Titus Turner Sound Off - The Jamie Masters

Titus Turner – The Jamie Recordings 1960–1961 (CD)

Titus Turner zählt zu den einflussreichsten Songschreibern des klassischen R&B. Er komponierte Hits wie All Around The World (Grits Ain’t Groceries), Leave My Kitten Alone und Get On The Right Track Baby – Songs, die von Stars wie Little Willie John, The Beatles oder Ray Charles interpretiert wurden.

Diese Zusammenstellung präsentiert Turners Aufnahmen für das Jamie-Label aus den Jahren 1960 bis 1961. Mit seiner beschwingten Version des Oldies Sound Off landete er einen Hit in den Billboard Hot 100. Ergänzt wird die Sammlung durch 24 weitere Titel im typischen R&B-Stil, den Künstler wie Lloyd Price und Chubby Checker populär machten.

Neben seinen Eigenkompositionen bietet die CD auch rockige Fassungen bekannter Standards wie Blue Moon, Day In – Day Out, Sweet Georgia Brown und Knock Me A Kiss. Weitere Highlights sind Titel wie Pony Train, Twistin’ On The Wild Side und Twistin’ Train – pure Energie und Rhythmus, ideal für Fans des poppigen R&B der frühen Sechziger.

Format: CD
Label: Jamie / Bear Family Records
Jahr: 1960–1961 (Aufnahmen), [aktuelles Veröffentlichungsjahr einsetzen]
Genre: Rhythm & Blues, Early Soul, Twist

Titus Turner

Far from the sophisticated streets of Harlem, Detroit, and Chicago, the music of black America put aside all uptown pretensions and dug bare toes into the raw, red earth of the South. Cool jazz was as foreign as Greek to the black farmers and factory workers; manicured, processed black crooners singing slick Tin Pan Alley songs were like visitors from another planet. The music was as steamy as the summer nights and in this hothouse Rhythm & Blues grew like a weed.

Atlanta, Georgia, smack dab in the middle of the Old South, was a hornet's nest of music and song in the late 1940s, buzzing with the new jumping jive from Los Angeles and New Orleans. Local bands vied for attention with the top stars: Joe Liggins, Roy Milton, Paul Gayten, Buddy Johnson, Bullmoose Jackson. Those far-traveling black performers had a problem not shared by their white counterparts - finding a place to stay in Southern towns. Sleeping in spare rooms or out-back shacks loftily called 'Colored Hotels' was the usual solution. In Atlanta, Mama Carrie changed all that.
In the 1940s, Carrie 'Mama' Cunningham, a matronly former circus rider, turned a dilapidated building on the corner of Auburn (`Sweet Auburn') and Butler into the Royal Hotel, fifty rooms of sartorial splendor, at least when compared to what else was available. A few years later, she bought the old Top Hat Club, half a block down Auburn, and transformed it into Atlanta's number one black night spot, The Royal Peacock Club.

The Royal Peacock, occupying the entire second floor of the building at 185 Auburn Avenue, attracted the best in entertainment simply because it was best place in town to play. From 1949 to 1973, the Peacock had them all: Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Ben E. King, Chuck Jackson, Lavern Baker, Howlin' Wolf, Fats Domino, Chuck Willis, Dinah Washington, and the Midnighters, Dominoes, Drifters, Four Tops, and Dells. The first tenor of The Dells, Marvin Junior, recalled, 'The Peacock was 'the' stop in those days. We used to play Atlanta maybe six times a year. We had one other place we played in Atlanta, the Magnolia Ballroom. In the place there was a fight every night. Just a bunch of fights you could count on. When we'd play there we had to be braced for it, you know. We enjoyed working the Peacock because it had a little more class. It was a classy place for that time and circuit. And we'd look forward to staying in that hotel.'

Into this heady atmosphere of top R & B stars, chorus girls, comedians, and shake dancers in 1949, stepped a handsome and confident 16-year old singer, Titus Turner. Turner didn't have far to travel to get to the top night spot in Atlanta. It just was a two-block walk from his home in the Grady Homes Projects on Decatur Street, where he was born on May 1, 1933. His father was a Pentacostal bishop and his mother, Essie, sang in the church choir. In his family of three brothers and six sisters, only Titus showed remarkable musical talent at an early age.

While still attending the David T. Howard high school, Turner had walked off with top honors in several annual amateur contests, known as 'Stunt Night Shows'. This led to an audition at the Royal Peacock and signing on as `Mr. T.' Because of his age, he was allowed to perform on weekends only, but in 1950 he was signed by Aladdin Records and left on a cross-country tour with Amos Milburn and Charles Brown...