Billy Higgins born 11 October 1936

Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was reportedly the most recorded American jazz drummer in history, and certainly one of the most beloved. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop and remains one of the most important and controversial drummers in music history. Known among musicians and fans as "Smiling Billy," he was an uncommonly versatile and intuitive player, his nimble rhythmic patterns achieved a perfect balance between function and form. 

Born in Los Angeles, Higgins he began playing drums at the age of 12. Early in his career he began playing R&B, supporting headliners including Bo Diddley, Amos Milburn, and Jimmy Witherspoon. In 1953 he joined high school friend and trumpeter Don Cherry in the Jazz Messiahs, a group also featuring saxophonist James Clay; three years later, he began his session career, in the months to follow appearing on recording dates led by saxophonist Lucky Thompson and bassist Red Mitchell. Around this time, Higgins and Cherry met Coleman through mutual friend Clay. 

Both Higgins and Cherry soon joined Coleman's rehearsal group, which spent years woodshedding before finally securing its first live gigs in 1958, opening for Paul Bley at L.A.'s Hilcrest Club. Audiences were either angered or simply baffled by Coleman's radical sensibility, which he later dubbed "harmolodics," and with the 1958 release of his debut LP, Something Else!!!! The Music of Ornette Coleman, the controversy spread throughout the jazz populace, dividing musicians, critics, and fans alike. 

Higgins followed Coleman when he relocated the group to New York City in 1959 to begin a residency at the Five Spot Café. Love it or hate it, their music was the talk of the town, and with the addition of new bassist Charlie Haden, Coleman finally began to make concrete the sounds and structures he'd pursued for years. His 1959 Atlantic Records debut, The Shape of Jazz to Come, remains a watershed album by any definition and a schism-creating turning point in the history of the avant-garde. The accolades now heaped on Coleman also launched his collaborators to prominence, and Higgins soon emerged as one of the most sought-after drummers in contemporary jazz, proving a master of both the hard bop sensibility still dominant throughout the jazz community as well as the more fluid and abstract approach of the new generation. 

                                   

When a 1961 drug bust stripped Higgins of his cabaret card, prompting his exit from Coleman's band, he focused on studio work, becoming the unofficial house drummer at Blue Note Records during the label's creative zenith. In the decade to come, Higgins appeared on seminal dates including Dexter Gordon's Go!, Jackie McLean's A Fickle Sonance, and Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder, proving time and again his consummate skill and flexibility. 

Even after Liberty Records acquired Blue Note in 1967, he remained much in-demand, maintaining his position as the premier drummer of the avant-garde with contributions to landmark efforts including Archie Shepp's 1971 LP Attica Blues and Coleman's comeback effort, Science Fiction. Higgins was also a frequent collaborator of pianist Cedar Walton, and with bassist Bill Lee and trumpeter Bill Hardman led the big-band ensemble the Brass Company for several years during the early '70s. 

After close to two decades on tour and in New York, Higgins settled back in Los Angeles in 1978. The following year he recorded his first-ever session as a leader, the Red label LP Soweto. Higgins recorded a few more headlining sessions in the years to follow but seemed to value most his role as a sideman, supporting saxophonist Joe Henderson and trombonist Slide Hampton during the first half of the 1980s. After appearing behind star and longtime collaborator Dexter Gordon in filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier's 1986 love letter to jazz, 'Round Midnight, Higgins reunited with Coleman, Cherry, and Haden for a 1987 tour that culminated in a new studio album, In All Languages. 

In 1988 Higgins teamed with poet Kamau Daaood to found the World Stage, a storefront enclave that hosted creative workshops, community activities, and live performances. He regularly tapped his extensive professional network to lure many of the biggest names in jazz to the World Stage site both as performers and as tutors, and ultimately Higgins turned his attention to teaching in a formal setting as well, serving on the jazz faculty at UCLA. 

Higgins spent much of the remainder of his life battling liver disease, a manifestation of the hepatitis he contracted decades earlier. In March 1996, he underwent a liver transplant and when his body rejected the new organ, he was forced to submit to a second procedure just 24 hours later. Higgins nevertheless returned to music a few months later, traveling to New York to renew his collaboration with Coleman. However his new liver began to fail, and while waiting to find a donor, he died on May 3, 2001 at a hospital in Inglewood, California from liver and kidney failure. Higgins was just 64 years old at the time of his death.

(Edited mainly from AllMusic) 

Salome Bey born 10 October 1933

Salome Bey CM (October 10, 1933 – August 8, 2020) was an American-born, Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, and actress who, after emigrating to Toronto in 1964, became known as “Canada’s first lady of the blues.” In 2005, she was made an honorary Member of the Order of Canada. In 2022 she was honoured by Canada Post with a commemorative postage stamp for her contributions to Canadian music and theatre. 

Salome Bey was born Salome Widerman in Newark, New Jerseyto Andrew and Victoria Wideman. Her father was a devoted student of the African diaspora who, after converting to Islam, changed his family’s surname to Bey. Salome and her eight siblings grew up learning prayers in Arabic and fasting during Ramadan. When she was 14, she and her sisters sneaked out of the house and performed at an “Amateur Night” at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where they won the night’s contest. 

Bey attended Arts High School, the famed performing arts school in Newark whose graduates include jazz greats Sarah Vaughn and Wayne Shorter. As a young woman, she joined her brother Andy and sister Geraldine, and they toured North America and Europe as the vocal group Andy and the Bey Sisters. The trio became regulars at the Blue Note in Paris. 

In 1961, the group made its first appearance in Toronto, Ontario, and Bey moved there permanently in 1964. That year, she married Howard Matthews, a restaurateur who owned The Underground Railroad, a restaurant and nightclub that served as a meeting place for the city’s Black community. The couple raised two daughters, Jacintha Tuku and Saidah Baba Talibah, and one son, Marcus Matthews. 

                         Here’s “Stardust” from above album

                                    

Bey became a fixture of Canada’s jazz and blues club circuit. She also worked in theater, starring in the 1971 musical Justine, for which she won an Obie Award when it moved to Off Broadway (where it was renamed Love Me, Love My Children). She next appeared on Broadway in leading roles in Dude and Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope and earned a Grammy nomination in 1976 for the cast album of Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, a Broadway play based on the Biblical book of Matthew. 

In 1978, Bey wrote and starred in Indigo, a cabaret show on the history of the blues that had an all-Black cast and crew. The show played to sold-out crowds for over a year and won two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, an honor presented annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. Indigo was widely credited with breaking ground for Black theater performers in Canada. Bey played leading roles in Shimmytime, a revue about the singer and actress Ethel Waters, and Madame Gertrude, about the blues singer Ma Rainey. 

Bey released five jazz, blues, and gospel albums and numerous singles from 1970 to 1995, including live recordings from the Montreux Jazz Festival. She was part of the Canadian supergroup Northern Lights which performed the charity single "Tears Are Not Enough" in 1985. Bey can be seen in the music video for the song singing the line "Every woman, child and man" with Mark Holmes of Platinum Blonde and Lorraine Segato of The Parachute Club. 

Bey’s holiday special Salome Bey’s Christmas Soul aired on CBC and featured guests Maureen Forrester, Billy Newton-Davis, Molly Johnson, Jackie Richardson, and the Faith Chorale Gospel Choir. Bey continued to appear in concert, often appearing with her daughters Tuku and Sate who, with other musicians, were known as Salome Bey & the Relatives. 

In 1996, she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for lifetime achievement from the Black Theatre Workshop of Montreal, and in 2005 she was made an honorary member of the Order of Canada, the nation’s second highest civilian honor. In 2018, Bey was celebrated in the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women project created by The Honourable Jean Augustine. 

Salome Bey & husband Howard Matthews

Salome Bey suffered from dementia in the final years of her life and died at the Lakeside Long Term Care home in Toronto on August 8, 2020, at the age of 86. 

(Edited from Ross Coen bio @ Black past.org & Wikipedia)

 

Ronnie Barron born 9 October1943

Ronnie Barron (October 9, 1943 – March 20, 1997) was an American actor, musician, and blue-eyed soul singer during the 1970s. Little known in his country, this singer and pianist nevertheless reached a international reputation. The list of artists with whom he has collaborated is enough in itself to understand that Ronnie Barron did not get the recognition that his talent should have allowed him! 

He was born Ronald Raymond Barrosse in Algiers, New Orleans. At the age of fifteen, the young Ronnie was already singing and playing the piano in The Fideliries, a band that played at the Orchid Club in West Bank, where Professor Longhair also performed. The latter would become his main influence. It was with Mac Rebennack (the future Dr. John), who he met at the Specialty Records offices on North Claitrbone Avenue, that he began to visit Cosimo Matassa's studio. He then attended the recording sessions of Huey Smith, Smiley Lewis, Earl King and Fats Domino, in the hope that an impediment of a musician will give him an opportunity to play. And that's indeed how he did his first session, replacing Huey Smith! 

Mac Rebbenack

Mac Rebennack, who, as an A&R man was in the New Orleans, working for ACE Records, proposed Johnny Vincent to sign Ronnie Barron who had replaced Roland Stone in his group, the Skyliners. Ronnie’s first single, "Bad Neighborhood / Keeps Dragging Me On", credited to Ronnie and The Delinquents was released on JC, a sub-brand of ACE led by Joe Coronna. Mac Rebennack had Ronnie play on some of his productions, including Jimmy Clanton and Sagar Boy Crawford. Then, he released “The Hip Parade”by Ronnie on the Soundex label in 1963. That same year Rebennack and Barron released Talk That Talk under the name Drits & Dravey. Then in 1964 Ronnie recorded Did She Mention My Name on the Michelle label. 

Disillusioned with the musical activity in New Orleans, Ronnie moved to Houston, Texas. There, he played in a club in which Huey Meaux had interests. However, after a year in Texas, he returned to New Orleans to learn that Mac Rebennack had left the city for Los Angeles! He did the same in December 1965. Again thanks to Mac Rebennack, He was able to find work in the studio. He also formed his own group, The Prime Ministers, and signed with RCA in 1967. It was at this time that Mac Rebennack and Harold Battiste were creating the concept of Dr. John. Mac wanted Ronnie to play the role of Dr. John, but his contract with RCA did not allow him to do so. Mac became Dr. John as the Prime Ministers parted ways before they could even finish their first album! Barron then began an engagement at The Factory, in Hollywood, where he was noticed by Louis Prima.

                                   

Louis Prima hired Ronnie Barron as an arranger and integrated him into his orchestra permanently installed at the Sands Hotel, in Las Vegas. Ronnie stayed with Louis Prima for three years. It was during this period when he created the character of Reverend Ethel. In 1971, he published an album of the same name on Decca, produced by Charlie Greene, the manager of Dr. John. However, instead of taking to the road to promote album, he preferred to join Dr. John's orchestra which was going on tour in Europe and North America. Later, Jerry Wexler, Atlantic Records, engaged him on several recording sessions and wished to sign it under his name. Despite a few demos made to Muscle Shoals, the contract was never signed! 

Paul Butterfield's Better Days

In 1972 Barron went to Woodstock to be part of Paul Butterfield's new band, Better Days. Barron made two Bearsville albums with them, and remained in the band until it disbanded in 1975. Back with Dr. John, he was featured on the album Hollywood Be Thy Name. He was then approached by John Mayall, with whom he toured Europe and appeared on the album Banquet of Blues. In the last half of the 70s, he multiplied his collaborations. All first with Canned Heat, then Tom Waits, B.B. King, Ry Cooder, John Lee Hooker and Big Joe Turner, among others. 

In 1978, he signed with Columbia/Japan and recorded Smile Of Life. This album was recorded partly in Japan with Japanese musicians, and in New Orleans with Mac Rebennack and the Meters. In 1979, he released Blues Delicacies on Sunshine Records, a cool New Orleans rhythm & blues album. produced by Fito of the Para and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat. 

At almost forty years of age, in 1980, he launched an acting career, starring in Stoney Island, Angel, One From The Heart, Above The Law, Code Of Silence and Comeback. However, music remained his main interest and he began to work on several projects resulting in his last album “Bon Ton Roulet,” released on the ACE label in 1983. 

In the early 90s, his health began to decline. He had to undergo a heart transplant and never regained the ability to play in public again. Although he continued to write new songs, he was never able to record them. He died in Los Angeles on March 20, 1997 from complications of heart problems. (Edited from Monola.net)

Harry McClintock born 8 October 1882

Harry Kirby McClintock (October 8, 1884 – April 24, 1957), also known as "Haywire Mac”, “Radio Mac” and “ Strawlegs Martin” was an American railroad man, radio personality, actor, singer, songwriter, and poet, best known for his song "The Big Rock Candy Mountains". 

Some of the career experience this artist had is similar to what many other performing artists might list on their resumés. But as for some of the other things Harry McClintock did, he would find himself in an elite group of recording artists who have also been seamen, sheep herders, railroaders, union organizers, cowboys, hobos, and muleskinners. Ironically, he is most remembered for songs about people who choose to do nothing at all, such as "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" and "The Big Rock Candy Mountain." 

McClintock successfully established himself as the copyrighted composer of these numbers, despite the fact that folk music experts and copyright lawyers continue to argue amongst themselves. Known in his recording and broadcast career as Haywire Mac, Radio Mac, or just plain Mac, he made more than 50 excellent records of original songs and folk classics. Much of this material has been reissued by Rounder and Smithsonian Folkways. He was the first artist to record what have become classic American folk songs, such as "Red River Valley," "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie," and "Jesse James." 

McClintock was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of a cabinet maker. He began singing in church as a child and was still a child of 14 when he first took off on the road. He toured with a dog and pony show as a horse groomer, but was never paid. Heading to New Orleans and the prospect of warmer weather, he found himself in the company of bums from all over the land, all of whom had the same idea. It was here that he first developed his strong sympathy for these individuals, later to be expressed in the classic rhyming couplets of tunes such as "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" and "The Bum Song," the latter recorded twice as there were always new verses pouring out of each sidecar. At 16, he began playing music on the streets for the promise of "spare change." 

                                   

He had discovered what he recalled later was one of the great secrets of life: "Anyone who can sing never has to go hungry." This was when he wrote his first song, the story of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." It was based on fairy tales he had heard growing up, conjuring up images of houses built out of sweet cakes and candy. Except in McClintock's song, there is no evil witch and it is the hobos, not Hansel and Gretel, who live happily ever after. By 1905, the song had become so popular that he had a printer run off packs of cards with the lyrics printed on them. He wrote "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" in 1902, following his involvement with labor organizations such as the Wobblies. 

Harry McClintock's Haywire Orchestra

The popularity of these songs would multiply many times over once McClintock got on the radio in San Francisco in 1925. His big radio break was a program aimed at children, a crowd he immediately wowed with his authentic cowboy material. Native American "performers" who were mostly just various interesting and rowdy friends of McClintock's that were also regulars on this show, included Tall Pine, Joe Longfeather, Silver Cloud, and Evening Thunder. A few years later, he made his first recordings for Victor. He would continue recording for the label over the next three and a half years, completing a total of 41 titles. The performances were solo, in duo with fiddler Virgil Ward or vocalist Dorothy Ellen Cole, or with the full orchestral backup of the Haywire Orchestra. 

Following the end of his Victor contract, McClintock cut sides for Decca and a small local label, called Flex-o-Disc. Eventually he had to mount several lawsuits to establish the publishing rights for the original songs he had recorded. Mixed in among the folk songs and cowboy numbers, some of McClintock's work was passed off as traditional by other artists looking to cash in without shelling out publishing royalties. In a letter to the League of Composers, McClintock made fun of the idea that so-called "hillbilly" songs were not written by anybody. "The theory seems to be they are created by some sort of spontaneous generation," he wrote. 

McClintock moved to Hollywood in 1938 to see what he could get going in the movie business. He wound up appearing in several Gene Autry films, a Durango Kid oater, and a variety of serials done at the Universal and Republic studios. He tended to be a villain, when he was lucky. Unlucky, he just got to stand there and say "He went that-away." McClintock also did radio work as well as writing articles, plays, and fiction for pulp magazines under pseudonyms. In 1953, he went back to San Francisco to appear on the radio and television program entitled The Breakfast Hour. He continued with this program off and on until 1955, and died several years later on April 24, 1957 (aged 72) 

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia) 

Uncle Dave Macon born 7 October 1870

David Harrison Macon (October 7, 1870 – March 22, 1952), known professionally as Uncle Dave Macon, was an American old-time banjo player, singer, songwriter, and comedian. Known as "The Dixie Dewdrop", Macon was known for his chin whiskers, plug hat, gold teeth, and gates-ajar collar; he gained regional fame as a vaudeville performer in the early 1920s before becoming the first star of the Grand Ole Opry in the latter half of the decade. 

Born in Smartt Station in middle Tennessee's Warren County, he was the son of a Confederate officer who owned a large farm. Macon heard the folk music of the area when he was young, but he was also a product of the urban South: After the family moved to Nashville and began operating a hotel, Macon hobnobbed with traveling vaudeville musicians who performed there. After his father was stabbed near the hotel, Macon left Nashville with the rest of his family. He worked on a farm and later operated a wagon freight line, performing music only at local parties and dances. 

Macon's turn toward a musical second career was due partly to the advent of motorized trucks, for his wagon line fell on hard times in the early '20s after a competitor invested in the horseless novelties. In 1923, he struck up a few tunes in a Nashville barbershop with fiddler Sid Harkreader, and an agent from the Loew's theater chain happened to stop in. Soon Macon and Harkreader were touring as far afield as New England, and when George D. Hay began bringing together performers two years later for what would become the Opry, Macon was a natural choice. 

The tour also brought Macon the first of his many recording dates, held in New York for the Vocalion label in 1924. Macon would record prolifically through the 1930s (and occasionally up to 1950) for various labels, accompanied at different times by Harkreader, the brother duo of Sam & Kirk McGee, the Delmore Brothers, the young Roy Acuff, and other string players including a then-unknown Bill Monroe. For secular material, his backing band took the name of the Fruit Jar Drinkers. 

                                   

Macon's recordings are richly enjoyable in themselves and are priceless historical documents, both for the large variety of banjo styles they preserve and for the window they afford on American song of the late 19th century. Macon performed musical-comic routines such as the "Uncle Dave's Travels" series, topical songs, often of his own composition ("Governor Al Smith"), playful folk songs ("I'll Tickle Nancy"), gospel with his Dixie Sacred Singers, blackface minstrel songs, unique proto-blues pieces that Macon learned from African-American freight workers ("Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy"), and songs of other types. 

“The Dixie Dewdrop" was loved most of all for his presence as a live musician, captured not only on the weekly Opry broadcasts (which were broadcast nationally for a time in the 1930s) but also in the 1940 film Grand Ole Opry. Macon delivered what an 1880s southern vaudeville audience would have demanded for its hard-earned dollar, which included showman, humor, political commentary (often of the incorrect variety by modern standards), and unflagging energy. 

Macon continued to appear on the Opry almost until his death, gradually taking on the status of a great-hearted living link to country music's origins. He became the tenth member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966, and the revival of old time music that flourished as part of the folk movement focused the attention of younger listeners on his music. 

Macon continued to perform until shortly before his death on March 22, 1952, at Rutherford County Hospital in Murfreesboro. He was buried at Coleman Cemetery near Murfreesboro. His funeral was visited by more than five thousand people and his pallbearers were George D. Hay, Kirk McGee, Roy Acuff, and Bill Monroe. He was inducted posthumously into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. A monument was erected near Woodbury. His son Dorris and several bandmates (often including Sam and Kirk McGee) made sporadic appearances on the Grand Ole Opry as the Fruit Jar Drinkers until the early 1980s. 

Yet Macon remains less well understood, and less present in the musical minds of country listeners, than Jimmie Rodgers or the Carter Family, even though he was nearly as well-known in his own day. Perhaps that's because he represents an older layer of American music-making than almost any other performer known to country audiences: modern hearers can easily connect with Rodgers' blues or the Carters' homespun sentiment, but Macon may require greater effort. Such effort, in any case, is well repaid by an acquaintance with his musical legacy. 

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia) 

 

Little Sonny (Willis) born 6 October 1932

Little Sonny (born Aaron Willis; October 6, 1932, in Greensboro, Alabama) is an American electric blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. 

Willis was born in 1932 and raised solely by his mother. He relocated to Detroit in 1953. Little Sonny stated that his nickname was originated by his mother: "[She] called me 'Sonny boy' from the time I can remember." He had no real interest in music, he said, "But then I saw Sonny Boy Williamson II." Willis was "spellbound at the way he played. After the show I went home and practiced for hours. Every day after that I would practice until I got the sound I wanted." His daytime job was working in a used car lot. 

After sitting in with Washboard Willie at the Good Times Bar one evening, Sonny was offered ten dollars a night, three nights a week by the club owner. Within six months, Sonny formed his own group. During the years that followed, he worked five shows a night in many Detroit bars and clubs, packing the rooms every weekend. He spent two years at the Bank Bar, four and a half at the Congo Lounge, five years in the Apex Bar, and two years at the Calumet Show Bar. He still took Polaroid pictures of the customers between sets and often he earned more money from the photography than from entertaining. It was a rough grind, but he managed to make a living and eventually to buy a car and a home for his wife and four children. 

He often performed with John Lee Hooker, Eddie Kirkland and Baby Boy Warren. Another club stalwart, Eddie "Guitar" Burns, accompanied him on Little Sonny's debut single, "I Gotta Find My Baby" (1958), released by Duke Records. It was co-written by Little Sonny's wife, Maggie. His follow-up release, "Love Shock", was for Excello Records. He received $25 for that track. He then established his own label, Speedway Records, and sold enough copies of his next single, "The Mix Up", to pay his production costs. 

                                   

Little Sonny acquired a two-track tape machine and took matters into his own hands during the early '60s, helming his tiny Speedway label.In 1966 he leased "The Creeper" and "Latin Soul" to Revilot Records. A later track, "Sonny's Bag", became his first Top 20 hit in Detroit. By late 1969, Little Sonny recorded his debut album, the predominantly instrumental New King of Blues Harmonica, which he cut in less than six hours. It was released by Enterprise, a subsidiary of Stax Records. Despite their reputation for soul music productions, Little Sonny released three albums for the label in the early 1970s. He also briefly appeared in the Stax stadium concert film, Wattstax. 

Black & Blue (1971) and Hard Goin' Up (1973) followed, with Little Sonny using an Old Standby 34B harmonica. His 1973 release, Hard Goin' Up, reached the Top 50 in the Billboard R&B chart. A lean period ensued, until the British label Sequel Records issued Sonny Side Up in 1995. His accompanists included the keyboard player Rudy Robinson, a regular session musician in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s, and the guitarist Aaron Willis, Jr., Little Sonny's son, who had both played on Hard Goin' Up over 20 years earlier. 

Little Sonny performed at Black Hills State University on June 24, 2000. His last public concert was at  the Motor City Blues & Boogie Woogie Festival, in Detroit on October 4, 2008, at, with Eddie "Guitar" Burns, Otis Clay and Bobby Rush. 

His photograph collection, housed in the basement of his Detroit home, includes shots of John Lee Hooker, Eddie "Guitar" Burns, Eddie Kirkland, Joe Hunter, Eddie Willis, Bobby Bland, Washboard Willie, and Sonny Boy Williamson II. He has released eight albums, including three for a subsidiary of Stax Records. 

Now long retired, he recently gave an interview in 2023 to the French abs online magazine. @ https://www.absmag.fr/little-sonny

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic and Concord.com)