"I Forgot To Be Your Lover"
William Bell (New Album Alert!)
Composed by William Bell & Booker T. Jones
May 1, 2023:
Congratulations to William Bell! Two 2017 Grammy Award Nominations!
Best Traditional R&B Performance:
"The Three Of Me" — William Bell
Best Americana Album:
This Is Where I Live — William Bell
--Daddy B. Nice
About William Bell (New Album Alert!)
William Henry Yarborough, aka legendary Stax balladeer William Bell, was born July 16, 1939. Bell (who took the name from his grandmother) grew up in a gospel-singing family in Memphis, where he attended high school (Booker T. Washington High) with future Stax peers Rufus Thomas, Booker T. Jones, Al Jackson, Homer Banks, J. Blackfoot and David Porter.
While still a teen Bell won a talent contest that eventually led to a five-year stint with area bandleader Phineas Newborn, playing the big-band swing standards of the day. He also started his own band, The Del Rios, specializing in R&B and doowop, and began cutting singles.
Memphis producer Chips Moman encouraged Bell to record as a solo vocalist, eventually leading to Bell's first important single and regional hit, "You Don't Miss Your Water" (1961) on the Satellite label, a precursor to Stax.
Stax released some singles in the early sixties but the momentum was broken when Bell was drafted and left for the military. Afterwards, Bell continued to record for Stax in the company of Steve Cropper, Booker T., Isaac Hayes, Homer Banks and others, penning such songs as "Everybody Loves A Winner" and "Every Day Will Be A Holiday," and throughout the late sixties Bell was an integral part of the popular Stax tours, along with Otis Redding, Rufus and Carla Thomas and others.
Bell's first full-length album, The Soul Of A Bell (Stax, 1967) compiled his most popular singles since 61's "You Don't Miss Your Water." Bell's close friend Otis Redding died in a plane crash the same year.
In 1968 Bell took a break from recording duets with Judy Clay and Mavis Staples to release the song that would become synonymous with his name, "I Forgot To Be Your Lover" (Stax), which reached #10 on Billboard's R&B and #45 on Billboard's Pop charts.
Bound To Happen, his second solo LP, arrived in 1969. "I Forgot To Be Your Lover" was included on Bell's third solo disc, Wow (Stax, 1971).
With Stax's glory years in the rear-view mirror, Bell moved to Atlanta for good in 1973. (His writing and performing mate Booker T. Jones had already moved to California.) Bell recorded a couple of more albums for the label, however, including the well-received song, "Lovin' On Borrowed Time."
In Atlanta Bell recorded for Peachtree, which was distributed by Mercury. Bell was moving away from performance towards production at the time, but as with so many other ironic twists in his career, "Tryin' To Love Two," written with Paul Mitchell, became Bell's first chart-topping hit (#1 Soul, #10 Pop). The album containing the single, Coming Back For More, became Bell's best-selling album.
The album led to a falling-out with Mercury, however, and Bell didn't record for more than five years. One album on the short-lived Atlanta-based Kat label preceded Bell's formation of his own label, Wilbe Records, which released the CD "Passion" in 1985.
In the early nineties Bell began collaborating with Reginald "Wizard" Jones on singles and albums, and in 1994 Bell's first greatest-hits collection appeared on the joint Wilbe/Ichiban label: Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2.
The late 90's were inconsequential, but in 2003 William Bell was honored by the Blues Foundation with the W.C. Handy Heritage Award. The same year, he recorded an impressive song, "Have I Told You Lately (That I Love You)," for a tribute album to singer/songwriter Van Morrison by American R&B artists, Vanthology, produced by Jon Tiven.
The recognition seemed to re-energize Bell, culminating in the 2006 solo album, New Lease On Life, which made Bell relevant to a new generation. The title track was a memorable hit across the chitlin' circuit.
His duet with fellow Wilbe label-mate Jeff Floyd, "Somebody's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight," capitalized on his new-found popularity with the 21st-century southern soul audience, and in 2007, Bell wowed the crowd at the Stax 50th Anniversary Reunion show, going on to perform at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin and the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans that year, followed by an extensive tour of Europe and a July 2009 appearance at Lincoln Center, resulting in the album Live In NYC.
Then, in 2014, Bell collaborated with Snoop Dogg on a triumphant re-tooling of his signature tune, "I Forgot To Be Your Lover, the first-released single from the soundtrack of the movie, "Take Me To The River."
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Discography
The Soul of a Bell (Stax 1967)
Duets (Stax 1968)
Bound to Happen (Stax 1969)
Wow (Stax 1971)
Phases Of Reality (Stax 1973)
Relating (Stax 1974)
Coming Back For More (Mercury, 1977)
It's Time You Took Another Listen (Mercury 1977)
Survivor (Kat 1983)
Do Right Man (Charly 1984)
Passion (Ichiban 1986)
The Best Of William Bell (Stax 1988)
On A Roll (Ichiban 1989)
Bedtime Stories (Wilbe 1992)
A Little Something Extra (Stax 1992)
Greatest Hits Volume 1 (Wilbe/Ichiban 1994)
Greatest Hits Volume 2 (Wilbe/Ichiban 1995)
A Portrait Is Forever (Wilbe 2000)
Greatest Hits Collector's Edition (Wilbe 2002)
New Lease On Life (Wilbe 2006)
The Very Best Of William Bell (Stax 2007)
Live In New York City (Wilbe 2009)
Bound To Happen (Wow 2012)
This Is Where I Live (Stax 2016)
Tidbits
1.
October 26, 2014: From Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide to Jaheim
The story of Jaheim's "Put That Woman First" begins in the glory days of Stax Records (the 60's and early 70's) with a soul musician named William Bell. In his casual, authoritative and generous book, The Heart Of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made (New American Library, 1989), Dave Marsh describes Bell this way:
"Pipesmoking and relatively intellectual, William Bell was Memphis soul's ultimate journeyman, but what's out of the ordinary is his acceptance of that second-rank status. While it wouldn't be fair to say that he courted obscurity, that's only because the evidence is too sketchy. Bell made 'You Don't Miss Your Water' at producer Chips Moman's insistence; he'd already found a satisfactory niche as featured vocalist with Phineas Newborn's orchestra, the area's toniest show band. Rather than seeking the main chance, he was content to sing with Newborn."
Assessing his music, Marsh remarks again and again (four of William Bell's songs are featured in the book) on his "comparative impassivity," his "contentment with the status quo," his "diffidence" and his "purposeful lack of histrionics."
Ironically, with minor revisions the observations could accurately describe almost any of today's older-generation Southern Soul musicians. But what Marsh describes as "passivity," your Daddy B. Nice (with the benefit of hindsight) would characterize as a refreshing independence and refusal to bend to the artistic "straightjacket" of the mainline record industry and all the hype that accompanies it.
(D.B.N. footnote: And in light of two luminous Southern Soul hits in the mid 00's, "Somebody's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight"--a duet with Jeff Floyd--and "New Lease On Life," both on his own record label (Wilbe), Bell has had the last laugh.)
William Bell collaborated with Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. and the MG's) on many soul tunes, and one of them, Bell's "I Forgot To Be Your Lover," rose to #45 on "Billboard" in 1969. The song had a gorgeous and winsome melody made even sweeter by a violin-heavy arrangement.
"Have I taken the time
To share with you
All the burdens
That love will bear?
Have I done
Those little simple things
To show you
Just how much I care?
Oh, I forgot to be your lover.
And I'm sorry, so sorry."
Enter, more than a quarter of a century later, young artist Jaheim Hoagland, who--like R. Kelly--comes to Southern Soul by way of hiphop and "urban" R&B, and who--again like Kelly--has gone to the well of sixties' R&B to connect with soul traditionalists.
Jaheim Hoagland was not the first artist to access William Bell's little-known standard for inspiration. Among others, Johnnie Taylor had covered it in 1988, Robert "The Duke" Tillman in 1992, and Chuck Strong in 1996...."
To read more, go to Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide to Jaheim.
Listen to Jaheim singing "Put That Woman First" (based on William Bell's "I Forgot To Be Your Lover") on YouTube.
2.
October 25, 2014: WILLIAM BELL ON YOUTUBE
Listen to William Bell singing "I Forgot To Be Your Lover" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "You Don't Miss Your Water" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell & Jeff Floyd singing "Somebody's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "New Lease On Life" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Nobody But You" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Tryin' To Love Two" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Nothing Takes The Place Of You" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "You Don't Miss Your Water" Live Onstage at The White House on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Everybody Loves A Winner" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "A Tribue To A King (Otis Redding)" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Nothing Takes The Place Of You" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "I'll Be Home" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Somebody's Gonna Get Hurt" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "I Know I Got A Sure Thing" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Nothing Takes The Place Of You" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Nothing Takes The Place Of You" on YouTube.
Listen to William Bell singing "Loving On Borrowed Time" on YouTube.
Honorary "B" Side
"You Don't Miss Your Water"
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