Selected Profiles of Musicians

Musicians' Bios

   Melvin Taylor & The Slack Band    The Claude Rhea Quartet    The New York Unit   

Teddy Adams Sextet    Laura Mivens    The Spelman College Jazz Ensemble  

Earl Williams Band        The Bethune-Cookman Steel Drum Orchestra       

Big Youth & the Leroy Sibbles Reggae Band

Blind Boys of Alabama Featuring Clarence Fountain   

E. Larry McDuffie and the Savannah Community Choir  

Inner Faith        The Savannah State University Gospel Choir

Melvin Taylor & The Slack Band

You could call him "Chicago Flood," because Melvin Taylor's music comes pouring down in a torrent of notes: deep blue tones and piercing wah-wah wails, big fat jazz chords and scratchy chicken-pickin'. Standing on-stage at Rosa's Lounge, his guitar held out in front of him, a bemused Taylor and his audience eagerly wait together in anticipation of his next musical cloudburst.

The Windy City's most exciting guitarist is also one of its best-kept secrets. Since the early '80s, Taylor has toured Europe and released two albums there, while at home, he's been content to play exclusively at Rosa's Lounge, a funky West Side blues bar that he packs every Tuesday night. For the last decade, many labels have tried to sign the enigmatic artist to a record contract. Earlier this year, Taylor finally agreed to a multi-CD deal with Evidence Music, which released "Melvin Taylor & the Slack Band" (ECD 267073), recorded in February 1995. It was his first new recording since 1984.

Taylor literally learned to play guitar at his uncle's knee. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1959, Taylor came under the spell of his mother's guitar-playing twin brother, Floyd Vaughan, after the family moved to Chicago in 1962. Vaughan and his buddies got together on weekends to play Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Howlin' Wolf tunes the way other men relaxed playing poker or bowling.

By age 12, Taylor was sitting in with his uncle and the other grownups. Without benefit of formal training, he learned the rudiments of his craft: how to use a slide, finger picks and a flat pick. And, of course, he learned the solos from his favorite records--B.B. King's "The Thrill is Gone," some Albert King, a little Jimi Hendrix.

Did this make Taylor the odd kid out at his school? "That's exactly what happened. Everyone else wanted to hear '70s at school mixers and I'd come to the party with an armload of blues records," he remembers. "I was definitely different. I liked the music that was happening back then, but I didn't want to play it. I was more into blues guitar."

But when he joined the Transistors, a quartet managed by his future father-in-law, they played popular music of the '70s at school mixers, talent shows and night clubs.

Taylor's career took a fateful turn in the early '80s after the Transistors broke up and he started playing in the West Side's neighborhood blues clubs. "Those gigs kept me afloat, kept me out there, but I got tired of that scene," Taylor admits. Around this time, he was invited to tour Europe with Pinetop Perkins and the Legendary Blues Band. "They had just quit Muddy Waters a couple of months before and they came by my house," remembers Taylor. "I was working in my backyard and Pinetop asked me if I wanted to go to the West Coast, if I wanted to go to Europe. I thought he was joking, but he showed me the contracts. I ran inside and grabbed a suitcase--that was it."

Taylor left the Legendary Blues Band after their European tour, but he'd made such an impression that promoters invited him back the next year as part of a package tour with a European rhythm section. Even before Taylor assembled his own band in Chicago, he was building a following in Europe, recording two albums for the French Isabel label, "Blues on the Run" and "Plays the Blues for You." He also contributed to a cut on Alligator Records' "The New Bluebloods" anthology, as well as backing Lucky Peterson on "Ridin'," and Eddie Shaw on "Movin' and Groovin' Man." Since the late '80s, Taylor has brought the Slack Band, including former Transistors members, with him to Europe, where they've opened shows for B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Santana, George Benson and Canned Heat.

While developing his career in the blues world, Taylor also started listening to jazz guitarists like Benson and Wes Montgomery. He incorporated jazz into his musical vocabulary by learning from records and jamming.

His versatility paid off with a booking at the 1986 Chicago Jazz Festival, where his set's highlight was a Hendrix-influenced rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." The next year, he played at the Chicago Blues Festival and in 1988 at Taste of Chicago, the city's other major summer festival.

With the release of "Melvin Taylor & The Slack Band," the world no longer has to beat a path to Rosa's, as Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes have done, to hear this guitar virtuoso. The CD's mixture of Melvin Taylor originals, blues classics by Otis Rush, T-Bone Walker and Larry Davis, plus Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) and the Champs' Tequila, mirrors his eclectic on-stage repertoire and refusal to fit into one particular musical slot. "People try to do it all the time," admits Taylor. "But I'm not going to change my way of playing because they can't figure it out."

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The Claude Rhea Quartet
The Claude Rhea Quartet, featuring Claude Rhea on the organ, is composed of some of the Savannah area's best artists, including Kenny Alexander on tenor saxophone, Danny Boozer on drums and Ce Ce Elijah on vocals.

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The New York Unit
Gary Bartz	Sir Roland Hanna

The New York Unit jazz ensemble features the musical genius of bassist Richard Davis, saxophonist Gary Bartz, pianist Sir Roland Hanna, drummer Idris Muhammad and trumpeter Jimmy Owens.

Click here to learn more about Grammy-winning saxophonist Gary Bartz on his official Web site.

Click here to learn more about internationally known bassist Richard Davis on his official Web site.

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Teddy Adams Sextet

Trombonist, composer and educator are all words that describe Teddy Adams, leader of the Teddy Adams Sextet. A Georgian who grew up in Savannah, Teddy has been a serious artist and advocate of the art form called jazz for more than 40 years. He lived in Japan for 11 of those years, where he performed with such renown artists as Sadao Watanabe, Rufus Reid, Blue Mitchell and several other performers of equivalent status.

After returning to the U.S. in 1976, he teamed up with Bassist Ben Tucker and co-led a mainstream jazz group called Telfair Jazz Society. Since then, Adams has performed with other greats that include Cab Calloway, Irene Reid, James Moody, Clark Terry, Jeannine Bryson, Johnny Lytle, Joey DeFrancesco, Ernie Andrews, Wynard Harper, Ben Riley, Doug Carn, Dave Steinmeyer, Pete Minger, Delbert Felix, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Tootie Heath, Nicholas Payton, Doc Cheatham, Jon Faddis, Donald Byrd and Frank Gordon, to name a few. Adams is presently teaching, lecturing and leading his own group. He also sits on the Board of Directors for the Coastal Jazz Association and co-leads the Savannah/Coastal Jazz Orchestra. He was one of the first inductees in the Savannah/Coastal Jazz Association Hall of Fame.

The Teddy Adams Sextet, which is composed of some extremely talented musicians including Adams (trombone), Kebbi Williams (saxophones), Doug Carn (piano), Ramon Posser (bass), Stubby Mitchell (trumpet) and Quinten Baxter (drums), presents to listeners the pure idiom of jazz music. The group will be playing standard as well as original compositions.

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Master performer and saxophonist Earl Williams heads a versatile unit that plays music ranging from blues to today's most popular soul music.

Laura Mivens

Laura Mivens

Laura Mivens, a local songstress and Savannah Black Heritage Festival regular, sings a variety of popular hit songs.

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The Spelman College Jazz Ensemble combines vocals, wind instruments and a rhythm section to produce soulful jazz sounds.

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The Bethune-Cookman Steel Orchestra, a steel drum orchestra, entices its audience with authentic Caribbean-style music.

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Big Youth and the Leroy Sibbles Reggae Band
Big Youth, a native of Jamaica, is one of the biggest names in the Jamaican music industry. Big Youth is also known as "Jah Youth," which reflects the driving force of his music--growing up in the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica. Big Youth started a new movement with his music and raised consciousness about truth and rights. His influence on reggae music is pervasive.

Leroy Sibbles' music is recognized as a major evolution of reggae music. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Sibbles began his career at age 16 as the lead singer of the rock-steady group the Heptones. While playing with the Heptones, he recorded many classic reggae tunes including, "Part Time," "Fatty, Fatty," "Heptones Gonna Fight" and "Book of Rules." He also played an integral role in the creation of many of the famous "Studio One Rhythm Tracks," for which he arranged and wrote many of the songs, played bass and provided harmony.

Sibbles immigrated to Toronto, Canada, in 1973. Over the years, he has helped to establish reggae music in North America. His smooth, melodic voice and magnificent personality have been recognized numerous time by the press, who has refereed to him as "the godfather of reggae and the sweetest singer in the business."

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Blind Boys of Alabama Featuring Clarence Fountain
~Clarence Fountain * Eddie McKinnie * Jimmy Carter * George Scott
Joey Williams * Caleb Butler * Donald Dillon * Johnny Fields~

Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama have been singing God's music for over 60 years. In the course of that time, they've traveled the distance, from playing small tent shows to picking up three Grammy Award nominations. Along the way, they've changed and added members, but they've never lost the faith. That sense of survival is reflected in the title of their latest album "Holdin' On" on House of Blues Music Company.

From the group's beginnings in the 1930s as fellow students at the Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Alabama to the present, they've had one goal. Says founding member Clarence Fountain, "We just wanted to sing gospel. We wanted to be popular too, but we wanted to sing gospel." Fountain and his friends (the original group consisted of Fountain, Johnny Fields, JT Hutton, Ollice Thomas, George Scott and the late Velma B. Traylor) adopted the style of gospel singing known as jubilee and took their show to the road.

They turned the fact that all but one member of the Blind Boys of Alabama was, in fact, visually impaired, into a huge selling point. "We had an advantage over all of the rest of the gospel groups," says Fountain. "You hardly ever saw a bunch of blind guys on stage in concert. That was an exciting time!"

The group began recording in 1948 and has released albums regularly since then. The Blind Boys of Alabama had gospel hits with "Oh, Lord Stand By Me" and "I Can See Everybody's Mother But I Can't See Mine" in the 50s. They didn't taste mainstream success until 1988 when they starred in the Obie Award winning Broadway musical "Gospel at Colonus."

Says Fountain, "The highest point we ever had was going back to Broadway. We took the play "Gospel at Colonus" to Broadway and stayed there 15 weeks."

That exposure opened new avenues for the Blind Boys of Alabama and brought them to a wider audience. When they toured, they played bigger, more mainstream venues. In 1994, the group was awarded the NEA National Heritage Fellowship, presented by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Recalls Fountain, "We had always had good records, but they were only going to the black side. When we came off Broadway, we were able to go out and sing to the masses."

That they did, performing on the bill of such high profile festivals as the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the King Biscuit Blues Festival, the Beale Street Music Festival and many more. In addition, the Blind Boys of Alabama were featured on the BET series "On Jazz." They even performed on the popular Fox Television show "Beverly Hills 90210."

That year also brought the group's debut on the House of Blues Music Company. A live album "I Brought Him With Me" showcased the group's ability to musically change with the times while remaining true to their basic style. That is obvious on the latest HOB Music Company release "Holdin' On." From cut to cut, it takes the listener on a new inspirational experience. Beginning with the encouraging title track, to the funky "Sacrifice" to the closing tune "The Spirit of the Lord is Coming Down," it promises to bless hearts and souls.

Of "Holdin' On," Fountain says, "We tried to get all phases of the music on the album. We've got tunes that I think will fit any audience." With "Holdin' On," the Blind Boys of Alabama have succeeded.

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The Savannah Community Choir, originally known as the 100 Voice Gospel Choir, was formed in 1964 after E. Larry McDuffie had a vision of a group coming together. McDuffie's dream was made known to men and women at various churches throughout the community. The group, with McDuffie at its helm, met and later performed at the First Mount Bethel Baptist Church at the Gospel Alliance Convention. The performance was so successful that the group decided to stay together and continue to spread the message of God's love carried on the wings of song. The group has been performing for more than 36 years.

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Inner Faith is a contemporary gospel group on a mission to inspire and compel men and women to come to Christ. The group forte is a mixture of contemporary, urban, hip hop, worship and praise favor. The group's inspiration sparks from a variety of artists such as Fred Hammond, the Winans, Boyz II Men and others. The group, which has been together since 1991, won first place at the sixth annual Apollo showdown at the Albany Civic Center in 1994. Inner Faith's live performance of an original song, written by Terrance Pinkney, moved the crowd and judges to their feet. This event opened doors for the group to perform and tour with artists such as John P. Kee, Kirk Franklin and Hezakiah Walker. 

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The Savannah State University Wesleyan Gospel Choir
Since its inception in 1971, the Savannah State University Wesleyan Gospel Choir has cultivated a special niche for itself in the local gospel music arena. Well known throughout the Southeast for its "fire-brand" style of gospel, the choir is composed of students who usually bring their home church choir experience or their solo voices together to help fortify them during their college sojourn. For many of them, gospel is the mainstay that fortifies their lives and is an outlet for their spiritual expression. The choir's repertoire includes everything from the soul-soothing sounds of their original arrangement of "The Lord's Prayer" to the foot-stomping, rousing contemporary sounds of Kirk Franklin. Wesleyan embarks annually on a Spring concert tour that has taken it to appearances in New York City; New Jersey; Washington, D.C.; Raleigh, North Carolina; Atlanta; Indianapolis, Indiana; St. Louis, Missouri; and Nassau, Bahamas. The group relies solely on the expertise of student directors and student musicians to pull together what has fondly been referred to as "Gospel According to Wesleyan."

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Last updated March, 2000
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