Billy Lamont (April 28, 1930 - June 3, 2012) was a professional dancer, R & B singer and songwriter.
Billy Lamont (sometimes spelled La Mont) was an Afro-American R&B singer whose death in 2012 passed unnoticed, apart from a mention in a local New Jersey newspaper. Biographical information about him on the Internet is virtually non-existent. The following is largely based on an interview with Dan Kochakian in Blues & Rhythm magazine during March 2001.
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| Mount Airy |
Born Ray Pamade Denson , in Mount Airy, Surry County, North Carolina, he moved to Georgia at a young age and later to New Jersey, probably Irvington. He would remain a resident of the Garden State for the rest of his life. Ray was a very good dancer and started to dance professionally in 1951, taking on the professional name of Billy Lamont. His singing career started more or less by accident in 1956 when he was recruited as a last-minute replacement for H-Bomb Ferguson on a show that also featured Chuck Willis and Solomon Burke, among others.
By that time he had already written several songs and in 1957 he gave a tape of his songs to Arthur Candino who was an A&R man for Savoy Records. Candino liked what he heard and invited Lamont to do a session in New York City on July 25, 1957. Billy was a little nervous, as he had not been singing for very long and he was in awe of the session musicians, people like Sammy Price (piano) and Kenny Burrell (guitar). But it turned out well and "I Got A Rock 'n' Roll Gal"/"I'm So Sorry" was released in October, on Savoy 1522.
In December 1958 he released, “Tom Cat"/"Millie", for the tiny Candelo label, with King Curtis on sax. This was followed by what some consider being his best rocker; the Little Richard- styled "Country Boy", with backing by the Upsetters. However, it was the slow flip-side that was promoted, "Can't Make It By Myself", which was in the style of Gene Allison's "You Can Make It If You Try". Allegedly, it was Billy's biggest seller, though it didn't make the national charts.
A second OKeh single, "I'm Gonna Try"/"Now Darling" (1960) featured the same accompaniment: Grady Gaines and the Upsetters, the Gibraltars on backing vocals and arranger Robert Banks on piano. In June 1960, Billy did a one-off session for the King label, resulting in the single "Hear Me Now"/"Come On Right Now", the top side being a virtual clone of "Bony Moronie", but not as powerful.
The next time Lamont appeared on record, it was uncredited. In the wake of Chris Kenner's success with "I Like It Like That", Lloyd Price reissued a 1959 recording by Kenner, "Don't Make No Noise", on his Prigan label in September 1961. The flip-side, "The Right Kind Of Girl", was also credited to Chris Kenner, but was actually sung by Billy Lamont.
It wasn't until 1965 that Billy recorded again. "Shake And Jerk"/"Girls, Girls, Girls" was one of the first releases on the new Bang label, produced by Gene Redd. The same year "So Called Friend"/"(Darlin') Please Come Home" was released on Johnny Brantley's Bran-T label, in the soul style that was so popular in the mid- and late 1960s.
"(Zap! Pow!) Do the Batman"/"Do the Thing" was recorded for Atlantic in January 1966 with Gate Wesley and his band, one of the first Batman records. Billy's final record in the 60’s was "Sweet Thang"/"Please Don't Leave" (20th Century Fox), released in 1968, but the backing track was already recorded in June 1966 with Jimi Hendrix on guitar.
The 1970s brought very few new releases by Lamont. "Communications Is Where It's At, Parts 1 & 2” was credited to Billy the Baron & His Smokin Challangers, released in 1976. Probably Lamont's final release was the 12-inch maxi single "The Man With the Master Plan"/"The Cowboy", credited to Billy Lamont & the Unn Band, issued in 1980. After which he produced and recorded some gospel recordings for Jet Records, but it is not clear if these have been released. About the 1990s it is assumed that he had retired from the music scene by then.
Billy Lamont died on June 3, 2012, at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, aged 82.
(Edited from tims.blackcat.nl . The 2nd out of only two photographs of Lamont is taken from the cover of the Blues & Rhythm magazine where all his information was sourced)