From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Fri Jun 7, 2002 1:14 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Teddy Redell TEDDY REDELL Born Theodore DeLano Riedel, 7 June 1937, Quitman, Arkansas Singer / pianist. Like Larry Donn, also born on June 7th, Redell comes from Arkansas, recorded for the Vaden label and built a reputation based primarily on just one song. Teddy commenced to learn to play piano around the age of six or seven. With Moon Mullican as an influence, he became a mean boogie woogie and honky tonk piano player, soon developing his own unique playing and vocal styling, which led him to join several local bands. Come 1957, and with rock 'n' roll sweeping all before it, Teddy decided to try his luck in Memphis. He laid down several good sides for Sun Records, including the great "Me And My Blues", but ol' Sam Phillips (in his infinite wisdom) decided not to release anything, probably because Jerry Lee Lewis was really starting to make it into the big league. In fact, the public had to wait until 1959 to see the name of Teddy Redell on a disc for the first time. In 1959-60 he made five excellent singles for the Vaden label (based in Trumann, Arkansas). The best known of these is surely "Judy", which was leased to Atco and got a UK release (but no airplay, as far as I can remember) on London HLK 9140. Elvis Presley recorded the song in 1961 on his "Something For Everybody" LP. My personal favourite is "Pipeliner"/ "I Want To Hold You", which was leased to the Hi label. The A and B-sides of the five Vaden singles, together with a 1966 single for Wayne Raney's Rimrock label, were reissued in 1973 on a Collector LP, the label of Cees Klop. This Dutchman produced several new recordings by Teddy, both live and in the studio. Redell is far better known in the Netherlands (where I saw him perform several times) than in his home country. Redell made his UK debut at Hemsby last month, getting a favourable review on this list from Tony Wilkinson. In spite of all the Collector/White Label releases, the CD to look out for is "Vaden Rock 'n' Roll Story" (HeronRock Music 501), which has the ten Vaden cuts and the Rimrock 45 in superior sound quality. This CD also features Teddy as a session pianist on such cuts as Larry Donn's "Honey Bun"/"That's What I Call A Ball" and Joyce Green's "Black Cadillac".