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RAY
ELLIS caught up with BILLY PRICE in Los Angeles just prior to Billy's
new project with Jerry `Swamp Dogg' Williams. Billy talked about his early
interest in rhythm & blues, his meetings with John Lee Hooker and Albert
Collins, and the influence of Otis Clay.
In
JB40, Paul Harris reviewed a CD entitled `The Soul Collection' by Billy
Price where Paul quite rightly describes Billy's voice as `sympathetic
to the genre in a genuine Southern style and the backings are totally
authentic'. Supported by a tight, solid band with an expressive trio of
female backup singers, Pittsburgh-based Billy Price (real name William
Pollak b. 1949 in Passaic, NJ) stamps his own soulful interpretation on
a range of strong and varied material as well as paying homage to some
of the greats of R&B and soul including Otis Clay with whom he trades
lead vocals on `That's How It Is'. It was only his fifth album release
since his debut `Is It Over' in 1979 when he recorded with the Keystone
Rhythm Band at Don Garvin's Jeree studio in New Brighton, PA.
`I
became tuned in to R&B, rock `n' roll, and gospel at an early age in the
1950s. My early favorites were Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Lloyd
Price. I was a big radio listener as a child, and for some reason I was
always most attracted to R&B and gospel. During the '50s and '60s the
doo-wop sound was particularly popular in that region, and I loved the
Flamingos, Moonglows, Dubs, etc..
`As
R&B evolved into soul music, there were a few great radio stations in
the area - WWRL from New York, with Frankie Cracker, Enoch Hawthorne Gregory
(the Dixie Drifter, who recorded some spoken records, including `Soul
Heaven'), and Hal Atkins (Happy Hal, the housewife's pal); WADO from Newark
with the great Jocko Henderson, who was rapping many years before Grandmaster
Flash; and WNJR from Newark with Hal Jackson and Eddie O'Jay. I began
collecting records in the `60's, and it was also at this time that I started
singing with bands and attending concerts. Murray the K, a popular deejay
on WINS in New York, had quarterly holiday shows at the Brooklyn Fox theater,
and I attended many of them with my older brother's friends. These were
package shows with 15-20 artists on each show. At one of these, I saw
Chuck Jackson, Ben E. King, Jackie Wilson, Patti And The Blue Belles,
the O'Jays, the Spinners, the Miracles, and the Temptations!
`When
I was a senior in high school, I went to a club one night called the White
Birch Inn in Spring Valley, NY. The club was part of the chitlin circuit.
They had a talent contest, and I sang Spyder Turner's version of `Stand
By Me' with the house band, Melvin And The Soul Messengers, impersonating
Little Anthony, Smokey Robinson, and others. After I brought the house
down, the emcee asked me my name, and I dubbed myself `Billy Price' after
Lloyd Price. A few months later, the owner of the White Birch Inn brought
me in to perform for a weekend, and the local newspaper advertised the
show as `The Billy Price Revue'. After all that, I kept the name and have
used it ever since.
`When
I was living in State College, PA and going to school at Penn State, a
club owner in town gave me carte blanche to book his club every Wednesday
night for a few months. It was during those months that I met John Lee
Hooker, Albert Collins, AC. Reed, Koko Taylor, and Son Seals. My friend
and I picked up Hooker at the airport and drove him from Harrisburg to
State College. It was the night of the baseball all-star game, and it
was my job to get Hooker from the motel to the gig. It was very difficult
to pry him away, as he was a huge baseball fan. I remember we were talking
about Jim Bibby, who pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates and had formerly
pitched for the San Francisco Giants (Hooker was by that time living in
San Francisco). I think that was the year the Pirates won the World Series,
1979. Hooker was a wonderful fellow, and we had a ball that night and
the next day.
`We
played often with Albert Collins in the late '70s and early '80s. On certain
nights, his band was positively ferocious. This was the band with A.C.
Reed, Casey Jones on drums, and Johnny B. Gayden on bass -they got into
some relentless funk grooves that made you want to bang your head against
the wall. One of the most exciting live bands I've ever heard!
`The
songs for `Is It Over' came from the Keystone Rhythm Band's repertoire
at the time. Don Garvin was responsible for rearranging [the co-penned]
`Eldorado Cafe' from a kind of boogaloo feel that we had in live performance
to the groove that is on the record. Also in that band at the time were
Kenny Blake, who is a well-known jazz saxophonist, and Eric Leeds, who
played sax with Prince for many years.
`Jeree
is special because it feels like being at home. Don Garvin built the studio
himself, and it is held together with paper clips and rubber bands, and
something is always breaking, but I have always been able to get the right
feel there, much more so than I have ever been able to do at studios that
were technically far superior. Plus, Jeree has Garvin himself and there
is no one else in Pittsburgh quite like him as a guitarist and producer,
although I also must say that Lenny Smith, who plays with me in the [current]
band, is also a fine guitarist in the Muscle Shoals style. In fact, Lenny
grew up in Muscle Shoals, and his father is a country picker and guitar
instructor.
`A
few years after `Is It Over', I heard the first of Otis Clay's two live
albums that he recorded in Japan, and I was absolutely blown away by it.
My manager at the time and I decided that we would like to try to do some
shows with Otis, so we contacted him by phone. At first he was quite reluctant
to come east and perform with us, but we gradually got him to agree to
do so. After some tentative moments, we put together a show and performed
two nights in Washington DC and two nights in Pittsburgh --that was in
1982. The chemistry was magical, and it was particularly moving for me
when we sang `Is It Over' together for the first time. After that first
short tour, we performed together many times in Pittsburgh and in Chicago.
`There
were lots of performance highlights, but the one that stands out more
than any others was a gig at Biddy Mulligan's in Chicago during which
I sang `Turn Back The Hands Of Time' with Otis and Tyrone Davis. Otis
invited Tyrone to Mulligan's to see us perform together. We coaxed Tyrone
on stage, and the three of us sang `Turn Back The Hands Of Time', backed
by my band. Tyrone was dressed in a full-length fur coat with one of those
big hats that were popular back then. When we got to the third verse,
Otis and I were hanging back waiting for Tyrone to sing, and eventually
I said, in the mike, `Tyrone, did you forget the words?' When he heard
that, Tyrone brought the band down and said, `Billy Price, how many albums
do you have out?' `Three', I replied. `Well I have 33', he said. `When
you have 33, you'll forget a lot of your words, too!'
`As
you know if you have ever seen him live, Otis likes to `stretch' when
he is on stage--his songs can be 10-15 minutes long if he is in the right
mood and the crowd is with him. One night at Mulligan's, the plan was
that we would play a set for about an hour, take a break, then my band
would back Otis for a set, which would end with me and Otis singing together.
This was typically the way we did things. By the time our set was ending,
Otis still hadn't appeared, so the club owner asked us to keep playing
until he showed up. We were on stage for about an hour and a half, and
then Otis came storming in with several wrapped up packages of ribs and
chicken. `These guys can't play without barbecue,' he said. Instead of
taking a break, though, he just gave the packages to me, took his coat
off, and went on stage with the band. The place was packed, and he proceeded
to perform with the band for somewhere between an hour and a half and
two hours. By the end of the extravaganza, my horn players, who were a
little older than the rest of us, were ashen and looked like they were
about to drop dead!
I
went into `The Soul Collection' [recorded for Jeree in 1997] with a few
things in mind. First, I keep a running list of songs I'd like to sing
sometime, so I had definite ideas about wanting to sing and record certain
songs. I was also determined that this would be a collection of songs
that emphasized the vocal and the song with a sympathetic musical arrangement
rather than a showcase for guitar and saxophone solos--so there would
be very few solos, and only in places where they made sense. And, since
I was paying for all the production myself, I was able to afford ample
time to allow the songs and performances to be right before declaring
them finished.
We
didn't invite Otis Clay to the session--I felt that that would have been
presumptuous--but we had an idea that he might come, so we took along
the rhythm track for `That's How It Is' just in case. Of course, he did
come to the session, and we laid down that vocal in two takes. What you
hear on `That's How It Is' is something we had done many times before--trading
lead vocals on songs. He also helped us a bit with the background vocal
arrangements, and in the case of `I'm Gonna Forget About You', he jumped
in and added a part himself. I could write volumes about Otis and what
he has meant to me over the years. He is a tremendous inspiration, as
deep a soul singer as there ever was, and he is also a generous, warm-hearted
guy who has gone out of his way time and time again to help me learn the
craft of singing. Without his influence and inspiration, I would be a
much different singer today.
`I
had met [background vocalists] Theresa [Davis] and Diane [Madison] a couple
of times when they accompanied Otis on his shows in Pittsburgh. Theresa
was an original member of The Emotions. Diane is now singing with Aretha
Franklin, and appears on her video for `A Rose Is Still A Rose'. When
our rhythm tracks were completed for `The Soul Collection', we knew that
we needed background vocals, but we didn't have any definite ideas about
whom to use. I think that Don Garvin had in mind that we would just drive
up to the nearest gospel church with a pickup truck and ask if there was
anyone inside who could sing. I felt that background vocals were critical
to giving the album the kind of polish that I wanted it to have--I really
wanted it to sound like a commercial soul recording from the 1970s rather
than as a well-meaning tribute that missed the mark. So first we tried
to contact Rhodes, Chalmers and Rhodes, but we learned that they were
doing studio work in Branson, Missouri and concluded that they were likely
to be too expensive for us to afford. Then I had the idea of contacting
Theresa. Theresa arranged for a trio of Theresa, Diane and Robin Robinson,
and we booked time in a studio in Chicago to lay down the background vocals.
Garvin, my drummer H.B. Bennett, and I went to the studio, and we knew
that we had made the right decision. They were amazingly skilled, amazingly
fast, and nothing but a pleasure to work with.
`My
second album `They Found Me Guilty', was co-produced by Denny Bruce, who
was at that time president of Takoma Records and manager of the Fabulous
Thunderbirds. Around that time [in 1981], Denny released `I'm Not Selling
Out, I'm Buying In' by Swamp Dogg on Takoma and sent me a copy. He also
told me a lot about Swamp Dogg and sent me a copy of Swamp Dogg's cookbook,
which had some great recipes in it. I had lost the cookbook somehow over
the years, and then I saw a posting from Swamp Dogg on an internet mailing
list. So I wrote to him, introduced myself, and offered to trade a copy
of `The Soul Collection' for a copy of the cookbook. We did that, and
then about two to three months later, Swamp wrote back telling me how
much he liked `The Soul Collection'.
`At
this time, I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my next recording
project, and I had tentatively decided that I wanted to go to Muscle Shoals
and work with a producer and musicians from that area. So I thought that
Swamp might be a great producer for such a project, and I asked him if
he was still producing--I wasn't aware of what he had been doing in the
past few years. I found out that he was still very active in the business,
particularly with writing and producing for various country artists, and
we soon hatched a plan for me to go out to Los Angeles and record with
him there, using a studio and musicians with whom he was accustomed to
working. I am quite excited by the songs that Swamp wrote for the project.
`[Today]
I carry a full band, with a horn section (baritone, tenor, and trumpet),
keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums. We typically perform two 75-minute
sets, and the shows are tightly rehearsed. We do a lot of songs from `The
Soul Collection' as well as a few from `Is It Over', and the rest of the
show consists of other songs that aren't on any of the other albums. Some
examples are `Fried Chicken' (Rufus Thomas), `Bump & Grind' (Z.Z. Hill),
`Room Next To The Room' (Bill Coday), `Full Of Fire' and `Rhymes' (Al
Green), `This I Swear' (Tyrone Davis), `Last Two Dollars' (Johnnie Taylor),
and `Have A Little Mercy' (Jean Wells). My performances always include
three of four slow burners, and it feels like I am always looking for
that one that is the ultimate. My favorites among these are `Is It Over',
`Dangerous Highway' (Eddie Hinton), `That's How It Is' (in live performances,
I now combine this with Bobby Bland's `Blind Man'), `Cry Cry Cry', and
`Your Time To Cry'. I am also getting into `God Blessed Our Love' (Al
Green) these days. We play mostly in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area,
but we also play throughout central and eastern Pennsylvania, in the Washington
DC/Baltimore area, and in Virginia.'
I
wish to thank Billy Price for his time in providing this interview and
the photographs. Subsequently, Billy recorded the above-mentioned sessions
in October 1999 in Los Angeles with producer Swamp Dogg the results of
which can be found on the CD `Can I Change My Mind'. Further information
can be found on Billy's web site at: http://www.billyprice.com/ Billy
Price, PO Box 81831, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, USA.
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