ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 21, 1996 TAG: 9611210061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Newsday
He played piano and organ with some of the greatest names in jazz and rhythm-and-blues. But Bill Doggett, 80, who died last week in Manhattan, became an immortal in his own right on the basis of one record.
That was ``Honky Tonk,'' a 1956 recording that spread over both sides of a 45-rpm single. This sweet-swinging, down-and-dirty example of lounge-club blues became a crossover hit, part of the then-burgeoning sonic landscape that the world came to know as rock 'n' roll. By 1979, it had sold more than 3 million copies.
Doggett, a Philadelphia native, continued to lead his own blues bands through the 1960s, '70s and '80s, touring Europe regularly.
He started out with his own band, which in 1938 toured with the Lucky Millinder band. A couple of years later, Doggett was a full-time pianist with Millinder. Between 1942 and 1944 he was pianist and arranger with the Ink Spots. Throughout the rest of the decade he played with blues singer Jimmy Rushing and saxophonists Lucky Thompson and Illinois Jacquet.
In 1949, he became pianist with a group led by singer-saxophonist Louis Jordan, who set the pace for the postwar R&B boom. Following the path laid down by Wild Bill Davis, his predecessor in Jordan's band, Doggett added the organ to his repertoire.
When he left Jordan in 1951 to record with his own groups, he made the organ a staple of his hard-driving music. Among the musicians who played in his groups were guitarist Mickey Baker and saxophonists Earl Bostic and Percy France.
LENGTH: Short : 39 linesby CNB