Frank Beacham's Journal

John Mayall is 88 years old today.

John Mayall, New York City, 2005

Photo by Frank Beacham

John Mayall is 88 years old today.

An English blues singer, guitarist, organist and songwriter, Mayall’s musical career spans over fifty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band which has included some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians.

They include Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Jack Bruce, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor, Aynsley Dunbar, Hughie Flint, Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser, Johnny Almond, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya and Buddy Whittington.

Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, Mayall's father was Murray Mayall, a guitarist and jazz music enthusiast. From an early age, John was drawn to the sounds of American blues players such as Lead Belly, Albert Ammons, Pinetop Smith and Eddie Lang, and taught himself to play the piano, guitars and harmonica.

Mayall spent three years in Korea for national service and, during a period of leave, he bought his first electric guitar. Back in Manchester, he enrolled at Manchester College of Art (now part of Manchester Metropolitan University) and started playing with semi-professional bands.

After graduation, he obtained a job as an art designer but continued to play with local musicians. In 1963, he opted for a full-time musical career and moved to London. His previous craft would be put to good use in the designing of covers for many of his coming albums.

Since the end of the 1960s, Mayall has lived in the United States. A brush fire destroyed his house in Laurel Canyon in 1979, seriously damaging his musical collections and archives.

Mayall has been married twice, and has six grandchildren. His second wife, Maggie Mayall is an American blues performer, and since the early 1980s took part in the management of her husband's career. The pair divorced in 2011.

In late 1963, with his band, the Bluesbreakers, Mayall started playing at the Marquee Club. The lineup was Mayall, Ward, John McVie on bass and guitarist Bernie Watson, formerly of Cyril Davies and the R&B All-Stars. The next spring Mayall, obtained his first recording date with producer Ian Samwell.

The band, with Martin Hart at the drums, recorded two tracks: "Crawling Up a Hill" and "Mr. James." Shortly after, Hughie Flint replaced Hart, and Roger Dean took the guitar from Bernie Watson. This lineup backed John Lee Hooker on his British tour in 1964.

Mayall was offered a recording contract by Decca in 1964, a live performance of the band was recorded at the Klooks Kleek. A single, "Crocodile Walk,” was recorded later in studio and released along with the album, but both failed to achieve any success and the contract was terminated.

In April 1965, former Yardbirds guitarist Eric Clapton replaced Roger Dean and John Mayall's career entered a decisive phase. The Bluesbreakers began attracting considerable attention.

To celebrate his 70th birthday, Mayall reunited with special guests Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber during a fundraiser show. This "Unite for Unicef" concert took place in 2003 at the Kings Dock Arena in Liverpool and was captured on film for a DVD release.

In November, 2008, Mayall announced on his website he was disbanding the Bluesbreakers, to cut back on his heavy workload and give himself freedom to work with other musicians. Three months later, a solo world tour was announced, with Rocky Athas on guitar, Greg Rzab on bass and Jay Davenport on drums. Tom Canning, on organ, joined the band for the tour which started in March, 2009.

An album was released in September, 2009. Since then, Mayall has continued to tour with the same backing band, minus Canning, who left due to other priorities.

In 2018, Mayall made a new addition to his band; his first female lead guitarist, Carolyn Wonderland.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed John Mayall among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Mayall's autobiography, Blues From Laurel Canyon: My Life As A Bluesman, co-written with author Joel McIver, was published by Omnibus Press in August. 2019.

John Mayall performs in concert with The Bluesbreakers and friends.

John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers in concert at the Bottom Line in New York City

Denny Doherty, founding member of The Mamas & the Papas, was born 81 years ago today

Denny Doherty, founding member of The Mamas & the Papas, was born 81 years ago today.

A Canadian singer and songwriter, Doherty was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He started his musical career in Halifax in 1956 with a band called the Hepsters. With friends Richard Sheehan, Eddie Thibodeau and Mike O'Connell, the Hepsters played at clubs in the Halifax area. The band was together for about two years.

In 1960, at the age of 19, Doherty, along with Pat LaCroix and Richard Byrne, co-founded a folk group, The Colonials, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When they got a record deal with Columbia Records, they changed their name to The Halifax Three. The band recorded two LPs and had a minor hit, "The Man Who Wouldn't Sing Along With Mitch." They ultimately broke up in 1963.

Later that year, Doherty established a friendship with Cass Elliot when she was with a band called, "The Big Three." While on tour with "The Halifax III," Doherty met John Phillips and his new wife, model Michelle Gilliam.

A few months later, The Halifax III dissolved, and Doherty and their accompanist, Zal Yanovsky, were left broke in Hollywood. Elliot heard of their troubles and convinced her manager to hire them. Thus, Doherty and Yanovsky joined the Big Three (increasing the number of band members to four). Soon after adding even more band members, they changed their name to "The Mugwumps."

The Mugwumps soon broke up also due to insolvency. The Mamas & Papas song "Creeque Alley" briefly outlines this history. Yanovsky went on to join The Lovin' Spoonful with John Sebastian.

About this time, John Phillips' new band, "The New Journeymen," needed a replacement for tenor Marshall Brickman, who had left the folk trio to pursue a writing career. The group needed a quick replacement for their remaining tour dates.

Doherty, then unemployed, filled the opening. After the New Journeymen called it quits as a band in early 1965, Elliot was invited into the formation of a new band, which became "The Magic Cyrcle." Six months later in September,1965, the group signed a recording contract with Dunhill Records.

Changing their name to The Mamas & the Papas, the band soon began to record their debut album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears. In late 1965, Doherty and Michelle Phillips started an affair. They were able to keep it secret during the early days of the band's new-found success.

When the affair was discovered, John and Michelle moved to their own residence (they had been sharing a house with Doherty), and the band continued recording together.

Eventually the band signed a statement in June, 1966 with their record label's full support, firing Michelle from the band. She was quickly replaced by Jill Gibson, girlfriend of the band's producer, Lou Adler. Gibson's stint as a "Mama" lasted two and a half months.

Due to fan demand, Michelle was allowed to rejoin the band in August, 1966, while Gibson was given a lump sum for her efforts. The band completed their second album (titled simply, "The Mamas and the Papas") by re-recording, replacing or overlaying new vocal parts by Michelle Phillips over Jill Gibson's studio vocals.

After a continuing string of hit singles, many television appearances (including a notable and critically well-received TV special featuring the music of Rodgers and Hart), a successful third studio album ("The Mamas and the Papas Deliver" in March, 1967).

There was also the groundbreaking sociological impact of the Monterey International Pop Festival (which had been organized by John Phillips and Lou Adler) in June, 1967.

An ill-fated trip to England in October, 1967 fragmented the already damaged group dynamic. Cass Elliot quit, after a stinging insult from John Phillips, but returned to complete her parts for the group's overdue fourth album ("The Papas and the Mamas," which was finally released in May, 1968).

By then, Michelle had given birth to John's daughter, Chynna Phillips (in February, 1968) and a formal statement had been released, announcing the band's demise.

Elliot and Doherty remained friends. After the band's breakup, Elliot became a solo act. She eventually asked Doherty to marry her, but he declined.

Denny Doherty died on January 19, 2007 at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, from a second abdominal aortic aneurysm after going to get the first one repaired.

Here, the Mamas and Papas perform “California Dreamin’”

Chuck Mangione is 81 years old today

Chuck Mangione is 81 years old today.

A flugelhorn player, trumpeter and composer, Mangione achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-pop single, "Feels So Good." He has released more than thirty albums since 1960.

Born and raised in Rochester, New York, Mangione and his pianist brother, Gap, led the Jazz Brothers group which recorded three albums for Riverside Records. He attended the Eastman School of Music from 1958 to 1963, and afterwards joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for which he filled the trumpet seat, previously held by greats such as Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman and Lee Morgan.

In the late 1960s, Mangione was a member of the band, The National Gallery, which in 1968 released the album Performing Musical Interpretations of the Paintings of Paul Klee.

Mangione served as director of the Eastman jazz ensemble from 1968 to 1972, and in 1970, he returned to recording with the album Friends and Love, recorded in concert with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and numerous guest performers.

Mangione's quartet with saxophonist Gerry Niewood was a popular concert and recording act throughout the 1970s. Niewood and bandmember Coleman Mellett were among those killed when Continental Airlines Flight 3407 crashed into a Buffalo, New York, area house on February 12, 2009.

Here, Mangione performs “Steppin’ Out” in 1982

Felix Cavaliere is 79 years old today

Felix Cavaliere is 79 years old today.

A singer, songwriter, music producer and musician, Cavaliere was a member of he Young Rascals and the Peppermint Twist. The other members of The Rascals were Eddie Brigati, Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish. Cavaliere sang vocals on six of their successful singles in the 1960s.

At an early age, he joined The Stereos and moved on to form The Escorts. He later produced albums by other artists such as Laura Nyro and Jimmie Spheeris.

Cavaliere had a solo hit with "Only A Lonely Heart Sees" (1980), which made #36 in the Billboard Pop 100 chart and #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

During 1995, Cavaliere was a touring member of Ringo Starr's third All-Starr Band. In 2008, he recorded an album with Steve Cropper, Nudge it Up a Notch, which was released July 29, 2008.

He continues to tour as Felix Cavaliere's Rascals, and on June 18, 2009, Cavaliere, along with former writing partner, Eddie Brigati, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

On April 24, 2010, all four members of the Rascals reunited for the Kristen Ann Carr benefit, which was held at New York's Tribeca Grill. The reunited Rascals appeared at the Capital Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. for six shows in December, 2012 and for fifteen dates at the Richard Rogers Theatre on Broadway (April 15-May 5, 2013).

Their current production, entitled “Once Upon A Dream.” is currently touring North America (Toronto, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Detroit, Rochester, and New York City). It is produced by long-time Rascals' fans, Steven Van Zandt and his wife, Maureen.

Cavaliere and his wife currently reside in Nashville.

Here, Cavaliere, with Ringo Starr’s band, performs “Groovin’,” which he wrote with Eddie Brigati and released in 1967

Merle Travis was born 104 years ago today

Merle Travis was born 104 years ago today.

Born in Rosewood, Kentucky, Travis was a country and Western singer, songwriter and musician. His lyrics often described the life and exploitation of coal miners. Among his many well-known songs are "Sixteen Tons," "Re-Enlistment Blues" and "Dark as a Dungeon."

However, it is his masterly guitar playing and his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky for which he is best known today. "Travis picking," a syncopated style of finger picking, is named after him.

Travis was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.

Travis became interested in the guitar early in life and originally played an instrument made by his brother. He reportedly saved his money to buy a guitar that he had window-shopped for some time. His guitar playing style was developed out of a native tradition of finger-picking in Western Kentucky. Among its early practitioners was the black country blues guitarist, Arnold Shultz.

Shultz taught his style to several local musicians, including Kennedy Jones, who passed it on to other guitarists, notably Mose Rager, a part-time barber and coal miner, and Ike Everly, the father of The Everly Brothers.

Their thumb and index finger picking method created a solo style that blended lead lines picked by the finger and rhythmic bass patterns picked or strummed by the thumbpick. This technique captivated many guitarists in the region and provided the main inspiration to the young Travis.

Travis acknowledged his debt to both Rager and Everly, and appears with Rager on the DVD Legends of Country Guitar (Vestapol, 2002).

At the age of 18, Travis performed "Tiger Rag" on a local radio amateur show in Evansville, Indiana, leading to offers of work with local bands. In 1937, Travis was hired by fiddler Clayton McMichen as guitarist in his Georgia Wildcats. He later joined the Drifting Pioneers, a Chicago-area gospel quartet that moved to WLW radio in Cincinnati, the major country music station north of Nashville.

Travis's style amazed everyone at WLW and he became a popular member of their barn dance radio show the "Boone County Jamboree" when it began in 1938. He performed on various weekday programs, often working with other WLW acts including Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones and the Delmore Brothers.

In 1943, he and Grandpa Jones recorded for Cincinnati used-record dealer Syd Nathan, who had founded a new label, King Records. Because WLW barred their staff musicians from recording, Travis and Jones used the pseudonym, The Sheppard Brothers.

Their recording of "You'll Be Lonesome Too" was the first to be released by King Records, subsequently known for its country recordings by the Delmore Brothers and Stanley Brothers as well as R&B legends Hank Ballard, Wynonie Harris and most notably, James Brown.

Merle Travis is now acknowledged as one of the most influential American guitarists of the 20th century. His unique guitar style inspired many guitarists who followed, most notably Chet Atkins, who first heard Travis's radio broadcasts on Cincinnati's WLW Boone County Jamboree in 1939 while living with his father in rural Georgia.

Among the many other guitarists influenced by Travis are Scotty Moore, Earl Hooker and Marcel Dadi.

Today, his son, Thom Bresh, continues playing in Travis's style on a custom-made Langejans Dualette.

Here, Travis performs “Cannonball Rag”

Randy Newman is 78 years old today

Randy Newman is 78 years old today.

Newman is a singer-songwriter, arranger, composer and pianist who is known for his distinctive voice, mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for film scores.

Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Leatherheads, James and the Giant Peach, Meet the Parents, Cold Turkey, Seabiscuit and The Princess and the Frog.

He has scored seven Disney-Pixar films: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University.

Newman has been nominated for 20 Academy Awards, winning twice. He has also won three Emmys, six Grammy Awards and the Governor's Award from the Recording Academy. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2007, he was inducted as a Disney Legend.

Born in Los Angeles, Newman lived in New Orleans as a small child and spent summers there until he was 11 years old, his family having by then returned to Los Angeles. The paternal side of his family includes three uncles who were noted Hollywood film-score composers: Alfred Newman, Lionel Newman and Emil Newman. His cousins, Thomas and David, and nephew, Joey, are also composers for motion pictures.

Newman graduated from University High School in Los Angeles and attended the University of California in LA. His parents were both from Jewish families, but Newman's household was not observant. He has since become an atheist. Newman has been a professional songwriter since he was 17.

He cites Ray Charles as his greatest influence growing up, stating, "I loved Charles' music to excess." His first single as a performer was 1962's "Golden Gridiron Boy," released when he was eighteen. The single flopped and Newman chose to concentrate on songwriting and arranging for the next several years.

Newman has credited The Fleetwoods with giving him his first national break. The trio recorded his song, "They Tell Me It's Summer," as the “B” side of one of their hit singles, giving Newman great exposure and royalties.

Newman’s early songs were recorded by Gene Pitney, Jerry Butler, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, The O'Jays and Irma Thomas. His 1968 debut album, Randy Newman, was a critical success but never dented the Billboard Top 200.

Many artists, including Alan Price, Van Dyke Parks, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, the Everly Brothers, Claudine Longet, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone, Lynn Anderson, Wilson Pickett, Pat Boone and Peggy Lee, covered his songs and "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" became an early standard.

Newman’s 1974 release, Good Old Boys, was a set of songs about the American South. "Rednecks" began with a description of segregationist Lester Maddox pitted against a "smart-ass New York Jew" on a TV show, in a song that criticizes both southern racism and the complacent bigotry of Americans outside of the south who stereotype all southerners as racist yet ignore racism in northern and midwestern states and large cities.

This ambiguity was also apparent on "Kingfish" and "Every Man a King," the former a paean to Huey Long (the assassinated former Governor and United States Senator from Louisiana), the other a campaign song written by Long himself.

An album that received lavish critical praise, Good Old Boys, also became a commercial breakthrough for Newman, peaking at #36 on Billboard and spending 21 weeks in the Top 200.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Newman's "Louisiana 1927" became an anthem and was played heavily on a wide range of American radio and television stations, in both Newman's 1974 original and Aaron Neville's cover version of the song.

The song addresses the deceitful manner in which New Orleans's municipal government managed a flood in 1927, during which, as Newman asserts, "The guys who ran the Mardi Gras, the bosses in New Orleans decided the course of that flood. You know, they cut a hole in the levee and it flooded the cotton fields."

Randy Newman performs “Louisiana 1927”

Randy Newman performs “Short People”

Randy Newman performs “I Love LA”

Berry Gordy, Jr., founder of Motown, is 92 years old today

Berry Gordy, Jr., founder of Motown, is 92 years old today.

A record producer and songwriter in Detroit, Gordy developed his interest in music by writing songs and opening the 3-D Record Mart, a record store featuring jazz. The store was unsuccessful and Gordy sought work at the Lincoln-Mercury plant, but his family connections put him in touch with Al Green (not the singer), owner of the Flame Show Bar talent club, where he met the singer, Jackie Wilson.

In 1957, Wilson recorded "Reet Petite," a song Gordy had co-written with his sister Gwen and writer-producer, Billy Davis. It became a modest hit, but had more success internationally, especially in the UK where it reached the Top 10 and even later topped the chart on re-issue in 1986.

Wilson recorded six more songs co-written by Gordy over the next two years, including "Lonely Teardrops," which topped the R & B charts and got to #7 in the pop chart. Berry and Gwen Gordy also wrote "All I Could Do Was Cry" for the late Etta James at Chess Records.

Gordy reinvested the profits from his songwriting success into producing. In 1957, he discovered The Miracles (originally known as The Matadors) and began building a portfolio of successful artists. In 1959, with the encouragement of Miracles leader Smokey Robinson, Gordy borrowed $800 from his family to create R&B label, Tamla Records.

On January 21, 1959, "Come To Me" by Marv Johnson was issued as Tamla 101. United Artists Records picked up "Come To Me" for national distribution, as well as Johnson's more successful follow-up records (such as "You Got What It Takes," co-produced and co-written by Gordy).

Berry's next release was the only 45 ever issued on his Rayber label, and it featured Wade Jones with an unnamed female back-up group. The record did not sell well and is now one of the rarest issues from the Motown stable.

Berry's third release was "Bad Girl" by The Miracles, and was the first-ever release for the Motown record label. "Bad Girl" was a solid hit in 1959 after Chess Records picked it up. Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" initially appearing on Tamla and then charted on Gordy's sister's label, Anna Records, in February, 1960.

The Miracles' hit, "Shop Around," peaked at #1 on the national R&B charts in late 1960 and at #2 on the Billboard pop charts on January 16, 1961. It established Motown as an independent company worthy of notice. Later in 1961, The Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman" made it to the top of both charts.

In 1960, Gordy signed an unknown named Mary Wells who became the fledgling label's first star, with Smokey Robinson penning her hits, "You Beat Me to the Punch," "Two Lovers" and "My Guy."

The Tamla and Motown labels were then merged into a new company, Motown Record Corporation, which was incorporated on April 14, 1959. The rest is music history.

The Grand Ole Opry — one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for country music — began broadcasting live from Nashville on this day in 1925 — 96 years ago

The Grand Ole Opry — one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for country music — began broadcasting live from Nashville on this day in 1925 — 96 years ago.

The showcase was originally named the Barn Dance, after a Chicago radio program called the National Barn Dance that had begun broadcasting the previous year.

Impressed by the popularity of the Chicago-based National Barn Dance, producers at WSM radio in Nashville decided to create their own version of the show to cater to southern audiences who could not receive the Chicago signal. Both the Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance aired on Saturday nights and featured folk music, fiddling and the relatively new genre of country-western music.

Both shows created a growing audience for a uniquely American style of music and were launching grounds for many of America's most-loved musicians. The singing cowboy, Gene Autry, got his first big break on the National Barn Dance.

The WSM producers recognized that Americans were growing nostalgic for the rural past, so all live performers at the Grand Ole Opry were required to dress in hillbilly costumes and adopt old-time names.

The four-and-a-half-hour Grand Ole Opry program became one of the most popular broadcasts in the South, and like its Chicago cousin, helped make country-western an enduring part of the popular American musical landscape.

Thanks History.com

Little Sammy Davis was born 93 years old today

Little Sammy Davis performs with the Levon Helm Band at the Beacon Theatre, New York City, March 17, 2007

Photo by Frank Beacham

Little Sammy Davis was born 93 years old today.

Davis was a blues musician based in New York's Hudson Valley. Although his musical career began in the 1940s, he was not widely known until the mid-1990s when he began working in radio, singing, playing live on tour and recording studio albums.

Born in Winona, Mississippi, and raised in a one-room shack, Davis learned to play the harmonica at the age of eight. He eventually left home and settled in Florida, where he continued to play the blues in the Miami area while working in orange groves and saw mills to make ends meet.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Davis traveled with medicine shows and played with blues musicians like Pine Top Perkins and Ike Turner. He spent a total of nine years on the road with Earl Hooker, including with the short-lived band of Hooker, Ike Turner, Pine Top Perkins and Albert King, ending when the two titans of Blues Guitar came to blows, thus breaking up the band.

Sammy and Earl recorded four sides for Henry Stone's Rockin' label in 1952 and 1953 (as Little Sam Davis). In the late 1950s, Davis lived in Chicago, performing with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and occasionally fronting Little Walter's Band, The Aces, when Walter didn’t show.

At some point, word had let out that "some guy looks and plays" just like Walter and people THINK he IS Little Walter." One night as Sammy performed on stage accompanied by Hooker, he spotted a policeman at the back of the club. Walter and the officer waited for Sammy to get through with his set and when Sammy got off of the stage, he was arrested on the spot.

To quote Sammy: "Walter was a good guy and told me that yes, you do indeed sound just like me, but you can't be going around letting people think you ARE me."

Sammy was locked up, spent a night in jail before Walter dropped the charges, leaving Davis and Walter friends for the rest of Walter's all too short and tragic life.

He later married and settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he was "discovered" by local musician Dan DelSanto of The Arm Brothers. Dan had been looking around locally for blues players for his friend, local folklorist Pete Lowry, during which time he recorded a session for Lowry's Trix Records at Sam's apartment in 1971 that resulted in one "45" single ("Someday Blues"/"Sam's Swing") being released.

Sam also played harp on some of the recordings for Trix by Eddie Kirkland in 1972 at a studio in Mink Hollow, NY. After the sudden death of his wife in 1972/73, Davis basically stopped playing and dropped out of the music scene for the next two decades in spite of efforts by Little Eliot Lloyd, Lowry, a.o. to keep him playing.

Eventually, no one knew if Sammy was alive or dead, or even where he was... some said back to Mississippi, maybe Florida. He had disappeared. In 1990, local DJ Doug Price was getting a haircut at a barber shop in Poughkeepsie, NY when he heard rumors that Davis was sitting in at a Blues Jam at the "Side Track Inn."

Price made mention of Davis's story and played some of his old recordings on WVKR. Then one night, Brad Scribner was hired to play drums at the Jam when Sammy got up to play and was amazed at what he saw and heard.

Brad immediately came home to tell his brother, Fred, who had been supplying Blues Instrumentals for the radio shock jock, Don Imus, and had been actively looking for a singer to progress from background instrumentals to being a featured guest on Imus' radio show, "Imus in the Morning."

Fred Scribner arranged to bring Davis and Midnight Slim into Tom Veneble's Recording Studio in Walden, NY to record a fresh batch of material, including the classic Howlin' Wolf/Mississippi Sheik's song, "Sitting on Top of the World."

Imus interviewed Sammy and Fred via telephone, live and they were an instant hit. Subsequently Imus invited Davis and Scribner to perform regularly on his show, live in the Studio at WFAN Radio in New York City.

The New York Daily News proclaimed the very next day: "Little Sammy Davis and Fred Scribner score on the Imus Show." Sammy and Fred started to appear regularly, soon earning the title of "House Band" for the Imus in the Morning Show for years to come. Imus, in his trademark style, later quipped that Davis had "more harmonicas than teeth" and that Fred looked like a manager of an Ace Hardware Store.

Capitalizing on this Imus fame, Little Sammy Davis and Midnight Slim (Fred Scribner) toured, playing the best blues clubs, colleges and blues festivals on the East Coast and venturing out to the West Coast on occasion as radio and television stations (MSNBC) around the United States joined on.

In 1996, Davis released his first full-length album, I Ain't Lyin, with Fred Scribner producing, playing guitar and co-writing songs. Brad Scribner played drums, the late Brad Lee Sexton performed on bass and Tom Hunter was on piano for Delmark Records. The record was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award and earned Davis a "comeback artist of the year award" from Living Blues magazine.

Davis and Scribner released a second album, Ten Years and Forty Days, on their own label, Fat Fritz Records. As house band for the Imus Show, they were called in each fall for an annual radio/telethon for the "Tomorrows Children's Fund" benefiting children stricken with cancer.

As the years went by, other charitable organizations came on board such as the S.I.D.S Foundation and finally, the Imus Ranch for Children (with terminal illnesses) ending their run when the World Trade Center was destroyed on 9/11.

Around this time, a former guitar student of Scribner's, John Rocklin, brought Sammy up to see legendary drummer/vocalist Levon Helm. Levon, who had played with Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), seemed to fall in love with Sammy immediately. Davis began performing with Levon for performances at Helm's home in Woodstock and on tour with Levon Helm and the Barn Burners.

In 2006, Sammy convinced Levon that his guitarist, Fred Scribne, would be the right choice on guitar. Fred joined on and the name of the band became the Levon Helm Band, and Levon started having concerts at his home in Woodstock, NY leading to the release of Midnight Ramble, Volume 1.

In 2002, Arlen Tarlofsky produced and directed a documentary entitled, "Little Sammy Davis." The movie is a musical documentary that looks into the life and music of Sammy Davis.

The documentary was the Jury Selection at the London Film Festival and the Woodstock International Film Festival, and it won the Audience Recognition Award at The AFI/SILVERDOCS Discovery Channel Documentary Film Festival.

In October, 2008, after recording his third album, Travelin' Man' with Scribner, Davis suffered a stroke. He recovered, and was able to resume performing the following Spring.

Since Sammy was no longer permitted to travel on the road anymore, Levon offered Sammy and Fred the opening slot every Saturday at the "Midnight Ramble," but Sammy suffered a second stroke within a year and was left partially paralyzed. He resided in a nursing home/rehab unit in Middletown, NY until his death on February 16, 2018, at the age of 89.

Here is a short documentary on Little Sammy Davis

Paul Shaffer is 72 years old today

Paul Shaffer with Steve Cropper, Triad Theater, New York City, August 22, 2019

Photo by Frank Beacham

Paul Shaffer is 72 years old today.

Shaffer is a Canadian-American musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian and composer who was David Letterman's musical director, band leader and sidekick since 1982.

Shaffer was born and raised in Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada. By his teenage years, had moved on to playing the organ in a band called Fabulous Fugitives with his schoolmates in Thunder Bay. Later, he performed with the "Flash Landing Band" at different venues around Edmonton and the Interior of B.C.

Educated at the University of Toronto, he began playing with jazz guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, performing in bands around the bars there, where he found an interest in musicals. He completed his studies, with a B.A. degree in Sociology, in 1971.

Shaffer began his music career in 1972 when Stephen Schwartz invited him as the musical director for the Toronto production of Godspell, starring Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Andrea Martin.

He went on to play piano for the Schwartz Broadway show The Magic Show in 1974, then became a member of the house band on NBC's popular Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program from 1975 to 1980 (except for a brief departure in 1977).

Though Shaffer was at the piano and appeared to be directing the band's actions, Howard Shore was credited as SNL's musical director, eventually turning the actual conducting of the band to sax player Howard Johnson.

Shaffer also regularly appeared in the show's sketches, notably as the pianist for Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer character and as Don Kirshner. He occasionally teamed up with the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players off the show as well, including work on Gilda Radner's highly successful Broadway show and as the musical director for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd whenever they recorded or performed as The Blues Brothers.

Shaffer was to appear in the duo's 1980 film, but, as he revealed in October, 2009 on CBS Sunday Morning, Belushi dropped him from the project. In a nasty memo to fellow SNL colleagues, Belushi said that he was unhappy that Shaffer was spending so much time on a studio record for Radner.

Belushi said that he had tried to talk Shaffer out of working on the album in the first place in order to avoid sharing Shaffer's talents with another SNL-related project. Shaffer later reported that he was in (unrequited) love with Gilda Radner. He would go on to appear in 1998's Blues Brothers 2000.

Since 1982, Shaffer has served as musical director for David Letterman's late night talk shows: as leader of "The World's Most Dangerous Band" for Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993) on NBC, for which he also composed the theme song, and as leader of the CBS Orchestra for the Late Show with David Letterman (1993–2015) on CBS.

Letterman consistently maintains that the show's switch to CBS was because NBC "fired Paul for stealing pens" or some other facetious reason. Shaffer has also guest-hosted the show a few times when Letterman was unavailable, including during Letterman's January, 2000 medical leave for quintuple heart bypass surgery, and during the birth of Letterman's son, Harry, in November, 2003.

Shaffer has served as musical director and producer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony since its inception in 1986 and filled the same role for the 1996 Olympic Games closing ceremonies from Atlanta, Georgia.

Shaffer also served as musical director for Fats Domino and Friends, a Cinemax special that included Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ron Wood.