Roburt

That's the sort of info that makes visiting this site so great.

Tavares were very definitely a great soul group. You only have to listen to the Sam Dees songs on 'Madame Butterfly' to instantly get that fact.

Eddie, MY first trip to the Wheel was on 14th October 67 to see Junior Walker (as detailed in an old article I had written that was used in the IN CROWD book). It was a great club & I had many fantastic nights there, but back in Oct 67 I was mourning the loss of the King Mojo, so it was 2nd best for me (though it would prove a bit better than the Nite Owl in the fullness of time). Mind you, I can't have been overly impressed that night, as the next 5 Saturdays, I was back at the Nite Owl (to see Alan Bown Set, then Isley Brothers (really Sam, Erv & Tom aka the Diplomats), next came the Drifters (The Invitations really I guess), Max Baer & Chicago Setback before lastly seeing Jimmy James & Vagabonds live. I didn't return to the Wheel till 25th November to see Ben E King backed by the Senate. By then, many of my mates were going to the Wheel (the Kidderminster, Scunthorpe & Nottingham crowds), so we went there from then (though it may have been more that the Nite Owl was closed down after the 2nd Dec niter).

The text on my piccy below is an extract from the book. While not wrong, I feel his comments squeeze 6 years events into a simple statement. Sam & Dave first teamed up one night when Sam was doing a solo gig at Miami's King Of Hearts Club but was struggling to get a song right. Dave stepped in to help him & thus the Dynamic Duo was formed. They were performing together as a duo as early as July 1960. Their 1st 45 escaped (on Marlin) in 1961. Roulette picked up their contract in 1962 but they were back on a local label (Alston) in 64. Atlantic signed them & put them with Stax in early 65 & the duo came to the UK to perform on the Stax / Volt tour (with Otis Redding) in spring 67. His statement makes it seem less complicated than that. BUT HEY, memories are strange things & we often confuse the facts surrounding some events. After all, these events kicked off over 63 years ago. "I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee was No.1 on the US pop charts.

I have all those early B&S up in the loft. Would take a while finding the right edition though (& getting up into the loft is no easy task at my age). Has it not been posted up on here in the past ?

Lots of soul-less villages in Oxfordshire (& towns too) ... ... most of the Oxon Cotswolds villages are full of prats like Jeremy Clarkson, the Beckhams, David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks & similar types. I'd include Chipping Norton but at least that used to have a decent recording studio (long gone now). Abingdon however is ultra soulful.

Posted up by Motown supremo Ralph Terrana ... ... An odd thing happened. For some reason John was on my mind last Friday. We have been out of touch for a few years. I sent him an email to see how he was doing. Today while, scrolling Facebook, I came across a piece saying John died the other day of lung cancer. Such a shocking coincidence to learn the demise of an old friend. I first met John when he became the producer of The Sunliners, when we first signed contracts with Golden World Records. He would produce, in my opinion, the best song ever recorded by the group. "Heart Of The City" written by John and Edwin Starr. And the song never got released. Label owner Ed Wingate was reluctant to release the record due to a recent hit by some group that had the word "city" in the title. Jumping ahead a few years, I would get to know john very well when he was producing for Harry Balk's Impact record label. He was responsible for the hit "Oh How Happy" by the Shades of Blue. His biggest record for Impact. John was an interesting guy possessing an abundance of talent. In later years he created the popular website Blue Power, which is how I tracked him down the other day. Rest well John, You made the world a better place. I will always think fondly of our good friendship. ...... RE: "Heart Of The City" have the tapes turned up for this song ? ... it isn't even registered with BMI as a John Rhys or Edwin Starr (Charles Hatcher) penned song.

AS DIRECTED ELSEWHERE ... Has it ever been documented (I guess so), how this song ended up being recorded by Tobi Lark while she was on a tour (with King Curtis ?) of the US east coast. Tobi had quite a turbulent time from the mid 60's on. Her marriage broke up & she moved to Montreal with her son. Luckily, there she continued to perform live at clubs such as Rockheads around 1966 (see related ad). She then performed @ Expo67 & got into the musical HAIR. Having moved to Toronto she was (by then) famous enough to get picked to go on big tours back on the US east coast. She signed up for one that took her over to the Boston / Hartford / New York areas. A radio DJ (JOEY Reynolds of WKBW/WDRC) in that area MAY have got involved with Tobi & he MAY have set up a recording session at Trod Nossel Studios in Wallingford (which had till 1966 been SYNCRON Sound Studios). Anyway the Tobi Legend 45 label states ... IMAGINEERED BY JOEY (Reynolds ?) at SYCRON 68 and it escaped on Mala in February 68 ... so that recording session would have taken place around the winter period 67/68. But Tobi's son died and that put her off performing, so it seems she lost interest in singing live / recording some years after the Tobi Legend 45's escaped (Feb / April 68). Not that she knew it had been released. How a Detroit penned song ended up being recorded in the New England / New York area (unless Tobi had taken it with her & was performing it live in her shows in 67/68), I guess we'll never truly understand. Going by Ady's post above (the song being cut as a number of separate sections which were then spliced together), I'd guess she wasn't performing it in her live shows back then. Tobi, established her career in Canada at this club ...

Another very sad loss to our music. John, of course, co-wrote "Time Will Pass You By". Just one of the many musical things we have to thank him for. Has it ever been documented how this song came to be written by John & Dino Fekaris & Nick Zesses ?

The MYTH is better than the TRUTH I guess ... (for the BBC at least).

In June 2012, they staged a big exhibition in Overtown about the area's 1960's music / club scene ... I helped out by providing hi-res scans of some old club ads; A photo taken at the Miami Overtown exhibition

I'm sure Richard Searling will not be spouting the same old rubbish.

Wish I'd known about it early enough to have gotten a ticket & been there.

Really enjoyed the TV show. Seeing / watching the audience's reaction just added to the experience.

90 minutes of great TV .... . . . good songs, good musicians, good singers. Best thing on the box this year.

Looking forward to watching this TV show tonight.

To get a feeling for what the Overtown club scene was like back in the 60's (& the hotel scene on Miami Beach), go to my old thread 'OLD MIAMI SOUL SHOWS' (posted in 2012) .... www.soul-source.co.uk/forums/topic/228600-old-miami-soul-shows/#comments Some ads for shows from those times ... BTW, lots of music history books have the beginnings of Sam & Dave wrong. Sam Moore was born in Miami whilst Dave Prater moved there from Georgia in 1957. Both performed solo in local clubs up until 1960 (LOTS OF SOURCES SAY 61) when Sam came to Dave's assistance on a club gig at the KING OF HEARTS CLUB and their duetting commenced ........ I have copies of a couple of ads when they were starring as a duet at the King of Hearts Club in 1960. At the time they were still being billed under their solo performing names ... Sam Moore & David / Dave Prater; but as a duo performing together.

The Overtown club scene was just about destroyed by the local politicians in the late 60's. The area had been a thriving black enclave, with loads of housing, shops & clubs. But the politicians drove freeways through the area (the I- 95 & 195) to ensure 8 / 10 lane freeways reached the city centre. The majority of the housing (tightly packed 'ghetto' tenements) was swept away with lots of the shops. With no resident audience, the clubs soon struggled & then closed. The 2 big 'black hotels' went a similar way -- so the soul acts playing Miami Beach hotels had nowhere to stay (they wouldn't let them eat or stay in the hotels they were 'starring' in). The vibrant club scene that had developed acts such as Sam & Dave, Frank Williams' Rocketeers, Betty Wright, Little Beaver, the Twans, the Marvels, etc was destroyed in a single stroke. Miami's Overtown & what the freeways did to it (I put a post up about this some years ago, can't recall the thread name though) .... first pic is 1967, 2nd dates from 1970. If you drive along the I-95 today, you can see the little that remains of the area.

Looking forward to listening to this & what Richard has to say ...

Yes, Ray Avery had rare soul records, I just don't think the guys there realised they were rare (as jazz, do-wop & early R&B was their thing in the main). But any record shop, that hovered up local soul 45 releases like they did, would end up with lots of rare LA / Calif label stuff. I don't think they'd have been that great on rare Houston, Nashville, Chicago & Detroit labels though (unless they swopped 45's they had multiple copies of with similar shops in those cities).

Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I recall Bobby saying he toured the UK back in the late 60's as the travelling backing musician with the Vibrations. The Vibrations were always popular (as a live act) with UK audiences coz of their dynamic stage dancing). They'd toured here in 1965, 66 & 67 to a great reception. Bobby Eli didn't hook up with them (as a backing musician) till summer 68. The group came to the UK in December 68 and again in June 69. I 'THINK' it was the Dec 68 tour that Bobby was on (if not both tours). In December 68 they played the Wheel & the Dungeon in Nottingham (+ lots of other UK venues). The group (with Bobby in tow) also played the 20 Grand (Driftwood Lounge) that summer. Their stage act at the time included 'Love In Them There Hills', 'Smoke Signals', 'The Watusi', 'Misty', 'Spinning Wheel', 'Oh Cindy', 'Think' & 'My Girl Sloopy'. ALSO ... Bobby (along with the likes of Daryl Hall) were the studio players that made up the guys that had records out as Electric Indian.

Give it a rest. This is turning into another BBC Proms thread. Think I'll duck out once again, it's getting boring.

I think this topic went beyond just chasing 'rare releases' a while ago. BTW, Ray Averys wasn't stocking rare soul records, they specialised in rare jazz, do-wop & 50's R&B. I guess if the earthquake hadn't just about wiped them out, they'd have gotten into rare soul 45's (they were in the right place for many).

When the Casino first got soul ... 1968 ... ... they also had the watered-down fake version (the Love Affair) & the UK version (Geno) ... . . . but by 1970, it had been lost ... only to be found again, later in the decade ...

A couple more bits ...