MULTIMEDIA

Indy jazz and R&B singer Jimmy Guilford

Click here to watch an interview and performance footage of Jimmy Guilford.

Give a song to Jimmy Guilford and he'll sing it.

During Guilford's 60 years as a professional vocalist, he's been recruited by top doo-wop groups and worked as a fresh talent in Detroit during the explosion of the Motown sound.

A member of the first class of black students to attend Arsenal Technical High School, Guilford later became a fixture at American Cabaret Theatre -- where he portrayed Louis Armstrong in a production of "Satchmo."

Former ACT director-composer-actor Michael Thomas Murray has adapted Guilford's life in music to create a theatrical production titled "Great Googley Moo." Murray is pursuing funds for workshop performances of the show on the East Coast.

Meanwhile, Guilford performs with the Indianapolis-based Cool City Band and appears as part of a jazz trio Monday nights at Sangiovese Ristorante. He plans to make two albums in varying styles in 2008, and 7-inch singles Guilford recorded in the early '60s have become sought-after collectibles in Great Britain.

More than a dozen eye surgeries have left Guilford with limited vision, but his high tenor voice is still intact.

Your singing career began Oct. 31, 1947. What happened that day?

I had the chance to work with probably one of the most famous groups in history -- the Ink Spots. I was just a kid, but I was 6 foot tall, and everyone thought that I was 20 or 21 years old. I was just barely a teenager.

Their lead singer had laryngitis, that's what they told me. I rehearsed for two to three hours, and then we did a job in some type of ballroom that was either on North Street or St. Joseph Street. That was my first taste of the big time. I got seven whole dollars. I think they made $750. After that, we did two or three other jobs in Terre Haute and Dayton, Ohio.

I was too young. They came to the house and asked my mother if she would take me out of school so I could stay with the group. She nixed that real quick. She said, "This guy is going to graduate. I don't care what you say."

You sang with an early version of the Lamplighters doo-wop group. Singing under a lamppost is a classic doo-wop image.

That's where you stand. You do it for the light, because it's dark up and down the street. It's a good place to congregate, and it's on the corner where everybody is passing you. The tavern is right behind you, so you can use the pennies they give you to get a little taste. But I wasn't drinking at that time. My thing was singing.

Do you consider that music doo-wop?

No. It was R&B. Doo-wop is the name that (promoters) put on it. We were just rhythm-and-blues boys. I know where they got the name. The best place to sing and rehearse was in a bathroom or a hallway -- a foyer. If you sing "doo" with four guys in a hallway or in a bathroom, it has such a great sound to it. And when you go "wop," it actually snaps.

We became the band behind the lead singer. We were his drums, his bass and his sax player.

What are your memories of being part of your own Indianapolis-based group, the Four Sounds?

Being on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1960, turning on the radio station and hearing that "The Ring" -- a song I wrote when I was 12 years old -- was the No. 1 song of the week on that station. It doesn't get any better than that. We could see the Statue of Liberty. It was like she was waving at me, "You made it, brother."

Was it rewarding when you toured with established vocal groups the Orioles, the Dominoes and the Ravens?

It was frustrating, because every one of the groups was on the downside, and they acted like they were on the downside. When you hear a name of a group and they were good yesterday, you think you're going with some quality ... You get beat up out there doing this stuff.

Producer Don Davis recommended you as a solo artist to Thelma Coleman, the first wife of Berry Gordy Jr. Is that how "Nobody Loves Me Like My Baby" came to be released on her label, Thelma Records?

I went to Detroit and met Mrs. Gordy, Thelma. She fell in love with (my voice), and she signed me to this four-year contract. I made my home in Detroit, but I would go over and work mostly in Buffalo, N.Y. I could make more money in Buffalo. Detroit was so crammed with singers and groups trying to get on this new label "Hitsville" (actually the headquarters for Berry Gordy labels Tamla and Motown). I saw the Platters, the Isley Brothers and Gladys Knight & the Pips. A singer was a pretty cheap commodity in Detroit. So I worked in Buffalo or Cincinnati. They weren't playing my record here in Indianapolis.

But it must have been exciting to be around the scene in Detroit as Motown took wing.

Exciting? That puts it kind of mild. It was probably the greatest rush you could ever get. Even if you weren't anybody, you felt like you were somebody. We were all striving to do the same thing.

I'm hanging out with Levi Stubbs (of the Four Tops), eating with David Ruffin (of the Temptations) and going to parties with Mary Wilson and Diana Ross (of the Supremes). I had a nice Jaguar. Things were looking up.

I thought I had made it because every disc jockey in Detroit knew me. My song was played every half- hour. You'd have to live it to understand what I'm saying. Just talking about it cannot give you the emotion that you go through at that particular time.

Why is your name spelled 'Gilford' on those records, and not Guilford?

I got tired of being called "Gullford" and "Guliford." We took the "u" out, so you'd have to say "Gilford." None of the disc jockeys could pronounce my name.

You broke into musical theater in 1990, when Bill Myers produced "Blues in the Night" at Theatre on the Square. Were you surprised by how well that went?

I had never done stage work. "Blues in the Night" had three lady singers: Mary Moss, Cherryl Hayes and Karen Williams. I was the only guy in it. It fit me, because it was about a broke singer who was down on his luck.

When I went to the American Cabaret Theatre, I met the musical director, a guy named Michael Murray. He turns out to be a real fanatic about doo-wop. I told him I used to sing with so-and-so.

He didn't believe me, but he's a real thorough investigator. He starts pulling up "Jimmy Gilford" here and "Jimmy Gilford" there. He started writing the story of my life.

A person could look at your career and say, "Here's a talented guy who had a lot of near misses at fame and fortune." How do you feel about that?

OK. You're not going to get what's not for you. I've learned that through my upbringing and some religious training I've had. You're only going to get what you're supposed to get.

The fact that I've been further than most is kind of good. There are some that haven't done anywhere near what I have done, and if you ask me, I think they're better than me.

I have no complaints. I'm where I should be.

More on Jimmy Guilford:

Age: "Older than 70." Hometown: Vincennes, Ind. Education: Arsenal Technical High School. Career highlights: Debuted with the Ink Spots in 1947, performed with Four Sounds on a 1960 bill with Ray Charles, Ruth Brown and Redd Foxx at Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum, recorded underground hit "Nobody Loves Me Like My Baby" for Thelma Records in the early 1960s, portrayed Louis Armstrong in a 2003 production of "Satchmo" at the American Cabaret Theatre, inspired 2000 American Cabaret Theatre show "Street Corner Harmony" and in-the-works musical "Great Googley Moo." Family: Lives with mother Bonnie Guilford. Father of Jack, 43, and David, 39. Web site: www.jimmyguilford.com.