I was listening to a rhythm and blues playlist the other day and talking with a friend while doing so. We got into a discussion of our favorite “soul” artists. While bickering about it, an instrumental popped up—and it hit me that both of us were talking about singers only. We had ignored some great tunes where there was nary a vocalist to be found.
This would not have happened had we been talking about jazz; when we listen to John Coltrane or Miles Davis, we don’t automatically think of lyrics and vocals no matter how lyrical the instrumentation is.
Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music. With over 140 stories (and counting) covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack, I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
I decided to jump into my audio time machine and go back and listen to some R&B instrumentals that made it onto the Billboard charts in the late ‘50s and through the ‘60s. As always, this story is not going to cover all of them, nor is it going to go back to whatever was the first one. The definition of what is actually R&B is oft-debated—a discussion covering early race records, some blues, and some jazz. So here’s a disclaimer: I’m just going to serve up instrumental hits I remember.
The first tune that popped into my head was one that I heard my older cousins in Philly play and dance to. It was number one on the Billboard R&B charts in November 1958. “Topsy Part Two” by Cozy Cole, who, if you remember him, had roots embedded firmly in jazz—roots that DJ and music historian arwulf arwulf details in his biography of Cole at AllMusic.
Cozy Cole's drumming was an essential ingredient in much of the jazz recorded during the 1930s and '40s, and he belongs in the same pantheon with Sidney Catlett, Jo Jones, Chick Webb, Dave Tough, Gene Krupa, Specs Powell, and J.C. Heard. William Randolph "Cozy" Cole was born in East Orange, NJ, on October 17, 1909. He moved to New York City with his family in 1926 and soon became fascinated with the work of Duke Ellington's percussionist Sonny Greer. By 1928 he was performing with clarinetist and bandleader Wilbur Sweatman, and his first recordings (including the feature number "Load of Cole") were made with Jelly Roll Morton in 1930.
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After touring Europe with Jack Teagarden and Earl Hines in 1957, Cozy Cole's career suddenly took off like a bottle rocket as a 1958 drum-driven big-band remake of the Edgar Battle/Eddie Durham/Count Basie tune "Topsy" (b/w "Turvy") hit the pop and R&B charts, publicly aligning him with flashy "Teen Beat" rock & roll drummer Sandy Nelson.
Give a listen to his chart-topping drum solo.
Take a look at “Topsy” being celebrated and danced to on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand (the cameras always manage to not focus on the few Black kids who were dancing there, but that’s a story for another day).
The next group and tune on my list is Booker T. and the MG’s’ “Green Onions.” Timothy Kevin Perry wrote the group’s bio at Musician Guide.
It started in the recording studio of Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee on a sweltering summer afternoon in 1962. A group of studio musicians were assembled waiting for white rocker Billy Lee Riley to show. He had a recording session. Some say that he was too drunk to show up. In any case, he never arrived. So the musicians in the studio began jamming with a blues progression. Amazed by what they were playing, Stax owner and recording engineer, Jim Stewart, quickly switched on the recording machines. The resulting songs were "Behave Yourself" and its flip side "Green Onions." When released, the song "Green Onions" became a smash radio hit and a tune adopted by both white and black Americans. It hit number one on Billboard's Rhythm & Blues charts and number three on the pop charts. Knowing a great gift horse when he saw one, Jim Stewart began recording more of Booker T. and his M.G.'s. Songs such as "Mo' Green Onions" "Soul Dressing," Boot-Leg," "My Sweet Potato," "Hip-Hug Her," "Groovin'," Soul Limbo," "Hang `Em High," "Time is Tight," "Mrs. Robinson," "Something", and "Melting Pot," hit the charts as the group became a symbol of one of the coolest and hippest sounds of the era.
Three-fourths of the M.G.'s came from an earlier band called the Mar-Keys. What later became known as Booker T. & the M.G.'s had an initial lineup with Steve Cropper on guitar, Donald "Duck" [Dunn on bass guitar], Al Jackson on drums, Booker T. Jones on keyboards, and Lewis Steinberg on bass. This group was also unique in that it was a fully integrated band which existed in the South during the 1960s. Along with their own releases, the group remained the "house band" for Stax Records. They continued to back up practically every soul artist who recorded for both Stax and Volt Records, including musical great, Otis Redding. Guitarist Cropper was the one who co-write Redding's classic anthem "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," he also co-wrote the song "Midnight Hour"with Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave's "Soul Man," Eddie Floyd's "Knock On Wood," and Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign."
As YouTuber SmurfStools Oldies Music Time Machine notes beneath this live performance of “Green Onions”:
"Green Onions" is an instrumental composition recorded in 1962 by Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Described as "one of the most popular instrumental rock and soul songs ever" and as one of "the most popular R&B instrumentals of its era", the tune is a twelve-bar blues with a rippling Hammond M3 organ line by Booker T. Jones that he wrote when he was 17, although the actual recording was largely improvised in the studio.The track was originally issued in May 1962 on the Volt label (a subsidiary of Stax Records) as the B-side of "Behave Yourself" on Volt 102; it was quickly reissued in July 1962 as the A-side of Stax 127 and it also appeared on the album Green Onions that same year. The organ sound of the song became a feature of the "Memphis soul sound".
This performance is from April 1967, as part of the Stax/Volt Revue in Norway.
Related: Black Music Sunday: Remembering when there were 'Stax' of soul musicians in Memphis
Saxophonist “King” Curtis was born Curtis Ousley in February 1934, in Fort Worth. He was an essential backup musician for many years and finally made a breakthrough and found commercial success in the ‘60s before being tragically stabbed to death in front of his New York City brownstone in August 1971. As Ed Decker at Musician’s Guide wrote:
He finally hit the charts in 1962 with his "Soul Twist" on Enjoy Records, which he recorded with the Noble Knights (later known as the King Pins). The song hit number one on the R&B charts and #17 on the pop hit parade, and gave Curtis new visibility in the music world. According to Escott, the song "had the hummable melody and greasy dancing beat that the public was looking for."
Now a hot act, Curtis went on tour with Sam Cooke with a band that he had set up called Soul, Inc. Discussing the Curtis band, Irwin Stambler wrote in the Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock & Soul, "His group's repertoire was wide enough to satisfy almost any taste, including arrangements from the low-down blues and rock to bossa nova, ballads and even classics." After the tour Curtis signed with Capitol and released a few largely unnoticed records before 1964's "Soul Serenade" achieved moderate success on the R&B charts.
Dissatisfied with the lack of creativity of the recording engineers at Capitol, he switched labels to Atlantic in 1965 and began immersing himself in soul music to keep up with the trend of the time. His saxophone was soon backing up the vocals of artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Don Covay, and many others. He fully reached his stride in soul in 1966 with "Memphis Soul Stew," which made it into the pop top forty. "These records work because of the vocalized quality of Curtis' horn," wrote Escott about the performers later soul recordings. "His saxophone had the exultant voice of the gospel singer, and the sensuality of the great ballad singers ..."
Here’s “Soul Serenade.”
That was so nice, I gotta play it twice! Here’s Curtis blowing “Soul Serenade,” from his 1971 album “Live at Filmore West.’
Here’s a live performance of King Curtis & The Kingpins performing “Memphis Soul Stew.” If you can sit still watching it, you got a “hole in yo’ soul.”
The next 1960s piece was featured here in September 2022, in “Black Music Sunday: Ramsey Lewis made all of us part of 'the in crowd,'” on the occasion of Ramsey Lewis joining the ancestors last year.
As I wrote then, about the Ramsey Lewis Trio’s big hit:
The Trio’s first hit was an instrumental cover of Dobie Gray’s “The In Crowd,” released at the end of 1964...The Ramsey Lewis Trio’s instrumental version (with Red Holt on drums and Eldee Young on bass)—which Lewis described as “last-minute filler”—was also recorded in 1965, live at Washington, D.C.’s Bohemian Caverns.
It was an instant hit.
Here’s a live version from 1965:
The next instrumentalist, Jimmy Castor had a birthday this week; Jan. 23, 1940; he passed just a week before his 72nd birthday, on Jan. 16, 2012.
Douglas Martin wrote Castor’s obituary for The New York Times:
Mr. Castor grew up in Harlem and Washington Heights with the legendary rock ’n’ roll singer Frankie Lymon. Possessing a pure, high voice like Mr. Lymon’s, Mr. Castor often filled in for him when Mr. Lymon couldn’t make a performance with his group, the Teenagers.
Mr. Castor soon started his own group, Jimmy and the Juniors, and wrote the first song it recorded, “I Promise to Remember.” Mr. Lymon and the Teenagers made it a Top 10 rhythm-and-blues hit for themselves in the summer of 1956.
By the 1960s, Mr. Castor, an African-American, had gained recognition for his version of the Latin soul sound that emerged as Puerto Ricans joined blacks in Upper Manhattan. In 1966 he had a hit on Smash Records, “Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Callin’ You.” The melody was calypso-inflected, the groove was Latin and the liner notes were bilingual.
With another band, the Jimmy Castor Bunch, he moved on to funk, combining a big beat with spirited storytelling on records like “Troglodyte (Cave Man)” on RCA, which hit No. 6 on the pop charts in 1972 and sold a million copies. Another hit was “The Bertha Butt Boogie” in late 1974.
Castor sang, played saxophone, bongos, and other percussion instruments, in addition to composing and writing—however other than the “shout-out” to Leroy that his momma is calling him, the hit “Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Calling’ You” is an instrumental.
Here he is live on American Bandstand in 1967, moving from instrument to instrument.
The last tune for our story today is “Soulful Strut,” by Young-Holt Unlimited, which started out as a song called “Am I the Same Girl?” Elder Young and Isaac Holt began as the other two parts of The Ramsey Lewis Trio, as detailed in Steve Krakow’s feature for the Chicago Reader on Young and Holt, which notes that “Young-Holt Unlimited were more than Ramsey Lewis’s rhythm section.”
While Young was in high school himself, he met Holt and pianist Ramsey Lewis, then at Wells High (where future students would include Mayfield and Butler). During those years, Young was lucky enough to catch shows by Josephine Baker and Duke Ellington, which further solidified his desire to become a full-time musician. He played with Holt and Lewis in hard-gigging, play-the-favorites jazz band the Cleffs until after his graduation in 1953—in fact it was Holt who broke up the group when he joined the army after college in 1955 (he was stationed in Germany, where he played in a military band).
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Holt, Young, and Lewis had worked together extensively already, of course, but in the fateful year of 1956 they debuted as the soon-to-be legendary Ramsey Lewis Trio. Their first album, Ramsey Lewis and His Gentle-men of Swing, came out on Chicago label Argo, where that lineup would stay for most of their ten years together. In 1958 the album Lem Winchester and the Ramsey Lewis Trio Perform a Tribute to Clifford Brown augmented the group’s evocative soul-jazz vibe with literal vibes, courtesy of vibraphone player and police officer Winchester (who died in a gun accident in 1961).
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In 1966 they formed the Young Holt Trio with pianist Hysear Don Walker, though they would only make one LP under that name: Wack Wack, released by Brunswick that same year and produced by the legendary Carl Davis. The title track reached number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, but when Walker left, that ended the trio. Young and Holt recorded an LP under their two names in 1967, Feature Spot, with Lewis on keys. Then, at last, after adding groovy electric organist Ken Chaney, they christened themselves Young-Holt Unlimited.
In 1968, Young-Holt Unlimited released the album Soulful Strut. The title tune, which had started out as “Am I the Same Girl?” with Barbara Acklin singing vocals, saw her vocals wiped off and was renamed “Soulful Strut.”
As Reader’s Krakow notes, “The grooving single went gold in less than three months, selling more than 1 million copies, and climbed to number three on the Hot 100.”
Strut on with me into the comments for even more soulful instrumentals—and please post your favorites.