Bobby Bland - Biography
BY J Poet
Bobby “Blue” Bland is the living link between the acoustic delta blues of the 30s, the Gospel shouters of the 40s and the soul singers who reinvented African American pop music in the 60s. He’s had more than 61 R&B hits since starting his chart run on the Duke label in 1952 with songs like “I Pity the Fool,” “Call on Me,” “Turn on Your Love Light” and “Yield Not to Temptation.” Part of his success is due to the fact that Bland made an important discovery early in his career. Women buy blues records too. He aimed his material and his stage shows at the ladies, singing about the problems inherent in long term relationships. Instead of playing the stud, he was the long suffering, yet understanding spouse, and the women responded. His first album Two Steps from the Blues (1961 Duke, 2002 MCA), actually a collection of his early hit singles, is widely considered one of the greatest blues albums ever cut. Although not as well known as his friend B. B. King, Bland is a consummate stylist, delivering his heart and soul in every performance and recording. Since 1985 he’s been recording for the Malaco label, the Mississippi based soul music powerhouse that’s kept the flames of traditional blues and soul burning brightly. Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Blues foundation in 1998.
Robert Calvin Bland was born in 1930, in Rosemark, Tennessee, a town close to Memphis. He left school in the third grade and still has a hard time reading, but he’s been singing as long as he can remember. He started performing semi-professionally in a gospel group called the Pilgrim Travelers, but quit to start singing with The Beale Streeters. The band played on the street for tips and included future legends like Johnny Ace, B.B. King, Roscoe Gordon, Junior Parker and Earl Forrest. Sam Phillips liked Bland’s style and cut “Booted” with Bland and Gordon. It came out on a Chess 78 but didn’t do much. Bland made a few singles with Ike Turner for LA’s Modern Records before signing to Duke, but he was drafted before he could make a record.
By 1955 he was out of the Army and recording. Don Robey, Duke’s new owner, hooked Bland up with arranger Joe Scott and lead guitarist Roy Gaines. Bland started getting noticed with singles like “It's My Life, Baby” (1955), “You've Got Bad Intentions” (1965) and “Little Boy Blue” (1958), which gave him his nickname. While he was recording, Bland was searching for his own style and borrowed his trademark snort, a guttural sound that sounds like he’s holding himself back from breaking into tears, from the Reverend C. L. Franklin (Aretha’s father). He also started tailoring his performances to his woman fans, turning down the macho braggadocio to play up a quiet, intimate persona of barely contained emotional pain. In the late 50s he started charting singles like “I Pity the Fool,” “Cry Cry Cry,” “Don’t Cry No More” and “I’ll Take Care of You.” They all appear on Two Steps from the Blues (1961 Duke, 2002 MCA), actually a collection of his early hit singles and still considered one of the greatest blues collections ever made.
Bland assembled a top-notch band and hit the road to capitalize on the success of Two Steps from the Blues. He played 300 dates a year while turning out successful albums like Here’s the Man (1962 Duke), Call on Me (1963 Duke), Aint’ Nuthin’ You Can Do (1964 Duke), Soul of the Man (1966 Duke) and Touch of the Blues (1967 Duke). Many of these tracks are collected on the two disc set Bobby "Blue" Bland: The Anthology (2001 MCA).
Bland always had a drinking problem, and in the late ‘60s he bottomed out. Duke was absorbed by ABC Records (which in turn was acquired by MCA/Uni) and Bland was out of the studio for almost five years. He stopped drinking in 1971, around the time ABC packaged him as a mainstream soul singer with His California Album (1973 Dunhill) which included the R&B hit “This Time I’m Gone for Good” and Dreamer (1974 Dunhill) with two more R&B smashes “Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City” and “I Wouldn't Treat a Dog (The Way You Treated Me).” “Ain't No Love” was later covered by Whitesnake and sampled by Jay-Z for “Heart of the City” on his album The Blueprint (2001 Rock-a-Feller). Bland reunited with his old pal B. B. King for a couple of live albums in the mid-‘70s Together for the First Time (1974 MCA) and Together Again (1974 MCA), but the real highlight of his 70s work is Get on Down with Bobby Bland (1975 ABC) a collection of country covers that included Merle Haggard’s “Today I Started Loving You Again” and “Too Far Gone,” the Tammy Wynette hit given a soul stirring make over.
ABC and later MCA didn’t have much luck with Bland. They didn’t know what to do with a hard core blues man, even tring to get him to “go disco” at one point. Things turned around when he signed to Malaco in 1985 and cut Members Only (1985 Malaco). The title cut returned Bland to the charts; its combination of soul and bedrock blues made Bland sound as sexy and dangerous as ever. At Malaco Bland got into a solid blues/soul/R&B groove and turned out solid efforts like Blues You Can Use (1985 Malaco), Midnight Run (1989 Malaco) Portrait of the Blues (1991 Malaco), Years of Tears (1993 Malaco), which had a slight country flavor, Sad Street (1995 Malaco), Blues at Midnight (1998 Malaco), and Memphis Monday Morning (1998 Malaco), a powerful set that included an unlikely cover of ZZ Top’s “Lookin’ for Some Tush," delivering his slow, simmering brand of subtle sexuality. Sadly, on June 23, 2013 Bland passed away. He was 83 years old. Recently Bland had disocvered he was the half brother of blues musician James Cotton.
