Garethx

The MGM presses are from the factory in Bloomfield New Jersey. As stated above West Coast presses are by RCA Hollywood. I think the East Coast ones are a bit less common.

The B in the runout is for the Bestway plant. As far as I know they were the only factory to produce styrene 45s with the paperless, screen-printed labels. I'm not aware that this record has ever been booted.

The word 'producer' on a record label could mean a number of different things in the mid-1960s. It could mean someone doing everything from arranging and engineering (and indeed playing on the session) on one hand; to merely buying an independently-produced master, putting a deal together financially and shopping it to a larger concern at the other extreme: akin to the role of a film producer in the movie business. I suspect Don Costa's involvement in these records was likely the latter. His name on a record meant something then, certainly with radio DJs and pluggers if not consumers.

Also Eddie Bishop would appear to be a pseudonym for Bill Ramal himself, who was a tenor saxophonist in addition to an arranger/producer.

Good spot on the Robert John link. Vocally "Eddie" could easily be Robert Pedrick.

Depends what you mean by expensive. A true original WDJ is certainly worth upwards of £250 currently I would have thought. Only likely to go higher as per any established classic these days.

Great that this mystery has been solved at last. Obviously sad that he passed some years ago. Listening to the Danny Peil & The Apollos 45 it's clearly him.

These are all RCA pressings and as such have different typesetting for each plant and either R, I or H in the run-outs. The one listed as a boot on discogs (pale green) looks more like an original RCA Rockaway pressing to me and should have a R in the deadwax (the giveaway is the writer credit set in Baskerville). The one listed as an original second press looks pretty dodgy from a type point of view.

True Chalky.

I think we'd all be surprised by the order numbers for RCA white dj copies. Usually in the order of 20,000 copies from each of their three pressing plants (Rockaway New York, Indianapolis and Hollywood California). If the record looked like it was going to be a hit then obviously the order numbers for issue copies would be huge. In the case of records which didn't get any airplay then the quantities for issues would be far smaller. In my limited experience the one which is particularly difficult to turn up as an issue copy is Faye Crawford's "What Have I Done Wrong?". By comparison Rose Valentine is not scarce as a black-labelled stocker. The issues pictured by The Yank above are from the Indianapolis (top image) and Hollywood pressing plants.

I've always thought the cheap Junior McCants 45 is far superior to the rarity. Just a far better record in every department: better song, more danceable, more instant. The deep side on the more affordable single is far better than the ballad on the reverse of Try Me too.

In answer to the original question, about how nobody could work out it was Junior McCants, remember that Marvin Gaye's Love Starved Heart was played covered up first, fifteen years before it came out as the box set promo single. If you can successfully cover up Marvin Gaye you can certainly cover up an obscure artist like Junior McCants. Bear in mind his 'known' 45 was just considered a cheap collection filler for decades. Very few people have ever been able to guess a singer's identity simply by listening. Covering records which are semi-known and rumours subsequently getting out is a different thing. Once they're uncovered it seems obvious but the detectives who can hear something and put all the pieces together are few and far between in my experience.

That's a good shout.

I don't think there's any connection between the Stag/Detroit artist and any of the others.

The change was around the transition away from the black issue copies to the cyan/tan issue label.

The record was discussed here some years ago.

I'm a big fan of the Flip Dip 45 recorded by Flowers in the early 1970s.

Dave Flynn sorted the list into alphabetical order over on FB which makes it more manageable to read. A very entertaining and thought-provoking article and list Butch. As others have said it will aways be impossible for any listing like this to be 'definitive' or set in stone, so much will be down to personal experience and taste. External factors can change things over time. A box of Lester Tiptons turning up would be nice, but imagine having to remove a storied and mythical disc from the list. Some paragraphs give a clue as to how to be an effective and successful record collector. I wish someone had given me the advice to never sell a good record until I had a spare. I know i've been guilty of selling proven gold to buy flavour-of-the-month sawdust.

Featuring future Hollywood star Joe Mantegna.

Shirley Finney on JAS.

Thanks for posting this Mike. I don't think it's Jim Ford singing as his voice has a definite Appalachian twang as noted above.

As Soulstrutter mentioned with regard to the opening question, the price discrepancy between the Miko-MAM 45 and the Triple B one is the fact that But If You Must Go is only on the former and was always the side which sold this 45, particularly to the fabled Japanese deep soul scene. Obviously the Miko 45 is scarce and always has been, while the Triple B record was in some ways an odd one, comping the two lesser in-demand sides of two Eddie Parker rarities. Crying Crown and I Need A True Love are both tremendous in their own right but one wonders if a coupling of I'm Gone and But If You Must Go wouldn't have shifted a few more units over the years.

Good question. Her vocals are great—particularly on this side of the record—so it would be nice if anyone could shed more light. I know a few years ago Jimmy Radcliffe's son Chris sold a number of publishers demos which featured mainly his father's songs and vocals but also a few of Angelo Badalmenti's (or Andy Badale as he was sometimes known) which were apparently voiced by Stormy Winters/Stormie Wynters and Aldora Britton. In particular I coveted one which was supposedly a demo of "The Love That A Woman Should Give To A Man", most notably released by Patti Drew on Capitol but also by Phyllis Dillon on Treasure Isle in Jamaica. I kept the soundfile for years on my i-Tunes and considered it to be far superior to any of the other versions. Then I heard Lyn Roman's 45 release on Dot from 1969 and it's practically identical to the acetate version vocally and in terms of the arrangement. Doesn't mean that Stomie is/was Lyn Roman as that lot of acetates became notorious for a number of reasons but I thought it worth mentioning. Aldora Britton is also close in terms of the voice, maybe a bit sweeter in tone and could also be a candidate. Whoever Stormie was I feel it's a sure thing that there are other records. She's too good a singer just to be a demo vocalist.

Don't know where JM gets the idea that Janice is the original as it was released at least eighteen months after the Andrea Henry escaped on MGM. It's also inferior in every single respect. The two vocalists aren't the same person, at least to my ears. Andrea Henry was an adequate singer, "Janice" pretty awful.

That's a definite original. The R is actually a B for Bestway, the factory which pressed this. Most of the Bestway demos have labels on the wrong sides of the record. Demos pressed at Monarch on the west coast are correctly labelled.