Otis Leavill - A Profile

Otis Leavill Cobb was born in Dewy Rose, GA, on 8 Feb 1937 (and died on 17 Jul 2002 of a heart attack aged 65) so would have been 86 today.

His family moved to Chicago when he was 2 years old and, with his father being a pastor, began singing in church and as a member of the family gospel group (he was one of six siblings), The Cobb Quartet, from an early age.

He became friendly with Major Lance in his teens as they were amateur boxers at the same club. The pair were also friends with Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler who would form The Impressions. Leavill and Lance formed a group called The Floats with Barbara Tyson and another unknown female singer in the 50s and, although they recorded a demo, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" / "Lover" around 1958/59, on which Leavill took lead on the flip and Lance on The A side, nothing was released.

In a recording career spanning just over a decade between 1963-75 he released around sixteen singles, but no albums, and only three would chart with his biggest hit coming in 1970 with "I Love You" on Dakar reaching #10 R&B and #63 Hot 100. It entered in Nov 1969 and spent ten weeks on the chart.

His first single in 1963, "Gotta Right To Cry" / "Rise Sally Rise" was one of only a handful of releases on Chicago's Lucky label. The A side was written by Curtis Mayfield and later recorded by Major Lance on a compilation in 1964. Lance would also record an updated version in 1975 on Osiris. The flip was written by Marion 'Doc' Oliver, who also released some singles on the label.

His next two appeared on Mercury subsidiary Limelight in 1964 followed by his first of three on Blue Rock (1964-65), "Let Her Love Me", which was his, and the label's, first hit reaching #31 R&B. It was written by Jerry Butler's younger brother Billy (who's also playing lead guitar and singing backing vocals) and produced by Major Lance. He label hopped for the next few singles with one for Columbia (1966), Brunswick (1967), Smash (1968) and then another on Blue Rock (1968).

Several of his singles were co-written by Carl Davis who he continued to work with at Brunswick both as a producer and a talent finder. He is credited with discovering The Chi-Lites, Tyrone Davis, Hamilton Bohannon, and a 16 year old Chaka Khan (or Yvette Stevens as she was then known along with her younger sister Yvonne (aka Taka Boom who was a one time member of Undisputed Truth) but Davis passed on them as he felt they were too young and too much of a distraction to the older men. 

After leaving Brunswick in 1967, Davis formed Dakar Records with Leavill joined him as Vice-President and as an artist. It was the home of his next, and biggest, single "I Love You" (#10 R&B / #663 Hot 100) in 1969 written by Eugene Record with backing vocals provided by Barbara Acklin. All his remaining five singles between 1971-72 were on Dakar with only one of them reaching the charts "Love Uprising" (#19 R&B / #72 Hot 100 Aug 1970 also written by Eugene Record) which was covered by Jackie Wilson (Dec 1970), The Chi-lites (Sep 1971), and Mister 'T' (aka Alonzo Tucker who was a member of 50s group The Royals (aka Hank Ballard & The Midnighters) (1972), all on Brunswick.

Blues & Soul's Contempo label in the UK reissued "I Love You" along with a previously unreleased B side "Tell the World" in 1975. Although he didn't release any further material himself and, surprisingly no albums, he continued writing and producing (occasionally using his surname Cobb) for many Chicago artists such as Major Lance, Gene Chandler, Tyrone Davis, Marvin Smith and Robert Dobyne of The Artistsics, Lee Charles, Johnny Sayles, Sidney Joe Qualls, Barbara Hall, The Chi-Lites, The Dells, Windy City, Magnum Force, Paris ("I Choose You").

After several years hiatus, in which he undertook various job such as owning a car wash and gas station and being a policeman, he toured with The Dells in Europe in 1999 and set up his own label OK Records in 2000. He died in Chicago of a heart attack in 2002, aged 65.

Discography

Year	Title	Cat.No
1963-09	Rise Sally Rise / I Gotta Right To Cry [1]	Lucky #1004
1964-04	I Am Amazed / Just A Memory	Limelight #3020
1964-09	Don't Let Me Down / Jane Girl	Limelight #3037
1964-11	Let Her Love Me / When The Music Grooves	Blue Rock #4002
1965-04	To Be Or Not To Be / Boomerang	Blue Rock #4015
1965-09	A Reason To Be Lonely / Because Of You	Blue Rock #4031
1966-06	Right Back In Love / Keep On Loving	Columbia #43661
1967-08	Can't Stop Loving You / Baby (Why Can't You Hear Me)	Brunswick #55337
1968-02	Nobody But You [2] / Charlotte (Yes I'm Gonna Miss You)	Smash #2141
1968-09	It's The Same Old Me / Let Me Live	Blue Rock #4063
1069-11	I Love You / I Need You	Dakar #614
1970-05	Glad I Met You [3] / Why Why Why [4]	Dakar #617
1970-08	Love Uprising [5] / I Need You	Dakar #620
1971-01	You Brought Out The Good In Me / I'm So Jealous [6]	Dakar #622
1971-09	There's Nothing Better / Glad I Met You	Dakar #625
1972-09	It Must Be Love / I Still Love You	Dakar #4511
1975-10	I Love You / Tell The World (UK release, B side previously unissued)	Contempo #2074

1/also recorded by Major Lance in 1964 and re-recorded in 1975

2/ also recorded by Esther Phillips (1969)

3/ also recorded by The Artistics (1967)

4/ also recorded by The Artistics (1967) and Mill Evans (1967)

5/ also recorded by Jackie Wilson (1970), The Chi-Lites (1971) and Mister 'T' (1972)

6/ also recorded by The Hi-Lites (Chi-Lites) (1965)

Compilations

1999 - The Class Of Mayfield High [Westside #WESM 581]

NOTE: A track titled "You Babe" included on the compilation 'The Class Of Mayfield High' in 1999 (which consisted of tracks by Billy Butler, Major Lance and Otis Leavill) is incorrectly credited to Leavill. It was in fact Carl Davis doing guide vocals of the Curtis Mayfield written song on a demo for Dana Valery's recording of it for her "Not The Flower But The Root" album 1972. Dana's name is well known on the Northern Soul scene for her take on Simon & Garfunkel's "You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies" (Columbia 1967). Richard Searling's Go Ahead label released it as a single in 2012 along with "This Love Is Real" on the flip which was recorded by Jackie Wilson in 1970 on Brunswick as "(I Can Feel Those Vibrations) This Love Is Real" with his version of "Love Uprising" on it's flip.

There is a limited amount of his material available on Spotify, one compilation which covers his Dakar releases only and a couple on other compilations. Therefore, a YouTube playlist has been created which includes all singles listed above with the exclusion of "Just A Memory"  (which is an early 60s doo-wop style ballad which I have a copy of so will try to upload to SoulStrutter YouTube channel). A few not found by him on Spotify have been replaced by alternate versions i.e. Major Lance and Esther Phillips along with a few other alternate versions in addition to his.

The only YouTube footage found for him was performing a re-recording of "Nobody But You" for Ian Levine's 'The Strange World of Northern Soul' around 1998, 30 years after he recorded the original version.

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