Little Milton

 ( 1934 Births ) 

In 1953, while still a teenager playing in local bars, he was discovered by Ike Turner, who was a talent scout for Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Milton signed a contract with the label and recorded a number of singles. None of them broke through onto radio or sold well at record stores, so Milton left the Sun label in 1955. The next two years he released singles on Modern Records' subsidiary, Meteor Records.

In 1958, Milton moved to East St. Louis and set up the St. Louis-based Bobbin Records label, which ultimately scored a distribution deal with Leonard Chess' Chess Records. As a record producer, Milton helped bring artists such as Albert King and Fontella Bass to fame, while experiencing his own success for the first time. After a number of small format and regional hits, his 1962 single, "So Mean to Me," broke onto the Billboard R&B record chart, eventually peaking at number 14.

Following a short break to tour, managing other acts, and spending time recording new material, he returned to music in 1965 with a more polished sound, similar to that of B.B. King. After the ill-received "Blind Man" (R&B: number 86), he released back-to-back hit singles. The first, "We're Gonna Make It," a blues-infused soul song, topped the R&B chart

Milton's song "Let Me Down Easy" was recorded by the Spencer Davis Group on The Second Album (1965), but his authorship was not acknowledged on the record. He released a single of it himself in 1968 on Checker. It was also chosen by Etta James as the final track in her final album The Dreamer in 2011.

Throughout the late 1960s Milton released a number of moderately successful singles, but did not issue a further album until 1969, with Grits Ain't Groceries featuring his hit of the same name, as well as "Just a Little Bit" and "Baby, I Love You". With the death of Leonard Chess the same year, Milton's distributor, Checker Records fell into disarray, and Milton joined the Stax Records label two years later. Adding complex orchestration to his works, Milton scored hits with "That's What Love Will Make You Do" and "What It Is" from his live album, What It Is: Live at Montreux. He appeared in the documentary film, Wattstax, which was released in 1973. Stax, however, had been losing money since late in the previous decade and was forced into bankruptcy in 1975.

After leaving Stax, Milton struggled to maintain a career, moving first to Evidence, then the MCA Records imprint Mobile Fidelity Records, before finding a home at the independent record label, Malaco Records, where he received his second Grammy nomination for Welcome To Little Milton in 1999. He remained with the label for much of the remainder of his career. His last hit single, "Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number," was released in 1983 from the album of the same name. In 1988, Milton was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and won a W.C. Handy Award. His final album, Think of Me, was released in May 2005 on the Telarc imprint, and included writing and guitar on three songs by Peter Shoulder of the UK-based blues-rock trio Winterville.

Milton died at the age of 70 on August 4, 2005, from complications following a stroke. He was posthumously honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Inverness.

• Greatest Hits (1972, Chess)
• Chess Blues Masters Series (1976, Chess) 2-LP
• His Greatest Sides, Vol. 1 (1983, MCA/Chess)
• The Sun Masters (1990, Rounder)
• Welcome to the Club: The Essential Chess Recordings (1994, MCA/Chess) 2-CD
• The Complete Stax Singles (1994, Fantasy)
• Stand By Me: The Blues Collection No. (1995, Orbis)
• Little Milton's Greatest Hits (1995, Malaco)
• St. Louis Blues Revue: The Classic Bobbin Sessions various (1996, Ace)
• Rockin' the Blues (1996, MCA Special Products)
• Greatest Hits (The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection) (1997, MCA/Chess)
• Chess Blues Guitar (Two Decades of Killer Fretwork 1949 to 1969) various (1998 MCA/Chess) 2-CD
• Count the Days (1997, 601 Records)
• The Complete Checker Hit Singles (2001, Connoisseur Collection)
• Anthology 1953–1961 (2002, Varèse Sarabande)
• Running Wild Blues (2006, Charly)
• Stax Profiles: Little Milton (2006, Stax)
• The Very Best of Little Milton (2007, Stax)
• Chicago Blues and Soul via Memphis and St. Louis (His Early years 1953–1962) (2014, Jasmine)

note: this is just a partial list

• Jackie Ross: Take the Weight Off Me (Grapevine) – Milton sings five duets with Ross
• Albert King, Chico Hamilton, Little Milton: Montreux Festival (Stax, 1974) – a shared-album with King and Hamilton
• Various artists: Vanthology: Tribute to Van Morrison (Evidence, 2004) – Milton covered Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey"
• Jean Jacques Milteau: Memphis (Sunnyside) – Milton covered Sting's "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free"
• E.C. Scott: The Other Side of Me (Black Bud) – Milton sings two duets with Scott
• Gov't Mule:
• The Deep End, Volume 1 (ATO, 2001) – Milton sings "Soulshine" with Warren Haynes
• Mulennium – live album 3-CD, (Evil Teen, 2010) recorded December 31, 1999, at the Roxy Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia
• Wintertime Blues: Benefit Concert - a various artists performance from the 'Warren Haynes Christmas Jam' - December 22, 1999
• Willie Dixon: The Chess Box 2-CD, (MCA/Chess, 1988) – Milton performed "I Can't Quit You Baby"
• Ike Turner: That Kat Sure Could Play! The Singles 1951-1957 (Secret Records 2010) – Milton performs on six songs

• Official Little Milton website including biography
• Discography; complete with original catalogue issue numbers
• Official Little Milton store