Tyrone Davis, Chicago Soul Singer RIP

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0502100323feb10,1,1335703.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=3&cset=true

Tyrone Davis
1938 - 2005

Suave, smooth singer who gave voice to Chicago soul

By Greg Kot, Tribune music critic
Chicago Tribune

Published February 10, 2005
Like many Southerners who came to postwar Chicago in the 1950s seeking a steady paycheck, the teenage Tyrone Davis did whatever it took to make his mark.

Davis, who died Wednesday at the age of 66, worked at a South Side factory by day to support his young family, but by night he was trolling West Side blues clubs. There, he insinuated himself into Freddy King's entourage and soon found himself the valet for the legendary guitarist on his cross-country tours.

A few years later, Davis attended a Bobby "Blue" Bland concert dressed to the nines and planted himself next to the stage.

The blues star offered him a microphone.

"Wanna sing, son?" Bland asked.

Davis did, and then got some life-changing advice from the hit-making singer. "Be you, don't be me," Bland told his new charge.

"The best thing that ever happened to me," Davis once told the Tribune.

"It is really hard to find yourself. Most people that come out today sound like somebody else."

Whether they know it or not, many of today's soul crooners take their cues from Davis, who forged one of the more distinctive personas in rhythm and blues during the last five decades.

He was a suave smoothie who sang about relationships with a mixture of wisdom and regret.

He not only helped define the sound of Chicago soul in the 1960s and '70s in the wake of Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler and Gene Chandler, he continued to record and tour until he suffered a stroke last September.

He was taken to Adventist Hinsdale Hospital and never regained consciousness, said his longtime manager and collaborator, Leo Graham.

Davis' hits, including "Turn Back the Hands of Time," "Can I Change My Mind" and "Turning Point," reflected a dark, nearly whispered perspective on relationships that endeared him to the black working-class community for decades.

By 1971, Davis was a star, riding a couple of top 10 hits.

"He was like Mr. Chicago," singer Willie Clayton once told the Tribune.

"It was a thrill to be around and see the fancy cars; you name it, he had it."

Val Kashimura, an R&B singer and executive at Davis' Mississippi-based label, Malaco Records, called Davis "one of the big dogs in our line of work."

"They used to call Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. the `Rat Pack,'" Kashimura said. "Well, I used to call Tyrone Davis, Bobby Bland, Johnny Taylor and Little Milton the `Four Pack,' because they were the godfathers of R&B and blues for a couple generations of artists."

Davis was born in Greenville, Miss. But by age 19, he was in Chicago and forged relationships with such contemporaries as Otis Clay, Mighty Joe Young and Otis Rush.

After taking Bland's career advice to heart, he began perfecting a unique style that bridged bluesy grit and soul smoothness and became known as "Tyrone the Wonder Boy."

His relaxed, intimate approach and confessional lyrics finally clicked on the 1968 single "Can I Change My Mind," a No. 5 pop hit, recorded for Carl Davis' Dakar label.

Clay once told the Tribune that the song was offered to him, but "in the midst of our talking in the way we normally do, I forgot it. Well, the rest of it is history. It was a million-seller. I forgot a million-seller. Tyrone never let me forget that."

Davis in the role of the penitent gentleman in a brightly colored tuxedo established a sound that distinguished him from more strident soul contemporaries such as Clay and Taylor.

"He was the ladies' man," said Graham, who also worked as Davis' producer, songwriter and guitarist.

"He tried to put messages in his songs, and he found a niche that no else had."

As popular taste changed, Davis adapted by recording songs such as "Get on Up (Disco)," but he never veered from his becalmed yet sensual perspective.

By the time he started recording for Malaco in the 1990s, he had become a respected elder statesman on the blues and R&B circuit.

"We used to call him `Daddy' because he was the wise one, someone who all the other artists on the label looked up to," Kashimura said.

His records continued to sell to black audiences, and he was regularly booked for weekend concerts until the stroke silenced him.

Davis is survived by his wife, Ann, and numerous children and grandchildren. Funeral services are pending.