Arthur Lee Maye

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Arthur Lee Maye (born December 11, 1934 in Tuscaloosa , Alabama, † July 17, 2002 in Riverside , California) was an American doo-wop singer and baseball player .

Career

High school bands and first recordings

As a child, Arthur Lee Maye came to Los Angeles from Alabama, where he began tenor singing in several vocal groups at Jefferson High School. The first of these were The Carmels with Eugene Taylor, Delmar Wilburn , Norman Manley and Charles Holmes. In 1953 he made friends with the baritone Richard Berry , with whom he founded the Debonairs alongside Thomas "Pete" Fox, Obediah Jessie and AV Odum. Odum and Maye left the band before renaming itself to The Flairs after a few line-up changes with Cornel Gunter and Beverly Thompson . The name "Jeff High" arose from the network of young doo-wop singers around Berry, Maye and Jesse Belvin , many of whom later sang in R&B bands in Los Angeles such as the Coasters , the Platters , the Penguins and the Medallions Sound ".

Arthur Lee Maye was able to make his first recordings at Modern Records . To do this, he formed the "5" Hearts with Richard Berry and Johnny Coleman , who recorded The Fine One and Please Please Baby . Although there were only three of the young singers, the management of Modern decided on a name that faked a vocal quintet like the ones popular in the mid-1950s. For this reason, the music journalist Marv Goldberg suspects, the number five was also placed in quotation marks. The trio recorded a second single called “The Rams”: Sweet Thing and Please Please Baby were released on the associated label Flair Records . On the back of Rock Bottom , Maxwell Davis' band can be heard prominently.

The Crowns

Arthur Lee Maye put together the band The Crowns , named after Modern's sub-label Crown Records , taking into account his previous singing partners, after he had signed a permanent contract with Modern . The first single Please Tell Me , however, only has Richard Berry as interpreter, the unnamed Crowns consisted of Maye, Johnny Coleman from the "5" Hearts, Odell Cole and Little Johnny Morris. The first record as Arthur Lee Maye & The Crowns presented Set My Heart Free, a beautiful R&B ballad in which Maye was able to show his talent as a lead tenor. Randy Jones of the Meadowlarks and the Penguins was asked to do the I Wanna Love back . The next two singles were released on RPM Records , a Moderns sub-label, and had some local success, most notably the ballad Truly , written by Richard Berry, which sold well. In early 1955, Berry and Maye reformed the Crowns after switching to Specialty Records . Gloria , a throwback to the singer friend Gloria Jones from the Dreamers , was again by Berry, with Oh-Rooba-Lee on the back Maye sang a girl he remembered as "Ruby Lee", but whose name was had to be alienated due to the great similarity to a current song title by BB King . The line-ups of the Flairs and the Crowns changed happily, Maye recalls: “We'd rotate guys. It was no problem because we'd been singing together for years. ”( We switched the guys. That wasn't a problem since we'd been singing together for years. ) However, the Specialty release was the last record the Crowns was named as a vocal ensemble, since then the interest of the marketing strategists has concentrated on the front man under the name "Arthur Lee Maye" or "Lee Maye".

With Johnny Otis, Flip and Cash

In late 1965, the bustling producer Johnny Otis put together a band with Arthur Lee Maye, baritone Mel Williams , tenor Harold Lewis and bass Sonny Moore, with whom he recorded covers of popular R&B hits, including Earth Angel , Honey Love , Only You (And You Alone) , Gee , At My Front Door and One Mint Tulip . The tracks, whose lead Arthur took over, and others on which the quartet were supported by Richard Berry and Jesse Belvin, released Otis under the band name "The Jayos" on his Dig Records label as an LP entitled Johnny Otis Rock and Roll Hit Parade - Vol. 1 . Also released on Dig are This Is the Night for Love and A Fool's Prayer, two tracks for which Maye organized a new line-up for the Crowns.

Richard Berry brought his friend Arthur to Flip Records in 1958 , where he had been under contract for several months and wrote the bluesy number Cause You're Mine Alone for Maye , which is based on Ivory Joe Hunter's I Almost Lost My Mind . In addition to the obligatory crowns, Johnny Guitar Watson played the guitar. Singer Henry Strogin introduced Maye to his employer Cash Records , where he covered a 1951 hit by the Swallows with Will You Be Mine . All I Want Is Someone to Love was the second release on the label, after which Maye put his musical ambitions back in favor of a sporting career for the time being. Arthur's brother Eugene took over a leadership role at the Crowns, who accompanied Henry Strogin on his recordings at Dig.

Baseball player career

Arthur Lee Maye was also a talented baseball player as a teenager in high school. In 1954 he was hired by the Milwaukee Braves and first used at associated clubs in the minor leagues : the Boise Pilots, the Eau Claire Braves, the Yakima Braves and then Evansville Braves. From 1959 he played under the name "Lee Maye" as an outfielder 13 seasons professionally in the Major League , first with his home club in Milwaukee . In 1965 it was sold to the Houston Astros . From 1967 to 1969 he played with the Cleveland Indians , then one season with the Washington Senators . His last stop was the Chicago White Sox , of which he was a member until 1971. In his professional career, he was used 1,288 times and brought it to a career batting average of .274, including four seasons with over .300. He hit 94 home runs and 419 RBIs and scored 533 runs . The dual careers as musician and athlete paid tribute to each other. In a 1985 interview, Maye was convinced that he could have been more successful in both music and sports if he had focused more on one career. Due to his sporting obligations, he always had to put the studio recordings in the off-season from October to February and was only able to sell his songs on tour in the following year, which was detrimental to a meaningful promotion and boosting the chart.

Later recordings

In the mid-1960s, Maye was able to be seen in the studio more often. Huey Meaux produced some pages for Jamie Records in Muscle Shoals . A duet with Barbara Lynn appeared in February 1965. He then preferred to record with Meaux in Houston , who brought out the songs on his own labels Pic 1 Records , Tower Records , Jetstream Records and Peacemaker Records . The single on the latter label - Fools Rush In with Jes 'Lookin' - was also licensed to Chess Records . After his career as a professional athlete, Arthur worked at Amtrak , but he was proud of his last single Moonlight for Antrell Records from 1985. In the 1990s he enjoyed going to the concerts of the Doo-Wop Society in Los Angeles, where he met his friends and Met fans and where he sang his old hits. He died of liver cancer in 2002, leaving behind a wife and three daughters.

Discography

  • 1954 - The Fine One / Please Baby Please , Flair 1026 (as The "5" Hearts)
  • 1954 Set My Heart Free / I Wanna Love , Modern 944 (as Arthur Lee Maye & The Crowns)
  • 1955 - Truly / Oochie Pachie , RPM 424 (as Arthur Lee Maye & The Crowns)
  • 1955 - Please Tell Me / Oh Oh, Get out of the Car , Flair 1064 (in support of Richard Berry with the Crowns)
  • 1955 Sweet Thing / Rock Bottom , Flair 1066 (as The Rams)
  • 1955 - Love Me Always / Loop De Loop De Loop , RPM 429
  • 1955 Please Don't Leave Me / Do the Bop , RPM 438 (as Arthur Lee Maye & The Crowns)
  • 1956 - Gloria / Oo-Rooba-Lee , Specialty 573 (as Arthur Lee Maye & The Crowns)
  • 1956 - This Is The Night for Love / Honey Honey , Dig 124
  • 1956 - Whispering Wind / A Fool's Prayer , Dig 133
  • 1957 - Hey Pretty Girl / Cause You're Mine Alone , Flip 330
  • 1958 Will You Be Mine / Honey Honey , Cash 1063 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1958 - All I Want Is Someone to Love / Pounding , Cash 1065
  • 1961 - Will You Be Mine / Honey Honey , Imperial 5790 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1963 - Halfway (Out of Love with You) / I Can't Please You , Lenox 5566
  • 1964 - Love Me Always / Loop De Loop De Loop , Kent 406
  • 1964 Who Made You What You Are / Loving Fool , Jamie 1272
  • 1964 How's The World Treating You / Loving Fool , Jamie 1276
  • 1964 - Only a Dream / The Breaks of Life , Jamie 1184
  • 1964 - Who Made You What You Are / Even a Nobody , Jamie 1287
  • 1964 - Have Love Will Travel / Loving Fool , Jetstream 735
  • 1964 - Have Love Will Travel / unknown instrumental, Guyden 2101 (as The Off-Beats)
  • 1965 Careless Hands / (Don't Pretend) Just Lay It on the Line , Jamie 1295 (as Barbara Lynn & Lee Maye)
  • 1965 - Today Today / Touch Me on My Shoulder , Pic 1 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1965 - Total Disaster / What's Happening , Pic 1 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1965 - Stop the World / At the Party , Pic 1
  • 1966 When My Heart Runs No More / At the Party , Tower 243 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1967 - Fools Rush in / Jes 'Lookin' , Pacemaker 252
  • 1967 - Fools Rush in / Jes 'Lookin' , Chess 2000 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1968 - If You Leave Me / The Greatest Love I've Ever Known , ABC-Paramount 11028 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1969 - He'll Have to Go / Jes 'Lookin' , Buddah 141 (as Lee Maye)
  • 1985 - Moonlight / I'm Happy and in Love , Antrell 102 (as Lee Maye)

literature

  • Jay Warner: The Billboard Book Of American Singing Groups. A History 1940–1990. Billboard Books, New York City NY 1992, ISBN 0-8230-8264-4 , pp. 248-250.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Steve Propes, Galen Gart: LA R&B Vocal Groups 1945–1965 . 1st edition. Nickel Publications, Milford 2001, ISBN 0-936433-18-3 , Arthur Lee Maye, pp. 108-110 (American English).
  2. ↑ a b c d e Jim Dawson: Arthur Lee Maye. In: The Doo-Wop Society of Southern California. Retrieved March 14, 2010 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c d e Marv Goldberg: Arthur Lee Maye. In: The Doo-Wop Society of Southern California. See Group-Harmony.com , accessed March 14, 2010 .
personal data
SURNAME Maye, Arthur Lee
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maye, Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American R&B singer and baseball player
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Tuscaloosa , Alabama
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 2002
Place of death Riverside , California