Bobby "Blue" Bland
Bobby "Blue" Bland (born Robert Calvin Bland on
January 27,
1930 in
Rosemark,
Tennessee) was an
American singer, who created tempestuous arias of love,
betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations,
and left the listener drained but awed. We called it the Blues. He was an original member of
The Beale Streeters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZMNEieo44k
Bland's son Rodd said
that failing health had forced his dad off the stage earlier this year 2013.
"He had a hole in his stomach that had become tumorous, and it was
emptying into his bloodstream."
He said Bland passed away
from natural causes at his home in Germantown, Tennessee. "He was in my
arms," his son said. "But I'm not going to lie. I could have used at
least 20 more years."
A website in Bland's name credits the singer with being "one of the main creators of the modern soul-blues sound."
"He never b**ched about
not getting his due," said his son, who formerly was a drummer in his
father's band. "When I took him to Beale Street for ribs and catfish,
fans would come up to him. He was always courteous, polite and kind. And
humble. That's what I admired."
Bland's song "
Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" was sampled
on Jay-Z's 2001 album, "The Blueprint.Bobby 'Blue' Bland, who has died
aged 83, was among the great storytellers of blues and soul music. In
songs such as
I Pity the Fool,
Cry Cry Cry
and Who Will the Next Fool Be, he created tempestuous arias of love,
betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations,
and left the listener drained but awed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSo47llUMWg
It was a skill that came
gradually. His husky voice was gorgeous from the start, but as a young
man he followed BB King – for a while literally, as his valet and
chauffeur – and his singing took on a special character only after he
began to study the recorded sermons of the Detroit preacher
CL Franklin,
Aretha's father. "That's where I got my
squall from," he recalled. That
alchemy of blues and gospel cadences would create one of the most
affecting voices in black music.
He was born just north of Memphis in Tennessee and in his late teens he hung out in the city with King, the pianist
Rosco Gordon and the singer Johnny Ace, an informal musical gang known as the Beale Streeters. He made a few recordings for
Chess
and Modern, and then signed with Duke. After a few inconsequential
singles, he began working with the bandleader Bill Harvey and the
arranger Joe Scott, and within a few years, in pieces such as Little Boy
Blue and
I'll Take Care of You, this collaboration transformed his recordings from the equivalent of low-budget B-movies to widescreen epics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZYSiRvUA7M
For
much of the 50s Bland toured the
"chitlin' circuit" of southern clubs
and theatres with Duke's other star, the singer and harmonica player
Little Junior Parker, in a revue called Blues Consolidated. That was
also the title, in 1958, of their first, shared, album, notable not only
for hits such as Bland's
Farther Up the Road, which topped the R&B
chart in 1957, but also for its overheated sleevenotes by "Dzondira
Lalsac" (probably Duke's proprietor Don Robey), in which Bland becomes
"the freewheeling master rogue of the Blue Note, rockin' 'em this and
that-a-way, across the forty-eight!!!".
Some of Bland's best work,
done under Scott's direction in 1960-63, appeared on the albums
Two
Steps from the Blues, Here's the Man... and
Call on Me, such as the
ferocious homily Yield Not to Temptation, the joyous
Turn on Your Love
Light and a virtuoso reading of the blues standard (Call It)
Stormy
Monday, featuring a guitar line by Wayne Bennett that has become a blues
guitarists' set piece. Occasionally, saccharine songs and
lush orchestrations would move Bland rather more than two steps from the
blues, but his admirers endured his straying and waited for him to find
his way back with poised renderings of strong material such as Blind
Man and Black Night.
During the 60s Bland placed more than a dozen
records in the R&B top 10, reaching No 1 with
I Pity the Fool and
That's the Way Love Is, but his kind of soul music was being eclipsed by
the catchier sounds of Motown and the funkier ones of Stax, and by the
end of the decade he was working less and drinking more. Duke was sold
to ABC, which made Bland the object of crossover marketing, rebranding
him as a mainstream soul singer. Bland dutifully strolled into the
Technicolor sunsets of His California Album (1973),
Dreamer (1974) and
Reflections in Blue (1977), and in
Get On Down with Bobby Bland (1975)
he sauntered along Nashville's Music Row.
Bobby 'Blue' Bland's core audience was African American, mature and predominantly female. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives
Some relief from this high-sugar diet was provided by recorded
encounters with his old friend King, the first in 1974 at a
studio-recorded junket where they genially reminisced and swapped
favourite songs, the second in 1976 at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles,
where Bland, previously rather the junior partner, was more assertive
and received top billing. They continued to give joint concerts for
years afterwards.
When blues singer Bobby "Blue" Bland was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, his longtime friend
B.B. King,
considered one of the most successful and influential blues singers of
the 20th century, praised Bland not just for the blues recordings he'd
been making for decades, but he also added, "There's no better singer in
any genre."
While King and other blues artists were
increasingly performing for young white listeners, Bland preferred to
tour the southern circuit and play to his core audience: African
American, mature, predominantly female. Having spent the early 80s
making half a dozen lavish albums for MCA in a vaguely
Barry White manner, in 1985 he signed with
Malaco,
a Mississippi company specialising in southern soul, and the move
brought him closer to the people who cared for him most. This last stage
of his recording career produced 10 albums of well-honed material by
Malaco's inhouse writers and producers, in which he embarked again on
the stormy seas of heartbreak and ecstasy with an even surer hand on the
wheel. His last release was Blues at Midnight in 2003.
Bland was admired by artists including
Van Morrison, who featured him at some of his concerts, and
Mick Hucknall,
who made the album Tribute to Bobby in 2008. He was inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992,
and received a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 1997.
He is survived by his wife, Willie Martin Bland, and his son Rodd, who is also a musician.
• Bobby Bland (Robert Calvin Brooks), blues and soul singer, born 27 January 1930; died 23 June 2013
He released a couple of unsuccessful singles for
Chess Records in
1951, and
Modern Records in
1952. That year, Bland entered the
Army and returned to music upon his discharge in
1955. His first successful single was
"It's My Life Baby", showcasing a new, more mature sound. He was signed to the
Duke Records label in
1956.
Bland's glottal gargle sound was patterned after Aretha
Franklin's father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin. For all his rough and
raw vocal projections, Bland was backed by a band that delivered some of
the smoothest and most modulated arrangements in the Blues genre.
Sometimes referred to as
"the Lion of the Blues", Bland was as
regal in appearance as his band was musically mellow.
His album covers tell the story, showing Bland beautifully manicured in
the sportsman style, his large frame nattily dressed and dripping with
conspicuous, but tasteful jewelry. Though not conventionally handsome,
Bland had a certain magnetism that had a profound affect on his fans.
Guitarist
Pat Hare contributed to Bland's first national hit,
"Farther Up The Road" (
1957).
Clarence Holliman was his guitarist for most of his
1950s sides, including "Loan A Helping Hand", "I Smell Trouble", "Don't Want No Woman" and "Teach Me (How To Love You)". In the
1960s, Bland was working with
Wayne Bennett, including "Turn On Your Love Light" (
1961) and "Yield Not To Temptation" (
1962);
he was by then a superstar and world-famous entertainer. Other popular
records from this period were "Grits Ain't Groceries,"
"Little Boy Blue,"
"I Pity the Fool," "
Stormy Monday Blues" and "
Two Steps from the Blues."
After Duke was sold to
ABC Records in
1973, Bland's career began to diminish. Though he continued recording throughout the
1980s and
1990s, Bland never regained his former fame on recordings, but toured and became a major influence on the
Soul blues sound.
In 1992, Bobby Bland was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Bobby 'Blue' Bland, who has died aged 83, was among the great storytellers of blues and soul music. In songs such as
I Pity the Fool,
Cry Cry Cry
and
Who Will the Next Fool Be, he created tempestuous arias of love,
betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations,
and left the listener drained but awed.
It was a skill that came
gradually. His husky voice was gorgeous from the start, but as a young
man he followed BB King – for a while literally, as his valet and
chauffeur – and his singing took on a special character only after he
began to study the recorded sermons of the Detroit preacher
CL Franklin,
Aretha's father. "That's where I got my squall from," he recalled. That
alchemy of blues and gospel cadences would create one of the most
affecting voices in black music.
He was born just north of Memphis in Tennessee and in his late teens he hung out in the city with King, the pianist
Rosco Gordon and the singer Johnny Ace, an informal musical gang known as the Beale Streeters. He made a few recordings for
Chess
and Modern, and then signed with Duke. After a few inconsequential
singles, he began working with the bandleader Bill Harvey and the
arranger Joe Scott, and within a few years, in pieces such as Little Boy
Blue and
I'll Take Care of You, this collaboration transformed his recordings from the equivalent of low-budget B-movies to widescreen epics.
For
much of the 50s Bland toured the "chitlin' circuit" of southern clubs
and theatres with Duke's other star, the singer and harmonica player
Little Junior Parker, in a revue called Blues Consolidated. That was
also the title, in 1958, of their first, shared, album, notable not only
for hits such as Bland's Farther Up the Road, which topped the R&B
chart in 1957, but also for its overheated sleevenotes by "Dzondira
Lalsac" (probably Duke's proprietor Don Robey), in which Bland becomes
"the freewheeling master rogue of the Blue Note, rockin' 'em this and
that-a-way, across the forty-eight!!!".
Some of Bland's best work,
done under Scott's direction in 1960-63, appeared on the albums Two
Steps from the Blues, Here's the Man... and Call on Me, such as the
ferocious homily Yield Not to Temptation, the joyous Turn on Your Love
Light and a virtuoso reading of the blues standard (Call It) Stormy
Monday, featuring a guitar line by Wayne Bennett that has become a blues
guitarists' set piece. Occasionally, saccharine songs and
lush orchestrations would move Bland rather more than two steps from the
blues, but his admirers endured his straying and waited for him to find
his way back with poised renderings of strong material such as Blind
Man and Black Night.
During the 60s Bland placed more than a dozen
records in the R&B top 10, reaching No 1 with I Pity the Fool and
That's the Way Love Is, but his kind of soul music was being eclipsed by
the catchier sounds of Motown and the funkier ones of Stax, and by the
end of the decade he was working less and drinking more. Duke was sold
to ABC, which made Bland the object of crossover marketing, rebranding
him as a mainstream soul singer. Bland dutifully strolled into the
Technicolor sunsets of His California Album (1973), Dreamer (1974) and
Reflections in Blue (1977), and in Get On Down with Bobby Bland (1975)
he sauntered along Nashville's Music Row.
Bobby 'Blue' Bland's core audience was African American, mature and predominantly female. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives
Some relief from this high-sugar diet was provided by recorded
encounters with his old friend King, the first in 1974 at a
studio-recorded junket where they genially reminisced and swapped
favourite songs, the second in 1976 at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles,
where Bland, previously rather the junior partner, was more assertive
and received top billing. They continued to give joint concerts for
years afterwards.
While King and other blues artists were
increasingly performing for young white listeners, Bland preferred to
tour the southern circuit and play to his core audience: African
American, mature, predominantly female. Having spent the early 80s
making half a dozen lavish albums for MCA in a vaguely
Barry White manner, in 1985 he signed with
Malaco,
a Mississippi company specialising in southern soul, and the move
brought him closer to the people who cared for him most. This last stage
of his recording career produced 10 albums of well-honed material by
Malaco's inhouse writers and producers, in which he embarked again on
the stormy seas of heartbreak and ecstasy with an even surer hand on the
wheel. His last release was Blues at Midnight in 2003.
Bland was admired by artists including
Van Morrison, who featured him at some of his concerts, and
Mick Hucknall,
who made the album Tribute to Bobby in 2008. He was inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992,
and received a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 1997.
Though he possessed gifts on a par with his
most accomplished peers, Mr. Bland never achieved the popular acclaim
enjoyed by contemporaries like Ray Charles and B. B. King. But he was
nevertheless a mainstay on the rhythm-and-blues charts and club circuit
for decades.
His vocals, punctuated by the occasional squalling shout, were
restrained, exhibiting a crooner’s delicacy of phrasing and a kind of
intimate pleading. He influenced everyone from the soul singers Otis
Redding and Wilson Pickett to rock groups like the Allman Brothers and
The Band. The rapper Jay-Z sampled Mr. Bland’s 1974 single “Ain’t No
Love in the Heart of the City” on his 2001 album, “The Blueprint.”
Mr. Bland’s signature mix of blues, jazz, pop, gospel and country music
was a good decade in the making. His first recordings, made in the early
1950s, found him working in the lean, unvarnished style of Mr. King,
even to the point of employing falsetto vocal leaps patterned after Mr.
King’s. Mr. Bland’s mid-’50s singles were more accomplished; hits like
“It’s My Life, Baby” and “Farther Up the Road” are now regarded as
hard-blues classics, but they still featured the driving rhythms and
stinging electric guitar favored by Mr. King and others. It wasn’t until
1958’s “Little Boy Blue,” a record inspired by the homiletic delivery
of the Rev. C. L. Franklin, that Mr. Bland arrived at his trademark
vocal technique.
“That’s where I got my squall from,” Mr. Bland said, referring to the
sermons of Mr. Franklin — “Aretha’s daddy,” as he called him — in a 1979
interview with the author Peter Guralnick. “After I had that I lost the
high falsetto. I had to get some other kind of gimmick, you know, to be
identified with.”
The corresponding softness in Mr. Bland’s voice, a refinement matched by
the elegant formal wear in which he appeared onstage, came from
listening to records by pop crooners like Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett
and Perry Como.
Just as crucial to the evolution of Mr. Bland’s sound was his
affiliation with the trumpet player and arranger Joe Scott, for years
the director of artists and repertory for Duke Records in Houston. Given
to dramatic, brass-rich arrangements, Mr. Scott, who died in 1979,
supplied Mr. Bland with intricate musical backdrops that set his supple
baritone in vivid relief.
The two men accounted for more than 30 Top 20 rhythm-and-blues singles
for Duke from 1958 to 1968, including the No. 1 hits “I Pity the Fool”
and “That’s the Way Love Is.” Steeped in vulnerability and emotional
candor, his performances earned him a devoted female audience.
Though only four of his singles from these years —
“Turn On Your Love Light,”
“Call on Me,” “That’s the Way Love Is” and “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do” —
crossed over to the pop Top 40, Mr. Bland’s recordings resonated with
the era’s blues-leaning rock acts. The Grateful Dead made “Love Light” a
staple of their live shows. The Band recorded his 1964 single “Share
Your Love With Me” for their 1973 album, “Moondog Matinee.” Van Morrison
included a version of “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do” on his 1974 live set,
“It’s Too Late to Stop Now.”
Mr. Bland himself broke through to pop audiences in the mid-’70s with
“His California Album” and its more middle-of-the-road follow-up,
“Dreamer.” But his greatest success always came in the rhythm-and-blues
market, where he placed a total of 63 singles on the charts from 1957 to
1985. He signed with the Mississippi-based Malaco label in 1985 and
made a series of well-received albums that appealed largely to fans of
traditional blues and soul music.
Mr. Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and received a
Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 1997.
Robert Calvin Brooks was born on Jan. 27, 1930, in Millington, Tenn.,
just north of Memphis. His father, I. J. Brooks, abandoned the family
when Bobby was very young. His mother, Mary Lee, married Leroy
Bridgeforth, who also went by the name Leroy Bland, when Bobby was 6.
Mr. Bland dropped out of school in the third grade to work in the cotton
fields. Though he never learned to write music or play an instrument,
he cited the music of the pioneering blues guitarist T-Bone Walker as an
early influence.
After moving to Memphis in 1947, Mr. Bland began working in a garage and
singing spirituals in a group called the Miniatures. In 1949 he joined
the Beale Streeters, a loose-knit collective whose members at various
points included Johnny Ace, Rosco Gordon, Earl Forest and B. B. King,
all of whom went on to become popular blues performers as solo artists.
Mr. Bland also traveled as a part of the Johnny Ace Revue and recorded
for the Chess, Modern and Duke labels before being drafted into the Army
in 1952. Several of these recordings were made under the supervision of
the producer Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis; none sold
particularly well.
After his time in the service Mr. Bland worked as a chauffeur, a valet
and an opening act for the Memphis rhythm-and-blues singer Junior
Parker, just as he had for Mr. King. He toured as a headliner throughout
the ’60s, playing as many as 300 one-night engagements a year, a
demanding schedule that exacerbated his struggles with alcohol. He
performed widely, in the United States and abroad, until shortly before
his death.
In addition to his son, Rodd, Mr. Bland’s survivors include his wife,
Willie Mae; a daughter, Patrice Moses; and four grandchildren. Rodd
Bland said his father had recently learned that the blues singer and
harmonica player James Cotton was his half-brother.
Mr. Bland’s synthesis of Southern vernacular music and classy big-band
arrangements made him a stylistic pioneer, but whatever he accomplished
by way of formal innovation ultimately derived from his underlying faith
in the emotional power of the blues.
“I’d like to be remembered as just a good old country boy that did his
best to give us something to listen to and help them through a lot of
sad moments, happy moments, whatever,” he said in a 2009 interview with
the syndicated “House of Blues Radio Hour.”
“Whatever moments you get of happiness, use it up, you know, if you can, because it don’t come that often.”
He is survived by his wife, Willie Martin Bland, and his son Rodd, who is also a musician.
If Mr. Bland lacked the pop-music name recognition of B.B. King
and Ray Charles, that did not make him any less influential as an
artist. Many of Mr. Bland’s recordings, such as the blues “Further On Up the Road” (1957), later covered by Eric Clapton, and the gospel-flavored “Turn On Your Love Light” (1961), covered by the Grateful Dead, became rock music standards.
Van
Morrison, who covered Mr. Bland’s 1964 hit “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do,”
often cited him as a seminal influence, and the two singers later recorded together. Mr. Bland’s version of T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday,” with an extended solo from guitarist Wayne Bennett, inspired a later version by the Allman Brothers Band.
Rapper Jay-Z recently sampled Mr. Bland’s 1974 recording “Ain’t No
Love in the Heart of the City” on his 2001 album “The Blueprint.”
Mr.
Bland placed 23 top-10 hits on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts
between 1957 and 1975 and had a strong following on the so-called
“chitlin’ circuit,” the ballrooms and clubs that catered to
predominantly black audiences. He played as many as 300 one-nighters a year.
Other
soul-blues singers such as Little Milton, Z.Z. Hill and Artie “Blues
Boy” White borrowed heavily from Mr. Bland’s style, though none
approached his career longevity.
“Bobby Bland brought the sound of
black gospel music into the blues and thereby helped transform black
music of the 1950s into the soul style of the 1960s,” rhythm-and-blues
historian Robert Pruter said in an interview. “He is considered the
pioneer of a distinct form of rhythm and blues called ‘soul-blues,’
thereby influencing a host of later blues singers.”
“It is not an
exaggeration to say that Bobby Bland is one of the titans of late 20th
century African-American music, close to equal in importance to Ray
Charles, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke and James Brown,” Pruter added.
Mr.
Bland could bring a tender, soothing vulnerability to the
often-machismo world of the blues. When the warm, gentle side of his
singing gave way to a harsh guttural scream, it served to emphasize the
tension inherent in his songs.
He developed the squalling style
from recorded sermons by Rev. C.L. Franklin, Aretha’s father, and
adapted the rough, gargling sound that the senior Franklin used to
exhort the congregation to his own singing voice.
During his
affiliation in the 1960s with Duke Records, a Houston-based company, Mr.
Bland’s work was often defined by the collaboration with trumpeter and
arranger Joe Scott. Scott’s urbane horn charts, rooted in the big band
era and modern jazz, contrasted with the brash soul sounds of Motown and
Stax records. Mr. Bland’s slow songs such as “Two Steps From the Blues” were lushly scored, and his up-tempo songs pulsed with brassy fanfare that often built to a crescendo.
Bland, who died Sunday at 83 at his home in Memphis, Tenn., of
complications from an ongoing illness, never achieved the broad-based
recognition of fellow blues musicians such as King, Muddy Waters
and Lightnin' Hopkins. But he was lauded almost universally by blues
enthusiasts for his vocal mastery that spanned the gamut from
throat-searing growls to gossamer sighs throughout an up-and-down career
that ran more than 60 years.
"I often joke that people can sit around in bars all night arguing
over who the greatest blues instrumentalists are," Jay Sieleman,
president and chief executive of the Memphis-based Blues Foundation,
said Monday. "But if they're talking about the greatest blues singers,
they wouldn't get past the first beer without mentioning Bobby 'Blue'
Bland."
Best known for hits including
"Farther Up the Road," "Turn On Your Love Light," "I Pity the Fool" and
"Stormy Monday Blues," Bland carved out a distinctive niche that
bridged the gap between earthy rural blues singers such as Robert Johnson,
Charley Patton and Muddy Waters and more urbane jazz vocalists like Nat
King Cole and Charles Brown, prizing meticulous diction as much as
soul-wrenching emotion.
He's been cited as an important influence by many blues, rock and pop singers and groups who followed, notably Van Morrison, Eric Clapton and the Band. Even B.B. King,
for whom Bland once worked as a driver before his own career took off,
has said if there were another singer he could sing like, it would be
Bland.
He placed more than 60 singles on the R&B charts over a
near-three decade span from 1957 to 1985, the majority of them making it
to the Top 30. The bouncy, gospel-inflected "Turn On Your Love Light" was subsequently recorded by dozens of other artists, including Jerry Lee Lewis, the Righteous Brothers, Delbert McClinton, James Cotton, the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Grateful Dead, but it was Bland's definitive recording that was voted into both the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"He was such an inventive singer," said Lauren Ontkey, the rock
hall's vice president of education and public programs. "He sang real
hard blues but also had this incredible melodic sense and could sing
around a really snarly guitar as well as around a string section."
Robert Calvin Bland was born an only child on Jan. 27, 1930, in
Rosemark, Tenn., about 25 miles northeast of Memphis. He was raised by
his mother, and did not meet his father until after he became famous.
As a youth he began singing with the gospel group the Miniatures, and
gravitated to Memphis where he started hanging out with King, Herman
"Little Junior" Parker and other musicians who frequented the clubs on
Beale Street.
Referring to King, Bland once told the Washington Post,
"He'd let me hang around and get some kind of experience. I drove his
car; I did anything I could to get my foot in the door. He gave me the
opportunity and I still thank him today."
That scene in Memphis gave rise to a group of musicians who began
performing and touring together under the name "the Beale Streeters,"
with Bland among their ranks.
He recorded in the early '50s for producer Sam Phillips' Sun Records
label, several years before Phillips launched the careers of Elvis
Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, but those
records didn't generate much attention beyond Memphis.
Bland found a style of his own after having his musical career interrupted by a three-year stint in the U.S. Army.
Having been exposed to smoother West Coast-based singers including Cole
and Brown, Bland incorporated their suave sophistication with the
grittier style he'd grown up with.
Emerging from the military just as rock 'n' roll was starting to
explode, Bland began to hit his stride, establishing his name at Duke
Records in 1957 with "Farther Up the Road," which went to No. 1 on Billboard's R&B chart and reached No. 43 on the overall pop listing.
He struggled with alcohol dependence in the late '60s and early '70s,
but eventually recovered. He remained popular among longtime blues and
R&B audiences and toured regularly until recently, when health
issues forced him to cut back.
One possible reason Bland never received the kind of recognition
beyond blues circles accorded King, Waters and John Lee Hooker was that
he wasn't a guitarist.
"In this day and age," the Blues Foundation's Sieleman said, "I think
it's easy to overlook people who just sing. The guitar has become such a
prominent part of our musical culture [in the blues]. But the more you
listen to Bobby, the more you appreciate the phrasing, the way he could
deliver a song. They call him the Frank Sinatra of the impeccable
phrasing and what he could do with a song."
Bland was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 and selected for the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1981.
• Bobby Bland (Robert Calvin Brooks), blues and soul singer, born 27 January 1930; died 23 June 2013
1 Comments:
She's already the Queen of Soul, but now Aretha Franklin has been named the greatest singer of the rock era in a poll conducted by Rolling Stone magazine.
Franklin, 66, came in ahead of Ray Charles at No. 2, Elvis Presley at No. 3, Sam Cooke at No. 4 and John Lennon at No. 5, according to the magazine's survey of 179 musicians, producers, Rolling Stone editors, and other music-industry insiders.
The 100-strong list will be published on Friday 14 November 2008, when Rolling Stone hits the newsstands with four different covers. (11/11/2008 Reuters)