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Biography
Larry “Big Twist” Nolan heartily epitomized the picture “300 pounds of heavenly pleasure.” Located in Chicago, the large vocalist and his trusty R&B music group, the Mellow Fellows, had been among the most popular attracts on the Midwestern university circuit through the 1980s using a slickly refined sound modeled for the soul-slanted strategy of Bobby Bland, Small Milton, and Tyrone Davis. Twist began performing and playing drums in rough-and-tumble nation pubs in downstate Illinois through the past due ’50s and early ’60s (poultry wire-enclosed stages had been a necessity upon this raucous picture). Small saxist Terry Ogolini jammed frequently using the big guy in a joint known as Junior’s inside a Prairie Condition burg known as Colp. Ogolini and guitarist Pete Unique spearheaded the nucleus from the 1st edition from the Mellow Fellows in the faculty city of Carbondale through the early ’70s, with Twist doubling on drums. After acquiring southern Illinois by surprise, the machine relocated en masse to Chicago in 1978. Their eponymous 1980 debut recording for Flying Seafood accurately captured the group’s slick audio, as the 1982 follow-up, One Monitor Mind, attemptedto be somewhat more sophisticated without dropping the band’s blues/R&B foundation. A proceed to Alligator in 1983 elicited an recording co-produced by Gene “Daddy G” Barge, whose sax solos previously enlivened R&B classics by Chuck Willis, Gary (U.S.) Bonds, Small Milton, and countless even more. The group’s last recording with Twist in advance was the Live From Chicago! Larger Than Life!! Several personnel changes over time didn’t scuttle the music group, and neither do the loss of life of Twist in 1990 from diabetes and kidney failing. Martin Allbritton, a vintage singing friend of Twist’s from downstate who experienced previously gigged around Chicago as frontman for Larry & the Ladykillers, experienced recently been deputizing for the ailing Twist, so that it dropped to Allbritton to presume the part full-time. Barge distributed the singing responsibilities at chosen gigs and on the band’s 1990 recording Street Party. Unique left the business not long from then on, acquiring the name Mellow Fellows with him when he strike the entranceway. That’s once the staying members used the handle from the Chicago Tempo & Blues Kings. With Ogolini and longtime trumpeter Don Tenuto composed of a red-hot horn section, they’re still a favorite, dance-friendly fixture across the Chicago picture.
