Mable John RIP

Yet another soul great has passed on. Mable John, who was 91, was the sister of Little Willie John and had the distinction of recording for both Tamla Motown and Stax. I was lucky enough to see her several times - including at the Porretta Soul festival on two occasions (1997 and 2008) and at the Ponderosa Stomp in 2015. The photo above shows her at the 2008 festival. Mable was born in Louisiana but moved to Detroit at a young age and was signed by Berry Gordy to his Tamla label in 1960 as its first female artist. She recorded some excellent records for the label, two of which ('Who Wouldn't Love A Man Like That' and 'I Guess There's No Love') were released in the UK on two of the Motown Memories LPs. It seems that Mable's sophisticated style didn't fit with the emerging Motown sound and she was dropped by Gordy, but her career blossomed as a member of the Raelettes for several years. Her peak solo years were with Stax where she recorded such classics as 'Your Good Thing Is About To End', 'Same Time Same Place' and 'Able Mable'. After leaving Stax in 1968 she rejoined the Raelettes but gave up secular music to focus on gospel, eventually founding a charity for the homeless and becoming a Doctor of Divinity in Los Angeles. She appeared at Porretta in 1997 - my first time at the festival (pictured with me below).

She returned in 2008 when I wrote: 'The highlight of day one was without doubt Mable John, whose clean soulful voice is as strong as ever. Her versions of 'Bad Water', 'Your Good Thing', brother Little Willie John’s 'Need Your Love So Bad' and others were powerful and beautiful at the same time.'The following year she appeared on the 'Divas of Motown' show at the Hammersmith Apollo where she was presented as The First Lady of Motown. Her act included 'Able Mable' which was first recorded, but not released while she was at Motown. The last time I saw Mable was at the 2015 Ponderosa Stomp where several other soul greats were, in my words 'overshadowed a little by a sparkling set by 85 year old Mable John. Wearing a white lacy 'Miss Haversham' style dress, she wowed the crowd with 'Able Mable', 'Bad Water', from her time with the Raelettes, a delicious 'Same Time Same Place', 'You're Taking Up Another Man's Place' and 'Your Good Thing Is About To End'. RIP Mable. Truly one of the great female soul singers. Here are a couple of photos from the 2015 Ponderosa Stomp. The first one is from one of the interview sessions.