Search - Artist/Band: Bobby "Blue" Bland

• Name: Bobby "Blue" Bland
• Birthday: 01/27/1930
• Birth Place: Rosemark, TN
• Decades Active: 1950,1960,1970
• Genre: Blues
• Styles: Electric Texas Blues, Regional Blues, Soul-Blues, Texas Blues, Early R&B, Retro-Soul, Soul
• Moods: Boisterous, Dramatic, Gritty, Intense, Rousing, Brooding, Exuberant, Fiery, Melancholy, Nocturnal, Earthy, Passionate, Sensual, Sexy, Sophisticated

Title	Release
Farther on Up the Road	10/20/2008
The Earls of Duke	04/30/2007
Definitive Collection W	02/27/2007
The Best of Bobby "Blue" Bland [Universal]	11/20/2004
Soulful Side of Bobby Bland W	09/18/2001
The Anthology W	06/05/2001
20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Bobby "Blue" Bland	01/25/2000
Get on Down With Bobby Bland/Reflections in Blue	07/14/1999
Blues & Ballads WA	05/18/1999
Memphis Monday Morning WA	11/10/1998
Greatest Hits, Vol. 2: The ABC-Dunhill/MCA Recordings WA	07/14/1998
Greatest Hits, Vol. 1: The Duke Recordings WA	06/16/1998
Just One More Step	01/27/1998
Best Blues Masters	08/21/1997
Soul Legend	02/11/1997
That Did It!: The Duke Recordings, Vol. 3 WA	06/18/1996
Sad Street	10/24/1995
Really the Blues	03/14/1995
Turn on Your Love Light: The Duke Recordings, Vol. 2 WA	1994
Years of Tears	1993
I Pity the Fool: The Duke Recordings, Vol. 1 WA	1992
The Best of Bobby Bland, B.B. King & Little Junior Parker	1992
Portrait of the Blues	1991
The 3B Blues Boy - The Blues Years: 1952-59 WA	1991
The Voice: Duke Recordings 1959-69 WA	1991
I Like to Live the Love	1990
You've Got Me Loving You	1990
Midnight Run	1989
The Best of Bobby Bland [MCA] WA	12/07/1987
Blues You Can Use	1987
First Class Blues	1987
After All	1986
Members Only	1985
Here We Go Again	1982
Dreamer	1974
His California Album	1973
Touch of the Blues	1967
Two Steps from the Blues WA	1961

Bobby Bland earned his enduring blues superstar status the hard way: without a guitar, harmonica, or any other instrument to fall back upon. All Bland had to offer was his magnificent voice, a tremendously powerful instrument in his early heyday, injected with charisma and melisma to spare. Just ask his legion of female fans, who deemed him a sex symbol late into his career.

For all his promise, Bland's musical career ignited slowly. He was a founding member of the Beale Streeters, the fabled Memphis aggregation that also included B.B. King and Johnny Ace. Singles for Chess in 1951 (produced by Sam Phillips) and Modern the next year bombed, but that didn't stop local DJ David Mattis from cutting Bland on a couple of 1952 singles for his fledgling Duke logo.

Bland's tormented crying style was still pretty rough around the edges before he entered the Army in late 1952. But his progress upon his 1955 return was remarkable; with saxist Bill Harvey's band (featuring guitarist Roy Gaines and trumpeter Joe Scott) providing sizzling support, Bland's assured vocal on the swaggering "It's My Life Baby" sounds like the work of a new man. By now, Duke was headed by hard-boiled Houston entrepreneur Don Robey, who provided top-flight bands for his artists. Scott soon became Bland's mentor, patiently teaching him the intricacies of phrasing when singing sophisticated fare (by 1962, Bland was credibly crooning "Blue Moon," a long way from Beale Street).

Most of Bland's savage texas blues sides during the mid- to late '50s featured the slashing guitar of Clarence Hollimon, notably "I Smell Trouble," "I Don't Believe," "Don't Want No Woman," "You Got Me (Where You Want Me)," and the torrid "Loan a Helping Hand" and "Teach Me (How to Love You)." But the insistent guitar riffs guiding Bland's first national hit, 1957's driving "Farther Up the Road," were contributed by Pat Hare, another vicious picker who would eventually die in prison after murdering his girlfriend and a cop. Later, Wayne Bennett took over on guitar, his elegant fretwork prominent on Bland's Duke waxings throughout much of the '60s.

The gospel underpinnings inherent to Bland's powerhouse delivery were never more apparent than on the 1958 outing "Little Boy Blue," a vocal tour de force that wrings every ounce of emotion out of the grinding ballad. Scott steered his charge into smoother material as the decade turned: the seminal mixtures of blues, r&b, and primordial soul on "I Pity the Fool," the Brook Benton-penned "I'll Take Care of You," and "Two Steps From the Blues" were tremendously influential to a legion of up-and-coming Southern soulsters.

Scott's blazing brass arrangements upped the excitement ante on Bland's frantic rockers "Turn on Your Love Light" in 1961 and "Yield Not to Temptation" the next year. But the vocalist was learning his lessons so well that he sounded just as conversant on soulful r&b rhumbas (1963's "Call on Me") and polished ballads ("That's the Way Love Is," "Share Your Love With Me") as with an after-hours blues revival of T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday Blues" that proved a most unlikely pop hit for him in 1962. With "Ain't Nothing You Can Do," "Ain't Doing Too Bad," and "Poverty," Bland rolled through the mid-'60s, his superstar status diminishing not a whit.

In 1973, Robey sold his labels to ABC Records, and Bland was part of the deal. Without Scott and his familiar surroundings to lean on, Bland's releases grew less consistent artistically, though His California Album in 1973 and Dreamer the next year boasted some nice moments (there was even an album's worth of country standards). The singer re-teamed with his old pal B.B. King for a couple of mid-'70s albums that broke no new ground but further heightened Bland's profile, while his solo work for MCA teetered closer and closer to MOR (Bland has often expressed his admiration for ultra-mellow pop singer Perry Como).

Since the mid-'80s, Bland has recorded for Jackson, MS's Malaco Records. His pipes undeniably reflect the ravages of time, and those phlegm-flecked "snorts" he habitually emits become annoying in large doses. But Bobby "Blue" Bland endures as a blues superstar of the loftiest order, resurfacing in 1998 with Memphis Monday Morning. ~ Bill Dahl, All Music Guide