Willie Cobbs — “You Don’t Love Me”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — January 18, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,084) Willie Cobbs — “You Don’t Love Me”

There have been some pretty celebrated covers of this R&B classic — Gary Walker & the Rain (#26 in the UK), the Allman Brothers live, Dawn Penn (#3 in the UK, #58 in the U.S. (#42 R&B)). But in my mind, none surpass the original by Willie Cobbs. “In 1960, Willie Cobbs cut a tune with a melody so catchy and memorable that it eventually sounded just like a cash register ring.” (Blue Heaven Studios, http://www.blueheavenstudios.com/BMC9Lineup.cfm). “Holy sh*t! This is fantastic!” (purple stuff, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsJMfYDUNCE. “Heard the covers none in my opinion touches Willie Cobbs!” (stripe9b, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY4n-2I9PcU). “Total acid blues. Dig that guitar tone and wailing’ vocals. Fantastic tune.” (matthewbernard4427, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY4n-2I9PcU)

Or was it the original by Bo Diddley?!

Secondhand Songs unravels the lineage:

Tracing the maze of recycling, reissuing and reassigning of Willie Cobb’s songs and masters is an endless task, but here’s what Willie said about “You Don’t Love Me”: he was living in Hughes, Arkansas, at the time, and went to Memphis to audition the song for Reuben Cherry at Home of the Blues. Cherry turned him down but Billy Lee Riley was there and asked Cobbs to record it, so Cobbs recorded it in Memphis for Riley and Stan Kesler’s Mojo label. . . . Mojo issued “You Don’t Love Me” and then sold it to Cherry, who put it out on HOTB after all, then it went to Vee-Jay and also appeared on various other labels. Cobbs claimed the song came to him as a vision and claimed no knowledge of the Bo Diddley song. But the case went to court several years ago and he said that 20% of the song was assigned to Bo Diddley. Willie has basically been living off the royalties from the many cover versions of the song and financing his own records in hopes of another hit. But he claims that he was never able to get royalties for Dawn Penn’s hit version (“No, No, No”).

https://secondhandsongs.com/work/58716/all

Blue Heaven Studios adds:

Born in Monroe, Arkansas in 1932, Cobbs was turned off by the prospect of rice farming and migrated to Chicago in 1947. He learned the harmonica, and soon began an association with noted piano player Eddie Boyd. The two of them returned to Arkansas together and took up gigs around the town of Hughes. It’s there that Cobbs wrote and began performing “You Don’t Love Me.” The local audiences went wild. ”Every time we played it, the people would come back around and say, ‘Play that again! Play that again!’,” Cobbs recalled. ”They’d say, ‘Y’all need to record that.'” And so Cobbs set off for Memphis in 1960 to do just that. He went to the city’s biggest record store, The Home of the Blues, and performed the song for the storeowner, who also had a record label. ”He said, ‘It’s a damn good song, but you can’t sing.’,” Cobbs said, laughing now at the memory. ”He said, ‘I can probably get Howlin’ Wolf to sing it, but you can’t sing it.” Cobbs walked out the door disappointed. But Billy Lee Riley and Stan Kessler, two local musicians and producers, happened to be in the store and had heard the performance. They followed Cobbs out of the store struck an agreement on the spot to record the song. Just a couple days later, Cobbs and Boyd, along with a saxophonist, guitarist and bassist cut the song for Riley’s Mojo label. It instantly became a smash, quickly rising to Number One in Memphis. Kessler and Riley sold the master to Reuben Cherry, the same Home of the Blues storeowner who originally rejected Cobbs. Cherry leased it to Vee-Jay out of Chicago. But at the same time, Riley took the tune to a group in Louisiana called the Megatons and cut an instrumental version titled “Shimmy Shimmy Walk, Pt. 1.” Riley credited himself as composer. ”Shimmy Shimmy Walk, Pt. 1” started to climb the charts on the Checker label, but Cobbs sued Riley. Vee-Jay, scared off by the lawsuit, ceased pushing “You Don’t Love Me.”

http://www.blueheavenstudios.com/BMC9Lineup.cfm

As to Willie Cobbs, Bill Dahl writes:

Cobbs decided the prospect of rice farming didn’t appeal to him enough to stick around his native Arkansas, so he migrated to Chicago in 1947. . . . honing his harp chops on Maxwell Street. But Cobbs’ recording career didn’t fully blossom until 1960, when . . . “You Don’t Love Me” …. made him something of a regional star . . . . [It] was eventually leased to Vee-Jay — no doubt warming Cobbs’ heart, since Vee-Jay boss Jimmy Bracken had once turned down Cobbs’ audition, explaining that he sounded too much like Vee-Jay breadwinner Jimmy Reed. Throughout the ’60s,’70s, and ’80s, Cobbs recorded a slew of obscure singles, often for his own labels . . . and operated nightclubs in Arkansas and Mississippi . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/willie-cobbs-mn0000962499#biography

Here is Bo Diddley (‘55):

Here are the Starlets (‘65):

Here are the Pretty Things (‘65):

Here are Gary Walker and the Rain (‘67):

Here is John Mayall (‘66):

Here is Dawn Penn (‘67):

Here are Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Steven Stills (‘68):

Here are the Allman Brothers (‘71):

Here is Dawn Penn (‘94):

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