Lloyd Price, RIP

[duaneiac]

Lloyd Price, of "Stagger Lee", "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and "Personality" fame, passed away in New Orleans on May 3.  He was 88.

https://deadline.com/2021/05/lloyd-price-dead-hall-of-fame-lawdy-miss-clawdy-obituary-1234752407/

Edited May 18, 2021 by duaneiac

[bertrand]

Personality was written by John Patton.

[JSngry]

Lloyd Price, it should be noted, also became a promoter and general business presence, he was not somebody who had some hits and then just faded away to the oldies circuit.

He mad a lot of really good records past the hits. RIP

[medjuck]

IIRC He also had some connection to Don King/ Ali. 

[Dan Gould]

Yeah, the Rumble in the Jungle and the concert in Kenya that included BB King ... there were more details in the NYT obit.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

  On 5/20/2021 at 6:34 AM, bertrand said:

Personality was written by John Patton.

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whoa- thats huge.  so Patton told you that in an interview or told somone- of course you gotta believe BJP- whats the story though

i know of the history w/ price band just didnt know that specific thing

[bertrand]

I think the copyright deposit says Price/Patton, but John told me he was the sole composer.

[Hardbopjazz]

RIP, Lloyd. 

[JSngry]

  On 5/22/2021 at 4:43 AM, bertrand said:

I think the copyright deposit says Price/Patton, but John told me he was the sole composer.

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The record labels do not show Patton at all. There's another name.

[JSngry]

https://www.discogs.com/artist/717564-Harold-Logan

That dude'ws about to get chopped down to the ground, I guess he did NOT have a good personality.

[bertrand]

Correction: I did not find a copyright deposit for Personality, I was confusing it with Where Were You On Our Wedding Day?

So officially, it is Logan/Price, unofficially John told me he was the composer. We will never know for sure.

[Niko]

That Msc thesis has again more info...

[bertrand]

  On 5/22/2021 at 7:33 PM, Niko said:

That Msc thesis has again more info...

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What does it say? I need to dig it out...

[bertrand]

From the thesis:

Patton also took on a musical responsibility in Price’s band.  Though the personnel on Price’s records is never listed, Patton recalls: “I’m on the majority of Lloyd’s records...with ABC-Paramount.”[1]  Furthermore: “We [Price and Patton] collaborated on a lot of tunes, “Personality,” “[Where Were You On Our] Wedding Day?,” “Stagger Lee,” “Have You Ever Had The Blues?”[2]  The collaborations were often  un-credited, and at times, Harold Logan, Price’s business partner who was not a musician, would receive song-writing credits.  “The story was that Lloyd got all the credit, you know...we were just the band.”[3]  For the record, Patton was credited, along with Logan and Price, for “Where Were You On Our Wedding Day?”  Ben Dixon remembers, “John was a great writer in that vein....John Patton knew how to write hits.  In fact he wrote one called ‘Where Were You On Our Wedding Day?’ which sold about 800,000 copies I think.”[4]   Later on, in 1961, after leaving Price’s band, Patton got a job as a staff song-writer for Scepter Records, a label that was oriented towards the pop side of rhythm-and-blues and included such acts as Dionne Warwick and the Shirelles. 

So the story is consistent with that Patton told me. I think he suggested he was the sole composer of Personality, but we will never know for sure. At least he shares the writing credit on the other piece. I have yet to find if there s a copyright on Personality at all, and I have not checked BMI either.

[Michael Weiss]

Before he had his stroke I used to go bowling at the Port Authority bus terminal with Barry Harris. We ran into Lloyd Price up there. Nice guy.

[JSngry]

What other musician's are / were bowlers?

[duaneiac]

More importantly, what other musicians wore bowlers?  None better than Fats, I'm sure!

[Michael Weiss]

  On 6/13/2021 at 1:16 PM, JSngry said:

What other musician's are / were bowlers?

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Couldn't tell you. Barry's the only one I know of.

I got my start as a juvenile delinquent hanging out at Preston Forest Bowling Alley in junior high.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Michael Weiss

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

sounds awesome back in the day- looked up that place, and now its been redone as a super trendy fancy place