Cold Grits

Very little is known for certain about this group -- which may actually have been two groups, or possibly two incarnations of the same group. What is certain is that a Baton Rouge-spawned outfit called Cold Grits had several brushes with greatness across a history of about three (or perhaps four) years. The Cold Grits go back at least to 1968 as a backing back for John Fred (of "Judy in Disguise" fame), on-stage and on his sides for the Uni Records label. Their lineup, according to a posting on a blog owned by Lafayette, LA-based researcher Dan Phillips, was Hog Cowart on bass, Jimmy O'Rourke on guitar, Billy Carter on keyboards, and Tubby Ziegler on drums. They ended up folded into the Uni Records-signed soul outfit the Sister and Brothers, fronted by singer Geraldine "Sister Gerry" Richard, who issued three singles (produced and co-written by Ron Shaab) that gave co-production credit to "Cold Gritz" (sic). That same year, Atco Records released an instrumental cover of the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing" backed with "Bring It on Home to Me," credited to Cold Grits. At some point, in 1969, this band parted company with John Fred and ended up in Birmingham, AL, where the bandmembers logged a huge amount of studio time in addition to playing a massive number of gigs, the former at least initially in association with recording entrepreneur Bob Grove (Prestige Recording Studio, etc.) at his Unity Records. Apparently, the band crossed paths with Atlantic Records' Jerry Wexler, who was impressed enough with their work to move them down to his label's Criteria Studios in Miami, where they cut backing tracks for Wilson Pickett and Jackie Moore, among others, as well as their lone 45-rpm release. From here, the history gets very confusing, as another, similarly named band --...