Sure, there were crooners who sang blues from time to time, but most of the big names you’d think of as “blues crooners" (Sam Cooke, Nat King Cole, Teddy Pendergrass) are really R&B crooners who covered blues tunes. Those are the guys with buttery voices and the velvet tones, capable of singing in most genres, but truly belonging in R&B or soul. (cont)

Blues, however, is a genre that requires a bit of gravel, a few grains of dust in the trachea, signifying a life spent hitchhiking from juke joint to juke joint, thick with smoke and sweepings. It requires a voice with some travail, and Bobby Bland delivers. He’s got a great voice and a romantic timbre, but it also feels lived in, a voice full of experience and time. (cont)

I’ve had Bobby Bland’s music on my iPod for years, both this album and his Anthology box set. I love it all, but it’s also not fair to give Bobby Bland all the credit. Shoutout needs to go to the writers of all those songs (Bobby himself was illiterate and couldn’t read or write music). He recorded songs by Charlie Rich and Johnny Cash, as well as a slew of unsung, workhorse blues songwriters over many decades. (cont)

One of those writers was a man named Don Robey, also known as Deadric Malone, the founder of Peacock Records, who also signed Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, another favorite of mine. According to the album credits, Robey wrote, or co-wrote, 8 out of the 12 songs on this fantastic album, including blues standards “I Pity the Fool” and the title track. Looking over 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺, Robey/Malone wrote a LOT of songs for Bobby! Or did he? (cont)

Well, according to lore, he stole more songs than he wrote, due to skeevy business practices and a habit of taking his gun to meetings. The true writers of many of these songs remain unknown, and that’s a shame. I suspect it’s not rare for the times, though. I hope they found there fame at other record labels. (cont)