NO TURNING BACK FOR THE BLUES PADDLERS

  Cedric Brownlee: “Jan and I met in 1973 in junior high school. We got together and started a little dance group called the Camelot Dancers. We started performing together.” Jan Harris: “We were bitten by the bug, and Lynda Harper would take us on the road. We’ve been doing shows together for about 50 years, and we’re like brothers.” Lynda would play with Al Green those days and later married his brother.

  Cedric Brownlee and Jan Harris form the duo called the Blues Paddlers, and – in spite of performing together for over fifty years - their debut album titled No Turning Back (www.eckorecords.com) will be released only this year, on May 31. Cedric: “Jan Harris and I were born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1962. I’ll turn 62 in October this year. Jan already is 62 years old. We’re like six months apart. We grew up in Memphis together. My mom, Kathleen Brownlee, was part of the Stax organization and I went to work with my mother until I reached the school age. I was around all those Stax guys – Isaac Hayes, Johnnie Taylor, the Staple Singers… and I got a chance to learn from them.”

  Cedric: “I started singing at the age of 12 in church. Then at 18 I started with the Bar-Kays as a valet and worked as a valet for a couple of years. Then Jan came along and became a staff writer for the Bar-Kays at Unisound Productions, and I started singing on stage with them.” Jan: “The Bar-Kays had a band under their umbrella called the Press, and I wrote seven of the eight songs on their project. One of the songs was called Trick or Treat. Chico DeBarge did a song called Rainy Night in 1987 and for that I did the vocal arrangement and recorded it from the scratch. That’s the only song I arranged with Wayne Douglas.”

I LOVE

  Cedric: “We did two songs with Homer Banks’ son, Gerry Banks, about two years ago. They’re on YouTube as Samuel & Davis.” Jan: “The Samuel & Davis name we came up with because of our vocal pitches in our voice like Sam & Dave.” One of those two songs is a mellow dancer named You Got to Hold Me, and the other one is a beautiful and emotional soul ballad titled I Love. Gerry Banks composed the music, Cedric produced and wrote the lyrics and Jan Harris is the publisher. Cedric: “We took Etta James’ I’d Rather Go Blind and Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey and combined those two records together – and got I Love. For an independent release those two songs did pretty good.”

  Cedric: “Last summer we went to Italy to the Porretta Festival, and we loved it. When I was in the Bar-Kays, we would tour all over the country, and also internationally, so I’ve played with them also in Sicily and Sardinia. But this was the first time we did a soul festival there. Lately we’ve been performing here with the Bar-Kays around the United States.” Bobby Manuel: “We had a ball in Porretta. Cedric and Jan did well, and it was a great show.” The duo played a small part also in the documentary The Birth of Soul about the Club Paradise, directed by George Tillman, Jr.

THAT’S WHAT WE DO

  The forthcoming album is produced by Bobby Manuel (https://bobbymanuel.com) and John Ward and released on Ecko Records. John Ward: “Bobby and I wrote a couple of songs and decided we really wanted to do a full album together. Actually, the first song we wrote was That’s What We Do, and because it was written from the point of view of 2 guys on stage together performing, we decided we needed a duo to record the song. We tried to think of any existing duos we knew of or any two guys we might could put together to record. At one point I think Bobby called Henderson Thigpen and asked him if he knew any duos. Henderson told Bobby about Cedric and Jan and pointed him to some YouTube videos on them performing. As soon as we saw the videos we were sold on them; plus, the fact that they were doing something that was already Stax related just made them the perfect choice for us.”

John Ward and Bobby Manuel

  Henderson Thigpen co-penned Woman to Woman for Shirley Brown and has since written numerous songs for the Bar-Kays, J. Blackfoot, Willie Clayton, Joy and in recent years for many Ecko artists. In keeping the Sam & Dave legacy alive, Cedric and Jan were earlier called Samuel & Davis, but on this new record they are renamed the Blues Paddlers. Jan: “The name derived from our first single with Ecko Records, That’s What We Do. It was already in the song. Initially we signed with Ecko as Samuel & Davis.”

  The joyous That’s What We Do is a swaying toe-tapper, like a modern vaudeville song. Bobby Manuel: “It was recorded at Ecko and engineered by Til Palmer. We got that track finished and I got a very good friend of mine, Chad Cromwell, to play drums on it. I sent the track out to him and he put the drums for me. The same with all the horn players - horns were recorded at Ecko. John put it out on his label. We partnered on the recording. Then we did a video on it and we got over two million views on it. That prompted us to do an album, and we wanted to use real musicians. Although it costs so much to do an album these days, I just don’t like doing machines.”

Ray Griffin and Lester Snell

  Horns were arranged by Lester Snell and Bobby Manuel. Jim Spake played both bari and tenor saxes – and did the solo part – Kirk Smothers was on tenor sax and still Mark Franklin on trumpet. Besides Chad Cromwell, the rhythm section consisted of Lester Nell on piano, Charles Hodges on organ, Ray Griffin on bass and Bobby himself on guitar.

Charles Hodges

BOBBY GREEN

  Bobby Manuel was the producer on the Green Brothers CD titled Soulsville in 2009 (https://www.soulexpress.net/greenbrothers.htm), and since then there were plans to cut a follow-up album. Unfortunately, of the two brothers first Al and later Bobby in the early 2023 passed away. Bobby: “Originally five of the tracks were recorded at the Royal Studios with Boo Mitchell, and they were cut for Bobby Green. We were trying to do an album, but Bobby got sick. We were trying to get together, but we just couldn’t, so the tracks just sat there. I have a little studio here upstairs in a big lounge room. We did vocals with Cedric and Jan there, took our time and then Lester Snell and I had all the horn players back together. Horns were recorded at Ecko.”

  Co-writers on three of the songs are Bobby Manuel and Bobby Green. Love Power is a mid-tempo striding jogger with a delightfully full sound. Bobby: “Initially we were trying to do vocals on it with Bobby Green, but he was getting weaker.” The driving, quick-tempo Yes Baby sounds like a sonic hurricane with a quite hilarious ending. Bobby: “I’ve always loved the New Orleans kind of rock ‘n’ roll thing, and it came out with the talk at the end later on, as we were doing the vocals. I love that track. It’s got a lot of energy.” Cedric: “My personal favourite is Yes Baby on this project.”

    The third song co-written by the two Bobbies is the chunky Baby I Love You. This speedy mid-tempo number has a memorable melody to it. Bobby: “Originally it was a song called Hold on to What You Got, but those lyrics just didn’t fit the guys, so I rewrote the lyrics. My wife helped me with a couple of lines. That song has a great little groove on it.”

ROCK WITH ME BABY

  Bobby Manuel’s Rock with Me Baby is the opening song and this hard-hitting stomper is one of those songs that had vocals cut upstairs at Bobby’s Place. Like a throwback to the old Stax sound, after the first bars you actually expect to hear a cover of In the Midnight Hour. Again, there’s a splendid sax solo by Jim Spake, and on drums on this and other tracks - besides That’s What We Do - there’s Steve Potts. The whole album was mixed by Niko Bolas at his place in California.

  Bobby: “John and I and Raymond Moore wrote Don’t Cut off My Love Supply. John and I took the tracks that we did here (upstairs) and went over there to Ecko doing horns and all that. John had his input as well. He was definitely a co-producer, involved in all of them tracks. It was fine to collaborate with him. He’s a great songwriter and he has produced a lot of records as well.” Jan: “My favourite is Love Supply. It’s got to be the next single that’s coming out.” Love Supply is a punchy beater, where - along with John Ward - Latoya Malone sings background vocals.

  Bobby’s song Where You Going is a mellow and melodic mid-tempo number and here Jan occasionally reaches such high notes that it may remind you of a renowned gospel singer by the name of Paul Beasley. The running time of the track is close to seven and a half minutes, and actually after four minutes the whole ending is one long instrumental break. Bobby: “I wanted to include all that breakdown, because that was a magic moment over there at Royal. It just happened and all those guys felt it, like they were ending that song emotionally. I wanted to include that music and not just a long fade. It’s a natural thing that we all felt. That’s the way it moved us.” On this track, as well as on three others, Leroy Hodges plays bass.

  Although Where You Going is more of a mid-tempo number, it’s the slowest song on the set. There isn’t a genuine ballad included. Bobby: “To be honest, I just couldn’t find any that I thought would work for them. If you’re going to do a ballad, you got to have a killer song. It’s got to say something and we just hadn’t come up with that ballad that works.” Cedric: “Where You Going is as slow as we can get (laughing). We are very high-energy performers.”

  In the beginning of Bobby’s and John’s fast stomper called You Didn’t Want Me to Have It you just might think that now we slip into Sam & Dave’s You Don’t Know Like I Know. Bobby: “That’s the challenge in trying to write something that’s got the Stax feel and groove, but that is actually new. I think we did pretty well. It brings back memories to me.”

FRESH OLD-SCHOOL SOUL

  Although Cedric and Jan are not as distinctive vocalists as Sam & Dave were, the overall sound and musicianship leave nothing to be desired. Bobby: “I’m just really happy with it. I’m just thrilled the way it came out. It leans towards an old-style r&b, but it’s still fresh, and I think the guys just performed the songs well.” Jan: “We are so excited about this forthcoming CD. We feel that we are keeping this our type of soul alive. We’re going to keep our music old school.” Cedric: “Now we’re trying to get back on a tour and we’re going to be making more records here. I want to thank our fans and everybody for supporting us. We love all our fans all over the world.”

(Interviews conducted on May 14-17 in 2024; acknowledgements to Cedric & Jan, Bobby Manuel and John Ward).

© Heikki Suosalo