Roburt

Looks exactly like many Jamaican pressed 45's to me. They just used to photstat the US / UK label & print up their labels (sometimes with different colours BUT ALWAYS using beat-up printing machines & rubbish paper ....... hence most Jamaican 45's looked knackered when they were made). The vinyl content of the discs was always just as bad. Recycled plastic (+ old minced up paper labels + sweepings off the pressing plant floor). Mind you, the reggae toasters / DJ's treated the discs awfully anyway so in many cases it didn't matter how bad they started out.

RE: I didn't know that Arthur Jeffries had passed .... Well that's the info that Kent Washburn & James Thompson told me.

Bob ............. By 1972, James Thompson was back in St Louis and looking to resurrect a recording career. He formed a trio named the Hypnotics made up of himself, Arthur Jeffries (ex of the Voice Masters -- now deceased) and Paul Robinson (2nd Tenor - also now deceased). Kent got the group to record some tracks and then set about getting them a record deal. For some months, Kent drove Vice Presidents at many of the major record companies crazy. He pestered them until they finally agreed to meetings at which he pitched the tracks the Hypnotics had recorded. Three offers resulted, from RCA, Warner Brothers and Playboy Records. A deal was signed with Warner Brothers / Reprise and everyone involved at CMC was thrilled as the production company was now off and running. Their initial 45 release on Reprise coupled "Beware of the Stranger" with "Memories" (May 1973) but with little promotional effort put behind the single by the label, it failed to register commercially. A second single ("Girl You Know That I Love You" / "Dance To The Music" followed but that met a similar fate. When their Reprise 45's flopped (mainly due to zilch promotion), Reprise lost interest in their additional tracks (which include these two efforts on the Soul Intention 45). The group were very unhappy about their lack of success & started to 'play up'. As a result the studio put more sessions with them on the backburner and the group fell apart. James has moved on in life (& has relocated) but he still returns to the greater St Louis area once a year to team up with old musical mates & play a couple of local gigs.

Originally released on Dakar by SJQ, no doubt the 'Major' also recorded it back then ...... .. but it escaped later via the deal that Contempo did with the 'Chicago Soul Label Team'. Here it is NOT on Contempo but on a Euro issue ........

Info on Al Serafini & the Upbeat TV show ......

RE: check out "Al Serafini Orchestra - Hey, Soul Man / Lil Rosey" on Audio Fidelity (AF-174). Nb. Stock copies credited to Al Serafini's Sir Alberts. 2 great sax instrumentals imho. Both co written by Lou Ragland and apparently destined to be used as backing tracks for Lou. All of the above is true, extra backing tracks cut at Lou's "I Travel Alone" session which he never 'got back to' to add his vocals. The 45 was 'put out' a while later as instro tracks without his knowledge !!! ......... INFO ON Al Serafini ......... Al Serafini Orch - The Cleveland / Satin Doll (Pama - NOT SOUL) Al Serafini Orch - I Wish You Love / Blues In The Night (Pama - NOT SOUL) Al Serafini Orch + Sir Alberts - Hey, Soul Man / Lil Rosey (Audio Fidelity) Al Serafini Orch + Sir Alberts - Earthquake / Seven Steps To Freedom (A & R) By the 1960s, the big band era had all but ended, but a few live band broadcasts continued. Cleveland based saxophonist Al Serafini still ran a band & they made live national radio broadcasts from both the Sahara Hotel on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland and the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. But the cost of maintaining such an ensemble soon led to its demise, apart from the odd occasion when a big show was in town. Al went on to become the musical director for the 'Upbeat' TV show that went out from a Cleveland TV studio in the mid to late 60's. I will have to ask Lou if Al was actually on that session (when he cut "I Travel Alone", etc) or if Al's name was just put on that 45 coz he was so well known on the Cleveland music scene.

Guess this will only prove a popular add (ad) with the gospel fans on here ....... By 1977 when loads of soul singer were being made to cut disco, gospel groups could still be relied upon to come through with some great 'testifying' tracks ......

James Thompson (lead singer of Hypnotics & Voice Masters) wrote a lot of songs for Gene Chandler after he was spotted by Gene when signed to Bamboo Records. He (James) wrote "Good Guys Only Win In Movies" for Mel & Tim plus the B side to Gene's 45 Groovy Situation" (song titled "Not The Marrying Kind"). Much later he wrote "Get Down" for Gene (massive worldwide disco hit) ....... but here's a very fine example of another of his songs that Gene cut in 1970; "Simply Call It Love" ........ could have done without the whistling though !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZErjZqaHU

.... "Stop Sneaking Around" again ..... ... but not on Top & Bottom this time ....

Piccy cover of the O'Kaysions 7" .......

3 US Soul City goodies on this here un .......

Don Davis takes Bobby Bland to Canada (via Detroit)

A foreign copy ..........

I'm into intense soul vocals (deep style stuff; Lorraine Ellison, Linda Jones, Knight Bros, Garnet Mimms, etc.) .... but I still like me a bit of an instro track .... two that spring to mind ..... a 60's UK club play ....... Bobby Moore -- Hey, Mr. D.J. and 1 I don't recall ever getting plays: the O'Kaysions -- Soul Clap (.... 2nd one was LP only I believe but I have it on a 7" jukebox album) (don't know how the O'Kaysions ended up with the track as it's a Johnny Pate song)

A few WEBB radio charts from the first 3 months of 1964 ....... Jay Wiggins was doing OK with "Forgive Then Forget" BUT .... there was only one winner : Stevie Wonder - No.1 for 5 weeks

Unearthed another gig that the group were on, this time at Balt Civic Center in mid June 68. The other acts on the bill included the Dells, O'Jays, 5 Stairsteps, Magnificent Men, Fashions & Shorty Long. They were still advertised as being Frankie & the Spinners and this was only days before their 1st 45 was released.

I like their T Neck / UK Epic 45 track "It Feels So Good" from 1984. I have their 1st UK 45, it was released on UK Decca on 7th April 1972 (got it on a demo & it states the release date).

I've found out a couple of UK Epic 45's by the group. Unfortunately they date from 1982/84 & were T Neck label releases in the US. A bit of background on them ...... originally from Kansas City but spent some years gigging around California. Got p*ssed off & so returned to Kansas to re-invent themselves. Had some tracks in the can but didn't want to release them as by the Sinceres. Renamed themselves Bloodstone & managed to land a UK tour in 72 as support for Al Greene. Went down a storm in the UK, so Decca signed them up. Initially a couple of their Sinceres US recordings were put out here on Decca before they were teamed with Mike Vincent. He took them off to Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire & here they cut "Natural High" (UK Pop Top 40 in August 73). Some of the guys got homesick; Melvin Webb quit & headed back to the US, whilst Roger Durham died. Group enjoyed loads more success in the US but never made the UK pop charts again. Relocated back to the US in the mid 70's.

would guess that the tracks that were to form the 45 were (AT LEAST) cut & mixed down. At some stage there was obviously a big falling out between the group & Epic. This may have happened after the proposed 45 was allocated a release number but before copies actually hit the shops. Whether promo / radio stn copies were pressed up I don't know (maybe they were pressed up & then not sent out due to whatever the dispute between the two parties was). I'd guess there's a master tape sat somewhere in LA and maybe a couple of acetates kicking around somewhere in the US. The proposed Epic 45 doesn't seem to have been reviewed in Billboard, so I'd think no issue copies ever existed but that's just me adding 2 + 2 and getting 5.

As this release consists of ......... slip-cased two CD collections that comes complete with a free Haynes Mini Guide and illustrated eight page booklet ......... I can see that (at under a fiver incl P&P) these could well become collectors items. I know that if the CD booklet front cover was put out as a poster (12" x 12"), I'd buy one & frame it up for the record room.

Bloodstone were trying to get their name back in front of the record buying public in early 1979. That pril they did a PA at LA discount record store, Freeway Records. This massive R & B related store organised a massive sale day on Good Friday that year. Loads of artists were invited along to 'meet' the public. Bloodstone were one such outfit, as was Ray Parker & Raydio, Alton McClain & Destiny, Undisputed Truth, Apollo, Glass Family plus Bobby Womack, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Harvey Mason, Tate Vega, Vernon Burch, etc. The store was selling didcounted vinyl that day & to attract extra customers ran a 'disco' on their parking lot before getting Rare Gems to perform a set actually inside the store. They certainly don't have days like that down anyone's local record shop these days. Boodstone must already have been working in the studio for Motown by this date (mid April 79)and seeking to re-establish links with their old audience.

Of course, T Neck was distributed by Epic when Bloodstone were signed with the Isley Bros label (1982) but I guess neither they (or the Isley's) cared too much about that situation. Another 'even sooner' link with CBS / Epic came via Al Johnson. Johnson had been signed (by Norman Connors) to a deal with Columbia in 1979. At the same time that he & Norman were laying down his first recordings for CBS, Al was working with Bloodstone on their first tracks for Motown (after the group had finally managed to escape their Epic deal). STRANGE OLD WORLD AIN'T IT !!

Just checked Billboard mag & in the edition dated 26th February 1977 its reported that Bloodstone had left London Records to sign with Epic on a contract supposedly worth $2.7 million. Guess, sumat went wrong with that deal as Epic certainly didn't get their money's worth from the group (who had resigned to Motown by 1979). UPDATE: Billboard in early March 77 re-report group's signing with Epic but state deal was NOT worth $2.7 million. HOWEVER, the 2 year gap in releases after they signed with Epic (for a group that had enjoyed 8 US hit soul chart 45's / 6 US pop chart hits in the previous 3 years) does seem to suggest that they were 'tied in' at Epic and were unable to escape that contract to sign with another label.

Record biz folklore has it that when 'reggae involved' record companies such as Island & loads of the London West Indian related indies needed to clear out storeroom space, lots of 'unsold / unwanted' 45's were taken up to a municipal waste tip just outside St Albans and dumped there. Reggae /soul specialist related London based distributors also followed the same practice (or so I'm told). Guess there wasn't a record collector on the 'staff' at the tip back then !!!

I love me some Bloodstone; not least because when they had just changed from the Sinceres to become Bloodstone, they relocated to the UK. They worked a lot (with Mike Vincent) just up the road from where I now live, in Chipping Norton. Unfortunately, the studio was pulled down a few years back (a workmate was around at the time & pulled loads of acetates out of the skips set up by the studio when it was being stripped down) -- such a 'den' wouldn't be allowed up there now, Chippy's where our Prime Minister, the News International skels & loads of actors / TV presenters live. Anyway back to Bloodstone, I have tons of their stuff (London, Motown, T Neck recorded tracks) and my task of helping you is complicated by the fact that some of their T Neck stuff was released in the UK on CBS / Epic ...... ALSO ...my collection is in such a state of disarray (filing wise) that it takes me days to unearth a specific 45 if I'm looking for it (the time taken being much extended as I find other 'forgotten gems' along the way). But I will look & will post again if I have any luck with regard to this 1977 single. BTW, I was in touch with ex group member Charles McCormick in the 1980's and have a cassette full of his unreleased solo efforts here somewhere (don't ask me to find it though !!).