The World According To Carl

This has been a bad year for the music world, specifically blues music. Floyd Dixon passed away Wednesday in Los Angeles, California, of kidney failure. He was 77. Probably his best known song was “Hey, Bartender” originally released in 1954 which was later popularized on the 1978 album “Briefcase Full Of Blues” by The Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi). Alligator Records send out a press release on Dixon’s death. It said that Dixon stood alongside Charles Brown, Ray Charles and Arkansas’s own Louis Jordan “as one of a few artists who helped transform swing music into rhythm & blues. … Dixon was one of the true heroes of early R&B and jump blues.”

Dixon was born in Marshal, Texas, not far from the Louisiana border, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was 13. The self-taught pianist first recorded for Supreme Records in 1947 and then for Modern Records in 1949. He switched to Aladdin Records and had his first hits, “Telephone Blues” and “Call Operator 210″ in 1951 and 1952 before hitting it big in 1954 with “Hey Bartender” for the Cat label.

My condolences go out to the family and friends of Mr. Dixon. He truly will be missed.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006 at 6:17 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.