Bobby "Blue" Bland
As a singer, Bobby “Blue” Bland is famous for his ability to summon a whole world of heartache and loneliness in a few delicately-crafted musical phrases. But in reality, the soft-spoken Germantown resident is one of the most beloved performers in all the blues, a figure as revered for his kindness as for the dozens of influential hits he’s racked up over his nearly 60-year musical career.
“He’s a funny kind of guy. He don’t take just anybody in, and I’m honored to say I’m one of the few he has let in,” says blues singer Bobby Rush, who has known Bland since the late ’50s. “He’s a kind-hearted person. He’s not selfish. He’s done a lot, not only for me but a lot of guys in the business. He painted a trail for most us that’s out there now.”
Bobbie "Blue" Bland
On Jan. 27, Bland’s family, friends, and fans will get a chance to express their affection for the singer at a star-studded 80th birthday celebration at Sam’s Town’s River Palace Entertainment Center. Among those slated to attend are Rush, Latimore, Clarence Carter, Millie Jackson, and one of Bland’s oldest friends — and one of the few blues performers who could match him — B.B. King.
“We wanted to be able to honor the man while he’s still alive, not one of these things where people come out of the woodwork after he’s passed,” says event organizer Julius Lewis, a Memphis-based concert promoter who has worked with Bland for about a half dozen years and who, like Rush, considers him a mentor. “The first time I met him I was as cold as ice. I’d heard so much about him I was just intimidated by him. But he’s very warm and friendly, and he’s been very generous with his time and help. He’s been doing this a long time, and he’s as knowledgeable about the business as anyone.”
Bland was born Jan. 27, 1930, in Rosemark, in North Shelby County. When he was in his early teens, he and his mother moved to Memphis, and Bland, already an aspiring blues singer, threw himself into the city’s exploding music scene. His earliest performances were with a gospel group, but it was the sin of Beale Street that really captured his attention.
“Rosemark was just a little country town and the lights go out about 6:30 p.m., so it was something real exciting to me when we moved here and I got to go down on Beale Street and meet Rufus Thomas and (Robert “Bones” Couch),” says Bland, citing some of the figures who dominated life on “Black America’s Main Street” in the late 1940s. “My mother, she didn’t approve of me being there. She liked me to sing spirituals.”
Bland’s first big break came on Thomas’ Wednesday night amateur show at the Palace Theater. He further honed his chops doing double duty for such rising stars as Roscoe Gordon and King: Bland would chauffeur the stars to gigs and then take the stage as a warm-up act. His tenure with Gordon led to Bland’s joining the Beale Streeters, a legendary, loose assemblage of players that included pianist and vocalist Johnny Ace, saxophonist Billy Duncan, and drummer Earl Forrest along with occasional appearances by Gordon and King.
Bland cut his first record in 1951 with Sam Phillips at Memphis Recording Service and made a few records with Ike Turner. He had just signed with the fledgling Memphis label Duke when he was drafted in late 1952.
Upon his return in 1955, Bland was a new singer. Taking a cue from Lowell Fulson, Big Joe Turner, and Charles Brown, artists who had become huge in his absence, Bland had smoothed out the rough edges in his singing style, adapting his gospel lyricism and Cole’s pop cool into a new, more sophisticated sound. Back with Duke, which had been bought by the notorious Houston music entrepreneur Don Robey, Bland found the perfect foil for his voice in the arrangements of trumpeter Joe Scott.
“(He) taught me everything that I know today,” says Bland of Scott, who wrote many of the songs for which Robey, under the name Deadric Malone, took credit. “He developed my style and taught me how to approach a note. I had the voice, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I was just singing straight and not making anything connect in a way that would get a response from other people.”
Under Scott, Bland began an incredible run of success. In 1957, he scored his first R&B No. 1 with “Farther Up the Road.” Five years later, he became the first blues singer to appear on “American Bandstand,” where he performed his hit version of “Stormy Monday Blues.” Though he rarely crossed over to the pop charts, Bland was one of the few blues artists whose popularity never sagged in the face of rock-and-roll, soul, and funk. He kept charting through the ’60s and well into the ’70s with hits like “Cry, Cry, Cry,” “I Pity the Fool,” and “Saint James Infirmary,” placing an astounding 23 titles into the R&B Top 10 over his career.
In 1972, Duke was bought by ABC Dunhill and Bland’s steak continued unabated through a pair collaborations with his good friend King.
“He’s my favorite blues singer,” King wrote later of his friend in his autobiography “Blues All Around Me.” “Man can sing anything, but he gives the blues, with his gorgeous voice of satin, something it never had before. He lifts the blues.’ ”
Beginning in 1985, Bland signed with the Jackson-Mississippi-based Southern Soul label Malaco and became a role model for a whole new generation of soul-blues performers.
“Guys like Sir Charles Jones and Theodis Ealey, the all idolize him,” says Lewis. “They try to get that sound going, but I think they all realize there’s only one Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland.”
As he approaches his 80th birthday, the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient has lived to see his music touch new generations. Artists like the Grateful DeadThe Blueprint in 2001. More recently, in 2008 Mick Hucknall of the British soul band Simply Red cut an entire album of Bland songs, Tribute To Bobby.
Bland himself has not made a studio record since his 1998 Malaco collection Memphis Monday Morning. There was a 2003 live album, and he has made guest appearances on others’ records, including King’s 2005 release B.B. King & Friends: 80 and Van Morrison’s 2007 best-of compilation, which features the two dueting on “Tupelo Honey.”
But Bland, who still gigs frequently and says another record is not out of the realm of possibility, says retirement is simply not in the cards.
“Why should I?” he asks. “What am I going to do when I retire? No, no. I’ll do this until the day I die.”
Bobby “Blue” Bland 80th Birthday Celebration
6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Sam’s Town Casino’s River Palace Entertainment Center, 1477 Casino Strip in Tunica. Tickets: $37.50 and $47.50, available through Ticketmaster. For more information, visit samstowntunica.com.
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Nighthawk writes:
Earl Forest's name is spelled incorrectly in this article.
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