Red Allen

Henry James "Red" Allen (January 7, 1906 – April 17, 1967) was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist whose style has been claimed to be the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armstrong.

Life and career

Henry James "Red" Allen was born in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of bandleader Henry Allen. He took early trumpet lessons from Peter Bocage and Manuel Manetta.

Allen's career began in Sidney Desvigne's Southern Syncopators. He was playing professionally by 1924 with the Excelsior Brass Band and the jazz dance bands of Sam Morgan, George Lewis and John Casimir. After playing on riverboats on the Mississippi River he went to Chicago in 1927 to join King Oliver's band. Around this time he made recordings on the side in the band of Clarence Williams. After returning briefly to New Orleans, where he worked with the bands of Fate Marable and Fats Pichon, he was offered a recording contract with Victor Records and returned to New York City, where he also joined the Luis Russell band, which was later fronted by Louis Armstrong in the late 1930s.

Red Allen (bluegrass)

Harley Allen (February 12, 1930 – April 3, 1993), better known as Red Allen, was an American bluegrass singer and guitarist known for his powerful tenor voice.

Biography

Allen, born in Pigeon Roost Hollow, near Hazard, Kentucky, grew up in the music-rich hills of eastern Kentucky, and following a stint in the Marines, settled in Dayton, Ohio in 1949, where he began performing professionally. In 1952, Allen discovered a young teenage mandolin virtuoso named Frank Wakefield, who had moved to Dayton from Harriman, Tennessee. Soon Wakefield became a member of Allen's first band, the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys. The band also included the legendary Ohio 5-string banjo player Noah Crase. They worked the local bars along Dayton's Fifth Street as well as the rough blue collar taverns which made up the Ohio and Michigan bluegrass circuit at the time. Allen first came to broader public attention in 1956, when he joined the Osborne Brothers to fill out one of the most influential vocal trios in the history of country music. Allen made his first recordings with the Osborne Brothers on July 1, 1956 when they recorded four songs, including "Ruby," "Ho Honey Ho" and "Once More." The Osbornes and Red Allen were now featured cast members on the World's Original Jamboree radio show over WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia. Red And the Osborne's Revolutionized Bluegrass To Beautiful Harmony. Later the Beatles did the same thing for rock and role. In 1958, Allen left the group and returned to Dayton.