Willie Mabon

The sly, insinuating vocals and chunky piano design of Willie Mabon won the guts of several an R&B fan through the early ’50s. His salty Chess waxings “I HAVE NO IDEA,” “I’m Mad,” and “Poison Ivy” set up the pianist as an authentic Chicago blues power, but he faded as an R&B hitmaker on the dawn of rock and roll & move. Mabon had been well-grounded in blues custom from his Memphis upbringing when he strike Chicago in 1942. Schooled in jazz in addition to blues, Mabon discovered the last mentioned his solution to stardom. His initial sides had been a 1949 78 for Apollo as Big Willie plus some 1950 outings for Aristocrat and Chess with guitarist Earl Dranes because the Blues Rockers. But Mabon’s price tag for the night’s work increased significantly when his 1952 debut discharge on effective Windy Town DJ Al Benson’s Bird logo, “I HAVE NO IDEA,” topped the R&B graphs for eight weeks after for sale to Chess. After that, Mabon was a Chess musician, returning to the very best R&B slot another year using the ominous “I’m Mad” and breaking the very best Ten anew using the Mel London-penned “Poison Ivy” in 1954. Throughout his Chess tenure, piano and sax had been consistently towards the fore instead of electric guitar and harp, emphasizing Mabon’s great R&B strategy. His original edition of Willie Dixon’s hoodoo-driven “The Seventh Kid” bombed in 1955, as do the rest of his great Chess catalog. Mabon hardly ever regained his momentum after departing Chess. He ended at Government in 1957, Mad in 1960, Formal in 1962 (where he stirred up some regional sales along with his leering “Surely got to INVOLVE SOME”), and USA in 1963-1964. Mabon sat out a lot of the past due ’60s but returned strong after shifting to Paris in 1972, documenting and touring European countries prolifically until his loss of life.