Guido Basso born 27 September 1937

Guido Basso CM (27 September 1937 – 13 February 2023) was a Canadian jazz musician who was a member of Rob McConnell's Boss Brass big band. He was a trumpeter, flugelhornist, arranger, composer, and conductor, equally proficient in jazz, pop and classical music.  

Guido Basso was born in Montreal, Quebec. He grew up in the Little Italy neighbourhood of Montreal, in an Italian-Canadian family. He began playing the trumpet at the age of nine, on which he eventually became a child prodigy after studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal. In his teens, under the name Stubby Basso, he worked in dance and show bands led by Al Nichols, Maury Kaye and others. While playing at the club El Morocco with Kaye, he was heard by American singer Vic Damone, who took him on the road in 1957–58. Basso then worked throughout North America from 1958 to 1960 with singer Pearl Bailey and the orchestra led by her husband, drummer Louis Bellson.

                    Here's "Marion's Theme" from above LP

                                   

Basso returned to Canada and settled in Toronto in 1961, instead of obtaining permanent residency in the United States and the likelihood of required enlistment in the United States Army. A full-fledged career as a studio musician ensued, parallel to which he undertook formal studies at the Royal Conservatory of Ontario. He became a first-call studio musician trumpeter and bandleader. He also took assignments as a harmonica player. Basso was music director for CBLT's Nightcap (1963–67) and for CBC-TV's Barris and Company (1968–69) and for Mallets and Brass (1969) with vibraphonist Peter Appleyard. Basso was also music director for CBC Radio's After Noon (1969–71) and led orchestras for two CBC-TV series devoted to the big band era: In the Mood (1971–72) and Bandwagon (1972–73). In 1975, he organized big band concerts at the CNE Bandshell, featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. 

One of his most outstanding performances with Amy McConnell is Portrait Of Jenny from the 1976 Jazz Album which can be heard on YouTube. He is centre stage for the eight-minute duration in an intimate statement of subtlety and lyricism. Basso performed in Toronto nightclubs and hotel lounges with his own small groups, several of which mixed jazz and Latin music. Basso was a charter member and also an important soloist with the Boss Brass, playing with the band for over twenty years. He also played in bands led by Ron Collier, Rob McConnell and Phil Nimmons. Basso was also featured in the 2009 album Norm Amadio and Friends, playing trumpet and flugelhorn accompaniments.

Basso was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1994. His citation cited him as, "an advocate of the arts and an inspiration to young musicians, he is generous with his time and talent, running workshops and clinics, and lending his name and expertise to worthy causes". He received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. Basso won the Juno Award for traditional jazz album of the year, Turn Out the Stars, in 2003. and a second Juno Award for traditional jazz album of the year, Lost in the Stars, in 2004. He also received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Despite his pre-eminence among Canadian jazz trumpeters, Basso was reticent to work in that idiom. Equally at home in the jazz, pop and classical fields, as an in-demand session musician he played on more than 200 albums. He once told Bill King in an interview: “I wanted to be a jazz musician but a better lifestyle won out. I have to be able to afford it to play jazz”. Nevertheless, Basso known for the lyricism of his flugelhorn work on jazz ballads, a reputation taken far afield by his recordings with the Boss Brass. He was equally capable of incisive trumpeting in the bebop style. He was credited with the theory that one attacks the trumpet and makes love to a flugelhorn.

Basso did not make his first real jazz recording under his own name until 1986, with Guido Basso. He followed that with collaborative efforts with Doug Riley (A Lazy Afternoon, 1997) and Dave Turner (Midnight Martini, 1997). Basso’s record Lost in the Stars won the 2004 Juno Award for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year. As a sideman, Basso appeared on some 30 recordings by the Boss Brass, as well as on more than 200 albums by such diverse performers as Anne Murray, Ian Tyson, Mel Tormé, Holly Cole, Gene Lees, Jean-Pierre Ferland, Ranee Lee, Lenny Solomon, and Oliver Jones.

Basso was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1994. His citation cited him as, "an advocate of the arts and an inspiration to young musicians, he is generous with his time and talent, running workshops and clinics, and lending his name and expertise to worthy causes". He received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. Basso won the Juno Award for traditional jazz album of the year, Turn Out the Stars, in 2003. and a second Juno Award for traditional jazz album of the year, Lost in the Stars, in 2004. He also received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. His final recording was Solstice/Equinox in 2016, with vocalist Diana Panton.

Basso was married to Kristin and had one daughter, Mia Basso Noble, who was a musician and songwriter, who died of cancer in September 2013. Basso died from natural causes in Toronto, on 13 February 2023, at age 85.

(Edited from The Canadian Encyclopedia, Jazz Journal & Wikipedia) 

Ted Greene born September 26, 1946

Theodore Greene (September 26, 1946 – July 23, 2005) was an American fingerstyle guitarist, columnist, session musician and educator based in Encino, California.

Ted was born in Los Angeles, Calif. on Sept. 26, 1946 but grew up primarily in White Plains, N.Y. where he spent most of his early musically formative years. During this time he was exposed to everything from Gershwin and show tunes at home, to rhythm & blues in the city. In 1957 at age 11 his father bought him his first guitar. Shortly afterwards he began lessons, used various guitar books and learned to read music. He was an accomplished player while still in high school, occasionally collaborating with local rock and R&B bands. He briefly studied accounting at California State University, Northridge, but dropped out to devote more time to music. 

In 1963 Ted moved back to Calif. and subsequently took a teaching position at Ernie Ball’s Guitar Shop, which after 11 years would ultimately become a private teaching practice from his home. It was during the 1960s he was a member of the rock band Natural Selection and a blues rock group called Bluesberry Jam, which included future Canned Heat drummer Fito de la Parra. He was a friend and collaborator with Joseph Byrd, on whose Columbia Masterworks album The American Metaphysical Circus he was featured (he also provided the whimsical name of the studio band who performed it, "The Field Hippies"). During the late 1960s and early 1970s he did commercial studio work with Byrd.

                                   

In April of 1965 Greene acquired his first Fender Telecaster, a 1953 that cost $135. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the Tele. Greene estimated that he owned 200 Telecasters at one point or another. “The versatility of the Telecaster is almost unmatched,” he said in an interview. While Telecasters held a special place in Green’s heart, he owned many other guitars, mostly Gibsons. His collection included a goldtop Les Paul, an ES-335, and a number of hollowbody archtops. He would also make occasional live appearances at clubs in the San Fernando Valley, usually playing a Fender Telecaster.

Meanwhile, Greene continued to gig around Los Angeles with various rock and blues acts. In 1967, he joined a group called Bluesberry Jam that featured future Canned Heat member Adolfo “Fito” de la Parra on drums. The group regularly played the Magic Mushroom club, as well as the larger Shrine Auditorium, where they supported such acts as the Doors, Iron Butterfly, Joe Cocker, and Alice Cooper. While Bluesberry Jam gained a following around the city, they never made it to the next level, and the band folded when de la Parra departed for Canned Heat. Sadly, no Bluesberry Jam recordings survive. However, Greene did record with psychedelic rocker Joe Byrd, including on Byrd’s 1969 album The American Metaphysical Circus.

Greene typically worked as a vocal accompanist, which he preferred because he found group settings restrictive. While he was a sought-after session musician, he derived much of his income from tutoring. He wrote several influential books on the subject of jazz guitar performance and theory: Chord Chemistry, Modern Chord Progressions: Jazz and Classical Voicings for Guitar, and the two-volume Jazz Guitar: Single Note Soloing. Published in 1971, Chord Chemistry became widely regarded as a foundational jazz guitar harmony known for its complex catalogue of chord voicings. His playing style included techniques such as harp-like arpeggios combined with gentle, tasteful neck vibrato, creating a "shimmer" to his sound. Other notable techniques included playing songs with a walking bass line with simultaneous melodies. Greene used counterpoint to improvise in a variety of styles, playing, for instance, a jazz standard such as Autumn Leaves in Baroque style. He used a large variety of chord voicings, often creating the effect of two simultaneous players.

In 1976 Greene began performing his first solo gigs, taking up a Sunday night residency at the Smoke House in Toluca Lake, California. Southern California guitarists flocked to hear the master perform. One frequent attendee was Greene’s friend and sometime student Leon White. Recalls White, “In the parking lot after the show I said to him, ‘We have to record that. You don't have to prepare anything. Just come and sit down and play.’ We ended up having that same discussion in the Smoke House parking lot for two years. He just didn’t want to do it!” Ultimately, White’s persistence won the day, and Greene went into the studio with White and friend William Perry. Over the course of roughly 10 hours spread out over two days, Greene sat alone in the studio, playing almost continuously. There was no game plan, not even a song list—just Greene playing whatever came to mind. The result was Solo Guitar, a breathtakingly beautiful set of standards played as only Ted Greene could play them. The album received near-universal praise.

Green was called on in 1977 to provide guitar tablature for three arrangements of Bix Beiderbecke's piano music for the Ry Cooder album Jazz, which Joseph Byrd arranged and produced. Greene ceased writing instructional books after 1979, though he continued teaching and learning. For the rest of his life, he coached aspiring guitarists at his home, at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, and at seminars throughout Southern California. He stopped playing solo gigs, too—reportedly because he disliked the way guitar players would scrutinize his technique and execution on the guitar rather than soaking in the music he drew from the instrument.

Greene died in his Encino El Dorado apartment of a heart attack on July 23, 2005, at age 58. Approximately 700 people attended his memorial, nearly all of them guitarists. Greene had many loves in his life: baseball cards, fast cars, and his partner Barbara Franklin. But above all else, he loved music and teaching. In 2009 Barbara Franklin wrote the biography My Life with The Chord Chemist: A Memoir of Ted Greene, Apotheosis of Solo Guitar. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Premier Guitar) 

Shel Silverstein born September 25, 1930

Shel Silvertsein (September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer, cartoonist, songwriter, and musician.

Sheldon Allan Silverstein was born and raised in Chicago. His father, Nathan, was a Jewish immigrant from Russia, and his mother, Helen, was born in Chicago to a Hungarian-Jewish family. They ran a bakery that fared poorly, having been opened during the Great Depression. He grew up in the Albany Park neighbourhood of Chicago but spent summers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at his family's summer home in Chicago, he attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. He then attended the University of Illinois for one semester and was enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts for one semester before being drafted into the U.S. Army (1949-1955) . 

Shel & Hugh Hefner

He served in Japan and Korea and contributed to the armed forces periodical Pacific Stars and Stripes. On his return home, he established himself as a cartoonist and writer with Playboy and befriended the magazine's owner, Hugh Hefner. His cartoons became one of Playboy’s hallmarks. Many of his songs reflect a hedonistic lifestyle and, as the record producer Chet Atkins remarked, "Ol' Shel has probably got the worst voice of anyone alive, but he's also got the run of the Playboy mansion and I'm not knocking anybody with a deal like that."

Shel with Johnny Cash

Silverstein recorded Inside Folk Music in 1962. His first children's book, Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio, the Lion who Shot Back, appeared in 1963, joined the following year by The Giving Tree - about a tree that gives up its branches, fruit and even its trunk to make a boy happy. In 1969 he passed Johnny Cash a poem the day before he was due to give a concert in San Quentin prison. Cash asked Carl Perkins to set it to music and the result was a million-selling saga of transvestites and bar- room fights, "A Boy Named Sue". Cash also sang Silverstein's witty song about the condemned cell, "Twenty-Five Minutes To Go", while Loretta Lynn topped the US country chart with his song about the restrictions of motherhood, "One's On the Way" (1970). In 1970, he wrote several songs for the film Ned Kelly.

                        

Silverstein met Dr Hook and the Medicine Show whilst working on a Dustin Hoffman film, Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying These Terrible Things about Me? (1971). The film was every bit as bad as its title but Silverstein realised that the outlandish hippies of Dr Hook were the perfect mouthpiece for his material. "Sylvia's Mother," is a good example of an over-the-top romantic lament that reached number five on the charts. They recorded 60 of Silverstein's acutely observed vignettes of American life. He parodied the group's desire for success in "The Cover of Rolling Stone" and "Everybody's Makin' It Big But Me".

The group backed Silverstein on his outrageous solo album, Freakin' at the Freakers Ball (1972), and the titles match the contents such as "Polly in a Porny", and "I Got Stoned and I Missed It". Silverstein gave Dr Hook a poignant song about the pressures of modern life, "The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan", which was also recorded successfully by Marianne Faithfull. In "A Couple More Years", which has been sung by Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, he wrote of an older man's love for his girlfriend, and in "More Like The Movies", another hit for Dr Hook in 1978, of the difficulties of satisfying a partner.

Though he became a millionaire, Silverstein never owned a car, and looked for bargains in flea markets. When he found an album by Bobby Gosh, he offered one of the songs, "A Little Bit More", to Dr Hook with the comment, "This is a great song even though no one's ever heard it." In 1973 he wrote an album, Lullabys, Legends and Lies, for the country singer Bobby Bare in four days. It included a country hit about the witch queen of New Orleans, "Marie Laveau", how you lose even when you're "The Winner", and an eight-minute picture of grotesque characters in a late- night diner, "Rosalie's Good Eats Cafe". He went on to write two more albums for Bare in quick succession: one of children's songs, Singin' in the Kitchen (1974) and one of "Songs for the New Depression", Hard Time Hungrys (1975). In "Daddy's Been Around the House Too Long" a child comments on her father's unemployment, and even God is in "The Unemployment Line".

Many other classic songs stem from the 1970s including Emmylou Harris's portrayal of a bar-room prostitute, "The Queen of the Silver Dollar", Tompall Glaser's response to Women's Lib, "Put Another Log on the Fire", and Burl Ives' touching look at old age, "Time". Silverstein commented on the hypocrisy behind Nashville's tributes to the bluegrass musician Lester Flatt, in Bobby Bare's "Rough On The Living": "They didn't want him around when he's living, But he's sure a good friend when he's dead."

A restless man, Silverstein tired of writing songs and returned to children's books and cartoons. His books include Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), The Missing Piece (1976), and A Light in the Attic (1981). His poems share the same anarchic spirit as Spike Milligan: "Oh, if you're a bird, be an early bird, And catch the worm for your breakfast plate, If you're a bird, be an early early bird, But if you're a worm, sleep late." His epic poem about a bad songwriter making Faustian deals, The Devil and Billy Markham (1978), became an off-Broadway musical.

Shel Silverstein's heart disease made him view death as a subject for popular songs. The remarkable result, Old Dogs (1998), performed by Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare, Mel Tillis and Jerry Reed, happens to be his funniest album for several years. During his lifetime, Silverstein was described variously as a world traveller and a free spirit but also as a recluse and workaholic. Silverstein died at the age of 68 from a massive heart attack in his two-story Conch house, Key West, Monroe County, Florida. He was found by his cleaning maids, sitting up in bed with the notes and drafts of the next project around him. He was buried in the Westlawn Cemetery, Norridge, Illinois. He was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2014.

(Edited from The Independent obit by Spencer Leigh, Wikipedia & Tampa Bay Times) 

Anthony Newley born 24 September 1931

Anthony Newley (24 September 1931 – 14 April 1999) was an English actor, director, comedian, singer, and composer. A "latter-day British Al Jolson", he achieved widespread success in song, and on stage and screen.

Born to a single mother in the East London working-class neighbourhood of Hackney, Newley was evacuated during the bombing of London and was thereby exposed to the performing arts when he was tutored during this time by George Pescud, a former music-hall entertainer. Though recognized as very bright by his teachers back in London, he was uninterested in school, and by the age of fourteen was working as an office boy when he read an ad for "boy actors." After an audition, he was offered a job including free tuition at the prestigious Italia Conti Stage School. He accepted and his career was launched. 

Petula Clark & Anthony Newley 1947

He first appeared as a child actor in the film serial Dusty Bates (a.k.a. The Adventures of Dusty Bates, 1947) which launched his career. This was followed by The Little Ballerina and Vice Versa; in 1948 he starred as the Artful Dodger in David Lean's acclaimed adaptation of Oliver Twist. In 1955 Newley made his theatrical debut in the revue Cranks, with close to two dozen more onscreen character roles. During the 1950s, Newley made twenty-seven movies for J. Arthur Rank, many of them in the United States, "comfortably transitioning from child to adult actor".  He was under contract for many years to Warwick Productions who built him into a star. 

He also had to spend two years in the UK military in what was then called "national service". In 1959 he starred as a rock 'n' roll star in Idle on Parade; the feature's soundtrack EP launched the hit ballad "I've Waited So Long," the first in a string of seven U.K. Top Ten hits between 1959 and 1961 including "Personality," "Pop Goes the Weasel," "If She Should Come to You" and the chart-toppers "Why" and "Do You Mind." In 1960, Newley issued his debut LP Love Is a Now and Then Thing, followed a year later by Tony.

                                   

During  the 1960’S he also added his greatest accomplishments on the London and Broadway stage, in Hollywood films, and British and United States television. With collaborator Leslie Bricusse, Newley wrote the book, music and lyrics for the 1961 stage musical Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!; he also directed and starred as Littlechap. The production was a major success, running in London's West End for over 16 months before appearing on Broadway for some 500 performances; adapted by Hollywood in 1966, it also launched the hits "What Kind of Fool Am I?," "Once in a Lifetime" and "Gonna Build a Mountain." 

After recording the 1963 comedy album Fool Brittania with wife Joan Collins and Peter Sellers, Newley and Bricusse wrote the theme to the James Bond entry Goldfinger before mounting their next musical, 1965's The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd; Newley later starred on Broadway in the lead role, although the production did not equal the success of Stop the World. Upon appearing with Rex Harrison in the 1967 film musical Doctor Doolittle, Newley directed and starred in 1969's Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? 

In the 1970s he remained active, particularly as a Las Vegas and Catskills resort performer, but his career had begun to flounder. He had taken risks that eventually led to his downfall in Hollywood.  After the 1978 LP The Singer and His Songs and the musical film Sammy Stops the World, Newley spent the majority of the 1980s away from music, accepting only small roles in projects like a 1982 PBS production of Alice in Wonderland, the 1983 TV miniseries Malibu and the reviled 1987 feature The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. 

Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newley

In 1989 he helmed a short-lived London revival of Stop the World, I Want to Get Off! Newley's vocal style has been recognised as a major influence on that of the early David Bowie. In recognition of his creative skills and body of work, Newley was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989 with his long-time collaborator Leslie Bricusse. In his later years as a mature singer Newley recorded songs from Fiddler on the Roof and Scrooge. He enjoyed his final popular success onstage when he starred in the latter musical in London and Birmingham in the 1990s. He mounted a theatrical anthology of his past material titled Once Upon a Song, and later continued performing the material in a cabaret act. 

Ill health had plagued the star for many years. He was first diagnosed with renal cell cancer in 1985, and had one kidney removed. The cancer returned in 1997, this time attacking his lungs, then spreading to his liver. One of the final television acting appearances for the renowned English actor, singer, and songwriter was in 1998 when he took a small role in BBC soap EastEnders. Speaking once about his illness, he said: "When they told me I had a growth on my left kidney I had  a bet with the surgeon. 'A dollar that it's not malignant', I said. "Before they wheeled me into the operating theatre they pinned a dollar on my gown. It had gone when I finally came round. That's when I knew I'd lost the bet." Cancer finally claimed his life on 14th April, 1999 at his home in Jensen Beach, Florida. He was 67.

Anthony and his mother

Newley married and divorced three times. In 1956, he first married Elizabeth Ann Lynn, and the marriage was dissolved in 1963. The same year he married Joan Collins; and they divorced in 1971. In 1989, he divorced his third wife, air hostess Dareth Dunn. At the time of Newley's demise, he was survived by his mother, Grace, age 96 (with whom he lived in Surrey since 1992 after 22 years living in the U.S.), and four children, a boy (Sasha) and a girl (Tara) with Joan Collins, and another boy (Christopher) and girl (Shelby) with Dareth Dunn. His third wife, Dareth Newley Dunn, described him as "a dear, sweet, loving friend and father, consummate performer and ultimate composer".

(Edited from Wikipedia & Find-a-Grave) 

Stud Cole born 23 November 1943

Stud Cole (23 November 1943 - 23 June 1997) was a singer and songwriter.

Better known as Stud Cole, Patrick Anthony Tirone was born in Buffalo, New York. He recorded first as Patrick Tyrone ('It Ain't Right', 1963), then as Virgil Trucks and the Noblemen ('The Witch', 1964) and as Virgil Trux ('I Don't Want To Go' and 'I'm Glad', 1966). 

                               Here's "It Ain't Right" from 1963

                                   

His best work was an eleven-track LP that he recorded as Stud Cole, with all songs credited to P.A. Tirone. The album, released on his own Pacific Atlantic Tribune-label (P.A.T.) in 1968, was sent to radio stations but nothing happened after which Stud Cole left the music business, disillusioned.

He has been described as “Jack Starr meets Johnny Kidd,” “a lysergic Conway Twitty” and “Elvis fronting the ’66 Yardbirds” but his stand-alone uniqueness is quite notable and its a wonder why he never became more well known. Tirone was a bartender that seemed to like Elvis and wanted to just make a rock and roll record. He never played live and just got a bunch of teens to be his band and record these strange lo-fi sounds. Once it was done he just went back to being a bartender. His fusion of 60’s rock and gritty country still sounds years ahead of its time, his seductive singing style both alluring and skittish with its contrasting soft undertones and rough-round-the-edges quality.

Beyond his brief recording history, virtually no reliable public records exist detailing his real full name, birth/death dates, or life after music. Like many regional rockabilly performers of the era, he faded into obscurity shortly after his records were pressed. He died 23 June 1997 in Los Angeles, California.

(Very scarce information edited from The Listening Post, Discogs & Dan Lovrenski @Facebook)

Oscar McLollie born September 22, 1924

Oscar McLollie (September 22, 1924 – July 4, 2008) was an American jump blues  baritone singer, congo player and orchestra leader who was one of the missing links between jump blues and rock 'n' roll. For someone who had only one modest hit, he had a lot of influence with many of his records being covered by other artists who enjoyed greater success.

He was born Oscar Mack Lollie in Kelly, Caldwell Country, Louisiana. In the armed forces during World War II, Oscar sang in a quartet called The Bullets, putting on USO shows for fellow servicemen. After the war, he made his way to Los Angeles, the location where he would make all of his recordings. He sang in local jump blues bands before being recruited by Mercury Records, for a short time, as their West Coast A&R man for black music. In 1951 he also recorded the song "I'm Hurt." 

After his short stay at Mercury Records, McLollie started to record for Leon Rene and his son Rafael, also known as Googie. They had just set up a new label, Class Records, after the bankruptcy of Exclusive Records, but decided to make a quiet start and struck an arrangement with the Bihari brothers to release the Class masters on Modern Records. Leon Rene would be Oscar's manager, producer and chief songwriter (often using his pseudonym Jimmie Davis) throughout his recording career. McLollie's first release under this arrangement was "The Honey Jump" (Parts 1 & 2, 1953), credited (as would be all of his Modern records) to Oscar McLollie and his Honey Jumpers. 

Though not yet quite rock 'n' roll, it has many elements of the genre. Two saxes try to out-honk each other, while the piano man is pounding away on the 88 keys. Wild stuff. The song was covered by the Sauter-Finnigan Orchestra on RCA and by Jackie & Roy with Charlie Ventura on Coral. McLollie's follow-up, the witty "All That Oil In Texas", was outsold by a cover version by Ralph Marterie on Mercury. For Christmas 1953, Leon Rene wrote the old-fashioned "God Gave Us Christmas", which failed to catch on, but after the holidays, the swinging flip, "Lolly Pop" (written by Googie Rene), started to make noise for Oscar. 

                                    

It was covered by none other than Louis Jordan for his final Decca date. The year 1954 saw several good up-tempo releases by McLollie, like "Mama Don't Like", "What You Call 'em Joe" and "Wiggle Toe", but with no commercial success. "Love Me Tonight"" became Oscar's only UK release, on the London label.  "God Gave Us Christmas" was reissued by the Biharis for the 1954 Yuletide season, this time with a jumping B-side, "Dig That Crazy Santa Claus", hoping to appeal to the growing teenage market.

By 1955, Oscar and his Honey Jumpers were in heavy demand as live performers. More Modern singles were released in that year, among them was the ballad "Convicted", with an upbeat B-side, "Roll Hot Rod, Roll". The single, promoted by DJ Alan Freed, became McLollie's biggest seller on the Modern label and won him a slot on the Hunter Hancock TV show. The latter starts off with a "One for the money" chorus that resembles the one that Carl Perkins would use to kick off "Blue Suede Shoes" a few months later. "Convicted" (his biggest seller on Modern) showed that McLollie was also a fair ballad crooner and was covered by Lu Ann Sims and Gene O'Quin. It was also recorded by Dale Hawkins, whose version remained unissued until 1998.

After an interval at Mercury, Oscar was reunited with Leon Rene on his reactivated Class label. It was here that he scored his only (pop) hit, a duet with Jeanette Baker, "Hey Girl, Hey Boy" backed by Googie René's band, reached number 61 on the Billboard pop chart. However, it was not successfully followed up. The tune was covered by Louis Prima and Keely Smith and turned into the title of one of their movies. Later, McLollie continued to perform in cabaret in Los Angeles. Reportedly, he also spent some time in the Philippines, where he appeared in low-budget martial arts movies. 

In the 1960s, Oscar Lollie met Anna Margaret McCabe in Los Angeles, California; they married and had two daughters. In the late 1960s McLollie took his career in a new direction, moving his family north to Canada and settling in the Chilliwack Valley of British Columbia. His first Canadian release was the 1970 single So Pleasing Loving You b/w As Long As You Care at All on the New Syndrome label, a soulful and contemporary track that showed him at ease with modern funk stylings. A year later he issued Chilliwack Valley b/w She’s a Child on 6th Avenue Records, a heartfelt tribute to his new home in the Fraser Valley.

The culmination of his Canadian period was a self-titled LP on Big 3 Records in 1973. For these sessions McLollie drew upon the city’s finest studio musicians: keyboardist Robbie King, bassist Doug Edwards, drummer Kat Hendrikse, guitarists Terry Frewer and Ed Patterson, saxophonists Wayne Kozak and Steve Douglas, and horn players Bob Rerick and Don Clark. Their presence gave McLollie’s Canadian work a polish and groove that reflected the very best of the city’s studio sound in the early 1970s. After Oscar and Anna divorced in the 1970s, he returned to California. He continued performing in lounges in the Pacific Northwest and California before fading from prominence.

He died in Oakland, California, in 2008 aged 83 years.

(Edited from Wikipedia, This Is My Story & The Museum Of Canadian Music)

Jesse Ed Davis born September 21, 1944

Jesse Ed Davis (September 21, 1944 – June 22, 1988) was a Native American guitarist who was well regarded as a session artist and solo performer. He played for some of the biggest music stars of all time yet his incredible highs and tragic lows have often been overlooked.

Jesse Ed Davis III  was born in Norman, Oklahoma. His father, Jesse Edwin "Bus" Davis II, was a citizen of the Comanche Nation and a Muskogee and Seminole descendant. He was a graphic designer for the military, as well as a fine artist. His mother, who was the first Kiowa woman to earn a bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University, taught piano. A sad event in Davis’s family wound up cementing his commitment to the guitar. When he turned 15, his grandfather died. The family honoured the Kiowa tradition of observing a year of mourning, and Davis used that quiet time to hone his skills. Later, he broadened his sound by playing with scores of local bands in Oklahoma City and surrounding areas. In 1966 one of his bands The New Breed recorded a single "He's Just Another Bird Dog."

After graduating from college, Davis’s first professional gig was with Conway Twitty’s band playing rockabilly-country. That opportunity led him to California. For eight years, he lived in Marina del Rey with his companion, Patti Daley, and her son, Billy. Through his friendship with Levon Helm, he became friends with Leon Russell, who introduced him to recording session work. Davis joined Taj Mahal and played guitar and piano on Mahal's first four albums. He played slide, lead and rhythm, country and even jazz during his three-year stint with Mahal. In a 1967 gig, Mahal played with a young Duane Allman in attendance, and Davis' slide guitar playing on Statesboro Blues that night would ignite Allman's interest in the technique. Mahal and his band were later invited to England by the Rolling Stones, and they appeared as a musical guest in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.

                                  

He played in the "electric" disc of Mahal's double album Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home (1969) and appeared in two songs of his fourth album Happy Just to Be Like I Am (1971). In 1970, Davis played on and produced Roger Tillison's only album for Atco Records, a division of Atlantic. Roger Tillison's Album was recorded live. It was finally released on CD by Wounded Bird Records in 2008, with Davis playing electric guitar, bottleneck (slide) guitar and banjo. In 1971, Davis recorded his first solo album after Atco Records signed a contract with him to record two albums with the label. The first was the album ¡Jesse Davis! (1971), which featured backing vocals by Gram Parsons and performances by Leon Russell and Eric Clapton, among others.

Davis was close friends with Gene Clark. In 1971, he played on and produced Clark's second solo album, White Light, and provided lead guitar on Clark's album No Other in 1974. On Jackson Browne's 1972 debut album, Davis played the electric guitar solo on Browne's hit song "Doctor, My Eyes". After guesting with Russell on Bob Dylan's 1971 singles "Watching the River Flow" and “When I Paint My Masterpiece”, and collaborating in Albert King’s Lovejoy, Davis went on to work with George Harrison, performing at the ex-Beatle's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, along with Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Russell, Keltner, Clapton and others.

Two more solo albums followed: in 1972 Ululu, which included the original release of Harrison's "Sue Me, Sue You Blues", and in 1973 Keep Me Comin, occasionally listed as Keep On Coming. Around this time, Davis began playing with John Lennon, for whom he played lead guitar on the albums Walls and Bridges (1974) and Rock 'n' Roll (1975). In addition, Davis was a guest performer on other albums by former Beatles: Harrison's Extra Texture (1975) and Starr's Goodnight Vienna (1974) and Ringo's Rotogravure (1976). In the late summer and fall of 1975, he performed with the Faces as second guitarist throughout their final US tour. It was on this tour that Davis became addicted to drugs.

Jesse with The Faces

That part of his life became much more serious. The session bassist Bob Glaub once said that “the Jesse who left for that tour was not the same Jesse that returned. He came back a junkie.” After the Faces tour, Davis continued to work as a session player. In addition to the artists already mentioned, Davis contributed to albums by Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Keith Moon, Steve Miller, Guthrie Thomas, Harry Nilsson, Ry Cooder, David Cassidy, Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond, Rick Danko, Van Dyke Parks and others. He played on Leonard Cohen's Death of a Ladies' Man (1977), produced by Phil Spector.

In 1977, Davis moved to Hawaii. In 1981, he returned to Los Angeles broke and ravaged by drugs and alcohol. In and out of clinics, Davis disappeared from the music industry for a time, spending much of the 1980s dealing with his addiction. But by 1985 he formed and played in the Graffiti Band, which coupled his music with the poetry of the Native American activist John Trudell (American Indian Movement). The result of this collaboration was the album, released initially only on cassette, called AKA Grafitti Man, which Bob Dylan called the best album of the year.

In the spring of 1987, the Graffiti Band performed with Taj Mahal at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood, California. At this show, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and John Fogerty got up from the audience to join Davis and Mahal in an unrehearsed set which included Fogerty's "Proud Mary" and Dylan's "Watching the River Flow", as well as classics such as "Blue Suede Shoes", "Peggy Sue", "Honey Don't", "Matchbox" and "Gone, Gone, Gone".

In his last years, he served as drug and alcohol counsellor at the American Indian Free Clinic in Long Beach. Davis collapsed in the laundry room of an apartment building and was pronounced dead in Venice, Los Angeles, California, on June 22, 1988. Police stated that his death appeared to be the result of a drug overdose. Davis had a fresh needle mark on one arm and burned matches and tin foil were scattered on the ground nearby. He was 43 years old. 

In 2002, Davis was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. In 2018, Jesse Ed Davis was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame at the 18th Annual Native American Music Awards. A performance tribute was held by his former Graffiti band members. His cousins Richenda Davis Bates and Constance Davis Carter accepted the induction.

(Edited from Wikipedia & The Guardian)