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Mac users have been experiencing problems in unpacking the WinRAR archives used on this blog. Two solutions have been suggested.

1. Use The Unarchiver - www.theunarchiver.com - see comments on Little Esther Bad Baad Girl post for details.

2. Use Keka - http://www.kekaosx.com/en/ - see comments on Johnny Otis Presents post.

Sunday 9 September 2012

Tonight’s The Night / Hey Bruz – Big John Greer and his Quartet (Sittin’ In With 518)




Both sides recorded in New York City in the second half of 1948. Exact recording date, personnel and date of release are unknown.

This one-off session for Bobby Shad’s Sittin’ In With label marked the recording debut of Big John Greer. Two singles resulted from the session – “Rockin’ With Big John” / “Wine-ola” (Sittin’ In With 510) plus the featured platter on this post which we can all enjoy thanks to El Enmascarado’s work in ripping these sides from the original 78 rpm shellac disc.

The Sittin’ In With date was something of a moonlight session for tenor sax player and vocalist Big John Greer who had arrived in New York City to join Lucky Millinder’s Orchestra as a replacement for Bull Moose Jackson who had embarked on a solo career. The Millinder outfit was under contract to RCA Victor and Greer’s first recording session with the band took place in January 1949. He sang on “Little Girl Don’t Cry” which was a number fifteen R&B hit, although it was heavily outsold by the Bull Moose Jackson version which reached number two in the charts.

Greer’s career followed a parallel path to that of his fellow saxophonist / vocalist Bull Moose Jackson when he started recording as leader of a small group called The Rhythm Rockers, which consisted of Millinder band members, in April 1949 for RCA Victor. When the Millinder band moved to King in 1950, Greer continued to record for Victor and subsequently its R&B subsidiary Groove until the mid 1950s. He recorded as a sideman for King, being on the Lucky Millinder / Wynonie Harris session which produced a storming version of Louis Prima’s “Oh Babe!” He was also on Bull Moose Jackson’s epic double entendre rocker “Nosey Joe” and recorded several sessions with fellow former Millinder vocalist Annisteen Allen.

We’ll be taking a look at Big John Greer’s output for Victor and Groove in an upcoming updated post of the “R&B In New York City” LP.

Thanks again to El Enmascarado for these rips which are in remarkably good sound quality.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This record has a happy upbeaat vibe that I like. On Tonight's The Night Big John knows he's in for "some heavy lovin" and he's pretty psyched about it. Both sides have good tenor sax and guitar playing, especially Big John's high powered solo on Hey Bruz. The nameless guitarist really features the "bending the G string up to match the B string" lick- he starts his Hey Bruz solo with it (1:19), and goes to it later in Tonight's The Night (1:50). He must have been really strong to pull that one off with the telephone cable strings they used back then. He's got nice Little Bitty Tube Amp tone, too. The disc was in pretty good condition- I didn't have to work too hard to make it presentable....The Masked One

enoch said...

Thanks for all these great 78 rips. really fantastic.


enoch

Anonymous said...

You know that wino Gruzja's comment is just spam?