Robert Ward - Love is Amazing
Robert Ward killin' it at the 1992 San Francisco Blues Festival
For a guy as much into the music as I have been, there just were folks that I should have known about that I didn't until I came across them much later in my life. This is true of Robert Ward, whose music (mostly guitar work) I had heard for years before I finally heard it. I credit Mai with finally cluing me into what Robert was all about. She played his music a lot, enough to get me out to purchase a copy of his disc, Fear No Evil.
I got to see Robert perform live for the first time at the 1992 San Francisco Blues Festival. This image was made at that show.
Born Robert Jeryl Ward in Luthersville, Georgia, he moved to Dayton, Ohio in 1960 and formed the Ohio Untouchables. The group released several singles on LuPine including "Your Love Is Amazing" which would become one of Ward's signature songs. Ward left the group in 1965.
He moved to the Detroit area, actually residing in Toledo, Ohio, and released singles under his name in the late 1960s. He disappeared from the music scene in the 1970s, after working as a session player for Motown.
In the early 1990s he returned to the spotlight. He was rediscovered by Black Top Records and released his first full-length album Fear No Evil in 1991. He released two more albums in the next four years for the label. In the mid-1990s he did limited touring, including a date in Minneapolis with Curtis Obeda and The Butanes, and several dates in Michigan including Kalamazoo, Three Rivers and Grand Rapids. After the label went defunct in the late 1990s, WRKR Kalamazoo blues DJ Marty Spaulding, who Robert had appointed his manager, arranged a recording contract with Delmark Records to release New Role Soul in 2000. In his last years he had health problems, including two strokes, which prevented him from performing or recording.
[text lifted from Wiki]
I got to see Robert perform live for the first time at the 1992 San Francisco Blues Festival. This image was made at that show.
Born Robert Jeryl Ward in Luthersville, Georgia, he moved to Dayton, Ohio in 1960 and formed the Ohio Untouchables. The group released several singles on LuPine including "Your Love Is Amazing" which would become one of Ward's signature songs. Ward left the group in 1965.
He moved to the Detroit area, actually residing in Toledo, Ohio, and released singles under his name in the late 1960s. He disappeared from the music scene in the 1970s, after working as a session player for Motown.
In the early 1990s he returned to the spotlight. He was rediscovered by Black Top Records and released his first full-length album Fear No Evil in 1991. He released two more albums in the next four years for the label. In the mid-1990s he did limited touring, including a date in Minneapolis with Curtis Obeda and The Butanes, and several dates in Michigan including Kalamazoo, Three Rivers and Grand Rapids. After the label went defunct in the late 1990s, WRKR Kalamazoo blues DJ Marty Spaulding, who Robert had appointed his manager, arranged a recording contract with Delmark Records to release New Role Soul in 2000. In his last years he had health problems, including two strokes, which prevented him from performing or recording.
[text lifted from Wiki]
