Bear Family Productions Funk | Soul 7 Items

Bobby ’Blue’ Bland
Bobby ’Blue’ Bland (1930 – 2013) was one of the leading US-American Blues, R&B and Soul entertainers. He knew how to combine the intensity of Gospel music with the expression of the Blues. His voice sounded as he wanted to bear witness to one's resolve but he was able to let his voice sound soft, sometimes cool but always culitvated so he could also reach the fans of Frank Sinatra and Nat ’King’ Cole with tremendous success. He formed his remarkable style of singing out of many different influences, characteristic and remained solely reserved for Bobby ’Blue’ Bland.
Duke-Label & ABC Dunhill
Blands voice was always the center of attention. After his huge successes during the 1950s and 1960s for the Duke label, he moved to ABC Dunhill when Duke was sold. He could reach a wider white audience in the early 1970s with his two LPs, ’His California Album’ and ’Dreamer’, plus productions together with B.B. King. ’

Dreamer’ was the record company's trial to produce an album in California with the cool Soul appeal of the city of Los Angeles. As a timeless Soul and Blues classic the album 'Dreamer' contains the in recent years often sampled track Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City, one of the musical back bones to one of the favorites by Jay Z. The whole album is a wonderful soundtrack for those lonely nights alone and blue in a sleazy joint trying to forget a lost love in a bottle of bourbon.
Dreamer
’Dreamer’ is the warm velvet cover against cold loneliness with so many great songs like I Wouldn’t Treat A Dog (The Way You Treated Me) and Whose Foolin’ Who?, the bluesy Cold Day In Hell, Lovin’ On Borrowed Time and When You Come To The End Of Your Road. I Ain’t Gonna Be The First To Cry has indeed the lyrical quality of The Thrill Is Gone. The production by Steve Barri and Michael Omartian sounds full and ponderous.

The accompanying musicians, guitarists Dean Parks and Larry Carlton, bassist Wilton Felder and drummer Ed Green, ranked as being part in the cream of L.A.'s studio musicians. When ’Dreamer’ was first issued in 1974 a controversial discussion started regarding the production and the arrangements containing a brass section and strings. But now, forty years later, the LP album counts as one of the great masterpieces of its genre and the songs became standards in the repertoires of many Soul and Blues performers. Newly remastered with its original gatefold cover jacket the first real reissue on vinyl after 43 years comes from Bear Family Records!
Grammy® as a lifetime achievement award in 1997
Bobby ’Blue’ Bland was inducted into the ’Blues Hall of Fame’ in 1981 and 11 years later the induction into the ’Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame’ followed. He received a Grammy® as a lifetime achievement award in 1997.
1-LP, 180 gram Vinyl-LP, 10 tracks

Soul/blues singer/songwriter Vernon ’Geater’ Davis (1946 – 1984) was born in Kountze, Texas. When record producer Allen Orange heard Geater and another singer, Reuben Bell, perform he decided to record both in Birmingham, Alabama. It was the start of his own record label in 1970, ’House of Orange’. One of the label’s first releases was Sweet Woman’s Love by Geater Davis which went up to #45 on the Billboard R&B charts. His follow-up releases did not follow-up on the initial success.

After House of Orange closed its doors in 1972, Geater went on to record for several smaller independant record labels like 77, Ace, and MT, and he contiinued to write or at least, co-write his own songs. With the exception of Your Heart Is So Cold in 1973 which reached #64 on the Billboard R&B charts, his records did not sell particularly well. But Geater toured extensively on the chitlin circuits for a soul and blues audience. He died of a heart attack in Dallas, Texas in 1984. He was barely 38 years old.

Geater Davis never achieved major succes and stardom. This vinyl re-issue of the legendary House of Orange LPS-6000 should put the limelight on one of the most talented soul singers from the South.