Phil Upchurch
Encyclopedia
Phil Upchurch is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 and bassist
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

.

Upchurch started his career working with The Kool Gents, The Dells
The Dells
The Dells are an R&B and crossover musical group. Their successful recordings spanned more than four decades. Formed in 1952 after attending high school together, the Dells' repertoire has included doo-wop, jazz, soul, disco and contemporary rhythm and blues...

, and The Spaniels
The Spaniels
The Spaniels were an American R&B doo-wop group, best known for the hit "Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite".They have been called the first successful Midwestern R&B group...

 before going on to work with Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...

, Otis Rush
Otis Rush
Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...

 and 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...

. He then returned to Chicago to play and record with Woody Herman
Woody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...

, Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

, Groove Holmes, B.B. King, and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

. In 1961, when billed as the Philip Upchurch Combo, his recording of "You Can't Sit Down" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...

. Returning from the Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 in 1967, he recorded with Richard Evans
Richard Evans
-Literary figures:*Richard J. Evans , English historian on the subject of Germany before and during World War II*Richard Paul Evans , American author of books with Christian themes; best known for 1995's The Christmas Box...

, John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

, Grover Washington, Jr.
Grover Washington, Jr.
Grover Washington, Jr. was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.He wrote some of his material and...

 and Cannonball Adderley. Upchurch was part of a group called The Soulful Strings during the 1960s, prior to working with Rotary Connection
Rotary Connection
Rotary Connection was an American psychedelic soul band, formed in Chicago in 1966. The highly experimental band was the idea of Marshall Chess, son of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess. Marshall was the director behind a start-up label, Cadet Concept Records, and wanted to focus on music outside...

 on Chess's Cadet
Cadet Records
Cadet Records was started as Argo Records in 1955 as the jazz subsidiary of Chess Records. Argo changed its name in 1965 to Cadet to avoid confusion with the similarly named label in the UK...

 label.

In the 1970s he worked with Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.-Biography:...

, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

 and led his own quartet with Tennyson Stephens. In the mid 1970s and 1980s, he performed with George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....

, Mose Allison
Mose Allison
Mose John Allison, Jr. is an American jazz blues pianist and singer.-Biography:...

, Gary Burton
Gary Burton
Gary Burton is an American jazz vibraphonist.A true original on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the usual two-mallets. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique are widely imitated...

, Lenny Breau
Lenny Breau
Leonard Harold "Lenny" Breau was a musician, guitar player, and music educator. He was known for blending many styles of music including: jazz, country, classical and flamenco guitar...

, Joe Williams
Joe Williams (jazz singer)
Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...

, Natalie Cole
Natalie Cole
Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...

, Carmen McRae
Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...

 and Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...

.

In the 1990s he worked with Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...

 and Jack McDuff
Jack McDuff
"Brother" Jack McDuff was an American jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who was most prominent during the hard bop and soul jazz era of the 1960s, often performing with an organ trio.-Career:...

.

His son is the drummer, Sean Rickman
Sean Rickman
Sean Rickman is an American drummer, vocalist, guitarist, bassist, songwriter, producer and recording artist from Washington, DC....

.

Discography

  • You Can't Sit Down
    You Can't Sit Down
    "You Can't Sit Down" is the name of a song performed by The Dovells and released as a single in 1963. The song reached number three on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. It is a vocal cover version of the 1961 Phil Upchurch Combo original instrumental....

     (Boyd 1961)
  • You Can't Sit Down, Part Two (United Artists 1961)
  • Twist the Big Hit Dances (United Artists 1961)
  • Feeling Blue (Milestone 1968)
  • Upchurch (Cadet Concept 1968)
  • The Way I Feel (Cadet Concept 1969)
  • Darkness, Darkness (Blue Thumb
    Blue Thumb Records
    Blue Thumb Records was an American record label founded in 1968 by Bob Krasnow, along with former A&M Records executives Tommy LiPuma and Don Graham. Krasnow had been in the record business for a number of years, working as a promotion man for King Records and also working for Buddah/Kama Sutra...

     1972)
  • Lovin' Feelin (Blue Thumb 1973)
  • Upchurch Tennyson (Kudu 1975)
  • Phil Upchurch (1978)
  • Revelation (Jam 1982)
  • Name of the Game (Jam 1983)
  • Companions (Paladin 1985)
  • L.A. Jazz Quintet (Pro Arte 1986)
  • All I Want (Ichiban 1991)
  • Love Is Strange (Go Jazz 1995)
  • Whatever Happened to the Blues? (Ridgetop/Bean 1997)
  • Rhapsody & Blues (Go Jazz 1999)
  • Tell the Truth! (Evidence 2001) produced by Carla Olson

External links

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