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Bobby Hebb is the 24-year-old singer and songwriter that recently made the entire nation sit up and take notice when his recording of "Sunny" became the Number 1 hit of the nation. It shouldn't have surprised anyone, because Bobby Hebb is going to be one of the big names in the music business in the years ahead . . . both as singer and songwriter. To date, Bobby has written about 3,000 songs, 1,000 of which have been published. He is likewise a sincerely dedicated performer, a serious interpreter of every song he does. "Sunny" displayed Bobby Hebb as an interpreter of his own work. Here, he turns to a couple of other songs and shows that he can turn in truly inventive interpretations •ho-ever the composer may be. Bobby Hebb is a name that's been very much in musical news lately. It undoubtedly will be for a long time to come.
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FROM So Many Records So Little Time blog
http://www.somanyrecordssolittletime.com/?p=138
A SATISFIED MIND
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/country-gospel-chords/satisfied_mind.htm
http://www.waybackattack.com/hebbbobby.html
BOBBY HEBB
MATERIAL FROM BLOG NOTED BELOW
http://www.waybackattack.com/hebbbobby.html
Sunny
If
"Sunny" had been the only hit for
Bobby Hebb,
and that was quite nearly the case, it would be enough. One of the most
popular compositions of all time, there were hundreds of versions
recorded by artists around the globe in the '60s with many more
materializing in the years since. But there was more to Bobby, who was
28 when his original version became a million seller, than meets the
eye; at that point he had already spent 25 years in show business. Born
Robert Von Hebb
in 1938 into a music-obsessed family (his parents, both
multi-instrumentalists, performed on the streets of Nashville in the
'30s as
Hebb's Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra), he and
Harold (Hal) Hebb,
his older brother by six years, worked together as a song-and-dance act
starting in 1941 when Bobby was three, appearing at theaters and clubs
in the Nashville area.
In 1951 Bobby caught the eye of longtime Nashville producer
Owen Bradley, who got him an audition with Grand Ole Opry regular
Roy Acuff.
The 12-year-old found himself in a unique position when Acuff,
impressed by the youngster's varied talents, took him under his wing,
hiring the energetic child as an Opry regular. He performed with Acuff
and his
Smokey Mountain Boys, playing spoons, tap
dancing and doing occasional backing vocals. For an African-American of
any age it was an unheard-of situation. In 1955, not yet 18, Bobby
joined the U.S. Navy and made the rounds for the next couple of years as
a trumpeter with a Navy band that played in many foreign ports. At
about this time Hal Hebb joined
The Marigolds, led by
Johnny Bragg (former leader of
The Prisonaires and a repeat inmate, through the years, at the Tennessee State Penitentiary); the group had a hit with
"Rollin' Stone" on the Nashville-based Excello label in the spring of '55.
Bobby played guitar in addition to the trumpet, a combination that
kept him working steadily after his discharge from the Navy; he played
on sessions for Excello and other labels. In 1959 he recorded a rousing,
rhythmic version of
"Night Train to Memphis" (written by
Beasley Smith, Marvin Hughes
and Owen Bradley, the song was first released on Okeh by his mentor
Acuff in 1942). It became his first of two singles for former Nashville
disc jockey
John Richbourg's New York-based Rich Records. Bobby moved to New York City and spent a couple of years at the Blue Morocco Club opening for
Mickey and Sylvia and other acts. During this time he wrote and recorded a down-home southern soul song,
"Atlanta G.A.," which appeared on the FM label in 1961.
When
Mickey Baker moved to France around 1962, he and
Sylvia Robinson put their career together on hold. During this time she did a recording with Hebb of his song
"You Broke My Heart and I Broke Your Jaw" as
Bobby and Sylvia for Battle Records; the easygoing arrangement contradicts the song's curiously violent lyrics. His manager,
Buster Newman, got him in the door at Mercury Records and one single,
"Just a Little Bit More,"
came out on the company's Smash subsidiary. Tragedy struck the
following year when, shortly after the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy,
his brother Hal was killed in a Nashville street fight. Bobby Hebb
didn't make any recordings for some time, instead immersing himself in
songwriting as a way to deal with his depression brought on by these
unconnected, but devastating, deaths. During this time he composed the
brightly optimistic
"Sunny."
http://www.waybackattack.com/hebbbobby.html
________________________________________________________
Bobby
Hebb was a one-hit wonder, and like so many of these guys, after making
a splash, he spent a few years floating around aimlessly before sinking
to the bottom, dismissed as merely a "fluke." There was a 35 year
drought (1970-2005) where the Hebb-cat wasn't on black vinyl at all,
with only the "Sunny" side up and available on compilations. "Sunny" was
also his ticket to various memorabilia shows and oldies festivals where
all he had to do was sing his hit and hope the fee covered a little
more than just the travel expenses and hotel.
Every obit on
Bobby Hebb steals the basics from the same sources, so you probably know
his parents were blind, he and his Nashville-born brother Harold formed
a tap-dancing act, and that when they went their separate ways, Bobby
turned up in Roy Acuff's band while his brother joined The
Prisonaires…made up of other jail birds. Harold did get out of prison
and into a real group, The Marigolds, but was never far from danger. And
so it was, that in 1963, (coincidentally a day after the JFK
assassination, and also Boris Karloff's birthday), he ended up knifed to
death, but not before firing a fatal shot into the guy who'd mortally
wounded him.
Bobby had begun his recording career by then,
replacing Mickey Baker (in "Mickey and Sylvia" of "Love is Strange"
fame). As "Bobby and Sylvia," they recorded what is now regarded as a
cult item, the cringeworthy "You Broke My Heart and I Broke Your Jaw,"
which has the same cheery feel as Dave Clark 5's "I Like it Like That."
This was the era of the Spector-produced Crystals tune"He hit me, and it
felt like a kiss," music by Carole King, lyrics by Gerry Goffin. Even
so, the soulful duo are alarmingly garrulous as they swap barbs and seem
to suggest that in the ghetto, violence is no big deal. Back then,
Bobby's song was a mere Hebbaroid on the giant butt of indie R&B
singles. Now the single on Bill Grauer's Battle label, can fetch some
decent bucks on eBay. Grauer did a lot better back then with full-sized
jazz albums via his main company, Riverside.
In 1966, Hebb's
melding of R&B, Nashville and pop, yielded a smash hit with "Sunny."
Though it was covered by every annoying finger-snapping singer hitting
the TV variety shows of the day, he managed to lay down the definitive
version. He just couldn't lay down another hit single to cement his
identity with the music-loving public. "A Satisfied Mind" was modestly
successful in 1966, and a Hebb-penned song "A Natural Man" was a hit for
Lou Rawls in 1971, a year after Hebb's album career sputtered to a
seeming end with "Love Games" on Epic. In 2005, the indie label Tuition
offered a new album which was aimed mostly at Hebb's following in Japan,
where he often toured. He's still best loved for "Sunny," which is,
even if you want to dismiss it as mawkish pop, quite an achievement as a
piece that melds various music styles together, and in it's major and
minor key chorus and verse, captures notes of both blues pessimism and
pop optimism.
You get a half-dozen Heb-caps here, five cuts
from the tail end of his prime in 1970 (This Bird Has Flown, I've
Learned to Love, Grin and Bear It, I'll Be Anything and Good Morning
World) and a halfway decent copy of the obscure "You Broke My Heart and I
Broke Your Jaw."
Help Yourself to Hebb tracks
http://illfolks.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html
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