Jimmy Beasley was an R&B/Rock N Roll pianist from Kansas City. His popularity peaked in New Orleans in the mid-to-late 1950s. He's nobody's idea of a household name, but mention Jimmy Beasley to most 50s R&B and rock'n'roll collectors and you'll immediately meet with a warm smile of recognition, and a surge of admiration for the man's recordings of the mid-to-late 1950s. Cherished completely by New Orleans collectors for his fine Fats Domino-influenced sides (some actually recorded in New Orleans with Fats' band, others recorded with an equally stellar line up of LA session greats including Beasley himself on piano), Jimmy didn't really record often enough to elevate his reputation into that of a superstar, but his half-dozen-plus singles and sole album are as important a rockin' legacy as are those of just about any acknowledged leader of the rockin' pack. ...show more

Jimmy Beasley was an R&B/Rock N Roll pianist from Kansas City. His popularity peaked in New Orleans in the mid-to-late 1950s. He's nobody's idea of a household name, but mention Jimmy Beasley to most 50s R&B and rock'n'roll collectors and you'll immediately meet with a warm smile of recognition, and a surge of admiration for the man's recordings of the mid-to-late 1950s. Cherished completely by New Orleans collectors for his fine Fats Domino-influenced sides (some actually recorded in New Orleans with Fats' band, others recorded with an equally stellar line up of LA session greats including Beasley himself on piano), Jimmy didn't really record often enough to elevate his reputation into that of a superstar, but his half-dozen-plus singles and sole album are as important a rockin' legacy as are those of just about any acknowledged leader of the rockin' pack.

Jimmy's House Party marks the first time that his most excellent Modern recordings have been comprehensively and legally anthologised for compact disc. Born in Kansas City but resident in Los Angeles from a relatively early age, Jimmy Beasley was in his 20s when he went to work for the Bihari brothers - initially as a songwriter and session pianist - under the supervision of the great tenor player/arranger Maxwell Davis. It was Davis who hipped Joe and Jules to the fact that Jimmy could sing as well as he wrote, and they signed him to an artist contract that lasted, on and off, for almost a decade. Jimmy came to Modern as an artist at just about the same time that Fats Domino was beginning to cross over from exclusively R&B to rock'n'roll, and like most label bosses the Biharis were looking for their own Fatsalike.

Versatile to a fault, Jimmy Beasley proved from the off with Ella Jane that he could be what they were looking for. And in the space of just over two years Beasley subsequently racked up seven or eight great vocal 45s that a) adhered to the Fats formula and b) were mostly just as essential as anything the Fat Man himself was coming out with at the time. Both sides of all of these 45s are featured on this collection, of course. Modern's farsighted policy of releasing albums on virtually all their major signings meant that Jimmy also had a contemporaneous long-playing vinyl release. ...show less