Description
Release Date: 2003
Label: Bayou Records
Track List
1. I’ll Get Along Somehow Part 1
2. I’ll Get Along Somehow Part 2
3. Boogie Oogie
4. Just Tell Me When
5. For You My Love
6. Lost My Baby
7. Work Baby Work
8. One More Chance
9. I Love My Baby
10. Oh Baby
11. What More Do You Want Me To Do
12. My Love For You
13. Do You Love Me Baby
14. Christmas Blues
15. God Bless This Child
16. I’ll Be Sittin’, I’ll Be Rockin’
17. No Time At All
18. Darlin’
19. What’s On Your Mind
20. Sundown
21. Flame Of Love
22. Don’t Go, Don’t Go
23. Left My Baby
24. Ramblin’ Man
25. Give Me Your Love
26. My Kind Of Baby
27. Pack Your Rags And Go
28. Better Be On My Way
Notes
As an eleven-year-old he achieved local fame as a gospel singer in Columbus, Ohio. He left home at 15 years of age to work as a dancer with a burlesque road show, the Brownskin Models. In New Orleans he gained steady employment as a singer at the Dew Drop Inn. In 1949 he was signed up by Fred Mendelsohn for the Regal label in New Jersey. His first two recordings, “I’ll Get Along Somehow” and “For You My Love”, both hit the R&B charts in November 1949, with “For You My Love”, written by Paul Gayten, staying at the # 1 spot for eight weeks.
The follow-ups “I Love My Baby” and Louis Prima’s “Oh Babe!” were also hits, and Darnell’s powerful and passionate voice contributed to the development of a trend in popular music soon marketed nationwide as rock and roll. Darnell was the top selling R & B artist of 1950. However, after Regal collapsed in 1951, his records became less successful. By now known as “Mr. Heart & Soul”, he appeared in the 1955 movie Harlem Rock & Roll Revue, and spent the rest of the decade recording for various labels.
In 1969 he made his final recordings, for the Instant label in New Orleans.
