Though accolades comparable to those received by Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, and James Brown never came his way, Little Willie John endures as one of R&B’s most consequential figures. His forceful upper register, matched by extraordinary command of technique and feeling, stood at odds with his youth when his opening success arrived at eighteen. The sides he cut during the mid-1950s for Syd Nathan’s King label nevertheless helped determine the eventual character of soul music. Cooke, McPhatter, Brown, Jackie Wilson, B.B. King, and Al Green have each recognized an artistic debt to this long-neglected pioneer of rock and soul.
A vigorous reading of Titus Turner’s “All Around the World,” recorded in 1955, launched an unbroken run of successes that included “Need Your Love So Bad,” “Suffering with the Blues,” “Fever,” “Let Them Talk,” and, as his final entry, “Sleep” in 1961. Peggy Lee and Elvis Presley both reproduced his treatment of “Fever” exactly and enjoyed larger commercial returns, yet John’s version remains the benchmark. His immediate follow-up, “Need Your Love So Bad,” preserves one of the most unguarded and heartrending vocals ever committed to tape.
A combustible disposition, intensified by drinking and unease over his modest height of five feet four inches, led John to carry both pistol and knife. After stabbing a man in 1964 he was confined to the Washington State penitentiary, where he died of pneumonia in 1968. James Brown issued a tribute album the same year, and artists from the Beatles to Fleetwood Mac to the Blasters have since recorded John’s material. Even so, he continues to be unknown to most listeners and has never been granted the recognition his gifts warrant.
Little Willie John figured among the first artists included in Rhino’s King reissues program. Fever appeared near the close of 1993 as a single-disc, twenty-track anthology containing “Need Your Love So Bad,” “Suffering with the Blues,” and the title song.
