Schoolboy Cleve (Cherrie 2400)

Schoolboy Cleve

Salute America 76
37803 ~ Don't Thread On Me (C. White, Quartz Music, ASCAP)
37804 ~ I Saw The Blues (C. White, Quartz Music, ASCAP)

Produced by Kirk C. White and Cleveland White

Cherrie Records CR 2400
56 Teresa Street, Dale City, California

Vocals & Harmonica : Schoolboy Cleve
Lead guitar : Bobby Murray
Keyboard : J. J. Malone
Bass : ?    
Drums : ?

56 Teresa Street, Dale City, home of Cherrie Records
(Google Street view 2019)

Schoolboy Cleve
(from the Ace CD album CDCHD 1471)

Blues harmonica player and singer, Schoolboy Cleve (1928–2008), born Cleveland White in East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana,  one of nine children. He earned his moniker when, as a child, he would ask any visiting blues musician if he could sit in with them and became so well known that when they returned to town they would ask: "where is that little schoolboy?"

He worked with Lightnin' Slim, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, and Buddy Guy. He recorded with Lightnin' Slim in the mid-1950s, and under his own stage name for Feature and then Ace Records in 1957.

In 1960, he moved to Los Angeles, California, worked mostly outside music, recording a handful singles for Blues Connoisseur Records and his own Cherrie Records during the 1970s.

He died in Daly City, California, at the age of 82

Sonny Rhodes on Cherrie

Sonny Rhodes

35833 ~ Are We Losing Our Thing
35834 ~ Hen Pecked Man  sample

Cherrie 2380

56 Teresa St.

Dale City, CA 94014

produced by C. White

1975

 

Clarence Edward Smith, better known by his stage name Sonny Rhodes is an American blues singer and guitarist.

Born November 3, 1940 in Texas. He was influenced by such blues musicians as T-Bone Walker, Percy Mayfield, Pee Wee Crayton, L.C. Robinson and B.B. King. He plays lap steel guitar and also learned to play bass guitar. 

His first record was as leader of The Daylighters on Domino Records.  The Daylighters also backed white female singer Joyce Harris on the same label  :

Joyce Harris and the Daylighters never played in public, only on records, so she was adamant about regular rehearsals before they stepped into the studio.

"One night, the Daylighters didn't show up, and so I got in my car and went looking for them," recalls Harris, a New Orleans native. There was a place over on "the Cuts," slang for East 11th Street, where the Daylighters liked to hang, and sure enough the musicians were coming out of the club when Harris pulled up. "Don't you remember, we've got a rehearsal?" she said. "Get in."   But bandleader Clarence Smith and the other three hesitated.   In Texas in 1961, black men didn't get in a car with a white woman, but Harris would have none of that. "Get in!" she said again, her tone amplified, and the band eventually complied, though it was an uneasy drive across town.

from Little indie label Domino laid down Austin sounds before scene's heyday

Sonny Rhodes discography 

Note : has a few errors, notably the date of this Cherrie single.

Inner Soul - Cherrie 2390

Inner Soul
Cherrie 2390 (1976)
36827 – Little Jack Horner
36828 – Put The Hurt On You


D.Whitlock & M.Davis - Lead vocals
M.Major - gtr, voc.
D.Hicks - bass, voc.
O.Franklin - voc., dms
S.Williams - keyboard

Soul music out of Daly City, California on a label owned by Cleveland White, best known as School Boy Cleve (1925-2008). Born in Louisiana, he was most noticed for playing the blues harmonica. His first big break came. in 1954-55 when he recorded with Lightnin' Slim in Crowley, Louisiana. He moved to LA in the 1960s, and then to the SF Bay area around 1970 and performed in many of the little clubs in the Bay area, sporadically.




-