1959
KANSAS CITY * WILBERT HARRISON * TOP RANK 132 * UK
Vocalist and piano player Wilbert Harrison was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1929 and died sixty five years later in Spencer, North Carolina (didn't know i had a town named after me! really, someone as important as me deserves a city but a town will do for now.) Wilbert Harrison started out performing in the early 1950s in a Calypso style; something that years later was to lend itself to the lilting rhythm of the above - which nearly turned full circle when Kansas City was taken back to the West Indies and recorded by Joya Landis at the Treasure Isle studio. Wilbert Harrison first recorded for the Rockin' label in 1953, after which he spent a time at Savoy, it was for Bobby Robinson's Fury label, with Wild Jimmy Spruill on guitar, that Harrison cut this version of Leiber and Stoller's Kansas City - the song was first recorded by Little Willie Littlefield in 1952 - the record charted both R&B and Pop, which caused all sorts of problems as Harrison was still under contract with Savoy, though he hadn't recorded for them for some time.