Search - Camille Howard :: Rock Me Daddy 1

Smooth mix of boogie and blues from an unknown.

11/20/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Camille Howard's sultry singing and smokey piano playing is as comfortable as a silk robe, and goes down as smooth as cognac. Perfect music for the cocktail hour. Popular on the 'colored' music charts in the late 40s and early 50s, she was never able to cross-over; a huge loss. Read the liner notes for her interesting story."

A great and under-rated jazz singer and pianist...

06/26/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These mostly 40's seesions, are similar to Billie Holiday's nominal recordings in the 30's with Teddy Wilson, only Camille Howard accompanies herself at the piano, and her voice is harsher, then most singing piano players, more along the lines of Lil Armstrong then Blossom Dearie, or Jeri Southern. Howard's playing and singing also tends to be on the boogie-woogie/R&B side of jazz, rather then the more traditional jazz, yet her recordings aren't R&B, they are enjoyable and jazz oriented, and jazz listeners should find this artist and these recordings weather vocal or instrumental enjoyable."

50 Selections Counting Vol. 2 And Two Key Sides Missing

08/10/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Memphis Minnie, Hadda Brooks, and Camille Howard - three talented piano- pumping ladies who could also belt out good vocals and who more than held their own in the days when such music was primarily the domain of the male of the species.



Camille, born March 29, 1914 in Galveston, Texas was playing piano almost as soon as she could keep her balance on a stool, and while in her teens became a member of The Cotton Tavern Trio. Like so many musicians from that part of the U.S., she eventually moved to the West Coast to seek her fortune and it was there that she hooked up with drummer Roy Milton and trumpeter Hosea Sapp.



After cutting a few discs for the HampTone label as The Roy Milton Trio in 1945 the group secured a contract with Art Rupe's burgeoning Specialty Records and at the same time increased in size to seven. In the spring of 1946 their R. M. Blues [for Roy Milton] hit the # 2 spot on what then passed for the R&B charts and also reached # 20 on the Billboard pop charts for Rupe's Juke Box subsidiary.



By the time of their next hit that December, Milton's Boogie [# 4], they were billed as Roy Milton & His Solid Senders, and none among them was more solid than Camille Howard. Her thundering, two-fisted boogie-woogie approach to the keyboard was a feature on a string of hits, including late 1947's Thrill Me [# 5] on which she was also the featured vocalist.



By now the band had graduated to the main Specialty label, and from this point on Rupe, realizing what a talent he had within a well-established group, began releasing records which also featured her under the billing The Camille Howard Trio [which also included Milton]. It paid off in the late spring of 1948 when the pounding instrumental X-Temporaneous Boogie reached # 7. Even the flipside, a torch ballad derivation of Paul Gayten's hit True called You Don't Love Me made it to # 12. The A-side is on Volume 2, while the flip is at track 2 in this Volume.



On her next charter, which didn't come until September 1949, her vocal on Fiesta In Old Mexico [# 12] was billed simply to Camille Howard, but neither it nor the instrumental B-side, Miraculous Boogie, are in either of the two volumes, hence my deduction of two stars. I mean, why go to two volumes for someone with limited chart suceess and then leave off two significant sides?



Two full years would then pass before she achieved her next hit, and this time Money Blues (If You Ain't Got No Money, I Ain't Got No Use For You) was credited to Camille Howard & Her Boyfriends, reaching # 10 in October 1951 b/w Easy [tracks 19 and 18].



That would be it insofar as hits were concerned, although she continued to alternate between thumping boogies and torchy ballads for Specialty right on into 1953. A switch to the Federal and then Vee-Jay labels produced no hits either, and in 1956 she returned to Los Angeles where she abandoned boogie and blues in favour of religious music.



This and the other volume will give you some of the best boogie and sultry ballads you will ever hear. It's just too bad that room could not have been found for that one missing hit and its flipside. Or, better still, give us one 26-track CD with all six sides plus some of her other selections."