I can remember it like it was yesterday. I always watched The Midnight Special and one week the show featured the Southern Rock Band, Black Oak Arkansas, who I had always enjoyed. The performance included their rendition of the classic ‘Jim Dandy To The Rescue’ and I saw her, the little lady with the huge head of flaming red hair, Miss Ruby Starr. What a perfect name for a powerhouse vocalist. She had a star quality that was easy to spot.
Naturally I went looking to see what else I could find about Ruby Starr. This was long before the internet and I lived in the country in the middle of Nebraska so the only option I had was to go to the local record store in the mall. Musicland here I come. When I got there, I looked up Ruby and found she had an album called ‘Scene Stealer’ with a great cover photo, released on Capitol Records.
I instantly purchased the $5.00 album and took it home to play. I fell madly in love when I heard her version of Paul McCartney’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed.’ I listened to this album a million times it seemed. It wasn’t long and I discovered she had released an album on Capitol before ‘Scene Stealer’ called ‘Ruby Starr and Grey Ghost’. I had to have it. When I did come across it and brought it home to listen to, I fell even more in love with Ruby. This album was killer! ‘Burning Whiskey’ was an immediate classic.
Another year went by, and Ruby Starr released a third album on Capitol called ‘Smokey Places’ and it did not disappoint. Ruby had to be on her way to becoming a huge star, but then nothing happened. No more albums on Capitol Records came out. It seems Ruby all but disappeared. Even if we were never to hear from her again, I did have three albums that I cherished and that kept me happy for many years.
Finally one day in 1988, I saw that the Ruby Starr Band would be playing the Agora Ballroom in Dallas, TX where I was living. I don’t know if I can describe the elated feeling of happiness I had from knowing I would finally be seeing an artist I admired for so long and had given up hope of ever seeing live. When the night of the concert arrived, I grabbed my ‘Smokey Places’ record and took it with me in hopes of getting Ruby to autograph it for me. The show was amazing as I expected, and it seems like it flew by so fast. Ruby showed great stage presence prowling around the band and singing her heart out. After the show I went up to the edge of the stage with my record and I could see Ruby standing there backstage. I waved my record in the air and she saw me and came right over and was so sweet and happy to sign it for me. I left that evening understanding what it felt like to have a dream come true.
Ruby disappeared from my life again after that night. I never heard another thing about her until January 1995 when I heard she had passed away all too soon. Naturally, I was heartbroken. Fast forward to the early 2000s when the internet existed and finally I started seeing that I was not alone in my admiration for this GIANT talent wrapped up in a tiny package. I also learned there were two more albums that I had never heard about that I now could listen to. The first one was an album she recorded before her time with Grey Ghost and Black Oak Arkansas on Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label called ‘Ruby Jones ‘Stone Junkie’. Yes, Ruby covered Curtis Mayfield and she did it spectacularly. The other album came out in the middle 1980’s and was called ‘Telephone Sex’. Ruby shares lead vocals on this album and it has a decidedly 80’s pop rock vibe to it, another stunning release.
Now in the past three years, thanks to many people who feel the same way I do, I have discovered rare single releases and live recordings. There was a lot more Ruby Starr music than I ever imagined. I love hearing everything. The best part of being around right now is that Cabal Records decided to remaster and re-release her Capitol albums, as well as her 1960’s recordings done under the name of Connie Little and release a DVD and CD of her now legendary performance from 1975 at the Winterland in San Francisco.
So, how did her albums finally start coming out on CD after 4 decades? It seems what brought her back was a new legal assignment for publishing rights after the death of Rickie Lee “Riccochet Reynolds”. Toenges LLC partnered with Reynolds to obtain rights from her manager Butch Stone. Timexx Seabaugh is the producer in charge. He worked with Black Oak Arkansas with his band, Drivin’ Rain opening for them for many years. He worked directly with Reynolds and succeeded in re-releasing Ruby Starr’s albums.Image may be NSFW.
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Now, who is Ruby Starr? Let’s look at her official biography.
In 1958, little nine-year-old Connie Mierzwiak was belting out Brenda Lee songs, although it’s been said she already had designs on kicking rock & roll’s ass. By the time she hit the Chicago bar scene in the mid-’70s, she was titillating audiences as the saucy, sassy, sexy, spicy rollicking rock & roll queen known as Ruby Starr. She began performing at the age of nine under the stage name Connie Little, growing up in Toledo, Ohio. During the time she could be found performing with early bands Connie and the Blu-Beats, the Downtowners, and the Blue Grange Ramblers. By the time she was a teenager, she was already screaming songs out on the local club scene using the stage name Ruby Jones. In 1971, the band inked a contract with Curtom Records and issued the debut, simply titled ‘Ruby Jones.’ The album demonstrated her ability to portray a provoking sexuality in her persona, exemplified by her take on the Rascals’ “You Better Run”.
It wasn’t too long after the album’s release when Black Oak Arkansas lead singer Jim Dandy Mangrum saw Ruby at a club in Evansville, Indiana. Realizing his band needed something else to set them apart from the herd of southern rock bands emerging, he invited her to join Black Oak Arkansas. When she did, she became Ruby Starr.
While she was considered a backup singer with Black Oak Arkansas, her bold shrieking of “go Jim Dandy, go Jim Dandy,” catapulted her out front. The band hit the Top 30 charts with their cover of LaVern Baker’s “Jim Dandy (To the Rescue)” (Atco) and with Ruby’s sensual, “Southern spitfire” photogenic looks, she became a fixture in the rock magazines like Circus and Creem.
Her raw and raunchy image, punctuated by her powerful vocal presence, set the tone for Ruby Starr to leave Black Oak Arkansas in 1974 and set out on her own career forming Ruby Starr and Grey Ghost. That band included a young guitarist who became well-known later on the Chicago scene by the name of Gary Levin. "I had played in quite a few bands before I got with Ruby and we got signed to Capitol Records which was when my career really took off". Grey Ghost also included Marius Penczner, Dave Mayo and Joel Williams.
The relationship with Black Oak Arkansas continued with their manager Butch Stone securing the contract with Capitol, producing three albums in 1975-77. Grey Ghost continued to tour as an opening act for Black Oak Arkansas and other headliners.
When not touring, Grey Ghost became a staple of the Chicago and Milwaukee area club scenes. Starr also toured with Blackfoot from 1977 to 1978. Over the next five years, Ruby and singer Michael Grey evolved Grey Ghost into Lucy Grey and finally into Grey Star, releasing two independent albums on the Emotion label, continuing her personification with songs like “Baby It’s You” and “Telephone Sex”.
In the early ’90s, Ruby Starr quit the road and moved to Las Vegas where she was gigging at casinos and hotels on the Strip such as the Riviera and Stardust as the Ruby Starr Band. She was about to join the Country Legends show at the Aladdin when she was diagnosed with lung cancer and a brain tumor was discovered. With that, she returned home to her family in Toledo, Ohio. Sadly, she passed away in 1995. She was only 45.
After her death, Rickie Lee Reynolds of Black Oak Arkansas coordinated “The Lost Tapes” project. All profits raised from the Ruby Starr Lost Tapes are donated to St. Jude's Children’s Hospital for cancer research for children under the name of the Ruby Starr Trust Fund. After her death, several archival releases that featured Starr were issued, including the live Black Oak Arkansas recording, "Live On The King Biscuit Flower Hour" in 1976, and a reissue of Ruby Jones's debut album, retitled as Stone Junkie (Sequel) in 2000. A Ruby Jones track “Hear It On The Radio” is also included on Toledo, Ohio radio station WIOT-FM 104 project Toledo’s Best Rock compilation (Pacer 8103), released in 1981.
