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Whilst still at school he joined gospel group The Sunset Travellers, as one of the lead
singers, and also worked with The Five Harmonaires, which included his older

brother Edward, but was fronted by OV. Busy OV also found time to sing with The
Spirit of Memphis Quartet and the Highway QCs. However, it was with The Sunset

Travellers that he made his recording debut in May 1957, at the age of 17, having
already turned professional. Subsequently, they recorded for both the Duke and

Peacock labels, but OV was already looking to ‘cross over’, having been ‘discovered’
by manager and songwriter Roosevelt Jamison, who incidentally was also

responsible for the recording debut of the great James Carr. OV’s first solo recording
was Jamison’s ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’, initially for the new Goldwax label,

but contractual problems from his time with Duke/Peacock meant that it was
actually released on the Backbeat subsidiary label, in 1964. Don Robey, the owner

of Duke, Peacock and Backbeat, was not someone to argue with!

The song was a successful debut, even though it is more commonly associated with

Otis Redding and The Rolling Stones.

OV followed up the song with further singles on the Backbeat label, in a wide variety
of soulful styles, from the relatively light ‘Can’t Find True Love’, through a raucous

cover of Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s ‘I Don’t Want To Sit Down’, the ballad ‘You’re Gonna
Make Me Cry’, to the Willie Mitchell produced ‘Eight Men Four Women’. His singles
had been selling well, reputedly in excess of 100,000 copies, but the latter release

was his biggest hit to date, reaching no. 4 in the Billboard R&B chart. Incidentally,

the B-side was a straight blues entitled ‘Fed Up With The Blues’ - one of only a
handful of straight blues tracks he recorded during his lifetime.

By this time OV was working regularly with Willie Mitchell, and the excellent ‘Hi’
label house band, and they produced a string of fine gospel/soul/blues songs,

including the Brook Benton/Bobby Bland ‘I’ll Take Care of You’ (1969), ‘When You
Took Your Love From Me’ (1971) and ‘I’d Rather Be Blind Crippled and Crazy’

(1973). Prior to those releases he had achieved another gold disc, and no. 11 in the
R&B chart with ‘Ace of Spades’ (1970).

In May 1973 Don Robey sold out his music interests to ABC/Dunhill, although
releases continued on Backbeat until July 1975, when 2 releases appeared on

ABC/Dunhill. He then signed for the Hi label, which seemed a rather obvious move
bearing in mind his long time association with Willie Mitchell. He recorded three

albums and a number of singles for Hi, but his use of drugs caught up with him in
the mid-1970s, when he was jailed on a narcotics offence.

Towards the end of his career he returned to gospel music, with The Luckett
Brothers, but his career never attained the same heights, and he died on 16th