
Soul vet RICKEY CALLOWAY is not that well known in the mainstream but to serious funkateers he’s a big name.
Rickey was born in Jacksonville, Florida on January 8, 1953, and he started his musical odyssey as a teen, imitating a certain James Brown in local nightclubs. He then started writing his own material and debuted with ‘Tell Me’ in 1970 on which he was supported by Florida funk band, Crack Mirrow. It meant very little.
By 1974, Calloway was in Miami but after recording with labels like Bel-Air and Comara again with little or no success he quit music. He made occasional forays back into the biz but remained on the side-lines of success for many years.
Fast forward forty or so years and, as often happens, copies of his ‘Tell Me’ were changing hands for big bucks to lovers of real and/or retro soul and funk; so, Rickey dusted down the master tapes and scored a deal with the Kay-Dee label who put the song out on a 12” and it became a real cult funk item
Our man then put a band together – His Tennessee (which now consists of members from DeRobert and The Half-Truths and The Gripsweats), and he went back on the road, pacting with Detroit label, Funk Night. And that’s the label for Rickey’s latest vinyl offering – a cover of James Brown’s mighty ‘There Was A Time . Odd that Rickey’s gone right back to where he started – with a JB cover, but he makes the song all his own. It’s tough, it’s tight, it’s for real and it’s out now. Hit me!!!