Bobby Mitchell

Bobby Mitchell & the Toppers were part of the wave of New Orleans rock & rollers who followed in the wake of Fats Domino and Lloyd Price. Although the group had limited success (their best known song, "Try Rock 'n Roll," climbed into the R&B Top 20 nationally, and "I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday" was a smash in numerous localities without ever charting nationally) and broke up in 1954, Mitchell remained a popular figure in New Orleans R&B for 35 years. Bobby Mitchell (August 16, 1935-March 17, 1989) was born in Algiers, LA, the second oldest of what were eventually 17 children in a family that made its living fishing the Mississippi River -- Mitchell himself contributed to the family's well-being by cutting and selling wood. When he was ten years old, Mitchell got a job after school making deliveries for a liquor store, and it was while hanging around the store that he started singing -- he was good enough then that people gave him nickels and dimes for his performances. Mitchell played football in school until an injury sidelined him permanently, after which he joined the school chorus. By the time he was done with school, the music teacher was giving him solos on numbers such as "Ol' Man River" and "You'll Never Walk Alone." At age 17, he was in his first singing group, the Louisiana Groovers. By that time, Mitchell was falling firmly under the influence of R&B, most especially the sound of Roy Brown. Mitchell wrote his first original song, "One Friday Morning," a doo wop-style ballad, which he cut as a demo with help from a teacher with a tape recorder (still a relative rarity in 1952). That tape got auditioned at a local radio station, and this led to the formation of a backing group called the Toppers, consisting of Lloyd Bellaire (tenor), Joseph Butler (tenor),...