JIMMY BURNS – A HAPPY BLUES PERSON

 Jimmy: “My people were sharecroppers. My childhood was just typical. You went to school, you worked. I don’t have any complaints about my childhood. I enjoyed myself as a kid, and I’ve been a happy person for most of my life.”

 Jimmy is by far the leading star in this column, but at the very end there are cameo appearances by our two old friends  –

Graziano Uliani – the director of Porretta Soul Festival in Italy, and

Dylann DeAnna – the Blues Critic, the moderator of https://www.soulbluesmusic.com, and the head of CDS Records, which specialized in southern soul.

 James Olin Burns, better known as Jimmy Burns, is a rhythm & blues and blues hero out of Chicago. He was born in Dublin, Mississippi, on February 27 in 1943. Dublin is situated about 9 miles southeast of Clarksdale, and incidentally a blues harmonicist named Little Willie Foster was born in Dublin as well, only 21 years earlier. Jimmy: “Before I was seven years old, I moved a few miles away from Dublin to Lyons, Mississippi, which I left when I was about ten years old.” Jimmy’s next residence was in Shelby, MS, where he moved with his mother and two brothers. “In 1953 I moved from Shelby to Clarksdale and from Clarksdale to Chicago on a Labor Day in 1955. I’ve been in Chicago for 70 years now.”

 On September 19, Delmark Records (https://www.delmark.com) released a CD by Jimmy Burns & Soul Message Band titled Full Circle (Delmark 891), and together with Jimmy we’ll have a closer look at that record at the end of this article. The title of the CD – Full Circle - describes Jimmy’s musical journey and actually the 82-year-old Jimmy has been quite a journeyman also geographically. He has performed all over the world. “I’ve been to France and Italy a lot, to the U.K. and Spain, to Russia and Turkey twice, to Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia and Kazakhstan, also to Canada. I’ve been to South Africa and in South America to Brazil and Argentina and Chile, also to Japan three times, to Poland, to Sweden, Denmark, Norway – and I’ve been to your country, Finland. I played at Savoy in 2014 in the same show with Tommy Hunt. I played with a Danish group from Copenhagen, Fried Okra Band.

ONE OF DELMARK’S MAINSTAYS

 Full Circle is Jimmy’s 7th album on Delmark in thirty years, if we include Snake Eyes, which he recorded with his brother, Eddie Burns. “Eddie was in music before me. There were nine of us in the family. Eddie was my eldest brother (1928-2012). He was fifteen years older than me. I’m the youngest. Eddie was raised by my grandmother and my grandfather. I didn’t really get to know him until my late teens. I went to see him in Detroit in 1955. He left Mississippi, I think, in 1947, the year that my second oldest brother passed.”

Jimmy and Eddie

 Delmark Records is an independent jazz and blues label, which was established in 1953 by Bob Koester. Bob passed in 2021, and he had retired from Delmark three years earlier.

Julia A. Miller

Today Julia A. Miller is the the CEO and the President of Delmark and a musician herself, and Elbio Banilari is the Vice President and Artistic Director. Julia: “We bought the assets and our new business started in 2018. It’s consistent, but it’s different business than Bob’s. We’ve done almost 70 new releases since 2018. We do blues and jazz, we do re-releases, we do a lot of LPs and we do CDs as well. We have about 160 000 CDs here in the warehouse. We have a studio here. We do sessions all the time. The Jimmy Burns record was recorded here. I actually tracked that record, engineered the masters and my partner Elbio was the producer.”

Elbio Barilari at Ground Zero, Clarksdale, MS

 On Full Circle Jimmy plays with the Soul Message Band (https://www.soulmessageband.com), consisting of jazz organist Chris Foreman, drummer Greg Rockinham and guitarist Lee Rothenberg. Alongside those core members, on this CD they have three saxophone players – Greg Jung (alto), Geof Bradfield (tenor) and Steve Eisen (baritone and tenor) - and one backup vocalist, Typhanie Monique. Julia: “We had a previous release on Soul Message Band, Soulful Days (in 2019). We’ve been working on combining blues and jazz overlap in the live shows that we’ve produced. Elbio went deep into Jimmy’s early hits, then combined them with Soul Message Band, which is a great organ trio. That’s Elbio’s concept.” After Soulful Days, Soul Message Band has released two more CDs – Live at the Blue Llama (2020) and People (2021) – prior to this new one.

THE MEDALLIONAIRES

 Jimmy: “What I first learned from my father was to play diddley bow, a one-string instrument. He didn’t show me a lot, but he showed me some of the more stuff on a regular guitar. And I remember him talking about Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Boy Fuller and all of those guys. Actually, it was my mom, who let me play a guitar that a church lady had loaned to her. I first learned to play in open tunes.” Among Jimmy’s biggest blues favourites there are Lightnin’ Hopkins and Muddy Waters.

 “When I was over in Chicago, I was still doing gospel. I was with a group called the Gay Lites, but only about a year or two. We didn’t make any records. I was 13 or 14 years old, around ’56 – ’57. We performed at various churches. We used to do a tune called So Many Years. We were primarily an a cappella group.”

 “I didn’t really get into secular music until early 1959, when I joined a vocal group, the Medallionaires. I was not with the group, when they recorded Magic Moonlight (on Mercury in 1958). That was before my time. I met the lead singer Willie Wright and Ronald Anderson and David Anderson, who were cousins, and Ernest Montgomery, because we all lived in the same neighbourhood. The manager of the Medallionaires was Wood Tate Anderson.”

 Eventually Jimmy did go into the studio with the group, but Allan Records out of Chicago didn’t release those recordings. “That was in 1959, when I was 16 years old. The song was Two Months out of School. It was doowop. Then the group ended up recording with somebody else after I left. They changed the name of the group to the Sadly Mistaken and they recorded Golden Earrings.” Golden Earrings was released in 1966 on Marc and subsequently on Challenge, and the up-tempo arrangement was created by none other than H.B. Barnum.

 Those days Jimmy became friends also with Curtis Mayfield. “Curtis and I were from the same neighbourhood. I went to school with his sister Carolyn for a while. She was my girlfriend. I used to hang out in Curtis’ house and I also went to school with his first wife, Helen.”

 To somewhat unexpectedly, Jimmy performed folk music in the early 1960s in local coffee houses and bars. “There was a lot of going on at the time. Folk music was really popular then. This was during the beatnik era. I was just a youngster. To me some of that folk music was blues.”

TIP TOP

 “I went to solo after meeting Charles Colbert, Sr., on the southside of Chicago. I met the Colberts right around 1963 through a guitar player, who wanted to introduce me to them. I had some tunes I had composed and they recorded them.” Charles Sr. was a musician and he was in restaurant business, plus he owned record labels as well, such as Nike and its subsidiaries Tip Top and Jive.

 Jimmy’s first solo single was released in August 1964 on the U.S.A. label, although he was a Tip Top Records artist. “I was signed to Tip Top, which was owned by Charles Colbert Senior. What was common with an independent label was that they would lease records to another company. Charles was the one that put the record with Paul Glass at U.S.A. I never had any deals with them.”

 Arranged by a jazz trumpeter/composer/band director Burgess Gardner (1936-2021), both songs on Jimmy’s debut release – Through All Your Faults and Forget It (U.S.A. 771) – are performed in a lively uptown style. These catchy and poppy mid-tempo ditties were composed by Jimmy Burns and Mangui, aka Margaret Andrea Ruby.

 Jimmy’s next three singles were all released on Tip Top, and Charles Colbert’s son, Charles,Jr., - Chuck Colbert from now on - stepped in not only as a songwriter but also as Jimmy’s producer. Jimmy: “The Daylighters was a group that Chuck was with. They came from Alabama.” Chuck was born in 1939 in Argo, Illinois, and after a stint with the Junior Ambassadors he joined a local group called the Trinidads. The Birmingham, Alabama, based Daylighters moved to Chicago in 1958, worked and recorded with Betty Everett on C.J., recorded as a group for Nike Records and had releases also on Tip Top, such as Cool Breeze and Bottomless Pit. Those days the line-up of the group was Tony Gideon, Eddie Thomas, Dorsey Wood, George Wood and Gerald Sims. Chuck Colbert replaced Tony Gideon in 1961. Dorsey Wood or Gerald Sims are mostly on lead on the released singles by the Daylighters. Tony rejoined the group in 1963, but that very same year two original members, the Wood Brothers, left.  Jimmy: “Tony is still around. Eddie Thomas is dead now (died in 1986). Willie Henderson was one of the musicians in our sessions at that time. I didn’t know those musicians that well, because I was like twenty years old in 1964.” After the Daylighters, Chuck Colbert went on to work in Gary and the Knight Lites, which morphed into the American Breed - remember Bend Me, Shape Me from 1967?

GIVE HER TO ME

 The first of Jimmy’s Tip Top singles – Give Her to Me/Powerful Love (Tip Top 2012) – was released in 1965, and now Chuck wrote and produced both poppy dancers. Especially the stomping Powerful Love has a Motown feel to it. Jimmy: “Everybody was chasing Motown and sing like they were trying to sound like Chuck Jackson.” Actually, Jimmy revives Give Her to Me on his recent Full Circle CD. “I love the tune. I never performed it live. All the 45s I did, I never performed any of those tunes live. The only time I’ve performed a live tune was after I recorded blues.”

  You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone (Tip Top 2013) was released in 1966, and this pleasant dancer was composed by three Daylighters members – Chuck Colbert, Eddie Thomas and Tony Gideon. Jimmy is backed by the Fantastic Epics, a group consisting of Bob Symek (keys), Martin Dumas (g), Bruce Butler (b) and Lamont Turner (d). Jimmy: “I’m still in touch with one of them now. With the Epics we toured parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. We did show with the Yardbirds – that’s when I met Jeff Beck - New Colony Six, the Buckinhams and groups like that. The Epics later changed their name to Rasputin’s Stash. They worked with Curtis Mayfield, too.” Jimmy wrote the beat-ballad on the flip called It Use to Be, which also appears on his new CD.

 The plug side of Jimmy’s third Tip Top single in 1966 is a soft and easily flowing, light dancer named I Didn’t Need (Your Help), which was written and produced by Chuck and arranged by Reggie Boyd, a famous blues guitarist, who passed in2010. Jimmy is backed by a vocal group called the LA-Casics “They were from Chicago.” Already on Nike Records in 1961 they had released a single by Billy Danfair & the LA-Casics – called (Your Love) Something’s Got a Hold on Me. The B-side to Jimmy’s single is Chuck’s tune titled R & B. It’s a party shuffle, which in its musical structure bears a resemblance to Shake a Tail Feather. Burgess Gardner was the arranger.

I TRIED

 “The Gas Company was a group that I hooked up with in ’66 or ’67. We did a lot of local stuff. We didn’t make any recordings. We just did like top-40 tunes. I don’t know what happened to them.” Joe Kleszczynski played Hammond and piano in the Gas Company with Jimmy and he fondly reminisces, how they mostly performed popular r&b songs by Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and Marvin Gaye at the time. The Gas Company was one of the groups Jimmy was touring with between his last Tip Top single in 1966 and his 1970s recordings.

 The 5th released single in Jimmy’s career came out in early 1970 on Minit Records (32085). Minit was founded by Joe Banashak in New Orleans in 1959, and among many distinguished soul artists that have recorded for the label there are Irma Thomas, Aaron Neville, Bobby Womack, Jimmy Holiday and Ike & Tina Turner. In 1970 Minit was a division of Liberty Records out of Los Angeles, California.

 I Tried was produced by Barry Despenza, Carl Wolfolk and Monk Higgins. Monk also arranged the song that Barry and Carl had written called I Tried, and to me it is the peak performance among Jimmy’s singles between 1964 and 1971. Rich in instrumentation, this irresistible up-tempo number brings Tyrone Davis and his hits of the day to your mind, which is only natural if you look at the names behind the song. Add to that still that it was produced for Wally Roker & Associates.

 The funkier and stormier Did It Ever Cross Your Mind by the same collective is on the flip. “Did It Ever Cross Your Mind was written only for me. Wally Roker is Lenny Kravitz’s uncle.” Wally passed in 2015.

I REALLY LOVE YOU

 Robert Newsome aka Bobby “Slim” James wrote and recorded a stomper titled I Really Love You for Karol Records in 1969. His original recording was produced by Christopher Bernard Allen and arranged by Johnny Cameron, and then one year later on William Bagsby’s Erica Records they released Jimmy’s version of the song, arranged by Johnny Cameron but produced by Bill Watkiss. The track is the same, and Jimmy’s record has since turned into a northern soul favourite. Jimmy: “The guys, who also sang on it were Clarence Johnson of the Chi-Lites and Eddie Sullivan. Marshall Thompson’s cousin Terry Thompson played drums on it. We all go way back, but now Clarence and Eddie are dead.” I Really Love You was later re-released on Grapevine in 1979 and Inferno in 2012, and now Jimmy has re-recorded it for his latest CD.

 I Love You Girl on the flip is a melodic and gentle toe-tapper, written by C.B. Allen, and it’s another very enjoyable performance from Jimmy. Actually, I Love You Girl was probably meant to be the plug side, as on the label it reads “Erica 02-A.”

 In 1971 they released Jimmy’s 7th single on Dispo Records (H1071), Can’t Get Over (Cause I Can’t Get Over You), which is an easily flowing and enjoyable mid-tempo song that was written by Barry Despenza, Dee Irwin and Gene Easton. “Dispo comes out of Barry’s name. Barry was with ABC, but I ended up on his independent label.”

 The B-side, Where Does That Leave Me?, is one of those songs that is revived for Jimmy’s new CD. Written by Barry, Billy Easton and Gregory Washington, according to Jimmy “Donny Hathaway did the arrangement and played piano on it. Barry didn’t credit Donny but gave credit to Gregory Washington.”

INTO CHICAGO BLUES

 “I got a regular job at the Michael Reese Hospital in 1970, and I stayed there until 1999. There I started out as doing janitorial work. I also went to carpentry school after I got that job.” Additionally, Jimmy and his wife opened a barbeque restaurant, Uncle Mickey’s. “We bought the place around ’89, and I sold it in 2004. My nickname is Mickey. Beverly gave me that name, and all my nieces and nephews called me Mickey. They still do.”

 Jimmy didn’t forsake music altogether. “With my nephew Larry Taylor on drums and my brother Louis Burns on bass, we played in various clubs on and off, not continuously. I got into blues in the late 1970s, when I met Lurrie Bell and Billy Branch. They were playing Chicago blues, and I love Chicago blues.”

 “In 1994 I met Rockin’ Johnny Burgin and his Lazy Boys, as they were called at that time. They played Chicago blues and they played it right. That’s what impressed me about them. Scott Dirks is a harmonica player, who worked at Delmark back in the day, and through him Delmark’s Bob Koester came down to Smoke Daddy to hear me and Rockin’ Johnny and his band. Bob decided to record me, and the rest is history.”

LEAVING HERE WALKING

 Jimmy’s debut album on Delmark in 1996, Leaving Here Walking (DE 694), turned right off into an award-winning record. “It made quite a splash.” Produced by Scott Dirks and recorded at Riverside Studios in Chicago, National Association of Independent Recording Distributors chose it the “Best Blues Record of the Year.” Not only can we listen to tender versions of such familiar songs as Gypsy Woman and Talk to Me, but Jimmy himself wrote five out of the fourteen songs on display.

 “I haven’t been writing anything lately. Instead, I pretty much choose to re-arrange standard songs. I’m not what they call ‘a deep blues man.’ I grew up with the music and my thing is that I just like music, no matter what kind it is. If it sounds good, I’ll do it. If I don’t feel it, I won’t mess with it.”

 The follow-up album, Night Time Again (DE 730), three years later is a more varied set, which includes the funky You Say You Need Lovin’, Lowman Pauling’s r&b belter Baby Don’t Do It, Willie Dixon’s quick-tempo Shake It for Me and catchy toe-tappers named Spend Some Time with Me and Wait a Minute.

  The concluding song on the album, 1959 Revisited: A Tribute, is a throwback to doowop. “The reason why I call it 1959 Revisited is because that’s the first song I recorded for Allan Records in 1959, Two Months out of School. I did all the voices on it, because I’m the last guy that’s left from that group. They let me do it, and I enjoyed doing it.” Although the Medallionaires’ single went unreleased, that very same song came out one year later, in April 1960, on an Impala EP (C-T4/2123) and on a single (Impala 2121) sung and written by Carl Bonafede, who owned the label and is another Chicago, Illinois, artist. Jimmy wasn’t aware of this Carl’s release.

 On Night Time Again there’s also Jimmy’s cover of Monkey Time, a big hit in 1963. “I remember, when that tune was popular. I’m a big fan of Major Lance, and I went to school with him. We lived in the same neighbourhood. Major lived right around the corner from Curtis Mayfield, who wrote that song. Curtis also wrote Major’s first record in 1959 on Mercury called I’ve Got a Girl.”

BACK TO THE DELTA

 Snake Eyes (758) in 2002 offers a mixture of blues, rocking r&b and even laid-back songs. The main artist is Jimmy’s brother, Eddie Burns, and Jimmy appears here in the capacity of a co-producer and guitarist. “It was Eddie’s CD. I just enjoyed playing on it. I think I sing on Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ but Trash”, best known by the Clovers on Atlantic in 1954. “Eddie ended up in Detroit in 1948, and that’s when he met John Lee Hooker.” As a singer, songwriter, guitarist and harmonica player, Eddie turned into a blues celebrity in the Detroit area, and in 1998 the Detroit Blues Society presented him with Lifetime Achievement Award.

 Jimmy’s next solo album on Delmark titled Back to the Delta (DE 770) was released one year later and Jimmy dedicated this record “to all the great Delta musicians, past and present, starting with my late father Albert Burns Sr.” Jimmy himself composed as many as 13 out of the 16 tracks on the CD. The title song is autobiographical, unlike a slow blues called Stranded in Clarksdale. “Clarksdale was a main town, when I was a boy. We were going to Clarksdale on Saturdays and Sundays. Only my sister and brother Eddie lived in Clarksdale, and that’s how I ended up staying in Clarksdale before I came to Chicago in 1955. Stranded in Clarksdale is a fictitious story, but I remember seeing prisoners and stuff like that there.”

 The energetic and dynamic Live at B.L.U.E.S. (DE 789) was cut in 2007 at a Chicago club, and among six Jimmy’s own songs there’s the driving closing number named Stop the Train. “I just did what they asked me to do, like repeating some of my previous recordings. Co-producer Steve Wagner said ‘we’re gonna record you live, so do what your normally do.’ The CD succeeds in conveying good-spirited and excited atmosphere in the club that evening.

 Stuck in the Middle (VR 001) was released four years later, but not on Delmark but on Jimmy’s own label, Velrone, which was named after his two children, Velvet and Tyrone. “At that time, I wasn’t doing anything with the company, and I wanted to try something different. I’ve always liked the song Stuck in the Middle.” In his version Jimmy adds extra punch to that title song, which is best remembered as a 1972 hit by Stealers Wheel.

 Mostly stuck in blues or rolling r&b, Jimmy covers many outside songs like the Beatles’ Get Back, John Hiatt’s Feels Like Rain and Foreigner’s Cold as Ice. “Cold as Ice is not like Foreigner, because I can never duplicate that big sound. I loved the way they did it. I’m not trying to compete with them. I’m just trying to do what Jimmy Burns would do with it.” There are also such melodic ditties as Felix Reyes’ Reach for the Sky and Richard Hamersma’s How Close (Is Your Love). Although the material is to a degree based on pop-rock, Jimmy adds strong blues flavour to it.

IT AIN’T RIGHT

 Bob Koester and Dick Shurman produced Jimmy’s comeback set on Delmark in 2015 named It Ain’t Right (DE 841). No original songs this time, instead Jimmy interprets tunes by Bobby Rush, Percy Mayfield, (brother) Eddie Burns, Larry Williams, Lowman Pauling etc. Among highlights there are Billy Flynn’s poignant Will I Ever Find Somebody?, Goree Carter’s boogie-woogie Rock Awhile and Jimmy Reed’s swayer, harmonica-led A String to Your Heart.

  Many listeners are attracted to Jimmy’s sped-up interpretation of Stand by Me. “That’s a favourite song. I’ve played that all over the world. People know that tune. I’ve played it in Japan, South America, Russia, South Africa, Canada – they all like it. Mine is a little bit faster than the original. For me it was too slow.”

 The closing song is Wade in the Water. “That’s one of my favourite songs. I’m going back to my gospel roots now. I love Sam Cooke and I love his group, the Soul Stirrers. I listened to Sam before he went secular, when he was still with the Soul Stirrers in the early 50s. Wade was a tune that Sam wrote and I liked the way the second lead in the Soul Stirrers, Paul Foster, did Wade in the Water” (in 1960).

 Besides his solo albums on Delmark, Jimmy has participated in many joint projects with other artists. The Chicago Sessions (2020) introduces seven tracks recorded in Copenhagen and Chicago, where Jimmy laid down his vocals. “That’s the Danish group, Fried Okra. Their bass player, Laust “Krudtmejer” Nielson produced it. I worked a lot with them in Copenhagen and Norway.” Their second joint project, Live in Copenhagen, was released in 2021. It’s compiled from two Copenhagen concerts, when - besides the irresistible Stand by Me - they also performed a ten-minute version of Whole Lot a Lovin’.

 Jimmy Burns & Guitar Mark Play Blues Chords (MW Home Studios) came out in Poland in 2020. “That was when I went over there with my buddy Mark. That was something he wanted to do, and I played with him.” On Chris Shutters’ Good Gone Bad (Third Street Cigar Records in 2019), Jimmy appears as a special guest star. “He’s from Toledo, Ohio, and he wanted me to record with him, and I did it. He’s a very good musician and he plays a lot of the English stuff.” The material on this album leans heavily on rock-blues.

FULL CIRCLE

 In 2020 the pandemic hit us. “It was a very, very strange and different time. When it started, I was out in South America, in Brazil. I had to cancel the tour and come back. Not a lot was happening in clubs over here, because everybody was afraid of catching the virus. So, I didn’t do a lot. I didn’t suffer, but it was a strange time. I don’t want to see that time again.”

 On the recording front we had to wait for Jimmy’s new album until this year, but in August we were finally rewarded with Full Circle (Delmark 891) by Jimmy Burns & Soul Message Band. “We started recording it about a year ago roughly.”

 The opening track is a funky cover of the song called Express Yourself, which Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band took to # 3-soul and # 12-pop on Billboard’s charts in 1970. “I like that band and I like Charles Wright’s voice – plus he’s from my home. He’s from Clarksdale, although he lives in California now.”

 Next Jimmy tackles Big Joe Turner’s 1956 recording on Atlantic called World of Trouble, and this slow jazz & blues jam features high-quality sax, organ and guitar solos. “I’ve always been a big fan of Big Joe from the early 50s, like in the Shake, Rattle and Roll and Honey Hush days. I like the big band sound that he had.”

 I Really Love You is Bobby James’ fast dancer that Jimmy recorded on Erica in 1970. “When you redo those songs, you try to make them a little bit different from what you originally did. You don’t want to be repetitive.” Indeed, on this take there’s a lot of improvisation, although the groove still remains irresistible.

 Ain’t That Funk for You is the first of two instrumentals on this CD that Jimmy is not involved with. The trombonist Al Grey (1925-2000) first cut this swinging jam in 1977. The other non-Jimmy instrumental is an atmospheric, almost late-night variation of Buddy Johnson’s Since I Fell for You, with the running time closing on seven minutes.

TOO MUCH LOVIN’

 A swinging rhythm & blues belter called Too Much Lovin’ was written by Lowman Pauling (1926-73) of the “5” Royales. “When my mom and dad separated in 1953, that was a popular song, and the “5” Royales was like the top rhythm & blues group at that time. I was just a boy, but I remember them playing in cafes in Shelby, Mississippi. The “5” Royales came from a gospel group, too“ (Royal Sons Quintet). “On my album Night Time Again I recorded two of their tunes, Baby Don’t Do It and Too Much Loving for the first time.”

 A catchy, poppy ditty titled Give Her to Me is Jimmy’s redesigned update of his 1965 Tip Top single side, as is It Use to Be, although in this latter case he offers a different approach, more laid-back in the beginning but growing almost big-voiced towards the end. Jimmy’s duetting partner is Typhanie Monique. “It’s different, because we had a different group and I don’t believe in doing it exactly the same way as earlier.”

 Lil’ Son Jackson recorded Rock Me Mama on Imperial in 1951 - although the song actually goes back to Curtis Jones’ Roll Me Mama in 1939 – and now Jimmy offers his slightly faster version of this swinging boogie-woogie blues. “I first heard it in 1951. I’ve always liked that tune.” The closing song on the set is a remake of the slow, melancholy and touching Where Does That Leave Me?, which Jimmy had released on Dispo in 1971.

 “I’ve worked all my life. I lost my wife Carol for cancer fifteen years ago, and she’s still the love of my life. I have three daughters and one son. Now I’m just waiting to see where we go from here. I’m 82 years old, and I’m not in a big hurry to do anything (laughing). I’m a very happy man, and I’m ready to come to Europe in 2026.”

(Interview conducted on October 4 in 2025; acknowledgements to Jimmy Burns, Julia A. Miller Elbio Barilari and Kevin Johnson; sources: Robert Pruter’s Doowop – The Chicago Scene and The Chicago Soul and Bob McGarth’s Soul Discography).

GRAZIANO ULIANI

 On September 25 this year in Memphis, Graziano Uliani, the founder and head of the Porretta Soul Festival in Italy (Deep Soul August 2013 | Soul Express), was presented with the Memphis Music Hall of Fame’s Legacy Award, and if anyone deserves it, it’s Graziano.

Please have a look at the video of the ceremony.

PERSISTENT MIMES

 Mr. Blues Critic has decided to reveal some of his tomfooleries from the past, or as Dylann DeAnna himself says “bucket list checked.” He has released an album called Yesterday Forever by Persistent Mimes.

 Let Dylann explain: "Yesterday Forever" is the debut album from a (seemingly) new music/project band Persistent Mimes out of Ohio. The road to completion stretches all the way back to 1994. Then living in Southern California vocalist (Dylann DeAnna) and guitarist (Ron Paulchel) wrote nearly 50 songs together over the course of 4 years. However, before they could do any recording life happened and the project's members were no longer living in the same state. Both became inactive in music and the project was all but forgotten." 

"Fast-forward to 2021 during the Covid pandemic when one of the band members stumbled across a shoe box of cassettes labeled "Persistent Mimes". After listening to the rough recordings made with a simple tape recorder the duo was surprised with the results and decided to cut an album's worth of the songs. Both members were now living in Ohio where they were originally from. Of course, the pandemic caused lots of delays and the album took 'til November 2024 to complete. The album consists of a lot of styles. There's a 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s influence. The production and the song themselves are deliberately retro- no autotune, no rap no faux country - just fully produced tracks.”

 Indeed, the music is a nice mix of melodic country, rock, pop and a little bit of blues. Persistent Mimes is not a common name for a band. “It was just a goofy name because most people find mimes annoying, especially if they are persistent.” Ferocious Records is Dylann’s own label. “It was my heavy metal label, which is also now defunct. But my distro still has it active so I used that moniker. I co-wrote the songs in the 1990s with my older Ron Paulchel, my older cousin and guitarist. He grew up to the 60s/70s and I the 80s/90s and the songs kind of reflect those influences.  These tracks were written in the 90s before my personal taste became Deep Soul, Classic Soul, Southern Soul and the blues.”

 Dear readers, what’s in your closet?  

© Heikki Suosalo