Blues – Jazz producer Chris James pens memoir: Video

Blues/jazz producer and 70’s soul singer Ollan Christopher Bell has released his memoir, Music Saved My Life: From Darkness Into Light, My Life as a 70’s R&B/Soul Singer.

Bell, also known as Chris James, co-founded The Natural Four in 1967 in Oakland, California, and shared the stage with legendary artists such as Earth, Wind and Fire, The Temptations, Kool and the Gang, the Isley Brothers and his former producer Curtis Mayfield. His book, Music Saved My Life, takes us behind the music and on an intimate trek through his life and times. As stated in an official press release, “life on the road in the 70’s was riddled with drama, drugs, and busted dreams, while life at home reflected much of the same.”

Bell is also the husband of jazz and blues artist Zakiya Hooker and had produced all five of her albums. He also produced, among other works, the final John Lee Hooker CD, Face to Face, in 1996, and is the president and co-owner of the John Lee Hooker Boom Boom Recording Studio in Douglasville, Georgia. His last project was a compilation of jazz standards, Tenderly, Unplugged.