Obituary: Jimmy Witherspoon

James (Jimmy) Witherspoon, blues singer: born Gurdon, Arkansas 8 August 1923; died Los Angeles 18 September 1997.

The man who invented the word "lugubrious" must have had Jimmy Witherspoon at the forefront of his mind. Spoon's blues were classic, macho, tragic and vivid.

If fish can love under water,

And worms can love underground,

If rats can love in a garbage can,

Woman, you'd better not turn me

down . . .

When the points are added up Witherspoon stands out as having been the ultimate amongst the troubadours of sexual disaster. He ranked with Joe Turner and Joe Williams as the most powerful of the city blues singers, and his instinct for the music gained him an enormous following throughout the world. He was particularly popular in Britain, coming there first in the early Sixties and returning until his final job last year at the Jazz Cafe in London.

Witherspoon began singing as a soloist in the family church when he was five years old. He left his school in Arkansas in 1939 when he was 16, forged a rail pass (his father had been a brakeman on the Missouri Pacific Railroad), and made his way to Hollywood, where he hoped to begin a career as a singer. In the great tradition of such journeys, he wound up as a dish-washer at the Owl Drugstore. The young boy sang whenever the opportunity presented itself, and sat in with Art Tatum, Slam Stewart and T-Bone Walker.

Witherspoon joined the Merchant Marine in 1941 and, when his ship docked for repairs at Calcutta, sang for a time with band led there by the American pianist Teddy Weatherford. He returned to California at an apposite moment in 1944 when the legendary blues singer Walter Brown had just left the band led by another pianist, Jay McShann (with whom, incidentally, Charlie Parker had begun his career a short time earlier).

The two men got on well together, and Witherspoon built up his name with McShann, staying until 1948.

"I never forget the first theatre date I played. I had been looking forward to it for a year and a half. It was at the Regal Theatre in Chicago, and Dinah Washington and the Ravens were also on the bill. They went to the manager and said that there was too much singing, so they cut me out of the show. That hurt me worse than anything in my whole life. All I'd been doing was opening the show; and Dinah was the star."

McShann knocked the corners off Witherspoon and taught him about the raw side of music. Like many singers Witherspoon was restricted to singing in his favourite keys. Instrumentalists tend to look down on vocalists because the singers don't have to put in the years of learning and practice that a horn player needs to learn his craft. Witherspoon was aware of this when Art Tatum invited him to sing a number at a bar in Los Angeles where the pianist was playing.

"He started in B-flat, but after that he went into every key in the ladder, and I didn't know which key he was in. Jay had told me that he'd do this, so I paid no attention to Art and his chord structures, kept my mind on B-flat, and sang right through.

" `Spoon,' he said, hitting me on the shoulder and laughing. `Nobody in the world can do that.' "

Leaving McShann the singer settled in California, but he called McShann back when he recorded "Ain't Nobody's Business", a ponderous blues which immediately became a hit in the rhythm-and-blues field and was to stay in his repertoire for the rest of his life. (This was not unusual, for a Witherspoon programme remained the same night after night, year after year, with even the "spontaneous" announcements and cracks paraded at every performance.)

Witherspoon continued to have hit records and extracts from some of his most atmospheric concerts were issued on 78s with great success. But the tide of rock-and-roll enveloped him and business fell away, leaving him bankrupt in 1953.

His career was revived in 1958 when, having abandoned the rhythm-and- blues style of so many of his hits, he began recording albums with jazz musicians. A sensational appearance at the 1959 Monterey Jazz Festival when he sang with Earl Hines, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Woody Herman and Roy Eldridge gained him respect from the jazz specialists. Another session, recorded the same year at the Renaissance Club in Hollywood had him backed by Webster, Gerry Mulligan and Jimmy Rowles and confirmed the jazz qualities of his singing. His work appeared on an abundance of labels.

He toured Europe with Buck Clayton's band in 1961 and went to Japan with Count Basie in 1963. He returned to Europe to tour each year throughout the Sixties and returned to the "pop" fold to have his "You're Next" recording enter the Hot 100 Hits of 1965. He worked briefly as a radio disc jockey and as an actor in the film Black Godfather. For his work in the latter the Black American Cinema Society gave him the Billie Holiday Phoenix Award.

Witherspoon worked for Ernie Garside, the Manchester jazz impresario, and made several albums in England. When, in 1984, Witherspoon became ill in Manchester he was diagnosed as having cancer of the throat and received immediate and vital treatment at Christie's Hospital. After a long fight he was able to return to singing a year or so later, but his consequent lack of stamina meant that he could appear only in very short sets. His voice was deeper and less flexible than before and he adopted a more intimate manner of projecting it.

He returned some five years ago to the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, which he regarded as a "thank you" reappearance to Christie's.

Witherspoon could be a difficult man, subject as he was to mood swings and ego problems, but perhaps this simply placed him in the operatic, as well as the blues, tradition.