Happy Birthday to Wilbert Harrison!! The man who put Kansas City on the Rock & Roll map.... Jan 5 1929 – Wilbert Harrison, American singer-songwriter (d. 1994).... Wilbert Harrison (January 5, 1929 – October 26, 1994) was an American rhythm and blues singer, pianist, guitarist and harmonica player. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Harrison had a Billboard #1 record in 1959 with the song Kansas City. The song was written in 1952 and was one of the first credited collaborations by the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Harrison recorded Kansas City for the Harlem based entrepreneur Bobby Robinson. In 2001, his recording of Kansas City was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and has also been named as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fames 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Harrison continued to perform and record but it would be another ten years before he again cracked the Billboard Top 40 when he released the self-penned Lets Work Together (Part 1) that went to #32 in early 1970 on the Billboard Hot 100. The 1970 hit version was released as a single on Sue Records (Sue 11) and was backed with Lets Work Together (Part 2). The song also was released as a 5 minute 19 second song on the Sue Records album SSLP-8801 Lets Work Together. The song was originally released by Harrison in 1962 as Lets Stick Together on Fury 1059 and Fury 1063. Lets Work Together would be later be a hit for Canned Heat and Bryan Ferry. Kansas City is a rhythm and blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952. First recorded by Little Willie Littlefield the same year, the song later became a #1 hit when it was recorded by Wilbert Harrison in 1959. Kansas City became one of Leiber and Stollers most recorded tunes, with more than three hundred versions, with several appearing in the R&B and pop record charts. Harrison died of a stroke in 1994, in a Spencer, North Carolina, nursing home at the age of 65. O:) https://youtube/watch?v=UonBS_mvW-E
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 19:05:16 +0000
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