Chess Northern Soul Box Set III

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A third limited edition box set of Chess 7″ singles has been released. The set contains:

1. See Me Through – Bobby Womack/I’m So Glad – Joe Cato
2. Wait – Jeanette Nellis/You Keep Calling Me By Her Name – Amanda Love
3. Loving You Is Something New – The Starlets/Such a Pretty Thing – Gene Chandler
4. Ordinary Joe – Terry Callier/Baby Hang On – Maurice McAllister
5. Pain – Mitty Collier/City Life – The Knight Brothers
6. Lend Me Your Hand – Kindly Shepherds /Lucky Boy – Harold Hutton
7. Foolish Me – Jo Ann Garrett/Love Ain’t Nothin’ – Johnny Nash

Individual index numbers are not yet to hand – can anyone help, please? Thanks.

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Kim Tolliver

Kim Tolliver LP cover | Chess Records | tc505

Kim Tolliver is a blues and R&B singer from Tennessee who mainly lived in Cleveland, Ohio. She recorded a number of unsuccessful singles for small labels including Sureshot and Rojac. She also recorded under the name of Kimberly Briggs. She left the music business to go into real estate, but is known to have fallen into illness. The lady’s current whereabouts are unknown.

Baby Huey and The Babysitters

A line up of Baby Huey & the Babysitters | Discogs | tc571

Baby Huey & the Babysitters was a soul band hailing from Gary, Indiana founded by Melvyn Jones and Johnny Ross with James Ramey as singer. They were well known on the club scene in Chicago. Melvyn Jones went on to work with Curtis Mayfield at Curtom Records. “Baby Huey” was the name of a cartoon character.

James Ramey | Amazon | tc572

The original members were Baby Huey (James Ramey), Johnny Ross, Melvyn Jones, Larry Sales, Dennis Moore, Byron Watkins and Charles Clark. A number of other musicians played in the band.

Through Chess, they had a single release on the St Lawrence label.

Rick Hall, record producer

Rick Hall, right, with Robert “Bumps” Blackwell and Little Richard, left, at Fame Studio, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, 1970 | Getty Images |tc504

The record producer Roe Erister “Rick” Hall, who produced a number of sessions for various artists which were released on Chess labels, died on 2 January 2018.

In 1960 with two partners he started Fame (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) and opened a first primitive studio above a drugstore. The partnership was dissolved in 1961, and Hall kept the Fame name.

That year Arthur Alexander came in with a song he had written, a mid-tempo country-inflected R&B ballad called You Better Move On. Hall liked it, put a small group of musicians together for a recording session, and took the tape to Nashville, 120 miles away, where he licensed it to Dot Records. The record was a hit and the $10,000 Hall earned was used to build a better studio.

One of the many Chess released recordings made at Fame and produced by Rick Hall is appended.

Guardian Obituary

Denise LaSalle has died

Denise LaSalle with her grand daughter, Samantha | Malaco Music Group | tc046

Singer/songwriter/record producer Denise LaSalle died on 9 January 2018.

Billboard obituary

The Blue Jays

The Blue Jays | Restored by Google Archive | tc503

The Blue Jays were a doo-wop group mainly noted for their version of the old song “The White Cliffs of Dover” which was released on Checker. The Blue Jays are understood to have been Leon Peels, Van Richardson, Alex Manigo or Manigeault and Leonard Davidson. Leon Peels was born in 1936 and died in 1999.

Bill and Will

Known for their Checker issue of “Going to the river”, Bill and Will were actually a quartet comprising of high school students Bill Sasser, Jerry Willis, Will Willis and Randy Brimberry. The record was leased to Chess for national distribution by Athens Records of Nashville. No other data is available.