Mercy Baby - Mojo Hand and Love's Voodoo: The Music of Mercy Baby

 

I first heard Mercy Baby back when the amazing compilation called Lavender Jungle came out. His song LOVE’S VOODOO struck a major chord with me. It’s completely unique and amazing. I began immediately researching this guy and wanted to find out as much as I could about him. Much like the music of Joe Hill Louis (who really isn’t like Mercy Baby at all), upon hearing one song on a compilation, I became instantly obsessed. Baby’s singing style is super unique. One syllable words turn into in long drawn out multiple syllable words, almost like Little Jimmy Scott, though nowhere near as drawn out and slow.  It’s hypnotic either way; Bongos, horns, this amazing wailing song structure.

 

I discovered pretty quickly that not a lot was known about Mercy Baby. He was a drummer and a singer. He played drums for Frankie Lee Sims and Sims played guitar on some of Baby’s early records. His real name was Julius Mullins, or Jimmy Mullins and he went by Mercy Baby. Born in Mississippi, he moved to Dallas and recorded for ACE records and then later started self-releasing his own music on his own labels. He died at 47 in the 70’s after he was shot in the neck during an altercation.

 As time went on, I found a few more songs here and there, but no LP / CD of his work. If you listen to Jungle Juice you’ve heard me play his music numerous times, and I’ve also said numerous times that someone should put out an LP of his music so all of it can be heard in one place. Well, I just decided to put together myself so that I could hear all his great music as if someone released it as an album.

 Here are all his 45’s and a few Frankie Lee Sims tracks that he played on. As an added bonus; a little interview with him on a Dallas radio station.

 Thanks to Neil Devlin for the super cool cover and a few 45 rips from his collection.

 Enjoy Mercy Baby’s Mojo Hand and Love’s Voodoo!

 Kogar tSA

Download: Mojo Hand and Love's Voodoo! (mp3)

Stream via mixcloud: Mojo Hand and Love's Voodoo! (mixcloud)