Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.
LaSalle hooked Coday up with future legend Willie Mitchell, the producer and arranger who would become vice president of Hi Records in 1970 and lead it to its greatest success, adding his touch to albums by the likes of Al Green and Syl Johnson. At the time he met Coday, Mitchell was working with Detroit label Westbound (home to Funkadelic) and Chicago label Crajon, founded by LaSalle and her husband in 1969—its other acts included local soul vocal trio the Sequins, who recorded several LaSalle tunes, including “You Flunked Out” in 1973.
Coday kept going strong with 2000’s Memories, 2002’s Love Gangsta, and 2003’s Take Me, all likewise on Ecko. He then started his own label, B&J Records, for what would be his final album release, 2005’s Jump Start. Coday died in Memphis from a massive stroke on June 7, 2008, just a few days before the next studio sessions he had booked. His widow, Anna, renamed the label Coday Records and continued to release popular soul-blues artists. Coday’s own work, especially his 60s and 70s material, has been celebrated internationally: his tunes have appeared on compilations by UK label Ace (All Night Long They Played the Blues in 1992 and Bad, Bad Whiskey in 1993) and stateside Sony division Legacy (as part of its Lost Soul series, first in 1982 and again in 1994), and in 2006 Japanese imprint P-Vine released an all-Coday collection called Right on Baby: The Crajon Recordings. v
