Roburt

Will we now ???

RCA gets hip to the 'Detroit Sound' .............

Lorraine, I have been messing about with old Billboard mags today & made up this montage from Soul 45 details included in the mag dated 15th October 1966. There were a load of good singles released that week (or at least reviewed in Billboard that week). Amongst them were two put out by RCA, I would guess with little or no promo effort behind them. ..... Kenny Carter -- Don't Go ... .... .... RCA 8970 Lorraine Chandler -- She Don't Want You RCA 8980 Even though there is a gap of 9 singles between these 2 releases, it seems they escaped on the same day (guess RCA were issuing about 20 - 25 x 45's each week back then across all music types). Did either 45 get any push by RCA & if not, how did that make you feel (you may not know in relation to Kenny's 45) ? Did your 45 sell well in Detroit, coz you were known there ? If you had been in control of the release dates, would YOU have put them out together ? RCA weren't strong in the soul field back then (sales wise), so it seems daft to provide 'opposition' for their own product. RCA wouldn't set up a dedicated promo team for their soul releases but left the Pop Dept guys to push this stuff. How did that make you feel (after all most on the Pop side at RCA would have 'no feel' for such releases). Which tracks did you like best, your own recordings or those tracks you cut on 'others' (in general, I'm not asking about this 45 in particular)? ... I have more questions, but for now, I think that's more than enough for you to grapple with. ............... CHEERS

Well done Ian (& Harmless) ....... now it's time to move forward ........where's that d*mn Gospel 2fer CD ??????????

All the way from the Windy City .......

A few more artists who had to be up for four shows a day ............ five on Saturdays !!!!!!!!

I have Debbie's Arista 45 on a Brazilian 7". Brazilian 7" all play at 33 rpm -- hence they put out numerous EP's there to fill up the vinyl a bit more (a normal 1 track each side 7" has the dead wax much wider than the track part of the playing surface). So these Brazilian EP's look just like US jukebox mini (7") LP's -- 4 tracks with a LP style picture cover. Lots of these 'additional' tracks are LP only in the US / UK. Anyway, on the Brazilian copy, "Just Don't Pay" lasts 3 mins 10 secs while "I Don't Wanna Leave You" is the 5 min 30 secs version.

Here's a report on a live show I'd have liked to have been at .... ..... 1965 .... Ruby Johnson, the Vontastics & the Ideals ..... Both group's 45's had been released a few weeks ...

Back to 9th Street Exit ............. Kenny Red aka Kenneth Redon tells me that . ... "2 members (of 9th St Exit) died; Benny Slocum (the drummer) in 1980 in a shoot out and Ernest Cary (the bass player) of a heart attack in 2001... I went on to play with a band called the Force. I produced 2 singles with them...and Dunn Pearson went on to become a well known arranger / producer in New York with Mtume. We only made the 3 45 singles with Solid Foundation in 1973 & 74. In 2009 Dunn & myself made a MP3 called "Magic Touch" line dance. Also on a Internet Site called Record Scout we 're doing pretty good" BTW, Kenneth also tells me that the group's Solid Foundation LP never even made it to the acetate stage as the remaining tracks (those not put out on 45) were never even mixed down to releasable standard.

Smudger, I thought you'd b*gg*r*d off to Spain ??

Both sides of Jewel 220 are great ........ ---- The Soul Strirrers ----- I'm Trying To Be Your Friend (fastish) I'm Traveling On (QUALITY DEEP SOUL) Surely one of these 2 tracks has to B on the CD ( the DEEP B side hopefully).

And from Chicago we got ...............

If you lived in / near Manchester, Yanks was always the place to quickly head down to when Richard started playing a track off an old (70's / 80's) US LP. Unfortunately I lived on the sunnier side of the hills back then (in Gods' own Yorkshire), so it was hard to make it down to that basement before more local soulies (& dealers) had cleared out all the copies of any 'newly in-demand' albums.

Another US oldies label around by 1970 ........ (Epic) Memory Lane (Major Lance, etc). Lots of US labels (Chess, Motown, etc) just re-pressed old tracks on the same imprint (label) as the original ..... ... however the new copy would have that company's current label design NOT the label design being used when each particular 45 had originally escaped into the shops. I know they came later, but when did the Brunswick 45's with black writing on a gold label first start to appear ??

Greg & Ian ....... I CAN'T WAIT .... TELL US NOW !!! ............. or at least ASAP !!!

When we Brits started chasing copies of the Gypsies "Jerk It" around 68 / 69, the only easy US copy you could get your hands on was an Oldies reissue copy.

A further bit of irrelevant info ......... when I flew home from NY / Newark back in those days, I always had a backpack as my carry-on luggage. All my clothes & other bits (a few 45's / LP's I'd managed to pick up on my US travels) would go in the main suitcases in the hold, but my backpack carry-on would be strapped to my back. I'd do my best to make it seem that it was as light as a feather as I boarded the plane & got off back in the UK. I'd stroll thru immigration & out into airport arrivals to find my 'lift' or catch the shuttle bus to where I'd left the car. The weight of the backpack would be killing me all the while as it would be stuffed to overflowing with CD's. Since 9 /11 (the World Trade Towers) you can't get anything on a plane into or out of the US, so those days are now long gone.

BTW, Wilson Pickett started out singing with the Violinaires around the mid 50's (the group were established in 1952). History of the group ........ https://www.thefantasticviolinaires.org/vpages/history.html They are still going strong today (now known as Robert Blair & the Fantastic Violinaires) & Charles Brown is still with them. Around 1999 / 2000 I used to drop in to see a woman I knew who worked for Bounce Records / PPI in Newark NJ. They were releasing Dunn Pearson tracks at that time & had hooked Dunn up with Beau Huggins Hush organisation (Freddie Jackson, Najee, etc). Anyway, as I was from the UK, she used to give me copies of all their releases & at that time they also represented Atlanta gospel label Grammercy. Grammercy had put out loads of CD's by old school gospel group and Robert Blair & the Fantastic Violinaires were one of these. So I ended up with 4/5 copies of every current Grammercy CD, Robert Blair & the Fantastic Violinaires' 'All About Jesus' being one of them. No idea where most of these spare copies have got to (in boxes in the loft / garage no doubt), but the CD contained some good tracks.

I have no actual info to refute your dating Robb but would guess this reissue came at the end of your suggested timescale. The Incredibles gained a UK release around September 1967 but (to the best of my knowledge) the UK 45 wasn't getting extensive club plays until 1969. I & my friends started looking for copies of it around early 1970 , by then UK copies of the 45 had just about dried up (unless you were lucky or bought a 2nd hand copy). So we chased US copies & we just about all got one ... BUT ... no one I know turned up an Era copy, we all found original copies. Maybe, it was around the end of 1970 or 1971 (or a bit later still) when Brits had been chasing US copies of this 45 for a while that it was licensed for reissue on Era.

I have some Designer 45's but not too many considering how many were issued. BACKGROUND INFO from JUST MOVING ON website ........... .... Designer is probably the label with the most gospel 45s released in the 1970s. Somewhere between 400 and 500 singles were released between 1968 and 1978. There were about 15 Designer albums released. Style Wooten and Charles Bowen were the men in charge of Designer. Memphis,Tennessee was Designer's hometown. Most of the artists on Designer were from Memphis and the Mid-South of the USA. Designer put some small ads in (local) newspapers "for $ 425 you can become a star". One record session for two songs and 500 pressed 45s was what you got for $ 425. The early releases were in 1968, the one you're after info on was a 1970 release. I'll ask a gospel expert I know if he has this 45 (my guess is that he will have it). If so, I'll pass along the info.

The CD has to contain tracks cut by most of this lot ..........

....... RE: Googa Mooga records being the 1st bootlegs, I'd have to say no to that. However, I don't doubt that their 'US sourced releases' could have been put out without the US label owner's permission. Probably the guys who licensed the 1st Eddie Parker were sent copies of his other 'recent releases' by Jack. Jack hoping they would come back to license some of these additional tracks but perhaps they just went ahead & put them out anyway. In Europe in the 60's (& early 70's), it was NOT UNCOMMON for a US recording to be dubbed off a mint copy of the US 45, a stamper made & UK / French / German label 45's run off (President / JayBoy did this most of the time I'm led to believe). ALSO, it's my understanding that very little of the stuff released on the UK Sue label from its start up to the mid / late 60's was actually licensed from the US parent companies. The guy running Sue (& I can't bring his name to mind at present) just found copes of US 45's he liked (blues & soul tracks), copied them to tape, ran stampers off, pressed up Sue copies & distributed them to UK record shops. So, bootleggers came later ........ but not everything that was done by European label owners in the 60's was legal & above board.

Mark, Have they recorded anything ?? If so, did the guy give you a CD of their tracks (hope so) ?

I'd like as many test pressings of soul 45's from this place as I can get my hands on

And you ain't got any solo tracks by him on the CD .. but here's the Violinaires lead singer, Charlie 'Cole Black' Brown, back then ......