Please Mr President
1966 · Kent K 45x446 · USA
- Artist
- King Soloman
- Title
- Please Mr President
- Release
- Please Mr. President / Mr. Bad Luck
- Year
- 1966
- Label
- Kent # K 45x446
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Blues · Blues
- Primary theme
- Home Front Perspective / Soldier's Perspective
Annotation
The track "Please Mr. President" (Kent Records # K 45x446) by the blues man King Soloman, apparently based on the West Coast, recording with the Los Angeles label Kent (this is a different artist than the well-known soul singer Solomon Burke, ending with a "mon" rather than "man", also sometimes referred to as "King Solomon"). Released in 1966 with Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House, the narrator of the song bitterly complained to the president about being sent to Vietnam. He loved his country and "never did get the notion to burn up my draft card", yet he warned the women of American that "Uncle Sam...sure can take your man". At the end of the song the soldier takes to hugging his pack and rifle to comfort him.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
King Solomon (born King Sylvester Lee Melicious Solomon, 12 October 1934 in Tallulah, Louisiana; died 2009 in Hemet, California) was an American blues, R&B and funk singer who began in gospel, singing in his church choir and spending some ten years with the Friendly Brothers Spiritual Quartet, before moving to Chicago and then to Los Angeles in 1954 and turning to blues, sharing bills with B.B. King and Etta James; he recorded from 1959 onwards for a string of independent labels with occasional licensing to Checker and Kent, fronted the Blues Blasters Band, and remained a fixture of small Los…