From:  "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue Jan 11, 2005  1:31 am 
Subject:  This Is My Story : Lula Reed
 
LULA REED (By Dave Penny)

Born circa 1927, Port Clinton, Ohio

An attractive singer in whom the seed of soul is particularly strong, Lula Reed
belongs to that coterie of stylists who closely followed the lead of Dinah
Washington in the early 1950s. Many sounded like little girls - many were little
girls - but Lula, like Dinah, clearly wasn't. Unlike Dinah, her switch from
praising the Lord to singing the Devil's music was more of a wrench for her and
it ultimately resulted in Lula turning her back on the limelight and retreating
to the welcoming bosom of Christianity.

According to her King press kit, Lula Reed was born in Port Clinton, Ohio,
possibly in 1927. She found her voice singing in her local church choir and was
taken under the wing of Professor Harold Boggs, who nurtured the young talent.
Himself a well-known gospel singer, Boggs began his recording career on King
Records in Cincinnati in August 1952, about six months after Lula had made her
well-starred debut for the label with Sonny Thompson's Orchestra. Her only
national hits would prove to be those first two Henry Glover-penned songs
recorded as vocalist with Thompson's band on 14th December 1951: "Let's Call It
A Day" attained the #7 position of the Billboard Rhythm & Blues Chart, while
"I'll Drown in My Tears" surpassed it to stall at #5. The former song was
revived by Billy Gayles and Ike Turner in 1956, while the latter - retitled
Drown in My Own Tears - was taken to the top of the Billboard R&B chart in early
1956 by Ray Charles on Atlantic, since which time it has been covered dozens of
times by artists as diverse as The Righteous Brothers, Dinah Washington, Aretha
Franklin, and Blood, Sweat & Tears.

From early 1953, with two big R&B hits under her belt, Reed began enjoying
releases under her own name, although the backing band was invariably still
Thompson's. Sadly, despite the commercial promise of her first two releases and
being voted the nation's #4 rhythm and blues singer by The Cash Box trade
magazine in 1954, Reed spent six more years with King Records searching in vain
for another elusive hit. She and her now husband, Sonny Thompson, took a break
from the label from 1958 to 1960, with Reed spending two years with Chess' Argo
subsidiary (during which time, King released her only solo LP "Blue and Moody"),
but they returned briefly to the fold in 1961, recording on the Federal label.
The following year Reed was teamed up with Freddy King for a handful of duets
and the celebrated "Boy Girl Boy" LP on the King label, but by the end of 1962
she had left the company, left Cincinnati and left Thompson to spend a year with
the label owned by her early admirer Ray Charles - Tangerine Records.

By late 1963 it was all over: always one of those troubled artists in whom the
secular constantly warred with a more dominant spiritual side, Lula Reed quit
the world of R&B in the early 1960s to go back home and the church that had
uncovered her talent. All efforts to contact her and interview her about her
"wicked" recording career have since been rebuffed.

Recommended listening:

Ace CDCHD 984 - I'll Drown in My Tears: The King Anthology 1952-1955
- 24 track cherry-picking of Lula's King reecordings with Sonny
Thompson's band.

Classics 5136 - The Chronological Lula Reed 1951-1954
- first of three CDs covering Lula's compleete recording career,
including her rare early gospel sides.