Roburt

Not taken @ Hinckley but members of the Ric Tic Review photographed backstage @ the Ritz (Lou Ragland & J J Barnes in the piccie) .....

This Imperials were Little Anthony's old group after he went into acting & started a solo singing career. The lead singer was ex-Way Out guy Bobby Wade. They didn't have any US hits but made a good living for many years playing the Vegas casino lounges. When I took a whole bunch of UK soulies on the Vegas Soul Trip in 1998, the group were playing a local casino lounge room. I contacted Bobby & told him we were coming to the show. He 'played up' to our crowd, talking about his UK popularity & the Imperial's UK hit on Power Exchange. He then pitched our crowd against the Americans in the audience on soul knowledge / crowd reaction to his questions / the group's show. A very enjoyable night all around (have photos of the show somewhere at home in the UK). However I have this photo on my US based computer from the same trip ...... a few of us Brits in Freddie Empire's Vegas recording studio (Freddie sat front right in the pic) ....

Not exactly the same names ........... BUT ....... There was 60's Baltimore based outfit The Shalimars & the 70's hit makers (for SOLAR) Shalimar .....

RE: my own post ..... There's the Cleveland group Sly, Slick & Wicked PLUS the LA outfit of the same name fronted by Sonny Daye .............. Both group's taking their name from the Lost Generation's hit 45 track !!

There's the Cleveland group Sly, Slick & Wicked PLUS the LA outfit of the same name fronted by Sonny Daye (but not the Frank Wilson / Sonny Daye). Then there were the O'Jays & the OJ's ............ see attached show ad ............. ........... FOOLED YOU .......... there was only the one group but some ad writers obviously hadn't heard of them back in the mid 60's ..... he also struggled with the El Corols name ...... ...... ALSO ...... in the early 60's, ad writers struggled with Billy Stewart's name see below) ......

Then there was J Frank Wilson who fronted the Cavaliers on Josie (see earlier post on Cavaliers). Can't recall his Christian name but didn't Frank Wilson's brother also cut at one time (I think I have one of his 45's at home but can't recall the details).

Numerous examples keep coming to mind. Like the Visitors from LA (TRC Records) and the Chicago group who also used the name and recorded for Dakar. Someone should look through the Soul Harmony Groups book and lots more will be evident. I'd do it but my copy of the book is in the UK and I'm in Florida for a while still.

There was also the 'Golden World' Adorables and the Carolina outfit who cut for Peacock with the Don Thompson Combo. Then there were groups that were basically different incarnations of the same outfit ..... like the Drifters / Original Drifters and the Platters / Buck Ram's Platters. Long running groups would feature numerous different line-ups / lead singers. So the 50's Clyde McPhatter version of the Drifters were totally different to the Ben E King led 60's Drifters and the same thing happened again by the 70's with the Johnny Moore led group that had hits here in the UK with Bell.

The 'Mala' Van Dykes ........ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAlnapPpda4 The 'Baltimore' Van Dykes .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjqNcxrWoSg https://articles.baltimoresun.com/1990-11-20/news/0502220470_1_van-dykes-roland-brown-bembe-beach

There were also a few groups that took the name the Van Dykes ......... the famous southern based group who recorded for Amy / Mala / Bell PLUS some others. One of the other outfits were Baltimore based and had "Stupidity" released by Atlantic Records ...............

There were also different sets of Magnetics (the Detroit based outfit really being the Volumes). Also two sets of Cashmeres -- the St Louis group being led my Mal (Rich) Adams who I know well.

Lots of different outfits used the name the Cavaliers (see below) ...... Also different sets of the Emotions and numerous others had the same names. Lou Ragland's Cleveland based outfit called Hot Chocolate were paid to change their name by the US record company that released stuff by the UK hit group Hot Chocolate.

This ad shows just how Don Robey had expanded Buffalo Booking between 1956 & 1964 ....... The inset on the left hand side shows the agencies roster of artists in 1956. The main ad shows SOME of it's roster in 1964 (mind you, he had soon lost B B King from his line-up) ............. BTW, watched a documentary on a Florida PBS TV stn last night .... B B King -- American Masters. It had a bit on his time in Memphis and him touring on the chitlin circuit. However over 50% of the prog featured input from the UK (interviews with UK musies & shots from live shows here). Still a good prog to catch when no doubt it eventually surfaces on BBC4 in the future.

Another picky of Maxine @ the Cleggy Weekender ....... Not only does she look & sound great but she's a real lady, very friendly and great to chat with ....

Went to a few nighters there even though it was a long drive from Worksop for me. Remember meeting Chuck Jackson backstage there (Dave Evison took me back there with him for a chat with the great singer) ....

Beaumont, Texas was definitely part of Don Robey's territory. A piece here from a local publication about the chitlin circuit in the town back in the day ... https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Beaumont-s-Effie-s-Go-Go-brought-in-Chitlin-2268102.php Also I'm posting a record tips report (dated November 68) from programme director (William Boy Brown) at Beaumont's black radio stn KJET.

US label most probably sent demo copies of each release up to Canadian company. Thus they saw the demo 45 numbering system and adopted that for their own releases. I don't know about this 45 being a bit of a puzzle ....... It is KEGSY himself that's A BIT OF A PUZZLE to me !!

Three male singers & 3 female singers who were signed to deals with Don Robey ...... Spent some time with Carl Carlton when he was at the Cleggy Weekender but I never thought to ask him if he was signed up with Buffalo Booking Agency when he had his deal with Backbeat Records.

A bit of interesting info contained in this Guardian article ......... https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/feb/09/how-we-made-dancing-in-the-street-martha-reeves-and-the-vandellas

There was a selection of 'go to' female backing singers for much of the studio work in Philly but I'm away from home at present and can't recall their names. Were they perhaps known by the collective name of the 'sweethearts of soul' ?? I think they were mostly active in the late 60's / 70's though. Someone on here will know the full details to answer your question.

A picture lifted from the 'World Record Price -- UK Sue 45' thread ............ It shows the address that Buffalo Booking worked out of before they moved into the Bronze Peacock Club building .....

A picture of Maxine performing on her last visit to the Cleggy Weekender ..... she always puts on a great show ....

Bessie Smith was killed in a car accident way back in 1937 & organist / singer Earl Grant died in a car crash in 1970 as he was driving his Rolls Royce from LA to Juarez, Mexico to fulfil a booking down there. It seems that Jerry Butler was very lucky back in 1961/62 as he had survived 3 car crashes in 5 months up to March 62. One of them was just outside Beaumont Texas in January, so no doubt the venue he was heading to / from was one on Don Robey's circuit of clubs in that area.

BTW, the 3 members of the Impressions backing band killed in a car accident in May 1968 (see post 1 of this thread) were Lenny Brown (bass - age 26), Billy Griffin (drums - age 23) & Joseph Thomas (guitar - age 26). Who knows what they could have gone on to achieve had they not been on the road that night.

Another trick Robey used on a regular basis was to reward his acts for their recording work by buying them a new car & new stage suits. The cost of these items were then charged to their royalties account. The fact that the acts needed cars & decent stage clothes to fulfil their live tour bookings (on which Robey took a good commission) was of course just a co-incidence !!!