Who was/is Jerry Raines ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
Mercury’s south Louisiana connections brought the label another excellent young white R&B singer in Jerry Raines. Born Rubin Bergeron in Morgan City, Louisiana on August 8, 1940, he was gigging around the area when record shop owner Andrew Blanco invited him to cut the first 45 on his Drew-Blan logo. Blanco booked Cosimo Matassa’s New Orleans studio in 1959 to lay down two Raines originals: an edgy, surging rocker, Dangerous Redhead, and the swamp pop ballad Our Teenage Love. The band included guitarist Roy Montrell and pianist Mac Rebennack.
The single generated plenty of regional heat, Mercury repressing it nationally in early 1960. Later that year, Mercury unleashed Raines’ Shelby Singleton-produced encore, pairing the storming No More and the swampy Has Been (two more Raines-penned gems). Jerry’s next outing, a remake of Smiley Lewis’ I Hear You Knocking, was on Blanco’s Drew imprint in 1961, and he was back with a revival of Little Junior Parker’s Barefoot Rock the next year. Raines wound up his relationship with Blanco via Dearest, Darling Josephine on Drew-Blan in 1963.
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