Lucky Milinder born 8 August 1910

 

Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder (August 8, 1910 – September 28, 1966) was an American rhythm and blues and swing bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful. His group was said to have been the greatest big band to play rhythm and blues, and gave a break to a number of influential musicians at the dawn of the rock and roll era. He is a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

 

Millinder was born in Anniston, Alabama, United States and was raised in Chicago, Illinois. In the 1920s he worked in clubs, ballrooms, and theatres in Chicago as a master of ceremonies and dancer. He first fronted a band in 1931 for an RKO theater tour, and in 1932 took over leadership of Doc Crawford's orchestra in Harlem, New York City, as well as freelancing elsewhere.

In 1933, he took a band to Europe, playing residencies in Monte Carlo and Paris. He returned to New York to take over leadership of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, which included Henry "Red" Allen, Charlie Shavers, Harry "Sweets" Edison and J.C. Higginbotham, and which had a regular slot at The Cotton Club. Around this time he also discovered singer and guitarist Rosetta Tharpe, with whom he performed for many years and first recorded with on "Trouble In Mind" in 1941.

In 1938 he teamed up with pianist Bill Doggett's group, and by 1940 had formed a completely new orchestra, which included Doggett and drummer "Panama" Francis. He established a residency at New York's Savoy Ballroom, and won a contract with Decca Records. Dizzy Gillespie was the band’s trumpeter for a while, and featured on Millinder's first charted hit, "When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)", which reached # 1 on the R&B chart and # 14 on the pop chart in 1942. The follow-up records "Apollo Jump" and "Sweet Slumber" were also big hits, with vocals by Trevor Bacon.

 

 

 

Here’s "When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)" taken from above album. 

 

By the mid-1940s the band was drifting towards what would be known as rhythm and blues. Other band members around this time included saxophonists Bull Moose Jackson, Tab Smith and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and pianist “Sir” Charles Thompson. In 1944 Millinder recruited singer Wynonie Harris, and their recording together of "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" became the group’s biggest hit in 1945, staying at No. 1 on the R&B chart for eight weeks and also crossing over to reach No. 7 on the US pop chart. After Harris left for a solo career, Millinder followed up with another hit, “Shorty’s Got to Go” on which he took lead vocals. Soon afterwards, Ruth Brown became the band's singer for a short period before her own solo career took off. 

In the late 1940s the band continued to remain popular and toured around all the large R&B auditoriums, although it had few chart hits for several years. In 1949 the band left Decca Records and joined first RCA Victor and then King Records, recording with singers Big John Greer and Annisteen Allen. The band’s last big hit was "I’m Waiting Just for You" with Allen in 1951, which reached No. 2 on the R&B chart and No. 19 pop. 

By 1952 Millinder was working as a radio DJ as well as continuing to tour with his band, but his style was beginning to fall out of favor and the band went through many personnel changes. In 1954 he took over the leadership of the house band at the Apollo Theater for a while. He effectively retired from performing around 1955, although his final recordings were in 1960. Thereafter, he earned his living outside music, but formed occasional bands for special concerts.

 

He became active in music publishing, and in public relations for a whiskey distillery, before dying from a liver ailment in New York City in September 1966. (Info edited from Wikipedia)

Mose Vinson born 7 August 1917

Mose Vinson (August 7, 1917 – November 16, 2002) was an American boogie-woogie, blues and jazz pianist and singer. His best known recordings were "Blues With A Feeling" and "Sweet Root Man". Over his lengthy career, Vinson worked with various musicians including Booker T. Laury and James Cotton. 

Vinson was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He taught himself how to play the piano as a child, initially playing in his local church. In his teenage years, Vinson started playing his own style of barrelhouse boogie-woogie in local juke joints in Mississippi and Tennessee, incorporating both blues and jazz in his repertoire. In 1932, following a chance meeting with Sunnyland Slim, Vinson relocated from Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. 

In the 1930s and 1940s, Vinson continued to play at local juke house and rural community parties. By the early 1950s, Vinson found employment as a custodian at the Taylor Boarding Home, where artists often stayed whilst recording next door at Sun Records studios. In the studios, Sam Phillips occasionally requested that Vinson accompany musicians. These included James Cotton on "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954), and Jimmy DeBerry on the latter's "Take a Little Chance". Phillips also allowed Vinson to record some tracks of his own, although these were not released until the 1980s.Vinson recorded two versions of "Forty-Four", one retitled "Worry You Off My Mind", and the other as "My Love Has Gone" (also known as "Come See Me"). Session musicians on these recordings included Walter Horton, Joe Hill Louis and Joe Willie Wilkins. 

 

 

Here’s Mose Vinson with “Come see me (aka My love has gone)”

                                     from above album.

 

After a period of lesser musical activity, by the early 1980s, the Centre for Southern Folklore had enlisted Vinson to perform at various cultural events, and at local schools. He became a regular at the Centre, where he played and taught for twenty years. In 1990, his contribution towards the album, Memphis Piano Blues Today, was recorded at his home. 

In 1997, his first full-length CD compilation album was released via the Centre. Declining health, however, stopped him playing not long before his death. 

Mose Vinson died of diabetes, in November 2002 in Memphis, at the age of 85.

In 2007, the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival was dedicated to his memory. 

 

Historically, there has been some confusion over both the birth and death dates for Vinson. Allmusic quotes August 7, 1917 and November 30, 2002; whilst the Encyclopaedia of Popular Music cites August 7, 1917 and November 16, 2002; yet another on-line source specialising in death details quotes June 2, 1917 and November 23, 2002. The information contained in Blues: A Regional Experience by Eric S. Leblanc (author), Bob L. Eagle (contributor), published in 2013, is deemed to be the most reliable and definitive to date. (Info Wikipedia)

 

 

Mose often played with drummer L.T. Lewis in his later years. Here the two veteran bluesmen teamed up with Glen Cammack and Ron Easley who are among the many great musicians to come out of Memphis Messick High School in the '60s. Easley also collaborated with Alex Chilton on recordings and performances for many years.

Abbey Lincoln born 6 August 1930

 

Anna Marie Wooldridge (August 6, 1930 – August 14, 2010), better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences. 

Born Anna Marie Wooldridge on August 6, 1930, in Chicago, Ill., Lincoln grew up in rural Michigan on a large farm with her 11 siblings. The family had a piano, and she developed an interest in music at an early age, when she began singing in school and church choirs.

As Lincoln's talent matured, she began learning to express the emotions behind the lyrics. She credits the recordings of Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington with teaching her how to sing with conviction. To escape the harsh Michigan winters, Lincoln moved to California. At 22, she spent a year in Honolulu, singing at a nightclub under the name Gaby Lee. When she moved back to California, she met lyricist Bob Russell, who became her manager and renamed her Abbey Lincoln. 

After several years out west, Lincoln left for Chicago. While her singing career was beginning to build, she landed a role singing in the film The Girl Can't Help It, wearing a dress once worn by Marilyn Monroe. But the glamorous life wasn't sitting well with Lincoln, and she fired Russell and moved on. In 1956, she recorded her first album, Abbey Lincoln's Affair: A Story of a Girl in Love. The following year, she moved to New York City and worked at the Village Vanguard, which at that time was an intimate supper club, perfect for aspiring artists.  

 

Here's "This can't Be Love" from Abbey's debut 1956 LP "Affair."

 

While performing at the Village Vanguard, Lincoln met drummer, composer and bebop innovator Max Roach, whom she would later

marry. It was Roach who introduced her to New York City's jazz elite. He also played an important role in her development as a sociopolitical artist and activist. Lincoln and Roach began collaborating frequently during the end of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s. During this time, the civil-rights movement was on the rise, and they, along with Charles Mingus, Oscar Brown Jr., John Coltrane and other jazz musicians, were right in the thick of it. Lincoln, Roach, Brown and others performed at benefits and fundraising concerts for the NAACP, CORE and other civil-rights organizations. In 1960, they recorded Roach's masterpiece, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite. 

In the mid-1960s, Abbey Lincoln starred in two more films, Nothing but a Man and For the Love of Ivy. At the end of the decade, she and Roach had divorced; Lincoln moved back to California and immersed herself in art. Even though she was experiencing some financial hardship during that time, singer Miriam Makeba offered her the chance to visit Africa. 

In 1972, Lincoln traveled to Africa after a 10-year hiatus from recording. There, she was given the name Aminata Moseka by the president of Guinea and Zaire's minister of information. She used the names Aminata Moseka alongside Abbey Lincoln to represent her African heritage. She also began to write stories.

Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Lincoln recorded on small independent labels such as Inner City and Enja. Her career got a major boost in 1989, however, when French producer Jean-Philippe Allard invited her to record for Verve Records/France. In later years, she inspired a series of younger jazz singers, including Cassandra Wilson and Lizz Wright, who both cited Lincoln as an inspiration for their own careers. 

When The World Is Falling Down was released in 1990, the record propelled Lincoln back to stardom. Since then, she made a string of stellar, philosophical albums that continued to bring her critical and commercial success, all the way through the release of her final record, 2007's Abbey Sings Abbey which featured a dozen songs about self-discovery. She also acted again for the first time in decades, with a small role in the 1990 Spike Lee film Mo' Better Blues.

In 2003 the National Endowment for the Arts presented her with its Jazz Masters Award, America's highest jazz honour. 

 

She underwent open-heart surgery in 2007. Latterly she lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side, in an apartment filled with her own paintings and drawings. Abbey Lincoln died on August 14, 2010 in Manhattan at the age of 80. Her death was announced by her brother, David Wooldridge, who told the New York Times that Lincoln had died in her Manhattan nursing home after suffering deteriorating health for years. No cause of death was officially given. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered. (Info edited mainly from NPR Music)

Sammi Smith born 5 August 1943

 

Sammi Smith (August 5, 1943 - February 12, 2005) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Born Jewel Faye Smith, she is best known for her 1971 country/pop crossover hit, "Help Me Make It Through the Night", which was written by Kris Kristofferson. She became one of the few women in the outlaw country movement during the 1970s. 

Sammi Smith was born Jewel Fay Smith in Orange County, California, in 1943 but spent her childhood in the Southwest. She dropped out of school at the age of eleven and began to sing professionally in nightclubs. She was only fifteen when she married, and eventually had four children. In 1967, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, after her recent divorce. When Johnny Cash got wind of her talent, she was soon signed with Columbia Records. She produced her first minor country hit in 1968 titled "So Long, Charlie Brown, Don't Look for Me Around". The song showed Smith's potential as a country powerhouse. 

"Help Me Make It Through the Night" was Sammi Smith's career hit and the one that made her famous. She had been one of the rare women in the "outlaw country" movement sweeping country music in the 1970s. At this time, country was moving in two directions: "outlaw" and a more mainstream pop sound. However, "outlaw country" would be short-lived, with country taking on a distinctly pop cast by the end of the '70s. Smith would still remain with the "outlaw" sound throughout the 1970s. 

In 1970, Smith signed with a new label Mega Records and her first hit for her new label was called "He's Everywhere", which made the top 25 on the country charts.

 

 

 

 

Finally, in 1971, she struck gold with "Help Me Make It Through the Night". The song immediately became a #1 hit on the country charts and #8 on the Billboard U.S. pop chart. It sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in April 1971. At first, record companies were uncomfortable with the song's honest sexuality, which was new for country music, but DJs tested the song and the response from listeners was enormous. The song had been composed by Kris Kristofferson, only a songwriter at the time, who had recorded the only other version of the song. After Smith's hit, the song was later covered by Gladys Knight and the Pips and Elvis Presley; both versions achieved more modest chart success. 

In 1972, Sammi Smith won a Grammy Award for the song. She also won the title Best Female Country Vocal Performance that year, and Kristofferson took songwriting awards. The song made Smith and Kristofferson household names in the music business.  

After the success of her hit, Smith continued to have more success on the country charts. In 1973, Sammi moved to Dallas, Texas, with Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson  to become a country "outlaw". Smith would continue to have an ongoing friendship with Jennings and Nelson for the rest of her life. Smith continued to have success with various record labels up to 1979 after which, little was heard from Sammi. She had, however, moved to Arizona and became involved in Native American causes, working for Apaches. She also started her own band called Apache Spirit, which was made up of Native Americans. 

In 1995 a compilation album was released called The Best of Sammi Smith, which consisted of her big hit and many other various countrypolitan songs. 

On February 12, 2005, at the age of 61, Sammi Smith died at her home in Oklahoma City. Although the cause of her death was never confirmed, it was known that Smith was a heavy smoker. (Info edited mainly from Wikipedia)

Les Elgart born 3 August 1917

Les Elgart (August 3, 1917, New Haven, Connecticut-July 29, 1995, Dallas, Texas) was an American swing jazz bandleader and trumpeter.
 

Along with his brother Larry, trumpeter Les Elgart led one of the more popular swing orchestras of the '50s. His smooth, tightly arranged sound helped keep the declining big band style alive on the charts for a little while longer, and his later reunions with Larry often produced stylistic detours into contemporary easy listening trends. 

Elgart was born August 3, 1917, in New Haven, CT, to parents who both played the piano; he took up the trumpet in his early teens and was already performing professionally by the time he turned 20. During the early '40s, Elgart performed in orchestras led by Raymond Scott, Charlie Spivak, and Harry James, among others, and sometimes wound up in the same groups as his sax-playing brother, Larry.  

The two formed their own orchestra in 1945, and hired top-notch arrangers like Nelson Riddle, Ralph Flanagan, and Bill Finegan. However, a number of factors conspired against them: the Musicians' Union recording strike, the declining popularity of live swing music, conflicts over leadership, and the end of World War II. They wound up disbanding in 1946, and Les and Larry went their separate ways, making a living as freelancers in whatever orchestras could pay them. 

The Elgart brothers reunited in 1952, with arranger Charles Albertine in tow. Taking advantage of new recording technology, they crafted a more nuanced, subtle sound that was lighter in tone and rhythm; it relied on tight brass and saxophone sections, and eliminated the piano and nearly all soloing. The 1953 LP Sophisticated Swing established this new blueprint, and a subsequent series of albums on Columbia over the next few years proved quite successful.

 

 

 

Charles Albertine's tune "Bandstand Boogie" was first recorded by the Elgart band on 1/29/54 and was issued soon thereafter on Columbia single 40180 (both 78 and 45rpm). Eventually adopted as the theme music for the local "Bandstand" afternoon dance program on Philadelphia's WFIL-TV, the recording, and show host Dick Clark, remained relatively unknown outside of Philly until ABC-TV went national with "American Bandstand" in August of '57.

 

Their biggest sellers were 1956's The Elgart Touch and the following year's For Dancers Also, both of which reached the Top 15 on the LP charts; they weren't as successful on the singles side, although they did have a minor hit with their theme to "The Man With the Golden Arm," and their original "Bandstand Boogie." Nominal co-leader Les spent more and more time handling the business side of things, and eventually stopped performing altogether in the late '50s; he left the band and moved to California, and Larry officially took over the musical direction (he'd pretty much taken charge already).

Les reunited with Larry once again in 1963, by which time Larry had moved into more of a contemporary easy listening sound, blending rock, pop, swing, exotica, lounge, and space age bachelor

pad music. Charles Albertine returned as arranger early on, but soon left to work in the TV/film industry, and was replaced by Bobby Scott. Released in 1964, Command Performance! was their last charting album, but a number of other albums from this era later became popular with lounge collectors, particularly 1967's Girl Watchers. That was one of the brothers' final recordings together, as Les retired to Texas and performed only occasionally. (Larry, meanwhile, found commercial success in the early '80s as mastermind of the popular Hooked on Swing medley albums.)  

 

Les Elgart & His orchestra recorded over 100 albums, which are still available on Sony/Columbia records. In 1986, Les was inducted into the Big Band Hall of Fame. He continued to work until his death from heart failure in Dallas, Texas  on July 29, 1995. (Info mainly All Music)
 

Helen Morgan born 2 August 1900

Helen Morgan (August 2, 1900 – October 9, 1941) was an American quintessential torch singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage.  With her sweetly quivering, light soprano voice, she charmed audiences in the theatre and on the silver screen in its earliest days.

 

Before the tragic legacies of songbird icons Édith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Judy Garland took hold, there was the one...the original...lady who sang the blues and started the whole "bawl" rolling. Like her successors, Helen Morgan lived the sad songs she sang...and more. 

She started her life fittingly enough on August 2, 1900 as Helen Riggins in very humble surroundings. Her father was an Illinois dirt farmer and school master. After her mother, Lulu Lang Riggins, divorced and remarried, she changed the last name to 'Morgan'. Her mother's second marriage ended in divorce, and she moved to Chicago with her daughter. Helen never finished school beyond the eighth grade, and worked a number of menial blue-collar jobs -- manicurist, cracker-packager, counter clerk  just to get by. 

In 1923, she entered the Miss Montreal contest, even going to New York to meet Miss America Katherine Campbell, but when she returned, her American citizenship was discovered and she was disqualified. She also worked as an extra in films. By the age of twenty, Morgan had taken voice lessons and started singing in speakeasies in Chicago. By the mid twenties she had secured backing for her own succession of speakeasies: Helen Morgan’s 45th Street Club, Chez Helen Morgan, Helen Morgan’s Summer House, and the House of Morgan. She got busted for her efforts, but her fame also brought her bookings. Within a few years, she was working under the Broadway lights with the George White Scandals. In between she studied music at the Metropolitan Opera and performed in vaudeville shows. 

Helen was the antithesis of the freewheeling "Jazz Age" baby as her deep, dusky voice seemed born to weave tales of sadness and lament rather than focusing on fun and frolic. The Chicago mobsters and underground bootleggers bawled like burly babies and really took to Helen's "torch song" renditions while glamorously propped on a piano with trademark scarf in hand (originally used to disguise nerves). It is even remarked that her trademark of performing while perched on top of a piano was because she was often too drunk to stand up. Prohibition-era gangsters even bankrolled her clubs which became very popular...and frequently raided. 

 

 

 

 

Helen conquered Broadway in the late 1920s with her quintessential role as the tragic mulatto, "Julie", in the landmark smash musical, "Show Boat", in 1927. Introducing the standards "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and "Bill", Helen earned more success with the musical "Sweet Adeline" in 1929 in which she introduced another favourite "Why Was I Born?". Her fragile mind and heart, however, couldn't handle the problems that started surfacing in the 1930s. 

Helen went on to perform with the Ziegfeld Follies in 1931, the Follies' last active year. During this period, she studied music at the Metropolitan Opera in her free time. 

A broken marriage, emotional instability and a deep passion for the demon drink quickly did her in. She couldn't hold jobs and her health worsened by the year. After spiralling badly for a half-decade, she tried sobering up and made a huge splash in 1936 with the screen version of Show Boat (1936) starring Irene Dunne, Allan Jones and Paul Robeson. She also began to redeem herself in clubs again but it was ultimately too late. 

In the late 1930s, Morgan was signed up for a show at Chicago's Loop Theatre. She also spent time at her farm in High Falls, New York. Alcoholism plagued her, and she was hospitalized in late 1940, after playing Julie La Verne one last time in a 1940 Los Angeles stage revival of Show Boat. She made something of a comeback in 1941, thanks to the help of manager Lloyd Johnson. However, the years of alcohol abuse had taken their toll. She collapsed onstage during a performance of George White's Scandals of 1942 and died in Chicago of cirrhosis of the liver on October 9, 1941 at age 41. 

Morgan was portrayed by Polly Bergen in a 1957 Playhouse 90 drama, The Helen Morgan Story, directed by George Roy Hill. Bergen won an Emmy Award for her performance. That same year, the feature film The Helen Morgan Story, based directly on the Playhouse 90 drama, starred Ann Blyth as Morgan. However, the feature film was not as well received, partly because critics felt that Blyth's real singing voice sounded more like Morgan's than the voice the studio supplied for her - that of Gogi Grant. 

Yes, before there was a Garland, there was Morgan, and although Garland seems to have her beat these days as THE musical icon of despair, Helen was the original tear-stained blueprint. 

(Info edited from  IMDb Mini Biography By  Gary Brumburgh & Wikipedia)
 

Alan Dean born 1 August 1924

Alan Dean, born in East Ham, London on August 1, 1924, had been a boy soprano who, at voice-breaking time, took up the accordion, on which instrument he got his first professional employment. His hero was star accordionist Tito Burns, whom he used to hear play at the Embassy Club where, in 1942, bandleader Harry Roy overheard Alan running over a song with Tito in the dressing room. Roy was impressed and engaged Alan to broadcast with his band in the "Band of the Week" series. 

Many broadcasts and recordings later Alan formed the Song Pedlars vocal group. He later updated the vocal group concept by forming the Keynotes, which rose to fame in the "Take It From Here" radio series. The group made so many recordings, mainly as back-up singers, that it would be impractical, and of little value, to list them here.

He toured Europe with Oscar Rabin's band, also  recorded a duet with Beryl Davis; played Monte Carlo with Ambrose's orchestra, then went into the vocal-group business.

 

Alan was the nominal leader of the All Star Sextet which made it's debut at the Downbeat Club on March 14th, 1948. The declared intention of the Sextet was to play only bebop and it was probably the first UK bebop-orientated group to play the clubs, they certainly played enough to qualify as a regular group. 

 

The All Star Sextet - 1948  Back row: Aubrey Frank, Alan Dean, Reg Arnold and Norman Burns.  Front row: Ralph Sharon, Tommy Pollard and Jack Fallon.
 
Dean was voted the country's most popular male singer in the Melody Maker 1949-50 popularity poll and retained that position until 1952. In February 1950 he decided to leave The Keynotes in favour of a solo career and he was immediately offered a recording contract by Harry Sarton of Decca. 

 

By mid-1951 Alan realised that he had achieved all he could possibly achieve in Britain. He was topping the bill everywhere and earning top money. He had kept in touch with pianist George Shearing, a colleague from his days with Frank Weir's band, and whose career had taken a great leap forward in America. Shearing advised Alan to "come on over". Then Barry Ulanov, the eminent music critic and editor of Metronome magazine, met Alan in London, heard him sing and gave him the same advice. 

Here's "All The Things You Are" by Alan Dean taken from above 1956 Panama LP - Music To Bawl By

Encouraged by his support, but remaining cautious, Alan decided to 'test the water' on a short holiday in New York, but so quick and positive was the reaction there that he was unable to return to London until 1957, and then only for a few cabaret engagements and Val Parnell's "Startime" on TV. In 1953, almost two years after emigrating to America, he still managed to be voted into fifth place in the Melody Maker poll. 

By the 1980s Alan  was resident in Australia and now lives in Sydney,  where his company, Deanote Productions Pty. Ltd. composes and records music for radio jingles and TV commercials and organises entertainment for the annual conferences of such major companies as IBM. He still sings well and as a leisure activity he enjoys making guest appearances with local jazz bands. 

(Info mainly Kenneth Pitt, 1992. LP cover and mp3 c/o Joseph Bremson of Exciting Sounds blog)
 

HMV was the first to swoop Alan Dean up and in 1960 he released his first Australian recorded single with a cover of Toni Fisher's 'The Big Hurt' backed with the traditional 'Autumn Affair'.

 

 The single started to sell minimally but not enough to make the charts. In April he moved to Sydney with his friend Norman Burns who was the A&R man at Pye records. 

Signed to Pye by late that year, he was unable to record anything as he immediately returned to New York to his sick uncle, Orchestra leader Lon Norman.

 

Before returning to Australia in 1961 he released a single for his uncle's label, Panama Records titled 'Don't Do It/The Come Back' (which will be up soon and is great!) which due to his connections with the Australian Pye label resulted in a one off Panama/Pye release in Australia (Pye PP-020).

This is from 1961 and is one of his worst, rarest moments on disc. It was his try at being somewhere between Slim Dusty and Johnny Ashcroft with a silly song he wrote himself about tuppence and ha'penny.... anyway here it is - rare and rough!