Recording
Bobby Bland was an established artist who produced several top-ten singles, such as "Further Up the Road" (1957), "Little Boy Blue" (1958) and "I'll Take Care of You" (1959), and recorded two successful albums, Blues Consolidated and Like Er Red Hot for Duke Records. Moving to Chicago on August 3, 1960 to the Universal Studio, Don Robey suggested with arranger Joe Scott, who wrote most of Bland songs, to produce a third album. It was decided that nine new songs should appear in Two Steps from the Blues. Bland was backed by "a tight, well-rehearsed, bombastic, blues band", as biographer Charles Farley noted, consisting of Joe Scott and Melvin Jackson on trumpet, Pluma Davis on trombone, Robert Skinner and L. A. Hill on tenor saxophone, Rayfield Devers on baritone saxophone, Teddy Reynolds on piano, Wayne Bennett on guitar, Hamp Simmons on bass, and John "Jabo" Starks on drums. Starks explained that one side was done in a few days and the second side was finished after a several-weeks-long break.
Three songs from the first session were later included on Two Steps from the Blues: the slow with funky leanings "Cry, Cry, Cry", which was listed on David Marsh's "1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made" for Scott's arrangement and Bland's singing, later peaked at number 9 on Billboard R&B chart as the A-side of ballad "I've Been Wrong So Long", staying there for eighteen weeks; "I've Been Wrong So Long", on which biographer Farley especially praised Bennett's guitar skills, calling him the "most articulate blues guitarist ever"; and "Two Steps from the Blues", which was initially written by Texas Johnny Brown and recorded as a demotape. The title track was later rearranged by Bennett, and Brown received a small salary. The big band-like "Close to You" and "dirgelike blues" "How Does a Cheatin' Woman Feel", which was too similar as "I'll Take Care of You", were excluded from the album, but included as bonus tracks on re-releases.
The second session, taking place on November 12, 1960, produced Joe Primrose's "St. James Infirmary" and the sad and mood "I've Just Got to Forget You". The latter was lifted only as the b-side of "Keep on Loving Me (You'll See the Change)" (1970). The third song on that session is "Don't Cry No More", featuring a faster rhythm, later charted at number 2 on Billboard R&B. "I Pity the Fool" was written by Joe Medwick and became Bland's second number-one hit on the R&B chart. The other five songs in the album were recorded before Two Steps from the Blues: "I Don't Want No Woman", recorded on a January 22, 1957 session with "I Smell Trouble", the first was compared with "It's My Life Baby," but had no blowers; "Little Boy Blue" (1958), "I'm Not Ashamed" (1959), "I'll Take Care of You" (1959) and "Lead Me On" (1960).
Read more about this topic: Two Steps From The Blues
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)