His Kingpins were the only band that could make Booker T sweat
by Marshall Bowden
The first time I became aware of King Curtis I was listening to John Lennon’s Imagine album. The song “I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier Mama” came on and captivated me with its Spectorized take on Philadelpia soul, heavy on reverb. And there was a tenor saxophone in the background that was really digging in and I was motivated to look at the song credits, printed on the record jacket in a circle, and found the name of the saxophonist: King Curtis.
The two tracks featuring Curtis’ saxophone were among the earliest tracks from the Imagine sessions to be laid down by Lennon and his backing group. Recorded in February 1971, these tracks were more raw and simple than some of the other material written for Imagine, harkening back to Lennon’s previous solo release, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. “It’s So Hard” remained that way, featuring only Lennon, bassist Klaus Voorman, and drummer Jim Gordon. ‘I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier” added George Harrison on slide guitar, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and swapped Jim Keltner on drums. Also in the mix were Joey Molland and Tom Evans of Badfinger on acoustic guitars, and The Moody Blues’ Mike Pinder on tambourine.
King Curtis was brought in to play saxophone solos on the two tracks in July when Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Phil Spector were working on mixing and finishing the album. Lennon may have suggested Curtis, remembering The Beatles’ 1965 Shea Stadium concert, where Curtis and The Kingpins opened for the Fab Four.
Allan Steckler (A&R, Apple NY): John knew he wanted a sax player and it was his idea to use King Curtis. He asked me to get him. I found his agent and booked him. John played him the tracks and told him the kind of feel he wanted. He went into the studio and played his ass off. John loved it, as did Phil Spector and all of us. https://imaginejohnyoko.com/recording-the-imagine-album/
While these sessions are notable because they are John Lennon sessions for perhaps his best known album, they are far from memorable, routine even, in the lengthy career of King Curtis. Besides for the fact that these two songs pulled me into the King Curtis world they are perhaps most notable for being amongst the final recordings that Curtis would work on. Curtis was murdered on the street, stabbed to death in the crime infested world of New York City in 1971. Unfortunately, some of his most substantial and influential work was released in 1971, just weeks after his death.
Curtis Ousley was an extremely successful musician from the R&B era, who played in order to entertain an audience, or get them to dance, or give them something to nurse their broken spirits along with a drink at the end of a long day. The tradition of walking the bar, where a musician would walk the length of the bar playing their hottest licks to really get the audience hot and bothered, was well known to Curtis, as it was to the younger generation of jazz musicians, including John Coltrane. They had come to see that kind of performance as somewhat demeaning, believing that they should be seen as artists.
For Curtis, it was all about entertaining people, yet he commanded respect by virtue of his physical size, his outsize talent, his sense of humor, and his professionalism.
Ousley came from Fort Worth, making him one in a long line of Texas tenors. He got his first gig with Lionel Hampton’s band, where he was able to learn to write and arrange as well as playing. At age eighteen he moved to New York City where he became a regular session musician on call to labels like Atco, Prestige, and Capitol. Playing jazz with a laid back, soulful tone, he was inspired by Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet, and Earl Bostic.
There’s recorded evidence of Ousley’s jazz chops, one of the best available being Fantasy’s 2012 reissue titled Soul Meeting. It combines two complete King Curtis releases, The New Scene of King Curtis and Soul Meeting. Playing with a combo of Nat Adderley, Wynton Kelly and alternating rhythm sections of Paul Chambers/Sam Jones and Oliver Jackson/Belton Evans, the tenor saxophonist plays a selection of blues based post bop standards and Curtis originals. In the words of Scott Yanow, ‘this set serves as proof that King Curtis could have been a viable jazz player.’ (https://play.qobuz.com/album/0002521854332)
He made the move towards playing rhythm and blues in part because it was a more lucrative career choice, but he also loved the music. In 1958 he became widely known for his unique saxophone work on The Coasters hit “Yakety Yak.” The sound that Curtis unleashed earned him some fame and influenced the sound of R&B saxophone, spawning the Boots Randolph rip off “Yakety Sax” that further exposed the King Curtis sound.
Ousley developed a strong relationship with The Coasters, becoming their go to sax man and contributing to arrangements as well on a string of hits that included “Charlie Brown,” “Along Came Jones,” “Shoppin’ For Clothes,” and more. He assembles a studio band, one that is the equal of any, including The Wrecking Crew, The Funk Brothers, Alan Tousaint’s SeaSaint Studio crew, The Meters. That group, The Kingpins, included Cornell Dupree, Jerry Jemmott, and Bernard Purdie.
By the mid sixties Curtis was at Atlantic Records, working with Jerry Wexler and producing successful instrumental albums that combined R&B songs and originals with well chosen adaptations of pop and rock songs of the day. Curtis, leading The Kingpins, is responsible for arrangements and plays tenor, alto, and soprano sax beautifully. His soprano work, evident on tracks like “Spanish Harlem,” “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and many others, is often overlooked in favor of his image as an R&B tenor man.
With his song selection Curtis paved the way for pop instrumetalists to record more sophisticated records combining popular music with well constructed original tunes in the manner of CTI Records, George Benson’s Warner Brothers albums, and soul jazz groups like The Crusaders. Saxophonists like Grover Washington, Jr. and Gerald Early patterned their releases after this successful period of King Curtis’ career as well. In her Rock & Roll Encylopedia Lilian Roxon called Curtis and the Kingpins “one of the best and most imitated soul bands around.”
Albums like That Lovin’ Feeling, King Size Soul, Sweet Soul, Instant Groove, and Get Ready gave Curtis a strong catalog of recognizable popular songs that were instant crowd pleasers regardless of the audience. He was reaching the audience, entertaining them, giving them some break from their lives and the events of the day, but he no longer had to walk the bar.
Curtis was popular enough by 1971 that Bill Graham scheduled three nights in March at Fillmore West with Aretha Franklin headlining and King Curtis and the Kingpins, now with Billy Preston on organ, supported by the Memphis Horns, opening. Atlantic was to record Aretha’s performances for a live double album. The project would be a loss for the record label because they couldn’t recoup Aretha’s fee (reportedly $20,000) from ticket sales due to the size of the Fillmore West, so they decided to also record Curtis’ opening sets and release a live album by the saxophonist as well.
Jerry Wexler also sold Aretha on the idea of using The Kingpins as her backup band rather than her usual touring musicians. The cameraderie of the band, already tight from playing and recording together, their close knit community, helped put Aretha at ease and resulted in a remarkable three nights of performances which Wexler, Curtis, and Arif Marin edited into the marvelous Aretha Live at Fillmore West and the equally soulful King Curtis Live at Fillmore West. In 2004 Rhino Atlantic released Don’t Fight the Feeling: The Complete Aretha Franklin and King Curtis Live at Fillmore West, which collects the performances by both performers over all three nights. It’s a set that’s definitely worth the price of admission, as the versions can vary with performers in as loose and hot a mode as Curtis and Franklin were these nights.
It was the height of Curtis’ already impressive career. But a few weeks before the release of his Fillmore West record, the saxophonist was killed, knifed by a junkie in front of a building that he owned. Franklin and the members of the Kingpins reconvened to perform for Curtis’ funeral. Such jazz luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Ornette Coleman, and Herbie Mann were in attendance, paying their respects to the fallen tenor man.
Duane Allman, who had played on sessions with Curtis, took his death hard, talking about the saxophonist’s untimely death a few weeks afterward while on stage: “If y’all get a chance, listen to the album he made out at Fillmore West, man, it’s incredible. It’s unbelievable, the power, and emotional stature that man had.” The band plays “You Don’t Love Me,” working in the King Curtis hit “Soul Serenade.” It’s a beautiful tribute and a reminder of the fragility of our lives, especially considering that Allman himself would die a mere two months later.
King Curtis may be gone, but we have the records, and they bring us to his story as long as we have ears to hear. His influence, his ability to entertain, his powerful voice, are present whenever someone hears “Yakety Sax” or “Soul Serenade” or “I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier Mama” for the first time and wonders who is playing that saxophone part.