Little Milton: Larger than life

# 'When you do it right, they remember you'

By Cori Bolger

Born: 1934: Little Milton is born near Inverness.

# 1952: He records his debut single, Beggin' My Baby, at Sun Records in Memphis with famed owner Sam Phillips.

# Mid-'50s: Moves to St. Louis and helps start Bobbin Records.

# 1958: He cuts his first hit, Lonely Man.

# 1965: He moves to Chess Checkers Label in Chicago and his single, We're Gonna Make It, hits No. 1 on Billboard magazine's R&B singles charts.

# 1969: He moves to Stax Records in Memphis.

# 1971: He begins stacking up a roster of mega hits, including That's What Love Will Make You Do.

# 1975: He joins TK/Glades Records in Miami and racks up another hit with Friend of Mine.

# 1983: He releases one album with MCA, Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number.

# 1984: He joins Malaco Records in Jackson.

# 2000: He garners a Grammy Award nomination for the album Welcome to Little Milton.

# 2005: He dies in a Memphis hospital.

Little Milton Campbell's ears knew no boundaries.

He was surrounded by blues music throughout his childhood in the tiny Delta town of Inverness but always listened to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio growing up.

Blues and country — Little Milton used it to mix a recipe all his own. "When you hear his records," said Roger Stolle, a blues promoter in Clarksdale, "you notice there's nobody else who did exactly what he did."

Little Milton, a member of the Blues Hall of Fame, died Thursday morning at Memphis' Delta Medical Center after complications from a stroke July 27. He was 70. Funeral arrangements are pending.

One of his last performances was at Jackson's Mississippi Coliseum with the Allman Brothers Band in May. He attended the Jackson Music Awards in July.

"Little Milton was one of the most prolific blues performers ever," said Stan Branson, general manager of ICBC Radio and WJMI 99.7 in Jackson. "Guys like him, B.B. King, Bobby 'Blue' Bland — they've set a standard that the new guys will find hard to live up to. Those guys elevated blues to a level where it was accepted by all people, black and white.

"Little Milton could write, play, perform. And he was a true professional."

Scott Baretta, former editor of Living Blues magazine, said Little Milton "gravitated toward a sophisticated style of blues."

The singer was scheduled to perform next week at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale as part of the blues documentary Native Sons.

"This would have been his first performance in our club," said Bill Luckett, co-owner of Ground Zero. "I was going to be introducing him, and he was going to be the finale."

Jesse Robinson, a Jackson bluesman and member of the Mississippi Blues Commission, played guitar with Little Milton for two-and-a-half years.

"Milton had a good knowledge of arrangements with big horns and big bands and stuff like that," Robinson said. "He always believed in a big band, an orchestra. He did standards too, not just blues. He loved the stuff Frank Sinatra was doing."

"He was a storyteller ... (and played) a kind of sweet blues," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson by cell phone from Atlanta. "That's what I liked."

Little Milton played local blues clubs in the Delta throughout his teens. In the early 1950s, a fellow Mississippian introduced him to Sun Records' Sam Phillips, who is known for helping develop Elvis Presley.

But things didn't mesh for Little Milton at Sun, so he moved to East St. Louis' Bobbin Records where in 1958 he had his first hit, I'm A Lonely Man, and he also became a working partner to the owner, Bob Lyons.

Chess Records of Chicago signed him to a deal that resulted in his first No. 1 R&B hit, We're Gonna Make It, in 1965. Other hits included Grits Ain't Groceries, Baby I Love You, If Walls Could Talk, Feel So Bad and Who's Cheating Who?

When owner Leonard Chess died in 1969 and the label ceased operations, Little Milton signed with Stax where he recorded more hits, including That's What Love Will Make You Do and Walking the Back Streets and Cryin' .

Stax went bankrupt in 1975, so Little Milton was again looking for a label. TK/Glades Records, where KC and the Sunshine Band was recording a string of hits, soon came calling. Little Milton had chart success with the Miami-based label with Friend of Mine and Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number.

But TK/Glades also folded, and Little Milton signed with Malaco Records in Jackson. Finally, he had found a long-term home. He recorded more than a dozen albums for the label and recorded blues classics such as Cheatin' Habit, The Blues Is Alright, I Was Trying Too Hard Not to Break Down, Comeback Kind of Love, Little Bluebird, Annie Mae's Cafe and Room 244.

His album, Welcome to Little Milton, was nominated for a Grammy in 2000.

Little Milton, the W.C. Handy Blues Entertainer of the Year in 1988, released his first album on the Telarc label in May, Think Of You, and was touring to promote his new work. He had shows booked through January 2006 when he was scheduled to play the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise that would have taken him to Jamaica, Grand Cayman Islands, Cozumel and Belize.

Little Milton lived in Memphis but also had a home in Las Vegas. He is survived by his wife, Patricia, and three children.

In a 2004 interview with The Associated Press, the performer said: "The people are the stars, not me. I am just one that is fortunate to have a little talent. When you do it right, they remember you and that is important to me."

Greg Preston, a close friend and Little Milton's producer, told AP: "Most guitar players, they think the more notes the better. Milton, B.B. (King) and Albert King — their style was you make every note count. Because one note can touch an amazing amount of people. It's not how many you play or how fast you play, it's how you play that one note. That was his style."

Little Milton had been in a coma for several days. Preston visited the singer over the weekend and played some of Little Milton's music in an attempt to bring him out of his comatose state.

"I hope he heard me," Preston said.

8/5/05

Source: Clarion-Ledger

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