Many historians consider “Work With Me Annie” and the string of replies to be the big bang of rock 'n' roll — and a bold invitation for a young African American female singer in 1955. James' explosive voice, coupled with her innocent presence belting out such relatively bawdy lyrics, made for a disconnect that James and Otis took full advantage of._____
To say that James was a magnetic presence would be an understatement: It's been speculated that blues legend B.B. King wrote “Sweet Sixteen” with her in mind, and as James grew, her voice and delivery also matured, allowing her a range that nailed ballads with the same passion as rockers.
In fact, despite her rise as a rock 'n' roll singer and her eventual induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, James was called “The Queen of R&B” for a reason: It was in her less raucous, more romantic ballads where she and her voice burned the brightest. Her first Grammy nomination in 1960 was given to her for a heartbreaking ballad called “All I Could Do Was Cry,” where she sings of watching her true love get married as she stands outside the church.
Johnny Otis, 90, an important influence on early rock music, has died:
But he was much more than a talent-spotter. Often called the “godfather of rhythm and blues”, Otis sang, played drums and vibraphone, and broadcast as a disc jockey. He also wrote songs, notably the 1958 hit Willie and the Hand Jive. With a beat recalling the 1955 hit Bo Diddley, the number was inspired by the British craze for hand jiving, which had originated a year earlier in a coffee bar in Soho._____
A trio of black American women singers called Three Tons Of Joy had appeared on the British television pop show 6.5 Special with their version of Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me. On their return to Los Angeles, they told Otis about the strange phenomenon they had witnessed in the studio, where the audience had hand jived in time to the beat.
Noting that the craze was at its peak, Otis promptly wrote and recorded Willie and the Hand Jive, which became the most successful of his many recordings. Another of his compositions, Every Beat of My Heart, became a debut chart hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1961.
Musician Jimmy Castor, 71, has died of cardiac arrest:
He covered a wide range of styles during his career — doo-wop, Latin jazz, funk — and this led to his nickname, “the Everything Man.” His 1966 hit “Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Callin’ You” helped popularize the Latin soul sound that came from the convergence of Latin jazz and rhythm-and-blues in Harlem and came in the wake of similar hits by Joe Cuba and Ray Barretto.
Writing in the New York Times in 1988, music critic Robert Palmer said that Mr. Castor was “something of a broad humorist” in style and that his “band cooked mightily, projecting verve and style with its crisply interlocking rhythms.”
Mr. Castor’s most lasting influence was through sampling — the process, mostly in hip-hop music, where a snippet of music from one recording is featured on a later recording.
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