You Mention My Name

Terri North

You Mention My Name
Willie F. James - Gene Brooks
Arthur Music (ASCAP)

Preview 1501
1968

This is actually Teri Thornton, a jazz singer turned song poem singer at the end of the sixties after her career was seriously damaged when she started to lose an ongoing struggle with alcohol addiction.  Only decades later she was discovered to have been singing on records in Los Angeles under various pseudonyms for the Preview Records and MSR labels, where she was the Rodd Keith label mate for a couple of years.

On MSR she was Teri Summers.  I've collected for you ten of her songs issued on various MSR albums.  The archived file can be found HERE

Tracklist

Teri Summers & The Librettos  
A Dreamy Waltz 
City's Hospital Patients      
I Cross My Heart
Lonely Heart
Nativity
Season's Greetings
The Evening Is Approaching

Teri & The MSR Singers
I've Found My True Love
More On Ode To Billy Joe

Teri Thornton, born Shirley Enid Avery in 1934 (or 1936).

She was born in Detroit, where her parents, Robert Avery, a Pullman porter, and Bernice Crews Avery, a choir director and singer who was the host of a local radio show, encouraged her to study classical music. Thornton began her singing career in 1956 with an engagement at Cleveland's Ebony Club before going on tour and playing and recording in Chicago. Her debut recording session in the winter of 1960/1 found her teamed with several notable jazz musicians including Clark Terry, Britt Woodman, Earle Warren, Seldon Powell, Wynton Kelly, Freddie Green, Sam Jones, Jimmy Cobb, and Sam Herman.  

 She had a 1963 hit with "Somewhere In The Night", the theme from a popular television show, The Naked City. Her popularity opened doors for her but an opportunity to tour Australia as an accompanying artist to Frank Sinatra was mishandled and lost. Her early success was still further and more seriously damaged when she started to lose an ongoing struggle with alcohol addiction. Apart from damaging her career, this also blighted her personal life and she went through three divorces, a long and arduous spell outside music, during which she drove a cab for a while, and a term of imprisonment.


She had records (including four albums) on Riverside (1961), Dauntless (1963), Columbia (1963-1965) Mother's (1967) and Verve Records in 1999, her first album (on CD) for more than 30 years.  In 2000, few months later, after her last release, she died, finally losing her battle with cancer.

1964

1965

1967

Pehaps worth tracking these Teri/Terri/Terry songs on Preview Records :1464 Terry Marsh - How Many Times Have I Loved You / Though We Say Goodbye Now

1475 Teri Marsh - The Jacks And Jills  (1968)
1485 Terri Marsh -- Bones / Rodd Keith & Terri Marsh -- It's Raining 
1496 Terri Marshall -- Darling Please Come Home
1500 Terri North -- All Alone / Humming, Buzzing Sound
1501 Terri North  : You Mention My Name/ When It's Christmas Time In Georgia

1515 Terri Tyler -- A Sweet Song
1516 Teri Marshall -- The Things They Say
1524 Teri Jackson -- I Can't Take It  / You Got It Baby
1544 Teri Mathews -- Oh My Honey  / This Book Has Three Kisses
1551 Teri Mathews -- I'll Gather Happiness (1969)
1584 The Gospels Feat. Rodd & Teri -- O Jesus My Saviour
1949 Terri Wells -- My Doll Jane *
2208 Gene & Teri -- Wandering Blues
2224 Terri Stillwell  -  You Came Along


1475, 1496, 1516 — flip by Rodd Keith
1515 — flip by Alan Poe
1551 — fiip by Dick Jones
1584 — flip by The Laredos  led by Rodd
1949, 2208, 2224 — flip by Gene Marshall
* was available at The Wonderful and The Obscure blog but recently suppressed


Acknowledgments : lBoppinBob, Wikipedia,  Preview Discography, 
Teri Thornton singles discography at 45cat