Bobby "Blue" Bland: S & D

Damn, he was of my faves. Rip

RIP

RIP - California Album has to be one of the most satisfying album-as-album blues albums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i30M4GQa_Tk

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnbybbzn9F1qfz1peo1_500.jpg

Two Steps From The Blues and His California Album are my favorite B "B" B LPs but oooh that ^^ cover. As said upthread, the 2-CD anthologies of his Duke years are all worth getting. Saw him on a bill with Al Green & the Staple Singers, in the late 80s but still...RIP.

http://www.waxpoetics.com/features/in-memoriam/wax-poetics-presents

Nice Spotify playlist

Reading more obits and Facebook recollections. Dude was a titan.

For those in Memphis:

Services for Mr. Bobby "Blue" Bland

First Baptist Church - Broad

2835 Broad Avenue
Memphis, Tennessee 38112

More Information and Directions

Church Office: (901) 323-2429

*Visitation: 1pm - 6pm

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

*Funeral : 11:00 am
Thursday, June 27, 2013

aw RIP

was bumpin Dreamer last night

His voice was collosal - he could holler with the best of them. Did he influence James Brown or vice - versa?

Muscle Shoal's Dan Penn re Bobby Bland (an old interview reposted)

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2013/jun/25/issue-2728-bobby-blands-influential-voice/

Somehow missed this. My favourite, very string-laden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twmI4J5qwAs

RIP "Texas" Johnny Brown, co-writer of "Two Steps From The Blues" (the song)

I got to see him perform a couple times, but I got to hear him speak a few years ago. Dr. Roger Wood (quoted in the article) put on a series of talks with area blues legends. Mr. Brown was the first, and was such an eloquent speaker, discussing how to take the blues into the 21st century, stressing the need to find new subjects to write about. "We're no longer in the cotton fields...oppression is not what it once was" he said.

http://www.thesoulbasement.com/Site/Duke-Peacock.html

Article on Don Robey, head of the Peacock label that put out Bobby Blue Bland records

Kinda frustrating article. the excerpt below notes that Bland thrived under Robey, but tried to avoid Robey's hands-on-interference. Wish the article had more on Joe Scott who worked on the arrangements and such for Bland.

There was little evidence in his early recordings that Bland was going to amount to anything special but, within a short period following Robey’s acquisition of his contract, he was transformed from a decent, if undisciplined, singer to one of the great artists of the post-War period.

Bland’s great ability was to create an intimacy with the listener that just gets inside of your head. The velvet tones, the gospel inflections, the sexiness of the vocals, the sophisticated musicality of the sparse arrangements - usually by Joe Scott (1924-1979) - earned Bland a place in the hearts of many Afro-Americans. The album, ‘Two Steps From The Blues’, cut in Chicago (allegedly to avoid Robey’s hands-on interference) and released on Duke lp #74 in 1961, was Bland’s apogee as a recording artist.

There's gonna be a Bobby Bland one hour "Unsung" tv special Wednesday on the TV One network

tomorrow night! Snorting and all

New display name, thank you!

DVRed it and watched part of it. Some good footage and interviews, although you get the sometimes standard "Unsung" soap opera drama approach. But drugs, drinking and running around chasing women was part of his life.

Bobby Blue Bland seemed like man that understands:

"I wouldn't treat a dog, the way you treated me...
I wouldn't do it.
I couldn't do it..."

BBB just could really phrase his voice, makes the line very conversational.

I love those lush early to mid 70s arrangements are like the R&B version of Countrypolitan.

Was just checking out a record store, and one of the only other browsers was this big MF in overalls going over the R&B vinyl. Eventually he starts chatting up the clerks about Duke-Peacock Records. Turns out the guy is Don Robey/Deadric Malone's nephew. Fortunately no shakedowns ensued.

https://vimeo.com/205123584?fbclid=IwAR0Zg7BDUxUoPaIhpbGc_c4vWHvn_og6G3pqNG0ZkawckAZmKbIb1gkotEs

Unsung series doc on him. He was born today in 1930 and died in 2013. Great singer even when he lost ability to hit high notes & snorted instead.

When I first learned about him, he seemed like a big deal. All the Rolling Stone guides etc. and guys like Dave Marsh and Robert Christgau treated him like one of the greats, and Salon even did one of their "Brilliant Careers" essays on him (remember those?) But I've rarely heard him mentioned since his death, and even the critic Bill Wyman rated him as some kind of second-tier or possibly third-tier artist in a recent NYMag feature. So yeah, he's under-appreciated now, hence the Unsung doc, which is a damn shame.

In the over age 50 Black American community he's a bigger deal.

I saw him live a number of times in the DC area, and the crowd was largely Black.

Two Steps from the Blues was the one that was listed in the Treasure Island section of Stranded, iirc.