Cash McCall ( January 28, 1941 – April 20, 2019) was an American electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was best known for his 1966 R&B hit "When You Wake Up". Over his long career, his musical style evolved from gospel music to soul music to the blues.
Born Morris Dollison, Jr. in New Madrid, Missouri, he spent his early years on Chicago’s near North Side, his father thriving as a milkman in the big city. But little Morris and his siblings had to learn a very different way of life when Morris Sr. decided to move his family to Mississippi. There they picked cotton, planted vegetables, and attended school and church in a segregated environment that was very different from what they’d previously experienced in Chicago. Mississippi was also where the youngster first learned to play guitar—on a piece of baling wire nailed to the side of their home—and where he fell in love with the blues that he would later play so masterfully.
After living in several out-of-the-way destinations in Mississippi and Arkansas, Morris followed his brother Leon into the Army. To make extra money, he trained to be a paratrooper, but an accident while on field maneuvers landed him in the hospital for an extended stretch. Once he was fully healed and finished with his military service, Morris gravitated first back to Missouri, where he dabbled in singing with an amateur gospel quartet, and then up to Chicago, where his mother, sister, and younger brother had settled. He sang and played guitar or electric bass with a series of well-regarded quartets: the Jubilee Hummingbirds, the Pilgrim Jubilees, the Gospel Songbirds (where he first met Otis Clay), and for a memorable three weeks, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi when they needed a replacement guitarist.
But as was the case for so many of his sanctified cohorts, the secular arena kept calling his name. Morris secured sideman gigs with soul star Alvin Cash, blues guitarist L.C. McKinley, harpist Alex “Easy Baby” Randle, and versatile guitarist Lefty Bates, learning the R&B side of the business along the way. A long stint as guitarist with Saxie Russell and the Starfires took him all over the city as the funky band played intimate lounges and cavernous dance halls.
He recorded his first secular single, the two-part workout "Earth Worm," for One-derful Records in 1963 as Maurice Dollison. In 1966, he made a demo of a soul number called "When You Wake Up" that he had penned with producer Monk Higgins. He was doubtless shocked to learn of its subsequent release on the Thomas label, billed to one Cash McCall! The tune proved a national R&B hit, sending the newly christened McCall on the road with Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars with Lou Christie and Mitch Ryder. Cash McCall" had been a 1955 novel by Cameron Hawley which spawned a 1960 movie starring James Garner as Cash McCall, released six years before the record company changed Dollison's name.
Subsequent releases for both Thomas and Checker Records failed to chart. These included the song It's Wonderful to Be in Love". In 1967, McCall co-wrote "That's How It Is (When You're in Love)", a Top 30 R&B hit for Otis Clay. Under the tutelage of Willie Dixon, McCall went on to become a session musician and songwriter for Chess Records. In the late 1960s, McCall, along with Jimmy Dawkins and Johnny Twist, played guitar on some early recordings by George "Wild Child" Butler. McCall gravitated towards the blues in the 1970s.
In 1983 McCall released his first solo record in ten years, No More Doggin', and followed it up with Cash Up Front in 1987. The collection included accompaniment by such notables such Nathan East and Welton Gite (bass); Chuck Findley (flugelhorn, trumpet); Les McCann and Richard Tee (piano); Phil Upchurch (rhythm guitar); and Hank Cicalo (sound engineer) and Bernie Grundman (mastering).
McCall co-produced Willie Dixon's Grammy Award–winning Hidden Charms (1988) and played in Dixon's All-Stars band. Since then he has toured as a solo artist and appeared with the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings, for which he has written several songs. He has also provided backing to the singer known as Big Twist and performed in the Chicago Blues Review. McCall's songs have been recorded by the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Mighty Reapers, Margie Evans, Tyrone Davis and Mitty Collier.
Despite being stricken with lung cancer, he recorded Going Back Home in Memphis in 2018 and performed a rousing “I Just Want To Make Love To You” at a June benefit for him at the former Chess Records building at 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Going Back Home was released in January 2019. He died just months later, on April 20, 2019.
(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & Cash McCall Music)