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Tiny Irvin - Pittsburgh Jazz and blues singer extra-ordinaire


Dennis Binder - early progenitor of blues and rock'n'roll
Earwig Music CEO Michael Frank first heard of musician Dennis Binder, born in Rosedale, Mississippi in 1928, when Delmark Records, on their Pearl label, reissued Dennis's early 1950's United Records tracks on the album Long Man Blues. Dennis, a rhythm & blues pianist and singer, started recording and touring during the early days of electric blues and rock 'n roll.

When a friend of Dennis called Frank, asking if he might be interested in recording Dennis, that presented Frank a special opportunity, one of those wow! moments, to record a lesser known, but significant early progenitor of electric blues and rock 'n roll. In addition to recording for Chicago's United Records, Dennis has also recorded in the early 1950's for Sun Records, Modern and Chess Records. He played regionally in Mississippi with Ike Turner, whose band backed Dennis on his Sun and Modern sessions set up by Ike.

On tour through the Southwest in 1956, with A.C. Reed, Earl Hooker and other members of Ike Turner's band, Dennis met a young woman, fell in love and settled down in Lawton, Oklahoma, a wide open town with lots of club work due to the US military base.

When Frank rediscovered him in 2004, Dennis was still in Lawton, gigging occasionally on organ at clubs and private parties, and playing bass in church, writing lots of songs and recording self produced, home-grown cds. Dennis's main instrument in his early days was bass. By the time of his Earwig Music recording session, Dennis had added electric keyboards and piano to his musical palette. He especially liked embellishing his music by playing horn and string parts on his electronic keyboard, which filled out his sound when playing solo gigs.

For Dennis's first commercially distributed cd since his 1950 recording, Producer Frank picked crack Chicago musicians to back Dennis. Chris James and James Wheeler played lead and rhythm guitar, Patrick Rynn laid down the bass, Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith locked in the groove on drums, Rodney "Hot-Rod" Brown added just the right r&b feel on saxes, and Dennis played acoustic piano and did the vocals.
As a result of his Earwig Music cd release, Dennis played festivals in the USA, Canada, England and Thailand. Though sidelined in 2008-9 by his own and his wife's health problems, Dennis continues to play locally around Lawton, Oklahoma, writing and recording new material.

The track "Must Be a Hole In That Jug" captures Dennis sounding like he popped out of a time capsule wailing his '50's style rhythm 'n blues. Like Sonny Boy Williamson #2 (Rice Miller), who did not share his bottle of liquor, Dennis lets us know that he was not at all pleased that someone took the last swallow of liquor out of his jug of whiskey.