Don Varner

Spirit singer Don Wilson Varner bears a stunning resemblance to Ike Turner, a tad heavier, but facially they’re almost twins. He was raised within the same Birmingham, AL, community as Eddie Kendricks, who generally asked where Varner was performing when he emerged home. Varner beginning singing in senior high school and relocated to Chicago after graduation to pursue his music profession; he found function in night clubs but recording possibilities didn’t come his method, and after six years, he came back South due to all of the hoopla occurring in Muscles Shoals, AL, house of Rick Hall’s Popularity Records, who was simply scorching the graphs with recordings by performers like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Candi Staton, among others. He befriended Jerry Wexler, Franklin’s manufacturer, and got the chance to create (with William Crump) “I Maintain Holdin’ On” for Sam & Dave. Varner proved helpful thoroughly with Quinn Ivy at Ivy’s Sheffield, AL, studios, documenting productions with the past due Eddie Hinton: “Masquerade,” “Down in Tx,” and “Rip Stained Encounter,” released on Ivy’s South Camp Information (written by Atco/Atlantic) in the past due ’60s. The majority of his documenting projects hardly ever got out the studio room, but he held busy during concert events within the South with a few of soul’s main artists. He transferred to California within the middle-’80s and embarked on a thorough tour because the business lead singer from the Johnny Otis Present. Varner resolved in Moreno Valley, CA, in the past due ’80s along with his wife Francine and started documenting and posting gospel music for Retour Information and Ceevee and Gospel Truth posting companies; the few also operates a concert advertising business. Varner’s recordings are available on Charly Information, including a edition of “You Still left water Working.” The CDs Rip Stained Spirit, Vol. 1 and On top of the Hog (Overture Music) feature monitors by Don, in addition to Brenda Varner — his initial wife.