From:  "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon Feb 9, 2004  1:32 am
Subject:  This Is My Story : Garnet Mimms
 
GARNET MIMMS (By Dominic Turner)

Born Garrett Mimms, 16 November 1933, Ashland, West Virginia (Some sources
say 26 November)


The first time I heard the name "Garnet Mimms" mentioned was while skimming
through a Robert Plant biography during my teens (I kid ye not!). History
records that Birmingham's favourite rock-blues screamer would regularly perform
Mimms' "As Long As I Have You" in his early days with the Band Of Joy, a pre-Led
Zep blues/R&B outfit. Of course, the Internet was still a pipedream back then,
and attempts to find out more about the eloquently-named Mimms proved fruitless.
Many years on, and having heard the best of his output, it's plain that Garnet
Mimms remains very much a peripheral figure in the history of black music,
despite commanding enormous respect among soul aficionados around the world.

The Mimms family moved from Virginia to Philadelphia when Garnet was still a
youngster. Given his classic religious upbringing, it was only normal that
Garnet began singing in local church choirs. Blessed with a natural talent, he
soon graduated to full-blooded gospel groups of a certain renown, such as the
Evening Stars, the Harmonizing Four, and the Natural Four. His next group, the
Norfolk Four, led to his recording debut on Savoy in 1953.

But Mimms did not feel that his vocal abilities need be limited to gospel. On
returning to Philadelphia in 1958 after completing his military service, he
discovered that times were changing and doo wop music had become serious
business. After a brief stint in a secular outfit called the Deltones, Mimms
wasted no time in forming a bona fide doo wop quintet, the Gainors, consisting
of Sam Bell, Willie Combo, John Jefferson, Howard Tate (another figure destined
for great things as a soul singer), and himself. The Gainors made frequent trips
to the recording studio over the next three years, and cut a total of eight
singles for three different labels: Red Top (later absorbed by Cameo Parkway),
Mercury, and Talley Ho.

With little success to speak of, the Gainors folded in 1961 and Mimms and Bell
left to form a new group. Together with Charles Boyer and, unusually enough, a
female member, Zola Pearnell, they gave rise to Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters.
Mimms was probably disillusioned with Philadelphia by now (shades of W.C. Fields
perhaps?!) and, convinced that the city was more concerned with the teen idol
phenomenon, persuaded his new bandmates that the future for their musical
direction lay elsewhere.

Relocation to New York brought a meeting with legendary songwriter and producer
Bert Berns. Under Berns' wing, they signed for United Artists and began a
collaboration with a second historic songwriter/producer, Jerry Ragavoy. The
partnership was immediately fruitful, yielding the classic "Cry Baby", an epic
R&B tune which pretty much defined the sixties soul genre. The record was a
smash hit, staying in the U.S. R&B chart for three whole months and reaching the
no. 1 position. Even more surprising. "Cry Baby" hit number 4 in the pop chart,
no mean feat for an uncompromising soul record. Janis Joplin also cut a stunning
cover of the song (probably the version most people are familiar with) in 1970.

The Enchanters were warming to the task. Another Ragavoy tune, "Baby Don't You
Weep" (surely the inspiration for Billy Joe Royal's wonderful "I Knew You When"
a couple of years later?), scored a hit later in the year, and this was followed
by a peerless cover of Jerry Butler and the Impressions' Abner classic "For Your
Precious Love". United Artists had themselves a star. Garnet Mimms was something
different: a singer with an extraordinary range (from powerful tenor to
nerve-tingling falsetto) and an ability to switch from one genre to another with
the greatest of ease. Indeed, the partnership between the Enchanters on the one
hand and Ragavoy and Berns on the other was very much an experiment in applying
Mimms' gospel and deep soul roots to the new uptown soul in vogue in New York.

Somewhat surprisingly, Mimms and the Enchanters parted company in 1964 following
their sixth United Artists single, an impressive cover of the Jarmels' "A Little
Bit Of Soap". The Enchanters did continue with Sam Bell as replacement lead
vocalist, but there was little hope of recreating the magic of those previous UA
releases. Mimms, on the other hand, was far from finished, and struck out on a
promising solo career. The recipe was pretty much unchanged: powerful
gutwrenching vocals grounded in the great southern tradition, but applied to the
more polished and sophisticated soul/R&B sounds coming out of Detroit (read
Motown) and New York. Ragavoy's production, together with vocal support from the
likes of Dionne Warwick and Cissy Houston, was a fundamental part of such
memorable singles as "Look Away", "It Was Easier to Hurt Her" (surprisingly a
B-side when first released in 1965!) and "Looking For You" (a staple item in the
collection of any serious Northern Soul collector). Mimms' last UA chart success
was to be "I'll Take Good Care of You" (1966), a fine Berns/Ragavoy composition
which just made the top 30. In retrospect, it's difficult to dispute that United
Artists made some real clangers along the way; For example, the Motownesque
pounder "As Long As I Have You" (a potential hit if ever there was one) somehow
remained an obscure album track.


In 1967, United Artists relegated Mimms to their minor Veep subsidiary label,
where he cut three singles, including "My Baby", another song subsequently
covered by Janis Joplin, before moving on to Verve. At some stage during this
period, he even supported Jimi Hendrix, but such label-hopping is usually a sure
sign of a career on the downward spiral. Mimms realised that his last chance lay
with his popularity on the Northern Soul circuit in the UK. Skipping across the
Atlantic for a quick tour of British soul clubs, he was moved by the warm
reception he received around the country. A live LP was recorded at Brighton
Polytechnic (sorry. I just had to get that in!) but sales were disappointing.
Mimms did manage one last visit to the charts with the frantic "What It Is", a
1977 recording for Arista credited to Garnet Mimms & the Truckin' Company. Even
while nodding towards the rampant funk-disco scene, Mimms (like Joe Tex and Gene
Chandler at around the same period) showed that he could still produce
relatively worthwhile music, albeit a far cry from his United Artists years with
Berns and Ragavoy. Nevertheless, he retired definitively from the music business
soon afterwards, and has since become a born-again Christian.

So there you have the Garnet Mimms story. A blending of Sam Cooke, Jackie
Wilson, Solomon Burke and Chuck Jackson in roughly equal measures, a repertoire
that dips into practically every area of sixties black America... but criminally
ignored by the masses.

Recommended listening:

· "Cry Baby/Warm and Soulful" [Beat Goes On, 1995]

· "Best of Garnet Mimms: Cry Baby" [EMI/Capitol, 1993]