Esther Phillips born 23 December 1935

Esther Phillips (Born Esther Mae Jones, December 23, 1935 in Galveston, Texas; died August 7, 1984 in Carson, California) was an American singer. Phillips was one of the great female R&B vocalists. She also performed in the pop, country, jazz, and soul music.

When Phillips was an adolescent, her parents divorced, and she was forced to divide her time between her father in Houston and her mother in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Because she was brought up singing in church, she was hesitant to enter a talent contest at a local blues club, but her sister insisted and Esther complied. A remarkably mature singer at age fourteen, she won the amateur talent contest in 1949 at the Barrelhouse Club owned by Johnny Otis. Otis was so impressed that he recorded her for Modern Records and added her to his traveling revue, the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, billed as "Little Esther Phillips" (she reportedly took the surname from a gas station sign).

Her first hit record was "Double Crossin' Blues," recorded in 1950 for Savoy Records. After several hit records with Savoy, including her duet with Mel Walker on "Mistrustin' Blues," which went to number one that year, as did "Cupid Boogie." Other Phillips records that made it onto the R&B charts in 1950 include "Misery" (number 9), "Deceivin' Blues" (number 4), "Wedding Boogie" (number 6), and "Faraway Blues" (number 6). Few female artists, R&B or otherwise, had ever enjoyed such incredible success in their debut year. Phillips left Otis and the Savoy label at the end of 1950 and signed with Federal Records.

But just as quickly as the hits had started, the hits stopped. Although she cut more than thirty sides for Federal, only one, "Ring-a-Ding-Doo", charted; the song made it to number 8 in 1952. Not working with Otis was part of her problem; the other part was drugs. By the middle of the decade Phillips was chronically addicted to drugs.

In 1954, she returned to Houston to live with her father to recuperate. Short on money, Little Esther worked in small nightclubs around the South, punctuated by periodic hospital stays in Lexington, Kentucky, stemming from her addiction. In 1962, Kenny Rogers rediscovered her while singing at a Houston club and got her signed to his brother’s Lenox label.

Much to her credit, Phillips ultimately got well enough to launch a comeback in 1962. Now called Esther Phillips instead of Little Esther, she recorded a country tune, "Release Me," which went to number 1 R&B and number 8 on the pop listings. Her cover of the Beatles song "And I Love Him" (naturally, with the gender changed) nearly made the R&B Top Ten in 1965 and the Beatles flew her to the U.K. for her first overseas performances.

 
She had other hits in the 1960s on the label, but no more chart toppers, and she also waged another battle with heroin. With her addiction worsening, Phillips checked into a rehab facility. While undergoing treatment she cut some sides for Roulette in 1969. On her release she moved back to Los Angeles and re-signed with the Atlantic label. A late-1969 live gig at Freddie Jett's Pied Piper club produced the album Burnin', which was acclaimed as one of the best, most cohesive works of Phillips' career. She performed with the Johnny Otis Show at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival in 1970. (Photo shows King Curtis with Esther & Jimi Hendrix)

One of her greatest post-1950s vocal triumphs was in 1972 with the song penned by Gil Scott-Heron, "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" -- a haunting account of drug use. "From a Whisper to a Scream" garnered a Grammy nomination in 1972. When Phillips lost to the "Queen of Soul" Aretha Franklin, the soul diva presented the trophy to Phillips, saying she should have won it instead.

In 1975, she scored her biggest hit single since "Release Me" with a disco-style update of Dinah Washington's "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes". It reached a high of a Top Twenty chart appearance in the U.S., and Top Ten in the UK Singles Chart. On November 8, 1975 she performed the song on an episode of "NBC's Saturday Night" hosted by Candice Bergen. The accompanying album of the same name became her biggest seller yet, with Michael Brecker on tenor sax, David Sanborn on alto sax, and Randy Brecker on trumpet to Steve Khan on guitar and Don Grolnick on keyboards.

She continued to record and perform throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1983 she charted for the final time with "Turn Me Out," which only made it to number 83. Throughout the 1970s she also became a close friend of Andy Warhol. Phillips' performing career also reached its zenith during this period.

Ill health sadly undermined this artist's undoubted potential. Phillips' long-term heroin dependency, combined with heavy drinking, led to her death from liver and kidney failure in Carson, California in 1984, at the age of 48. Her funeral services were conducted by the bandleader who had started her out back in 1949, the Rev. Johnny Otis.
(info from Wikipedia)

Carla Thomas born 21 December 1942

Carla Venita Thomas (born December 21, 1942, Memphis, Tennessee) is an American singer, who is often referred to as the Queen of Memphis Soul. She is the daughter of Rufus Thomas.

Thomas was born in the Foote Homes Housing Project in Memphis. Along with her siblings, Marvell and Vaneese, she was one of three musical children of Rufus and Lorene Thomas. Despite growing up in the projects, the Thomas family lived near the Palace Theater on Beale Street, as Rufus was the theater’s emcee for their amateur shows. This access not only gave Thomas her first taste of the music world but it also provided a springboard for her transformation into the Queen of the Memphis Sound.

Carla Thomas holds the distinction of being the first artist to cut a record at the Stax Records studio at 926 E. McLemore Avenue. Well, one of the first. She actually recorded that first song with her famous father, Rufus Thomas, at the age of 17. The duet, “Cause I Love You,” became a regional hit and changed the course of music history forever. The record also got the attention of Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler, who leased the master and released the song on Atlantic’s subsidiary Atco Records label. 

Thomas became a national sensation with the 1960 Satellite release of her smash hit “Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes),” which she had penned at the age of 16. A string of other hits followed, including her duet album with Otis Redding, King and Queen, and she took her rightful place in the pantheon of music as the “Queen of Memphis Soul.” During this time Carla also released what is now considered to be one of the finest "Northern Soul" records of all time, "I'll Never Stop Loving You". Thomas had numerous successful albums, was a star on the 1967 Stax/Volt Revue European tour, performed for 100,000 people at the 1972 Wattstax concert, and stayed with the company until it closed in 1975. She received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1993, and appeared in the 2003 D.A. Pennebaker documentary Only the Strong Survive.

Carla Thomas today remains one of the most critically acclaimed icons of soul music, but rarely performs. She did perform at the 2003 Soul Comes Home concert during the Grand Opening of the Stax Museum and has made a few appearances since that time, but is, for the most part, retired save for occasional impromptu performances at clubs in Memphis.

 On September 18, 2007, Concord Records released what many say is her finest album, Live at the Bohemian Caverns, recorded live in the prestigious Washington, D.C. jazz club in a performance arranged by then-Stax president Al Bell and soul legend Donny Hathaway. The album – which expanded Thomas’ roots from R&B into jazz and pop – was inexplicably shelved after it was recorded but is now being heard and appreciated by her fans and new generations of music lovers.

(Info edited mainly from Wikipedia & Staxmuseum.com)

Bill Carlisle born 19 December 1908

William Toliver Carlisle (December 19, 1908–March 17, 2003) was an American country music singer, songwriter, comedian and guitarist popular in the late 1940s and 1950s but who influenced the genre for more than 50 years. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Bill Carlisle was born in Wakefield, Kentucky southeast of Louisville. He performed in the 1920s with his older brother, Cliff Carlisle, on radio stations WLAP-AM in Lexington, Kentucky and WNOX-AM in Knoxville, Tennessee. His first solo single and hit was the 1933 recording of "Rattlesnake Daddy," released on ARC Records. That year he formed the Carlisle Brothers with Cliff, and in 1938 they signed with Decca Records and continued performing on Kentucky country radio programs. He created an alter ego for the WNOX's Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round and Tennessee Barn Dance shows called Hot Shot Elmer, a bumbling buffoon in costume who would "interrupt" Carlisle's own performances. His leaps on stage won him the moniker "Jumpin' Bill."

Carlisle's guitar style was noted for its precision and speed, and he employed yodeling as a vocalist. Like his brother, he released many songs which included humorous, veiled references to sexuality. The duo signed with King Records after World War II, and hit big with the Ernest Tubb cover, "A Rainbow at Midnight", in 1946. Carlisle had a solo hit in 1948 with "Tramp on the Street". Cliff retired from the business about 1950, and Bill put together a backing ensemble, The Carlisles, though none of them was related to him. Among its members were singer Martha Carson and songwriter Betty Amos.

Carlisle signed with Mercury Records and continued to release novelty song hits in the 1950s, such as "Too Old to Cut the Mustard", a top ten country hit in 1951 later covered by artists including Rosemary Clooney. Other hits included the number one smash "No Help Wanted" (their biggest) and the top ten "Taint Nice (To Talk Like That)", both 1953. That year the Carlisles were invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. In the mid-1950s, Carlisle was a regular performer on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.

 

His children became members of the Carlisles in the 1960s; his last hit was "What Kind of Deal Is This", released in 1965.  Always famed for his energetic stage act, which would see Billy doing the splits while singing, the nickname ‘Bounding’ or ‘Jumping’ Billy Carlisle were well earned. The act would continue thus through to the 90′s when Billy slowed down on personal appearances, although he would occasionally appear on stage, complete with zimmer frame, where he would perform a couple of songs holding on to the frame, before throwing it over his shoulder and marching off stage to rapturous applause.

After his fame receded, he continued as a regular at the Opry, appearing less than two weeks before his death. Billy died, aged 94 on March 17th, 2003 following a stroke.

Carlisle was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in September 2002.
(Info mainly Wikipedia)

Here's Bill Carlisle singing "Too Old To Cut the Mustard" on the Porter Wagoner Show

Lonnie Brooks born 18 December 1933

Lonnie Brooks (born Lee Baker Jr., December 18, 1933) is an American blues singer and guitarist. He was born in Dubuisson, Louisiana, United States. Rolling Stone stated, "His music is witty, soulful and ferociously energetic, brimming with novel harmonic turnarounds, committed vocals and simply astonishing guitar work." The New York Times added, "He sings in a rowdy baritone, sliding and rasping in songs that celebrate lust, fulfilled and unfulfilled; his guitar solos are pointed and unhurried, with a tone that slices cleanly across the beat. Wearing a cowboy hat, he looks like the embodiment of a good-time bluesman."

Born Lee Baker, Jr. in Louisiana, Brooks took his time when choosing his vocation; he didn't play guitar seriously until he was in his early twenties and living in Port Arthur, TX. Rapidly assimilating the licks of B.B. King and Long John Hunter, he landed a gig with zydeco pioneer Clifton Chenier (not a bad way to break into the business) before inaugurating his own recording career in 1957 with the influential swamp pop ballad "Family Rules" for Eddie Shuler's Lake Charles, LA-based Goldband Records. The young rock & roller -- then billed as Guitar Junior -- enjoyed more regional success on Goldband with the rocking dance number "The Crawl" (covered much later by the Fabulous Thunderbirds). Mercury also issued two 45s by Guitar Junior.

When Sam Cooke offered the young rocker a chance to accompany him to Chicago, he gladly accepted. But two problems faced him once he arrived: there was another Guitar Junior in town (precipitating the birth of Lonnie Brooks), and the bayou blues that so enthralled Gulf Coast crowds didn't cut it up north. Scattered session work (he played on Jimmy Reed's Vee-Jay classic "Big Boss Man") and a series of R&B-oriented 45s for Midas, USA, Chirrup, and Chess ensued during the '60s, as Brooks learned a new style of blues. The Guitar Junior sobriquet was briefly dusted off in 1969 for his Capitol album debut, Broke & Hungry, but its lack of success buried the alias for good.

By the late '70s, Brooks was gaining a deserved reputation as an exceptionally dynamic Chicago bluesman with a fresh perspective. He cut four outstanding sides for Alligator's first batch of Living Chicago Blues anthologies in 1978 that quickly led to his own Aligator debut LP, Bayou Lightning, the next year. Five more albums of his own for the firm and extensive touring cemented Brooks' standing as a Chicago blues giant.

Son Ronnie Baker Brooks is a chip off the proverbial block, playing rhythm guitar in his old man's band and duetting on "Like Father, Like Son" on Lonnie's 1991 album Satisfaction Guaranteed. Brooks long association with Alligator Records continued into the late '90s with the release of Roadhouse Rules in 1996, which focused more on R&B than down-home blues, and Lone Star Shootout in 1999. The disc featured Brooks with fellow guitar slingers Long John Hunter and Phillip Walker playing together and solo in varied combinations of bluespower.

Brooks continues to tour in the U.S. and Europe. His sons, Ronnie Baker Brooks and Wayne Baker Brooks, are also full-time blues entertainers, fronting their own bands and touring extensively in the U.S. and abroad. Wayne Baker Brooks continues to play in his father's band as well. The Brooks' are frequent guest performers at each other's shows and have booked appearances as 'The Brooks Family'. (Info edited from Wikipedia & All Music)



Video of Lonnie Brooks On The Waterfront - Rockford, IL - Labor Day Weekend, 2005

Tommy Steele born 17 December 1936

Tommy Steele OBE (born December 17, 1936 in London, England) is an English entertainer. Steele is widely regarded as Britain's first pop idol. Born Thomas Willam Hicks in Mason Street, Bermondsey, South East London, England, his cheeky Cockney image and boy-next-door looks won him success as a musician, singer and actor.

Before landing a singing career, Steele tried his hand at a number of odd jobs and had a brief spell as a merchant seaman. Like many singers of his era he never did National Service, having failed the medical examination because, at 18 years old, he was diagnosed as suffering with cardiomyopathy. While on leave or during Dock strikes, he played guitar and banjo and sang in The 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, both as a solo performer and with Wally Whyton's Vipers Skiffle Group. He was discovered by manager Larry Parnes, who believed Steele could be Britain's answer to Elvis Presley. Parnes is widely credited with creating the stage name 'Tommy Steele.'

Steele shot quickly to fame in the UK as the frontman for a skiffle band, The Steelmen. Steele and other British singers would pick known hits from the United States, record their cover versions of these songs and release them in the UK before the American versions could enter the charts. Most of Steele's 1950s recordings were covers of American hits, such as "Singing the Blues" and "Knee Deep in the Blues". Although Steele never proved a serious threat to Elvis's popularity in the UK, he did admirably well on the 1950s British pop charts and "Singing the Blues" got to Number 1. (Guy Mitchell was no. 1 with "Singing the Blues" on 4 January 1957 and Tommy Steele on 11 January 1957.)

The increase in home-grown musical talent during the 1960s allowed Steele to progress to a career in stage and film musicals, leaving behind his pop idol identity. In the West End he appeared in the title role of Hans Christian Andersen. On film, he recreated his London and Broadway stage role in Half A Sixpence, and played character roles in The Happiest Millionaire and Finian's Rainbow, although many critics found his personality to be somewhat overwhelming on screen. In this latter film, probably his best known appearance in the movies, he co-starred with Petula Clark and Fred Astaire.

In 1983, Steele directed and starred in the West End stage production of Singin' in the Rain at the famed London Palladium. In 1991 he toured with Some Like It Hot the stage version of the Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe film. In 2003, after a decade-long hiatus, save his one man shows An Evening With Tommy Steele and What A Show!, he toured as Ebenezer Scrooge in a production of Scrooge: The Musical, an adaptation of Scrooge. Following this triumphant return, he reprised his role at the Palace Theatre, Manchester over Christmas 2004, and brought the production to the London Palladium for Christmas 2005.
In the early 1980s, Steele wrote and published a book titled The Final Run, a novel about World War II and the evacuation of Dunkirk.

He also wrote a children's novel, entitled Quincy, about a reject toy trying to save himself and his fellow rejects in the basement of a toy store from the furnace the day after Christmas. This was turned into a film in 1979, which Tommy played Quincy and Mel Martin playing Quincy's girlfriend doll, Rebecca.

He has developed a talent as a sculptor and two of his major works are on public display; Bermondsey Boy at the Rotherhithe Civic Centre and Eleanor Rigby which he sculpted and gave to the City of Liverpool as a tribute to The Beatles. Also Tommy is an artist of some note and has exhibited at the Royal Academy. His autobiography came out in September 2006 and is entitled 'Bermondsey Boy: Memories of a Forgotten World.' (London: Joseph).

Jerry Wallace born 15 December 1928

Jerry Leon Wallace (December 15, 1928 – May 5, 2008) was an American country and pop singer. Dubbed "Mr. Smooth" for his warm, velvety vocal approach, Jerry Wallace scored a pair of pop smashes during the late '50s before enjoying even greater commercial success as a country singer.

Born in Guilford, MO, on December 15, 1928, Wallace was the son of a grocery store owner. After a brief stay in Arizona he settled in Hollywood, and following a U.S. Navy stint he signed to the Allied label in 1951 to cut a series of little-noticed singles including "Little Miss One," "That's What a Woman Can Do," and "Runnin' After Love."

 

 

Upon signing to the Challenger label, Wallace notched a Top 20 pop hit via 1958's "How the Time Flies," followed a year later by the million-selling "Primrose Lane." However, his pop career quickly stalled, and for a time he focused on his acting career, appearing in two 1964 features, Flipper's New Adventure and Goodbye Charlie. That same year Wallace scored minor hits with "Shutters and Boards" and "In the Misty Moonlight," singles that heralded the beginning of his shift to the country market. A move to Mercury Records accelerated the transformation, although follow-ups like "Life's Gone and Slipped Away" and "Sweet Child of Sunshine" earned scant attention from Nashville radio.

With his Nat King Cole-inspired croon, Wallace was nevertheless a natural fit with the dominant country-pop ethos, and upon signing to Decca in 1970 he scored a Top 30 country hit with "After You" -- 1972's crossover smash "To Get to You" earned a Single of the Year nomination from the Country Music Association, and with "If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry" (prominently featured in an episode of the Rod Serling television series Night Gallery) he topped the country charts.

Wallace also reached number two with "Do You Know What It's Like to Be Lonesome," and subsequent hits like "Don't Give Up on Me," "My Wife's House," "I Wonder Whose Baby (You Are Now)," and "Comin' Home to You" kept him at the forefront of country radio playlists during the mid-'70s.

Protracted litigation against his management derailed his commercial momentum, however, and he began hopscotching from label to label (including Liberty and Decca Records) in a failed attempt to jump-start his career.  

           
The 1980 single "If I Could Set My Love to Music" proved his final chart entry, after which he effectively retired from show business. Jerry stopped recording and also performing too, with the exception of some low-key concerts for Victorville veterans that he performed only occasionally. He died of congestive heart failure in Victorville, CA, on May 5, 2008. (Info mainly AllMusic)

Viola Wells born 14 December 1902

 

Viola Wells Evans, (b. Viola Gertrude Wells, Dec.14, 1902, Newark, NJ, USA. d. Dec. 22, 1984, Belleville, NJ, USA.)  was a much admired jazz and blues singer during the mid-'30s to the mid-'40s although her professional career spanned 60 years.
 
Wells' career began with her first gig at the Minis Theater in Newark, NJ. In the 1920s, she worked in some traveling shows, and in the 1930s, she was a member of "Banjo Bernie's Band", subsequently touring with singer Ida Cox. She became known as ''Miss Rhapsody'' because she frequently sang the songs ''Rhapsody in Rhythm'' and ''Rhapsody in Song.'' In the late 1930s, Wells moved to Kansas City, where she ran a nightclub and led her own band. She also met and married guitarist Harold Underhill.
 
She was a much-admired jazz and blues singer in her day, winning substantial respect, and envy, from her fellow singers and musicians. She replaced Helen Humes in Count Basie's Orchestra in 1940 when it played at President Roosevelt's inaugural ball. In the early to mid-40s, billed as ‘The Ebony Stick Of Dynamite’, she became a huge success at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre on 125th Street, and had her own radio shows as both performer and disc jockey. Despite such exposure she recorded only three times in her heyday (for Savoy Records in 1944-45) and retired from music in 1946 as a result of diabetes.


 
In the 1940s, she moved back to Newark and was soon working in various New York city venues, including appearances at 'Kelly's Stables' on New York's famed 52nd Street, and at Harlem's Apollo Theatre (occasionally as 'Viola Underhill'). Out of the public's eye for most of the 1950s and early 1960s, her career revived in the mid-1960s when she was rediscovered by blues historian Sheldon Harris, who persuaded her to test for Columbia Records and reunited her with Victoria Spivey, who recorded a handful of sides by ‘Miss Rhapsody’.
 
She remained in obscurity until April 1972 when she was again brought out of retirement to record a jazz blues album for the Saydisc-Matchbox label in New York City.

Her last years were, happily, employed touring as singer with Clyde Bernhardt’s Harlem Blues And Jazz Band, a group of black big band veterans in the 1970's, and toured Europe and the United States with them. Six half-hour television shows covering her life were filmed in Paris in 1975 and shown throughout Europe.
 
"Miss Rhapsody" passed away at the Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, N.J., after a short illness. She was 82 years old. (Info from various sources mainly All Music)