Z. Z. Hill (Born 30/09/1935, Died 27/04/1984)

Born Arzil Hill, he started out singing gospel with the Spiritual Five, but the recordings of Bland, B.B. King and Sam Cooke began to have a lasting impression on Hill and influenced his decision to go secular. He initially started gigging solo in Dallas in local R&B clubs and with the bands of Big Bo Thomas and Frank Shelton. Z.Z (Zee Zee!) came straight from the success and influence of Riley "B.B." King.

He eventually got the chance to record through his older brother, Matt, who was then working with Big Daddy Rucker as a budding record producer in San Diego. The first collaboration was 'You Were Wrong' on Matt's own MH label, which flirted with the Billboard Top 100 in July 1964. A pretty mean achievement for a one man band operation, it couldn't be sustained and the follow-ups failed.
By this time, Hill had been picked up by the Bihari brothers' Modern Records. His material was released on the Kent subsidiary, much of it written by Hill himself and deserving of rather more success than it actually achieved. 'Happiness Is All I Need', 'I Need Someone To Love Me', 'If I Could Do It Over' and a raft of other releases came and went without making much impact. Many of these great releases can now be found on the excellent Kent (via Ace) compilation "The Down Home Soul Of Z.Z. Hill".

Hill himself seemed to have mixed views about his time on the Modern record label. In one breath he said in an interview "I would have been hot all over the country if they had been pushing me, because the records were great". In the next "..actually, what they were putting together I didn't like at the time".
Maybe a touch of hindsight in the latter statement, coming at a time when he was having so much success with Malaco. Get the CD and judge for yourself.
After he left Modern/Kent he recorded for Atlantic, Mankind and, finally, Hill (another label run by his brother) in 1971 where he had another taste of commercial success. His only real successes commercially had, ironically, both been with his brother's small scale operations.

After the second success, he was better represented on record over the next few years, including the 1977 Columbia hit 'Love Is So Good When You're Stealing It'. But consistent success eluded him until he became one of the mainstays of Malaco from 1980 to 1984, the year of his death. During those four to five years, Hill seemed almost out of nowhere to lead a 'back to the blues' campaign. Most of the time he had impressive material with which to work and the Malaco house band was excellent, if unadventurous. All of the Malaco albums have something to recommend them, possibly the best of the lot is "Down Home Blues". Another way to get to the Malaco material is through a compilation, either "Memorium" or, if you can get it, the more representative "The Best Of". Most of the highlights of Hill's stint at Malaco are on here, although the individual albums possess more than their share of worthwhile moments that aren't here. But with good stuff like 'Down Home Blues', 'Someone Else Is Slippin' In', and 'Everybody Knows About My Good Thing', this collection neatly summarises Hill's heartwarming late rise to blues success.

A fine singer not particularly well served over the years until he hit paydirt with Malaco. But the Primer would still go to the Kent recordings to hear Hill the vocalist at his best.