1974 GRC (Atlanta) recorded Blaxplotation movie soundtrack  story -- 

 

Back in 1974, the GRC studio people oversaw the recording of a score for the Blaxplotation film -- 'Black Starlet' aka 'Black Guantlet'.
The movie score was cut at GRC's Sound Pit Studios in Atlanta around November 1974. GRC artists worked on the songs for the film; Joe Hinton & Dee Erwin (?) writing 4 songs especially for the soundtrack.
These 4 songs were put out on a promo vinyl EP sent to some radio stations and film reviewers at the time.

It seems this EP is quite (very ?) rare.
Louvain Demps (ex of the Andantes) worked on the project as a backing singer on the songs & musical interludes.
The songs that escaped on the promotional EP were "Up Is Down", "Hollywood Faces", "Fire Sign" & "Go on and Find Your Star", all written by Joe Hinton & Dee Ervin (?). It seems that those two were credited with having handled most lead vocal duties (or perhaps Sam Dees did the tracks credited as being by Dee Erwin).
The main person Louvain worked with in the studio on the project was Sam Dees. She says he wrote some of the tunes for the score and he sang lead vocals on those songs on the soundtrack !?! 
I asked Louvain what she could remember about her input to the 'Black Starlet' movie soundtrack project .......

She confirmed that she did work on the songs for the movie soundtrack with Joe (Hinton) and Sam (Dees).

She says .... "At GRC, I met Sam Dees for the 1st time, I already knew Joe from Motown. On all the songs with background vocals, those vocals were done by The Richard Law Singers, who I was part of. Sadly I don't have copies of the songs. Both Joe and Sam sang lead on their songs..... they also were the writers. Joe decided on the style the background singers were to approach the songs in. Working with Sam and Joe was wonderful, they knew what and how they wanted things to go (soundwise). If the movie had been as good as the music, I'm sure it would have been a "smash", as we Motowners used to say long time ago".
She didn't make mention of Dee Erwin at all, though I mentioned him a few times in my message to her. So, I can only conclude that he was the 'up-stairs' management guy for the project & that he did little 'hands-on' studio work during the execution of the project.

 

So it seems that Joe Hinton and Sam Dees had the main creative input on the project, I just wish I could work out which songs Sam sang lead on & which he actually wrote ..... AND ... if any of those cuts appeared on the Movie Soundtrack EP.

I'd be interested to hear any of the tracks cut for the movie; I know "Go on and Find Your Star" has been played by at least one US based soul DJ in recent times (so it should be a half decent track).

 

Anyone got a copy of this 'limited press promo' Blaxplotation movie EP put out in late 1974 / early 75 ??

Anyone got a video (or DVD ?) copy of the film ? (I know it was put out on video under both titles).

Edited May 20, 201311 yr by Roburt

It seems that no 'movie soundtrack album' was ever released .. probably coz the film itself 'crashed & burnt' at the time (all the reviews say it stinks!).

It seems it quickly made it onto video but even those seem hard to find these days.

Edited May 20, 201311 yr by Roburt

I have the EP. I played Go on be a star over a decade ago now, not that anyone apart from Jan Barker, Andy Whitmore, and a few of the Spanish lads were paying attention. 

Edited May 20, 201311 yr by Steve G

Steve, I'm told that the lead vocals on the "Go On & Find Your Star" track DO SOUND like it's Sam Dees singing.

Can you confirm this ...... and does it sound like Sam's voice on the other track credited to Dee Ervin ("Hollywood Faces" or "Fire Sign" I think) ?

Edited May 21, 201311 yr by Roburt

Dee Ervin was definitely involved with the GRC set-up, so could have sung lead on some of the 'Black Starlet' tracks.

He cut himself for Hotlanta and Aware plus he produced Ripple for Aware ........ but did he cut any tracks himself that escaped on the GRC label ?

Seems that by 74/75, he was mostly sat with the studio engineer rather than out in front of the studio mike. 

Ervin had worked out of LA for Canyon / Roker around 1970 and was most likely still based there(72/73) when he wrote songs for / produced the  Dunhill album for Genie Brown (released in early 73). 

A Genie Brown cut off the LP that many will find familiar ........

 

So I wonder if he actually moved to Atlanta for long when hooked up with GRC.

Thevis (who ran GRC) was into distributing porn (probably why he got into movie work) and ended up in jail because of this. 

Edited May 21, 201311 yr by Roburt

  On 21/05/2013 at 05:14, Roburt said:

Steve, I'm told that the lead vocals on the "Go On & Find Your Star" track DO SOUND like it's Sam Dees singing.

Can you confirm this ...... and does it sound like Sam's voice on the other track credited to Dee Ervin ("Hollywood Faces" or "Fire Sign" I think) ?

 

No I don't believe it is Sam Dees singing!...... The EP is only short bursts of four songs. A soundtrack for a blaxploitation film would have had more than four tracks.....To the extent that Sam Dees had a contribution, assuming he did, those tracks may have appeared on a Ace / Kent CD of Sam Dees unissued material from the 70's a few years ago. There was a 22 tracker of previously unissued Sam Dees demos.

 

I am sure these four songs are by the artists they claim to be, since they were all signed to various Michael Thevis labels.

 

BTW Thevis was into drugs and porn mainly, records was only ever a secondary source of income!

Edited May 21, 201311 yr by Steve G

 

  On 21/05/2013 at 07:00, Steve G said:

No I don't believe it is Sam Dees singing!...... The EP is only short bursts of four songs. A soundtrack for a blaxploitation film would have had more than four tracks.....To the extent that Sam Dees had a contribution, assuming he did, those tracks may have appeared on a Ace / Kent CD of Sam Dees unissued material from the 70's a few years ago. There was a 22 tracker of previously unissued Sam Dees demos.

 

I am sure these four songs are by the artists they claim to be, since they were all signed to various Michael Thevis labels.

 

BTW Thevis was into drugs and porn mainly, records was only ever a secondary source of income!

 He was very keen on murdering people too, witnesses included.

Since John contacted me about this I've gone through our Joe Hinton tapes and been very pleasantly surprised. There are a lot and some are stinkers which I think I heard first which coloured my impression of some of the later stuff that is actually very good. Many are mis-titled including 'Find Your Star' which is 1 1/2 minutes of MOR ballad which doesn't sound like you would have played it out anywhere excepting a tea dance. It would be very handy to borrow your copy (again!) and if anyone has a VHS or DVD of the film, all the better we can try and piece together what the soundtrack would have been. There's plenty of good material.

  On 21/05/2013 at 12:26, ady croasdell said:

 

 He was very keen on murdering people too, witnesses included.

Since John contacted me about this I've gone through our Joe Hinton tapes and been very pleasantly surprised. There are a lot and some are stinkers which I think I heard first which coloured my impression of some of the later stuff that is actually very good. Many are mis-titled including 'Find Your Star' which is 1 1/2 minutes of MOR ballad which doesn't sound like you would have played it out anywhere excepting a tea dance. It would be very handy to borrow your copy (again!) and if anyone has a VHS or DVD of the film, all the better we can try and piece together what the soundtrack would have been. There's plenty of good material.

 

Yes heard that as well......A "Tony Soprano" without the Italian charm!

"Find your star" is an OK dancer as it turns out, fast 70s thing, although very short 1:30 sounds about right.......so maybe there was a MOR Part 2.....I have a booking for a Tea Dance coming up in a few weeks as it happens so it would be a useful addition to the set. : Happy to send you the EP. Steve

 

  On 21/05/2013 at 13:16, Steve G said:

Yes heard that as well......A "Tony Soprano" without the Italian charm!

"Find your star" is an OK dancer as it turns out, fast 70s thing, although very short 1:30 sounds about right.......so maybe there was a MOR Part 2.....I have a booking for a Tea Dance coming up in a few weeks as it happens so it would be a useful addition to the set. : Happy to send you the EP. Steve

It sounds like we got the slow intro and you got the stompy dance bit. Great thanks

The track "Go On Find Your Star" features in this Mixcloud selection ........ .https://www.mixcloud.com/albertfish/mrfishsummermix/

The guy who played it has it credited to Joe Hinton.

Unfortunately it kicks in towards the end of the set of tracks featured (@ 57min 15secs and ends @ 59.25 .... that makes it 2 min 10 secs long in my book) ..... AND ...... I can't work out a way to jump straight to it . Have to sit through the other stuff though much is decent as well ........

Some of the instrumentation & sound effects on GOFYS are very 'movie-fied' but the lead vocal is quite strong & the song itself is fine (the lead vocals don't sound like Sam Dees to me though).

Edited May 21, 201311 yr by Roburt

  On 20/05/2013 at 20:13, Steve G said:

I have the EP. I played Go on be a star over a decade ago now, not that anyone apart from Jan Barker, Andy Whitmore, and a few of the Spanish lads were paying attention.

Hi Steve

Hope alls good and your keeping well ... Reet you defo brought the memories flooding back with this one - Seem to thinky you was the only one playing this Sam Dees / Joe Hinton ?? track oot and about ? it was one of the better plays at the time , it certainly caught my imagination- I had it scribbled down as one to watch out for ....

Am sure we discussed at some time a deal that would have it heeding ma way ? ( a decade is a long time to wait you know)

Regards tfk

Edited May 24, 201311 yr by tfk

Had another discussion with Louvain Demps .... AND ....

.... again asked what Dee Ervin did on the project (thinkin she may be confusing Sam DEEs with DEE Ervin).

Anyway, she says that at the time, her & Joe Hinton were an item, which is why he spent so much time schooling the Richard Law Singers who did all the backing vocals on the project. She again said that it was the 1st time she had ever met Sam Dees AND again she made no mention at all of Dee Ervin.

She says that she will get back to me about the number of songs they performed on, I think she's cross checking with another of the Singers first to make sure her memory ain't playing tricks on her.

She again states that Sam Dees sang lead on some of the songs cut ....... AND .. that she was very proud of the work (backing vocals) she had done for the album.

She's hoping some of the tracks involved might escape on CD as she really wants to get hold of those cuts (to hear her contribution all these years later).

Expecting more info from her in the very near future. 

Edited May 22, 201311 yr by Roburt

  On 20/05/2013 at 20:13, Steve G said:

I have the EP. I played Go on be a star over a decade ago now, not that anyone apart from Jan Barker, Andy Whitmore, and a few of the Spanish lads were paying attention. 

I was as well. Been chasing the ep for 20 years!

I have a reel-to-reel tape with a radio-ad for "Black Starlet", it sounds like this.

https://www.hamburgcitysoul.com/upload/Black_Starlet__2_1.mp3

not much contribution to the Sam Dees question, I know....