BOBBY HEBB, "NIGHT TRAIN TO MEMPHIS" C/W "YOU GOTTA GO," RICH 1001 (REL. 10/1960)
Nashville-born Bobby Hebb waited six years for his smash hit with a song he'd written long before its 1966 debut. "Sunny" became one of the most-covered new pop songs of the decade; its versions rival that of some Beatles songs, and include a stellar cast of canonical performers. All that was unimaginable when he made his debut single for Rich Records in Music City.
To live in Nashville was to be hyper-aware of country music. There was a large community of Black songwriters and artists, including two influential songwriter-producer-talent scouts in Ted Jarrett and Robert S. Riley. Any Black record made in Nashville has few degrees of separation from these two men. It was fitting that Hebb kick off his recording career with a revival of a song made famous by Roy Acuff, but filtered through the blues-gospel sensibility of his style.
With a tenor sax and percussion to create the sound of a midnight train, Hebb delivers a conversational tone, with a Black femme chorus in tow. Their sassy, mock-ofay "halla-looya"s add a sly tone to this rollicking revival. Hebb gets shouty--in a good way--later in the record, as he works up a revival tent-style rave-up that Rich's recording equipment can j-u-s-t tolerate. The recording does a quick fade before tw0 minutes are up: a sign that, perhaps, young Hebb went too much "in the red" for the producer's liking.
Hebb's voice is commanding, and the band is rock-solid. The soul sisters sat out this mere B-side (the "fetching blues-shuffler" mentioned above) but Bobby gives it his confident all.
Hebb took a two-year hiatus and moved to New York. In 1963, he learned that his brother was killed outside a nightclub in Nashville--on the day that followed President Kennedy's assassination. This double-whammy inspired "Sunny," which Hebb kept in his pocket until 1965, when a Japanese artist, Mieto Hieka, recorded the first released version.
Hebb's producer, Jerry Ross, urged the composer to record his work. The last song on a standard union session, "Sunny" soared to #2 on the national pop charts. Everyone from Frank Sinatra to Esquivel recorded versions of this song, which became a lounge-lizard standard and was sung by its writer on the final American tour of The Beatles in 1966.
Hebb made several fine singles, "Sunny" included, for Mercury's Philips imprint, some which became Northern Soul favorites, and continued making records into the Bicentennial year, when he did a disco update of his big hit. Alcoholism sidelined his career until the 2000s, when he returned to the recording studio and was feted for his part in the Black Nashville scene of the 1950s and '60s. Hebb passed on in 2010 in his hometown.
Tomorrow: East Coast garage rock with Teddy and The Pandas, via a non-hit 45 from Musicor Records. Two haunting songs!
ChuggaChuggaChooChoo! Great version, quite different and well done. T'other track's fine, too! Thanks, as always, for the great tunes and write up; a fine way to start my day.
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