From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu May 23, 2002  1:13 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Bumps Blackwell
 
BUMPS BLACKWELL

Born Robert A. Blackwell, 23 May 1918, Seattle, Washington
Died 9 March 1985, Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles, California

Producer / songwriter. A classically trained musician, Blackwell had
formed an R&B band in the late forties with a pair of then-unknowns,
Ray Charles and Quincy Jones. A successful entrepreneur, Blackwell
soon operated a nightclub, butcher shop, jewellery store and a fleet of
taxicabs. In the fifties he worked as an assistant to Art Rupe at Specialty
Records in Hollywood. Rupe sent him to New Orleans to record Little
Richard in September 1955, with "Tutti Frutti" as the best-known result.
He produced most of Richard's Specialty recordings, getting co-author
credit on "Long Tall Sally", "Ready Teddy", "Rip It Up", "Good Golly,
Miss Molly" and "All Around the World". Blackwell persuaded Sam
Cooke to switch from gospel to R&B and co-produced Sam's first
secular sessions. After leaving his position as bandleader and producer/
arranger at Specialty in 1957, Blackwell helped launch Keen Records,
where Sam Cooke scored his early pop hits, beginning with "You Send
Me". Later he worked with Herb Alpert, Ike & Tina Turner and Sonny
Bono. Suffering from glaucoma, he was nearly blind in the last years of
his life. He died from a heart attack and pneumonia at Whittier Hospital
in Los Angeles.