John Brim
Encyclopedia
John Brim was an American
Chicago blues
guitarist, songwriter and singer. He wrote and recorded the original "Ice Cream Man" that Van Halen
covered on their first album
and David Lee Roth
also covered on Diamond Dave
. "Ice Cream Man" was also covered by Martin Sexton
on his 2001 double album, Live Wide Open.
and Big Bill Broonzy
, before venturing first to Indianapolis in 1941 and Chicago four years later. He met his wife Grace in 1947; fortuitously, she was a capable drummer and harmonica player who played on several of Brim's records. She was also the vocalist on a 1950 single for the Detroit-based Fortune Records
, that signaled the beginning of Brim's discography.
Brim recorded for Random Records, J.O.B. Records
, Parrot Records
(the socially aware "Tough Times"), and Checker Records
("Rattlesnake," his answer to Big Mama Thornton
's "Hound Dog
" was pulled from the shelves by Chess for fear of a plagiarism lawsuit). All of his 1950s recordings for the Chess brothers were later included on the compilation LP/CD "Whose Muddy Shoes" (which also included the few recordings Elmore James
made for Chess
and Checker
; because they share this LP/CD, it has sometimes been assumed that they performed or recorded together, but this is not the case.) On some tracks Little Walter
played the harmonica, whilst Jimmy Reed
, Snooky Pryor, or James Dalton were also featured blowing the harp. Cut in 1953, the suggestive "Ice Cream Man" had to wait until 1969 to enjoy a very belated release. Brim's last Chess single, "I Would Hate to See You Go," was waxed in 1956 with a combo consisting of Little Walter, guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr., bassist Willie Dixon
, and drummer Fred Below
.
In between touring, Brim operated dry-cleaning businesses and a record store. When the royalties from Van Halen’s recording of "Ice Cream Man" came through, they enabled him to open John Brim’s House of the Blues Broadway Nite Club in Chicago.
Brim continued to perform occasionally around Chicago, and was a regularly featured performer on the Chicago Blues Festival
beginning in 1991, when he was backed by the local Chicago blues band The Ice Cream Men (drummer Steve Cushing, guitarists Dave Waldman and "Rockin'" Johnny Burgin, and harmonica player Scott Dirks; the band name was coincidental - they were not Brim's regular band, but had been using that name because the members had previously worked with Chicago bluesman Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers
, who worked as an ice cream man on Chicago's south side.)
He was tempted back into the recording studio again in 1989 to record four songs for the German Wolf label, and renewed interest in him finally led to his recording his first solo CD, Ice Cream Man, for Tone Cool Records in 1994. It received a W. C. Handy nomination as the best Traditional Blues Album of the Year.
Brim also appeared at the 1997 San Francisco Blues Festival
.
He recorded again in 2000, 50 years after his recording debut, and continued to tour, playing in Belgium in 2001. One of his final appearances was at the 2002 Chicago Blues Festival
.
Brim, who lived in Gary, Indiana
remained active on the Chicago blues scene until his death, on 1 October 2003 at the age of 81. He is survived by seven daughters and two sons. One son predeceased him.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Chicago blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
guitarist, songwriter and singer. He wrote and recorded the original "Ice Cream Man" that Van Halen
Van Halen
Van Halen is an American hard rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. The band has enjoyed success since the release of its debut album, Van Halen, . As of 2007 Van Halen has sold 80 million albums worldwide and has had the most #1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart...
covered on their first album
Van Halen (album)
Van Halen is the debut studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released in February 1978.- History :Recorded in 1977, Van Halen sold over 10 million copies in the US alone, becoming one of the most successful debuts by a rock band. Along with 1984, it gives Van Halen two original albums with...
and David Lee Roth
David Lee Roth
David Lee Roth is an American rock vocalist, songwriter, actor, author, and former radio personality. Roth was ranked nineteenth by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Singers of All Time....
also covered on Diamond Dave
Diamond Dave (album)
Diamond Dave is the sixth full-length studio album by David Lee Roth, vocalist of Van Halen. It was recorded at Henson Studios in Hollywood, California and released in 2003. It consists mostly of covers of classic rock and blues songs and has an overall laid back bluesy sound...
. "Ice Cream Man" was also covered by Martin Sexton
Martin Sexton
Martin Sexton is an American singer-songwriter and producer originally from Syracuse, New York.- Early life :Sexton grew up the tenth of twelve children in a working class Irish-American family. He acquired his first guitar, a Sears & Roebuck acoustic, at the age of 14 and later played in local...
on his 2001 double album, Live Wide Open.
Biography
Brim picked up his early guitar licks from the gramophone records of Tampa RedTampa Red
Tampa Red , born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an American Chicago blues musician....
and Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
, before venturing first to Indianapolis in 1941 and Chicago four years later. He met his wife Grace in 1947; fortuitously, she was a capable drummer and harmonica player who played on several of Brim's records. She was also the vocalist on a 1950 single for the Detroit-based Fortune Records
Fortune Records
Fortune Records was a family operated, independent record label located in Detroit, Michigan from 1946 to 1995. The label owners were Jack and Devora Brown, their son Sheldon Brown recorded for the label...
, that signaled the beginning of Brim's discography.
Brim recorded for Random Records, J.O.B. Records
J.O.B. Records
J.O.B. Records was a Chicago based record label, founded by businessman Joe Brown and bluesman St. Louis Jimmy Oden in 1949. It specialized in Southern Blues and city based R&B. In 1952, the label's recording of "Five Long Years" by Eddie Boyd became a hit and reached number one in the R&B chart....
, Parrot Records
Parrot Records (blues label)
Parrot Records was a Chicago-based label founded in 1952 by disc jockey Al Benson. It specialized in blues, jazz, doo-wop, and gospel. The company began operating in earnest in the summer of 1953, and lasted till the middle of 1956. Several Parrot recordings were later released by Chess...
(the socially aware "Tough Times"), and Checker Records
Checker Records
Checker Records is an inactive record label that was started in 1952 as a subsidiary to Chess Records in Chicago, Illinois. The label was founded by the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, who ran the label until they sold it to General Recorded Tape in 1969, shortly before Leonard's death.The label...
("Rattlesnake," his answer to Big Mama Thornton
Big Mama Thornton
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record the hit song "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song was #1 on the Billboard R&B charts for seven weeks in 1953. The B-side was "They Call Me Big Mama," and the single sold almost two million...
's "Hound Dog
Hound Dog (song)
"Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton in 1952. Other early versions illustrate the differences among blues, country, and rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The 1956 remake by Elvis Presley is the best-known...
" was pulled from the shelves by Chess for fear of a plagiarism lawsuit). All of his 1950s recordings for the Chess brothers were later included on the compilation LP/CD "Whose Muddy Shoes" (which also included the few recordings Elmore James
Elmore James
Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was known as "the King of the Slide Guitar" and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice.-Biography:James was born Elmore Brooks in the old Richland community in...
made for Chess
Chess Records
Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....
and Checker
Checker Records
Checker Records is an inactive record label that was started in 1952 as a subsidiary to Chess Records in Chicago, Illinois. The label was founded by the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, who ran the label until they sold it to General Recorded Tape in 1969, shortly before Leonard's death.The label...
; because they share this LP/CD, it has sometimes been assumed that they performed or recorded together, but this is not the case.) On some tracks Little Walter
Little Walter
Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs , was an American blues harmonica player, whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations...
played the harmonica, whilst Jimmy Reed
Jimmy Reed
Mathis James "Jimmy" Reed was an American blues musician and songwriter, notable for bringing his distinctive style of blues to mainstream audiences. Reed was a major player in the field of electric blues, as opposed to the more acoustic-based sound of many of his contemporaries...
, Snooky Pryor, or James Dalton were also featured blowing the harp. Cut in 1953, the suggestive "Ice Cream Man" had to wait until 1969 to enjoy a very belated release. Brim's last Chess single, "I Would Hate to See You Go," was waxed in 1956 with a combo consisting of Little Walter, guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr., bassist Willie Dixon
Willie Dixon
William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...
, and drummer Fred Below
Fred Below
Fred Below was a leading blues drummer, best known for his innovative work with Little Walter and Chess Records in the 1950s. Nobody laid more of the Chicago blues rhythmic foundations, particularly its archetypal backbeat, than Fred Below.-Career:He was born in Chicago, and started playing drums...
.
In between touring, Brim operated dry-cleaning businesses and a record store. When the royalties from Van Halen’s recording of "Ice Cream Man" came through, they enabled him to open John Brim’s House of the Blues Broadway Nite Club in Chicago.
Brim continued to perform occasionally around Chicago, and was a regularly featured performer on the Chicago Blues Festival
Chicago Blues Festival
The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, and always occurs in early June...
beginning in 1991, when he was backed by the local Chicago blues band The Ice Cream Men (drummer Steve Cushing, guitarists Dave Waldman and "Rockin'" Johnny Burgin, and harmonica player Scott Dirks; the band name was coincidental - they were not Brim's regular band, but had been using that name because the members had previously worked with Chicago bluesman Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers
Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers
Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers was an African American, Chicago blues guitarist and singer. He was once a member of Howlin' Wolf's backing band, and worked variously with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Bo Diddley, Ike Turner, J. T. Brown, Freddie King, Little Johnny Jones, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon...
, who worked as an ice cream man on Chicago's south side.)
He was tempted back into the recording studio again in 1989 to record four songs for the German Wolf label, and renewed interest in him finally led to his recording his first solo CD, Ice Cream Man, for Tone Cool Records in 1994. It received a W. C. Handy nomination as the best Traditional Blues Album of the Year.
Brim also appeared at the 1997 San Francisco Blues Festival
San Francisco Blues Festival
Debuting in 1973, the San Francisco Blues Festival is the longest running blues festival in the United States. Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the blues festival to educate the public about the history and evolution of the blues...
.
He recorded again in 2000, 50 years after his recording debut, and continued to tour, playing in Belgium in 2001. One of his final appearances was at the 2002 Chicago Blues Festival
Chicago Blues Festival
The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, and always occurs in early June...
.
Brim, who lived in Gary, Indiana
Gary, Indiana
Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city is in the southeastern portion of the Chicago metropolitan area and is 25 miles from downtown Chicago. The population is 80,294 at the 2010 census, making it the seventh-largest city in the state. It borders Lake Michigan and is known...
remained active on the Chicago blues scene until his death, on 1 October 2003 at the age of 81. He is survived by seven daughters and two sons. One son predeceased him.
See also
- List of Chicago blues musicians
- List of Electric blues musicians
- J.O.B. Records discographyJ.O.B. Records discography-Initial releases beginning in 1949:* 101 - Snooky Pryor - Raisin' Sand / Boogy Fool* 102 - Sunnyland Slim - Down Home Child / Sunnyland Special* 103 - The Fat Man - You Gotta Stop This Mess / Glad I Don't Worry No More...