Tale #33.Trombone Time

Kai Winding played trombone in the jazz bebop idiom, mainly for the Stan Kenton oufit; he told his session arranger, Garry Sherman, that he wanted to try something with a rhythmic harder edge. Garry hooked him up with Jerry Ragavoy who wrote “Time Is On My Side” in about an hour on the afternoon of the 1963 recording. (As an aside his “Cry Baby” for Garnett Mimms took over 18 months to write).

The backing vocalists were Cissy Houston and sisters Dionne and Dee Warwick, all now noted solo artists and the song hints at a gospel passion through the arrangement. It was that aspect which appealed to Irma Thomas for her cover in short order with added lyrics by Jimmy Norman early in 1964 (her version is often wrongly cited as the original).

Within a few weeks (June 1964) the Rolling Stones were touring the States and cut their first version with a short organ intro – issued on their US album called “12X5”. By November the band redid the song with a guitar intro that became their best known version on single and on their second UK album. The guitar intro version is the one found on film soundtracks and compilations of hits. Subsequently the song has been taken on by many singers though none with the commercial success of the Rolling Stones.

Kai Winding went onto solo projects that embraced jazz, country, rock,and classics; he gave jazz clinics and produced trombone instructional materials.

Tale #32.Wilbert gets to Kansas

In 1952 lyricist Jerry Leiber and tunesmith Mike Stoller couldn’t agree on the arrangement for “Kansas City” the song they wrote especially for West Coast artist, Little Willie Littlefield: Mike got his way though the title was changed to “K. C. Lovin’” after producer Ralph Bass thought it had more street cred.

Wilbert Harrison did the song live but it was 1959 before he took it to the studios in Harlem for Bobby Robinson’s Fury label. The arrangement was intended to emulate Littlefields but the solid groove actually came alive through the guitar solo of Wild Jimmy Spruill. So much so the single got to number 1 and sold a million copies, despite three other competing versions released the same week in April 1959.

Shortly after Harrison’s hit version Little Richard combined it with “Well Well Well Well” as a medley for his single version and live act. The medley inspired the remake the Beatles did on their album “For Sale” in 1964. The song has been covered 300 times including by Trini Lopez and by Peggy Lee with subsequent blues versions from Muddy Waters and Albert King. It was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001

Tale #31.Nina's in the House

Like most great stories there’s a fuzzy line at the edge of fact, and though it’s clear this story refers to somewhere in New Orleans the great web out there says it may actually originate as an English Folk song. We’re pretty sure that the musicologist Alan Lomax recorded the song in Kentucky performed by 16 year old Georgia Turner in September 1937. That one set the tone of many later versions by putting the point of view as female in “The House of The Rising Sun”. It had sex, drugs and alcohol it its cautionary lyrics. Put these in the context of a gambling hall or brothel in the Crescent City and things seemed pretty clear cut.

Nina Simone covered the song live in 1961 and may well have been the record that Alan Price heard when he suggested the song to the Animals for their 1964 hit that got to number one here, in the States and in Europe. They moved the focus of the song to a male viewpoint, though they weren’t first. Shortly after Ms Simone, Bob Dylan also did the song though his muse was gotten by copying the version his friend Dave van Ronk already had in his live set. What’s more Dave had his own theory about the House of the Rising Sun.

Dave’s research dug up a photograph of the entrance gates to the New Orleans Parish Women’s prison – complete with motif of a Rising Sun. So the “ball and chain” of the lyrics could be real not a metaphor for the shackles of married life.

Thanks to the Animals, the song is in the Rock’n’roll Hall of Fame; Frijid Pink scored another number one with the piece in 1969 and Dolly Parton did it on her 9 to 5 album with additional words. Nina Simone was a classically trained pianist who crossed several musical genres from jazz to pop to gospel. Her nickname was “the High-Priestess of Soul”; an independent thinker with a volatile temperament and strong convictions who campaigned for Civil Rights, Nina found herself on the outside of so much of the Establishment, small wonder she included the outspoken song in her armoury.

Tale #30.Ray Sharpe's stacked to the max

'Cryin' In The Chapel' was written by Artie Glenn and recorded by his son Darrel. They had some spare studio time they gave to Ray Sharpe to let him cut some demo songs on the understanding that they would get some action if the demos lead to a recording contract.

Producers Lee Hazelwood and Lester Still liked what they heard so Ray got a deal with the Jamie label. The subject of his first single was written about a girlfriend of one of his buddies who he later described as “stacked to the max”: Linda Lu. It was one of three songs they did at Audio Sound Studios in Phoenix with Al Casey in the band. There's no truth in the legend that Duane Eddy played guitar on the song.

In those days singles were first put out into strategic markets to test the water before wider distribution. The a-side “Red Sails in the Sunset” got played on radio a few times in New York, Ohio and Miami – the West Coast was different, a dj in Los Angeles flipped it over to play “Linda Lu”. Word got back to the Glenns and they arranged for Jamie to re-press the single with “Linda Lu” on top, together with another of their songs on the b-side instead of “Red Sails”. Further confusion came about due to keeping the same catalogue number for both versions.

Ray Sharpe never repeated his commercial success with “Linda Lu” but he wrote many other songs regarded as rockabilly gems. He didn't stay out west too long before making his way back to his home town of Fort Worth. As with so many of his contemporaries, Ray Sharpe has always been more highly prized on this side of the pond despite once being called the whitest sounding black man...

Tale #29.Buddy Guy's first time

When Eric Clapton left John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers he did so with the express intention of emulating Buddy Guy.

With Magic Sam and Otis Rush, Buddy Guy was part of the next generation of blues guitarists that followed Muddy Waters in Chicago blues. It was fate that Guy would gravitate to Waters for advice and underage entry to clubs.

Over on the West Side, Buddy started to build a live reputation as a showman player and got deal with Cobra Records. Two years on, in 1959, he was recording for Chess. He cut four songs on 2^nd March 1960 in Chicago that included “First Time I Met The Blues”. There was a sense of anguish defined by his falsetto pitched vocals and razor sharp guitar. The line-up included both baritone and tenor saxes: tough urban blues – the polar opposite of easy listening. Even today it is at the heart of Buddy’s definitive style – much emulated though rarely equalled.

His flamboyant live act with more than a little tendency to rely on rock star histrionics and rapid-fire licks at high volume simultaneously reinvigorated his fortunes in 1991 and alienated many purists. Few however can argue with his potency aged 74 on his 2010 album “Living Proof”: it won a Grammy in the category of “Best Contemporary Blues” - a full fifty years after he first met the blues