WILLIAM BELL
A principal architect of the Stax/Volt sound, singer/composer William Bell came to prominence with his classic “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” one of the quintessential soul records to emerge from the Memphis scene. William cut his teeth backing Rufus Thomas, and in 1957 recorded his first sides as a member of the Del Rios. After joining the Stax staff as a writer, in 1961 Bell made his solo debut with the selfpenned “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” an archetypal slice of countrysoul and one of the label’s first big hits. A two-year Armed Forces stint effectively derailed his career, however, and he did not release his first full-length album, The Soul of a Bell, until 1967, generating a Top 20 hit with the single “Everybody Loves a Winner”; that same year, Albert King also scored with another classic Bell composition, the oft-covered “Born Under a Bad Sign.”
Bell’s next solo hit, 1968’s “A Tribute to a King,” was a poignant farewell to the late Otis Redding; the R&B Top Ten hit “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” soon followed, and a series of duets with Judy Clay, most notably “Private Number,” also earned airplay. In 1969, he relocated to Atlanta and set up his own label, and in 1977 Bell capped a major comeback with “Trying to Love Two,” which topped the R&B charts. In 1985, he founded another label, Wilbe. In addition to issuing subsequent LPs, in 1987 Bell was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, and that same year also received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s R&B Pioneer Award. After 1992, Bell took a lengthy hiatus from the recording studio, though he still performed regularly. In 2003, he was honored by the Blues Foundation with the W.C. Handy Heritage Award. In 2007, Bell showed that he still ‘had it’ when he wowed the crowd at the Stax 50th Anniversary Reunion show. He went on to perform at SXSW in Austin and the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans that year, and followed that up with an extensive tour of Europe and a July 2009 appearance at Lincoln Center in NYC. In September of 2009, Bell signed to Blind Ambition Management and is currently working on a ‘comeback’ album and tour.
