Looking for something totally unrelated I came across this in issue 42 of Record Research (March/April 1962, p.12). What really caught my eye was a proposed three weeks at Chicago's Playboy Club!
Doug
Quattlebaum
By Paul Sheatsley
An exciting blues and gospel singer with the unlikely name of Doug Quattlebaum has been keeping audiences happy during a two-week stay at Gerde's Folk City (11 W. 4th St., New York) opening February 6. A rather small crowd was on hand for Doug's opening night, a Tuesday evening, but as the word spread about Folk City's latest blues attraction, the house was packed by the time Friday and Saturday rolled around. Doug plays a powerful driving amplified guitar to accompany his intensely rhythmic singing, and his repertoire is varied and classic. About two-thirds of his numbers are blues -- traditionals such as See See Rider or Trouble in Mind, or more modern ones like his own Love My Baby Blues, recently recorded for Prestige. About one-third are gospel songs like Go Tell It On the Mountain or On the Old Camp Ground, the latter with a moving interpolation of the Lord's Prayer at slow tempo to contrast sharply with the rocking beat of the spiritual.
Until very recently, the name of Doug Quattlebaum was known to only a few collectors through the fine sides he made for the Gotham label in Philadelphia about ten years ago. These items have long been virtually unobtainable, and Doug himself dropped from sight. His rediscovery occurred only last summer when Pete Welding, who has been taping Philadelphia street singers for a forthcoming LP on "The Philadelphia Scene, found him driving a "Mister Softee" ice cream truck -- with his guitar plugged into the truck's amplification system, entertaining the kids with his blues! Since then, Doug has been kept busy in the recording studios, and a Prestige Bluesville album (No. 1065, appropriately titled "Softee Man Blues") should be available about the time this appears in print. Normally, this album would not have been released for several months, but Kenny Goldstein and others at Prestige were so enthusiastic that they decided to rush it out immediately. British collectors can look forward to a Quattlebaum LP soon to be issued by Tony Standish on his Heritage label, and Doug also appears on one track (Mean Old Frisco) of a forthcoming LP on the British '77" label.
Doug himself is a tall, well built man in his middle thirties who creates an almost scholarly appearance behind his horn rimmed glasses. He talks easily and well and has a very relaxed sense of humor. Until he starts to play, he conforms not at all to the stereotype of the rude country blues singer. Yet Doug Quattlebaum comes from just such a background. He is related to the Crudup family (Arthur "Big Boy" was the brother of Doug's stepfather); he was born and raised in Florence, South Carolina, and his first instrument was a crude guitar which he fashioned with his own hands. At the age of 14, his family moved to Philadelphia, the city he still calls home. Doug surprised us by volunteering the information that between 1950 and 1953 he was leader and guitarist of the Bells of Joy, a popular gospel group which toured the South, and that he is on four of the sides they made for the Peacock label in Texas during that period. For the discographically inclined, Doug recalled "Stop Right Now, It's Praying Time" (Peacock 1700) and "Leak In This Old Building" (Peacock 1708) and gave the personnel of the group at the time as Mitch Hatfield (baritone & guitar), Al Ballard (tenor), Lelon Rorie (lead) and Willie Lisbon (bass). Doug has accompanied the Ward Singers on many occasions during the last two years, and even now is working with a Philadelphia gospel group known as the Musicalaires which he assures us "will soon be ready. " As a blues singer, he played the Purple Onionin Toronto in December and has a contract with the Chicago Playboy club for a three-week engagement in January 1963
Mister softee's loss is certainly the blues enthusiast's gain!
