Biography
#1 Jerry Ross was an American rockabilly singer.
#2 Jerry Ross (Jerold Rosenberg, The Bronx, New York, 9 March 1926 - 11 November 1955) was an American lyricist, composer, singer and actor who worked frequently with Richard Adler.
#3 Jerry Ross (May 1, 1933 – October 4, 2017) was an American songwriter, A&R man, record producer, and record label owner. As a writer, his greatest success was with "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," which he co-wrote with his protégé Kenny Gamble. His greatest successes as a producer include "Sunny" by Bobby Hebb, and "Venus" by Shocking Blue. Jerry produced The Mob on their self-titled first album in 1970.
The Jerry Ross Symposium represented the MOR/Lounge configuration in the career of Jerry Ross, hit producer at Mercury records, and founder of the Heritage and Colossus labels. Along with arranger Claus Ogerman, guitarist Vincent Bell and studio musicians, he created smooth versions of his rock creations "Venus" and "Ma Belle Amie", which were accepted by "Easy Listening" radio stations. The rest of the 1970 album was based on covers of other hits of the day such as "For The Love Of Him" and "Everything Is Beautiful". A 1972 follow-up containing an early version of "Mandy" received lesser attention.
#1 Jerry's demos of Everybody's Trying To Kiss My Baby and Little One that he submitted to Sun under the name of Gene Ross, offer only sparse evidence as to the true nature of the partnership he shared with Tommy Blake, as the former title is the only demo since located and bares no indication of the writers responsible for the tune. The sole clue that solidifies the affirmation of a partnership between the pair is a seven-inch record that Jerry cut in 1959 for the Shreveport based Murco label owned by Dick Martin and Harding Desmarais (could this be Dee Marais' real name?). The top-side of the Murco single, Everybody's Tryin' (as by Jerry Ross on Murco 1016), is identical in every aspect to the earlier Sun version and credits Thomas Givens and Jonah Ross as the writers. As Givens was Tommy Blake's given surname, it is fairly clear that the two singers did, for at least a year or so, work together as songwriters. The flip of Jerry's Murco disc, Small Little Girl, may be a reworking of his still missing Sun demo Little One. Jerry wrote at least two other songs with Tommy, including Alright and a tune that Tommy would record for Bragg in 1964 as Van Givens, titled You And I (Betty Givens was also credited as part composer). Little else is known of Ross though, aside from a few records that appeared under the name of Gene Ross in 1958 on Herald (the Al Silver owned label?), Indie and Spry (a re-issue of the Indie disc) and one final release on Time in 1962. There may exist unissued recordings by Jerry in the KWKH tape library too. Ed Dettenheim is sure that he backed Jerry on two titles recorded at the station's studio, probably around the time he and Carl parted company with Tommy. With Carl Adams on lead, Jerry cut a rendition of Shadow My Baby (possibly the Glenn Barber song?) and a tune composed by Ed, Mr. Blues. Ed's memory of the session is faint, "It was a low down blues Mr. Blues with Carl playing awesome string bending walking stuff. He cut a couple more songs but I don't remember what they were".
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
