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!

Tommy McCook born 3 March 1927

Tommy McCook OD (3* March 1927 – 5 May 1998) was a Jamaican saxophonist. A founding member of The Skatalites, he also directed The Supersonics for Duke Reid, and backed many sessions for Bunny Lee or with The Revolutionaries at Channel One Studios in the 1970s.He was among the most innovative and influential Jamaican musicians of his generation, a prime catalyst behind the evolution and international popularity of ska and reggae. 

Thomas Matthew McCook was born March 4, 1927. While some sources claim he was born to Jamaican parents in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Jamaica in 1933, others claim that he was born in Kingston, Jamaica. He was raised by his mother, who worked in the kitchen of a beachfront music club in Kingston. There, McCook sometimes watched bands rehearse, an experience he later cited as fostering an early interest in music. 

                                    

He began learning the tenor saxophone at age eleven, after his mother enrolled him at the Alpha Cottage School in 1938. McCook joined Eric Deans' Orchestra in 1943 after Deans selected him from the graduating class at the Alpha School. He spent several years playing in various groups, including Don Hitchman’s sextet and Roy Coburn’s Blu-Flames. 

In 1954, he left for an engagement in Nassau, Bahamas, after which he ended up in Miami, Florida, and it was here that McCook first heard John Coltrane, a major influence on his playing. McCook would later call jazz his "first love" and additionally cite Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, and Ornette Coleman as influences. 

The Skatalites

McCook returned to Jamaica in early 1962, where he was approached by a few local producers to do some recordings. Eventually, he consented to record a jazz session for Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, which was issued on the album Jazz Jamaica. His first ska recording was an adaptation of Ernest Gold's "Exodus", recorded in November 1963 with musicians who would soon make up the Skatalites. Though they only existed for 14 months, the Skatalites were the quintessential ska band of their time, backing every major vocalist and producing an astounding amount of prime instrumental material. 

The Supersonics

In the wake of the group's demise, McCook founded the Supersonics, who were soon installed as the house band at Duke Reid's Treasure Isle studio; the most sought-after studio of the rocksteady era, they appeared on classic hits from artists including Alton Ellis, Justin Hinds, and the Techniques. The Supersonics featured bassist Jackie Jackson and drummer Paul Douglas, who would later become the rhythm section for Toots and the Maytals.

During the 1960s and 1970s, McCook recorded with the majority of prominent reggae artists of the era, working particularly with producers Clement "Coxsone" Dodd as well as Bunny Lee, and his house band, The Aggrovators, as well as being featured prominently in the recordings of Yabby You and the Prophets (most notably on version sides and extended disco-mixes), all while still performing and recording with the variety of line ups under the Skatalites name. 

In 1975, McCook was honored with Jamaica's Order of Distinction for his contributions to music. In 1997, The Slackers paid tribute to McCook with "Cooking for Tommy," an instrumental track on their album Redlight. In 1978, Tommy McCook made a brief cameo in the film Rockers directed by Theodoros Bafaloukos. He was also part of the Rockers All Stars, the group responsible for the film's instrumental music. 

In 1983 he re-formed the Skatalites nearly two decades after their initial breakup, relocating them to the U.S. in 1985 just months after the release of their comeback album, Return of the Big Guns. A series of new releases from the Skatalites followed in the years to come, and they even notched a pair of Grammy nominations. In 1994 they mounted their first world tour, which included appearances as part of the Skavoovee U.S.A. tour, a package that included their descendants the Specials, the Selecter, and the Toasters. 

After a heart attack in 1995, McCook temporarily withdrew from touring with the reformed Skatalites, a change which became permanent in 1996. He recorded on the band's albums through the mid-1990s until a triple-bypass surgery kept him from the Ball of Fire (1997) sessions. 

McCook died of pneumonia and heart failure at his home in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 5, 1998, at the age of 71. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic) (* some sources give 4th March others give just the year)

 

Norman Wade born 2 March 1946

Norman Wade (March, 2, 1946 – December, 2021) was an American Country singer and songwriter. 

Norman Wade has been a country music cult hero to thousands of fans throughout the world, yet little is known of Wade’s early years, except that he was born Norman Robert Stevenson in Columbus, Georgia, USA., and developed an interest in country music as a child. He was particularly attracted to the music of Hank Williams.

 As a teenager he learnt to play the guitar and lived and worked in Louisiana. Whilst employed at the local Winn Dixie Store he helped to open other stores in Lafayette, Morgan City, New Iberia and New Orleans. At night he would pick and sing country songs in the few night spots that hadn’t given way to rock & roll music at that time.   

                                    

In 1959, he relocated to Nashville where he first encountered Marty Robbins playing a steel guitar in an Opry dressing room, but at the time didn’t know who he was. Wade answered Marty’s inquiries by saying that he had come to Nashville to write songs and was staying at the YMCA. Marty, who became Wade’s biggest influence, offered him a job that led to his working for the star for the next 15 years, including appearances with him on the Grand Ole Opry (Robbins later even played dobro on some tracks on Wade’s Pure Country). 

Wade first recorded in 1959, and cut a number of singles over the years before "going solo" in the '70s, when he started to record albums of his own.It was in 1978 that he achieved minor success with ‘Close Every Honky Tonk’. Although he continued to record and achieved some local chart successes, his only Billboard entry was a 1979 recording of Hank Williams’ ‘I’m A Long Gone Daddy’. 

The initial response to his career started off in the Deep South. Like an established superstar, folks hearing him for the first time started calling the radio stations to hear more of his records, and they would pack the night clubs to see and hear him perform.  Wade had written many songs and excelled at recording honky-tonk numbers. He played in all parts of the United States and also at the Opry in his own right. In 1984, he was honoured with lifetime membership of the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Festival in Meridian, Mississippi. 

He remained active but, like Vernon Oxford, his ability to sing in the style of Hank Williams and his love for the down-home country sound of fiddle and steel guitar meant that he was probably born 10 years too late to gain the proper acclaim his ability merits. 

According to Praguefrank’ s Country Music Discographies Norman Wade died  during December 2021. 

(Edited from scant information from All Muisc and LP liner notes)

Here's a short clip of Norman from You Tube.