Do Something For Me

Never recorded.

The following anecdotes describe some of Floyd Dixon‘s (1929 – 2006) memories of the Chitlin’ Circuit in the early Fifties. The story about Do Something For Me can be dated in 1953 – 1954. From an article by Billy Vera, posted here:

“The session for M-G-M was Sonnie, backed by Floyd, Hampton and a contingent from Hamp’s big band under the name, the Hamptones. One of the tunes, Sampson’s Boogie, wound up with Floyd’s name as writer, while another, Helpless, was credited to Gladys on the label. ‘Hamp told me he’d tell them to fix it, but they never did.’ Disc jockey Joe Adams, later manager of Ray Charles, used the record as his theme song for years.
In between recording and writing, Dixon toured incessantly. ‘Our agent, William Morris up on Canon Drive, had us on 90 one nighters in a row,’ he recalls. Later, on a tour with newcomer Ray Charles and film star Mantan Moreland, Floyd was awakened from a sound sleep one night in Lexington, Kentucky. ‘At four o’clock in the morning, Ray comes knocking, wanting to know where was his money. I told him Mantan collected from the promoter. We went to his room but he’d checked out. The hotel told us he left for New York. We were broke and stranded so I called Billy Shaw and he wired us the money to get home.’
Another time, in Muncie, Indiana, Floyd heard Ray singing the Dominoes’ Do Something For Me in a gospel style. ‘At that time, he was singing like Nat Cole and Charles Brown, so when he came offstage, I told him ‘You sing in that spiritual style and you’ll really be gone.’ Not long after that, I heard him with that I Got A Woman and he never looked back. I had wanted to [record in that style] but Mesner wouldn’t let me.'”

Floyd Dixon