Joe Evans, started out playing jazz saxophone (he played first alto to Charlie Parker's third alto in the legendary Jay MeShann band of 1942!) and wound up with his own 60s and 70s soul label Carnival. Always at the cutting edge of Black music, Joe filled the years in between working as a support musician with Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton and Sil Austin, acting as National Promotions Director for Ray Charles' outfit Tangerine Records and becoming a record producer for the tiny Cee Jay label. Seeing the future in soul music (long before many of his contemporaries), he set up Carnival in 1962. The label attracted a red-hot 'house' band of young talent - guitarists Eric Gale and 'Snaggs' Allen, drummer Bernard Purdie and bassist Jimmy Tyrell (later a vice president of Columbia Records), among them - and together they forged a distinct new sound. One of the singers Joe recorded was Barbara Brown and she was instrumental in bringing The Manhattans to Carnival. Joe shaped the group's raw talent and by their third single I Wanna Be, they had charted high (the song leached No 12 R&B, No 68 Pop, and was to be the label's biggest hit). They would chart another 8 times for the label and this series of CDs their story, as well as that of Joe Evans and all the other fine soul talent he recorded.
For full details see releases/products below.
