Pianist and singer Floyd Dixon was a key link from the big band and swing sounds of the early twentieth century to the gospel-influenced R&B and soul that was to follow, perhaps best embodied by the story that Dixon encouraged a young Ray Charles to blend the sacred and the profane in his own music. Born in Marshall, Texas, on February 8, 1929, Dixon moved to Los Angeles with his family as a teenager and had signed his first record deal by the time he was 20. He quickly began cutting jump blues singles as the Floyd Dixon Trio, and also as a member of Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers for Aladdin Records, which would come to be the home for many of his classic recordings.
Songs like “Sad Journey Blues”, “Telephone Blues”, and “Call Operator 210” all landed in the top ten of the R&B charts, but his most enduring single, “Hey Bartender”, arrived in 1955 on Cat Records. The song went on to be covered by many artists, including as a Number 2 country hit for Johnny Lee, and eventually made its way to the first album from the Blues Brothers. By this point, rock and roll had arrived, and Dixon was relegated to the sidelines by a wave of new artists. But he enjoyed a second wave of popularity, beginning in the 1970s in Europe, where interest in classic blues and R&B had been rekindled, and he was later contracted to write a song for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He had a late period triumph with the concert recording Wake Up and Live! in 1996, for Chicago blues label Alligator Records. He continued to perform until his death on July 26, 2006.
