From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sun Mar 31, 2002  6:21 pm
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Amos Milburn
 
AMOS MILBURN

Born 1 April 1927, Houston, Texas
Died 3 January 1980, Houston, Texas

Singer / pianist / songwriter. Milburn was a crucial figure in the
transformation of jump blues into R&B and rock 'n' roll. Fats Domino,
Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis all cite Amos as a seminal influence
on their work. Rightly known for his high-energy piano-led blues rockers,
Milburn picked up his style from a rich variety of sources : the boogie
woogie piano of Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, the blasting big
bands of Lionel Hampton and Buddy Johnson, and as a contrast, the
silky smooth after-hours cocktail blues of Charles Brown, Nat "King"
Cole and Ivory Joe Hunter.The result, though, was pure Amos Milburn.
Born into a family of twelve children, he taught himself to play piano at
age five. During WW II Milburn fought in the Philippines, then signed
with Aladdin Records in 1946. His first hit (# 1 R&B) came in 1948,
with the upbeat boogie woogie piano-styled release "Chicken Shack
Boogie". He followed this up with a string of similarly styled danceable
numbers and, in the early fifties, a series of booze-related songs like
"Bad Bad Whiskey" (another # 1, 1950), "Let Me Go Home Whiskey"
and "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer", the latter being his 19th
and last R&B chart entry in 1954. Ironically, he would be swept aside
by the very idiom he had inspired : rock 'n' roll. Amos cut some excellent
records after 1954, notably a torrid 1956 remake of "Chicken Shack
Boogie", recorded in New Orleans, but his style seemed no longer in
favour with the record buyers. In 1959 he recorded a duet with his friend
Charles Brown for the Ace label. His next labels were King, Imperial and
Motown, where his records didn't sell either. A stroke in 1970 confined
him to a wheelchair, although he cut another album with Johnny Otis in
1976. The last two decades of Amos' life are a sorry tale of alcoholism
contributing to a litany of medical disasters.

The Complete Aladdin Recordings Of Amos Milburn (1994) on seven
Mosaic CD's is a landmark R&B issue. The compilation CD "Down The
Road Apiece" (EMI) is an affordable alternative. There is also the 3 CD-
set "Blues, Barrelhouse & Boogie Woogie, 1946-1955" in the Capitol
Blues Collection.
Further reading: Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes Of Rock 'n' Roll (2nd ed.,
1991), p. 72-76.