From: "Doug Bright" <75366.2463@compuserve.com> To: Subject: Article: October, 2005 Date: Saturday, November 26, 2005 8:15 PM OCTOBER, 2005 NEW CD PRESENTS THE YOUNG BROOK BENTON "AT HIS BEST" By Doug Bright In late January 1959, a new voice burst upon the nation's airwaves with a compelling ballad called "It's Just A Matter of Time". The record spent nine weeks at Number 1 on Billboard magazine's rhythm-and-blues chart and climbed to Number 3 in the pop sector. Although the name of Brook Benton had been virtually unknown to the public up to that point, the maturity of his rich, expressive baritone reflected years of practice and patient struggle. Now, thanks to the wide-ranging Collectors' Choice label, fans can get a good idea of the way he sounded during the years that led up to his string of million-selling hits. Taking its name from the 1959 Epic album where most of its content first appeared, the new CD is simply entitled AT HIS BEST. Brook Benton was born Benjamin Franklin Peay in Camden, South Carolina on September 19, 1931. His father, a bricklayer by trade, was also director of the junior choir, The Jubilee Singers, at the local Ephesus African Methodist Episcopal Church. Young Benny was singing in the choir at the age of ten, and three years later he formed his own vocal quartet. Over the next four years the group built a local reputation singing at churches and parties, and by the time Benny Peay reached his senior year in high school, he was appearing regularly with the quartet on a local radio station. Determined to make music his life's work, Peay went north to New York in 1948 and hooked up with Bill Landford, a former member of the Golden Gate Quartet, arguably the most famous black gospel group in America at the time. The Bill Landford Spiritual Singers, also known as the Landfordaires, were unusual in that they defied the cultural iron curtain between the sacred and the secular by performing and recording rhythm and blues as well as gospel material. Peay spent a couple of years with Landford, worked briefly with the Golden Gate Quartet, and then joined a gospel group called The Jerusalem Stars in late 1951. It wasn't until 1954, however, that the dedicated young singer's efforts began to pay off with record industry recognition. It was during that year that Peay, still in New York, was recruited by former Ink Spots bass singer Adriel McDonald for a new vocal group called The Sandmen. Since McDonald had worked with the Moe Gale agency during his tenure with the Ink Spots, this was the firm he engaged to manage the Sandmen. Disc jockey Bill Cook, who had been impressed with Peay's voice several years earlier when he first heard him singing gospel, was working for Gale at the time representing popular vocalist Roy Hamilton, one of Peay's heroes. It was Cook who brought the Sandmen to Epic Records, the Columbia subsidiary that was marketing Hamilton. With Benny Peay as lead singer, the Sandmen recorded their first Epic session on December 14, 1954. The resulting single, issued on Columbia's Okeh rhythm-and-blues label rather than Epic, paired Cook's "Somebody To Love" with the old standard "When I Grow Too Old To Dream". It was released the following February and got good reviews in the trade papers, but nothing came of it. It was the Sandmen's next session, held on May 26, 1955, that allowed Benny Peay to take his next decisive step down the long road to stardom, and this is where the new Collectors' Choice CD begins. The single that resulted from the session placed him at center stage in a hard-swinging, enthusiastically sung, and flawlessly harmonized arrangement of a rather forgettable song called "Ooh". The flip side, recorded a week later, featured him in a totally new setting with a solo performance of the theme from Burt Lancaster's latest movie, "The Kentuckian". The arrangement, orchestrated with full string section by 22-year-old Quincy Jones, displayed Peay in all-out pop crooner mode, but his confident, sensitive delivery also demonstrated the distinctively soulful phrasing that would, in four more years, finally gain him the recognition he deserved. Thanks to Columbia executive Marv Holtzman, who had been quietly grooming him for a solo career, the record was released under the name on which he would ride to the top. From this time onward, Benny Peay would be known to the world as Brook Benton. Commercially, however, the record flopped, but Benton and Holtzman persevered, and a November 1955 session yielded some real treasures. "Rock 'n' Roll That Rhythm", delivered in Benton's spirited high baritone range, depicts a young hipster who, after enduring the rigors and regulations of military life, is newly discharged and ready to exercise his right to rock. With its witty lyrics and an infectiously rocking arrangement by Ray Ellis, it had the makings of a hit, but the company apparently chose not to release it at the time. Another undeservedly ignored gem from the session was an inspired ballad called "Partners For Life". Benton sang it with great conviction, soaring effortlessly into a tenor register that might well have caused his hero Roy Hamilton to sit up and take notice. A soulful rocker called "Bring Me Love" also went inexplicably unreleased. A session held April 24, 1956 yielded convincing renditions of a couple of ballads written by Brook Benton himself: "Anything For You" and "Give Me A Sign", and though they lacked the obvious immortality of his later compositions, they showed a definite songwriting talent. Benton's next and final session took place on December 10, 1956, producing what appears to be his only Epic single. "The Wall (between us)" was a poignant ballad sung masterfully by Benton desppite a rather excessive background choral arrangement. Upon its release in early 1957, Ernie Leaner of United Distributors predicted in the trade press that the record would "smash the charts wide open," but nothing came of it. Nevertheless, success was practically at Brook Benton's door in that year of 1957. He was regularly making demonstration tapes for songwriter/publisher Clyde Otis by then, and his rendition of Otis's co-composition "The Stroll" led to a huge hit for The Diamonds. He was similarly involved in two more big hits the following year: "Looking Back" for Nat King Cole and "A Lover's Question" for Clyde McPhatter. When Otis brought him to Mercury Records with their co-composition "It's Just A Matter of Time", Benton's career was off and running. By the end of 1959 he had added several more hits to the roster, and Epic Records, wishing to capitalize on his success, finally released twelve of its Brook Benton holdings on an album called AT HIS BEST. The new Collectors' Choice disc reissues that album with two bonus tracks: the Sandmen's "Ooh" and an unmemorable rocker called "All My Love Belongs To You" that served as flip side for "The Wall" in 1957. For long-time Benton fans like me, it's exciting to see this early material come to light. From a purely artistic perspective, Brook Benton has been poorly served by the CD reissue boom up to this point, with his compact disc catalog amounting to little more than a host of virtually identical "greatest hits" packages. Most of the truly wonderful flip sides and album tracks he cut during his heyday with Mercury have yet to be digitized, but by taking an interest in his obscure Okeh and Epic output from the mid-Fifties, Collectors' Choice has placed itself in a perfect position to right that wrong with future releases. Here's hoping the label follows through. (Brook Benton: AT HIS BEST. Collectors' Choice CM05322. Web: www.ccmusic.com.) ----------------------------------------