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Both myself and Ace Records were deeply saddened to hear of the recent passing of Ron Kavana, one of the label's former recording artists and compiler of a series of heritage Irish CDs for the company's Globestyle imprint.

 I very much regret not having had any thoughts of interviewing the man during the twenty or so years I followed his music and got to know him to some extent, so the following piece as the heading suggests is written largely from memory with more than a little help from album notes and credits and retained scraps of conversations with the man himself. The likes of Wikipedia have been purposely avoided. It also helps that I was privileged to work at both Rock On and Ace Records.

It was with dismay that we at Ace learned yesterday of Young Jessie’s passing. A superb singer and songwriter in the 1950’s R&B vein, he was also a highly accomplished pianist who made a living as a solo jazz pianist/vocalist, as well as with his own bands, the Obie Jessie Combo and the Obie Jessie Trio, playing club dates from the 1960s until recently.

It was the mid-fifties, probably 1956, I was listening to AFN [the American Forces Network] coming in over static-laden airwaves from Stuttgart in West Germany at about 9.30 one weeknight. Suddenly my ears sprang to attention as a wild and frantic sound came screaming from the tiny speakers of our ancient wireless receiver. It was Little Richard and ‘Tutti Frutti’ and I’d never heard ANYTHING even vaguely like it before. It was the most exciting record I’d ever heard and still is.

It changed my life!

I went to the record department of our local electrical store the very next day. Even though we didn’t have a record player in our house, I needed to own THAT record!

At long last! John Broven, a consultant with Ace Records between 1991 and 2006 with many of his CD compilations still in catalogue, has updated and revised his history of New Orleans R&B, originally titled Walking to New Orleans and now known as Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans. He discussed the major changes in the introduction to the new edition, published by Pelican Publishing Co. of Gretna, Louisiana:

“Lord Luther” McDaniels, lead singer of vocal group the 4 Deuces, died from pneumonia on December 30^th 2017 at the age of 79. Alec Palao remembers one of the most colourful characters from northern California rock’n’roll’s golden age.