CT 510 Move Over / Right There When You Need It – Samson & Delilah
Side A: Move Over (2:34)
Side B: Right There When You Need It (2:37)
Sampson & Delilah
Issues: CTI CT 510 [45]
Master No.: CT 510 A/CT 510 B
Recorded: Probably October 1970, New York City
Released:
Sampson & Delilah was Anthony Mitchell was born in Memphis Tennessee, reared in the Chicago, IL, Buffalo, NY and his music career started in Buffalo. Delilah was
Beatrice (Bea) Myrick. They recorded together variously as Samson/Sampson and Delilah through to at least 1988. The closest to a hit they had was a 1973 Polydor “You Bring The Tears.”[1]https://www.discogs.com/release/25804651-Samson-Delilah-You-Bring-The-Tears-Give-It-To-You-Right-Now
Two known US Pressings, both the white promo and first release Green label pressing are on styrene and have the same runouts. Common with other bought in masters for this series, the promo contains two tracks, rather than being double-sided. The lacquer was cut at Sterling Sound at their W 57th St location in New York City and pressed at the Columbia plant in Pitman NJ. There is a second pressing of the green label, also Sterling and Pitman.
As with many other 45/single releases around this time, the Spanish pressing was issued in a picture sleeve.
Here is a youtube video of the B-side track, “Right There When You Need It“, which I prefer to the A-side. Both tracks will be on the upcoming Taylors Dozen-mix.
As with a number of releases in Taylors Dozen, this was a purchased master. Still trying to define what would later become Kudu Records, Creed turned to Jerry Ragavoy for this master, with both tracks written by Anthony Mitchell. Arnaldo Desouteiro’s Jazz Station blog had a very useful retrospective on Ragavoy from 2011 when Ragavoy died. What isn’t covered, is that Creed had previously produced a number of tracks either written by, or conducted by Ragavoy, including “Pata Pata” by Wes Montgomery, and Pat Thomas 1964 single “I Can’t Wait Until I See My Baby’s Face“, on which Ragavoy conducted. The track went onto be a classic, recorded by Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and others.
Anthony Mitchell, the writer, was in fact half of Sampson & Delilah, with Delilah who was Bea Myrick. They variously recorded a number of 45/singles either as Samson & Delilah or Sampson & Delilah (with a p). They had been discovered in Buffalo, NY a few years before by Clay McMurray, the Motown recording engineer, writer and producer. Mitchell had started out in the band, The Teen Kings, with Lonnie Smith.
I wasn’t able to find any real reference material for this release. I did find the following entry in the 89th Annual Edition of Billiboard magazines “Campus Attractions” dated March 27th, 1971 and on page-148. Highlighting is mine.
At the time of listing their personal manager was list as Duke Wade. This would almost certainly be Roy “Duke” Wade who was the one time personal manager of jazz, blues singer Ruth Brown, and Duke Wade was also a sometime fixer and valet for Ray Charles. Of course, around this time, Creed had just started courting Ray Charles saxophonist, Hank Crawford. As well as being one of the first black booking agents, Wade had also been the booking manager for Club Baron in Harlem and had worked with George Benson and Freddie Hubbard. By December of 1971, Duke Wade was listed as Stanley Turrentine’s agent.
Samson & Delilah have a number of tracks that they recorded for Sun Records and its subsidiary labels that are still soul compilation staples today “There’s A D.J. In Your Town / Time To Prove My Love To You” which has been sampled a number of times, including by DJ Shadow; they also recorded a popular cover of Ray Charles “Georgia On My Mind“.
While we don’t have a definitive reason for Creed releasing this Ragovoy produced slice of funk, it was almost certainly Wade who bought it to Taylor, and Taylor who called on Ragovoy to produce.
In 2012, as Anthony “Pops” Mitchell, produced a Christian, religious themed album “Lord Because of My Faith in You” and can be seen in a March 2020 video, which is an update of a 1967 track recorded by Samson & Delilah and the Boss City Six, “Will You Be Ready“. Great stuff.
More Information
Sampson & Delilah [via discogs][2]https://www.discogs.com/artist/88712-Samson-Delilah
Jerry Ragavoy Retorspective [via jazzstation]
Roy “Duke” Wade Honored [Part-1 / Part-2]
Tony “Pops” Mitchell – Will You be ready [via youtube]
Anthony “Pops” Mitchell – Lord Because of My Faith in You [via YouTube music]
CT 509 Van Lingle Mongo – Dave Frishberg << | Taylor’s Dozen | >> CT 511 Antonio Carlos Jobim – Stone Flower
References
Updates: March 1st, 2023 – minor tidy-up and added intro.
There is a full write up that I did on Sam(p)son & Delilah’s career in Soul Up North magazine.
Do you know which issue, or which year/month I’d love it up.