Big Maybelle - The Rojac Years

Review by Steve Leggett



It had been a decade since Big Maybelle's commercial peak with the OKeh and Savoy labels in the late '50s, and her life, which included heroin addiction and diabetes, hadn't been an easy one. Enter Jack Taylor, who brought her into the studio again for his Harlem-based Rojac Records in 1966, presented her with material that challenged her, and delivered her into a wonderfully creative autumnal period at the end of her career. Rojac was the last label Big Maybelle would record for before her early death in 1972 at the age of 47. There's great stuff here, including her re-imagining of ? & the Mysterians' "96 Tears," a lush "Turn the World Around the Other Way," a wonderfully bouncing version of "Careless Love," and the poignant the-bar's-closed jazz ballad "I Am Lost," among others. Big Maybelle was one of a kind, really, and these intimate tracks show that she never lost her feel no matter what the world threw at her.