BIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY

A multi-talented figured who briefly appeared on some key West Coast sides as singer and songwriter, but whose career on record was over after only a few releases.

Nothing really is known of Jimmy Huff other than some half-remembered details by more famous figures he was associated with. He came onto the scene as part of the vocal group Three Dots And A Dash with Jesse Belvin, Marvin Phillips and Undine Harris who sang on some sides put out under Big Jay McNeely’s name, the biggest of which Huff wrote himself.

It was Big Jay however who claimed Huff wasn’t much of a singer and was sort of a hanger-on to the more talented and ambitious Belvin, yet the next year Huff got two releases that wound up on RPM which sort of refuted that statement, for while he didn’t possess a smooth voice like Belvin or even an easy-going confident voice like Phillips, he was perfectly suited to his own rougher compositions.

Despite their evident quality for that type of thing, he wasn’t afforded more opportunities and faded quickly from the scene.
 
 
JIMMY HUFF DISCOGRAPHY (Records Reviewed To Date On Spontaneous Lunacy):

ALL THAT WINE IS GONE
(Imperial 5115; March, 1951)
As songwriter and member of Three Dots And A Dash behind Big Jay McNeely… Overshadowed by Jesse Belvin, who gets to sing lead, and McNeely, who leads the band, Huff’s contributions as the song’s writer are hardly minimal as this crams a lot of hooks into a narrow topic. (9)

DON’T CRY BABY
(Imperial 5115; March, 1951)
As songwriter and member of Three Dots And A Dash behind Big Jay McNeely… Huff handles the majority of the lead with only minimal help from Belvin, but his rawer higher pitched sound fits well enough on a pretty thin song and arrangement. (4)

SHE’S MY BABY
(RPM 366; August, 1952)
An enthusiastic roughnecked performance Huff backed by a bluesy guitar to start with before giving us an unhinged rocking solo later on but still takes second place to the equally rowdy sax, this is barroom rock at its most primal, never pretty but all the more effective because of it. (7)