A.K.A. Doc Pomus

A couple decades ago I wrote a review of Johnny Adams album, "Walking On a Tightrope" for Living Blues and out of the blue I received a call from Doc Pomus telling me he enjoyed my review, especially an observation I made about the recording and its overall sound, not simply the excellent singing from Johnny Adams. It was my only contact with this giant of American music. This 2012 film documentary, conceived by his daughter Sharyn Felder and directed by Peter Miller, along with the 2007 biography by Alex Halberstadt, "Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life And Times Of Doc Pomus," provides not simply the details of his life but a sense of the man who went from being a blues singer on crutches to a songwriter who crafted (often with others) some of the most memorable songs of the past 70 years.

The documentary, through interview clips from a variety of family, friends, artists, producers and music scholars traces his growing up in Brooklyn, contracting polio, hearing Joe Turner's recording, Piney Brown Blues, and becoming a blues shouter in Greenwich Village and Brooklyn, making a number of rhythm and blues recordings before chance has him starting to write songs for artists at Atlantic Records, including his hero, Big Joe Turner, including Chains of Love, which he states he sold the rights to. It would launch a career that had him spin out classics like Ray Charles' Lonely Avenue. Then there would be his Brill Building partnership with Mort Shuman where they penned so many songs like Why Do I Have To Be a Teenager In Love, This Magic Moment, Sweets For My Sweet, Suspicion, Save the Last Dance For Me, Viva Las Vegas, Little Sister, Go Jimmy Go, Can't Get Used to Losing You and so many more. 

This wonderfully crafted film interweaves his personal life along with his professional life including his marriage, the songwriting partnership with Shulman, moving to the suburbs as well as hanging in Manhattan. Some of the backstory for some of his songs is given as well. Save the Last Dance For Me has a moving story as it reflects his wedding night where he couldn't dance with his wife but insisted she dance, and later she mentioned enjoying the dancing but was saving her best for him. Ben E King, who sang lead on the Drifters classic recording, mentions how he was affected before he recorded it, knowing the story behind it. 


And we are taken to Elvis calling him at 2 in the morning with Doc thinking it was a prank at first and the fact he and Shuman produced a number of songs for Elvis movies. The movie takes us through the bad times as well such as after the partnership with Shuman broke up, and his marriage broke up, how he coped as well as how he became a center of late night hangs at his hotel lobby with all sorts of night folk. Later Doc would be mentoring young songwriters like Kenny Hirsch with whom he wrote There Is Always One More Time for Ray Charles. 

(In the clip immediately below, Doc talks about writing for Elvis in interview clip not in the film but from interviews used in the clip)

Doc was admired by many and he recounts going to a BMI dinner which he regarded as professional obligation and he was seated next to John and Yoko Ono with John Introducing himself which Doc found funny as if he did not know who Lennon was. His daughter Sharyn recalled how Doc and John would meet in the neighborhood wearing disguises and one day she saw John and Yoiko in a supermarket and introduced herself with Lennon responding "DOC POMUS" and then singing Save the Last Dance For Me. And Doc recounts how Dylan once asked him to supply lyrics for some music, which Doc found incredible.

There are so many stories about how Doc would go out of his way to help folks in different ways, his efforts to revive his friend Jimmy Scott's career (and it took Doc's f**kin g funeral to get Scott a recording contract), assist Big Joe Turner including an anecdote that he was pissed because he thought The Cookery was over-working Big Joe by having him play three shows that night, taht he left in a huff and ha his driver call in a bomb threat that emptied the club and made sure Turner did not do a third set that night

Doc was a larger than life person that it one wrote a novel about, no one would believe. This is a movie I have watched over a half dozen times and it moves me each time and I learn something new each time. Truly a remarkable film about a remarkable person.

I purchased this as a download. The trailer for the film is at the top of this somewhat inelegant blog post. Here is Mike Stoller's comments on A.K.A. Doc Pomus.

Chuck Carbo Had Those Drawers Trouble

There is a video of John Boutté, one of the great voices of contemporary New Orleans music doing a terrific rendition of “Withcraft,” a song originally recorded by New Orleans’ greatest vocal group, “The Spiders.” Lead vocalist of The Spiders was one Chuck Carbo, who after the dissolution of The Spiders took on a solo career. Carbo was regarded as one of the best voices in New Orleans along with Aaron Neville and the late Johnny Adams. Probably outside of the New Orleans area, many became familiar with Chuck Carbo when Rounder, under the auspices of Scott Billington, did their impressive series of New Orleans recordings in the 1990s. Alas, Rounder has seem to have abandoned blues and most New Orleans music these days (Irma Thomas being a notable exception), so looking back at some of these recordings reminds us of this fertile time for the label and this important talent. My review of Chuck Carbo’s Drawer’s Trouble, the first of two albums he recorded for Rounder, originally appeared in the September 1993 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 184). 

New Orleans was never a city known for vocal groups. The best known of its groups during the heyday of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues was The Spiders, whose Imperial recordings often broke the stereotype of the doo-wop groups in part because of Dave Bartholomew’s rocking studio bands. The Spiders were an outgrowth of a gospel group, The Delta Southernaires, and while having certain success, the group dissolved in the late fifties with Chuck Carbo taking on a solo career. 

While Carbo has recorded for a variety of labels over the years with some local hits, his name is less familiar to those outside of the Big Easy than his contemporaries like Johnny Adams, Ernie K-Doe and Aaron Neville. The release of his new Rounder album, Drawers Trouble, will remedy this. Backed by a tight New Orleans band that includes pianist Edward Frank with Dr. John guesting on piano, organ and guitar, it is a set of mostly original songs, many by Carbo, and a few by Dr. John and the late Doc Pomus. 

The material ranges from some strong Crescent City flavored blues to some tough R&B that recalls the glory days of Instant and Minit records. There is a solid reading of Jeannie and Jimmie Cheatham’s Meet Me With Your Black Dress On, (wrongly credited to Doc Cheatham), the classic R&B sound of Average Kind of Guy, and Hurt Coming On, as well as Dr. John’s and Doc Pomus’ recitation of the sleazier side of the Big Apple, New York City Blues. Carbo is a wonderful singer with a rich baritone. He possesses a marvelous sense of time and a knack for a phrase, and the backing he gets is first rate. This is likely to be on this listener’s top albums of the year.

Carbo had one more Rounder album, The Barber Blues, and after recording for Rounder, Carbo did one last album with Edward Frank’s New Orleans R&B Band, Life’s Ups & Downs on 504 Records. The latter is a nice record with a band that perhaps was a bit looser than on the Rounder sessions. It has nice versions of The Spiders classics “Witchcraft” and “You’re The One;” the classic Smiley Lewis recording “Blue Monday;” Carbo's take on “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On;” the torch song associated with Frankie Lane, “That’s My Desire;” and his contemporary Mardi Gras tune, “Second Line on Monday.” The late pianist Edward Frank, was one of the regulars of the the New Orleans scene in the fifties, and revered as a pianist and composer. This did not change even when a stroke made him a one-handed pianist. For a period he lived in Houston and the late saxophonist Don Wilkerson recorded some of his compositions.


Carbo's Rounder recordings are available today on cd-r reissues today, and the music as downloads. The 504 album is available from the Louisiana Music Factory, www.louisianamusicfactory.com.  I likely received a review copy of Drawers Trouble from Rounder in 1993, and I purchased the 504 album in 2009.

Jimmy 'T-99' Nelson's Rockin' and Shoutin' the Blues

In light of Jimmy 'T-99' Nelson's passing, it is appropriate to remember him in this review from 1999 that appeared in the January-February issue of Jazz & Blues Report.

Big throated shouter Jimmy T-99 Nelson is among the last surviving of the blues shouters that were prevalent during the swing era and up through the emergence of rock and roll. Philadelphia born Nelson found his musical calling in 1941 when he was in San Francisco and saw Harlan Leonard’s Rockets (the liner notes misspell this as Rockers) with whom Big Joe Turner was singing. Turner became his idol and musical idol, and Nelson followed in Turner’s footsteps, performing with him and even writing some songs for him. He also recorded over the years for several labels, the most notable being Modern Records with who he recorded T-99, a reworking of the classic Honeydripper Blues backed by the Peter Rabbit Trio, who repeated the title in the background. It reached #6 in the R&B charts and the next year Nelson scored with a slow blues, Meet Me With Your Black Dress On , which is a totally different song from the Cheatham’s Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On.

Bullseye Blues and Jazz just released a terrific new album by Nelson, Rockin’ and Shoutin’ the Blues. The album brings together some originals along with fine renditions of blues covers. A top-flight band includes Matt McCabe on piano, Clarence Holliman on guitar and the horns of Doug James, Rich Lataille and Carl Querfurth from Roomful of Blues. It is a swinging band with some crisp horn charts. Nelson opens with a medium-tempoed rocker, letting everybody know they are in the House of the Blues. There is a standout rendition of Leroy Carr’s How Long, How Long Blues along with an affecting rendition of the ballad Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying. He rocks the house with his own New Shack Lover while able to croon affably on When You’re Smiling before closing the album with a rocking rendition of one of the numbers from Doc Pomus that Turner made famous, Boogie Woogie Country Girl, as well as a nice version of Sweet Mr. Cleanhead, a song associated with Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson. While I am surprised some of his own early Modern recordings were not redone, everything here is wonderfully sung and played. With far lesser talents being heralded as the latest thing, its good to have a release by this veteran who still shows how it is done right.