Not completely content material with being a Nineteen Fifties R&B star on the energy of his immortal New Orleans traditional “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” singer Lloyd Worth yearned for enormous pop acceptance. He discovered it, too, with a storming rock & roll studying of the traditional blues “Stagger Lee” and the unabashedly pop-slanted “Character” and “I’m Gonna Get Married” (the latter pair sounding far eliminated certainly from his Crescent Metropolis beginnings). Rising up in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, Worth was uncovered to seminal sides by Louis Jordan, the Liggins brothers, Roy Milton, and Amos Milburn by way of the jukebox in his mom’s little fish-fry joint.
Lloyd and his youthful brother Leo (who later co-wrote Little Richard’s “Ship Me Some Lovin’”) put collectively a band for native consumption whereas of their teenagers. Bandleader Dave Bartholomew was impressed sufficient to ask Specialty Data boss Artwork Rupe to see the younger singer (this was apparently when Bartholomew was momentarily at odds together with his longtime employers at rival Imperial). At his very first Specialty date in 1952,
Worth sang his traditional eight-bar blues “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” (its rolling piano intro courtesy of a moonlighting Fat Domino). It topped the R&B charts for an prolonged interval, making Worth a reliable star earlier than he was sufficiently old to vote. 4 extra Specialty smashes adopted — “Oooh, Oooh, Oooh,” “Stressed Coronary heart,” “Inform Me Fairly Child,” “Ain’t It a Disgrace” — earlier than Worth was drafted into the Military and deposited unhappily in Korea. When he lastly managed to interrupt freed from the army, Worth shaped his personal label, KRC Data, with companions Harold Logan and Invoice Boskent and bought again right down to enterprise.
“Simply As a result of,” a plaintive ballad Worth first lower for KRC, held sufficient promise to advantage nationwide launch on ABC-Paramount in 1957 (his ex-valet, Larry Williams, coated it on Worth’s former label, Specialty). “Stagger Lee,” Worth’s adaptation of the previous Crescent Metropolis lament “Stack-A-Lee,” topped each the R&B and pop lists in 1958. By now, his sound was taking up extra of a cosmopolitan bent, with large horn sections and outstanding pop background singers. Dick Clark insisted on firming down the violence inherent to the tune’s story line for the squeaky-clean American Bandstand viewers, accounting for the 2 completely different variations of the tune you’re prone to encounter on varied reissues.
After Worth hit with one other stable rocker, “The place Had been You (On Our Marriage ceremony Day)?” in 1959, the heavy brass-and-choir sound turned his trademark at ABC-Paramount. “Character,” “I’m Gonna Get Married,” and “Come Into My Coronary heart” all shot up the pop and R&B lists in 1959, and “Girl Luck” and “Query” adopted swimsuit in 1960. All the time a canny businessman, Worth left ABC-Paramount in 1962 to kind one other agency of his personal with Logan. Double L Data debuted Wilson Pickett as a solo artist and broke Worth’s Vegas lounge-like studying of “Misty” in 1963.
Later, he ran yet one more label, Turntable Data (its 45s bore his photograph, whether or not on his personal sizable 1969 hit “Unhealthy Situations” or when the one was by Howard Tate!), and operated a glitzy New York nightspot by the identical title. However the music enterprise turned bitter for Worth when his companion, Logan, was murdered in 1969.
He bought as distant from all of it as he presumably might, transferring to Africa and investing in nonmusical pursuits. Good instance: He linked up with electric-haired Don King to advertise Muhammad Ali bouts in Zaire (towards George Foreman) and Manila (towards Joe Frazier). He indulged in a number of choose oldies gigs (together with an look on NBC-TV’s Midnight Particular), however total, little was seen of Worth throughout the Nineteen Seventies.
Returning to America within the early ’80s, he largely resisted performing till a 1993 European tour with Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Gary “U.S.” Bonds satisfied him there was nonetheless a marketplace for his bouncy, upbeat oldies. Worth’s profile went on the upswing since — he guested on a PBS-TV particular with Huey Lewis & the Information, and recurrently turned as much as headline the Jazz & Heritage Competition in his previous hometown. ~ Invoice Dahl, All Music Information PLEASE NOTE: I divided my uploads amongst a number of channels, Bookmark this hyperlink in your browser for immediate entry to an index with hyperlinks to all of John1948’s oldies classics. LINK: http://john1948.wikifoundry.com/web page/…
