Delia Gartrell Starting A Movement

Delia Gartrell Snippets

The Mighty Hannibal has been in touch to let me know about a CD compilation of tracks by Delia Gartrell that he has produced called Starting A Movement

The CD is currently available on CD Baby:


Delia also has MySpace - so drop by.

I interviewed Hannibal a few years ago and this is what he told me about his recordings with Delia:

Hannibal moved back to L.A. in 1968 and produced a number of releases on Venture and Maverick for Clarence Paul, Mickey Stevenson and Larry Williams. Hannibal released his own 45 “I’m Your Man” backed by “I’m Getting Ready” as well as 2 45’s on Maverick by Dee Dee Gartrell and several sides by his friend Calvin Arnold on Venture. Delia Gartrell (Dee Dee) eventually became Hannibal’s wife. “I first met Delia through her boyfriend who was my friend. He was a beautician and he had spent a lot of money on her wardrobe! I was going to a breakfast club at the Bird Cage which was an after hours joint playing jazz where she was singing. I got interested in her as a singer – damn she could sing! I told her boyfriend; “Why don’t we put a company together and invest in her and put an album out?” He said; “Man I got all my money tied up in her wardrobe!” I kept going back and she kept appealing to me. So I said to him; Man do you mind if I put some money into recording her?

The upshot of Hannibal’s belief in Delia Gartrell was the beautiful ballad “Would It Break Your Heart” released on Maverick and the equally good beater “I Must Be Doing Something Right”. The inevitable closeness of them working together led to Delia moving in with Hannibal after 5 months and led to them getting married. Hannibal told me that Delia always aspired to be a jazz singer even after the success of her memorable anti-war anthem “See What You’ve Done Done (Hymn #9). The irony of this success was that the master lay gathering dust in AVI’s recording studios after owner Ray Harris didn’t believe the track had potential. Hannibal ended up buying back the master from Ray Harris for $1800 and pressed up 5000 copies on the Demin-Kalo label before selling the master to Right On Records for $10,000.

The full interview with Hannibal was published by in the UK In The Basement magazine last year.

You can hear the Venture recordings and "See What You Have done" on the new compilation CD.