From:  "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sat Feb 21, 2004  2:28 am
Subject:  This Is My Story : Lloyd Glenn
 
LLOYD GLENN (By Dave Penny)

Born 21 November 1909, San Antonio, Texas
Died 23 May 1985, Los Angeles, California

A talented pianist and musical arranger, like his friend and neighbour Maxwell
Davis, Lloyd Glenn was less renowned for his own fine recordings as for his
peerless work on those by other musicians; particularly the Midas touch he
contributed to the production and accompaniment of blues guitarists like T-Bone
Walker, Lowell Fulson, Gene Phillips, Gatemouth Brown and B B King.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, on 21st November 1909, Lloyd Glenn grew up listening
to close relatives and family friends playing ragtime, blues and boogie woogie
on the family piano. By his early teens he had absorbed a lot of music and
playing piano became second nature to him. He spent the late 1920s honing his
skills in South Western territory bands, such as Millard McNeal's Melody Boys,
Thomas Lee's Royal Aces, and The Deluxe Melody Boys, before joining Terence
"Tee" Holder's respected unit, returning to San Antonio when Holder disbanded in
1932.

Between 1932 and 1934, Glenn played with the local band of Boots & His Buddies
and enjoyed a brief spell with Nat Towles, before leaving to join Don Albert's
Orchestra as pianist/arranger in the summer of 1934. While with Albert, Glenn
made his recording debut with the band in November 1936 for Vocalion. Eight
numbers were recorded all arranged or co-arranged by him, including the original
version of You Don't Love Me which would become famous in the late 1940s with
successful recordings by Paul Gayten and Camille Howard.

Family commitments led Lloyd to quit Don Albert's band in 1937 to take up local
teaching jobs and he moved to California in 1941, eventually settling in Los
Angeles in 1945 where he spent the rest of his life. It wasn't long before Glenn
was gigging and recording with the jump bands of Red Mack and Gene Phillips,
finding employment as a session musician and arranger, often with fellow Texans
like Henry Hayes on Aladdin in 1946, and most famously with T-Bone Walker on
Black & White Records in 1947 (They Call It Stormy Monday etc.). A couple of
months later he made his own first solo records, as Lloyd Glenn & His Joymakers
for Imperial Records with Gene Phillips & His Rhythm Aces, a group that was
already recording for Modern Records under Phillips' name, and his trio was also
used to back vocalist Red Miller on the #1 R&B chart smash Bewildered in late
1948.

Lloyd Glenn joined Jack Lauderdale's Swing Time Records in 1949 as A&R man, and
was soon cutting his own best-selling records as well as crafting hits for the
likes of Lowell Fulson; in 1950, he was responsible for three of Fulson's
best-selling records - Everyday I Have the Blues (# 3), Low Society Blues (# 8)
and Blue Shadows (# 1) - while his own Old Time Shuffle (# 3) was followed by
the chart-topping Chica Boo in 1951. Surprisingly, while Glenn was making these
classics of the r&b idiom, he was holding down a regular nightly job as pianist
in Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band. Glenn left Ory in 1953, about the same time that
he was contracted to Aladdin Records, staying with the company until the end of
the decade and re-cutting many of his old hits. In 1960, Lloyd was asked by B B
King to produce his My Kind Of Blues LP - which is King's own personal favourite
- and he remained working mainly in the  studio in the mid to late '60s with old
friends like B B King and T-Bone Walker for BluesWay. Glenn began touring again
in the 1970s, particularly with Gatemouth Brown and Joe Turner, and was soon
recording again as featured artist for Black & Blue in France and Stockholm
Records in Sweden. He died of a heart attack at the age of 75 on 23rd May 1985
at his home in Los Angeles.

Recommended listening:

Classics 5016 - "Lloyd Glenn 1947-1950" (2002)

Classics 5069 - "Loyd Glenn 1951-1952" (2003) - includes the eight recordings
made with Don Albert's Band for Vocalion.

Black & Blue 923 - "The Definitive Black & Blue Sessions" (2002)

Night Train 7007 - "Lowell Fulson - Everyday I Have The Blues" (1995)

Ace CDCHD 881 - "B B King - My Kind Of Blues" (2003)