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. Collected on the 1961 LP
Two Steps from the Blues, they produced one of the classic full-lengths of modern blues.
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).
Bland began recording for Jackson, Mississippi's
Malaco Records in the mid-'80s. His pipes undeniably reflected the ravages of time, but he endured as a blues superstar of the loftiest order, resurfacing in 1998 with
Memphis Monday Morning, and five years later with Blues in Memphis.
Bland died in Memphis in June 2013 at the age of 83. ~ Bill Dahl