Alright folks, here we have a band From Tulsa OK., making Oklahoma style music before it was the mecca that it is today. These guys laid the groundwork for today's bands, like Cross Canadian Ragweed and many others. Up until about a year ago I hadn't heard of Rockin' Jimmy (Byfield). A friend in Germany that I share music back and forth with turned me onto these albums and I've been meaning to carry on the sharing for awhile now. Unfortunately I don't know a heckuva lot about Jimmy or his band so I thought the best thing to do in this instance is publish this info that I received with the albums. However I can say that if you like a laid-back groove with a bunch of tasty guitar work then there'd be a good chance that you'd dig this one as much as I do, if not more.......
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ROCKIN' JIMMY and the BROTHERS of the NIGHT Tulsa bar band which had deserved cult following. Oklahoma is home base for J. J. Cale, Elvin Bishop, Leon Russell; Eric Clapton recruited sidemen there incl. Jamie Oldaker on drums, covered 'Little Rachel' by Jimmy Byfield (b 7 Feb. '49, Tulsa) on There's One In Every Crowd '74, had top 30 USA hit 'Tulsa Time' '80. Ex-Joe Cocker roadie Peter Nicholls from UK was engineer for Russell's Shelter label, formed Pilgrim label in Tulsa, recorded local acts: Tulsa clique turned out two-disc sampler unreleased commercially, edited to single LP The Tulsa Sampler '77 (incl. track by Guava, band fronted by Byfield); another sampler The Green Album '78 incl. 'Little Rachel', others by Jim Byfield and His Band; then By The Light Of The Moon '81 was by Rockin' Jimmy and the Brothers of the Night: Byfield on vocals, Steve Hickerson on guitar, Chuck DeWalt on drums, Gary Gilmore on bass, Walt Richmond on keyboards, backing singers Jim Sweney and Debbie Campbell, electronic 'horns' on some tracks, subtle and appropriate. Gilmore had played with Cale, Taj Mahal; Richmond with Bonnie Raitt, Rick Danko, others; Campbell (from Fort Worth TX) was lead singer with LA group Buckwheat, toured with Raitt. Gilmore was replaced by Gary Cundiff on second album Rockin' Jimmy And The Brothers Of The Night '82 (quintet only): it should have been called Rockin' All Night after the first track. All songs (except Ray Charles cover 'Leave My Woman Alone' on the first LP) written or co-written by Byfield, co-writers incl. Nicholls, on second LP Hickerson, Richmond, Cundiff. Distribution problems of all small labels prevailed; Byfield, a family man, did not want to tour widely; the band was soon history but the LPs lived for a while on Sonet in UK: fine songs, Byfield's soulful tenor, rhythm section rooted in R&B (laid-back yet tense) made music with space, time, loneliness, roadhouse optimism in it, proving that there's nothing wrong with rock no matter what's on the radio. Fans treasure the LPs, feel a shock of recognition upon meeting one another, and wonder how many more good bands there were out there not recording at all. The band also played on Sweney's Didn't I Blow Your Mind? '79 on Pilgrim, Campbell's Two Hearts c'82 on Tulsa's Churchill label.
REVIEW from:
http://www.donaldclarkemusicbox.com/encyclopedia/detail.php?s=2920
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Stevey Hay & the RayVons (MySpace blog)Sunday, October 15, 2006
Rockin' Jimmy & the Brothers Of The Night...
So I switch on the Paul Jones R&B show on Radio 2 and he's talking about Rockin' Jimmy...seems he's played a track and people want to know where they can get a copy, only nothing's been re-issued on CD since the original album came out...
Two albums, actually, issued in Europe around 1982/83 on Sonet Records of Sweden . Still got them, stored away in an attic. Last heard some of the tracks when I used them on compilations I was making up (legitimately, you understand...working as music director for a 'background music' company...) to lease to a chain of American Diner styled Cafe Bars in the mid 1990s.
Rockin' Jimmy, aka Jim Byfield of Tulsa, Oklahoma, is part of the Tulsa music mafia that launched JJ Cale, Leon Russell, bassist Carl Radle, drummers Jamie Oldaker & Jimmy Karstein, organist Dick Sims, guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, and a bunch of other musicians and sidemen that starred, backed or sessioned on a huge number of critically acclaimed albums & tours of the 1970s, propagating their own laid-back but hugely influential jazz/soul/funk/country groove in the process. Eric Clapton built the other half of his career on their sound, and the mid-1990 success of country rockers The Tractors was probably their last visible manifestation outside Oklahoma.
I first heard of Rockin' Jimmy on the great Alexis Korner's Sunday evening radio show on the BBC. Intrigued, I tracked down the record...and then went to see the band when they emerged on an impossibly rare excursion outside Tulsa, at the legendary Dingwall's Dancehall in Camden Lock.
Dingwall's was virtually my local at that time - a sticky-floored late night London music biz hangout infested with musicians, management, agents, journos, low and mid-level record co execs, and over-excited civilians, in an endless melee of showcases, launches, and appearances for (generally) roots oriented bands of the moment. Times being what they were, we were inclined to get a little excitable ourselves.
Some time late in the night's proceedings, the by-now long anticipated Rockin' Jimmy, & his Brothers Of The Night, emerged from the phone boothed sized dressing room behind the stage, ambled in a laid-back manner to their positions...and sat down. A singularly un-starry looking bunch, even by the determinedly mundane standards made de rigeur by London's pub rocking scene of a year or two previous, the band had now rendered themselves entirely invisible to all but the first three rows crushed against the low stage.
They were great. Every once in a while, at a moment of high drama, the guitar totin' Rockin' Jimmy would stand up and shimmy about the stage, looking like an avuncular bank manager after a sherry too many at a family party. The rest of the band sat tight, visible briefly as audience members ebbed and jostled in front of the bandstand. Their feel was immaculate - making every tune a miracle of compressed energy and expression, wrapped up in a deceptively lazy delivery that sounded so easy, relaxed and economical that you didn't notice the complexity of the elements that went went into making it sound simple. Entranced, I found myself standing next to Alexis Korner, beaming on the edge of the dance floor, accepting handshakes and congratulations on 'his' band.
Rockin' Jimmy never came back to London, as far as I know. Tonight's the first time I've heard him mentioned on the radio in years. But most every time I'm playing bass in a band, I'm thinking about the groove, and how to place each note in the sweet spot, and make the music get up and shimmy like Rockin' Jimmy and his band did, that night in Dingwalls.
BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON 
(Released 1981)TRACK LISTING:
Stand Back!
Slow Pace
Little Rachel
Crazy
The Wind At Your Back
Can't Jive Enough
Ragin' Storm
Leave My Woman Alone
Why Ya Doin' What You Do
Another Chance
Ride It Easy
Call On Me
THE BAND:
Jimmy Byfield - Guitars, Vocals
Stever Hickerson - Guitar
Chuck Dewalt - Drums
Gary Gilmore - Bass
Walt Richmond - Keyboards
CONTACT:
READ THIS for more information on this album.
ROCKIN' JIMMY AND THE BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT 
TRACK LISTING:
Rockin' All Night
You Got It Made
Sugar Babe
The Beat Of My Heart
I Was Wrong
Right On Time
Angel Eyes
It's A Mystery
Mood Music
We Got Love
You Got Me (And I Got You)
THE BAND:
Jimmy Byfield - Guitars, Vocals
Steve Hickerson - Guitar
Chuck Dewalt - Drums
Gary Cundiff - Bass
Walt Richmond - Keyboards
CONTACT:
READ THIS for more information on this album.
Digitized from the original vinyl, released in 1980 on Columbia Records.
