L
Frankie
Lee
b: Apr. 29, 1941, Mart,
TX.
Vocalist Frankie lee has always been an engaging and energetic live performer,
though his recorded output is still very small, given the number of years he has
been around and how legendary his live show have become. If Denise
LaSalle is a modern day Bessie Smith, then Lee is a 1990 Otis Redding. One
of Lee's live-show trademarks (like the late Albert Collins' guitar walks) is
the point in the show in which he leaves his mic on stage and walks out into his
audience, be it a festival of 10,000 people or a small club of 50. Lee's
motto is, "Whether it's one or one thousand, me and my band are gonna put on a
show".
Lee was born April 29, 1941, in rural Mart,
TX. His early influences included Sam Cooke, but before that, he sang in
church groups. He recalled in several interviews that his grandmother made
him sing, never realizing he would end up singing blues, not gospel. He
began recording in 1963 with Don Robey's Duke/Peacock label out of
Houston. He recorded three singles that attracted regional
attention: "Full Time", "Taxi Blues", and "Hello, Mr. Blues". While
he and Sonny Rhodes were living in Austin, Lee was heard by Ike Turner.
That night, Turner invited him to join the Ike and Tina Turner road show.
He was off with them the next day, gaining invaluable performing
experience.
After returning from the road trips with
their review, Lee settled in Houston and had the chance to work with people he
admired, including Big Mama Thornton, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Clarence "Gatemouth"
Brown, Ted Taylor, Junior Parker, O.V. Wright, James "Thunderbird" Davis and Joe
Hinton. Don Robey heard Lee in a Houston night club and offered him the
chance to record. later, lee began working with guitarist Albert Collins,
and the two became good friends, finally leaving Texas together in 1965 for
California. Lee sang with Collins' band for the next six years. By
1971, Lee was in Los Angeles working with his cousin Johnny "Guitar"
Watson. (Watson passed away at age 61 on May 17, 1996). He recorded
for Elka Records, with Watson producing. In 1973, Lee moved north to the
San Francisco bay area, and in the late 70's, he recruited a young guitarist,
Robert Cray, to play in his backup band. Finally Lee landed a contract
with Hightone Records, a then developing label, and recorded his debut album,
The Ladies and the Babies in 1984.
After successful performances with Sonny Rhodes at the Chicago Blues Festival,
lee moved to New Jersey in 1986, where he quickly established a following at
clubs and festivals throughout the northeast.
Lee was signed to record for
the Flying Fish label in 1992, and Sooner or Later, with Doug Newby and
the Virginia based Bluzblasters, was the result. Lee's latest release,
Going Back Home, is on San Francisco based Blind Pig label. The
album was actually recorded back in the mid-80's, but wasn't released until
1994.
Oddly enough, as of the mid-90's, Lee's
live club shows were as energetic as ever, and he's lost none of his enthusiasm
for performing, despite the fact that he is now in his mid-50's. He's got
a whole lot of talent and energy left, so there will be more recordings from
this exciting vocalist and showman in the future. The Ladies and the
Babies and Going Back Home, any of his single for the Peacock or Elka
labels such as "Full Time Lover" b/w "Don't Make Me Cry", are collectors items
and should be snatched up without hesitation.
Mance
Lipscomb
b: Apr.9, 1895,
Navasota, TX.
d: Jan. 30, 1976, Navasota, TX.
Like Leadbelly and Mississippi John
Hurt, the designation as just a blues singer dwarfs the musical talents of Lance
Lipscomb. A sharecropper / tenant farmer all his life who didn't record until
1960, "songster" fits what Lipscomb did best. A proud, yet unboastful man,
Lipscomb would point out that he was an educated musician, his ability to play
everything from classic blues, pop songs to spirituals in a multitude of styles
and keys being his particular mark of originality, With a wide-ranging
repertoire of over 90 songs, Lipscomb may have gotten a belayed start in
recording, but left a remarkable legacy (eight albums in fifteen years ) to be
enjoyed.
Little
Willie Littlefield
b:
Sep. 16, 1931, Houston, TX
Before he was 21 years old, Texas-born pianist Little
Willie Littlefield had etched an all-time classic into the blues lexicon. Only
trouble was, his original 1952 waxing of "Kansas City" (here titled "K.C.
Loving") didn't sell sufficiently to show up on the charts ( thus leaving the
door open for Wilbert Harrison to invade the airways with the ubiquitous Jerry
Leiber/Mike Stoller composition seven years later).
Influenced by Albert Ammons, Charles Brown, and Amos Milburn, Little Willie was
already a veteran of the R&B recording wars by the time he waxed "K.C.
Loving", having made his debut 78 in 1948 for Houston-based Eddie's Records
while still in his teens. After a few sides for Eddie's and Freedom, he moved
over to the Bahari Brothers' Los Angeles-headquartered Modern logo in 1949.
There he immediately hit pay dirt with two major R&B hits, "It's Midnight",
and "Farewell" (he added another chard entry, "I've Been Lost", in
1951).
Littlefield proved a sensation upon moving to
L.A. during his Modern Tenure, playing at area clubs and touring with the band
that included saxist Maxwell Davis. At Littlefield's first L.A. session for
King's Federal subsidiary in 1952, he cut "K.C. Loving" (with Davis on sax) but
neither it nor several fine Federal follow-ups returned the boogie piano
specialist to the charts.
Other than a few 1957-58
singles for Oakland's Rhythm logo, little was heard from Littlefield until the
late 70's, when he began to mount a comeback at various festivals and on the
European circuit. While overseas, he met a Dutch woman, married her, and settled
in the Netherlands, where he remains active musically.
Trudy Lynn
b; Houston, Texas
Born and raised in Houston's music-rich Fifth Ward,
Trudy Lynn began singing in an era when the neighborhood's blues and early
R&B culture was first turning on to a new sound known simply as soul. As a
younger female working with established hometown favorites such as guitarists
Albert Collins and Clarence Green, Trudy learned how to fuse classic blues
elements with the music of the moment. Playing for savvy audiences at places
such as Walter's Lounge, she quickly came to understand that the freshly budding
flower had to be connected to its roots to survive.
It's a lesson that Trudy
never forgotten. And as she's evolved--as both singer and songwriter--it's been
the fundamental philosophy behind her distinctive, multi-faceted style. "I'm not
a so much a blues singer; I'm a soul-blues singer," she says. "Now I can do
traditional. I can do ail types. I can even do country, you know. But my first
thing is really soul--kind of soul and blues mixed together.
""I've been writing songs a long time. I just didn't start recording them until
more recently," she also points out. During her developing years in Houston, she
began by filling the pages of paper tablets with original lyrics, words that
often came to her spontaneously as she mused on life and its ups and downs.
Occasionally she would show the scribbled results to peers such as
singer-guitarist Johnny Copeland, whom she particularly singles out as a
valuable source of advice and encouragement. Over time she figured out how to
craft her rough ideas into polished musical statements. And the twenty-first
century finds her now at the top of her game in this respect, as the seven new
Trudy Lynn compositions on this disk so eloquently attest.