The Ravens

Emerging in the years right after World War II, the Ravens ranked among the first R&B ensembles to break new ground and simultaneously helped launch the wave of bird-named vocal groups. Their harmonic style and choice of moniker shaped two waves of later acts while generating strong sales. Jimmy Ricks, who had sung from childhood, formed the foundation of the group. In 1945 he worked as a waiter at Harlem’s Four Hundred Tavern and later at the L. Bar, where he harmonized during slow shifts with colleague Warren “Birdland” Suttles over Ink Spots, Mills Brothers, and Delta Rhythm Boys numbers spinning on the jukebox. Seeking two additional voices to complete a quartet, they recruited Leonard “Zeke” Puzey and Ollie Jones, polishing a repertoire that included “Darktown Strutters’ Ball.” Adopting the Ravens name and thereby sparking the bird-group fashion among Black vocal quartets, they secured a booking at Harlem’s Club Baton, earned a national tour, and added Howard Biggs as arranger and principal composer of their original material. Their sound stood out because bass singer Ricks took the lead role, a trademark soon copied by numerous ensembles throughout the following decade.

Hub Records signed the Ravens in early 1946 and issued their first single, “Honey” backed with “Lullaby,” the latter an Ollie Jones composition already in their set. Jones departed late that year for the Cues, and Maithe Marshall stepped in. After their Hub contract lapsed, the group moved to National and scored at once with “Ol’ Man River,” the strongest of eight Top Ten R&B hits they placed across the next ten years, among them “Write Me a Letter” and “Send for Me If You Need Me.” By 1948 dozens, even hundreds, of emerging R&B vocal groups drew inspiration from the Ravens’ example; the Orioles, the Crows, the Swallows, the Swans, and the Wrens appeared in their immediate wake, and the 1950s trend continued with acts such as the Penguins, yet the Ravens had originated the pattern. They kept performing and recording for seven more years, during which Marshall and Suttles left and returned at intervals, Suttles replaced at different times by Joe Medlin, Louis Heyward, and Bubba Ritchie. Label affiliations proved equally fluid, shifting from National to Columbia and OKeh in 1950 and then to Mercury in 1951.

The Mercury period brought another key change when Jimmy Stewart replaced Puzey, who joined the Hi-Hatters, as lead tenor; Marshall and later Heyward also moved to that lineup. Regardless of personnel, the Ravens reached their commercial peak at Mercury even if chart positions did not always mirror their stature. Their lone major hit there, “Rock Me All Night Long,” climbed to number eight on the national R&B chart, yet they commanded nightly fees of two thousand dollars. In 1953 the quartet of Ricks, Joe Van Loan, Louis Frazier, and Stewart signed with Jubilee once the Mercury deal expired. Their four Jubilee singles appeared as rock & roll ascended and many R&B acts sought broader, whiter teen audiences. “Green Eyes” became their biggest Jubilee success in mid-1955, while several other tracks from the era reflected rock & roll’s rising impact through prominent saxophone parts and titles such as “Rockin’ at the Record Hop.”

Ricks’s pursuit of a solo career signaled the beginning of the end. Final releases appeared under the names “Jimmy Ricks and the Ravens” or “Jimmy Ricks and the Rickateers.” He left in 1956, after which Van Loan and road manager Nat Margo bought the group name. Under Van Loan the Ravens moved to Chess’s Argo imprint the same year. Ricks’s vocal influence endured into the late 1950s; Melvin Franklin of the Temptations, in particular, drew heavily from his phrasing. Ricks continued as a solo artist, recording for Paris, Decca, and Signature before joining Atlantic in 1961, where he cut sides with LaVern Baker and Little Esther. By the time he returned to Jubilee in 1967 he had also passed through Mainstream and Festival. In 1971 he rejoined Warren Suttles to revive the Ravens, completing the lineup with Gregory Carroll and Jimmy Breedlove. His vocal range and reputation remained so formidable that he became the Count Basie band’s vocalist in the early 1970s, a role he still held when he died on July 2, 1974, at age fifty. The Ravens never recorded as extensively as their chief rivals the Orioles and have not received equivalent retrospective treatment. Their National, Columbia, OKeh, Mercury, and Jubilee legacies exist but remain dispersed across scattered reissues.