Donald Gardner (May 9, 1931 – September 4, 2018) was an American
rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...
singer, songwriter, and
drummer
A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...
. His records included the 1962
pop hit "
I Need Your Lovin'", with Dee Dee Ford.
Biography
Born in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, Gardner started out as a professional musician in 1947 while still at school. He first recorded as a singer on the
Gotham label in 1949.
[ "Don Gardner and Dee Dee Ford", ''Black Cat Rockabilly'']
Retrieved November 4, 2016 By 1953, he formed his own group, the Sonotones, in which he played drums and sang. The group toured on the "
Chitlin' Circuit
The Chitlin' Circuit was a collection of performance venues throughout the eastern, southern, and upper Midwest areas of the United States that provided commercial and cultural acceptance for African American musicians, comedians, and other enterta ...
",
and Gardner also recorded under his own name, for
De Luxe Records
De Luxe Records (later DeLuxe Records) was a record company and label formed in 1944 by brothers David Braun (1908–1985) and Julius "Jules" Braun (1911–2002), the sons of Hungarian Jewish immigrants, in Linden, New Jersey. The label ...
and the small Junior
label
A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed dir ...
.
[
Keyboardist ]Richard "Groove" Holmes
Richard Arnold "Groove" Holmes (May 2, 1931 – June 29, 1991) was an American jazz organist who performed in the hard bop and soul jazz genre. He is best known for his 1965 recording of "Misty".
Career
Holmes's first album, on Pacific Ja ...
left the Sonotones in early 1960, and was replaced by Dee Dee Ford ( "Dottie" Ford; ''married name'' Wrecia Holloway; ''née'' Wrecia Mae Ford; 1936–1972). She had lived in Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.[Smalls Paradise
Smalls Paradise (often called Small's Paradise and Smalls' Paradise, and not to be confused with Smalls Jazz Club), was a nightclub in Harlem, New York City. Located in the basement of 2294 Seventh Avenue at 134th Street, it opened in 1925 and ...]
club in Harlem, New York
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
, they were heard by blues performer Arthur Crudup
Arthur William "Big Boy" Crudup (August 24, 1905 – March 28, 1974) was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known, outside blues circles, for his songs "That's All Right" (1946), "My Baby Left Me" and "So Gla ...
, who recommended them to the Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
owner Bobby Robinson.[ He produced a song written by Gardner, ''I Need Your Loving'' (also known as ''Need Your Lovin), a "]gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
-drenched"[ ]call-and-response
Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners. This form is also used in music, where it falls under the general category of ...
number in the mold of Ike
Ike or IKE may refer to:
People
* Ike (given name), a list of people with the name or nickname
* Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II and President of the United States Surname
...
& Tina Turner
Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer o ...
, and the song became their biggest hit
Hit means to strike someone or something.
Hit or HIT may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities
* Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super''
* Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...
, rising to number 4 on the ''Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
'' R&B chart
The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...
in 1962 and number 20 on the pop chart
A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include rec ...
. The song was later recorded by Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. ...
, Alexis Korner
Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner (19 April 1928 – 1 January 1984), known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major in ...
, Tom Jones, Jackie Wilson
Jack Leroy Wilson Jr. (June 9, 1934 – January 21, 1984) was an American singer and performer of the 1950s and 60s. He was a prominent figure in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. Nicknamed "Mr. Excitement", he was considered a mas ...
, and many others.
Gardner and Ford's previous record company, KC Records, then released an old recording, "Glory of Love
"Glory of Love" is a 1986 song performed by Peter Cetera, which he wrote and composed with his then-wife Diane Nini and David Foster. The song was recorded by Cetera shortly after he left the band Chicago to pursue a solo career. Featured in the ...
", which made number 75 on the pop chart, before Fire released the official follow-up, "Don't You Worry", which reached number 7 on the R&B chart and number 66 pop. After recording an LP for Fire, ''Need Your Lovin, Gardner and Ford left the label, and – following the death of Gardner's wife in an accident – toured Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
for a change of scene. They recorded a live album, ''Quintet in Sweden'', released by Sonet Records
Sonet Records was a jazz, pop and rock record label operating as an imprint of Universal Music Sweden. It was founded in Sweden in 1956.
Sonet Records was established by Sven Lindholm and Gunnar Bergström, who managed the label into the 1980s ...
in 1965 and described as having "a solid R&B base with jazzy overtones that is veering towards early soul", and also recorded several tracks with Freda Payne
Freda Charcilia Payne (born September 19, 1942Some sources give a birth year of 1945, but this appears to be an error as all sources agree that she is older than her sister Scherrie, born 1944.) is an American singer and actress. Payne is best ...
for her album ''Freda Payne in Stockholm''.
When they returned to the US, Gardner and Ford went their separate ways. Ford wrote the song " Let Me Down Easy", a hit for Bettye LaVette
Bettye LaVette (born Betty Jo Haskins, January 29, 1946) is an American soul singer-songwriter who made her first record at sixteen, but achieved only intermittent fame until 2005, when her album ''I've Got My Own Hell to Raise'' was released to ...
in 1965, but soon retired from the music industry.[ Gardner continued to perform and record throughout the 1960s and 1970s, releasing a string of singles on various labels including ]Jubilee
A jubilee is a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term is often now used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of a monarch after a milestone number of y ...
, Verve
Verve may refer to:
Music
* The Verve, an English rock band
* ''The Verve E.P.'', a 1992 EP by The Verve
* ''Verve'' (R. Stevie Moore album)
* Verve Records, an American jazz record label
Businesses
* Verve Coffee Roasters, an American coffee ho ...
, and Tru-Glo-Town. In the early 1970s, he recorded with Jeanette "Baby" Washington, and their recording on the Master 5 label of "Forever", a minor hit in 1963 for the Marvelettes
The Marvelettes were an American girl group that achieved popularity in the early to mid-1960s. They consisted of schoolmates Gladys Horton, Katherine Anderson, Georgeanna Tillman, Juanita Cowart (now Cowart Motley), and Georgia Dobbins, who wa ...
, reached number 30 on the R&B chart in 1973.
Death
Gardner continued to work as a jazz musician, and had been part of the management of the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
since 1985, serving as executive director. Lovett Hines, the current Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts, was at the hospital when Gardner died, playing the artist's music. "And I just held the telephone to his ear on YouTube," Hines said. "And you could see his reaction with his eyes moving and moving his hand. So he responded to the music, and I'm glad that was the last thing he heard." Gardner died on September 4, 2018 at age 87.
Discography
Albums
* ''The Don Gardner Trio featuring Jimmy Smith and Bill Davis'' (recorded 1955, issued 1963)
* ''Need Your Lovin' '' (Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford, 1962)
* ''The Don Gardner and Dee Dee Ford Quintet in Sweden'' (1965)
* ''The Exciting Jimmy Smith with the Don Gardner Trio'' (1969)
* ''Lay a Little Lovin' on Me'' (Baby Washington & Don Gardner, 1973)
* ''Very Best of Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford'' (1999)
as guest artist
* Patrick Stanfield Jones - ''A Heart and an Open Road'' (2010)
Chart singles
References
Notes
References
External links
Don Gardner discography
via soulfulkindamusic.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardner, Don
1931 births
2018 deaths
American rhythm and blues singers
Jubilee Records artists
Fire Records artists
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singers from Pennsylvania
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American male musicians