From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon Oct 14, 2002  1:13 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Jimmy Liggins
 
JIMMY LIGGINS (By Jean-Marc Pezet)

Born 14 October 1922, Newby, Oklahoma
Died 18 July 1983, Durham, North Carolina

Born 7 years after his brother Joe Liggins, Jimmy did not
immediately follow Joe into music. First came a brief career as a
disc jockey, followed by a short period as a professional boxer
(under the name of "Kid Zulu"), after which he worked a year or
so as Joe's driver on the road.
Seeing the kind of money Joe was pulling in as a result of his hit
recordings of "The Honeydripper" and "I've Got The Right To Cry",
Jimmy taught himself guitar and started writing songs himself.
He patterned his small band after Joe's Honeydrippers naming them
the Drops Of Joy. Featured on many of the group's recordings were
sax men such as Charlie "Little Jazz" Ferguson (later leader of
The 5 Royales), Maxwell Davis, and future modern jazz star
Harold Land.
When neither Joe nor his label (Exclusive) showed any interest,
Jimmy played them for Art Rupe. (He subsequently later brought
his brother Joe to Specialty.) After worthwhile reworkings of the
songs, Jimmy came up with his first single "I Can't Stop It" b/w
"Troubles, and his two first smash hits in 1948, "Teardrops Blues"
and "Cadillac Boogie". The latter is particularly interesting as it is a
blueprint for Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner's "Rocket 88" recorded four
years later and tagged as the "first rock'n'roll record".
Misfortune hounded Jimmy, in spite of his successful records, in the
form of bad bookings, cancelled engagements and union problems.
On April's Fool Day 1949, Jimmy was accidently shot in the mouth
in Jackson, Missisippi, but considering the gravity of his wounds,
he incredibly lived.
Jimmy stayed with Specialty until late 1953 where he cut crude,
rude, hard-driving pre-rock'n'roll cuts like "Saturday Night Boogie
Woogie Man","Shuffle Shuck" and the classic "Drunk", his biggest
hit, # 4 in 1953, which used his voice overdubbed on the original
take to create a "3-D" effect.
Upon leaving Specialty, Jimmy landed at Aladdin for a very brief
sojourn, recording only 4 tracks, among them "I Ain't Drunk", the
answer to his big hit. Apart from later (and bad) recordings for
Duplex, Jimmy's recording career was over.
He then became a record distributor and formed his own Duplex
Records which survived on few releases from 1958-78, financed
from a diverse musical business, ranging from teach-yourself-piano
charts to artist management.

(This bio is unashamedly edited from Billy Vera's liner notes to the 2
CDs mentioned below)

Website: http://home.earthlink.net/~jaymar41/JimLig.html

Recommended listening:
Jimmy Liggins & His Drops Of Joy Vol 1 ACE CDCHD 306
Jimmy Liggins Rough Weather Blues Vol 2 ACE CDCHD 437
(this represents almost all his output for Specialty 1947-1953)