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.
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