Margaret Little,love Finds A Way

[Robbk]

It was DEFINITELY recorded in 1966.  I seem to remember Ron Murphy having gotten a copy of it from the local, Detroit pressing plant (was it Archer?  or American?, some time in the early 1970s, when he got several other rare Detroit records (when he bought for almost nothing, old pressing plant stock test pressings that had been kept (as a policy) for 2nd press runs.    That's the same method by which he obtained The Frank Wilson on Soul and several other rare Motowns.  THAT particular GeneBro may never have gotten to The UK, as he probably sold it in the EARLY '70s.  It may be in a local Detroiter's collection.

 

I agree with the theory that Popcorn may have recorded Little, for a "custom" job, and that it never got distributed, and the stack of them that never even got to record shops may have been destroyed by now.  I used to drive to Detroit (from Chicago) one or two Saturdays a month to look through record shops and thrift shops, and NEVER saw a copy, and never saw one in any of my big Motown/Detroit Soul collector colleagues' collections.  It IS a dead rare record, but, I'd guess there are, maybe at least 15-20 sitting in people's collections in UK, USA and Canada, rather than only 4 in The World.  There a a lot of collectors in North America, who bid on records with false names, who remain completely unknown in collectors' circles.  I met many over the years (back in the day) fighting with them over finds in thrift stores and record store bargain bins.  They don't let anyone see their collections, and don't want anyone to know what they have.

 

Regarding the label name, if I'm not mistaken, on a pre-2004 Soulful Detroit Forum (SDF) thread we had several of our posters who were around in the business  in the 1960s comment on that record among many other rare Detroit labels.  Ron Murphy told us that "Gene Bro" was ONE person, the financier of the record, his name was Gene Bro_ _ _ _ _.  I remember having seen the full last name, and Murphy even told us something about the man.  We had tonnes of fantastic threads like that (where I've picked up MUCH of my knowledge about Detroit and Chicago Soul records). 

 

Unfortunately, when the Soulful Detroit website moved to a new, larger capacity platform, ALL the SDF thread Archives from its inception in 2001 through summer 2004 were lost (including hundreds of "classic threads" with more than a hundred posts and hundreds of label scans per thread).  It was a tragic loss and a horrible thing to happen.  We had posts by Joe Hunter, Jack Ashford, Clay MacMurray, Spyder Turner, Bobby Eli, Ray Monnette, many deceased big-time Detroit record collectors and many other artists and producers from the 1960s.

[Chalky]

Margaret's story by Andy Rix....

 

https://www.soul-source.co.uk/articles/soul-articles/margaret-little-her-story-r2656

[Robbk]

Yes,  Gene Brooks.  That was the name given on the SDF thread.  He must have paid for the session, and Wylie got a a share for producing it and 'distributing" it, and why it was a "subsidiary" of Wylie's A Go Go Records.Maybe they pressed 200, and most ended up stored by Brooks, and finally destroyed.

[Ian Seaman]

Carl & Maria have one so does Ted Massey, i have a friend from the US who has one and i know of 2 copies in France with the same collector, so how many now ??