Jimmy Liggins
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Jimmy Liggins (b 14 October 1922, Newby, Oklahoma – 18 July 1983, Durham, North Carolina) was an American R&B guitarist and bandleader.
Following the success of his brother Joe, Jimmy Liggins started his recording career as singer, guitarist, and leader of the “Drops of Joy”, on Art Rupe’s Specialty label in 1947. One of his early releases, “Cadillac Boogie”, was a direct forerunner of “Rocket 88”, itself often called the first rock and roll record.
Recordings such as "Tear Drop Blues" and, later, “Drunk”, featuring leading sax players such as Maxwell Davis, made him one of the most successful bandleaders in the jump blues period of the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Liggins left Specialty in 1954, recording "I Ain't Drunk", later covered by Albert Collins, at Aladdin, before fading from the scene.
