Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson

An advanced stylist on alto saxophone who veered across his career between jump blues and jazz, bald-pated Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson—having shed his hair early after a botched attempt with a lye-based straightener—also brought a playfully distinctive vocal approach that endeared him to blues enthusiasts. Vinson first grasped a horn during his high-school years in Houston. In the late '30s he anchored an extraordinary horn section inside Milton Larkins's orchestra alongside Arnett Cobb and Illinois Jacquet. After departing Larkins in 1941, Vinson absorbed several vocal mannerisms while traveling with bluesman Big Bill Broonzy. He then spent 1942 to 1945 inside the Cootie Williams Orchestra, where his singing on the trumpeter's versions of "Cherry Red" and "Somebody's Got to Go" largely fueled their wartime popularity.

Vinson launched his own large ensemble in 1945, inked a Mercury contract, and scored a double-sided hit two years later with the romping R&B number-one "Old Maid Boogie" and his enduring signature piece "Kidney Stew Blues," both spotlighting his instantly recognizable voice. A 1949-1952 tenure at King Records yielded just one chart entry, the witty follow-up "Somebody Done Stole My Cherry Red," plus the enduring blues "Person to Person," later revived by fellow King artist Little Willie John. Vinson's jazz inclinations likely intensified in 1952-1953 when his group featured a young John Coltrane; around that time he also penned the Miles Davis standards "Tune Up" and "Four."

He continued straddling both idioms, cutting jumping R&B for Mercury in 1954 and Bethlehem in 1957, jazz for Riverside in 1961 alongside Cannonball Adderley, and blues for Blues Time and ABC-BluesWay. A 1969 Black & Blue session recorded in France with pianist Jay McShann and tenor saxophonist Hal Singer vividly evoked Vinson's earlier blues-shouting prime and later appeared on Delmark under the title Old Kidney Stew Is Fine. A subsequent Muse date paired him with the sympathetic little-big-band sound of Rhode Island's Roomful of Blues. Vinson maintained steady tours across the States and Europe until his death from a heart attack in 1988.