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James Dudley

It is more than a bit confusing trying to sort out the various soul and R & B singers who called themselves “Jimmy Dee” or variants thereof. But the artist I’m writing about here is James Dudley who cut more 45s as Jimmy Dee and James Dee than under his own name. Sorting out the order of his singles is also a difficult job.

He may well have come from Georgia as his early 45s have Georgia addresses on them. The first on Hear Me from Savannah is a very rare disc indeed but both sides have merit. The storming uptempo "I Found Out About You" has enough energy behind it to set any dance floor alight, while the deep top side No Need Pretending is a heartfelt plea. James is suitably anguished here, and much less obviously influenced by Sam Cooke.

Dudley’s Shurfine 45 is also pretty scarce, but again features two strong sides. The slow We’ll Meet Again is well structured and arranged with James using his falsetto range to good effect especially on the first 30 seconds or so. I like the middle rap, with its meandering lead guitar, and the horn charts very much.

His disc for Chess is his most famous one, and is well recognised as first rate deep release. Both sides are slow ballads which may well have been recorded in Georgia as well – they certainly don’t sound like Chicago records that’s for sure. What A Man Will Do is pretty much “When A Man Loves A Woman” with words altered to describe the feelings of a guy about to go off and serve in Vietnam. It’s mostly spoken but in the last 30 seconds Dudley cuts loose to electrifying effect. The flip Have Faith is  - as you might expect – a gospel based number, beautifully sung by “Peter & Leon” rather than Dudley – I must assume these guys were members of James’ band “The Mighty Dee Jays”.

It is my view that Dudley's New York discs come after this. He was now calling himself James Dee and his intial release for Enrica was a funky tribute to James Brown - who was not referred to as "Brother James" until the late 60s. Further the track includes some wah-wah guitar which must date the track to the second half of the 60s at the very earliest. His second for the label was rather more to my taste. The delicatley melodic "Jealous Over You" featured a really tough Dudley vocal - a nice counterpoint to the style of the arrangment. And the top side My Pride has another of his spoken intros and a classuc deep soul feel, aided by some fine background harmonies from the Primettes, and a bluesy guitarist and muted horns. I assume that the sadly lacklustre Sound -Rite 45 must have been later than these discs as it is recorded and issued in stereo.

More info on this fine artist would be appreciated.

 

Note ~ The Little Jimmy Dee on Infinity is almost certainly a different artist - the jury is still out on the guy on V-Tone from 1962.

Special thanks to my great friend Greg Burgess for some fine sleuthing and helpful comments.

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