Boo Hanks born 30 April 1916

James Arthur "Boo" Hanks (April 30, 1928 – April 15, 2016) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer. He was billed as the last of the Piedmont blues musicians. A one-time farmer, who grew up in and lived most of his adult life around Buffalo Junction, Virginia, Hanks appeared at the Roots of American Music Festival at the Lincoln Center, shared a bill with Patti Smith, was covered by The New York Times, and performed at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival; plus he toured in both the US and Europe.

Hanks was born in Vance County, North Carolina, United States, to the late Eddie and Fannie Hargrove Hanks. His heritage came from ancestors that variously were African American and Occaneechi. Family folklore reckons the family are descendants of Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks. Hanks attended Henderson Institute in Henderson, North Carolina. He bought his first guitar from the money he raised selling packets of garden seeds. With it, he learned to pick out the same songs his father played in the evening, after working as a share-cropper in the tobacco fields. In addition to tuition from his father, Hanks inspiration came initially from listening to his family's wind-up Victrola record player, in particular the recordings of Blind Boy Fuller.

                                         

         Here's "Troublin' Mind" from Boo's Pickin' Low Cotton album

Hanks learned to play, and tune his guitar, purely by ear, and picked up a delicate finger-style method of guitar picking. Hanks later stated "Most people, when they hear me play, they think it's two guitars, because I play the bass and the other strings at the same time. They say, man that's two guitars, and I say no, me, it's just me by myself. They say, don't believe you, it sounds like two guitars to me." His Piedmont string band ambitions were restricted to him playing locally. In the 1940s, Hanks played his guitar at barn dances, along with his cousins providing accompaniment on mandolin and spoons. However, Hanks never played outside his locale until he was aged 79, and worked in the tobacco fields up to that time. Hanks was a farmer for over two decades, but was also employed by Russell Stover Candies, Lenox, and later at the TOP Tobacco Factory in Oxford, North Carolina.

In 2007, Hanks made his first recording, Pickin' Low Cotton, at age 79. It was issued by Music Maker, who provides regular support to various low-income blues and roots musicians. In addition to assisting Hanks himself at that time, these veteran musicians then included Ironing Board Sam who was fitted with new prescription glasses; John Dee Holeman who needed assistance to pay for his medication; and the R&B singer Denise LaSalle who was given help to pay her mortgage. In 2008, Hanks appeared in a documentary film, Toots Blues. Also in the film were Adolphus Bell, Cool John Ferguson, Guitar Gabriel, George Higgs, Macavine Hayes, John Dee Holeman, Drink Small, Cootie Stark, Beverly Watkins and Albert White. In the same year, and just after his 80th birthday, Hanks appeared at the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, in Davenport, Iowa. In August of that year, Hanks performed at the 25th Annual Roots of American Music Festival, held at the Lincoln Center in New York.

In 2010, the Music Maker Relief Foundation helped Hanks obtain a passport, purchased a new trailer for him and provided an allowance towards his medication and food. Dom Flemons had been at the Music Maker office the day Hanks arrived, and their growing friendship led to a collaborative recording of the album, Buffalo Junction (2012), named for Hanks' hometown. It contained upbeat country blues with Hanks playing his guitar and providing the main vocals, while Flemons played jug, harmonica, bones and supplied the backing vocals. The album comprised twelve tracks, which the two musicians recorded in Hanks' trailer home. These included the traditional folk number "Railroad Bill", plus a version of Sticks McGhee's "Drinking Wine, Spodie Odie" Another track was a version of Blind Lemon Jefferson's song, "One Dime Blues", which in the lyrics had the line "Mama, don't treat your daughter mean." One of the collection's songs was their collaboration on "Diddy Wah Diddy", penned by Willie Dixon and Bo Diddley. Hanks and Flemons take on Blind Boy Fuller's song "Truckin' My Blues Away" was another number on the album. Hanks and Flemons toured in the US and Europe, primarily in Belgium, to support the album.

By December 2014, Hanks still played on occasion at local bars and nursing homes. In July 2015, Hanks was on the same bill as Lightnin' Wells and Ironing Board Sam at a concert in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. He also performed at The Prizery in South Boston, Virginia, and the Clarksville Fine Arts Center.

Hanks died on April 15, 2016, at the Select Specialty Hospital, in Durham, North Carolina. He was 87. He was survived by five daughters; one son and one daughter predeceased him.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Music Maker)

Duke Ellington born 29 April 1899

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader who was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. One of the originators of big-band jazz, Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds in all of Western music.

Duke Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. as Edward Kennedy Ellington. Duke was a name he picked up in childhood, given to him to describe his elegant manner and because of the flashy way he liked to dress. His parents were part of the Black middle class of Washington, D.C., and both played music at home. He started piano lessons at age seven, but it wasn't the music he was learning at his teacher's side that interested him but instead the ragtime music he heard at dance parties and pool halls when he was a teenager. It took being fired from several bands, however, for Ellington to finally learn how to read music!

Ellington dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music, and the five-piece band he played with, The Washingtonians, moved from Washington, D.C. to New York City in 1923. Under Ellington's leadership, the band grew and moved up from Times Square to Harlem's Cotton Club in 1927. He stayed at the Cotton Club through June of 1931. This popular club featured Black performers, but catered to a wealthy White audience.

                                   

Ellington's real fame came in the 1930s. His band started touring nationally, traveling by train and using the train coaches as dormitories since finding hotels that would accept the Black performers was challenging. One of his first hits from this time period was "Don't Mean a Thing", opens a new window from 1932. In 1933, he and his band went on their first International tour, visiting London and Paris, where "Daybreak Express", was one of the new works premiered. In 1935, Paramount Pictures released the short film Symphony in Black, which not only was scored entirely by Ellington but also featured a young Billie Holiday.

Ellington called his style and sound "American Music" rather than jazz, and liked to describe those who impressed him as "beyond category", including many of the musicians who served with his orchestra, some of whom were themselves considered among the giants of jazz and remained with Ellington's orchestra for decades. While many were noteworthy in their own right, it was Ellington that melded them into one of the most well-known orchestral units in the history of jazz. He often composed specifically for the style and skills of these individuals, such as "Jeep's Blues" for Johnny Hodges, "Concerto for Cootie" ("Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me") for Cootie Williams and "The Mooche" for Tricky Sam Nanton. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan" and "Perdido" which brought the "Spanish Tinge" to big-band jazz.

In 1939, Ellington took on Billy Strayhorn, who he called his alter-ego, as a second composer, arranger, pianist, and lyricist for the band. This collaboration proved to be a great success and featured such hits as Strayhorn's "Take the 'A' Train" in 1941. World War II saw a recording ban called by the American Federation of Musicians in August 1942, which definitely had an impact on the Ellington band. The ability to tour extensively was constrained by the war in Europe, but Ellington continued to compose and started to put on recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York City. During this time he also returned to movies, appearing in Cabin in the Sky and Reveille. The recording ban ended in 1944, and record labels started putting out recordings again. The hits kept coming: some of them were ones that had been written a few years earlier, and others were brand new, like "I'm Beginning to See the Light," which became a top 10 hit. Ellington's popular favourites included "Mood Indigo," "Solitude," "Sophisticated Lady," "In A Sentimental Mood," "Take the 'A' Train," "Satin Doll," "Black, Brown and Beige," "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," and "Come Sunday".

When World War II ended, Ellington and his band kept touring, but the end of the big-band era in the 1940's took its toll on the Ellington orchestra, and as worked dried up Ellington was forced to turn to royalties from his popular songs to keep the band afloat, a situation which was later reversed. In 1946, he wrote the music for the Broadway musical Beggar's Holiday, and later scored the film Asphalt Jungle.Ellington spent much of his professional career in motion-traveling with his band from one performance to the next, composing aboard trains, planes, automobiles and living out of suitcases in an endless series of hotel rooms as he took his music to audiences across the globe. 

The early 1950s were a difficult time for Ellington and the band, but they came back swinging when they performed at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival on July 7 and wowed the audience with a rendition of "Dimuendo and Crescendo in Blue." The performance at Newport was released as a live recording by Columbia Records as Ellington at Newport, opens a new window, which became the best selling album of his career. That year also saw Ellington on the cover of Time magazine. The success of the showing at Newport opened up more opportunities for touring, and in 1958 he undertook his first large scale tour of Europe. From that point on, Ellington was a busy world traveller.

The rest of Ellington's career continued to see success until his death in 1974. He scored more movie soundtracks, including Anatomy of a Murder in 1959 (which he appeared in and also won three Grammy awards), Paris Blues, opens a new window in 1961 (which was nominated for an Academy Award), Assault on a Queen, opens a new window in 1966, and Change of Mind in 1969. He won several Grammy awards, including for "In the Beginning, God," in 1966 (best original jazz composition), Far East Suite in 1967 (best instrumental jazz performance), And His Mother Called Him Bill in 1969 (best instrumental jazz performance), and The Ellington Suites, posthumously in 1976. He never did have a real stage hit during his lifetime, as most of the shows that he was involved with ended after around 100 performances. But the revue Sophisticated Ladies, which opened on Broadway on March 1, 1981, and ran for 767 performances.

During this time Ellington was deservedly showered with awards, prizes, sixteen honorary degrees and celebrated both at home and abroad for his musical achievements. These awards included the presentation of the keys to the city of Los Angeles in 1936, the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1959, The President's Gold Medal by President Lyndon B. Johnson (1966), the Pied Piper Award (1968), the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon (1969), the Legion of Honour by the country of France (the countries highest award), a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (6535 Hollywood Blvd.) and thirteen Grammy's.

On May 24, 1974, at the age of 75, Ellington died of lung cancer and pneumonia. His last words were, "Music is how I live, why I live and how I will be remembered." More than 12,000 people attended his funeral. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City. Widely recognized during his life as one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music, Ellington's reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackaging's of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. Posthumous recognition of his work include a special award citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board.

(Edited from Boston Public Library, Curtis Jackson & Wikipedia) 

Oliver Jackson born 28 April 1933

Oliver Jackson (April 28, 1933 – May 29, 1994), also known as Bops Junior, was an American jazz drummer.

Jackson was born in Detroit, Michigan, and started taking drum lessons when he was 11. Why drums,   as opposed to any other instrument? “The school system provided music classes. I didn’t have any money to buy an instrument, so I started taking drum lessons because you only needed a practice pad to take the lessons,” Jackson explains. “I used to go to the Paradise Theater all the time, from the time I was nine years old on up. I saw all the big  bands there and all the drummers that were playing. I saw Big  Sid  Catlett with Louis Armstrong; I saw Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, and Cozy Cole. I saw Jo Jones when he came through with the Basie Band,  and I  saw Andy Kirk’s Band. “I knew right away, after about a year of  studying, that I wanted to  become a professional musician. At that  time, Detroit, where I grew up,  was like a southern town up north.

                  Here's "Jackson is Wigging" from above album

                                   

By the 1940's Jackson was playing with Thad Jones and Tommy Flanagan. He visited New York as drummer with the pianists Dorothy Donegan and Ivory Joe Hunter but each time returned to Detroit until 1948 when he formed a variety act with Eddie Locke called Bop & Locke, and they continued performing together until 1953, spending two of those years sharing the apartment of the legendary Count Basie drummer Jo Jones. After spending two years with Yusef Lateef (1954-1956) he moved to New York, where he worked as a freelance.

Jackson with Earl Hines

 He substituted for Zutty Singleton at the Metropole (1957-8) and played at the Embers with Teddy Wilson. He toured with Charlie Shaver's quartet (1959-61), Buck Clayton (Europe, 1961), Benny Goodman's big band and small groups (1962), and Lionel Hampton's big band (1962-4). He then worked with Kenny Burrell. He was a member of a quartet led by Earl Hines (1964-70) and he also played with larger groups that Hines occasionally assembled together during that period. 

Jackson was a listening drummer, always careful to fit his playing to the work of other musicians rather than try, as some drummers do, to dominate a band. When he toured Britain in 1967 with a mainstream all-star group called Jazz From a Swinging Era, he had to accompany the grandiose Earl Hines and another pianist, the comparatively self-effacing Sir Charles Thompson, as well as the trumpeters Buck Clayton and Roy Eldridge and tenor sax men Bud Freeman and Budd Johnson. All Jackson's great talent was called upon as he had to switch his accompanying style so often. In 1969 he formed the JPJ Quartet with Budd Johnson, Bill Pemberton, and Dill Jones.

From 1975 to 1980 he played in Sy Oliver's nine-piece band, and in the late 1970's he performed as a freelance with Hampton (1977, 1978) and Oscar Peterson, among others. He also belonged to George Wein's Newport Jazz Festival All-Stars, with which he recorded in 1984. As a bandleader, Jackson led a 1961 date in Switzerland, and recorded at least five albums for Black & Blue Records between 1977 and 1984.

Jackson played at 18 of the Nice Jazz Festivals, and he was the first choice for musicians as widely spread as Buck Clayton, Benny Goodman, Earl Hines and Zoot Sims. Jackson toured Europe in 1994 with George Wein's Festival All Starts as by this time the two men were close friends and Wein was responsible for most of Jackson's later work. Jackson died from heart failure in New York City at Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital. He was 61. His brother, bassist Ali Jackson, performed with him both at the beginning and towards the end of their careers. His nephew, Ali Jackson Jr., is a jazz drummer.

(Edited from The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Michigan History & The Independent)

Here's a clip of Buck Clayton -  Emmett Berry - Earle Warren - Buddy Tate - Sir Charles Thompson - Gene Ramey and Oliver Jackson from the archives of Andreas Lüscher in Mexico - Recorded in Belgium, 1961.

 

Tommy Hill born 27 April 1929

Tommy Hill (April 27, 1929 - March 21, 2002) was an American country musician, performer, songwriter, and producer.

Tommy Hill never quite made it as a country star, despite a couple of decades of trying and crossing paths with (and even working for) stars and legends like Smiley Burnette, Webb Pierce, Hank Williams, and Johnny Horton. He wrote some very successful songs and produced important hits by others, and also left some hot rockabilly sides behind.

Tommy & Kenny Hill

Born John Thomas Hill Jr., on a farm near Coy City, Texas on the eve of the Great Depression, he was one of four children. He spent a good part of that childhood picking cotton in order to help his family survive. He also listened to the radio and especially enjoyed the music of Jimmie Rodgers, the Delmore Brothers, Cowboy Slim Rinehart, and Wayne Raney. It was while dragging sacks of cotton through the fields that Hill vowed to try for a career as a musician. He learned guitar listening to Ernest Tubb's lead player, Jimmie Short, and was proficient enough as a teenager to get a gig playing on radio with Big Bill Lister during 1945 in San Antonio, and was good enough, in fact, to blow the competition out of the studio.

                                         

With his brother Ken, Hill got gigs working with Red River Dave McEnery, and one day in 1948, musician/actor Smiley Burnette (of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers fame) passed through San Antonio and found himself in need of a guitar player or two. Tommy and Ken were hired for the gig and stayed with Burnette, who brought them to California, which got them into the background scenes in his movies as extras and musicians. The Hollywood work only lasted for 18 months before Hill and his brother returned to Texas to try and really make it in the music business.  Tommy and Ken made their first recordings for San Antonio-based Enterprise Records in 1949 as the Texas "Hill" Billies. Tommy's musician credits include backing Hank Williams on the Louisiana Hayride and on tour in 1952.

Goldie Hill

A couple of years later, Hill got picked up by Webb Pierce as a fiddle player. They only worked together for about four months, during which time Pierce cut one of Hill's original songs, "Slowly," before Hill decided to form a band of his own. Pierce's manager, Tillman Franks (who also later managed Horton), got Hill a contract with Decca Records in 1952. He formed his own band in Shreveport, LA, with his sister Goldie, who had a hit with Hill's "Let the Stars Get in My Eyes" (retitled "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes"), which he had originally written for Kitty Wells. Then, in the mid-'50s, the walls began to shake with the first rumblings of rock 'n' roll. On a tour of west Texas in late 1955, Tommy met Buddy Holly, and, in Tommy's account, he had a bit-part to play in bringing Holly to Nashville by phoning Jack DeWitt to set up an audition for the Crickets at Decca, which marked the start of Buddy Holly's commercial recording career.

In the early part of 1957, Tommy worked on the Philip Morris Caravan with the ever-unpredictable Ronnie Self, and saw for himself what it took to perform rock 'n' roll with conviction. Then, early in 1958, after a spell with Jim Reeves, he realized that the Crickets were actually Buddy Holly, and that he'd done Decca Records a favour which it was time to call in. Technically, of course, Buddy had been canned by Decca's Nashville division, only to end up on a New York subsidiary, but a favour's a favour, but Hill had little success with Decca where he tried his hand at rockabilly.  He took part in RCA's multi-artist 1957 European tour and toured as a solo act on the Phillip Morris Country Music Show. It was there that he met Ronnie Self and in December 1957 he was invited to play lead guitar on "Bop-a Lena" (and on Billy Brown's "Flip It", recorded on the same day). 

The following year he laid down what were to be his final vocal sides when he rounded up a core group of sidemen, including Hank Garland, Floyd Cramer, Ace Cannon and D.J. Fontana, to cut a batch of country rock demos that was supposed to go to Decca, but somehow didn't. Thirty years later, Tommy discovered it, and played it to Bear Family Records who jumped at the chance to issue it. Songs include Life Begins At 4 O' Clock, Get Ready Baby, and Ain't Nothin' Like Lovin' finally saw the light on the CD "Get Ready Baby" in 1993.

Tommy at the Starday Studio

Somehow, however, success eluded Hill. He had no hits during his three years at Hickory Records, and he subsequently hooked up with Starday Records, where he eventually became a producer, handling many of the label's releases until 1968. After a stint with MGM Records, Hill went into partnership with his fellow guitarist, Pete Drake, in the Stop label, which recorded the Jordanaires and Johnny Bush, among others, during its brief existence. Tommy started Gusto Records in 1972. In 1974, he brought in Moe Lytle as a partner, and together they bought out King and Starday Records. Tommy eventually sold out to Lytle in 1979, although he stayed on in one capacity or another until the end of 1982. In between, he wrote and produced the biggest hit that Starday ever saw, Red Sovine's Teddy Bear– the song that had truckers weeping in their semis.

Hill was not heard from since the early '60s as a recording artist, and none of his country sides are currently in print. In 1993, however, Bear Family Records released his long-lost rockabilly session from that June night in 1958. Despite his talent and his years of playing and writing, Hill never scored a hit; however, as he observed in Colin Escott's notes for Get Ready Baby, he had a habit of always giving his best songs away to others.

Tommy Hill died at Nashville's Vanderbilt Medical Center on March 21, 2002 due to heart and liver problems. Shortly before his death, he heard that a tribute to Webb Pierce, 'Caught In The Web,' had just gone to Number One on the country album charts. It featured Mandy Barnett singing Tommy's song, Slowly.

(Edited from Rocky52, This Is My Story & Bear Family liner notes)

Mike Finnigan born 26 April 1945

Michael Kelly Finnigan (April 26, 1945 – August 11, 2021) was an American keyboard player and vocalist, his specialty being the B3 Hammond organ. Working primarily as a freelance studio musician and touring player, he played with a wide variety of musicians in pop, rock, blues and jazz.

Finnigan was born in Troy, Ohio, and attended the University of Kansas on a basketball scholarship. He started to perform professionally when he was 19, relocating to Wichita to perform with The Serfs, which started as a house band at a local nightclub. In 1969, he joined the Serfs in recording their only album, 1969’s “Early Bird Cafe” with Tom Wilson producing, and toured with the group. During a trip to New York City, Finnigan landed a gig as a session music with Jimi Hendrix as he was in the studio recording the legendary album “Electric Ladyland.”

Crazed Hipsters

He toured and cut an album with Jerry Hahn, The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood released in 1970. In 1972, Finnigan partnered with Jerry Wood to form Finnigan and Wood, releasing just one album “Crazed Hipsters.” Finnigan’s other collaborations in the 1970s included performances with Dave Mason, Big Brother & The Holding Company, and Peter Frampton, as well as Jim Kreuger and Les Dudek, with whom he formed the band Dudek, Finnigan, and Krueger. in 1978. Subsequently, his work featured on a CD by the Finnigan Brothers (NashFilms Records), a collaboration with his younger brother Sean and founding member of Bread, Robb Royer.

Black Rose

Finnigan later partnered with Dudek and singer Cher to form the band Black Rose, which performed around Los Angeles as an independent act before signing with Casablanca Records. They released only one album, the eponymously named Black Rose, which also featured Gary Ferguson, Warren Ham, Rocket Ritchotte and Trey Thompson. However, the album gained little traction with fans and the group parted ways the following year.

                                   

Through the 1980s, Finnigan was a much sought-after musician, recording on multiple albums with Crosby, Stills & Nash, including “American Dream,” and “After The Storm,” as well as with artists such as Joe Cocker (Hymn for my Soul). He also provided keyboards for the legendary blues and soul singer Etta James for more than two decades.

He toured with and sessioned for Joe Cocker, Sam Moore, Crosby Stills and Nash, Dave Mason, Buddy Guy, The Manhattan Transfer, Taj Mahal, Michael McDonald, Maria Muldaur, Ringo Starr, Leonard Cohen, Tower of Power, Rod Stewart, David Coverdale, Tracy Chapman, Los Lonely Boys, Bonnie Raitt, Keb ‘Mo, Eric Burdon, Kara Grainger, and the Zen Blues Quartet, among others. Finnigan also made a guest appearance in the short-lived police procedural musical television series, Cop Rock (1990). In his only acting credit, Finnigan portrayed a singing shift lieutenant in the cold open of episode 7, "Cop-a-Feeliac". After a shift briefing, Finnigan breaks in to song, telling his officers, "Let's Be Careful Out There". The song itself is an homage to a catchphrase popularized by the show Hill Street Blues, created by Steven Bochco, who also produced Cop Rock.

Finnigan was twice a winner of a Blues Music Award (formerly W.C. Handy Award) for his work with Taj Mahal as a member of the Phantom Blues Band. He was always active politically and was, for several years, a regular contributor to the weblog Crooks and Liars. In 2013 and 2014, he was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the 'Pinetop Perkins Piano Player' category. In addition to his music, Finnigan was an outspoken political commentator and a regular contributor to the blog Crooks and Liars.

He was married for 50 years to Candy Finnigan, an intervention counsellor who appeared on the television show Intervention. They had two children: a daughter, Bridget, and a son, Kelly. Finnigan was an active blogger, with a fondness for liberal/progressive causes and commentary.

Finnigan died from liver cancer at the Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on August 11, 2021, in Los Angeles at the age of 76.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Celebrity Access) 

O.B. McClinton born 25 April l1940

Obie Burnett "O. B." McClinton (April 25, 1940 – September 23, 1987) was an American black country music singer and songwriter, who placed several hit records on the country singles chart in the 1970s.

Obie Burnett McClinton was born in Senatobia. He was the second-youngest child born to Rev. G. A. McClinton, a clergyman and farmer who owned a 700-acre (2.8 km2) ranch near Memphis, Tennessee.Growing up on the farm of his Baptist minister father, McClinton picked cotton by day and by night listened to radio programs from such regional stations as WHBQ (Memphis) and WLAC (Nashville). While his musical tastes included blues, R&B, soul music, and rockabilly, McClinton was particularly fond of country music, and he regularly listened to Grand Ole Opry broadcasts on Nashville’s WSM.

                                       

To escape the agricultural work, the teenaged McClinton ran away to nearby Memphis, where he spent all his savings to buy a guitar, forcing him to return home. After completing high school, McClinton attended Holly Springs’s Rust College, which had given him a scholarship to sing in the college choir. McClinton graduated in 1966 and found a job as a disc jockey on a Memphis radio station, WDIA. In December 1966 he enlisted in the US Air Force and began performing at military talent shows. He began forging a career as a songwriter, penning country-soul ballads for Otis Redding (‘Keep Your Arms Around Me’), before finding the ideal foil in James Carr. Two of McClinton’s compositions, ‘You’ve Got My Mind Messed Up’ (1966) and ‘A Man Needs A Woman’ (1968), stand among this singer’s finest work. He also wrote songs for other soul music artists, including Clarence Carter and Arthur Conley.

In 1971, while working as a staff songwriter for Memphis-based Stax Records, McClinton signed a recording contract with a Stax subsidiary, Enterprise, which wanted to market him as a country singer. A fan of Hank Williams Sr. and Merle Haggard, McClinton also emulated the breakthrough success of another black Mississippian, Charley Pride, to whom McClinton self-deprecatingly compares himself in “The Other One.” McClinton and Oklahoman Stoney Edwards became virtually the only other African American musicians to achieve sustained commercial success in country music in the 1970s.

Known to refer to himself as the "Chocolate Cowboy", McClinton successfully marketed his first album on the Enterprise label long before the practice was commonplace. Featuring his first country chart single "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You", a top 40 song in 1972, which he considered to be his finest work. Another top 40 hit was "My Whole World Is Falling Down”—as well as such minor hits as “Six Pack of Trouble” and “Something Better.” 

Not entirely pleased with the studio production on his first two Enterprise albums, O. B. McClinton Country (1972) and Obie from Senatobia (1972), McClinton requested and received permission to serve as producer on his next album, Live at Randy’s Rodeo (1973). When Enterprise went out of business in the mid-1970s, McClinton briefly moved to Mercury Records in 1976, where he had a hit with ‘Black Speck’, before moving to Epic, where he scored half a dozen minor C&W hits. He also recorded for the Sunbird, and Moonshine labels. 

In 1986, O. B. McClinton was diagnosed with liver cancer, beginning a year-long battle with the illness that included multiple hospitalizations. The country music community supported him through benefit concerts, including one on November 11, 1986, featuring artists such as Reba McEntire, Waylon Jennings, and Kathy Mattea, which raised $40,000 for his medical bills, and another in March 1987. He passed away on September 23, 1987, at the age of 47, at HCA Park View Medical Center in Nashville, after being admitted for the final time four days earlier.

(Edited from Mississippi Encyclopedia & Grokipedia)

Pete Goble born 24 April 1932

Pete Goble (April 24, 1932 - July 25, 2018) was an American bluegrass musician and prolific songwriter.

Pete Goble was immediately hooked on bluegrass music when he heard the Flatt and Scruggs recording of ‘Down the Road’ from Mercury Records in 1949. His love of Country and Bluegrass music spanned his lifetime while Pete honored the catchy folk songs, the lonesome ballads, and spirited dance tunes by writing and performing some of the most memorable tunes ever recorded in bluegrass music history.

Billy Gill & Pete Goble 1961

John ‘Pete’ Goble was born in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. He grew up in the mountains of the Bluegrass state, then moved to Detroit, Michigan, with his family in 1948 where he worked at Great Lakes Steel until he retired. Pete taught himself to play the guitar in his early 20s and soon began penning song verses and laying them down to music. Some of Pete’s early work in the mid-1950s included You’ll be a Lost Ball, I’ll Drink No More Wine, and I’ll Never Take No For An Answer.

Pete often collaborated with his long-time friend, Leroy Drumm. Over the years, the duo produced classic bluegrass material for renowned artists Alison Krauss, The Bluegrass Cardinals, The Country Gentlemen, Dailey and Vincent, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Martin, Larry Sparks, The Osbourne Brothers, Rhonda Vincent and many more. Pete also collaborated with Doyle Lawson and Bobby Osborne on “For God Sent an Angel.”

                      Here's "Coleen Malone" from above album

                                    

Pete’s repertoire of written material produced classic Bluegrass hits such as, Please Search Your Heart, Son of a Sawmill Man, Morristown, Midnight Angel, and all-time favourites, ‘Circuit Rider,’ ‘I’d Like To Be A Train,’ and ‘Julianne.’ Pete released two singles in 1961/62 on the Happy Hearts label with Billy Gill & the Kentucky Rebels. He later released five albums during his extraordinary music career, including; ‘Tennessee 1949,’ with Bill Emerson in 1987, ‘Dixie In My Eye’ in 1989, ‘Webco Classics Volume 1: Emerson and Goble in 1994, ‘When I’m Knee Deep in Blue Grass’ in 2005, and ‘Back to Jubilee Road,’ with Andy Ball in 2013. Pete wrote, co-wrote, sang, and played the guitar on nearly every song on his album releases. He also was featured in the Complete Vanguard Recordings from The Country Gentlemen with several songs he co-wrote and sang.

Over seven decades of music excellence, Pete created and composed some of bluegrass music’s most influential and admired favourites. His beloved compositions of Tennessee 1949, Blue Virginia Blues, Coleen Malone, Windy City, Big Spike Hammer, Call of the Whippoorwill, Thank God for the Highways, Born to be a Drifter, (Pretty) Roses Remind Me of You, It’s Amazing What Sunshine Can Do, remain Bluegrass standards today. Goble also regularly attended the Milan Bluegrass Festival and also once played at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn., the original home for the Grand Ole Opry.

In 1996, when 65 years of age, he survived crashing his ultralight plane on US Rt. 23 near his farm on Summerfield Road in Petersburg, Michigan, although not surprisingly he suffered serious injuries. These led to severe arthritis that got so bad that he could not play guitar in his later years. He had been flying for 28 years.

Pete Goble has been honoured with many awards throughout his celebrated career. He received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2002. He was awarded the IBMA Song of the Year in 1991 for Colleen Malone, which Hot Rize recorded. In 1997 Pete was honoured as Songwriter of the Year by the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America. He later accepted his induction into the Southeast Michigan Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Honour along with Leroy Drumm in 2017. For a brief period in his later years he had his own band, Jubilee Road in which his daughter Martin would sing back up vocals.

Leroy Drumm & Pete Goble

Pete Goble passed away on July 25, 2018. He was suffering from pneumonia and confined to Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital, Wyandotte, Michigan, when he died at aged 86.Though he was among the most recorded songwriters in bluegrass, with more than 90 cuts, Goble said before he died that he had written over 700 in total. He was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2022. Pete lived most of his life in Michigan, yet his legacy will always be pure Bluegrass. His massive output of recorded favourites will undoubtedly impact the next wave of Bluegrass singer-songwriters and forever cement Pete Goble’s enormous influence on the direction of Bluegrass Music for generations to come.

(Edited from Kentucky Music Hall of Fame.com, Bluegrass Today & Rocky52)