Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at "The Club": History and Key Facts

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at "The Club" is a 1967 live in-studio album by The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, the jazz group formed by musician Cannonball Adderley. It received the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance – Group or Soloist with Group in 1968, and was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2021.

Though the original liner notes state that it was recorded at the Club DeLisa in Chicago, it was actually recorded at Capitol's Hollywood studio with an invited audience and an open bar. The reason for this discrepancy, according to the liner notes in the CD reissue, is that Adderley and the new manager of Club DeLisa (which had been renamed "The Club", after operating for years in Chicago under its old name) were friends, and Adderley offered to give the club a bit of free publicity.

The title track became a surprise hit, reaching No. 11 on the Billboard's Hot 100. The album reached No. 13 on the Top LPs chart. On this album, Joe Zawinul played a Wurlitzer electric piano; however, subsequent live performances saw him taking up the new and mellower-sounding Fender Rhodes instrument.

The track "Hippodelphia" is sometimes mis-spelt "Hipadelphia" on other recordings. The track listing for the album uses "Hippodelphia", while the liner notes, written by E. Rodney Jones, for the same album refer to "Hipadelphia".

Source and attribution

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