Edwin Birdsong born August 22, 1941

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

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

                                   

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

Birdsong with Stevie Wonder

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

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

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

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

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

Tommy Reilly born August 21, 1919

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

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

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

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

                                   

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scotty McKay born 20 August 1940

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

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

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

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

                                  

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

Ron Chapman

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

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

Scotty May Quintet

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

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

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

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

 

Johnny Nash born August 19, 1940

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

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

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

Bob Marley & Johnny Nash

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

                                  

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

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

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

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

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

(Edited from The Guardian, Wikipedia & AllMusic) 

Sonny Til born August 18, 1925

 Sonny Til (August 18, 1925 – December 9, 1981), was  the lead singer of The Orioles, a vocal group from Baltimore, Maryland, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. By 1960 Til was the only original member left. He led the Orioles from its establishment until his death in 1981.

Sonny Til was born Earlington Carl Tilghman, in Baltimore, Maryland. He picked up the nickname "Sonny" from his favourite record as a child: Al Jolson's "Sonny Boy". From the start, Sonny knew he wanted to be an entertainer. During the War, Sonny enlisted on October 29, 1943, two months after his eighteenth birthday. He did a lot of Special Services work: singing and entertaining. But when he was with his combat unit overseas he was  a smoke layer in the Chemical Corps. He was discharged on April 4, 1946. After working in a rubber heel factory then as delivery truck driver he began to sing  regularly in amateur shows billed at clubs with every possible variant of "Sonny", "Earl", "Til", and "Tilghman" until 1947 at the Avenue Cafe in Baltimore, where he met George Nelson, Alexander Sharp and guitarist Tommy Gaither. 

They decided to form a group, calling themselves The Vibra-Naires. They came to the attention of Deborah Chessler, a local merchant who also wrote songs; she would write some of the group's subsequent hits. Chessler became the band's manager and she was able to get the Vibra-Naires a spot on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts television show in April 1948. Although the group lost to pianist George Shearing, they caught the eye of Jerry Blaine, a New York record company executive, while they were in town for the program.

                                  

Blaine signed the group to his newly created It's a Natural record label and changed their name to the Orioles, in honour of the state bird of Maryland and in emulation of another popular group, The Ravens. The band cut "It's Too Soon to Know," a ballad written by Chessler, with Sonny Til taking lead vocals. In the late summer of 1948, But shortly after the single's release, National Records complained about the name of Blaine's new label, so he re-released the song on Jubilee Records. "It's Too Soon to Know" became a number one R&B hit and crossed over to number 13 on the pop charts. At the time of its release, no Black group had managed to cross over to the pop charts with what was then known as a "race" record. The Orioles immediately followed the success of their debut single with the seasonal "(It's Gonna Be A) Lonely Christmas," which reached the R&B Top Ten at the end of 1948.

The Orioles then began touring widely. "Tell Me So" became the Orioles' second number one R&B hit in the spring of 1949, beginning a streak of six R&B hit singles that year. In addition to "Tell Me So," the group charted with "A Kiss and a Rose" (number 12, late summer), "I Challenge Your Kiss" (number 11, fall), "Forgive and Forget" (number five, fall), a re-released "(It's Gonna Be A) Lonely Christmas" (number five, winter), and the B-side of "Lonely Christmas," "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" (number nine, winter). In performance, The Orioles were a phenomenon, with girls in the audiences screaming, fainting, and attempting to reach their idol Sonny Til in particular. They differed from groups like the Mills Brothers and the Delta Rhythm Boys in that they made vocal music with limited orchestration and accompanied only with the guitar of Tommy Gaither and the bass Johnny Reed. From 1948 to 1954, they cut over 120 sides for the Natural and Jubilee labels. By late 1950 they were major stars, although their supply of hit records had dried up.

Following their peak year of 1949, the group ran into tragedy. In 1950, Gaither, Nelson, and Reed suffered an automobile accident that killed Gaither and severely injured the other two members; Nelson quit the group later in the year. As Reed recovered, the group found replacements for Gaither and Nelson, finally settling on guitarist Ralph Williams and vocalist Gregory Carroll. The new lineup of the band had its first hit in 1952, when "Baby Please Don't Go" reached number eight on the R&B charts. The following year, the group had their biggest hit with "Crying in the Chapel." Released in the summer of 1953, "Crying in the Chapel" spent five weeks on the R&B charts and reached number 11 on the pop charts, eventually going gold; Elvis Presley had a hit with the song 12 years later. Toward the end of the year, the group had another Top Ten R&B hit with "In the Mission of St. Augustine." The single would turn out to be their last hit.

In 1954, the Orioles began to splinter, as Sharp and Reed left to join the Ink Spots. Til assembled a new lineup, but the group didn't get much attention. In spite of his involvement with a group, Sonny started recording as a soloist in 1969 for RCA. Five singles (including two one-sided DJ discs) resulted over the next couple of years, and an album ("Sonny Til Returns") in 1970. Sonny continued to lead many different incarnations of the Orioles, performing concerts and re-recording the group's old hits.

During the final years of his life, Sonny was plagued with health problems. In 1980, diabetes caused him to have part of his left foot amputated. In spite of this, he continued to perform, on crutches, and as  leader of his sixth group of Orioles he released an album on Ivory in 1981 that had the strange title "Sonny Til And The Orioles Visit Manhattan Circa 1950's." The songs included many 1940s and 1950s standards. This was his last recording. He died from  a massive heart attack, in Washington, D.C., on December 9, 1981. He was 56. 

In 1995, 40 years after the original line-up of the group disbanded, the Orioles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia &  Marv Goldberg's R&B Notebooks) (also thanks to Marv for the loan of most of the photographs.)

Luther Allison born August 17, 1939

Luther Sylvester Allison (August 17, 1939 – August 12, 1997) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.

Luther Sylvester Allison was born on August 18, 1939, in Widener, Arkansas, the fourteenth of 15 children. He was the 14th of 15 children and his father and brothers worked in the cottonfields. Allison was interested in music as a child and during the late 1940s he and several of his siblings sang and toured in a family gospel group called The Southern Travellers. He moved with his family to Chicago in 1951 and attended Farragut High School where he was classmates with Muddy Waters' son. He taught himself guitar and began listening to blues extensively. Three years later he dropped out of school and began hanging around outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being invited to perform. One of his older brothers, Ollie, soon began working as a guitarist on Chicago's booming South Side blues scene. By the middle of his teens, Allison was good enough to sit in with his brother's band on club dates.

From 1954, Allison jammed with his brother's band, the Ollie Lee Allison Band. In 1957 a blues group was formed to play the Bungalow Club in Chicago. The line-up included Luther and his brothers Grant and Ollie, and they called themselves the Rolling Stones, after a Muddy Waters' song. They soon tired of the name and became the Four Jivers. Allison was becoming a skilled guitarist, influenced by B. B. King and Otis Rush. Allison's big break came in 1957, when Howlin' Wolf invited him to the stage. The same year he worked briefly with Jimmy Dawkins, playing in local clubs. Freddie King took Allison under his wing, and after King got a record deal, Allison took over his gig in the house band of a club on Chicago's West Side. He worked the club circuit in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with Little Richard, Magic Slim and Muddy Waters.

                                  

He recorded his first single in 1965. In 1967 he achieved some national recognition through the compilation album Sweet Home Chicago, for Delmark Records. This prompted Delmark to record an album, Love Me Mama, with him and his then group, the Blue Nebulae, in 1969. The label's manager, Bob Koester, said that he believed Allison to be "one of the most original exponents of the modern blues". The same year he appeared at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival and played on the albums Further On Up The Road by Shakey Jake Harris and Slim's Got This Thing Goin' On by Sunnyland Slim. 

He performed a well-received set at the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival and as a result was asked to perform there in each of the next three years. He toured nationwide. Solo success seemed possible when he became the first and, in the event, the only blues performer to sign with the Tamla-Motown label, but the organisation did not know how to promote the three albums he made for their subsidiary, Gordy: Bad News is Coming (1972), Luther's Blues (1974) and Night Life (1976) are now collectors' items.

In 1976 Allison came to Europe for the first time. He was disillusioned by the commercial failure of his Gordy albums and he noted that Memphis Slim and Champion Jack Dupree had settled with considerable success in Europe. He moved to France in 1977 and he told audiences, "I don't speak French but my guitar does". Allison was known for his powerful concert performances, lengthy soulful guitar solos and crowd walking with his Gibson Les Paul. He lived briefly during this period in Peoria, Illinois, where he signed with Rumble Records, releasing two live recordings, Gonna Be a Live One in Here Tonight!, produced by Bill Knight, and Power Wire Blues, produced by George Faber and Jeffrey P. Hess. Allison played the bar circuit in the United States during this period and spent eight months of the year in Europe at high-profile venues, including the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1992, he performed with the French rock and roll star Johnny Hallyday in 18 shows in Paris, also playing during the intermission.

In order to appeal to a wide following, Allison included some rock numbers by Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones in his repertoire. On being told that he played like the Stones, he said, "That's a no-no. As far as I'm concerned they play like me." He worked with his son, Bernard, a singer/guitarist who has released his own albums with his father playing harmonica. In 1988 Allison returned to his blues roots with the highly-acclaimed album, Serious. This obtained recognition in the United States and he was signed to the Chicago-based Alligator Records with Soul Fixin' Man (1993) being his first American album in 17 years. The magazine Guitar Player thought it combined "the wisdom of a master storyteller with the elegance of B. B. King, the elasticity of Buddy Guy and the big sting of Albert King". Allison toured the United States and Canada. Acknowledging the applause at the Chicago Blues Festival, he shouted, "I'm not only back. I'm unstoppable." He won four W. C. Handy Awards in 1994. With the James Solberg Band backing him, nonstop touring and the release of Blue Streak (featuring the song "Cherry Red Wine"), Allison earned more Handy Awards and gained wider recognition. He won several Living Blues Awards and was featured on the covers of blues publications.

During his tour on 10 July while performing on stage, Luther Allison felt dizzy and lost co-ordination. He was taken to hospital where it was discovered that he had a tumour on his lung that had metastasized to his brain. He cancelled appearances and in order to help with medical bills, a fund-raising night at the 100 Club in London was arranged. He began radiation therapy on July 16, which lasted until August 1. In and out of a coma, Allison died on August 12, 1997, five days before his 58th birthday, in Madison, Wisconsin. He is buried at Washington Memory Gardens Cemetery in Homewood, Illinois. His final album, Reckless, had just been released five months prior.

Luther & Bernard Allison

His son Bernard Allison, at one time a member of his band, is now a solo recording artist. Bernard, the youngest of nine siblings, was exposed to all kinds of music by his father. The younger Allison made his first venture into the music business at age 13, when he performed on a live album with his father.

 Luther Allison was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2000, the Chicago Sun-Times called him "the Bruce Springsteen of the blues". He was a strong influence on many young blues guitarists, such as Chris Beard and Reggie Sears.

(Edited from Wikipedia and The Independent)