Percy Mayfield Memory Pain CD

Personnel includes: Percy Mayfield (vocals).
Recorded at Universal Recorders, Hollywood, California and Master Recorders Los Angeles, California between 1950 and 1957. Includes liner notes by Billy Vera, historic photographs and track annotations with personnel listings.
Digitally remastered by Joe Tarantino (1992, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California).
This is part of The Legends Of Specialty Series.
Personnel: Percy Mayfield (vocals); Joy Hamilton (vocals); Ulysses Livingston, Mitchell "Tiny" Webb, William Harvey Pyles, Herman Burell Mitchell, Eugene Floyd Phillips, Charlie Eldridge "Chuck" Norris, Harold Leonard Grant, Rene Hall, Clifton White (guitar); John Shelley Crawford, Richard Wells (saxophone); Joe Grant (alto saxophone, baritone saxophone); William B. Woodman, Jr., James Jackson, Jack McVea, Hubert Myers, Thomas Maxwell Davis (tenor saxophone); Floyd Turnham, Maurice Simon, William Lundy, Charlie Waller (baritone saxophone); Fletcher Smith, Gerald Wiggins, Christine Chatman, Edward Truman Beal, Lee Wesley Jones, Willard McDaniel (piano); Earl Palmer , Robert Pittman, Leonidas Raymond "Lee" Young, William V. Douglass, Jesse Sailes (drums); Don Julian, Ronald Barrett, Earl Jones (background vocals).
Unknown Contributor Role: Earl Sumner Jackson.
Known as the "poet of the blues," Percy Mayfield was a songwriter nonpareil, who transmuted the sound of postwar R&B to suit his own purposes, scoring hits of his own and writing hits for others. MEMORY PAIN is a unique collection of the recordings Mayfield made for the Specialty label in the first half of the 1950s. It contains some of his signature tunes, such as the immortal "Please Send Me Someone To Love," as well as some of his lesser known (though equally great) compositions, and even his own recording of "Hit the Road Jack," which Ray Charles picked from the Mayfield songbag. Whether it's a stone-cold classic or some archival esoterica, though, every track here is given its own dose of magic via Mayfield's bluesy croon, idiosyncratic songwriting, and beautifully broken heart.
Ranging from major hits to alternate takes and rarities, this CD (released in 1992) illustrates the prolific nature of Percy Mayfield's Specialty Records output during the 1950s. Though not everything on Memory Pain is essential, the collection of early R&B and 12-bar blues is consistently satisfying. The best known song here is the number one hit of 1950, "Please Send Me Someone to Love," and many listeners will also be familiar with such gems as "Strange Things Happening" and the title song. A singer who was flexible as well as charismatic, Mayfield is as convincing on a rare version of the mournful, jazz-tinged "Nightless Lovers" as he is on 12-bar numbers like "My Blues" and "The Big Question." The CD ends on an interesting note with a demo of "Hit the Road Jack" (which became a major hit for Ray Charles). Highly recommended. ~ Alex Henderson