Terry Callier
Encyclopedia
Terrence O. Callier, known as Terry Callier (born May 24, 1945, Chicago
, Illinois
) is an American
jazz
, soul
and folk
guitarist
and singer-songwriter
.
, Major Lance
and Jerry Butler
, and began singing in doo-wop
groups in his teens. In 1962 he took an audition at Chess Records
, where he recorded his debut single, "Look at Me Now". At the same time as attending college, he then began performing in folk clubs and coffee houses in Chicago, becoming strongly influenced by the music of John Coltrane
. He met Samuel Charters
of Prestige Records
in 1964, and the following year they recorded his debut album. Charters then took the tapes away with him into the Mexican
desert, and the album was eventually released in 1968 as The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. Two of Callier's songs, "Spin, Spin, Spin" and "It's About Time", were recorded by the psychedelic rock
band H. P. Lovecraft
in 1968, as part of their H. P. Lovecraft II
album. H. P. Lovecraft featured fellow Chicago folk club stalwart George Edwards
, who would go on to co-produce several tracks for Callier in 1969.
He continued to perform in Chicago, and in 1970 joined the Chicago Songwriters Workshop set up by Jerry Butler. He wrote material for Chess and its subsidiary Cadet
label, including The Dells
' 1972 hit "The Love We Had Stays on My Mind", as a result of which he won his own recording contract with Cadet as a singer-songwriter. Three critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful albums followed, produced by Charles Stepney
in a style which critics termed "jazz-folk" - Occasional Rain (1972), What Color Is Love (1973), and I Just Can't Help Myself (1974). He also toured with George Benson
, Gil Scott-Heron
and others. However, Callier was then dropped by Cadet, and the Songwriters Workshop closed in 1976. The following year, he signed a new contract with Elektra Records
, releasing the albums Fire On Ice (1977) and Turn You to Love (1978). The opening track of the latter album, "Sign Of The Times", was used as the theme tune of radio DJ Frankie Crocker
and became Callier's only US chart success, reaching # 78 on the R&B chart in 1979 and prompting his appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival
.
Callier continued to perform and tour until 1983, when he gained custody of his daughter and retired from music to take classes in computer programming, landing a job at the University of Chicago
and returning to college during the evenings to pursue a degree in sociology. He re-emerged from obscurity in the late 1980s, when British DJs discovered his old recordings and began to play his songs in clubs. Acid Jazz Records
head Eddie Piller
reissued a little-known Callier recording from 1983, "I Don't Want to See Myself (Without You)", and brought him to play clubs in Britain. From 1991 he began to make regular trips to play gigs during his vacation time from work.
In the late 1990s Callier began his comeback to recorded music, contributing to Beth Orton
's Best Bit
EP in 1997 and releasing the album Timepeace in 1998, which won the United Nations
' Time For Peace award for outstanding artistic achievement contributing to world peace. His colleagues at the University of Chicago never learned of Callier's life as a musician, but after the award the news of his secret life became widely known and subsequently led to his firing.
As well as touring internationally, Callier continued his recording career, having currently released five albums since Timepeace, including Lifetime (1999), Alive (2001), Speak Your Peace (2002) and Lookin' Out (2004). May 2009 saw his album Hidden Conversations featuring Massive Attack
released on Mr Bongo records. In 2001, Callier performed "Satin Doll" for the Red Hot Organization
's compilation album Red Hot + Indigo
, a tribute to Duke Ellington
, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS
awareness and fighting the disease.
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
) 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...
, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
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 singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
.
Life and career
Callier was born in the North Side of Chicago, and raised in the Cabrini–Green housing area. He learned piano, was a childhood friend of Curtis MayfieldCurtis 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...
, Major Lance
Major Lance
Major Lance was an American R&B singer. After a number of US hits in the 1960s, including "The Monkey Time" and "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um", he became an iconic figure in Britain in the 1970s among followers of Northern soul.-Life:Major Lance was born in Winterville, Mississippi...
and Jerry Butler
Jerry Butler (singer)
Jerry Butler is an American soul singer and songwriter. He is also noted as being the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group, The Impressions, as well as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.Butler is also an American politician...
, and began singing in doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
groups in his teens. In 1962 he took an audition at Chess Records
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....
, where he recorded his debut single, "Look at Me Now". At the same time as attending college, he then began performing in folk clubs and coffee houses in Chicago, becoming strongly influenced by the music of John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
. He met Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters, born Samuel Barclay Charters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1929 , is an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet...
of Prestige Records
Prestige Records
Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
in 1964, and the following year they recorded his debut album. Charters then took the tapes away with him into the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
desert, and the album was eventually released in 1968 as The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. Two of Callier's songs, "Spin, Spin, Spin" and "It's About Time", were recorded by the psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
band H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft (band)
H. P. Lovecraft was an American psychedelic rock band, formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1967 and named after horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Much of the band's music was possessed of a haunting, eerie ambience, and consisted of material that was inspired by the macabre writings of the author whose...
in 1968, as part of their H. P. Lovecraft II
H. P. Lovecraft II
H. P. Lovecraft II is the second album by the American psychedelic rock band H. P. Lovecraft and was released in September 1968 on Philips Records. As with their debut LP, the album again saw the band blending psychedelic and folk rock influences, albeit with a greater emphasis on psychedelia than...
album. H. P. Lovecraft featured fellow Chicago folk club stalwart George Edwards
Ethan Kenning
Charles Ethan Kenning is an American singer, songwriter and musician, who performed as George Edwards when he led 1960s acid-rock band, H. P. Lovecraft...
, who would go on to co-produce several tracks for Callier in 1969.
He continued to perform in Chicago, and in 1970 joined the Chicago Songwriters Workshop set up by Jerry Butler. He wrote material for Chess and its subsidiary 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, including 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...
' 1972 hit "The Love We Had Stays on My Mind", as a result of which he won his own recording contract with Cadet as a singer-songwriter. Three critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful albums followed, produced by Charles Stepney
Charles Stepney
Charles Stepney was a producer, arranger, songwriter and musician famous for his Orchestral Psychedelic soul sound with Chicago's Cadet/Chess records in the 1960s/1970s and afterwards with Earth, Wind & Fire....
in a style which critics termed "jazz-folk" - Occasional Rain (1972), What Color Is Love (1973), and I Just Can't Help Myself (1974). He also toured 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....
, Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron
Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s...
and others. However, Callier was then dropped by Cadet, and the Songwriters Workshop closed in 1976. The following year, he signed a new contract with Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
, releasing the albums Fire On Ice (1977) and Turn You to Love (1978). The opening track of the latter album, "Sign Of The Times", was used as the theme tune of radio DJ Frankie Crocker
Frankie Crocker
Frankie "Hollywood" Crocker was a famous New York radio DJ...
and became Callier's only US chart success, reaching # 78 on the R&B chart in 1979 and prompting his appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva...
.
Callier continued to perform and tour until 1983, when he gained custody of his daughter and retired from music to take classes in computer programming, landing a job at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and returning to college during the evenings to pursue a degree in sociology. He re-emerged from obscurity in the late 1980s, when British DJs discovered his old recordings and began to play his songs in clubs. Acid Jazz Records
Acid Jazz Records
Acid Jazz is a record label based in east London. It takes its name from acid jazz, a genre of jazz music. Alternative version states that the genre itself was named after the record label...
head Eddie Piller
Eddie Piller
Eddie Piller is an English DJ and record label entrepreneur.Starting his career in the 1980s as a part of the English mod revival, Piller launched the underground fanzine Extraordinary Sensations and operated as a DJ and concert promoter. In 1985, he started the Countdown Records label, through...
reissued a little-known Callier recording from 1983, "I Don't Want to See Myself (Without You)", and brought him to play clubs in Britain. From 1991 he began to make regular trips to play gigs during his vacation time from work.
In the late 1990s Callier began his comeback to recorded music, contributing to Beth Orton
Beth Orton
Beth Orton is a BRIT Award–winning English singer-songwriter, known for her 'folktronica' sound, which mixes elements of folk and electronica. She was initially recognised for her collaborations with William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers in the mid 1990s. However, these were not Orton's first...
's Best Bit
Best Bit
Best Bit was released by Beth Orton, prior to her 1999 release Central Reservation. It contains two songs performed with Terry Callier, which are covers of Fred Neil's "Dolphins", and Callier's own "Lean on me". The title track appears in an alternative version on Orton's own single, "She Cries...
EP in 1997 and releasing the album Timepeace in 1998, which won the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
' Time For Peace award for outstanding artistic achievement contributing to world peace. His colleagues at the University of Chicago never learned of Callier's life as a musician, but after the award the news of his secret life became widely known and subsequently led to his firing.
As well as touring internationally, Callier continued his recording career, having currently released five albums since Timepeace, including Lifetime (1999), Alive (2001), Speak Your Peace (2002) and Lookin' Out (2004). May 2009 saw his album Hidden Conversations featuring Massive Attack
Massive Attack
Massive Attack are an English DJ and trip hop duo from Bristol, England consisting of Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. Working with co-producers, as well as various session musicians and guest vocalists, they make records and tour live. The duo are considered to be of the trip...
released on Mr Bongo records. In 2001, Callier performed "Satin Doll" for the Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
's compilation album Red Hot + Indigo
Red Hot + Indigo
Red Hot + Indigo is the 13th entry from the Red Hot AIDS benefit series of compilation albums produced by Paul Heck. It marks the tenth anniversary of the Red Hot Organization , an international organization which uses mass media as a fundraising tool for its efforts at increasing public AIDS...
, a tribute to Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
awareness and fighting the disease.
Studio albums
- The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier (1964)
- Occasional Rain (1972)
- What Color Is Love (1973)
- I Just Can't Help Myself (1974)
- Fire On Ice (1977)
- Turn You To Love (1978)
- TC in DC (recorded live in Washington D.C. 1982) (1996)
- Timepeace (1998) #92 UK
- Lifetime (1999) #96 UK
- Live at Mother Blues (1964) (2000)
- Alive With Terry Callier (2001)
- Speak Your Peace (2002) #156 UK
- Total Recall (remixes) (2003)
- Lookin' Out (2004)
- Welcome Home (Live) (2008)
- Hidden Conversations (2009)
Compilations
- The Best Of Terry Callier on Cadet (1991)
- Essential - The Very Best Of Terry Callier (1998) #193 UK
- First Light (1998)
- As We Travel (Harmless Records Compilation) (2002)
- Life Lessons (40 Years and Running, Double CD) (2006)
- VA - "Late Night Tales" mixed by The Cinematic Orchestra (2010)
DVD/video
- Terry Callier - Live in Berlin (Universal Music 2005) Prod.: Modzilla Films/Beatrice Tillmann
Appearances
- Vocals on The Juju Orchestra's - What Is Hip (2007)
- Vocals on Massive AttackMassive AttackMassive Attack are an English DJ and trip hop duo from Bristol, England consisting of Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. Working with co-producers, as well as various session musicians and guest vocalists, they make records and tour live. The duo are considered to be of the trip...
's "Live With Me" (2006) - Vocals on Hardkandy's "Advice" (2006)
- Vocals on NujabesNujabeswas a Japanese hip hop producer and DJ who recorded under the name , the reverse spelling of his name in Japanese order. Nujabes was also owner of the Shibuya record stores, T Records and Guinness Records and founder of the independent label Hydeout Productions....
's "Modal Soul" (2005) - Vocals on Jean-Jacques MilteauJean-Jacques MilteauJean-Jacques Milteau is a French blues harmonica player, singer, and songwriter.- Career :Milteau became interested in the harmonica when he first heard folk and rock music in the 1960s...
's "Blue 3rd" (2003) - Vocals on Cirque du SoleilCirque du SoleilCirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...
's "Varekai" (2002) - Vocals on 4 Hero4 Hero4hero are an electronic music band from Dollis Hill, northwest London, comprising producers Mark "Marc Mac" Clair & Dennis "Dego" McFarlane. While the band is often cited as "4 Hero" or "4-Hero", the name is presented as "4hero" on their own albums and websites.4hero are known as early pioneers of...
's "The Day of the Greys" (2001) - Vocals on KoopKoop (band)Koop is an electronic jazz duo from Sweden, consisting of Magnus Zingmark and Oscar Simonsson.Koop won a Swedish Grammy Award in 2003 for the album "Waltz for Koop", and received a Gold certification for sales of their most recent album, Koop Islands...
's "In A Heartbeat" (2001) - Vocals on Beth OrtonBeth OrtonBeth Orton is a BRIT Award–winning English singer-songwriter, known for her 'folktronica' sound, which mixes elements of folk and electronica. She was initially recognised for her collaborations with William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers in the mid 1990s. However, these were not Orton's first...
's Central Reservation (1999) - Vocals on Kyoto Jazz MassiveKyoto Jazz MassiveKyoto Jazz Massive is a musical project specialising in broken beat and electronic styles, consisting of the two brothers Okino Shuya and Okino Yoshihiro. The group has also included Hajime Yoshizawa, the pianist producer, on a number of works and albums...
's "Deep in Your Mind" (2002) - Vocals on Grand Tourism's "Les Courants d'Air" (2001)
External links
- Official site
- Terry Callier on MySpace
- Mr Bongo label website
- Hodgkinson, Will. Open Secret. Guardian Unlimited. October 15, 2004. Retrieved April 5, 2006
- Ruffin, Mark. Terry Callier, Reluctant Musician. JazzUSA 'Zine. Retrieved April 5, 2006.
- [ Entry] at Allmusic