Specialty Profiles

Performer: Various Artists/Percy Mayfield
Producer: Cheryl Pawelski (Compilation); Colin Escott (Compilation)
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Percy Mayfield (vocals); Percy Mayfield; Joy Hamilton (vocals); Harold Leonard Grant, Mitchell "Tiny" Webb, Herman Mitchell, Harold Leonard Grant (guitar); John Crawford (saxophone); William B. Woodman Jr., William B. Woodman, Jr., Earl Sumner Jackson, Jack McVea, Hubert Myers, Thomas Maxwell Davis (tenor saxophone); Floyd Turnham (baritone saxophone); Gerald F. Wiggins, Fletcher Smith, Edward Truman Beal, Willard McDaniel (piano); Ralph Hamilton (bass instrument); Jesse Sailes (drums, drum); William V. Douglass, Lee Young (drums); Jewell L. Grant (saxophone, alto saxophone). Audio Remasterer: Joe Tarantino. Liner Note Author: Colin Escott. Recording information: Universal Studios, Hollywood, CA (08/16/1950-03/23/1954). Featuring the Poet of the Blues performing some of his best-known material, this compilation includes Percy Mayfield's version of his own "Hit the Road Jack," eventually a massive hit for Ray Charles, as well as the brooding, macabre "The River's Invitation," the erotically charged "Loose Lips," the regretful, yearning "What a Fool I Was," and Mayfield's signature hit, "Please Send Me Someone to Love." Percy Mayfield was blessed with an emotive Louisiana baritone and a poet's sensibility to sadness and pain, and few songwriters in the history of pop or R&B have written a body of work so drenched in beautiful suffering. This set features Mayfield's major hits for Art Rupe's Specialty Records, a label that Mayfield recorded for from 1950 until 1954 before leaving for Chess Records (the bonus disc included here is simply a sampler for other artists who recorded for Specialty). Given depth and atmosphere by Maxwell Davis' saxophone textures, songs like "Cry Baby" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love" were carefully written R&B symphonies to the harsh realities and downside of romance, and at times that downside morphed into relentless darkness, as is the case with the excessively maudlin "The River's Invitation," which is just this side of a melodic suicide note. Also here is the wonderful (and relatively upbeat) "Louisiana" as well as Mayfield's original version of his signature song, "Hit the Road Jack," which Ray Charles would cover and turn into a huge hit. In all, this makes a nice introduction to Mayfield's early work and spotlights his considerable skill as a songwriter. He fell in love with sadness, Mayfield said, because there was more truth in it. ~ Steve Leggett

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