mick laBriola

James Hamish Stuart (born 8 October 1949) is a Scottish guitarist, bassist, singer, composer and record producer. He was an original member of the Average White Band. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Stuart attended Queens Park School in Glasgow and left to form his first professional band ‘The Dream Police’.

He recorded a couple of singles with the Dream Police before he was invited to join the recently-formed Average White Band (AWB) in June 1972.

A member of AWB from 1972 to 1982, he went on to work with Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, and David Sanborn.

He wrote Atlantic Starr‘s 1986 hit “If Your Heart Isn’t in It” and songs for Smokey Robinson, Jeffrey Osborne, George Benson, and Diana Ross.

Owen Joseph “Sonny” Igoe (October 8, 1923 – March 28, 2012) was an American jazz drummer and music educator who, toured with the orchestras of Tommy Reed (1913–2012), Les Elgart, Ina Ray Hutton, Benny Goodman, and Woody Herman from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s.

From the mid-1940s to 1988, he performed on over 79 recordings with bands and artists, including The Buddy Stewart (1922–1950) Quintet, Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, Woody Herman and His Orchestra, Frances Wayne with Neal Hefti and His Orchestra, Rita Moss with the George WilliamsOrchestra, Charlie Ventura, Tony Bennett, Billy Maxted and His Manhattan Jazz Band, The Chuck WayneQuintet, The Don Elliott Quintet, Joe Wilder, Phil Napoleon and His Original Memphis Five, Sammy Spear (né Samuel Shapiro; 1909–1975), Pee Wee Erwin, Joe Williams, Marlene Ver Planck (born 1933), Savina (Savina J. Hartwell; 1926–1992), Dick Meldonian (né Richard Anthony Meldonian; born 1930), and Doctor Billy Dodd.

Park Frederick “Pepper” Adams III (October 8, 1930 – September 10, 1986 Highland Park, MI) was an American jazzbaritone saxophonist and composer. He composed 42 pieces, was the leader on eighteen albums spanning 28 years, and participated in 600 sessions as a sideman. He worked with an array of musicians, and had especially fruitful collaborations with trumpeter Donald Byrd and as a member of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band. At age 16, Adams and his mother moved to Detroit, where he soon began playing with Willie Wells, who he had heard play for Fletcher Henderson, Fats Navarro, Tommy Flanagan, and Willie Anderson. He had received casual instruction from Wardell Gray and Billy Mitchell, and played with a group led by Little John Wilson as well. Through the employee discount from his job at Grinnell’s, a music store in Detroit, Adams purchased what would become his main instrument: the baritone saxophone. He initially purchased a used Bundy baritone saxophone, but later traded it in for a new Selmer ‘Balanced Action’ E-flat baritone in 1948, which he used until 1978. This switch proved to be successful, as he was soon playing in Lucky Thompson‘s band. In Detroit, Adams also met several jazz musicians who would become future performing partners, including trumpeter Donald Byrd. He attended Wayne State University. Adams became interested in Wardell Gray’s approach to the saxophone, later naming Gray and Harry Carney as his influences. He spent time in a United States Army band, and briefly had a tour of duty in Korea.

Mel Brown (October 7, 1939 – March 20, 2009) was an American-born blues guitarist and singer. He is best remembered for his decade-long backing of Bobby Bland, although in his own right Brown recorded over a dozen albums between 1967 and 2006.

Brown was born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, and was presented with his first guitar as a teenager while recovering from a bout of meningitis. By 1955, after performing backing duties for both Sonny Boy Williamson II and Jimmy Beasley, Brown had a two year long stint backing Johnny Otis. This led to work with Etta James, where he swapped his Gibson Les Paul for an ES-175 to give him a richer and fuller tone to his guitar work, that set him apart from his contemporaries.

The stress of constant touring led him to Los Angeles, California, to resume work with Otis, spending an extended residency at the Club Sands. Further session duties saw Brown back Bobby Darin and Bill Cosbyamong others, as well as performing on T-Bone Walker‘s Funky Town. ABC Records producer Bob Thiele offered Brown the chance to record his own material, and Brown released Chicken Fat in 1967. Though principally a blues musician, Brown would also transition into jazz and soul jazz through his association with Bob Thiele, including a prominent role with the Oliver Nelson Big Band and appearing on Live from Los Angeles (released by Impulse!).

Jonathan David Samuel Jones (October 7, 1911 – September 3, 1985) was an American jazz drummer. A band leader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948. He was sometimes known as Papa Jo Jones to distinguish him from younger drummer Philly Joe Jones. Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, Jones moved to Alabama, where he learned to play several instruments, including saxophone, piano, and drums. He worked as a drummer and tap-dancer at carnival shows until joining Walter Page‘s band, the Blue Devils in Oklahoma City in the late 1920s. He recorded with trumpeter Lloyd Hunter‘s Serenaders in 1931, and later joined pianist Count Basie‘s band in 1934. Jones, Basie, guitarist Freddie Green and bassist Walter Page were sometimes billed as an “All-American Rhythm section,” an ideal team. Jones took a brief break for two years when he was in the military, but he remained with Basie until 1948. He participated in the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series.

He was one of the first drummers to promote the use of brushes on drums, and shifting the role of timekeeping from the bass drum to the hi-hat cymbal. Jones had a major influence on later drummers such as Buddy Rich, Kenny Clarke, Roy Haynes, Max Roach, and Louie Bellson. He also starred in several films, most notably the musical short Jammin’ the Blues (1944).

Millicent Dolly May Small CD (6 October 1947 – 5 May 2020) was a Jamaican singer who is best known for her international hit “My Boy Lollipop” (1964). The song reached number two in both the UK and US charts and sold over seven million copies worldwide. It was also the first major hit for Island Recordsand helped to achieve the label its mainstream success. She was the Caribbean’s first international recording star and its most successful female performer. Millicent Dolly May Small was born on 6 October 1947 in Clarendon, Jamaica, the daughter of a sugar plantation overseer. She was one of 13 siblings, with seven brothers and five sisters. Like many Jamaican singers of the era, her career began by winning the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour talent contest at the age of twelve. Wishing to pursue a career as a singer, she moved to live with relatives in Love Lane in Kingston. She auditioned for Studio One record producer Coxsone Dodd, who was struck by the similarity of her voice to that of Shirley Goodman of the American duo Shirley and Lee. He paired her with singer Owen Gray, and they made several records together, including “Sugar Plum”, which became a local hit.

Samuel Blythe Price (October 6, 1908 – April 14, 1992) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. Price’s playing is dark, mellow, and relaxed rather than percussive, and he was a specialist at creating the appropriate mood and swing for blues and rhythm and blues recordings. Price was born in Honey Grove, Texas, United States. Price formally studied the piano with Booker T. Washington‘s daughter, Portia Marshall Washington (1883–1978). In the mid-1920s, when he was employed in a Dallas music store, Price wrote to Paramount Records recommending Blind Lemon Jefferson to the label.

During his early career, he was a singer and dancer in local venues in the Dallas area. Price lived and played jazz in Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit. In 1938 he was hired by Decca Records as a sessionsideman on piano, assisting singers such as Trixie Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Price’s trio accompanied Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight on many of their gospel recordings such as “Up Above My Head” and “Two Little Fishes and Five Loaves of Bread.”