Bobby Angelo born July 24, 1941

Bobby Angelo (born July 24, 1941) was a British Rock 'n' Roll singer whose brief career was more successful in Sweden than in the UK, where he produced just one top 30 entry with Baby Sittin'.

Bobby Angelo, was born as Robert Hemmings in Ham, South West London, England. He first performed in 1960, as Bobby Vincent & the Shadows, and then as Bobby Angelo & the Tuxedos in 1961. The group The Shadows consisted of Peter Cresswell lead guitar, John Kent rhythm guitar, Jack Fry electric bass and Tony O'Toole drums, while the Tuxedos consisted of Roger Brown lead guitar, Colin Giffin rhythm guitar and sax, Dave Brown electric bass and Roger Groome drums. They started the band in 1960 in Surrey, England and it disbanded in 1963 and became the Innocents who backed the singers Mike Sarne & Mike Berry. The group later reformed in 1965 as "The End".

                                  

Bobby Angelo and the Tuxedos were on the UK charts in the autumn of 1961 with Baby Sittin', which peaked at number 30. The single became a European hit, reaching #1 in Germany and in Sweden, he came in sixth place on Tio i Topp and in thirteenth place on Radio Nord's top list in the spring of 1962. The single HMV POP 892 was released in July 1961 in England, but not until January 17, 1962 in Sweden. On the B-side was Skinny Lizzie.

When they were in the Abbey Road studio in the summer of 1961, they thought it was an audition and did spontaneous guitar solos in the songs, which they only took in one take. Imagine their surprise when a few weeks later a single with Baby Sittin' and Skinny Lizzie came out from their audition!

Pictured with Bobby Angelo and the Tuxedos is singer Susan Terry. She performed locally in Dorking with various bands until she was 16. Then she became part of the Tuxedos, who accompanied Bobby Angelo, and helped him make his first recording, Baby Sittin'. In 1961, a strong friendship developed between Susan and Bobby, even after Susan left the Tuxedos.

In 1964, two singles were released in Sweden on Sonet, in March with Staying Up Late and Broken Dreams and in April with Talk and Taste Of The Blues. The four songs were also released on an EP, Bobby Angelo. The same year, a third single was released in Sweden, with I Like The Way You Do It and Rip It Up, where Bobby was accompanied by the Hi-Grades.

By the mid‑1960s, the British music scene had shifted dramatically, dominated by The Beatles, Merseybeat, and later rock groups. Angelo’s style, rooted in early rock ’n’ roll, fell out of fashion and he quit after his last single in 1967.Mr. Love / I Got Wise was released in Sweden. It was recorded in R G Jones Studio in London with the group the End, which was actually his old backing group the Tuxedos. The producer was Bill Wyman, then a member of the Rolling Stones.

He reportedly worked with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page during his final years in the industry (likely in session or club contexts). He later became a qualified engineer in London. And that dear friends is all I can muster. Any other information or corrections will be gladly accepted. If "Bobby Angelo" is still with us he will be 85 years old today!

(Edited from Facebook Music groups, rocky52, Rate Your Music, Last.fm & Discogs) 

Kid Dynamite born July 23, 1911

Kid Dynamite (July 23, 1911 - December 14th, 1963) was a pioneering Surinamese-Dutch jazz saxophonist. He is celebrated for being one of the first Black musicians to bring swing jazz mixed with Afro-Surinamese traditional music (kaseko) to the Netherlands during the 1930s. His performances were never officially released on record, leaving behind a legacy mainly in the form of written compositions and lyrics.

Saxophonist and clarinetist Kid Dynamite was born Lodewijk Rudolph Arthur Parisius, in the Para District of Suriname. He spent his formative years immersed in the Afro-Surinamese traditional religion winti, which deeply influenced his musical style. He arrived in The Netherlands in 1928 as a stowaway on board the Royal Netherlands Steamship Company ship The Cottica. His friends Frits Blijd (1907-1992) and Frans Vroom (1905-1989) had preceded him earlier. After their arrival in the Netherlands, the three men almost immediately found employment in the entertainment sector, the only industry where their different skin colour worked to their advantage. Frans Vroom called himself Prince Kaya from then on and became a well-known figure in the capital's nightclub scene as a doorman, contortionist and percussionist. Frits Blijd hid behind the stage names Freddy Blythe, Jackie Blue and Rico Fernando, worked as a drummer and dancer, posed as a 'negro model' for students of the Rietveld Academy and opened a 'tap dance school' on the Frederiksplein in Amsterdam in the fifties. 

Arthur Parisius would manifest himself as the most successful artist of the trio and amassed his start-up capital by performing as a fire-eater at a fair, which was an activity from which he is said to have derived the name Kid Dynamite. A frugal spending pattern enabled him to save enough within ten months to be able to afford the purchase of a second-hand alto saxophone. He picked up jazz during his first years in the Netherlands and learnt to play jazz by listening and playing along with records he bought in the port of Rotterdam. The music of the American jazz giants Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were his greatest heroes in this respect. 

Dynamite became a regular in clubs like Kit Kat Club and Negro Palace in Amsterdam, Shim Sham in The Hague and of course Mephisto in Rotterdam. In 1936 he toured Switzerland as an alto saxophonist in the band of the Surinamese guitarist Mike Hidalgo. Tenor saxophonist Piet van Dijk managed to persuade his friend Kid Dynamite to exchange his alto sax for a tenor sax during this trip. In February 1937 Kid performed with the American jazz pianist Freddy Johnson in the Concertgebouw in Haarlem. Later that year he was programmed for weeks with the Surinamese trumpeter Teddy Cotton in jazz café annex 'negro club' Mephisto on the Binnenweg in Rotterdam. He quickly became a fixture of the European jazz scene, performing in popular clubs and leading bands. 

                                  

In addition he was blessed with a good singing voice and was an excellent percussionist. He became the first prominent Afro-Surinam tenor saxophonist, who was respected by many colleague-musicians. When the great Coleman Hawkins heard him play for the first time, he said "tell the people, this guy is alright". Later they would make music together and Kid considered Hawkins to be his musical father. In many pubs where Kid Dynamite could be heard, his Coleman Hawkins-like improvisations were appreciated. Fortunately, he was able to play something that no Dutch saxophonist had in house: 'Surinamese jazz'. He focused on the bigi pokoe, which means both big drum and big music. The ideal line-up consists of alto sax, possibly trumpet, string drum, bass drum and double bass. Cheerful dance music from a bigi pokoe band is called kaseko.

Throughout World War II, the occupying forces banned jazz and targeted Black performers. It was a dangerous time for Kid Dynamite, as a Surinamese in a white society. However, the Rotterdam neighbourhood of Katendrecht became a notable safe haven. Kid Dynamite was able to continue playing, keeping the swing and jazz scenes alive in the Netherlands while the rest of the country was under strict occupation. 

After the war, he was increasingly asked to play with Dutch jazz orchestras, such as The Grasshoppers conducted by Cor van Peperzeel. Bebop, Latin jazz, Dixieland, dance or party music, Kid Dynamite mastered all genres. In 1947 he was on the road with The Grasshoppers through Switzerland and Spain practically all year round. He later formed his own combo, Kid Dynamite and his Jungle Rhythms, while at the same time playing with bands like The Black and White Stars and Bonanza Boys. He subsequently enjoyed great fame in the 1950s as a musician at the Casablanca Jazz Club on Amsterdam's Zeedijk.

When following the rise of rock-'n-roll, jazz declines in popularity in the early 1960s, so Kid Dynamite started to focus on a Latin American repertoire. In December of 1963 Kid Dynamite was touring Germany with Rico Fernando, when his taxi is involved in a major accident near Hamburg. Kid Dynamite died due to his injuries a week later on December 14th, 1963. His legacy has been preserved and revived by later generations of Dutch-Surinamese musicians.

(Edited from the Dutch sites Rebel Base, Historiek & Jonge Historici)

Gray Bartlett born July 22nd, 1942

Gray Bartlett (born July 22nd, 1942) is a Guitarist, Musical Director, Composer, Producer, and Concert Promoter who has been picking his way to success for over many years.  Through 30 albums and  20 singles, Gray has sold well in excess of a million units of his music.

He was born Graeme Neil Bartlett in Auckland, New Zealand. Gray's first musical experience was at age 15 after leaving Auckland Grammar School.  One of his four brothers, Barry (he also has three sisters), taught him to play the guitar, and after answering an advertisement, he joined a band called "The Phantoms".  They performed at local dances and came runner-up in a radio competition called "Have A Shot". Gray was offered his chance to record by Zodiac Records in 1961; the result was his first single, "Last Stage West". Between that single and 1965, he began his road to success with offers to tour the country with some well-known international artists of the day, including British singing star Vera Lynn, Tom Jones, and the group Herman's Hermits.  

                                   

He also performed shows in Tokyo, and in 1965, the break came. Gray released the single "Lay Playa" and it made the charts in New Zealand and in Japan (reaching No. 2 there), selling an unprecedented 410,000 copies. He had his own show at the Tokyo Hilton in 1967, and was resident guitarist on Rolf Harris shows in England and Australia from 1968 to 1973. Bartlett has toured and supported many international acts including Connie Francis, Bobby Vee, The Ventures, Tom Jones, Herman's Hermits, Michael Crawford. 

Gray with Tom Jones

With so much achieved by Gray in his long musical career, one of his greatest highlights was being awarded an MBE in the 1987 Queen's New Years Honours list, for his service to entertainment.  Another was being accepted by the Chinese Government in 1986 to perform in China, a first for a New Zealand entertainer. This led to numerous concert tours, fourteen to date and the release of his albums has seen him become very popular in China, winning the "Foreign Artist of the Year" Golden Plume Award in 1987. Also that year Bartlett was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1987 New Year Honours, for services to entertainment.

His numerous awards include the NZCMA Hands of Fame in 1981, Top NZ Country Band in 1983, NZ Country Instrumentalist of the Year in 1984 and 1986, Top Country Group of the Year 1984, Country Music Industry Golden Tribute Award for services to country music in 1988, and the Guangzhou (China) Golden Plume Award for Top Foreign Artist Sales in 1988. He was named New Zealand Country Music Artist of the Year 1990, Patron of the New Zealand Country Music Association from 1987, and was New Zealand Cultural Ambassador 1985–86.

Gray with Roy Orbison

Gray's style is uniquely his own with such a diverse range of musical directions. In the mid 80's and early '90s, he recorded several very successful Country Albums including a Double Gospel Album, for which he received a Gold Album, and huge country music following came from that and others that followed. His 1990 Together Again national tour was named the Biggest Selling Concert Tour by New Zealand Artists and the companion album attained Gold status in seven days, making it the fastest selling album in New Zealand history. He has also recorded both Popular and Classical and had huge album and concert tour successes with his fellow entertainer's country music stars Brendan Dugan and Jodi Vaughan.  The trio celebrated 25 years in 2002 with a sell-out star of British TV Soap drama, Kevin Kennedy (who plays Curly Watts) who is also a recording artist.  The concerts received rave reviews and counted as another huge success for Gray who not only performed but put the concept and tour in place as well. As well as his music career, Gray was also an Auckland City Councillor for nine years until retiring from his position in 2001.

Gray's skills as a promoter in the entertainment industry have not gone unrecognized and he has been involved in touring many of the big names in show business, from Pavarotti, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Boney M from the UK, to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Band. Gray has an eye for young and talented artists, and it was he who discovered young songstress Hayley Westenra, who went on, under Gray's guidance, to have her first solo album release go triple platinum in New Zealand. Gray arranged the concept strategy, media planning, and recording contract with Universal Music (NZ) Ltd for the talented 14-year-old, which led to the fastest-selling CD in New Zealand history. Gray is Patron of the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Inc and in 2001 he received their prestigious Benny Award, the highest honour for a New Zealand entertainer.

In February 2002 Gray arranged for Hayley Westenra to appear in the McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, USA, and was able to introduce another of his talented discoveries at the same concert, 15-year-old violinist Ben Morrison. The concert was a sell-out, and Ben Morrison received a standing ovation, much to Gray's delight. Ben is now on the verge of success in the music industry following the success of his first recording in 2003. (No 15 New Zealand national charts.) Bartlett received his New Zealand Boulevard Star on the 31st March 2012.​

In October 2017 he was presented with the President's Medallion from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand in recognition of his services as Patron. Gray is in the fortunate position of not only being a success story himself but also being able to share some of his vast experience in designing the careers of new talent.  This gives him a great deal of pleasure as well as finding the time to do charity concerts for many good causes, including the SPCA, which is a favourite for him.

(Edited New Zealand Walk of Fame & Wikipedia) 

Eddie Hill born 21 July 1921

Eddie Hill (21 July 1921 - 18 Jan 1994) was an American musician, singer, songwriter and country music DJ., also often known as "Smilin' Eddie Hill."  

James Edward Hill was born in Delano, Tennessee. At the age of 17, after winning a radio contest, Eddie was given an early morning show on WROL radio in Knoxville, Tn. In the early 1940's he joined the Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round on WNOX with Chet Atkins, Roy Acuff, and June Carter and the Carter sisters, among others. 

In the mid-1940's he partnered with the Louvin brothers as well as Johnnie and Jack, and in 1948 he signed with Decca Records and made his first recordings at Castle Studios in Nashville. During this time, he played on many sessions with Kitty Wells and wrote the song "Someday, You'll Call My Name", which was a hit for Jimmy Wakely in 1949. 

                                  

By the early 1950's he moved to Memphis, where he hosted a network radio show on WMPS. Soon thereafter he was starring in Eddie Hill's Ranch on WMC-TV. As well as being a DJ, Eddie was also a prolific recording artist, recording for Decca, Mercury, RCA and Columbia. His biggest record was his rompin', stompin' 1951 hit The Hot Guitar. Also that year he recorded the song, Steamboat Stomp, with Hank Garland. His musical style was rooted in traditional country and rockabilly, and he played guitar in addition to singing. Hill always had top session men on his recordings, such as Chet Atkins and Grady Martin trading licks on Educated Fool. 

In 1952 he moved to Nashville, where he joined WSM and hosted "The Eddie Hill All-Night Show." He was the emcee for the first Grand Ole Opry telecast on WSM-TV in 1955 and soon was doing commercials for the Ralston Purina company during the Opry telecasts. By 1956 he had his own popular television show, Country Junction, which ran for eleven years on WLAC-TV. Notably, it was the first show to feature a then unknown Dolly Parton, whom he paid out of pocket to perform. 

In 1964 he appeared in the Andy Griffith film A Face in the Crowd and in Forty Acre Feud in 1965. Hill suffered a brain haemorrhage in 1968 that left him partially paralyzed, abruptly halting his career. In 1975 Hill and Grant Turner were the first living inductees into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame.

Eddie died in the St. Thomas Hospital, Tennessee on Jan. 18, 1994, aged 72.

(Edited from Find A Grave, Country Music Archive & Bear Family notes) 

Ernie Wilkins born July 20, 1922

Ernest Brooks Wilkins Jr. (July 20, 1922 – June 5, 1999) was an American jazz saxophonist, conductor and arranger who spent several years with Count Basie. He composed for Tommy Dorsey, Clark Terry, and Dizzy Gillespie. He was musical director for albums by Nat Adderley, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, and Buddy Rich.

Among the architects of big  band arrangement, heroes like Count Basie and Duke Ellington are household names, but many of the crucial background figures are known only to enthusiasts. These are the staff arrangers, the artisans who could wrap the folds of an orchestra's tonal possibilities around the graceful form of a good tune - and do it at the drop of a cigar-butt. The former Count Basie saxophonist, composer and arranger Ernie Wilkins was one of those. His work was fundamental to the rebirth of the Basie band's reputation in the 1950s.

Ernest Brooks Wilkins Jr. was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Summer High School with his brother, Jimmy Wilkins. Ernie originally learned piano and violin, and played jazz as a teenage tenor saxophonist, growing up with the fine trumpeter Clark Terry, who was later to work with both Basie and Duke Ellington. Ernie studied in Wilberforce University and eventually ended up in the navy where he played in a band with Gerald Wilson, lead by Willie Smith. After his military service, Wilkins joined piano virtuoso Earl Hines's last big band in 1948.

Count Basie

In 1949-1950, Wilkins recorded with George Hudson's band and did two sessions with backing Dinah Washington with the Teddy Stewart Orchestra. In 1951, Wilkins was introduced to Count Basie by his friend Clark Terry. The conversation took place in a steam room where Basie told Terry he was in need of an alto saxophonist; Terry immediately thought of Wilkins and reached out to him, asking him to join the band and “bring his alto,” despite Wilkins being primarily a tenor player at the time. Ernie's involvement helped Basie's band move to the top of the charts.

                                  

Wilkins kicked the whole process off by writing Every Day I Have The Blues for Basie's majestic singer Joe Williams almost as soon as he joined the orchestra. The song became a chart hit, and one of the best-selling jazz records of all time, and it put the flawless open roadster that had been the Basie band of the swing era back on the road. Following this success, Wilkins came up with Teach Me Tonight and Roll 'Em Pete for Joe Williams. Other notable songs that Wilkins created for the Basie group included “Basie Power”, “Way Out Basie”, and “Right On, Right On", as well as punchy arrangements of jazz and bebop standards. By the late 1950s, this talent was becoming widely appreciated, and he left Basie's staff to freelance for Dizzy Gillespie, Harry James, Buddy Rich and many others.

He provided the arrangements for The Count Basie/Sarah Vaughan Sessions which featured  Frank Wess, Joe Newman, Snooky Young, Billy Mitchell, Al Grey, Freddie Green and Marshal Royal, along with Jones and Foster. He also arranged music for celebrated artists like Sarah Vaughan. In 1959 Ernie Wilkins collaborated with Melba Liston to write music as she toured Europe with the musical Free and Easy in the Quincy Jones orchestra. Wilkins' impact in the 1950s big-band world was so pervasive that Basie is reported to have said to James on a joint show, "Who's going to play my arrangements first, me or you?"

In the 1960s Wilkins faced personal challenges, which included a heroin addiction that led to a temporary decline in his career. Many stopped offering him work due to his struggles, but Clark Terry continued to support him by inviting him to collaborate on several projects throughout the 1970s in his group Big B-A-D Band. In the band Wilkins became a music director and principal composer. In the band Wilkins recorded music and also featured in a four-minute solo on "One Foot in the Gutter". Wilkins remained in the band throughout the 1970s. From 1971 to 1973 Wilkins was also the head of the artists and repertory division of Mainstream Records. He was responsible for orchestral arrangements on 1972's self-titled album by Alice Clark (Mainstream Records), a highly sought-after collectible today. Wilkins eventually overcame his addiction, returning to prominence as a composer and arranger.

He moved to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1979, where he would live for the rest of his life. He began to refresh his arranging career and in 1980 assembled a 13-piece ensemble called the Almost Big Band. Ernie Wilkins and Clark Terry recorded albums in Denmark in 1980 and 1981 and at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1983. In the same year he went to Paris to record some of his compositions with an all-star line up, which included former colleagues from the Count Basie Orchestra. 

In January 1991 Wilkins visited England to conduct the Danish Radio Big Band in a performance of his works, including the recently rediscovered Suite for Jazz Band, a composition written 30 years prior. This concert in Croydon was recorded and released on the Hep label. Although his talent never diminished, his health did, and through his last years he relied on a computer to help him write. "My job is to write the best arrangements in my way, to transcribe what I thought and felt as faithfully as possible for and through the music. If it takes me a week to write four bars but in the end I get what I imagined, then that's a good result."

Ernie Wilkins passed away in his adopted Copenhagen after suffering a stroke, on June 5, 1999. He has a street named after him in southern Copenhagen, "Ernie Wilkins Vej" (Ernie Wilkins Street).

(Edited from Wikipedia, The Guardian & Independent) 

Dave Fisher born July 19, 1940

Dave Fisher (July 19, 1940 - May 7, 2010) was the lead singer, guitarist and musical director of the US folk group the Highwaymen, who enjoyed chart success in 1961 with the songs Michael, Row the Boat Ashore and The Gypsy Rover.  The group veered towards the entertainment wing of the folk boom in early 1960s America, featuring few politically radical songs. They therefore failed to survive the change in popular music during the British invasion of pop groups led by the Beatles. In any case, group members were anxious to pursue other careers, although Fisher continued to work in the music industry. For two decades, with Fisher at the helm, the Highwaymen enjoyed regular reunion concerts.

The Academics

David Louis Fisher was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and at Hillhouse High school sang with a doo-wop group, the Academics. In 1958, at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, he formed a folk music group, the Clansmen, with fellow students Bob Burnett, Steve Butts, Chan Daniels and Steve Trott. By the following year, they had a recording contract from United Artists and a manager, Ken Greengrass, who suggested a change in name. The youngsters had been unaware of the political implications of a name that appeared to ally them with the Ku Klux Klan, and a new name, the Highwaymen, was chosen, after the title of a 1906 poem by Alfred Noyes.

                                   

Their eponymous first album was released in 1960, but sold few copies. A similar fate befell a single, Santiano, and United Artists dropped the group. But an independent distributor in Connecticut pushed the single's B side, Michael, Row the Boat Ashore, renamed simply Michael, and persuaded radio DJs to play it. By the summer of 1961, it had reached No 1 in the US, Britain and 20 other countries. The song was an African-American spiritual, first recorded by Bob Gibson, and then by the Weavers, but it was the Highwaymen's version, arranged by Fisher, that really popularised the song.

Clockwise top to bottom: Steve Trott,
Chan Daniels, Bob Burnett,  Dave Fisher
& Steve Butts

Three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show on US network television and a second album, Standing Room Only, followed. The single The Gypsy Rover was also successful, both in the US and Britain, and they also achieved success with the B side, Cotton Fields, which rescued a Lead Belly song from oblivion; as a result, both the Beach Boys and Creedence Clearwater Revival covered the song.

At the time, concerts by the Highwaymen could take place only at weekends and vacations because they were still students. After graduation in 1962, they moved to Greenwich Village, New York, where they had a residency at the Gaslight Cafe. Their album from that time, One More Time, included the first recording of Buffy Sainte-Marie's Universal Soldier, later a hit for Donovan. Throughout their career, Fisher was the Highwaymen's main musical inspiration. He chose the songs, arranged them and, with a great tenor voice, was the lead singer. The other members had ambitions outside music – one of them, Steve Trott, became a federal appeals court judge, and in 1964, the Highwaymen disbanded, amicably.

With a new line-up, Fisher launched a folk trio using the same name, with himself as musical director, but he did not sing in the group. His own recordings were not a success, but after moving to Los Angeles he developed a career as a composer and arranger for films and television, including the TV series The Fall Guy, and as a studio singer and musician. He worked together with Bert Knapp, Don Costa, Glen Larson and Wayne Hagstrom aka A.B. Clyde. 

In 1990, a country music band featuring Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson called themselves the Highwaymen. Led by Trott, the original Highwaymen sued for copyright infringement, and the settlement included the original group playing support for the supergroup in Los Angeles. They had already sung at a college reunion in 1987, and this led to a touring schedule where they performed 10-12 concerts a year. In 1998 Dave married his college sweetheart Dr. Elaine Haagen and moved to Rye, New York, where they enjoyed both the New York Yankees and the cultural highlights of New York City. In their second life, the Highwaymen issued five more CDs. Fisher's solo album, Love's Way, was released in 2002. The band recorded their final studio album "The Water of Life: A Celtic Collection" in 2004 and self released two live LP's "In Concert" (2002) and "When The Village Was Green" (2007). 

They last performed together in August 2009, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts at the Guthrie Centre. Dave Fisher died May 7, 2010, at his home in Rye, N.Y. He was 69. The cause was due to the bone marrow disease myelofibrosis. Richard E. Noble, author of a book on the Highwaymen, “Number #1,” said in an interview “When he got on stage, it was like he dropped 15 years and every ailment. He was one of the great tenors of folk music, no question about it." 

Before he died Fisher was working on a book based on his and Bert Knapp's vocal training technique, also the group had been discussing a number of projects, including a PBS special and a Woodstock-like show with other performing artists. A memorial service was held in June 13 at the Clear View School in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., a treatment centre for children with emotional and mental illness where Fisher served on the board of directors.

(Edited from obit by Derek Schofield @ The Guardian, Music Museum of New England & The Highwaymen website) 

Curtis Gordon born July 18, 1927

Curtis Gordon (July 18, 1927** – May 2, 2004) was an American singer who became one of the most enduring and beloved artists of the 1950s but never got the recognition he deserved as a true crossover artist between country, Western swing, and rockabilly.

Edward Curtis Gordon was born on a farm near Moultrie, Georgia. He was heavily influenced by Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, and Jimmie Rodgers as a child. He won a radio talent show as a teen and left high school to be the lead singer of his own band, which included fiddle player Jimmy Bryant. His parents demanded that he return to school and give up the band; he did so, though he moonlighted with a band called Pee Wee Mills & the Twilight Cowboys, who operated out of Gulfport, Mississippi. He formed a new Western swing band of his own at age 21 in 1949 and starting from South Georgia and North Florida, he had enough work to keep it going.

In June 1952, a distributor of RCA Victor heard Gordon playing in a talent contest in Atlanta and recommended him to executive Steve Sholes and began recording for the label in the fall. For Gordon, who saw himself as a regional performer, landing a deal with RCA was a major break. He fit into the honky tonk sound that was in vogue at the time. However, he had little say in the material he recorded. Steve Sholes had his own ideas, seeing Gordon as a potential ballad singer. Gordon could write his own songs, but was hardly allowed to record them. One of only two exceptions was "Rompin' And Stompin'" (RCA 5356), waxed at Gordon's second RCA session, in March 1953. It was inspired by Hardrock Gunter's "Birmingham Bounce" and can be seen as pre-Elvis rockabilly. Curtis cut 16 songs for RCA, released on eight singles, but there was nothing else like "Rompin' And Stompin'" and when the RCA contract expired in November 1954, Gordon wasn't particularly bitter. His records had sold enough to keep him on the label, but nothing came even close to the national charts.

                                   

In 1952, Gordon had opened his own nightclub, the Radio Ranch, in Mobile, Alabama. He appeared on the Grand Ole Opry and supported Ernest Tubb, Elvis Presley, and Hank Snow, but no matter how much he toured, Mobile would remain his home base over the next couple of decades. 

His records sold modestly, though they never charted; he remained on RCA for two years, and when his contract expired, A&R man Dee Kilpatrick signed him to Mercury in December 1954 and for the most part, the music recorded there was more satisfying than at RCA. For one thing, many of the songs were Gordon originals, though a few songs were pushed on him. Most of his output was pure country, but on his fourth Mercury session, in March 1956, Gordon really cut loose with four self-penned rockabilly classics, "Draggin'", "Mobile, Alabama", "I'm Sittin' On Top Of the World" and "Rock, Roll Jump And Jive". The last track was surprisingly consigned to the vaults by Mercury, until it was included on a Bear Family LP in 1985. 

Though Gordon told Rich Kienzle that he never changed the way he played because of Elvis, his one and only rockabilly session with teen-slanted lyrics, slapped bass and Scotty Moore-styled lead guitar, followed a formula which owed a great deal to Presley's success. But Gordon soon returned to hard country. Gordon served briefly in the U.S. Army Special Services during 1956 at Fort McPherson, Georgia

as part of the Circle-A-Wranglers. In the mid-1950's Gordon had a weekly WALA-TV show where he was known as "Mr. Personality." As a tribute to his adopted home town he recorded "Mobile, Alabama."  After a final Mercury session in October 1957, he recorded for Dollie in 1959, and much later for his own label, Duke Of Country (circa 1978), but mostly he worked Georgia, Florida and Alabama with his own six-piece band. 

He ran a dance club in Georgia in the 1970s and returned to rockabilly performing in the 1980s as the Europeans revived it. In the mid-1990s, after more than 45 years of performing, Gordon wanted to retire from performing and the nightclub business in order to relax, but he accepted an invitation to come to Hemsby, England, for his first European gig, which was a great success. In February 1998 he was heading back to England, again amazed that European fans remembered the lyrics of old records that were ignored by the masses when they came out. His modest, warm personality and the enjoyment of what he plays made him a successful live performer. He headlined the Viva Las Vegas Festival in 2001. Until his death he performed at selected festivals and stages. Gordon died of cancer on May 2, 2004, aged 76.

Curtis Gordon with fan in the UK

Looking back in 1998, Gordon said in an interview, "I never considered myself a great singer. I'm a good showman, I like to entertain. I know how to put on a good show and I've always had a crackerjack band."  

(Edited from This Is My Story, Rockin' Country Style & Wikipedia.) (** Please note , I found out that according to the Social Security Death Index, Curtis Gordon's actual birthdate was July 18, 1927 and that it is this date inscribed on his grave stone, but all sources I have seen give July 27, 1927)