Over the years Covay's compositions have been recorded by such varied artists as Gene Vincent, Wanda Jackson, Connie Francis, Steppenwolf, The Daughters of Eve, Bobby Womack, the Rolling Stones, Wilson Pickett, Small Faces, Grant Green, and Peter Wolf, among others. Franklin won a Grammy for her performance. However, his songwriting continued to be successful, as he wrote songs for Etta James, Otis Redding, Little Richard (his 1965 hit, "I Don't Know What You Got but It's Got Me", for Vee-Jay and a couple of soul dancers for Brunswick, released in 1967), and notably Aretha Franklin, who had a hit in 1968 with " Chain of Fools", a song Covay had written some fifteen years earlier. On "See-Saw", Covay "achieved an even more powerfully soulful edge " but he did not maintain momentum as a performer, and most of his later recordings for Atlantic failed to chart. He thinks in different areas and he was kind of driving people bananas." According to Carla Thomas, the musicians enjoyed working with artists sent by Atlantic, including Covay and Wilson Pickett, but resented having to give them studio time. We get along great but I don't think Jim and them understood Don. Cropper emphasized his appreciation of Covay: "I loved Don to death. Cropper ascribed it to a clash between executive Jim Stewart's more conservative persona and Covay's unpredictable creative character. His relationship with Stax's staff has been described as difficult, both with its musicians and with its management. Ītlantic bought Covay's contract and minor R&B hits followed, but it was a year before Covay returned to the pop chart, with " See-Saw", co-written with guitarist Steve Cropper and recorded at Stax, along with "I Never Get Enough of Your Love", "Sookie Sookie" (both also co-written by Covay and Cropper), and "Iron Out the Rough Spots" (by Cropper, Booker T. The following year the song was recorded by the Rolling Stones for their album Out of Our Heads, on which Mick Jagger closely followed Covay's singing style. It was co-written with Goodtimers guitarist Ronnie Miller, which established Covay's earthy bluesy style, and featured a young Jimi Hendrix on guitar. His singing career continued to falter until 1964, when he had one of his biggest pop hits on the small, Atlantic-distributed Rosemart label with " Mercy, Mercy".
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Gladys Knight & the Pips reached the US Top 20 with Covay's song " Letter Full of Tears", and Wilson Pickett recorded Covay's "I'm Gonna Cry (Cry Baby)" as his first single on Atlantic. He also started writing songs for Roosevelt Music in the Brill Building in New York City, writing a hit for Solomon Burke, "I'm Hanging Up My Heart for You". In 1962, Covay had his first hit on Cameo-Parkway Records under his own name, "The Popeye Waddle", a dance-oriented track. The song was later recorded by Chubby Checker and became a US No. It was issued by the small Arnold label and credited to his group, the Goodtimers. Later that year, however, he had his first chart success, when " Pony Time", a song he co-wrote with fellow Rainbows member John Berry, reached No. Over the next few years, Covay drifted from label to label, eventually signing with Columbia Records in 1961, but success remained elusive. A single, "Bip Bop Bip", on which Covay was billed as "Pretty Boy", was released on Atlantic, produced by Little Richard and featuring his backing band, the Upsetters. Career Ĭovay's solo career began in 1957 as part of the Little Richard Revue, when he worked both as the star's chauffeur and as an opening act. He crossed over to secular music as a member of the Rainbows and made his first recordings with that group in 1956. He resettled in Washington, D.C., with his mother Helen Zimmerman Randolph and his siblings in the early 1950s and initially sang in the Cherry Keys, his family's gospel quartet. His father, a Baptist preacher, died when Covay was eight. Covay was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina.