fri 29/03/2024

Fever: Little Willie John and the Birth of Soul | reviews, news & interviews

Fever: Little Willie John and the Birth of Soul

Fever: Little Willie John and the Birth of Soul

Biographer aims to restore the memory of a hugely influential singer

Because Little Willie John died a lonely death in a Washington state prison cell in 1968, much of the baby boom generation grew up only half-knowing who he was. You’d occasionally hear that effervescent but distant voice on the radio, buried by overdubbed strings on the 1960 pop hit “Sleep”. Or maybe you’d hear a snippet of his lovestruck tenor on the torchy 1958 ballad “Talk to Me, Talk to Me”, played as an oldie on the radio. Even by the early Sixties, less than a decade after he hit big as a teenager in 1955 with the R'n'B classic “All Around the World”, Willie’s status as one of the top male R'n'B stars had been eclipsed by his acolyte, James Brown, thanks to JB’s brilliant 1963 album Live at the Apollo.

It didn’t help that the British Invasion - made up, ironically of some of the most intense fans of American R'n'B ever - had taken some of the sizzle away from Stateside performers like Willie, who with their mohair suits and elaborately konked hair, looked like time travellers from the swinging Fifties. By the time the soul explosion of the 1960s propelled Brown and other fans of Willie’s into superstardom – among them Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler, Sam & Dave – Willie’s molten, original 1956 version of “Fever”, a far more dangerous and adult recording than Peggy Lee’s 1958 cover (although she was 17 years his senior) was rarely heard.

LWJ1jpgAt the time of his suspicious death in prison, just two months before he was eligible for parole in July 1968, the demise of this great R'n'B performer barely made a ripple on the wire services.

He wasn’t forgotten by everybody. Musicians never stopped playing his music, or talking about the wild young guy who was the life of the party. For BB King, a day doesn’t go by that he doesn’t play a Little Willie John song on his tour bus, or at home. “He had that signifying voice,” BB said. Willie’s voice, with its texture of longing, is a sound you don’t soon forget, with the sort of emotional timbre that you hear in great singers like Frank Sinatra. It isn’t the kind of feeling that a singer can gin up in the recording studio, but is intrinsic in the voice, an almost painful intensity of feeling. It was the only way Willie John could sing.

Eight singers influenced by Little Willie John


Stevie Wonder. Stevie grew up hearing Willie on the radio in Detroit, mostly on “Frantic” Ernie Durham’s programme on WCHB. Ernie would play a Willie song and then croon, “Oooeeeee!” admiringly. It impressed Stevie that here was another young Detroiter who made it, but another thing Stevie learned from Willie was never to lose track of the melody. Too many singers get “caught up” in a run and can’t find their way back. “Willie never got caught up,” he said.

Sam Moore. Sam was two years older than Willie and yet behind him in terms of development, since Willie had been on the road from the age of 16. Moore admired Willie’s voice, and the way he could hit high notes that caused bleeding in other male singers. He admits he studied Willie’s stage demeanour, and in a photo on the back of one Sam & Dave album he and Dave can be seen affecting the sort of fedoras Willie favoured.

James Brown. JB didn’t sound anything like Willie, but when he indulged his crooning side on songs like “Prisoner of Love” and “I Lost Someone”, the near-sob in his voice is at least partly derivative of Willie. Brown even slipped in a tip of the hat to Willie in 1962 when he ad-libbed “I Need Your Love so Bad” in the midst of “I Lost Someone” on his Live at the Apollo.

Little Willie John sings "I Need Your Love so Bad"

Bobby Taylor. Before he was with the Vancouvers, in the 1950s Bobby sang with his brothers in a group called the Four Pharoas. He was excited to open for the great R'n'B star Willie John, who was a year younger than he. Taylor wore himself out trying to figure out how Willie achieved the oddly pleasing whine in his voice. “It just comes out that way,” was Willie’s impatient response.

Kenny Martin. A slight, Detroit-bred tenor much like Willie, Martin was discovered by Harry Balk, who tried to mould him into a less troublesome client than Willie had proved to be. And indeed, Martin was snapped up by King Records’ sub-label Federal, in part to serve as a warning to Willie that he was replaceable. It’s on the song “I’m Sorry” that Martin most sounds like a paint-by-numbers version of Willie John. Willie went on to record the song as well.

James Ray. Another singer who is forgotten today; among his fans were Beatles George Harrison (as a solo artist he recorded Ray’s “I’ve Got my Mind Set on You”) and John Lennon. “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody” was Ray’s biggest hit, in 1962, but he died shortly afterward. Ray was a protégé of Willie’s for a time, and patterned his vocals on his friend’s.

Little Willie John sings "Fever" to dance accompaniment


Johnnie Taylor. The Stax artist was a friend and admirer of Willie’s. Hearing Taylor on “Who’s Making Love”, his 1968 hit released the year that he was a pallbearer in Willie’s Detroit funeral, is a strong hint of how Willie might have sounded if he’d lived long enough to succeed in the soul era.

Marvin Gaye. Both Gaye’s biographer, David Ritz, and his brother Frankie Gaye have both said that Little Willie John was one of Gaye’s most important influences. It’s not immediately apparent in Gaye’s vocals, which were usually much cooler and less emotional than Willie, but his suave look and demeanour in the early Sixties was an African-American iteration of a Rat Pack swinger, as channelled through Willie.

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