez’s national reputation as a master of conjunto, and in 1976, Ry Cooder invited him to contribute to Chicken Skin Music, Cooder’s first exploration of Tex-Mex traditions. Following his appearance on Cooder’s album, Jiménez was invited to join the roster of Arhoolie Records, and in 1977 he recorded Flaco Jiménez y Su Conjunto, his first album to be distributed outside of the American Southwest. Through the 1980s and ’90s Jiménez continued releasing new recordings and reissuing earlier works with Arhoolie Records.

Jiménez continued to tour and record extensively, winning his first GRAMMY in 1987 and appearing on Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens’ chart-topping country single “Streets of Bakersfield” in 1988. He joined forces with Doug Sahm once again in 1989, forming the supergroup known as The Texas Tornados with fellow Tejano stars Freddie Fender and Augie Myers. In 1992, Jiménez made his debut on Warner Bros. Records with the hit album Partners, which included appearances from Stephen Stills, Emmylou Harris, and Los Lobos.

In 1994, he made a guest appearance on The Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge, and in 1999, he won his fourth GRAMMY, making him the most awarded artist in the history of the GRAMMY’s “Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album” category—this time for his contributions to Los Super Seven’s debut album. Jiménez was a mentor to Max Baca, the leader of the GRAMMY Award-winning group Los Texmaniacs, and in 2014 the pair released the collaborative album Flaco & Max: Legends & Legacies on Smithsonian Folkways, capturing the essential sounds of the conjunto tradition.

Jiménez went on to receive lifetime achievement awards from both Billboard and the GRAMMYs, as well as a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He continued to tour and record into his seventies, and in 2017 a photo of Jiménez was hung in the National Portrait Gallery. In 2022 he was awarded a prestigious National Medal of Arts by the United States government, “for harnessing heritage to enrich American music.”

Jiménez died following a long illness on July 31, 2025, at the age of 86.  He had been living at the home of one of his sons. His legacy as a conjunto pioneer and master of the accordion will live on through his groundbreaking recordings and the countless artists he continues to inspire.

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & The Guardian)

Back To Normal (well almost)

 Hello music lovers I have now installed my new PC and have got back to some sort of normality. Since my old PC got fried and is now in pooter heaven, I could not believe the amount of requests for new links. So before I start blogging I will endeavour to fulfil  them ALL 

Also please note if  anyone sent me any files since Feb 1st then please do again as all were lost. Luckily I backed up all music files prior to that date.

So as soon as I catch up with the re-posts, I'll be back!