Jimmy Dockett (February 1, 1941 – July 22, 2013) – Count Your Blessings And Move On (1973)

This beautiful, inspirational anthem was the masterpiece cut from the unsung singer/songwriter and producer's self-released debut album.

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Jimmy Dockett was an unsung, multi-talented singer, songwriter, arranger, and producer who got his start in the early 1960s as a doo-wop artist, released a slew of distinctive, personal soul records in the early 70s, and then teamed with his wife Barbara Stroman to form an eighties R&B duo.

Born in Washington, D.C., James Alfred Dockett first entered the music business in New York City during the early sixties. In 1963 he wrote, arranged and conducted both sides of his debut single, “Paging” b/w the doo-wop slow jam “To Have And To Hold” on the probably self-released Brooklyn-based Botanical Records label (which promoted itself as “The Flower of Music.”) The label’s only other release was also one of his productions, a group called Dock'etts and “Sing My Song (Diddlely Diddlely Bop)” (Parts 1 & 2).

Around the same time, Dockett put out a few more singles on Mystic 4 Records, likely another self-released Brooklyn label. The highlight was the love song “Take A Chance,” one of the few tracks he ever collaborated on with other songwriters and producers. “Take A Chance” was co-written by the unknown “H. Ellis” and credited as a Haynes-Dockett-Mason production.

He next surfaced on Hull Records, home to the brilliant but troubled James “Shep” Sheppard of Shep and the Limelites. Dockett wrote and produced the single “I Really Love You” (1964) with the heartfelt “I'm So Sad” on the flip.

By the early seventies Dockett was running a new label, Flo-Feel Records, based in the Jamaica section of Queens. He released his debut album on Flo-Feel in 1973, My First Edition To You, which he entirely wrote, arranged and produced.

Many of its tracks were also issued on singles, including its masterpiece, the beautiful, inspirational anthem “Count Your Blessings And Move On” which came out that same year as the B-side to “When We First Met.”

According to the LP’s back cover, his “feelings in writing” for the song were "Trials and tribulations on love and life - ups and downs it could be worse."

Another Flo-Feel single that dropped the following year was the mellow funky jam “I Got It” (1974) b/w the laid back love anthem “My Dreams Come True.”

Original copies today sell for $200 on average on Discogs. The single’s A-side “I Got It” was an early, stripped down version of the song that would later be re-issued with “Here (In My Heart)” on the B-side, the opening cut from Dockett’s debut LP.

In 1976 Dockett signed with Image Records, a division of New York label AudioFidelity Enterprises, Inc. His second album Beauty & Soul came out on Image later that year, full of mostly new material save for a couple of previously released gems including a slightly edited, shorter version of “Count Your Blessings.”

Dockett set up a new label, Star Vision International Records, in 1978 and released a disco LP titled Jimmy Dockett's Different Moods (1979). He married singer Barbara Stroman in the early eighties, and together they recorded two albums as an R&B duo, Tender Moments (1985) and Memories (1993).

Rest in Peace, Jimmy Dockett.

Further info:

“Mr. James "Jimmy" Dockett,” obituary, WheelerFuneralHome.com, 2013.

#soul #funk #unsung #NewYorkCity #JimmyDockett