Music
Press
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Discography
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
JIMMY TIG AND THE ROUNDERS:
Spar 770 Foolish Lover / Small Town Girl
Jora 1001 Small Town Girl / Come Home
BEN AND SPENCE
Bell 650 Woman Hang Your Head In Shame / Youre The One For Me (1966)
Atlantic 2460 Ooh Poo Pah Do / I Do (1967)
Atlantic 2509 Get It Over / I Cant Stop (1968)
JAMES & BOBBY PURIFY (Mark 2)
James Purify (born in Pensacola, Florida, May 12 1944)
Ben Moore (born in Atlanta, Georgia, August 7, 1941)
US Casablanca UK
12/1974 812 CBX520 Do Your Thing / Why Love
CAN119 Gonna Give Her All The Love Ive Got / You Talk Too Much
04/1975 827 You And Me Together Forever / A Man Cant Be A Man Without
A Woman
1975 830 Gonna Give Her All The Love I Got / Why Love
1975 7011 CAL2025 YOU & ME TOGETHER FOREVER (LP)
Includes all above single tracks.
A Papa Don & Tommy Cogbill Production.
Arrangers: Harrison Calloway, Shane Keister, Gary Paxton.
Recorded at Petes Place, Nashville, Tennessee.
US Mercury UK
1975 73767 6167.324 Im Your Puppet [A UK HIT]/ Lay Me Down Easy
1976 73806 6167.380 Morning Glory / Turning Back The Pages
1977 73884 I Aint Got To Love Nobody Else / Whats Better Than Love
73891 6167.500 Get Closer / Whats Better Than Love (as Ben Moore?)
1977 1134 9100.028 JAMES & BOBBY PURIFY / PURIFY BROS. (LP)
Includes all above single tracks.
One track, Everything Must Change, by Ben Moore only.
Get Closer by Ben Moore & Sherry Kramer.
Produced by Don Schroeder for Papa Don Productions.
Arranged by Bergen White.
Recorded at Creative Workshop, American Studio, Petes Place and
U.S. Recording Studio, all in Nashville, and Advision and Phonogram
Studio, London, UK.
BEN MOORE
US Mercury
1977 73919 Fires Burning / Slow Dancing
US Roadshow
1978 BXL1-3443 SLOW DANCIN (LP)
UK DJM
1979 DJS10882 Slippin Away / Love Music
1979 DJF20552 PURIFIED (LP) (reissue of US Roadshow LP)
Papa Don Productions by David Chapman and Bill Utley.
Arranger: Bergen White
Recorded at Sound Lab, American Studio, Woodland Studio and Creative
Workshop, all in Nashville, and three tracks at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.
US Priority
1982 JU37724 PURIFIED (LP) (gospel recordings, not same as above)
US Columbia
? P18687 PURIFIED (LP) (reissue of US Priority LP)
US AIR (Atlanta International Records)
1984 10084 ROLL, RIVER, ROLL (LP)
Photos
Bio
When connoisseurs of soul music hear the names Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, David Hood, Jimmie Johnson, Reggie Young, Wayne Jackson and Carson Whitsett, they perk up, because those names are all over the credits of some of their most treasured records. It isnt every day that these legends of Memphis and Muscle Shoals lore come together, but the entire magnificent seven eagerly converged on Penns Dandy Studio in Nashville recently when they heard the news: Bobby Purify had returned.
Of the great soul singers from R&Bs golden age in the 1960s and 70s, Purify is perhaps the most underappreciated. Although hes the contemporaryand equalof such southern soul legends as Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge and Solomon Burke, his stature has been obscured by a twisted career path and some basic confusion. The singer/guitarists real name is Ben Moore, and he worked with and behind the likes of Otis, James Carr, James Brown and the Tams before becoming half of Ben & Spence, who cut a number of sides for Atlantic in the 60s before hooking up with James Purify in 1971. Adding to the confusion is the fact that Moore was the third individual to take the name Bobby Purify, although hes answered to that moniker for close to 35 years. These and other circumstances conspired to deny him the fame he deserved, and hes had some hard times, especially in recent yearsbut one thing that couldnt be taken away from Bobby Purify was his gift. And that makes his unexpected and triumphant return a joyous event for all of those who care about rhythm & blues in the original, uncorrupted sense.
After glaucoma caused him to go blind in 1998, Purify was thrown into the depths of despair, frightened and alone. Then one day the phone rang, and Bobby found himself talking with Ray Charles. I had met him awhile ago out there on the road, he explains, and a friend of mine told him that I had went blind. So Ray called and told me, You dont need no eyes to have soul. If you got soul, keep on goin. Just use that thing in there as a crutch for bein blind, to keep your mind occupied. So I started goin back out on the road, blind, but without Ray, Id still be sittin back there in that room.
So he resumed eking out a living on the chitlin circuit, as before, still well under the radar, aside from a 2002 appearance in a made-for-PBS soul special featuring Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler, Lou Rawls and other fellow veterans. One night, back home in Pensacola, Florida, Bobby was invited to a party at another friends condo. He brought his guitar and started singing for the guests, one of whom was songwriter Hoy Bucky Lindsey. According to Purify, when Lindsey realized who was singing, He said, Man, I thought you were dead. I said, No, man, I went blind and I come off the circuit for a while. And he said, I gotta get somebody down here to listen to you, cause you sing better now than you sang 30 years ago!
That somebody was Lindseys writing partner, Dan Penn. Since co-writing the title song for Solomon Burkes critically lauded 2002 comeback album, Dont Give Up on Me, with Whitsett and Lindsey, the legendary writer/producer had been wanting to cut an album of pure soul, and the three longtime collaborators had continued writing with that idea in mind. There was just one problema dearth of pure soul singers.
So it was with some excitement that Lindsey called Penn in Nashville to tell him about his surprising discovery. I went on down there, Penn recalls, and when Bobby started singin and playin the guitar, right away, it stood all my hairs up on my arm. He was singin R&B like they did in the 60s, which is the only kind of R&B I know, and you just dont hear that no more. What they call R&B these days, that aint the real thing.
Blown away by what hed just heard, Penn told Purify, Im gonna get in touch with some people, see if I can get you a record deal. Sure enough, several months later, he called Bobby to tell him the news, I got some guys in from London and theyre comin down to hear you sing. The visitors were Proper Records founder Malcolm Mills and his business partner, Paul Riley. They come in and listen to me, says Bobby, and after I got through singin four or five songs, they said, Man, shoot, we gonna do a deal on you. And I thought they were just talkin, you know. But three or four weeks after, the contracts came in. They had already hired Dan to do a CD on me.
Now, Purify and Penn have a little bit of history together, dating back to the 60s, when Penn was engineering records at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he recorded and wrote songs for Ben & Spence, including the R&B hit Youre the One for Me. Penn, of course, went on to become a renowned songwriter and producer, working primarily out of Memphis American Studios accumulating a thick resume as producer on such hits as The Letter and Cry Like a Baby for the Box Tops, and as a co-writer on such cla
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