Roburt

It was only the original Wheel (Brazenose St) that was really a blues club. The Whitworth Street venue (home of the place from 1966 onwards) was just about always an R&B / mod / soul club. Can well believe that the Brazenose St venue exterior was shot in blues related footage. Didn't Granada TV (Manc) shoot some blues related show at a railway station outside Manchester (near Chorlton-cum-Hardy) in 1964. So they obviously had their 'finger on the pulse' of local music tastes back then.

Lorraine told me that they used Soul Congress as their studio band a lot. That was because they were such a tight outfit who could play so well. Billy doesn't have good memories of working with Jack Ashford though.

A piccy from the book ................ Mike Bird (on the right), Stu Mumby (left) & A.N.Other outside the Wheel back in the day. Was in south of France with Stu & Mike about 2 years back.

Had an e-mail reply back from Billy's son, Billee D Wilson. He says his father is still around and used to work at radio station WVOL in Nashville. Hoping I can get a bit more info on him from his son but Billee does say he will be doing another 'net broadcast' about his dad later this month. Billy & Soul Congress quit Detroit in the mid 70's. The members of Soul Congress were Jimmy Pavlack, Gary Pittman, Tom, George & Dave. They went on the road playing gigs and ended up settling in Nashville. Billy became a DJ at WVOL. WVOL (1470 AM) was / is a radio station broadcasting out of the Nashville suburb of Berry Hill, Tennessee. The station was founded in 1951 as WSOK. WSOK's original format was rhythm & blues and gospel music. After a change in ownership in 1957, the call letters were changed to WVOL, but the station continued to play R&B then soul. Billy split from Soul Congress & got more into DJing and his day-job but he did play live gigs again with a new backing band.

Thanx for the above. I guess he is still alive going from what is said there. William Daniel Wilson Jr born in Brooklyn in May 1938 (so he'd be 75 years old now). Moved to Pennsylvania and initially went by the stage name of Billy Wilson.

Thanx for that. Guess I'll have to order a copy of the book right away then.

Getting off topic now ..... ..... but I wonder why Soul Congress & Billy Sha-Rae never just motored across to Philly to advance their career like most other Pittsburgh (& Baltimore) artists did ?? It never did the Jaggerz any harm, below they are pictured in Philly with Dee Dee Sharp in 1967 ........ MIND YOU on their web site, the group go with a bit of' poetic license' with their facts .......... QUOTE ......... In 1968, Gamble Records of Philadelphia signed the band to their first recording contract ..... Other artists with Gamble Records at the time were, Jerry Butler, Dusty Springfield, The Intruders, Soul Survivor's, The O'Jays and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes with Teddy Pendergrass.

This page is supposed to detail the major players on the Pittsburgh R&B scene ..... but poor old Billy doesn't even get a mention ..... https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/r-b--funk I always associated Wild Cherry more with Ohio & Cleveland, but it seems that they were a major force on the Pittsburgh club scene in the 70's ..... https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/r-b--funk/wild-cherry

More on the original group that after it split up, formed the newcleus of Soul Congress ........ https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/rock/arondies

The picture in the Twisted Wheel section of the book (@ 1 min 34 secs in the above video) LOOKS LIKE four of the Hull lads who used to go to the Wheel (Mike Bird - big bro to Martyn aka Hullsoul on here + Stu Mumby and others). I know Mike submitted a piece on the Wheel for inclusion in the book. Looks like his piece made it into the finished publication, so no doubt my Donny mate (Tom Sleight) & I get a mention or two. Ain't got the actual book yet, can someone confirm that Mike Bird's Wheel memories are in there & who the picture is captioned up as showing (I know I'm not on it but its too small for me to make out the other 2 guys).

"Let's Do It Again / I'm Gone" was issued in France on Disques Vogue ..... PLUS .... "Do It" was put out here on Action and reissued in the US on Laurie (Double Gold) in the late 70's (c/w Bobby Hebb's "Sunny").

Pittsburgh (like Baltimore, Washington & the like) had a thriving soul club scene back in the 60's / 70's. This local success for club acts encouraged local entrepreneurs to put up the money to get some of them in the recording studios.

Yep, I knew I'd done some research on Billy a few years back (2008). As Robb just said, Billy was recording from the early 60's. He cut for Greensburgh (Pa) based Bay-Uke Records, owned by song writer and music publisher Matt Furin. Billy Sha-Rae was the main artist on the Bay-Uke label. He had 4 singles released out of the first five releases on the label. Greensburgh is just north of Uniontown, to the east of Pittsburgh. As Teacho Wilshire was involved with his early recording work, does that make it likely that he actually recorded his tracks up in the New York area ?

Dave, I found this bit of info that makes mention of Billy and his origins 'on the net' ............ In 1965, the Arondies, teens from Clairton, sold 10,000 copies -- which today would still be pretty major numbers -- of an instrumental classic, "69," a record that Get Hip archivist Baran likes to call our town's "Bolero." "Everybody learned to play guitar to '69,'" he says. "If you wanted to play it simply, you didn't have to even have a tuned guitar. You could keep it on one string." Although the original three-man lineup, as captured on "69," would go its separate ways before the year was out, the song remains a local cult hit on the underground, as resurrected in the '80s by the Cynics, whose Gregg Kostelich in 1999 released the first Arondies CD on Get Hip. At times, the music -- cut in sessions dating from November 1964 to a radio appearance on McKeesport's WMCK in '65 -- takes on the primal feel of something the Arondies might have played in Hamburg while sharing a bill with the Beatles. But they never made it to the Reeperbahn. Instead, they worked the local circuit from the Juliot Hotel in Clairton to the Sigma Nu fraternity -- immortalized (for those who knew the band) in "Sigma Nu" -- to the Clairton VFW, where they packed the joint, especially during football season. As drummer Bill Scully recalls, with a grin, "We were big celebrities -- in Clairton." After cutting "69," the Arondies started working with a local DJ/show promoter/all-around Svengali Terry Lee, who'd already discovered the Larks, whose name he changed, in honor of his own profession, to the Dee-Jays. While Terry and Porky were spinning the record, other stations balked at the idea of a song called "69." "My uncle Al McDowell was at KDKA at the time," says Scully, "so my aunt and uncle took the record to Clark Race and asked if he would play it. So Clark is listenin', and it's got this nice sound, and we say '69,' and he says, ' can't play this.' My aunt didn't know." A month after making a splash with "69," they split with Lee in a royalty dispute. Then, Scully quit and the other Arondies formed the Soul Congress, featuring Uniontown soul artist Billy Sha-Rae. Eventually, the Congress moved to Detroit, where it played on sessions by such artists as the O'Jays, and in '71, scored a minor R&B hit with "Do It." So Billy was originally from Uniontown, a small place about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh. I'm sure I have some club ads somewhere here for gigs he did back in the day in Pittsburgh. I seem to recall it was his local club profile that landed him the lead singer's role with Soul Congress.

Found my copy of "I Don't Wanna Leave You / Just Don't Pay" on Brazilian Arista. "I Don't Wanna Leave You" (the A Side) lasts 5 min 30 secs and is the 'Tom Moulton' remix. "Just Don't Pay" lasts 3 mins 10 secs (or so it says on the label) and is the 'Tom Moulton' remix. This 7" plays at 33rpm like most Brazilian singles (though it doesn't say so on the label) and it was put out in Brazil by EMI - Odeon Fonog. The Odeon label had started life in Germany but after WW2 the label name was used by EMI on records pressed up in Germany, Brazil, West Africa, Spain, Argentina, India, France & elsewhere. Debbie's Brazilian release (from EMI-Odeon) came out on Arista though just like it did in the US / UK.

Dave, Cas is too far north for me. I grew up in the much warmer climate we enjoyed in Doncaster !!! Kids at my senior school traveled down from places like Upton & South Elmsall and told me tales of the 8ft deep snow drifts they got up there every November.

Paul, retired now so HAVE to take lots of holidays ..... so only usually have a few free weekends .... but the missus is plagued by the thought that this winter will be another 'bad un' (especially after this great summer we have enjoyed). She's convinced we'll get snow in November, so she's stopped me booking much so far that month. Away for a short break in the days running up to that weekend, but 9th November is free & should be just right for a visit back up to 'God's country'.

Which of her GWP tracks also escaped on these two LP's ?? ............

RE: ‘I Don’t Wanna Leave You’ was the first Debbie Taylor single to gain international release but when Arista’s UK office issued the single via EMI in early 1976 they disappointed soul fans by using a short edit which was also sonically inferior. The uptempo flip side ‘Just Don't Pay’ was also edited, losing over a minute, and lacked the vibrancy of the original Tom Moulton mix. The single was also released by Arista licensees in Japan and Brazil. I've got the 45 on a Brazilian copy (& a UK copy). I posted a scan of the label up on the old 'raresoulforum' site many moons ago but that has now disappeared. Can't seem to find a copy of that jpeg anymore either (good job I still have the single itself somewhere). I seem to recall discussing the edit issued on the Brazilian version with John Benson over on 'raresoulforum' and believe it is the longer version that escaped there.

Pity you're not going to New York then ...........

Don't know it ...... BUT ...... was it on this Space label ?? (there have been quite a few different Space Record labels)

Two good shows to catch in Vegas on Friday October 25th & Saturday October 26th .......... The O'Jays with guests Shirley Murdock & Zapp (Friday) + Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osbourne & Johnny Gill (Saturday) .... Price-y but its for a good cause ........

Back to Savoy gospel tracks .......... .... unada un from the World Wonders ..... They get a bit funky here .... the cost of living is very high .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VEPGkufLRg

The track is pure pop pap, no soul content at all.

RE: a UK Acetate of Thelma H's "Stealin In Name of Lord" .... ....... She toured the UK (as a support act for the 4 Tops) in 72 and I guess EMI were thinking of puttin out an extra UK 45 on her to tie in with her shows here. As "Stealin" by Paul Kelly didn't get a UK release, maybe EMI were thinking of going with that track here.