Gene Allison born 29 August 1934

Gene Allison (August 29, 1934 – February 28, 2004) was an American pioneer of the Nashville R&B sound in the 50’s.

Gene Allison was born Versie Eugene Allison on August 29, 1934 in Pegram, Tennesee and he grew up in Nashville singing in the 
church choir with his brother Leevert (later a professional gospel singer). As a teenager, Allison was offered a chance to sing with The Fairfield Four and, later, The Skylarks. In the latter group, Allison would often fill in for lead vocalist Sam McCrary which brought him to the attention of songwriter and producer Ted Jarrett, who convinced him to sign to his Calvert label and pursue a career in secular music. He also recorded for Jarrett’s Champion and Cherokee labels.

                             

It wasn’t long before Jarrett got him a recording contract with Vee-Jay Records along with Larry Birdsong. Allison's debut single was "You Can Make It If You Try", written by Ted Jarrett and released in 1957; it became a hit in the U.S., where it 

entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1958. Jarrett's evangelical composition and the swelling organ accompaniment would later be copied on countless soul recordings. This early fusion of secular and sacred sounds on a pop record helped start a trend that persists today.

Mr. Allison was a singer's singer. Sam Cooke, another early soul stylist, once said, ''I wish I could sing like Gene Allison.'' The record was such a success that Allison was able to open his own Nashville restaurant, a 24-hour soul food joint called Gene's Drive-In -- his mother was even installed as manager. He returned to the R&B charts with two more Top 20 hits, "Have Faith" and "Everything Will Be Alright," You Can Make It If You Try’ was covered by The Rolling Stones’ in 1964.

In the 60s after he left Vee Jay, his releases appeared on a variety of labels, and although his gospel phrasing and timing were ideally suited to the emerging southern soul styles he never really made it as a soul singer. Some of these later 45s he cut reprised earlier material for Jarrett’s Ref-O-Ree, but “Almost Sundown” from ’65 is a quite superb blues ballad. Probably the pick of his later work is the spare, stark “If I Ever Needed Your Love” which features a pleading, tortured vocal, his most intense performance on wax, only accompanied by a small rhythm section. This side originally appeared on the Ohio based S & H 205 but is more readily available on Del Neita.  Although the raw, soulful power of his voice remained undiminished in the years to follow, he never again matched his initial success.

Allison recorded for many labels including Decca (1957), Vee-Jay (1957 – 1960), Cherokee, (1960), Oldies (1963), Paradise (1964),Monument (1965). By 1969, he was still going strong. He had signed to Ted Jarrett’s Ref-O-Ree label, and covered Somebody Somewhere. This was penned and produced by Ted Jarrett, but arranged by Bob Holmes.  After which he stopped recording, and while he continued to live in Nashville, he shunned the public eye for many years. 

A shy man, he rarely gave interviews; however, he had considered returning to the recording studio just before he died from liver and kidney failure on February 28, 2004, at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, Tennessee.He was 69 years old.

(Edited from Wikipedia, SirShambling.com & NY Times)

Lester Young born 27 August 1904

Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.

Lester Young was one of the true jazz giants, a tenor saxophonist who came up with a completely different conception in which to play his horn, floating over bar lines with a light tone rather than adopting Coleman Hawkins' then-dominant forceful approach. A 
non-conformist, Young (nicknamed "Pres" by Billie Holiday) had the ironic experience in the 1950s of hearing many young tenors try to sound exactly like him.

Although he spent his earliest days near New Orleans, Lester Young lived in Minneapolis by 1920, playing in a legendary family band. He studied violin, trumpet, and drums, starting on alto at age 13. Because he refused to tour in the South, Young left home in 1927 and instead toured with Art Bronson's Bostonians, switching to tenor. He was back with the family band in 1929 and then freelanced for a few years, playing with Walter Page's Blue Devils (1930), Eddie Barefield in 1931, back with the Blue Devils during 1932-1933, and Bennie Moten and King Oliver (both 1933). 

He was with Count Basie for the first time in 1934 but left to replace Coleman Hawkins with Fletcher Henderson. 
Unfortunately, it was expected that Young would try to emulate Hawk, and his laid-back sound angered Henderson's sidemen, resulting in Pres not lasting long.

After a tour with Andy Kirk and a few brief jobs, Lester Young was back with Basie in 1936, just in time to star with the band as they headed East. Young made history during his years with Basie, not only participating on Count's record dates but starring with Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson on a series of classic small-group sessions. In addition, on his rare recordings  
on clarinet with Basie and the Kansas City Six, Young displayed a very original cool sound that almost sounded like altoist Paul Desmond in the 1950s.

After leaving Count in 1940, Young's career became a bit aimless, not capitalizing on his fame in the jazz world. He co-led a low-profile band with his brother, drummer Lee Young, in Los Angeles until re-joining Basie in December 1943. Young had a happy nine months back with the band, recorded a memorable quartet session with bassist Slam Stewart, and starred in the short film Jammin' the Blues before he was drafted. His experiences dealing with racism in the military were horrifying, affecting his mental state of mind for the remainder of his life.

                              

Although many critics have written that Lester Young never sounded as good after getting out of the military, despite erratic health he actually was at his prime in the mid- to late-'40s. He toured (and was well paid by Norman Granz) with Jazz at the Philharmonic on and off through the '40s and '50s, made a 

wonderful series of recordings for Aladdin, and worked steadily as a single. In fact his version of "These Foolish Things" from the Marmarosa session is as great an improvisation as he ever created in his playing career. Young also adopted his style well to bebop (which he had helped pave the way for in the 1930s). But mentally he was suffering, building a wall between himself and the outside world, and inventing his own colourful vocabulary.

Although many of his recordings in the 1950s were excellent (showing a greater emotional depth than in his earlier days), Young was bothered by the fact that some of his white imitators
were making much more money than he was. He drank huge amounts of liquor and nearly stopped eating, with predictable results. From around 1951, Young's level of playing declined more precipitously 
as his drinking increased. His playing showed reliance on a small number of clichéd phrases and reduced creativity and originality, despite his claims that he did not want to be a "repeater pencil" (Young coined this phrase to describe the act of repeating one's own past ideas). Young's playing and health went into a crisis, culminating in a November 1955 hospital admission following a nervous breakdown.

In January 1956 he recorded two Granz-produced sessions including a reunion with pianist Teddy Wilson, trumpet player Roy Eldridge, trombonist Vic Dickenson, bassist Gene Ramey, and drummer Jo Jones – which were issued as The Jazz Giants '56 and Pres and Teddy albums. These found him in peak form as did a well documented engagement in Washington, D.C., with a quartet and a last reunion with Count Basie at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival. But, for the 1957 telecast The Sound of Jazz, Young mostly played sitting down (although he stole the show with an emotional one-chorus blues solo played to Billie Holiday).

Lester was eating less, drinking more, and had developed liver disease along with malnutrition. Lester’s final studio recordings and live shows were performed in Paris in 1959. He died in the early hours of the 15th of March 1959, just a few hours after arriving back in New York. Many decades after his death, Pres is still considered (along with Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane) one of the three most important tenor saxophonists of all time.

According to jazz critic Leonard Feather, who rode with Holiday in a taxi to Young's funeral, she said after the services, "I'll be the next one to go." Holiday died four months later on July 17, 1959 at age 44.

On 17 March 2003, Young was added to the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame, along with Sidney Bechet, Al Cohn, Nat "King" Cole, Peggy Lee and Teddy Wilson. He was represented at the ceremony by his children Lester Young Jr and Yvette Young.  (Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia)

Jimmy Rushing born 26 August 1903

James Andrew Rushing (August 26, 1903 - June 8, 1972) was an American blues shouter and swing jazz singer from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, best known as the featured vocalist of Count Basie's Orchestra from 1935 to 1948.

Jimmy Rushing was big in 1942, so big that a song called “Mr. Five By Five” was written in his honour and went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B Chart. The song described a man who was “5-feet-tall and he's 5-feet-wide,” but the biggest thing about Rushing was his voice, an instrument that could compete with the loudest horns in any band. And from the 1910s, when his voice could be heard ringing out from nightclubs in Deep Deuce, to his death in 1972, Rushing maintained a mountainous presence in blues and jazz. When William “Count” Basie first heard Rushing, the piano legend was so impressed with the singer's powerful vocals that they spent the next two decades playing together.

“In 1929, we picked up a blues singer in Oklahoma City,” Basie told authors Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro in the 1966 book, “Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It.” “That was Jimmy Rushing, who for my money has never had an equal when it comes to the blues.“In all the time he was with the band, Jimmy Rushing has been what I might call my right arm,” Basie said. “There were times in the early days of the band that I'd have given it all up but for Jimmy's urging to stick with it.”

Born in Oklahoma City, Rushing's actual birth date has long been in dispute and was called into question in 1994 when the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp with Rushing's likeness that listed his year of birth as 1902. Currie Ballard, who was then historian-in-residence at Langston University, said at the time that Rushing was 
born in 1899. The 1938 Social Security Administration form filed by James Andrew Rushing, listing his employer as “Count Basie” and his birthday as “August 26, 1901.”

Rushing was born into a musical family. His father, trumpet player Andrew Rushing, steered his son toward violin and away from piano, the common instrument at the “sporting houses” in the red light district.“He had bought me a violin, and he had forbidden me to touch the piano,” Rushing told Basie biographer Stanley Dance in 1963.

“When he left the house, he'd lock the piano and give my mother the key. We'd watch him go away, and then she'd give me the key. When he came back at night, he'd say ‘Get the violin out!' But I wouldn't know anything. It got to the stage where I just couldn't play it, and he told me, ‘If I ever catch you on that piano again, or dancing, I'm gonna run you away from home!' I had really tried, but I was gone from there in about two weeks! He lived long enough to see my success with Basie, and he agreed to it, although he never said so. But he'd have a smile on his face and say, ‘Well, I guess you're doing OK.'”

                             

Rushing graduated from Douglass High School and attended Wilberforce University in Ohio before joining bassist Walter Page's Oklahoma City Blue Devils, one of the great territorial jazz bands. Rushing, along with Basie, spent time in the Blue Devils before Basie, Page, Rushing and other members moved over to Benny 

Moten's big band, and after Moten's death in 1935, they became the nucleus of Basie's orchestra. “He was during that transition between the territorial band and the big band swing,” said “Hardluck Jim” Johnson, program director at KGOU/KROU and host of the “Weekend Blues.” “He was one of these guys who was at the cusp of an evolution to what we know as big band.”

During his earliest performances, microphones were not available. Fortunately for Rushing, they were not required either. “There were no microphones in those days, and unless you could overshadow the horns, they wouldn't let you sing,” 
Rushing said in the Dance interview. “You had to have a 

good pair of lungs — strong — to reach out over the band and the people in those big dance halls. Later on, they brought in megaphones for singers like Rudy Vallee, but the crooners and sweet singers couldn't make it before that.”

Rushing distinguished himself on Basie recordings such as “Sent For You Yesterday,” “Harvard Blues” and “Goin' to Chicago Blues,” and when he split with Basie in 1950, Rushing continued to enjoy a steady career and loyal following. In 1959, he collaborated with Duke Ellington on the all-star recording “Jazz Party,” and recorded 
“Brubeck and Rushing” with the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1960.

His final album, 1971's “The You and Me That Used to Be,” was chosen as “album of the year” by Downbeat magazine. After a bout with leukemia, Rushing died on June 8, 1972, in New York City, and was buried at Maple Grove Cemetery, Kew Gardens, in Queens, N.Y. Although he sang many styles, applying his powerful voice to standards and jazz ballads, Rushing's first and abiding love was always for the blues.

(Edited from The Oklahoman)

Mr. Five by Five, Jimmy Rushing, sings the blues, with help from Buck Clayton on trumpet, and the Vice President, Paul Quinichette on tenor.  From The Subject Is Jazz, 1958.

Lee Denson born 25 August 1932

Jesse Lee Denson (August 25, 1932 – November 6, 2007) was an American rockabilly singer and songwriter. His songs have been recorded by Elvis Presley, Billy Williams, and the Kuf-Linx.

Lee Denson was born in Rienzi, Mississippi, but grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where his family relocated when he was a baby. He was the eighth out of a total of ten children. His father, Jesse James Denson, later ran a Pentecostal mission church in Memphis. As a child, Denson became friends with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. After the Presley family moved to Memphis in 1948 and started attending the Pentecostal church on Poplar Street run by his father, he also became friendly with Elvis Presley, two years his junior, and reputedly taught him to play guitar.

In 1953 Denson moved to Key West, Florida, where he worked as a bellboy, Denson began singing in clubs in the style of Eddy Arnold. As the Florida islands only had limited openings for a young eager musician, he often went out on tours all over the USA. In mid 1956 he saw his old school buddies Johnny and Dorsey Burnette on the television show The Ted Mack Amateur Hour, which they won three times, plus securing a national tour with the programme as well as a recording contract with Coral Records.

Lee thought that he could easily replicate this and called the brothers for advice with the end result that he moved to New York where he stayed for eight months. He also gained an appearance on The Ted Mack Amateur Hour where he came out the clear winner. Brother Jimmy was with him by now and it was he who took over promotion. Jimmy contacted people at RCA and got them to watch Lee on the show. Eventually Lee gained a recording contract with the Vik label, which was an RCA subsidiary company, and so he started searching for new material to record.

                             

On December 12th 1956 Lee went into the RCA's New York studio to cut his first four songs. He was accompanied by in the studio by top session men such as Panama Francis and Sam "The Man" Taylor. The output was "Heart Of A Fool" coupled 
with Lee's own composition "The Pied Piper" which was the plug side. This became a No. 50 US hit for Billy Williams in 1957.

Denison’s other recordings included "Climb Love Mountain" (1957, Vik). The b-side of the single was "New Shoes", which featured guitar work by Eddie Cochran, who Denson had met while on tour in California. The Kuf-Linx recorded a version of "Climb Love Mountain", re-titled as "Climb Love's Mountain".

Denson made several appearances on Dick Clark's Bandstand, before moving to California with his brother Jimmy where he made recordings for Kent Records in 1958, credited as Jesse James. The first session for his new label was on March 3rd 1958 and produced the two self composed numbers "High School Hop" and "Devil 
Doll". With Jimmy handling the promotion, Lee obtained plenty of local bookings and magazine write-ups. Whilst Jimmy was not a musician, he was a capable composer with the result that he and Lee started to write songs together.

These included "The South's Gonna Rise Again", recorded with top musicians including Earl Palmer at Gold Star Studios. Denson also recorded for the Merri label in 1960. Although most of his recordings were rock and roll, he retained an interest in gospel music, and wrote "Miracle of the Rosary", based on the hymn "Ave Maria", offering the song to Presley when the two met.

While his buddies embraced stardom, Denson’s salad days were over. Apart from 1964 when Denson recorded for the Magic Lamp label set up by Dorsey Burnette and Joe Osborn; the Carpenters made their first recordings as backing singers on the records. Lee wasn’t heard from again until Presley picked up his The Miracle Of The Rosary in 1971 for his ‘Elvis Now’ album

The Elvis recording stirred up new regarding Lee so he returned to Memphis in 1972, and signed a contract with Stax Records where in recorded his own version of the song in 1973. He later wrote and recorded several albums of Christian music for his own Eternal Rainbow label, as well as recording children's songs.

A compilation album of Denson's work was released in April 2002 on Hydra Records. The South's Gonna Rise Again contained 23 tracks, the majority written by Denson.

Denson died in the Methodist University Hospital, Tennessee, on 6th November 2007 at the age of 75.

(Edited from Wikipedia & rockabilly.nl)

Wynonie Harris born 24 August 1915

Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969) was an American blues shouter and rhythm-and-blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. He had fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952. Harris is attributed by many music scholars to be one of the founding fathers of rock and roll.

Harris's mother, Mallie Hood Anderson, was fifteen and unmarried at the time of his birth in Nebraska. His paternity is uncertain. His wife, Olive E. Goodlow, and daughter Patricia Vest said that his father was a Native American named Blue Jay. Wynonie had no father figure in his family until 1920, when his mother married Luther Harris, fifteen years her senior.

In 1931, at age 16, Harris dropped out of high school in North Omaha. The following year, his first child, a daughter, Micky, was born to Naomi Henderson. Ten months later, his son Wesley was born to Laura Devereaux. Both children were raised by their mothers. Wesley became a singer in the Five Echoes and in the Sultans and later was a singer and guitarist in Preston Love's band.

Harris formed a dance team with Velda Shannon in the early 1930s. They performed in North Omaha's flourishing entertainment community, and by 1934, they were a regular attraction at the Ritz Theatre. In 1935, Harris, having became a celebrity in Omaha, was able to earn a living as an entertainer, in the depths of the Great Depression.

In 1935 Harris, age 20, started dating 16-year-old Ollie Goodlow, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, who came to neighbouring Omaha to watch him perform. On May 20, 1936, Ollie gave birth to a daughter, Adrianne Patricia (Pattie). Harris and Ollie were married on December 11, 1936. Later they lived in the Logan Fontenelle projects in North Omaha. Ollie worked as a barmaid and nurse; Harris sang in clubs and took odd jobs.

While performing at Jim Bell's Club Harlem nightclub with Shannon, he began to sing the blues. He began travelling frequently to Kansas City, where he paid close attention to blues shouters. Harris was already a seasoned dancer, drummer, and singer when he left Omaha for L.A. in 1940. He found plenty of work singing and appearing as an emcee on Central Avenue, where his reputation was spreading fast.

He was appearing in Chicago at the Rhumboogie Club in 1944 when bandleader Lucky Millinder hired him as his band's new singer. With Millinder's orchestra in brassy support, Harris made his debut on shellac by boisterously delivering "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" that same year for Decca. By the time it hit in mid-1945, Harris was long gone from Millinder's organization and back in L.A.

                               

The shouter debuted on wax under his own name in July of 1945 at an L.A. date for Philo. A month later, he signed on with Apollo Records, an association that provided him with two huge hits in 1946: "Wynonie's Blues" (with saxist Illinois Jacquet's combo) and "Playful 

Baby." Harris's own waxings were squarely in the emerging jump blues style then sweeping the West Coast. After scattered dates for Hamp-Tone, Bullet, and Aladdin, Harris joined the star-studded roster of Cincinnati's King Records in 1947. There his sales really soared.

Few records made a stronger seismic impact than Harris' 1948 chart-topper "Good Rockin' Tonight." Ironically, Harris shooed away its composer, Roy Brown, when he first tried to hand it to the singer; only when Brown's original version took off did Wynonie cover the romping number. With Hal "Cornbread" Singer on wailing tenor sax and a rocking, socking backbeat, the record 
provided an easily followed blueprint for the imminent rise of rock
& roll a few years later (and gave Elvis Presley something to place on the A side of his second Sun single).

After that, Harris was rarely absent from the R&B charts for the next four years, he scored into 1952 (13 in all) — and then his personal hit parade stopped dead. It certainly wasn't Harris' fault — his King output rocked as hard as ever under Henry Glover's supervision — but changing tastes among fickle consumers that accelerated Wynonie Harris's sobering fall from favour.

Sides for Atco in 1956, King in 1957, and Roulette in 1960 only hinted at the raunchy glory of a short few years earlier. The touring slowed accordingly. In 1963, his chaffeur-driven Cadillacs and lavish New York home a distant memory, Harris moved back to L.A., scraping up low-paying local gigs whenever he could. Chess gave him a three-song session in 1964, but sat on the promising results.

On June 14, 1969, aged 53, Harris died of esophageal cancer at the USC Medical Center Hospital in Los Angeles. A sad ending for the bigger-than-life R&B pioneer whose ego matched his tremendous talent. (Compiled and edited from Wikipedia & All Music)

Roscoe Shelton born 22 August 1931

Roscoe Shelton (August 22, 1931 – July 27, 2002) was an American electric blues and R&B singer. He was a pivotal and influential voice who paved the way for other soul artists as the blues and rock genres were finding some common ground in the world of pop music. His latter-day producer, Fred James, noted that Roscoe was one of the few blues/R&B singers of the '50s to make the transition to soul.

Roscoe Shelton was born in Lynchburg, Tenn., but he grew up in Nashville. Despite having a guitar-playing uncle who introduced him to the music of jump blues singers like Amos Milburn and Ivory Joe Hunter, Shelton was initially a first-rate gospel vocalist. When he was eighteen Roscoe joined the legendary Fairfield Four, a gospel quartet from the '30s and '40s. It is important to note here that Shelton's friend Bobby Hebb also played guitar in the Fairfield Four, though not while Shelton was with the act. 

After singing lead for that group Roscoe spent four years in the military. Upon his release from military duty he joined a spin off

of the Fairfield Four, which became known as the Skylarks. Between 1956 and 1957 the Skylarks recorded for Nashboro Records, a gospel label owned by Excello Records proprietor Ernie Young. After his gig with the Skylarks, Shelton performed live with his childhood friends DeFord Bailey, Jr. and Bobby Hebb. Hebb noted that Shelton sang spirituals before he went into the blues.

It was never a problem for the singer and guitarist to get together. They would see each other in the neighborhood quite often. And it was the same with DeFord Bailey, Jr., son of the legend he was named after, who lived only two or three houses away from the Hebbs when Bobby and DeFord were children. Bobby Hebb was a sideman with DeFord Bailey, Jr. -- considered the first electric bass player in Tennessee -- and they had a variety of singers including Roscoe Shelton. Roland Grisham would perform on guitar when Hebb had other commitments. 

According to writer Bill Dahl  Roscoe recorded at Excello Records between October 1958 to February 1961, the material showing up on his album debut, 1961's Roscoe Shelton Sings. Bobby Hebb played guitar on some of the original Excello sides, including a minor hit,  "Something's Wrong," written by Shelton/Hall. Roscoe would cover only one composition from his friend and neighbour, the song-a-day man Bobby Hebb. That tune from circa 1959/1960 is entitled "My Best Friend," with lyrics slightly altered from Hebb's original. 

                               

Forty-fives were being released on various labels after the debut album, Roscoe recording for Ted Jarrett's Valdot label in 1962, those sides getting licensed to Battle Records. In 1964-1965 the work was issued on the Simms imprint, resulting in the hit 

"Strain on My Heart." Simms was absorbed by Sound Stage Seven, a label operated by former DJ John Richbourg, aka John R of Rich Records fame. Sound Stage Seven released the singer's music between 1965 and 1967, hitting with "Easy Going Fellow."

Following the death of friends Sam Cooke and Otis Redding late in 1967, Roscoe was never the same. Overcome with sadness and often unable to perform, Roscoe Shelton quit the music industry all together in 1969/70 for the private sector, becoming the dorm administrator for Meharry Medical College in Nashville. He didn’t return to his music for nearly 25 years. The gap is huge between the work on Sound Stage 7 in 1966 and the 1994 release of material by Shelton, Earl Gaines, and Clifford Curry 

under the title of the Excello Legends. This was actually recorded for what was to be a reactivated Excello Records, but the company sold out to AVI, the disc getting licensed to Magnum and finding re-release in 1998 on Ripete.

Fred James produced many of Shelton's recordings in the '90s and the new millennium, touring the U.S. and Europe with the singer several times. Those records include Let It Shine and She's the One from 1996, and the Earl Gaines and Roscoe Shelton 1998 recordings entitled Let's Work Together. 

Amazingly, Gordon cut Memphis, Tennessee, his first-ever full-length LP, in 2000; the record is a sorely overlooked date that featured him performing his signature hits backed by the stinging guitar of Duke Robillard and a fine band. The album earned him a W.C. Handy award nomination. Several more CDs were released up to the singer's passing. Always a heavy smoker, he succumbed to cancer in Tennessee on July 27, 2002.   (Edited mainly from AllMusic)

Jimmy Raney born 20 August 1927

Jimmy Raney (August 20, 1927 – May 9, 1995) was an American jazz guitarist born in Louisville, Kentucky, known for his work from 1951 to 1952 and then from 1953 to 1954 with the Red Norvo trio (replacing Tal Farlow) and, during the same time period, with Stan Getz. In 1954 and 1955, he won the Down Beat Critics' Poll for guitar. Raney worked in a variety of jazz mediums, including cool jazz, bebop, post bop, hard bop, and mainstream jazz.

James Elbert Raney was born in Louisville, Kentucky. The son of Pearle Glasscock and Elbert Raney, he got his first guitar at age 10 and reportedly got his bearings with the help of his grandmother, who played ukulele. He soon became adept at the guitar, doing gigs at a really young age. He first studied with A.J. Giancola, a classical teacher, then Hayden Causey who was able to nurture his fascination with jazz guitar and his early guitar hero, Charlie Christian—the guitarist that turned Jimmy’s head around with the classic “Solo Flight”. Hayden was able to recommend Jimmy for the Jerry Wald Band in 1944. Jimmy joined the Wald band at the Hotel New Yorker, making his first trip to and staying for 2 months.

He moved up to Chicago and played with many of his peers in the new bebop movement, including pianist Lou Levy, saxophonists Lou Donaldson and Sonny Stitt, and guitarists Jimmy Gourley and the legendary, Ronnie Singer. In 1946, he worked for a time as guitarist with the Max Miller Quartet at Elmer's in Chicago, his first paying gig.  In 1948, he joined the Woody Herman band, at that time known as “The Second Herd”.

Jimmy was happy with being in a major big band, but he began to feel restless with having few solos and playing mostly rhythm guitar. Nevertheless, Jimmy practiced a ton and band mates often noted this. He was rapidly becoming a new voice for bebop guitar. He would take his first trip to the studio in 1948 with Al Haig and Stan Getz which produced a series of exceptional recordings and brought Mr. Raney's playing to a wider audience. He maintained a busy recording schedule, also working with the pianists Sonny Clark and Hall Overton.

Jimmy would get the opportunity to play out when he joined the equally noted Artie Shaw band, and later, the next incarnation of his small group, the Gramercy Five in 1949. Jimmy’s bebop voice at this point was becoming clearer and approaching what would be his influential style later on. During this time, Jimmy recorded with Harry Belafonte. Jimmy also made his curious debut as a scat vocalist with Blossom Dearie on an Al Haig date. But after the record producer talked him into it, he was mortified at the resulting record and vowed never to do such a thing again. This non-commercialist streak would stay with him for the rest of his career.

                              

Although Jimmy played and recorded with Stan Getz earlier, he didn’t officially join his band until after finishing up with Artie Shaw’s bands and cutting a few more records. During the early 50’s Jimmy replaced Tal Farlow  in the Red Norvo trio which 

was a popular touring band since the early fifties. The first gig with Red was at The Embers in New York in 1953. The first tracks were recorded in March of 1953. He then toured with Red going to Toronto, the midwest, Colorado and San Francisco. His most notable tour was however his famous one to Europe from Jan-Feb 1954 (organized by record producer, Leonard Feather) where the trio was joined up with Buddy DeFranco and Sonny Clark to accompany Billie Holiday in Mustermesse, Basil (Switzerland).

Jimmy recorded several albums – a quintet date in Sweden with tenor saxophonist Gosta Theselius and Sonny Clark and two albums in Paris with a French rhythm section (as well as Bobby Jaspar on tenor) and the other with Mitchell, Clark and drummer Bobby White. These two albums were Jimmy’s famous Jimmy Raney Visits Paris (vol 1 and 2). In the 1960's Mr. Raney moved to New York and did a substantial amount of playing in recording and television studios, but in 1967 alcoholism and other professional difficulties led him to return to his native Louisville.

In the 70's, his career picked up, especially in Europe and Japan. He recorded several fine albums for the Xanadu label, and in the 1980's he kept a fairly consistent touring and recording schedule, performing with his son Doug (who has a very similar sound on guitar). Raney was less active in the late '80s and '90s, up until his 1995 death.  

Raney suffered for thirty years from Ménière's disease, a degenerative condition that led to near deafness in both ears, although this did not stop him from playing. His last series of recordings, uniformly strong, were made for the Criss Cross label in the Netherlands. He died of heart failure in a nursing home in Louisville, Kentucky May 9, 1995. He was 67.  

His obituary in the New York Times called him "one of the most gifted and influential post-war jazz guitarists in the world".

(Edited from Wikipedia, New York Times & jonraney.com)