Cary Ginell - Mr. B: The Music and Life of Billy Eckstine

Copyright 2013 by Cary Ginell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2013 by Hal Leonard Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
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Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Eckstine family for permission to reprint photographs. All images in the photograph inserts are courtesy of the Eckstine family unless otherwise indicated.

Lyrics permissions can be found , which constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Michael Kellner

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Print ISBN: 978-1-4584-1980-4
epub ISBN: 978-1-4803-6679-4

www.halleonardbooks.com

Billy Eckstine was among the first to show the world that the black man could be intellectual, passionate, sensitive, literate, articulate, proudand profound.

Will Friedwald

Contents

Ed Eckstein

So much of how we, as his kids, came to understand our fathers Billy Eckstineness as a celebrity was through people coming up to him and telling him stories. They remembered when their own father or mother saw him in 1948 in Moline, Illinois or at the Paramount Theater in New York City, and their eyes would light up. We could see the impact that hed had on them. When we were children, my brothers and sisters would get a kick out of skycaps at various airports, because the caps all grew up loving his records. Wed see them drop other peoples luggage in order to help him with his fully loaded station wagon, and more than likely hear him spin a quick tale or two.

I think I realized Pops was special when I was probably five years old. One day in school, my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Haag, kept trying to make me sing. Wed do the national anthem in class every morning and she said, Eddie, you should sing it. So I told her I didnt like to sing and she said, Well, your daddys a singer. Then shed go off on a thing about Oh, I loved how your dad sang. Hes one of my favorite singers; I used to see him at blah-blah-blah-blah. Im five years old. I remember coming home from school that day and saying to my mom, Mom, Mrs. Haag kept trying to make me sing. How come she likes Dad so much? So my mom explained how Dad was a celebrity, but at five, you dont really understand the concept of being famous?}. To me, the Lone Ranger was famous. But she explained to me, Thats what people do. They go to see your dad sing. My next-door neighbors dad was a doctor and my friend Chriss dad was in the window shade business, so this is how it was explained to me that this is what my dad did and who he was.

As I got a little older, the nuances and shadings started happening, such as my wondering, Why is my dad never home? Why is it that when I have those moments that I want to share with my dad, hes not here? Or if were playing wiffle ball at my friends house or basketball in my driveway, why is he not there to do that with me or the rest of his kids?

When he was home from being on the road, he loved to play golf and to watch his westerns Gunsmoke , Bonanza , Wyatt Earp on TV, hang out with us, and go to ballgames, where we always had the best seats and had access to all the players. I remember that when we would go to football games, we always hung out on the sidelines. When I was about twelve, we were at a Rams game and my younger brother Guy, who was still very little, came with us. There we were, hanging out with these nine-foot-tall football players. So wed say, Dad, the next time we go to a football game, can we sit up in the stands so we can see the game?

He loved being Mr. B., and if he was home for more than three weeks at a time, the joke was that hed open the refrigerator door and when the light hit him, hed start singing I Apologize. Its the spotlight. Im on. Thats just how he was. You could see him getting that itch that he needed to be moving and getting out there among his fans, doing his Mr. B. thing. Thats just who he was, but he loved us very much.

The principles our father always stressed with his children were to take care of your family, be loyal to your family, be concerned about family, be truthful and honest, and work hard and that your word is your bond. Given the times that we were raised in, we were also born of the civil rights era. We learned the lesson that 100 percents not always good enough, because we were going to be judged on a different scale than most of the kids around us. We were expected to achieve and more.

I think our father should be remembered first and foremost for his art. He made a major contribution to global culture for who he was, from a social perspective, at a time when African American men did not have the luxury, if you will, of being strong, proud, and fearless. He was all three of those things. One life lessonthat resonates with me that Ive encountered so often over the years is that, from Joe Average to people in the entertainment industry, theyd say to me, Man... your dad... At a time when others had to be an Uncle Tom to get what they wanted, Mr. B never did that. He was always a man first. He stood for who he was and didnt back down from it. Before it became mediagenic to do so in the civil rights movement, Billy Eckstine stood for something. Maybe he did so sometimes to the detriment of his career, but in the long run, he could walk the streets proudly. That was being Mr. B.

Ed Eckstein served as Executive Vice President of Quincy Jones Productions from 1973 to 1984 and President of Mercury Records from 1989 to 1995.

Cary Ginell

He was called, simply, B. Over the years, many jazz musicians have become known for their one name, no other words necessary for succinct identification. You know them. Satchmo, Duke, Trane, Sassy, Dizzy, Miles, and Bix are some of those who need no more than a single appellation to tell us who they were. But one man was known throughout the music world by a single letter. In that world, B stood for Billy Eckstine. To many, he was also the more formal and elegant Mr. B., but the key identifier remained that one letter. Other clarifiers were added throughout the years. To Duke Ellington, he was the Sonorous Mr. B. During his long career, Billy Eckstine was known by many other names to disc jockeys, club owners, press agents, and, most of all, his legions of adoring fans. These monikers included the Sepia Sinatra, the Bronze Balladeer, and in his later years, Senior Soul. But the eloquent single initial compacts his lofty status into a much smaller area.

Billy Eckstines career spanned seven decades, from the Depression to the 1990s. Many changes occurred in the world during those years, in music as well as in social history. Eckstine presided over those years as one of the most respected, admired, and influential singers in show business history, despite the fact that he never won a Grammy, has no statues constructed in his honor, and is not immortalized in any halls of fame. (In 1999, his recording of I Apologize was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.)

In the mid-twentieth century, Eckstine was the most revered entertainer in America, an object of frenzied idolatry among his young American fans, most of them female. At that time, there was a mania about Eckstine that deserved comparison to that surrounding only a few other entertainers: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles. The major difference was that Billy Eckstines skin was dark.