THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,470) Little Milton — “Can’t Hold Back the Tears”
Legendary bluesman “turns his talent to Soul” (Stuart Ross, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzwJPrAzouA) with this B-side to his #1 R&B hit “We’re Gonna Make It”, giving us a “[c]racking mid tempo dancer” (Ross again), an “uptempo, blues-soul hybrid[] . . . benefiting from [his] fine, sinewy guitar lines”. (humorem, https://ontherecord.co/2021/12/31/little-milton-were-gonna-make-it-white-hot-stamper/amp/) Listen and try to hold back your tears.
Little Milton was little in no way other than that his dad was Big Milton. Steve Huey gives us some early history:
[D]ie-hard blues fans know Little Milton as a superb all-around electric bluesman — a soulful singer, an evocative guitarist, an accomplished songwriter, and a skillful bandleader. . . . [with a ] signature style [that] combines soul, blues, and R&B, a mixture that helped make him one of the biggest-selling bluesmen of the ’60s . . . . As time progressed, his music grew more and more orchestrated, with strings and horns galore. He maintained a steadily active recording career all the way from his 1953 debut on Sam Phillip’s legendary Sun label . . . including notable stints at Chess (where he found his greatest commercial success), Stax, and Malaco. James Milton Campbell was born . . . in the small Delta town of Inverness, MS, and grew up in Greenville. . . . His father Big Milton, a farmer, was a local blues musician, and Milton also grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry radio program. At age 12, he began playing the guitar and saved up money from odd jobs to buy his own instrument from a mail-order catalog. By 15, he was performing for pay in local clubs and bars . . . . He made a substantial impression on other area musicians . . . and caught the attention of R&B great Ike Turner, who was doubling as a talent scout for . . . Phillips at Sun. . . . [and] introduced the still-teenaged Little Milton to Phillips, who signed him to a contract in 1953. With Turner’s band backing him, Milton’s Sun sides tried a little bit of everything . . . [but none] of them were hits, and [his] association with Sun was over by the end of 1954. He set about forming his own band . . . [and] pick[ed] up and mov[ed] to St. Louis in 1958. . . . [where he] befriended DJ Bob Lyons, who helped him record a demo in a bid to land a deal on Mercury. The label passed, and the two set up their own label, christened Bobbin. Little Milton’s Bobbin singles finally started to attract some more widespread attention, particularly “I’m a Lonely Man,” which sold 60,000 copies despite being the very first release on a small label. As head of A&R, Milton brought artists like Albert King and Fontella Bass into the Bobbin fold, and . . . the label soon struck a distribution arrangement with the legendary Chess Records. Milton himself switched over to the Chess subsidiary Checker in 1961, and it was there that he would settle on his trademark soul-inflected, B.B. King-influenced style. . . . Milton had his big breakthrough with 1965’s “We’re Gonna Make It,” which hit number one on the R&B charts thanks to its resonance with the civil rights movement. . . . [followed by] a successful string of R&B chart singles that occasionally reached the Top Ten . . . . Milton eventually left Checker in 1971 and signed with the Memphis-based soul label Stax . . . . [where he] began expanding his studio sound, adding bigger horn and string sections and spotlighting his soulful vocals more than traditional blues. Further hits followed . . . but generally not with the same magnitude of old.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/little-milton-mn0000300534#biography
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