Jackie Brenston born August 24, 1928 or 1930

Jackie Brenston (August 24, 1928 – December 15, 1979) was an American singer and saxophonist who, with Ike Turner's band, recorded the first version of "Rocket 88" in 1951. It was noted in a subsequent interview that Brenston stated "I had a hit record and no sense".

Jack Brenston was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Brenston's birth date has long been the source of speculation. The birth date on his headstone, August 24, 1928, is the same date on his army enlistment records. However, in 1974, Brenston stated that he was born on August 24, 1927. His obituary in the Clarksdale Press Register gave his birth date as August 15, 1930, a date endorsed by researchers Bob Eagle and Eric S. LeBlanc. Brenston had a troubled youth and often ran away from home. It has been theorized that his mother, Ethel Brenston, falsified his age so that he could join the army. Brenston claimed he served more than three years in the 82nd Airborne, but records show that he enlisted on January 19, 1946, and was released on December 18, 1946.

Returning to Clarksdale from army service, Brenston learned to play the saxophone in 1947 from a local character named Jesse Flowers. "I had this $30 horn with a hole in it. I plugged the hole up with chewing gum", Brenston told writer Jim O'Neal in 1978. Before long he linked up with Ike Turner in 1950 as a tenor sax player and occasional singer in Turner's band, the Kings of Rhythm. B.B. King was impressed when he saw the group perform in Chambers, Mississippi, in early 1951 and directed them to Sam Phillips's Memphis Recording Service, where King was recording at the time. Phillips had not yet begun his Sun Records Company ; another year would pass before the first Sun record was made. But he had been operating a recording studio, making and leasing recordings, for almost a year. It was at that studio, at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, that "Rocket 88" was recorded, on March 3, 1951.

                                  

Though Brenston claimed authorship of "Rocket 88", he had derived it from a song in the band's repertoire, "Cadillac Boogie", which Jimmy Liggins had cut for Specialty in 1947. In the lyrics, Brenston replaced the Cadillac with the new Oldsmobile Rocket Hydramatic 88. The vocalist of the Kings Of Rhythm, Johnny O'Neal, had recently been signed by King Records and Ike Turner chose Brenston as the group's new singer. Of the five sides cut at the historic session, the first two were by Ike himself, with Brenston playing alto sax. Then Jackie laid down his horn and sang three songs, "Rocket 88", "Come Back Where You Belong" and "Independent Woman". During the drive from Clarksdale, guitarist Willie Kizart's amp had fallen off the top of the car, breaking the speaker cone. Rather than submerge the distorted sound of Kizart's guitar, Sam Phillips took a chance and overamplified it, making it the centrepiece of the rhythm track. After the session, Phillips ran off dubs and sent them to the Chess brothers in Chicago the same night. Chess released two singles by the group in mid-April. The coupled sides that featured Turner's voice bore on their labels the credit Ike Turner and Kings of Rhythm. However, much to Ike's dismay, the other single ("Rocket 88"/"Come Back Where You Belong") was credited to 'Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats'.

Turner blamed Phillips for this error. "Rocket 88" reached the R&B charts in May 1951, hit number 1 in June (for five weeks) and eventually became the second-biggest R&B record of the year, after the Dominoes' "Sixty Minute Man". Its success had far-reaching effects. It heralded a wilder wave of rock n roll. It stirred Sam Phillips's determination to start his own label. And it caused Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston to part company after one more session in July (at which the follow-up, "My Real Gone Rocket" was recorded). The success of "Rocket 88" (which Turner felt was really HIS success) went to Brenston's head and he split for a time and formed his own group. The third Chess single by Brenston, "Independent Woman", was the remaining recording from the first session and was coupled with "Juiced", which was credited to Brenston, but in fact sung by Billy Love. Ike Turner defected to the Bihari brothers and their Modern / RPM labels, but Sam Phillips continued to record Brenston, with his new band. "Hi Ho Baby", Brenston's duet with Edna McCraney, was released by Chess in January 1952. "Starvation", a last (instrumental) Chess single, came in 1953. Then, less than two years after it had begun, it was over for Brenston. His records didn't sell.

He took a job playing sax with Lowell Fulson's band in 1953, and stayed with Fulson, on and off, through 1955. Then, humbled and weary, he was taken back into the fold by Ike Turner, remaining there until the early 1960s, when Turner finally started having hits (with the help of Tina). Though he recorded with the Kings of Rhythm throughout those years, Brenston's voice was heard on only two of the many Federal singles that the band had out during that time ("Much Later" from 1957 being the best of those four tracks). He was reduced to being Ike Turner's baritone sax player. Turner allowed Brenston to sing a few songs when the band performed in public, but he forbade him to sing "Rocket 88". Jackie took refuge in alcohol. 

He released two final solo singles for Sue Records (1961, still with the Kings of Rhythm) and Mel London's Mel-Lon label in 1963 (with Earl Hooker's band). He drifted through a number of bands in the 1960s and drove a truck for a living in the 1970s. When Jackie Brenston suffered a heart attack in late 1979, he was a hopeless alcoholic and almost completely forgotten. He died at the Kennedy V.A. Hospital in Memphis on December 15, 1979, and was buried in the military section of the Heavenly Rest Cemetery. According to his Brenston's headstone, he was 51 years old. It wasn't until 2018, that "Rocket 88" was inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame's Singles Category.

(Edited from This Is My Story & Wikipedia)

Sonny Thompson born probably August 23, 1916

 Sonny Thompson (probably August 23, 1916 – August 11, 1989), born Alfonso Thompson or Hezzie Tompson, was an American R&B bandleader and pianist, and the most prolific R&B instrumentalists of the late '40s and early '50s.

There is some uncertainty over Thompson's origins, as well as his birth name. Researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc indicate that Alphonso “Sonny” Thompson was born in 1916 in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, but other sources state that he was born in 1923, either in Centreville, Mississippi or in Chicago. While he was a pre-schooler, his family moved to Chicago. He attended Wendell Phillips High School and studied at the Chicago Conservatory of Music by day and at the elbows of Art Tatum and Earl Hines at night. Tatum was Sonny’s main influence which can be heard on his first recordings “Southside Boogie” and “Sonny’s Boogie” waxed for the tiny Detroit-based Sultan label in 1946.

Thompson began working in combos while in high school and went on the road for extended periods after graduating from Phillips. He also spent some time in the band of Erskine Tate. He began working as a leader in 1940, with a group billed as Sonny Thompson and His Swingsters. During 1941 and 1942, Thompson attended the University of Chicago, supporting himself by playing gigs. During 1941 and the first quarter of 1942, he played solo piano at the Garrick Stage Bar. He also worked in groups led by Lonnie Simmons, Red Allen, and Stuff Smith in the Down Beat Room downstairs. In 1943 Sonny Thompson entered the Army. He return to playing, performing at places such as Garrick Stage Bar, Bar o’ Music and got a break when he was asked to step in to replace Earl Hines at El Grotto. An item in Down Beat (July 15, 1945, p. 4), “Thompson Has Fine New Crew,” described the band as a “14-piece outfit.” 

Thompson made his first recording session with a sextet backing June Richmond on Mercury Records; two singles were released. The two sides he did for Sultan were his first as a leader. During 1947 Thompson teamed up with the Dick Davis Combo to play regularly at the Tradesmen’s Lounge, appearing with them on a recording session for the fledgling Miracle label in January. Thompson began recording under his own name with Miracle in mid-1947, using the Sharps and Flats as his rhythm section and frequently adding Eddie Chamblee’s tenor sax.

                                   

In 1947 Sonny signed with Lee Egalnick’s Miracle company, where he made fine recordings under his own name, but also backed other artists on the label, namely tenorist Dick Davis, Piney Brown and Gladys Palmer. Shortly after this Sonny was to lay down “Long Gone” Pts. 1 & 2, which King Records’ Syd Nathan was to snap up once the Miracle record began to hit the juke boxes and showed considerable chart action (it sold some 200,000 copies and lasted for more than 30 weeks on the charts). The record was so popular that Miracle label boss Lee Egalnick had to fight bootleggers in St. Louis, who were selling counterfeit copies of the disc. The rhythm section consisting of Alvin Garrett, Leroy Morrison and Thurman “Red” Cooper maintain a relaxed and often used accompaniment behind Sonny’s piano and the great tenor Eddie Chamblee.

The success of “Long Gone” Pts. 1 & 2” ensured Thompson’s position as the “King of the Two Parter” (a fine follow-up appeared as “Still Gone” parts 3 and 4) and subsequent double siders included “The Fish”, “Mellow Blues”, “Real Real Fine”, “Cotton Ball” and “Cat On The Keys”. In the same year (1948), “Late Freight” climbed No. 1 position in the Billboard R&B charts and stayed there for 13 weeks! (The piece was later called “Creepin’” when it was issued in Britain). Further chart success included “Blues On Rhumba” (no. 14 position) and “Blue Dreams” (no. 10 position). “Long Gone” was to be featured heavily in Billboard over the next two years, not only because of its success, but also through King Records’ purchase of the Miracle label and a lawsuit involving Jimmy Yancey, Meade Lux Lewis, Doug Suggs and Cripple Clarence Lofton! 

By 1952 he had moved on to King Records, where he worked in A&R and as a session musician and arranger. At King, he had further R&B Top 10 successes with the singer Lula Reed, the biggest hit being "I'll Drown in My Tears" which reached number five. Thompson married Reed sometime in the early 1950s. He continued to work as a session musician, and to perform with Reed into the early 1960s. He also had success as a songwriter, often co-writing with blues guitarist, Freddie King. Songs Thompson wrote (or co-wrote) included "I'm Tore Down", "Let Them Talk", "Hide Away", "The Stumble", "Three Hearts in a Tangle", "Late Freight", and "Long Gone".

In 1951, Sonny began recording with singer Lula Reed, later to be his wife and in November 1952. During this period Thompson provided the band, sidemen and arrangements for the first of four sessions with the great Wynonie Harris. Although Wynonie was still a big star, he was faced with the challenge of the emerging rock ’n roll boom. Lula and Sonny had great success with “Let’s Call It A Day” (no. 7 position) and “I’ll Drown In My Tears” (no. 5 position in the Billboard R&B charts), both penned by Henry Glover and together they even tried their hands on a couple of Gospel numbers. Little is known of Lula’s professional life and like a surprising number of R&B artists, her very first record enjoyed more success than just about any of her later work. “I’ll Drown In My Tears” made it to the number 5 position in Billboard’s R&B charts in 1952. It has since become associated with Ray Charles, whose retitled version owed a debt to to both Lula Reed and Sonny Thompson. The debt was repaid in the early 1960s, when Lula made an  appearance on Charles’ own Tangerine label.

From 1960 Sonny had switched to the organ cutting six soul-jazz styled instrumentals for King, Knight and Bethlehem. As a sideman, Sonny had accompanied innumerable groups and artists on countless recording sessions — among them The Swallows, Wynonie Harris, Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, Mabel Scott, The Pilgrim Jubilee Singers, The Five Keys, Lucky Millinder, Billy Stewart, James Brown, Jesse Johnson and Little Milton, only to name a few.

In 1970, Sonny co-produced one of Howlin’ Wolf’s last albums for Chess Records, “Message To The Young” and played keyboards on the session. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he began appearing at Jazz Festivals and even toured Europe a couple of times, performing in England, France, Switzerland, Italy and Yugoslavia. In 1972, he recorded two LPs for the French label Black & Blue in France while on tour; he was part of the Chicago Blues Festival in the same year and cut an album as a sideman with Luther “Georgia Boy” Johnson. In the early 1970s he played keyboards on two Jimmy Dawkins albums on the Delmark label. Shortly after, Sonny Thompson fell into obscurity; he died on August 11, 1989 in Chicago (just shortly before his 67th birthday), after a long battle against diabetes. In 2024 the Killer Blues Headstone Project placed the headstone for him at Homewood Memorial Cemetery in Homewood, Illinois.

(Edited from Big Road Blues)

Edwin Birdsong born August 22, 1941

Edwin Birdsong (August 22, 1941 – January 21, 2019) was an American keyboardist and underrated organist, known in the 1970s and 1980s for his experimental funk/disco music. Birdsong did not achieve much chart success, but developed a strong fan base. Birdsong has also been sampled by other artists many times.

Edwin Lee Birdsong was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, to Sidney and Josephine (Page) Birdsong. He graduated from Fremont High School and developed his organist and pianist skills at Solid Rock Missionary Baptist Church, where his father, Sidney, ministered. He eventually joined the Los Angeles Community Choir, performing with artists Merry Clayton, DJ Rogers and Billy Preston. Army service took Birdsong to Germany, where he formed Birdsong and the Sounds and worked local clubs. His final six months of service brought him to Baltimore and Pennsylvania Avenue engagements before settling in New York City during the mid-1960s, becoming a composition major at Juilliard School of Music, after two years at the Manhattan School of Music. He led a small jazz-blues group and joined Harlem jam sessions that included George Benson. 

                                   

Whist in New York Birdsong met Wes Farrell who helped him get a contract with Polydor in 1971. Under Polydor, he issued two albums of funk, rock, fusion, and jazz, What It Is and Supernatural, in 1971 and 1973.Birdsong issued one album for Bamboo, Dance of Survival, in 1975, then recorded Edwin Birdsong for Philadelphia International in 1979, which included the single "Phiss-Phizz." But Birdsong had more success teaming with vibist/vocalist Roy Ayers. The two co-wrote the songs "Running Away" and "Freaky Deaky," and Birdsong co-produced Ayers' LPs Vibrations, Lifeline, and Let's Do It. 

Birdsong with Stevie Wonder

Ayers got him session work with Herbie Mann, and Birdsong would join his band, appearing on the Ubiquity album and also working on later Ayers albums, as well on albums by RAMP and Eighties Ladies. Later on Birdsong would work with Marley Marl and never achieved chart success with his solo work, but co-wrote Ayers' Running Away hit. Although Birdsong developed a strong following, he never achieved the commercial success his talents warranted. Hip-hop’s emergence during the ’80s/’90s reinvigorated his music, earning him a new fan base in the millions as his innovative songs were sampled by that era’s elite music producers, laying as the foundation of many classics and big hits, most famously by Daft Punk and Kanye West who both sampled Cola Bottle Baby, and De La Soul, Snoop Dogg and Gang Starr who sampled his Rapper Dapper Snapper single. Birdsong served as a mentor early in the career of hip-hop artist/producer Funkghost.

Birdsong’s hypnotic funk can be found all over modern music’s most popular records by DJ Quik, Dr. Dre, Erykah Badu, Mary J Blige, Tupac, Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild and Mariah Carey.  Birdsong slowly stopped making his own music but carried on playing session work for many well known artists including Bob Marley, George Clinton, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder, to name a few.  Birdsong and twin brothers TaharQa and Tunde-Ra Aleem formed ABA Records and continued producing and mentoring other artists, namely DJ Marley Marl, X Clan and Harlem’s Teddy Riley, among others.

In 2008 Birdsong won two Grammys for his contributions to Kanye’s and Daft Punk’s songs, for “Best Electronic/Dance Album” and “Best Dance Recording.” In a 2017 interview with his nephew, Marlon Williams Jr., Birdsong expressed his surprise upon learning Daft Punk had sampled his Cola Bottle Boy: “I recorded it 30 years ago and here comes some guys from France. I asked them, ‘Where did you find the music?’ And they said, ‘I was going through bins and it popped out,’ and then Kanye West also sampled the same song, called it ‘Stronger.’ I’m blessed and I continue to be blessed by opening my arms to God every day.”

Birdsong’s three marriages ended in divorce. He lived in Victorville, California. Birdsong suffered several strokes in the past and had congestive heart failure. He died in Inglewood, California, on January 21, 2019. He was 77 years old.

(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia, New York Times & New York Amsterdam News)

Tommy Reilly born August 21, 1919

Tommy Reilly (August 21, 1919 – September 25, 2000) was a Canadian-born harmonica player, composer and teacher, predominantly based in England.

Born Thomas Rundle Reilly, in Guelph, Ontario, his father, Captain James Reilly (1886-1956), was a trumpeter and violinist, who led (in Guelph, 1920-5) one of the first jazz bands in Canada. The younger Reilly studied violin at eight and began playing harmonica at 11 as a member of his father's Elmdale Harmonica Band. The band won several CNE competitions and Reilly won medals for solo playing in southern Ontario festivals. In 1935 the family moved to London. Though Reilly had played in England 1935-7 and continental Europe 1937-9, it was not until his arrest by the Gestapo (while studying violin at the Leipzig Conservatory) and subsequent internment 1939-45 in prisoner-of-war camps that he developed his virtuosity on the harmonica, basing his ideas of phrasing and interpretation on the playing of Jascha Heifetz.

Returning to London in 1945, and resolved to establish the mouth organ as an instrument of high artistic worth, Reilly began parallel careers as a concert soloist and recitalist, a studio musician-composer and a popular BBC radio and TV performer, which made him a household name, and work followed right across the musical spectrum. He performed with most of the major European orchestras, toured Europe several times with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, performed often at major festivals, including the 1982 Festival of the Sound, and performed in North America, Australia, and Africa. He remained based in the UK, but since first returning to Canada in 1982, appeared with orchestras in Toronto, Winnipeg, Quebec City (1991), and Calgary, among other places, and the 1993 Guelph Spring Festival.

Over 30 concert works have been composed for Reilly, including Michael Spivakovsky's Concerto, 1951, considered the first important full-scale concerto for harmonica, Robert Farnon's Prelude and Dance for Harmonica and Orchestra, several works with orchestra and others with string quartet or strings and woodwinds by Reilly's accompanist James Moody, Matyas Seiber's Old Scottish Air for Harmonica, Strings and Harp, and Richard Rodney Bennett's Suite for harmonica and piano.

                                   

In the absence of a concert repertoire for the instrument, Reilly transcribed works by Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Smetana, Sarasate, and others. Reilly also composed short harmonica pieces, incidental music for the stock-music libraries of Chappell and other companies, and theme music for BBC TV and radio, which included playing the theme tune and musical breaks to the BBC Radio series The Navy Lark, from 1959-77, and the soundtrack to the British television show, Dial 999 (TV series), in 1958. Other television credits included Dixon Of Dock Green, The Last Of The Summer Wine and The Singing Detective.

His first recording, for Parlophone, was produced by George Martin in 1951. Later recordings covered arrangements of virtually anything tuneful, from British folksongs and popular classics - works by Mendelssohn, Fauré, Walton, Grainger, Smetana and Borodin - to the main theme from John Barry's score for Midnight Cowboy (1969). He also consolidated his achievement as a concert artist with recordings of Vaughan Williams's Romance for harmonica, strings and piano, and the harmonica concertos by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Malcolm Arnold.

He also performed music for the soundtracks of many US and European films and for several US TV series. Among the composers who wrote film scores expressly for Reilly were Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, and Dimitri Tiomkin. Reilly gave master classes 1966-8 at the Städtische Musikschule in Trossingen, Germany, at Fanfare 84 in Toronto, and annually from 1985 in Norway. He taught 1967-71 at the Tommy Reilly International Club in Surrey, attracting pupils from around the world. He wrote several textbooks for harmonica and continued to create widespread interest in the instrument through lecture-recitals, master classes, radio broadcasts, and teaching at the GSM. In 1967 he designed a concert harmonica, later manufactured by Hohner and marketed as the Silver Concerto Chromonica.

In 1992, Reilly became the first harmonica player to be made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. His other awards included the Gold Medal of the Deutscher Harmonika-Verband, and a Golden Badge from the British Association of Composers, Authors and Songwriters. Sir Neville Marriner and Stravinsky were among those who admired his playing. His last professional engagement took place in 1998, when he conducted a masterclass for students from four continents at the Dartington International Summer School of Music in Devon, England.

Tommy Reilly died at his home on September 25, 2000, aged 81 in Frensham, Surrey. He is buried in Frensham village churchyard, where his headstone bears the epithet, ‘He was the greatest.’ His granddaughter Georgina Reilly is an English-born Canadian film and television actor. This accolade in the newspaper The Guardian by the other famous harmonica pioneer, Larry Adler, sums up just what a rare talent Tommy’s was: "Tommy was a player for whom I had deep respect. He had a style of his own, immediately recognisable. I always wanted to play the Bach Double Violin Concerto with Tommy, but the opportunity never arose. There are many good mouth organists, most of them imitating either Tommy or me, but Tommy never needed to imitate anyone. He was unique, in a class by himself. I will miss his wonderful playing: he didn't even have a close second.

(Edited from The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Guardian & Polle Concert Harmonica) 

Scotty McKay born 20 August 1940

Scotty McKay (20 August 1940 - March 17, 1991) was a Texas-based musician, guitarist, and pianist known for his energetic, almost frenetic live performances and varying forays into popular music from the 1950s through the 1980s. 

Although it is frequently stated that he was born in 1937, public school records as well as marriage and divorce registers record Max Karl Lipscomb as born to Maxine Lipscomb on August 20, 1940. Little information is available about Lipscomb's early life, although he spent most of his life in Texas growing up in the Dallas area. Lipscomb entered Hillcrest High School, as a freshman for the 1954–55 school year, where he served on the student council and participated in other extracurricular activities. By the latter half of 1957, at the age of seventeen, however, he was touring as a band member, singing backup vocals and playing rhythm guitar in the “Blue Caps” behind a young Gene Vincent. He appeared with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps on November 17, 1957, for Vincent's live performance of “Dance to the Bop” on The Ed Sullivan Show. Lipscomb took a hiatus from the Blue Caps in 1958 to go back to school—after which he joined Vincent once more, this time on a forty-day Canadian tour.

With Vincent's career somewhat short-lived due to various reasons, in 1959 Lipscomb began to pursue his own career as a recording artist. With his blonde, clean-cut good looks and the impressive Gene Vincent credentials to his advantage, Lipscomb travelled to Philadelphia and sought out the well-known song writing and music producer duo of Frank Slay, Jr., and Bob Crewe. Crewe and Slay were associated with Philadelphia-based record label Swan Records, which at the time was partially under the ownership of Dick Clark. It was due to Clark's suggestion that Lipscomb changed his professional name, to be known for most of the rest of his life as “Scotty McKay.”

McKay's first single, “Rollin' Dynamite” /  “Evenin' Time” was released in mid-1959 on Parkway Records (as well as on Event Records during the same time period). This was followed in quick succession by a number of singles on Swan Records, Swan subsidiary Lawn Records, and the Ace record label. Notable recordings on Ace Records are a cover of Chuck Berry's “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and novelty hit “Olive Learned to Popeye”; a Scotty McKay LP entitled Tonight In Person was also released by Ace Records in 1961. McKay was also a singer with Tommy & The Tom Toms between 1959 and 1962, but their rock recordings were initially not released as singles or on LP. In 1964 McKay released a cover of Ray Charles's “Mess Around” on the Philips label, backed by his Dallas band (billed as the Shutdowns). Later, ever-changing his sound with the times, McKay released a surf record in the mid-1960s (“Waikiki Beach” on HBR Records) and as the 1960s progressed, transitioned easily into the garage rock-and-roll sound that was popular in Texas at the time. 

                                  

In early 1966 McKay and band member Kirby St. Romain wrote and recorded a song entitled “Here Comes Batman,” paying tribute to the popular television show. It was released under “Scotty McKay and His Orchestra” and became a favourite of fans of the television show. In late 1966 Jim McCarty (of Yardbirds fame) produced one of McKay's singles, released in 1967 in the United Kingdom on Columbia records, called “I Can't Make Your Way.” On this record, McKay's transition to the British Invasion style can be clearly heard. He recorded a much-lauded version of “Train Kept A-Rollin',” a song written by Johnny Burnette but frequently (and mistakenly) attributed to the Yardbirds themselves. With this release, McKay and his Quintet pushed his sound to a raw rock-and-roll compendium. A 1968 release, “Truly True” on Pompeii Records, showed the Scotty McKay Quintet demonstrating melodic, smooth harmonies and a more pop-influenced “bubble-gum” sound.

Ron Chapman

During the 1960s, McKay continued to perform energetic live shows, which he had been known for since he first started his career as a front man in 1959. In the mid-1960s, a local television show called Sump’n Else and hosted by Ron Chapman aired on WFAA. McKay and his band performed on the show frequently along with other local teen band contemporaries such as Kenny and the Kasuals and the Chessmen. In 1966 and 1967 McKay and his band took cameo roles in two Dallas-located low budget horror films. The first was The Black Cat (1966), an adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe story of the same title, in which McKay sang a song written especially for the film (“Sinner Man”), and reprised his earlier single, “Brown Eyed Handsome Man.” In the television movie Creature of Destruction (1967), the McKay Quintet appeared as the band in a beach party scene.

By 1967 McKay was part of the band backing singer Bryan Hyland on one of Dick Clark’s Greyhound Bus package tours around the Southern states of America, a tour that also included The Yardbirds on the bill. He befriended the band and presumably heard them play ‘The Train Kept a-Rollin’’ as part of their live set. He recorded his own version that certainly sounds influenced by them. The lead guitar work is blistering, which perhaps explains the story that McKay sent Jimmy Page the master tape of the song so that he could lay down the lead guitar track. In fact, the musicians backing Scotty on this number were three of The Exotics – Tommy Spalding on rhythm guitar, Geoff West on bass and drums, and Blair Smith on lead guitar, and it is the latter we have to thank for the sparkling fretwork.

Scotty May Quintet

With the advent of the 1970s, Scotty McKay's public career slowed and his personal life underwent significant changes. He became a born-again Christian in 1970; that same year he released a decidedly softer rock single called “High on Life” (on Charay Records). As the 1970s progressed, McKay travelled to Nashville and made a record called God, Texas, Tennessee and Me, which evidenced a striking foray into country music. Public records show that McKay's personal life went through a number of changes in the 1970s as well, with several marriages and divorces on file. His wives included Monica Louise Najar, Laura Elizabeth Stickels, Catherine M. Gibney and Sue Ann Zerre.

In 1990 McKay released what would become his last album, Morning Side of Midnight, his first religious-themed work. He continued to play locally and in church until a heart attack caused his death on March 17, 1991. He was buried in Maple Park Cemetery, Springfield, Greene County, Missouri.

(Edited from Texas State Historical Association, Cosmic Mind at Play blog & IMDb)

Here's a clip of Scotty performing Morning Side of Midnight at the old Presbyterian church in McKinney, Texas, March 2, 1991 two weeks before he died.

 

Johnny Nash born August 19, 1940

Johnny Nash (August 19, 1940 – October 6, 2020) was an American singer and songwriter, best known in the United States for his 1972 hit "I Can See Clearly Now". Primarily a reggae and pop singer, he was one of the first non-Jamaican artists to record reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica.

John Lester Nash Jr., was born in Houston, Texas, to Eliza (nee Armstrong) and her husband, John Nash, a chauffeur. A sweet-mannered, good-looking and well-behaved child, though a little shy, Johnny went to Jack Yates high school and was brought up on gospel music at the Progressive New Hope Baptist Church in the city, where he soon became renowned for his beautifully smooth voice, which also made an impact at talent shows. At 13, after Nash had been caddying at a golf course for a retired businessman, Frank Stockton, he was urged to get up and sing in the clubhouse. Stockton was so impressed that he arranged an audition for a local afternoon TV programme on KPRC-TV, and for the next three years the young Nash earned more money than his father by singing regularly on the show after school.

From 1956 he sang on Arthur Godfrey's radio and television programs for a seven-year period. Signing with ABC-Paramount, Nash made his major label debut in 1957 with the single "A Teenager Sings the Blues". Although it made little impact, his next single, A Very Special Love, made it to 23 in the US charts, his first album, Johnny Nash, was issued in 1958. Nash won a Silver Sail Award for his performance from the Locarno International Film Festival. Nash continued releasing singles on a variety of labels such as Groove, Chess, Argo, and Warner Bros. The song "The Teen Commandments" by Paul Anka, George Hamilton IV, and Johnny Nash reached #14 on Canada's CHUM Charts, December 15, 1958. Marketed as a rival to Johnny Mathis, he even began a film career at 18 years old with 1959's Take a Giant Step, also appearing in 1960's Key Witness before his career flagged with a series of little-noticed singles for Warner Bros., Groove, and Argo. As a church-going youth and former boy scout, he preferred to ignore rock’n’roll, which in any case did not suit his vocal style. But as a result his relevance and popularity began to wane, and in the years after his 1961 album, Let’s Get Lost, his impetus and direction foundered.

Bob Marley & Johnny Nash

In 1964, Nash and manager Danny Sims formed JoDa Records in New York. JoDa released The Cowsills' single "All I Really Want to Be Is Me". Although JoDa filed for bankruptcy after only two years. After selling off his old entertainment assets in New York, Sims opened a new music publishing business in Jamaica, Cayman Music. Nash planned to try breaking the local rocksteady sound in the United States. Around 1966 or 1967, Neville Willoughby took Nash to a Rastafarian party where Bob Marley & The Wailing Wailers were performing. Members Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, and Rita Marley introduced Nash to the local music scene. Nash signed all four to an exclusive publishing contract with Cayman Music for J$50 a week. In 1967, Nash, Arthur Jenkins, and Sims collaborated to create a new label, JAD Records (after their first names Johnny, Arthur, and Danny), and recorded their albums at Federal Records in Kingston. 

                                  

Inspired by the new possibilities, in 1968 he wrote You Got Soul, a fine, fully-fledged rock-steady tune that was issued in the UK by Trojan Records and reached No 5 in the singles charts. Among the first of Trojan’s British reggae releases to experiment with the addition of pop instrumentation and strings, it helped to crystallise a winning formula in the UK that appealed to the masses and paved the way for Desmond Dekker’s Israelites to become the UK’s first reggae No 1 shortly afterwards. Later in the year Nash followed up with Hold Me Tight, in similarly rich rock-steady vein: it got to No 6 in the UK and was among the first Jamaican records to cause a stir in the US, making No 5.

In 1970 Nash was invited to Sweden to write the soundtrack for a film, Love is Not a Game, in which he also acted opposite Christina Schollin. Nash took Marley and Sims with him, and they were away from Jamaica for the best part of a year. The film was a damp squib – it had only a brief run in Sweden in 1971 and plans to release the soundtrack as an album were ditched. But the sojourn in Scandinavia brought Nash and Marley into a musical collaboration that bore fruits in Nash’s 1972 album I Can See Clearly Now, to which Marley contributed Stir it Up, Guava Jelly, Comma Comma and You Poured Sugar on Me, the last of which they jointly wrote. The album, and its title track in particular, established Nash as a household name. Marley was left in his friend’s professional wake, but the relationship had been useful for both, giving Nash a new direction and grooming Marley for his eventual hook-up with Island Records and superstardom.

As it turned out, Nash had essentially begun to abandon the music business by the time Marley came to global attention. He decided to move back to Houston in 1974 for a quieter life, buying a ranch there and embarking on his third marriage, to Carlie Collins. Meanwhile in the UK, his biggest hit was with the song "Tears on My Pillow" which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in July 1975 for one week. The album Tears on My Pillow came out later in the year. After a cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" in 1976 and "Let's Go Dancing" in 1979, for many years Nash seemed to have dropped out of sight. By 1980, though he was still only 40, his recording activity had ground to a halt, and though there was one more album, Here Again, in 1986,which included the minor UK hit, "Rock Me Baby".

Much of his attention was by then focused on family life, church activities and helping local causes. A keen horse rider since his youth, in 1993 he set up the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena in Houston, where he financed weekly rodeos for youngsters who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to get on a horse. For many years he politely refused all interview requests. Younger audiences were introduced to Nash's music with the appearance of Jimmy Cliff's cover of "I Can See Clearly Now" in Disney's 1993 film Cool Runnings. Nash's version of the song appeared over the opening scene of John Cusack's 1997 film, Grosse Point Blank. In May 2006, Nash worked with SugarHill Recording Studios chief engineer Andy Bradley and Tierra Studios' Randy Miller to transfer analogue tapes of his songs from the 1970s and 1980s to Pro Tools digital format at Tierra Studios in his native Houston. Intensely private, he stayed out of the public eye except for occasional tours as the 21st century deepened.

After a period of declining health Johnny Nash died of natural causes at his home in Houston, Texas, on October 6, 2020; he was 80 years old.

(Edited from The Guardian, Wikipedia & AllMusic)