Louis Jordan & His Typani 5 had numerous R&B hits from 1939 right up until the early 50's. Some even went high on the pop charts. He had 4 million sellers and was a well known sax player, singer, and comedian. He recorded "I Want You To Be My Baby" on May 28, 1953, at the end of his contract with Decca Records. It was released that same year and reviewed by Billboard in October. Jordan went on to record or re-record for several labels and had a dynamite stage show for many years. As far as recordings, he was considered "old school" and D.J.'s pretty much ignored him after he left Decca.
The song came to the attention of Alan Freed and he took it to his recent protegé Lillian Briggs, then age 24, having just signed a contract with Epic records, recorded a cover version which went to the top 20 on Billboard in September 1955 and sold over a million copies. Decca re-released Jordan's version in late summer 1955 (Decca 29655) in order to catch some of the thunder of Lillian Briggs' recording. Ms. Briggs was a trombone player, singer, comedienne, whose wild stage act and tight dresses earned her the name "The Queen Of Rock-n-Roll", and it stuck.
One hit record and the right connections had her playing Las Vegas, Miami and many other venues for many years. She did movie soundtracks, made TV appearances galore all over early TV and piled up a fortune before settling in Miami with several successful business holdings.
Both are long deceased, Jordan in 1975 and Ms. Briggs in 1998, but it's fun to check them out again.
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| Billboard's October 23, 1955, review of Louis Jordan's version |
"Bobsluckycat", a frequent contributor to this page can now be revealed as Bob O'Brien of Columbus, OH, USA.
He has written a new Western Novel set in 1892 Montana. Further information is available at his web page on his publisher's web-site http://booklocker.com/books/7052.html
Thank You, "Mellow".
1 comment:
Great version! Thanks for sharing :)
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