From: Dik de Heer
Date: Fri Oct 24, 2003 1:18am
Subject: Born To Be With You : Willie Mabon
 
WILLIE MABON (By Phil Davies)

Born 24 October 1925, Hollywood, Tennessee

Died 19 April 1986, Paris, France

Willie taught himslef rudimentary piano skills in Tennessee and took 
formal lessons when his family moved to Chicago in 1942.His roots lay 
in boogie woogie and jazz styles. He was heavily influenced by Cripple 
Clarence Lofton,Big Maceo, Roosevelt Sykes and Charles Brown. He spent 
the latter part of WW2 in the US Marines, before returning to the local 
club scene in the Windy City. He recorded as Big Willie for the Apollo 
label in 1949 and also joined guitarist Earl Dranes in the Blues 
Rockers on Aristocrat (Leonard Chess bought a handful of masters from 
dj Al Benson). He worked regularly in the black clubs and his asking 
price for a night's work rose dramatically when his 1952 debut release 
on powerful local deejay Al Bensons Parrot logo, I Don't Know (penned 
by Mabon/Thomas) topped the R&B charts for eight weeks after being sold 
to Chess. Hymie Weiss, the NY Chess distributor, was responsible for 
the record's success in Harlem (via 50 dollar "handshakes" ie an early 
form of payola) which he claimed helped to break the record nationwide.



The novelty blues song was adapted from a 1938 Cripple Clarence Lofton 
song. A few cover versions popped up with Tennessee Ernie Ford covering 
it in his boogie phase on Capitol. Mabon made a few thousand dollars 
off Chess from sales (and could rely on them for rent money and xmas 
hampers for awhile) but like many artists of the era depended on 
increased takings at the box office to make a tidy living. Some of his 
contemporaries allege he took a gun to the Chess office to get more of 
his dues (the Chess finances being controversial even back then). 
Willie's widow and the Chess family deny it ever happened. Chess were 
naive in the publishing world then and sold the rights to I Don't Know 
to another company Republic Music. Later they established Arc Music to 
make money from publishing, this lack of foresight back then cost 
themselves and Willie in particular plenty of money. By not signing up 
with BMI Mabon missed out on much of the monies earned from Ford's 
cover. 


At the end of 53 Willie was listed in a jukebox poll amongst the most 
promising, best artist and best record, tellingly in 1954 the more hard 
hiting r&b sounds of Little Walter and Howlin Wolf polled higher.


Willie was a handsome stylish man who always looked sharp in his 
tuxedo. His sly, insinuating vocals and chunky piano style won the 
heart of many an R&B fan during the early '50s. His other Chess r&b 
hits I'm Mad (number 1 in 1953) and Mel London's Poison Ivy (number 8 
in 1954) established the pianist as a genuine Chicago blues force 
(listed in Cash Box's top 25 R &B stars of 1955 along with Muddy, Wolf, 
Walter and Lowell Fulson), but he faded as an R&B hitmaker as rock & 
roll ruled the waves . Chess were crafty enough to record a female 
answer to I'm Mad, I'm Glad by Mitzi Mars. Throughout his Chess tenure, 
piano and sax were consistently to the fore rather than guitar and 
harp, emphasizing Mabon's cool R&B approach. Willie's original version 
ofWillie Dixon's hoodoo-driven The Seventh Son was less successful in 
1955, the remainder of his fine Chess catalogue also missed out on the 
rock n roll boom. 


Willie never regained his momentum after leaving Chess in 1956. He 
stopped at Federal in 1957, Mad in 1960, Formal in 1962 (where he 
stirred up some local sales with his leering "Got to Have Some"), and 
USA in 1963-64. Willie sat out much of the late '60s but came back 
strong after moving to Paris in 1972, recording and touring Europe 
prolifically until his death. He played many of the big European 
festivals in Montreux, Berlin and Holland. 


MCA need to put out a decent compilation of his seminal sides instead 
of continually repackaging Muddy, Wolf, Chuck n Bo. The fact that 
artists as diverse as Screamin Jay Hawkins, BB & Freddie King, Bill 
Wyman, Rod Stewart, the Blues Band, the Blues Brothers and Eddy 
Clearwater (to name a few) have covered Willie's songs shows that 
there's a market out there for fans seeking out the originals.


Recommended Listening:

7th Son - deleted 1993 Charly 16 track Chess compilation (alt of I'm 
Mad)

otherwise expensive 4cd compilations like MCA's Chess Blues or Rock 
Rhythm N Roll.

Ace have a fine House Rockin Blues VA Chess anthology cd with Poison 
Ivy on it

Indigo's superb cheap 3cd box R & B Hits of 52 has I Don't Know


There are many later Mabon cds out there (which I haven't heard)

The Tennessee Ernie Ford I Don't Know cover can be found on the Capitol 
Ultimate 2cd. Screamin' Jay's epic 7 minute version is on SJH Live 
Olympia Paris 1998 2cd on Last Call records (is that our French SAOers 
in the background? ;-))


Thanks to AMG

Recommended Reading:

Spinning Blues Into Gold -Chess Records by Nadine Cohodas, Aurum Press, 2000