Sherman Evans

Major Bill Smith’s Fort Worth, TX based Manco label didn’t have much black music on it – there’s the excellent L C Steels 45 and then there’s the four singles that Sherman Evans had released. Each of them featured a dancer and a ballad on them, which of course was a pretty standard arrangement in the early 60s. The first of the slow numbers was the tasty “There’s Gonna Be Some Crying” on which Evans' impressive rough tough tenor vocal is well to the fore. The instrumentation comes (as with all his 45s) from Cruz Ortiz & The Flames, who sound as though they were a Tex Mex outfit but whose command of R & B structures was right in the pocket. 

If I Should Die is an improvement on Evans’ first outing, with the Flames augmented by more horns which gives a fuller sound, and the minor keyed arrangement giving Evans a bluesier setting which seems to suit him better. Lovely rap in the middle and a really special vocal on this one. Evans kept on getting better as In My Heart was his best performance to date. His tone, sense of dynamics and phrasing really are super, as the band vamps behind him.

What seems to have been Evans' last 45 had his best uptempo song on it - the rocking Northern favourite "I Don't Care" and another first class slowie There's Gonna Be Some Changes Made. This was a more orthodox southern soul deepie than his previous outings - less bluesy but with some lovely arpeggio guitar fills and a full horn section. The four 45s make an excellent run of great Texas music.

 

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