Johnny Puleo born October 7, 1907

Johnny Puleo (October 7, 1907 – May 3, 1983) was an American musician and actor who specialized in playing the harmonica.

John D. Puleo was born a dwarf (he stood 4 ft 6 in (1.37 m) as an adult) in Washington, D.C., he worked as a newspaper seller until being discovered at a contest in Boston held by bandleader Borrah Minevitch, of The Harmonica Rascals. Soon he joined a comedy variety act, during which time he learned the art of pantomime that contributed so much to his success. He then joined the Rascals, with whom he toured the world. 

Unfortunately, Puleo signed a long-term contract with Minevitch, being paid a small amount of what was collected from his performances.  In 1941, following a strike with Minevitch, Johnny, as well as many other Minevitch Rascals, left in attempt to start a different group. The entirety of the group had moved in with Johnny's parents, living and rehearsing in their basement. The group did not last long, as Minevitch threatened legal action and was able to acquire his players again.

                                  

Following Minevitch's death in 1955, Puleo formed his own group, Johnny Puleo and his Harmonica Gang, which included: Eddie Gordon, Dominic Sgro, Tony Sgro, Frank Maquis, JoJo DeFluvio, Carl Ford, Les McGann, Gene DeMase and Dave Doucette. The group had many albums on Audio Fidelity records starting in 1957, and even released a two record album with the Chimes Family. He also acted in several films, most notably Trapeze (1956). 

The Harmonica Gang appeared at top supper clubs throughout the USA, including the famous Latin Quarter in New York and Miami Beach, the Riviera in Las Vegas, Palmer House in Chicago, The Roosevelt in New Orleans, and Twin Coaches in Pittsburgh, as well as venues like the Moulin Rouge and London Palladium overseas. 

Puleo performed in front of such notables as the Royal Command in England and the Presidents of the United States and France. In addition to his mastery of the harmonica, he was a past master of the art of pantomime and a dramatic actor of considerable ability. Puleo entertained three presidents, and appeared on the Ed Hollywood Palace, Sullivan, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, Dean Martin and Perry Como television shows.

Puleo and his five-member band released a series of high-energy light-pop LPs on Audio Fidelity Records. His first album was the first LP to be released in a single-tone-arm stereo format in 1957. More (at least seven) albums on the Audio Fidelity label followed well into the 1960s. Puleo was an early advocate for use of the zip code within the United States. In a 1963 TV commercial, he climbed up a small ladder and said, "Now remember, use your zip code," as he pointed to a letter going into the mailbox.

Puleo resided in his native Washington, D.C., throughout his adult life. Public records indicate he married Evelyn O'Shea in Nevada on December 31, 1968. He performed with his Harmonica Gang until 1973 when he retired. He nonetheless persisted in smaller-scale performances and occasional television spots into the early 1980s making his last professional appearance on SCTV the year before his death. Puleo died from respiratory failure at Holy Cross Hospital in his native Washington, D.C., May 3, 1983 at the age of 74.

(Edited from Wikipedia) 

Larry Young born October 7, 1940

Larry Young (October 7, 1940 – March 30, 1978) was an American jazz organist and occasional pianist. Young's early work was strongly influenced by the soul jazz of Jimmy Smith, but he later pioneered a more experimental, modal approach to the Hammond B-3. Being a practicing Muslim, Young was sometimes listed under his Muslim name of Khaled Yasin on recordings.

Larry Young was born in Newark, New Jersey. His parents were Larry Young Sr. and Agnes McCoy. Young Senior was an active musician and a professional organist who encouraged his sons playing at the family piano. Young Junior attended Newark's Arts High School, where he sang bass in a vocal group called The Challengers. Young took classical lessons from pianist Olga von Till through his teenage years. The piano was Young's primary instrument until his father opened up a nightclub in Newark called the Shindig. The Shindig had its own house organ, where Young began his long association with the instrument.

By the late 1950s, Young had become quite proficient on the organ, and began working around Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey with different r&b; bands. Larry Young began to use the "junior" tag to his name professionally to avoid confusion, as both he and his father were performing around the same local clubs and hot spots. In 1960, Young made his debut recording for the Prestige label. The album, Testifying, featured Young on organ, Thornel Schwartz on guitar, and Jimmie Smith on drums. This album featured several noteworthy songs including the title track. The next year Young recorded with well-known tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest, who had a number one hit in 1952 with his cover of the song Night Train.

                                   

By 1962, Young was still recording for Prestige having released the album Groove Street which featured the same personnel as Testifying but added tenor saxophonist Bill Leslie. This trio toured Europe that same year, minus Leslie, who stayed in the United States. In 1963, Young appeared on Gildo Mohones's album I'm Shooting High, and vocalist Etta Jones's album Love Shout, both of which were released on Prestige. Young's stock value as an organist began to gain improve substantially in 1964. He appeared on guitarist Grant Green s Blue Note album Talkin About, which also featured drumming giant Elvin Jones. This album featured the song Talkin About J.C., a tribute to tenor great John Coltrane.

Young himself signed with Blue Note in 1964, enabling him to enlist the services of many of the most talented and influential figures in jazz during that time. Young released Into Somethin in 1964 and it featured Grant Green, Elvin Jones, and Sam Rivers on tenor saxophone. Young also appeared on Green's 1964 release, Street of Dreams, which highlighted Young with Elvin Jones once again and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. In 1965, Young appeared on two Grant Green releases, I Want To Hold Your Hand, which featured Elvin Jones along with tenor player Hank Mobley, and His Majesty King Funk, released on the Verve label.

That same year, Young released his heralded album Unity on Blue Note. This album, considered by many to be one of the finest jazz organ albums ever recorded, featured Young playing highly expressive harmonies and blistering modal solos. The album featured the song The Moontrane, which featured the album personnel of Elvin Jones on drums, Woody Shaw on trumpet, and tenor giant Joe Henderson. In 1965, Young also visited Europe once again playing piano on Nathan Davis's album Happy Girl. During 1965, Young, Jones, and Green played around the New York area very frequently and still performed with trumpeter Woody Shaw, who later went on to join Horace Silver along with Joe Henderson. By 1966, Young had released one of his last albums for Blue Note entitled Of Love and Peace, which featured altoist James Spaulding and drummer Jerry Thomas. That same year, he was awarded the Down Beat magazine award of talent deserving wider recognition on the organ in the 1966 Critic's awards.

With fusion entering the musical realm, Young was just as an integral part as his more famous counterparts, Miles Davis and Tony Williams. Young appeared on Davis s album Bitches Brew, playing electric piano on the song Miles Runs the Voodoo Down. Young's association with drummer Tony Williams and guitarist John McLaughlin formed the nucleus of Tony Williams' newly formed fusion trio Lifetime. The group recorded and released the double album Emergency, which featured the song Spectrum, and the title track Emergency. In 1969, Young also jammed and played with guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. Several bootlegs exist of this group, which also featured bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell.

Young continued to play with Williams' Lifetime and appeared on the 1970 recordings One Word and 1971's Ego, both released on Polydor Records. Young also played on McLaughlin's 1970 album Devotion, along with Buddy Miles on drums. In 1972, McLaughlin and guitarist Carlos Santana teamed up for their Columbia release Love, Devotion, Surrender, featuring the John Coltrane composition A Love Supreme, with Young on organ. Young toured with the guitarists in support of the album and appeared on the 1973 recording Live In Chicago, which also featured drummer Billy Cobham.

By the mid 1970s, the organist was working with drummer Lenny White's group, and recorded several albums as a leader, including the 1976 Arista Records album Spaceball, which featured guitarist Larry Coryell on several songs. Young's recordings for Arista didn't sell well, leaving the musician with a rather twisted view of the record industry since musicians of his calibre were being outsold by far less capable performers. In 1978, Young signed a recording contract with Warner Brothers and had plans of releasing new material. Unfortunately, this wouldn't happen as he returned from California he began to have stomach problems. Upon being treated in the hospital he died suddenly on March 30, 1978 in New York City from what has been called pneumonia, although the actual causes of his death remain unclear.

Young left behind a very rich legacy on the organ, expanding its harmonic and melodic capacities as much as, if not more than Jimmy Smith. 

(Edited from Encyclopaedia of Jazz Musicians & Wikipedia)

Frank Hubbell born October 6, 1931

Frank Hubbell (October 6, 1931 - November 10, 2018) was an American jazz trumpet player best known for his work in dixieland, folk-jazz, and big band pop genres during the mid-20th century.

Following his service in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict, he graduated from the University of Miami. I could not find much about his early musical activities, but early in his career, Hubbell performed as a trumpet player with big band ensembles, including Anson Weeks and His Hotel Mark Hopkins Orchestra. Later he formed the jazz band Sun City Six prior to leading The Village Stompers.

The Village Stompers were an American Dixieland jazz group who came from Greenwich Village in New York City and consisted of Dick Brady, Don Coates, Ralph Casale, Frank Hubbell, Lenny Pogan, Al McManus, Don Steele, Mitchell May, and Joe Muranyi. The eight of them had gotten together in New York in 1963, initially as Frank Hubbell & the Hubcaps, who cut one single early that year, which vanished without a trace. Later that year, they reorganized as the Village Stompers and were signed to Epic Records, where they cut "Washington Square." 

                                  

The piece itself was a folk-like Dixieland tune, heavy on the banjo as well as the winds, and written by Bob Goldstein, a Philadelphia-born composer, actor, and comedy writer (who'd once collaborated with Woody Allen); in subsequent recordings, they would draw on more of Goldstein's work, both on his own and in collaboration with David Shire, who later achieved renown in the field of film music. The record's success, however, could be traced very specifically to the accessible folk-like arrangement provided by Joe Sherman, who had previously worked with Tony Bennett and the Ames Brothers, among other artists. "Washington Square" was released as a single in the mid-summer of 1963 and entered the charts in late September, hitting the number two spot in December of that year. 

By that time, the group had cut an album built on the same pattern, made up on Dixieland-style renditions of folk and folk-like material including "If I Had a Hammer," "Green Green," "Blowin' in the Wind," "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd," as well as a virtual repeat of the album's title tune "The Poet and the Prophet." Some of Sherman's arrangements included surprising little touches, such as the electric guitar that turns up in the middle of the swinging "Cold Steel Canyons" and as the lead instrument on "Blowin' in the Wind" (where the cornets, clarinets, etc. are pushed into the background for the first verse, before coming to the fore on the chorus). The Washington Square album peaked at number five nationally, an extraordinary achievement for a Dixieland band in that era, and a major success by the standards of Epic Records in those days. 

By that time, the group had gotten a massive amount of exposure on-stage, playing in venues such as New York's Basin Street East. The Village Stompers entered 1964 on a roll, with a Top Ten single and LP to the their credit, and it was here that they began running out of originality. They never found another unknown tune as catchy as "Washington Square," and the title of their second album, More Sounds of Washington Square, only reminded potential listeners of the lack of any significant follow-up, although this was also a very different kind of album as there were only three folk songs present and the rest drew on popular tunes ("Dominique"), blues, and other sources for a more traditional Dixieland sound and little chance of being mistaken for a folk revival release. 

They did score a minor hit with their version of "From Russia With Love" in the spring of 1964, which showed up on their next LP, and chalked up another small success with their rendition of the theme from the then-current musical Fiddler on the Roof. By that time, however, the focus of the music business had shifted thousands of miles to the east, to England, with the advent of the British Invasion. The group's easy-going, accessible sound made them popular with deejays, and subsequent singles, such as "The La-Dee-Da Song," "Oh! Marie," and "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" were played on the radio but never saw equivalent success in their actual sales. 

During the 60’s, Hubbell travelled with his band throughout the U.S. and toured Canada and Japan. They played concerts, nightclubs, colleges, hotels, etc., and made recordings for Epic, Atlantic and Phillips. Appearances on T.V. included The Tonight Show, The Jimmy Dean Show, Hootenanny, On Broadway Tonight and the Mike Douglas Show, and on trumpet, frequently opened for Louis Armstrong on the New Years Eve coast-to-coast radio broadcasts. 

A second album in 1964, Around the World, did passably well thanks to the presence of "From Russia With Love" and "Oh! Marie," but New Beat on Broadway sold more modestly despite the presence of "Fiddler on the Roof," and Some Folk, a Bit of Country, and a Whole Lot of Dixie, released in 1965, saw them recede to the level of a cult phenomenon. Two more albums, A Taste of Honey and Other Goodies and One More Time, they also backed Epic's top singer Bobby Vinton for his album Live At The Copa followed through 1966, and the group called it quits the following year. Around that same time, Epic released a greatest-hits album. 

Hubbell continued releasing music on Atco and Philips through 1968 as Frank Hubbell and the Stompers. Since the 70’s he was established mainly in Miami, but also throughout other areas in Florida. During the 1980,s and 1990's he led the Frank Hubbell Moonlighters. This band was broadcast many times over WKAT in Miami. Frank was also an active member of the Miami Elks Club where he played with his band every Monday night and brought fun, music and happy times to its members. His bands included some of the finest musicians. Hubbell played several instruments, but he was known for being an outstanding trumpet player.

Hubbell passed away peacefully in Florida on November 10, 2018 at the age of 87 and was laid to rest at the South Florida National Cemetery (Veterans cemetery) located in Palm Beach County in Lake Worth, Florida.

(Edited from AllMusic, Way Back Attack, Van Orsdel obituary & Chat GPT) 

Roy Book Binder born October 5, 1943

Roy Alan Bookbinder (October 5, 1943 – March 3, 2026), known professionally as Roy Book Binder, was an American blues guitarist, singer-songwriter and storyteller. A student and friend of the Reverend Gary Davis, he was equally at home with blues and ragtime. He was known to shift from open tunings to slide arrangements to original compositions, with both traditional and self-styled licks. His storytelling was another characteristic that made his style unique.

Roy Bookbinder was born in Queens, New York City, on October 5, 1943. Upon graduation from high school, he joined the Navy and undertook a tour of duty in Europe. He bought his first guitar at a military base in Italy. After completing his enlistment, he returned to New York, where he met and became friends with his guitar hero, Dave Van Ronk. Book Binder soon sought out the Reverend Gary Davis, who also lived in New York, and became his student and later his chauffeur and tour companion. Much of Book Binder's original material is based on his time on the road with Davis.

He started his recording career slowly, cutting some singles for Kicking Mule and Blue Goose in 1968. In 1969, he toured England with Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and Homesick James. After meeting another of his musical influences, the bluesman Pink Anderson, Book Binder released his first album, Travelin' Man, on Adelphi. The album was named after one of the songs he learned from Anderson. In 1973, he began a partnership with the fiddler Fats Kaplin, and they recorded Git Fiddle Shuffle in 1973. They performed together for three years, playing numerous concerts and recording a second album, Ragtime Millionaire, in 1977. After this partnership dissolved, Book Binder began touring the country, living in a motor home, and concentrating on live performances.

                                 

Roy began playing with fiddler Fats Kaplin in 1973, recording Git Fiddle Shuffle the same year. Roy and Fats were a duo for three years, playing numerous concerts and recording a second album, Ragtime Millionaire, in 1976. Following the release of Ragtime Millionaire, the duo stopped performing together and Book Binder bought a motor home, which became his permanent residence. Live performances became his primary concern after the release of Goin' Back to Tampa in 1979. For nearly ten years, he toured the country in the motor home, driving himself from club to club, hitting numerous coffeehouses and festivals along the way.

Roy Orbison & Roy Book Binder

Roy returned to recording in 1988, releasing Bookaroo! on Rounder Records. In addition to his constant touring, he recorded regularly in the '90s and remained active into the new millennium; his albums during this period included The Hillbilly Blues Cats (1992, Rounder), Live Book...Don't Start Me Talkin'... (1994, Rounder), Polk City Ramble (1998, Rounder), Singer Songwriter Bluesman (2001, PEGleg), and Live at the Fur Peace Station (2005, PEGleg). “I don’t play gigs in places where I wouldn’t go socially,” Book Binder once told thecountryblues.com. “I don’t play the bar blues scene. It’s not my thing. I am just a folk player. Until I started my own label, I didn’t know you could make money from selling records. I had recorded plenty of times, but I never got paid by the labels. So I started my own, Peg leg Records.”

Notables that have shared the stage with Book Binder include Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, John Jackson, Sonny Terry, Doc Watson, Ray Charles, and Brownie McGhee. He has appeared regularly on Nashville Now. He is listed in Blues Who's Who, by the music historian Sheldon Harris. Book Binder was also a veteran guitar instructor and taught at the Fur Peace Ranch with Jorma Kaukonen and others whose lives have been influenced by Davis. There he demonstrated songs, turnarounds, chord variations, right-hand methods, and many of his own adaptations and unique approaches to the blues. His album Hillbilly Blues Cats (Rounder) was named as one of the ten most essential acoustic guitar albums of 1992. The 1992 category winners also included Eric Clapton's Unplugged, Lyle Lovett's Joshua Judges Ruth and Neil Young's Harvest Moon.

Throughout his career, Roy, always humble, promoted himself primarily as a singer, songwriter, storyteller, and a guitarist second. Roy would be the first to admit that other pickers with whom he shared his history, such as the late Woody Mann, Peter Berley and Ari Eisinger, were much more accomplished technicians. Bookbinder, however, was more concerned with the stories in the music—the telling of a good yarn, if you will—and in entertaining as wide an audience as possible. In his later years, one of Roy’s favorite sayings was that “It’s better to be lucky than talented, smart or good looking,” and he attributed his success to taking advantage of breaks that presented themselves in the course of his hard work.

In 2025, Roy ended his yearly touring and headed to Florida, where he had wintered since the late 1980s. Unfortunately, once home, his health rapidly deteriorated. By the end of February, he was in a hospice, where he passed away March 3, 2026. He was 82.

(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia & Folk Works) 

Pirkle Lee Moses, Jr. born October 4, 1937

 Pirkle Lee Moses, Jr.(October 4, 1937 - December 26, 2000) was a R&B singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer for 'The El Dorados'.

The El Dorados were an American doo-wop group, formed in Chicago, Illinois, United States, in 1952 whilst still students at Englewood High School: Pirkle Lee Moses Jr. on lead, Louis Bradley handling tenor, Jewel Jones covering second tenor and baritone, James Maddox alternating baritone and bass, and Robert Glasper supplying bass. Initially billed as the Five Stars, they attracted the interest of Johnny Moore, the school's custodian, who became their manager after recognizing their potential.

Shortly after graduation in 1954, Moses and Glasper enlisted via the Air Force's 90-day active-duty program. Moses returned to the group, yet Glasper stayed in service. Arthur Bassett stepped in temporarily on tenor for Moses, until his return, while Richard Nickens replaced Glasper on bass, expanding the Five Stars to six voices and prompting a name shift. Plans to adopt the Cardinals were abandoned amid a wave of car-model monikers; unable to use Cadillacs, they drew inspiration from the El Dorado, the luxury two-door variant of that marque. Although they practiced the songs of the Orioles, Dominoes, Clovers, Mills Brothers, and Ink Spots, they worked hard to develop their own style, often changing arrangements to fit their own voices. Local Chicago disc jockey Al Benson of WWCA noticed the El Dorados after they captured first prize at a talent contest held at the Club De Lisa. Impressed by their harmonic blend, Benson secured them an audition at Vee Jay's contest for amateur acts at the Park City Skating Rink, where they bested the label's own Spaniels and earned a recording contract.

                                    

Their debut single, the bluesy ballad "My Loving Baby," appeared in September 1954 and sold well regionally. The follow-up found the group supporting Hazel McCollum on "Annie's Answer," Vee Jay's entry in the "Annie" cycle launched by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. Bassett soon departed for the Air Force, reducing the sextet back to a quintet. Vee Jay issued "At My Front Door" in the third week of September 1955; it entered the Billboard R&B charts on September 24 and the Top 100 on October 15. Al Duricati's driving drum pattern and an energetic sax solo propelled the track, while Moses Jr.'s "baby talk" section near the close added further momentum. The line about the "crazy little mama" achieved lasting recognition comparable to the Annie saga, and by year's end the single stood at number 17 pop and number one R&B. Pat Boone's cover later reached number seven on the pop side.

December's second week brought the release of their next single, "I'll Be Forever Lovin' You". Though the track incorporated jazz, pop, and R&B flavours and reached number eight R&B in February 1956, it failed to register on pop listings. Nickens exited soon afterward, leaving the El Dorados as a quartet. Several subsequent singles enjoyed scattered local success without matching earlier peaks. "Tears on My Pillow," distinct from the Little Anthony and the Imperials hit, marked the final recording by the original members; shortly after its release, Pirkle Moses Jr. parted ways with the group over management differences. He promptly joined the Kool Gents, another Vee Jay act left without a frontman after Dee Clark launched a solo career. He combined with John McCall on tenor, Douglas Brown on second tenor, Teddy Long on second tenor and baritone, and Johnny Carter on bass to create the New El Dorados. Two 1958 Vee Jay singles failed to sell, leading to a financial dispute and eventual disbandment.

Meanwhile Jones, Bradley, and Maddox recruited Marvin Smith as their new lead. To sidestep Vee Jay legal issues, the act recorded 1958's "A Lonely Boy" for Academy Records of Chicago under the name Those Four El Dorados. The quartet later moved to the West Coast and aligned with former NBA player Don Barksdale's Rhythm Record Company in Oakland, adopting the Tempos moniker before returning to Chicago and splitting in 1961. Johnny Carter sought to sustain the El Dorados name by assembling another New El Dorados lineup in late 1959 with McCall, Danny Edwards, and Eugene Huff, formerly of the Valquins; that configuration lasted until 1965. Carter attempted a further revival in 1971 alongside Huff, Spence Goulsby Jr., and Lee Toussaint on lead for two Paula sides, yet the unit dissolved by the early 1980s.

The Squires

Moses Jr. cut "It's Time" with an unnamed group billed as the Squires on Boss in 1963 and later issued a solo track titled The Docks. In 1965 he united with Melvin Morrow and George Prager, both late of the Moroccos, to form the Major Minors. In 1969, Moses Jr resuscitated the group name with new members, at the same time as a former member of The Tempos, Johnny Carter, also toured with another set of El Dorados. The two competing groups merged in the late 1970s to make it somewhat less confusing for El Dorados' fans. But by 1979, Pirkle Lee was gone and John Carter's group consisted of Eugene Huff, Spencer Goulsby, Robert Goulsby (lead), and William Goulsby (second tenor) and subsequently continued to tour and record as The El Dorados.

By 1987 Moses got another group together to record a couple of sides: "Ease The Pain" and "Remember Sherrie". These were released, as by the "Fabulous Eldorados" (one word), on the Delano label. The other members were Norman Palm (tenor; of the Pastels on United), Larry Johnson (tenor; of the Moroccos), Eugene Huff (baritone), and original El Dorado Richard Nickens (baritone/bass).

In 1993, St. George Records released a CD called "The El Dorados: Chicago Street Corner Blues & Rhythm". The group consisted of Pirkle Lee Moses, Norman Palm, Larry Johnson, Clarence "Huffy" Wright and Rufus Hunter. Each of the members took turns leading the selections (which were all songs sung on Chicago street corners, even if not by Chicago artists). 

Sadly, Pirkle Lee Moses Jr passed away on December 26, 2000. After his death Norman Palm, a long-time member since the late 1970s, took over and renamed the group Pirkle Lee Moses Jr's El Dorados, in tribute to his long-time colleague and friend. As of 2008, Pirkle Lee Moses Jr's El Dorados actively tours the Midwest, and the East Coast from time to time. In 2013 The Lineup was, Norman Palm, Norman Palm Jr, Saalik Ziyad, and Clarence "Huffy" Wright.

(Edited from Coda Music, Wikipedia and Unca Marvy, especially for most of the photos)

Jim Brewer born October 3, 1920

James Brewer (October 3, 1920 – June 3, 1988), also known as Blind Jim Brewer was an American blues singer and guitarist.

Unless you were a blues collector in the 1960's and 70's it's a safe bet that you may never have heard of this superb bluesman who was under recorded during his lifetime, One of the last acoustic blues guitarists in Chicago, Jim Brewer was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi. The oldest of seven children (five boys and two girls), Brewer lost his sight at an early age.  Brewer chose the guitar early as a means of survival. His father wanted him to play blues as the most likely means of earning a living, while his mother demanded he play only religious music. 

As a street singer in Chicago, he shifted constantly between the demon and the saint, playing gospel when weary of the blues’ wild street craziness and playing blues in club and festival performances. While playing on the streets and in the stores of Brookhaven in the 1930s, he learned most of the religious songs that he continued to perform for the rest of his life. Brewer’s father, however, told him that people would pay more to hear the blues than to hear church music. As he grew older, Brewer started performing at play parties, playing blues he had learned from store records.

Although he was also known as Blind Jim Brewer, he did not like this additive, He was reported to have said "My mother didn't name me "Blind", she named me "Jim." Following the death of Jim’s mother, the family moved to Chicago; Jim followed a year later and began playing on 43rd and 47th streets near his family’s home. By the late 1940s he was playing on Maxwell Street. Originally an open-air market for Russian and Polish immigrants who came to Chicago at the turn of the century, by the 1930s Maxwell Street had become a showcase for blues and gospel singers on Chicago’s South Side. Except for a short period when he left the city, Brewer was a regular on Maxwell Street for nearly forty years.

                Here's "She Wants To Boogie" from above album.

                                   

In the early 1950s Jim Brewer decided to travel, and he lived in St. Louis for three years, where he played on streetcars, in taverns, and on the streets. During that time he also joined a washboard band for a while. By the mid-1950s he had returned to Chicago and was introduced by a mutual friend to Fannie, who became his wife. Brewer’s new mother-in-law bought him a good electric guitar and amplifier, the first decent equipment he ever owned. Returning to Maxwell Street, Brewer decided to devote himself exclusively to singing religious songs. He wanted to separate himself from the lifestyle of trouble that surrounded blues musicians there, and he realized that many people had a low opinion of the blues.

But in 1962, two white college students found him on Maxwell Street and asked him if he could sing the blues. He answered that he could and two weeks later he found himself scheduled to give a concert at North-western University. Before the concert, Brewer was taken to Chicago’s No Exit Café, and the manager, Joe Moore, asked him to audition. That successful debut resulted in a regular job at the No Exit coffeehouse that continued for three decades. In his later years Brewer  played at major festivals and clubs throughout the Midwest, the East, Canada and Europe.

Jim Brewer’s major influences included Big Bill Broonzy and Tommy Johnson. Other influences included Big Joe Williams, Big Maceo, Teddy Darby, Lonnie Johnson, and Tampa Red; musicians Brewer heard on records and radio in Chicago. Jim was a powerful singer and guitarist; his style clearly conveying his roots in the Mississippi Delta blues. He played an acoustic Martin six-string guitar, and in his later years he also played a Gretch electric guitar, autoharp and paino. His music and performance style gained an amount of polish over the years, and he seemed comfortable playing to audiences who frequented the club and festival circuit.

In addition to performing songs he learned from others over the years, Jim was also an accomplished songwriter known to make up songs on the spot concerning his mood, the events of the day, or his immediate surroundings. He was recorded by Swedish Radio in 1964, cut sides for the Heritage label, was recoded by Pete Welding who issued the sides on his Testament label was well as Milestone and Storyville, plus cut the full-length albums Jim Brewer (Philo, 1974) and Tough Luck (Earwig, 1983). Brewer was also captured on film performing with his wife on Maxwell Street in 1964 for the documentary And This Is Free. His manager from the late 1970s through his death was Michael Frank, CEO of Earwig Music Company. Various tracks of Jim’s also appeared on compilation albums issued during the 1960s through the 1980s.

He died at home of heart failure June 3, 1988. He was buried at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. He had recently returned from his only European tour, and the promoter wanted him back, but Jim was afraid of flying and declined the offer. Brewer remained an in demand musician until the end, and as long time supporter Andy Cohen wrote: “He died with gigs on his calendar.”

(Edited from Earwig Music & Wikipedia) 

Pony Sherrell born circa 1924

Pony Sherrell (born circa 1924 - December 8, 1990) was an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and performer best remembered for her work in mid-20th-century radio, film soundtracks, and Las Vegas musical reviews.

Doris & Grace Sherrell

Doris “Pony” Sherrell was one of thousands of performers that attempted the jump from screen to jukebox. Born as Doris Gislen, a first generation native New Yorker, she later adopted the stage name of Pony Sherrell. She was on stage at the age of three, and began performing with her sister Grace as the Sherrell Babes in the late 1920s. They appeared on the “Horn And Hardart Hour,” “Uncle Don’s Radio Show” and on the Loews and RKO circuits. The team eventually got its own radio show on WOR New York.

Doris in 1942

A chance encounter with “My Blue Heaven” crooner Gene Austin landed the sisters steady work, who flanked Austin throughout his early ’40s cowboy phase and eventually lead to Gene and Doris’s marriage on Thanksgiving Day 1942. By then, the thrice married Austin, his child bride, and her sister had decamped to Hollywood to pursue their celluloid dreams. The sisters spent the first half of World War II on stage, performing separate and together in various theatre troupes and nightclub acts. They got their first big break in 1944, when they starred as themselves in both Moon Over Las Vegas and Follow The Leader, alongside Austin. By 1947, the honeymoon was over. Her first marriage behind her, the lifelong brunette did something incredibly bold: She went blonde.

                                  

The following year, the pair of platinum sisters were out for the night at The Haig, a jazz club on South Kenmore in Hollywood. Appearing that evening was “English piano Wizard” Phil Moody, who’d recently migrated to the States from war-ravaged Britain. A rapport was immediately struck, but this time with Doris as the third wheel. Moody spent his evenings playing in any restaurant and lounge that would have him, and briefly he worked under the tutelage of Phil Moore at Discovery Records. But his real passion was writing and arranging music. It was his new wife Grace that suggested he partner with a lyricist, and she knew just the filly to help get him in the money.

A 1954 press kit describes how Doris Sherrell got her nickname: “She’s called ‘Pony’ for two reasons. Firstly, she’s only 5-2 and 115 pounds. Secondly, she won a beautiful legs contest and the emcee of the event said she ‘had the slender legs of a colt.’” The writing duo of Moody and Sherrell got going in earnest in 1950, and had close to 200 songs by the end of the year. An audition for Irving Mills’ American Recording Artists firm resulted in a publishing deal in 1953, and the two were immediately drafted to write music for the film So This Is Paris, starring Tony Curtis, followed by The Second Greatest Sex and Paris Follies of 1956.

In the middle of this long-delayed Hollywood fantasy, Pony set her eyes on a recording career all her own. After Jimmy Durante tracked his own version of the Moody/Sherrell original “Little People” in 1954, Coral Records paid for Pony to cut her own. Though the single failed to go anywhere, there was enough chum to attract publicity shark Tim Gayle, who issued Grace and Pony Sherrell’s “Can-Can Blues” on his Advance imprint in 1955, and would continue to rep the Moody/Sherrell/Moody tricycle well into the ’60s. A deal with Irving Gwirtz’s revived Diamond label bore two gorgeous, orchestral singles: September 1956’s “No News” b/w “Hey Angelino” and “Jungle, Ungle Um Bai” b/w “Don’t Put Off ‘Till Tomorrow.” The racy “Jungle, Ungle” never sniffed the charts, and would be the last record issued on Diamond. Dozens of other songs were composed over the next decade, including the playfully xenophobic “Tobago,” but with their sound drifting out of vogue there were few takers.

Grace & Pony Sherrell

Undeterred, Phil Moody and Pony Sherrell persisted. Under the management of club magnate Frank Sennes, the two wrote and performed steadily over the next decade at his Moulin Rouge and Desert Inn nightclubs. In 1967, with the backing of her new husband, Texas financier Jess Metcalf, Pony and Phil set up Pony Records in the Moody living room, issuing and reissuing their entire catalogue on 45 and LP over the next five years to a completely disinterested marketplace. 

Phil & Grace Moody

Phil and Grace Moody spent the bulk of the ’70s living in Las Vegas, where he performed regularly at the Stardust, Sahara, and Flamingo hotels. In 1980 the couple opened Moody’s Supper Club in Palm Springs, and Phil continued to perform off and into the late ’90s. Grace’s light went out in 2006, Phil followed in 2011. Pony Sherrell never did settle down, keeping homes in Beverly Hills, Connecticut, Palm Springs, and Manhattan. She closed out her days managing Metcalf’s vast financial empire. She died from a heart attack at her New York on December 8, 1990.

(Sourced from Bandcamp)(date of birth estimated from Sam Houston State University profile on Gene Austin)