Roburt

Marie Knight followed the Impressions (& was on with them) ....

RE: Most of the RSD release are forgettable or "interesting" at best In your opinion only ..... I know that just about all of the Ace RSD releases are very much sought after & you have to be a lucky punter to actually get a copy of some of them. Of course, you can always buy the track on the alternative CD release (which most folks do). But as we all know, some folk are vinyl only.

Another Philly artist hits Miami ...

Still buy blind, especially when out in a shop looking thru the racks. If it looks promising & the price is right, I risk it. Picked up some dross (pop, C&W, etc) & some goodies that way (mind you I like 60's, 70's 80's, 90's, Y2K, slow, deep, dancers, blues, gospel, funk, jazzy, southern, Motown, etc).

RE: I'd expect to hear that type of rhetoric from divvies, but it's a bit odd to hear it in soul music circles. Steve, I think you will find that there are 100's of divvies in soul music circles. I know a guy who loves 70's Curtis Mayfield & yet don't like 1960's Impression's track .... go figure; he has to be a real divvie.

Cal Roberts is still performing ...... see here for info on him .... https://www.doubleexposureinc.com/legendslive/bio/croberts.html .............. ALSO ................. A few memories of a dancer at 'CASTAWAYS' and other venues in the Miami Beach area ..... 1. TOMMY STRAND AND THE UPPER HAND WERE PLAYING AT THE CASTAWAYS ALONG WITH SOME OTHER BANDS 2. JOE HART, THE FATHER OF TELEVISION PERSONALITY JEANNIE HART, OWNED THE CASTAWAYS 3. ANOTHER BAND BY THE NAME OF GEORGIE PORGIE AND THE CRY BABIES PLAYED AT THE CASTAWAYS AS WELL (I BELIEVE THAT THE SISTER OF THE LEAD SINGER WAS IN THE BAND AND, I THINK, PLAYED THE KEYBOARD) 4. CAL ROBERTS SANG THERE AS WELL AND SO DID HELEN GLOVER 5. ONE NIGHT I WENT TO WORK AT THE CASTAWAYS AND LEARNED THAT THE SAX PLAYER IN ONE OF THE BANDS, A GUY NAMED " DIZZY" HAD MYSTERIOUSLY DIED 6. A GUY NAMED "LARRY" WAS A GREAT GUY WHO WARNED ME,JUST A KID FROM MISSISSIPPI AT THE TIME, TO STAY AWAY FROM THE MOBSTERS, AS HE HAD BEEN MARRIED TO A GIRL WHOSE FATHER WAS IN THE MOB AND IT WAS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK AWAY 7. I SAW FATS DOMINO AT THE 'NEWPORT HOTEL PUB' AND WAYNE COCHRAN ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. COCHRAN HAD A HABIT OF JUMPING OFF STAGE AND BUSTING UP BOTTLES OF BOOZE. HE WAS QUITE AN ENTERTAINER. ( COUNTLESS YEARS LATER I SAW WAYNE SHOW UP AT MY FORMER CHURCH IN MARGATE AS A PASTOR.) 8. BY THE WAY, FUN THING ABOUT THE CASTAWAYS....YOU COULD SIT AT THE BAR THERE AND SEE PEOPLE SWIMMING THROUGH WINDOWS BEHIND THE BAR....LOTSA' FUN! 9. I ALSO DANCED AT THE MARCO POLO BRIEFLY WHEN A BAND LED BY "JUSTIN" (CAN'T REMEMBER REST OF NAME) WAS THERE. WILSON PICKETT WAS A GUEST PERFORMER IN OUR SHOWS AS WELL AS A LEANER AND MEANER "CHUBBY" CHECKER. I THINK THAT THE GREAT PETER MARSHALL BAND WAS THERE AS WELL. Mike Vetro and "The Treasure Chests" were another group that played the '7 SEAS' Club & Lounge in the Newport Motel (see earlier ads I have posted here). also .... a Ken Dixon states that he played with The Brass Dimension in the WRECK BAR (in Castaways -- see earlier ads) in 1969. They were, by default, the house band and backed up singers Dorian, Cal Roberts, Helen Glover and The Fabulettes. He says that the best bar in the area was one block west of the strip on 163rd Street, 'The Funky Broadway'. Tommy Strand and The Upper Hand played there. A pic of the Newport Hotel (where the 7 SEAS club was sited) on Miami Beach.

One of Clyde Killens posters just seems to say '5 Big Acts' ........... I thought the newspaper ad might be more specific, but it seems that it isn't that much better ... Here is the ad that I assume is for that show (staged in Oct 66) .... ALSO NOTE at the bottom of the flyer that upcoming act Sam Early & the Sweet Daddies will be playing the venue after .... '3 years across the tracks' so I guess they were just finishing a long engagement at a local 'white audience' venue.

Paul Kelly was on this show ....

There's some more Philly related acts to come, but I thought i'd post up this piccy of a Windy City act that played Miami in 66 ...

May 62 and Detroit meets Philly on the same bill ......

.... and here's the newspaper ad for that self same show ....

Here's a copy of an example of the posters Clyde Killens had designed to promote the many many shows he promoted in Miami ...

Got a better copy of this at home (but its not on this laptop) .... but even this poor copy of a Feb 1964 ad is worth posting. The Vibrations followed Dee Dee into the Knight Beat (followed by the Impressions). BTW, when did the Vibrations start basing themselves out of Philly (they were using Philly musicians in their backing band some years before they signed with G & H's Neptune Records).

New acts used to gravitate to the local radio stns in most every US city back in the 50's & early to mid 60's. They hooked up with a local DJ at the stn & this helped them get gigs (though they would earn very little appearance money). Some acts even cut rudimentary tracks down at the radio stn studios. Kenny Hamber hooked up (in Baltimore) with Sparky Mellon at WSID and then Hot Rod, Jocko (who had started out in Baltimore before moving on to Philly & New York) and Fat Daddy. The radio DJ 'brotherhood' set Kenny up with a record deal in Philly with Jimmy Bishop. After that, Kenny used to drop in at Jimmy's B's Philly radio stn (can't recall the stn call letters at present - was it WDAS) coz that's where Jimmy's office was (where he ran his artist management agency & Arctic from on a day to day basis). Kenny also hooked up with other Philly based 'movers & shakers' and landed jobs on local TV dance shows, etc. Baltimore was an important 'radio breakout' city, where many record companies did their best to break new 45's .... so although it had no really decent recording studios (till the late 60's) and no strong local black record labels, it was still viewed as an important market by record biz execs. Jerry Williams, when based in Miami, would travel up to Baltimore to promote his new product (if he could get radio plays in the city, then stns in other cities would also start to play his track). On one visit, he took Paul Kelly with him to WWIN in Baltimore. Jerry W was networking with all the DJ's he knew but he also introduced Paul Kelly to them all. Paul was trying to get his new 45 played ("The Day After Forever / Stealin In The Name Of The Lord") but it had been out a while & was getting nowhere. Lots of people (the church, etc) had taken against the lyrics of "Stealin .. " and so the other side had become the plug side. DJ Rockin' Robin took a copy of the 45 off of Paul K and gave it a spin. He liked what he was hearing ("Stealing"), so immediately put it on the air. He liked the cut so much, he played it a few times on one show & the stn's switchboard lit up. The track took off, other stns started playlisting it & in no time at all it was on the national singles chart. So, in that case, it was Jerry Williams who had helped break a Miami 45 but Jerry wasn't the normal guy who hooked up Miami artists with Baltimore, New York or Philly contacts. Henry Stone was just about locked in with Atlantic/Atco/Cotillion back in the late 60's and early 70's. I guess it was an influencial black radio DJ down in Miami who introduced artists to Jimmy Bishop & Arctic Records but I would like to find out who it actually was.

Daft thing about that 45 was all the press interviews given by Jan & the label guys in Cleveland Town back in the day made a point of naming both the A side & B side tracks (2 different songs) and yet I have never seen a copy that wasn't Indie Woman Part 1 & Part 2. Guess there must be a couple of test pressings about somewhere that has the 2nd track on one side (& what length will Indie Woman itself be on such a 45 ... maybe longer than Part 1 on the common issued version of the record).

As well as having two distinct 'entertainment' scenes, Miami artists had 2 options if they wanted to cut records in the 1960's. Sign with one of the small local outfits & hope that the likes of Atlantic came in to license their 45 for national distribution .................... OR .............. sign with an 'out of State' label such as Duke / Peacock / Backbeat OR a Philly based label such as Arctic. The Bell Brothers went with the former whilst the likes of Della Humphrey went with the later. DAVE, do you know why so many Miami acts had 45's released by Philly labels .... who were the guys at either end that set up the links to enable this collaboration to occur ??

Bob, I believe the main items in the proposed exhibition will be original posters created for shows that Clyde Killens promoted in Miami back in the 60's. He was gonna throw these (over 100 of them) in the trash about 20 years ago but asked the Black Archives Foundation if they wanted them first. They jumped at the chance & so have had these items for a while now. However they wanted other things in the exhibition to give it more 'depth', so took many of my items as well to fill out what will be on show. The Black Archives of South Florida web site has quite a bit on the Clyde Killens (RIP) collection on their website -- a full list of all the show posters that still exist (though ones that are catalogued as '5 Big Acts' & similar don't really ID them well enough). They also have examples of letters to the show room owners, booking letters for many acts & even a few copies of the contracts he entered into with some acts. I guess examples of all of these will also be in the exhibition.

A show staged in October 1965 that featured 4 local acts ....

OK, in the picture of the group I posted (in the ads for shows they did in Miami) the 4 guys (left to right) are .... ... Regge Green (RIP),Fred (Fast Freddie) Anderson, Steve Calloway & Nance (Swiggle) Connor. ........... info direct from Steve Calloway.

Could the Chicago Garie Toms have been a musician / band leader who led a Review that featured the named singers ?

Lots of 'island' influences in Miami, so probably Voodoo Pete was someone with links to Haiti or who wanted folks to think that he had such links (no idea why though). Might have been Pete Smith under another name !! Miami was always a popular place to play especially for northern US based acts / groups (from Chicago, Detroit, New York, etc) in the winter as they could escape the bad weather back home. A group that already had a very long history by the 1960's was the Red Caps. The group had recorded "Poor, Poor Me" with George Tindley on lead and "Blueberry Hill" featuring a solo by Steve Gibson as the 50's expired. These cuts were paired for an early 1960 45 release on Rose Record's Stage subsidiary. In the spring of 1962, the Red Caps split into two groups with George Tindley going off to form the Modern Red Caps (who would later cut for Parkway, Smash, Lawn, Swan & United Artists). Steve Gibson (the leader of the original group) led another set of Red Caps and they played lots of live gigs. Steve hired new lead singers & these included Tammi Montgomery (Terrell) in 64/65 and Barbara Randolf in 66/67, but I believe that Barbara had been replaced by Pepi Mitchell before the middle of 1967. Whoever the group's female lead singer was in October 67, they had secured a booking at the 7 Seas in Miami.

September 64 and a Detroit group plays some gigs at Clyde Killens Island Club.

Back in Jan 64, you could catch Major Lance at the Knight Beat and just 5 days later Garnet Mimms was on at the same place.

RE: these are second issues and are nothing like the numbered 500 So this 2nd issue doesn't sound identical to the one on the numbered 500 ? Coz if it is the same mix, then it is NOT nothing like the numbered 500.

I have posted some similar ads to these on the net in the past. As a result of that a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Emily Gibson of the Black Archives Foundation of South Florida. She had been checking the net & had come across one of those sites. She told me that her organisation was staging an exhibition in Miami to celebrate the entertainment scene in the Overtown area of the city back in the 1950's/60's/70's and they would like to use some of the ads I had posted. I said I'd help and I had to send her high definition digital copies of about 20 to 30 such ads (some of which I had posted on the net in the past, others I hadn't but were relevant to the proposed theme of the exhibition). Anyway, they will be using lots of the stuff I sent. The exhibition will be staged in the Ward Rooming House Museum and Gallery and will commence on June 23rd. The Ward Rooming House Museum and Gallery is located in the Historic Overtown Folklife Village on Northwest 2nd and 3rd Avenues between 8th and 10th street. Designated by the State of Florida as the Overtown Main Street Community, the mission of the Folklife Village is to restore historic sites of significance in the Overtown community, creating a regional tourist attraction showcasing the legacies of Miami's Overtown and the Harlem Renaissance, as well as the Black cultural heritage of South Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. The Overtown area is where the likes of Sam Moore grew up and Jerry Williams lived when he was based in Miami (Overtown runs Nth to Sth from around 20th to 2nd, just above Miami city centre itself). ANYWAY ............... a Miami 'Chitlin Circuit' show back in 1962 .....