St. Petersburg, Soul City: Little Jake to sing Saturday

Anyone with a serious jones for old-school, high-energy soul band music, fueled by sweat and propelled by beefy horns, with a charismatic and powerful lead singer out front, should get to the Palladium Theater Saturday night.

Will you be disappointed? Not a chance in a million.

From Gainesville, Florida come Little Jake and the Soul Searchers, eight men working the rhythm, the blues and the big-time soul show, a revue that has no peer on the southeastern road today.

Little Jake Mitchell started singing professionally before his teens, and scored a minor hit in 1967 with the insanely catchy, neo-Motown “Not a Chance in a Million” on Detroit’s Impact label (which re-named him “Jock” Mitchell).

The record is held in high regard among fans of “northern soul,” particularly in the United Kingdom. Little Jake, now 74, is revered over there.

“Jake stands out to me because he is one of the few originals still taking the stage, keeping Florida soul alive,” says John Capouya, author of Florida Soul: From Ray Charles to KC & the Sunshine Band. “He’s part of the connective tissue between soul’s heyday and the present.”

Mitchell’s ties to Florida don’t begin and end with Gainesville, the city he first started calling home (off and on) in the 1950s.

He was born Arnold Mitchell in Tampa, and grew up in the projects. As a child, he regularly won talent contests sponsored by the Holsum Bread Company.

He was often called upon to sit in with performers who visited Tampa as part of the so-called chitlin’ circuit. B.B. King referred to him as his “musical godson,” and took Mitchell – at the age of 12 – on the road. He sang at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theatre.

Mitchell recalls getting his hair “processed” in Miami, following a gig as opening act for the Drifters at the legendary Knight Beat Club in Overtown.

He traveled with Tampa promoter Leon Claxton’s “Harlem in Havana” road show, which brought African American and Latin entertainers to towns both big and small during the fiercest era of Jim Crow. The groundbreaking combination of music, theater and other forms of entertainment logged 25,000 miles annually, and helped launch the careers of (among others) Redd Foxx, Rufus Thomas and Fontella Bass.

In Gainesville, while still in high school, Mitchell had fronted a popular doo-wop group, the Blenders.

“Jake and his Blenders were one of many black groups that were hired to, and relied on, play white frat and sorority parties across the country,” Capouya explains, “before those institutions of higher learning thought to integrate their student ranks.”

In other words, Mitchell was Otis Day, and the Blenders were the Knights!

“Jake broke out when he integrated  UF’s Gator Growl in 1960 – with a white band backing the Blenders’ vocalists. If you meet him it makes sense that he would go first; aside from his obvious talent, he’s a very winning, confident and dignified man.”

The City of Gainesville officially declared May 6, 2010 Little Jake Day.

As a vocalist, Mitchell is more Jackie Wilson or Sam Cooke than James Brown (the acrobatics are all in his voice). He’s not a screamer, like Charles Bradley (who was also a native Floridian).

The music, of course, is timeless. “People say ‘You’re getting younger,’” Mitchell told the Gainesville Sun in 2016. “Well, I feel young. I put everything into what I do – my heart and soul. My band is the same way. We want to please the people who come to our shows.”

Tickets available here.

Photo: Randy Batista.