A rustle of paper as the sleeve is removed. A clunk and click as the needle arm is swung across. The needle hits the vinyl, bringing it to life. At first there’s a lot of crackling in the ether. Then at last the music begins. A sultry saxophone. A few notes on the guitar, slow, low and relaxed. At last the voice enters.
It’s not at all what you would expect from that swingband opening. The voice is strong, unmelodic, harsh almost, but so passionate you’re drawn in straight away. We’re told it’s Little Miss Cornshucks. She’s singing a version of ‘Try a little tenderness’ that sounds just as good, if not better, than Otis Redding’s amazing version from 1966. Who is she? You might well ask. Salena Godden went in search of her and ended up in Chicago, as we found out on Tuesday morning on Radio 4 in Try a Little Tenderness: The Lost Legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks (vividly produced by Rebecca Maxted).
Little Miss Cornshucks recorded the song in 1951 (with Coral records) long before Otis Redding (or even Aretha Franklin) and was a big hit, especially in Chicago at the Club DeLisa, but who knows her now? She was born Mildred Cummings in May 1923 in Dayton, Ohio, and brought up poor but encouraged to sing by her parents.
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