Roburt

Less than two weeks later & the Independents 45 was on radio charts right across the US ...

The Independents first 45 came out in early April 72 and went almost straight onto the national R&B charts (it had charted by the middle of April). Back at Art Productions; the guys who were responsible for producing "Just As Long As You Need Me", were working with another Chicago based outfit; El Shobey & Co. Art Prods placed that outfits recordings with Shout Records ("Never Missed what You Got" Shout # s-251). Both 45's coming out at about the same time. The El Shobey 45 struggled, whereas the Independents 45 was shooting up with a bullet from day 1. As stated in the article above, a group needed to be formed to undertake promotional work & fulfil the live show bookings that were flooding in. Maurice J and Helen C were recruited to handle the singing side of things but the outfit also needed a backing band instantly. El Shobey & Co were a 'self contained group' and it seems the musicians were cherry picked out of that group to back up the Independents on their shows. This left the two guys who'd written & sung lead on "Never Missed What You Got" out in the cold. Norman Shobey (who already had a long recording history) went off & found some work @ Curtom with Leroy Hutson. Brad Comer took longer to find his feet again but did work some with Mickey Stevenson & Willard King. Eventually he teamed up with Mary Love and the pair worked together, got married and made a bit of an impact with their gospel outings. Steve G will know better the exact date that the Independents 45 hit the shops but I guess that Scepter / Wand must have believed in the track & got promo copies of the 45 out to loads of black radio stns before the start of that April. The cut was on some radio stn charts in the 1st week of April ...

MORE ON THIS PROVOCATIVE THREAD ... There's lots of evidence out there, it's just some folk are too lazy to spend the time looking for it. You could start by clicking on the Mixcloud link above. Guess you just shut your ears & eyes and go by the adage ... see no evil, hear no evil.

Seems only Goldsoul knows ... we all know that's BU******

Maurice White's book on his life with E,W & F certainly makes mention of Jim Brown quite a few times .... though mention of Jim does seem to be missing from most on-line bios about the group. Seems Jim's management company (BBC) took charge of landing E,W & F a record deal in 71. They set up a gig for the group @ Jim's LA house and had RCA & Warners reps come to the party. The Warners guys were impressed & signed the group.

Can't recall if any of the books out there that document Jim Brown's life deal with his interactions with the Younghearts. The one that I have certainly includes some info on his music biz dealings but it's many years since I read it..

You may not like what I put above, but I didn't just make it up. There was an old thread on here back in 2012 where evidence of what I posted was made available (much of it now gone as old web sites have since disappeared). With help from the likes of Lou Ragland, Bobby Wade & John Wilson, I have done extensive research on Cleveland Soul matters. That included chatting with the Imp.W's Al Boyd on a number of occasions about what happened to them in 1970. The 1970 line-up of the Younghearts had split with Bobby Sanders & gone with Jim Brown as their manager (Jim having been involved with Cleve soul acts / Way Out Records back in Cleveland) and Al Boyd's guys (who Bobby had hired to replace the other set) found out what was going on & so also quit as the Younghearts too. Some related stuff is still up on the net ... for instance ... Imperial Wonders interview with Al Boyd 2002 by Steve Guarnori on Mixcloud ... www.mixcloud.com/steve-guarnori/imperial-wonders-interview-with-al-boyd-2002/ The group / groups involved had other managers after Bobby -- I don't have evidence as to why they left his stable and found new managers though (but can guess at the reason why).

Jim Brown; the NFL footballer (Cleveland Browns), actor, music biz manager & label owner has passed ... R.I.P. He funded the Big Jim label for Way Out Records and helped them get MGM on board as distributors for their label. He managed the likes of the Friends of Distinction, the Younghearts and was involved with Earth, Wind & Fire too. There are a few books out there that document Jim Brown's life & that includes some info on his music biz dealings.

If you want to know Vel's full musical history ... you need to get SOUL UP NORTH mag #115 ... you can't get the wrong edition, as Vel is featured on the front cover. I'm working with Vel with regard to UK related projects BUT I haven't chased him to re-record TELL ME WHY yet (he mentions doing this in the above video).

Thought folk here might like to watch some of this filmed interview, undertaken back in 2018, with Vel Lewis ... Guess the section from 8 minutes in will be of most interest to many ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCgMsJgiqRI ... he does his live version of TELL ME WHY @ 16 minutes in.

Leicester record shops have been mentioned ...

A film made about the 70's Dolomite films (one of which starred Mary love).

Of course, the Blues Brothers film both starred many soul acts (all playing semi fictional roles) ... can't nominate either film though, already made my pick ... REFFA HERE ... //www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTXszRHc0qs Then there's all the decent blaxploitation films with great soundtracks ... SUPERFLY, SHAFT, THE MACK, FOXY BROWN and the 'not so good ones' ... the 3 Dolomite films for instance. Also, Barbara McNair starred in many good movies, but not in singing roles.

Yep, I'll nominate the Temptations movie. BTW, ahead of us heading out to Vegas, I'd contacted the Motown Cafe there to see if we could have an extended 'backroom' tour of the place. Our proposed visit was just a few days before the TV movie was to be screened. An LA TV news team, doing a feature on the upcoming TV movie (it must have been due to screen on their channel -- on the coming Sunday night if my memory ain't playing tricks on me).,They sent a camera team over to the Vegas Motown Cafe to do a news piece on this 'strange group of Brit soul / Motown fans' over in Vegas to see & stage some live shows. We were interviewed & then filmed up on stage at the venue, singing along & dancing with the Cafe's own versions of the Temptations and Supremes. Dave Leedham was one of our group & he was going off after our time together ended to see a mate over in California. He'd told that mate about the TV news piece on us & his mate video'd it. Dave got copies of the piece and gave me a copy. Got that somewhere here too.

Roy Tempest eventually had to 'face the music' as UK record companies sued him for advertising fake versions of the groups they released records on. EMI had the 1st go on behalf of Motown acts but others soon waded in. By mid 69 the game was up for him & he had to agree to get out of the music biz or be sued for many thousands. He went into London property and then (I believe) banking. His exploits certainly allowed many UK soul fans to witness live shows by many lesser acts who's 45's would later be chased by NS types. The Steinways (ex Laddins) got just about the highest praise for their shows here. But the experiences they had to endure while over here led to the group breaking up on it's return to the US. He changed the name of his agency from Roy Tempest Org. and Global Promotions to London Attractions in 69, but by then people knew who he was & what he was up to.

There was the Temptations TV movie, which screened in the US when we were over on the 1998 Soul Trip to Vegas. It was on TV there a day after this event which was staged for us by Nancy Yahiro in Long Beech ... so mid Feb 98 then (see attached flyer). //www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkGtMGs-k3Q After that, it came out on video & you used to be able to pick up copies of the video version over here for around a quid (I have 3 or 4 copies of it here somewhere). There have been projects started to film versions of the lives of Otis Redding (Billy Ocean was tipped to play Otis at one stage) and the finished articles on Ike & Tina Turner, the Supremes (disguised under another group name & titled DREAM GIRLS), James Brown, etc. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2pdkjTB040 Also documentary type efforts about Reffa, the Funk Brothers, the Wrecking Crew, Nina Simone, etc. Lots of short clips of soul acts included in films about other subjects, topics (Mary Love being one to get featured in DOLOMITE, along with Arthur Wright's Soul Rebellion Orch). >> //www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYM0XJT28V0 Mary Love from the movie soundtrack (think she's featured singing it live on a club's stage in the actual movie) .. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jBf3jl6aNw Soul stars have appeared in many films in playing fictional roles as A.N.Other (Whitney, Beyonce, etc.).

There have (supposedly) been two documentary teams working on making TV progs about Roy Tempest and his activities in the 60's. The results of both teams efforts should have been out by now. Roy started off as a fully legit booker of UK beat groups and visiting US soul & blues acts but changed tack in 1967. He had brought over the likes of Solomon Burke, Spellbinders, Billy Stewart, the Coasters, Edwin Starr, the Vibrations & many more. From then he realised he could book New York based soul groups quite cheaply, fly them to the UK for next to nothing and book them on UK tours under false names. So we got the Original Drifters (Invitations) Fabulous Temptations (Velours), Fabulous Marvelettes (Gypsies), Isley Bros (Diplomats), Original Impressions (Topics), Fabulous Platters (Steinways), Fantastic Little Anthony & Imperials (The Puzzles), etc. He then got even more greedy & started passing off US & UK based fakes as solo artists such as Chuck Jackson, Carla Thomas, James Brown Jnr, etc. I was contacted in the past by members of both documentary teams & led to believe their projects would have been ready for screening before now. Alice Rose Popplewell & Adam Glenn were the last folk to get in touch with me. There questions started about a year ago & ended around 9 months ago (when I was led to believe they had just about everything they needed. Last summer, I was told they were about to head out to the US to interview some of the surviving group members who were involved with Roy back in 67/68/69.

The Younghearts, New Younghearts & Kings of Hearts are all, in a way, the same group. BUT THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE SAME MEMBERS ... The Younghearts manager (probably Booby Sanders) was a bit ruthless & used to screw the group members over money on a regular basis. So when a member would get tired of this he'd quit the group, sometimes all the members would quit at the same time. Bobby wasn't bothered, he'd just find a different group, sign em, rename em and a few days later the Younghearts, NYH or KofH would be back on the road undertaking the groups bookings. Bobby Sanders and Charles Ingersoll had started out at the beginning of the 60's in the LA group, the Extremes. I seem to recall, Al Boyd telling me that after he'd relocated to LA, the Imperial Wonders were even a set of Younghearts for a few days. The Imperial Wonders from Cleveland were hired by Bobby to become the group after Ron Preyer & his guys went their own way. Bobby told the Imp.W that the original group had split up, but that a new 45 was due out on them, so he needed new guys to promote the single. But one night, a few days later, both groups were playing shows in clubs on the same LA street. The Imperial Wonders went to meet the 'original group' and when told about their situation, the Imp. Wonder's quit as the Younghearts right there. It was Ron Preyers 4 guy's (which included Charles Ingersoll) who recorded their Minit stuff; Ron then led a trio (that also included Charles Ingersoll & Bobby Solomon) on the 20th Century stuff. The New Younghearts were 4 totally different guys & included Mark Putney in their line-up. Richard Dimples Fields was lead singer with one set of Younghearts. Many other guys were used on other of the recordings credited to the group under their 3 different names, others were in 'live' versions of the groups.

Some one off soul events across the midlands; there were similar promotions staged in Spalding & another in Nottingham (@ a footie ground I think) ... think the Sherwood Rooms ad was a bit misleading as they describe James & Booby Purify as being a T/Motown act and say the same about the Fab Isley Brothers (who were really Sam, Erv & Tom aka the Diplomats).

No, with regard to the Isleys unreleased Motown stuff, it was definitely the UK that spearheaded those first escaping from the vaults. So I'd say Dave Godin & Sharon Davis are very much in the frame as the people to thank. With Isley Brothers tracks doing so well (commercially) in the UK in 1969, equally it could just have been a EMI staffer who was on their Motown team. Later on, in the early 80's, I knew a guy who worked on the UK Motown team -- he said cassettes of loads of old Motown tracks were handed out to everyone on the team. Folk would play them when they had nothing else to do & put forward suggestions for possible releases.

Kettering it is then ...

Motown's Ralph Terrana tells me that we have Fran Heard to thank for saving all the old US master tapes. Under Fran's stewardship the library was run really well, being the most successful department in the Creative Division. She oversaw the transporting of Motown's extensive library of tape, multi-track and masters to LA it seems. Of course, most of the Isley's master tapes must have been requested by EMI ahead of Detroit being abandoned by Motown in 1972. Motown's home in LA (how it looks these days) ...

Lived in Northampton for a while (had Lou Ragland as a house guest while there). Back in the 60's / 70's it had a thriving mod / soul scene but that had all gone by the time I got there (apart from the Detroit Academicals Soul Club dos) ... Seem to recall becoming pally with a guy from N'ton at the Nite Owl -- Mick Murphy. Lots of R&B / soul venues there in the 60's. The Maple Ballroom had many top UK acts on (Animals, Who, etc.) in the mid 60's. Later on it staged soul disco nights with pirate radio stn DJ's starring & it ran the White Bicycle club style nights.. My memory may be playing tricks on me (I'm an ol' gibba) but I seem to recall a soul weekender being staged at Billing Aquadrome Caravan Park (near Earls Barton) about 25 years ago. Then there were the Northampton Soul Weekenders in the town centre that featured live acts (Impressions, Chris Clark, Falcons, etc.). Went to a couple of those.

A couple of mates of mine found their way into a UK store that stocked such additives way back in the day. They came away with bag loads of stuff. So much in fact, that if they were bored & had nothing else to do, they'd partake of some of the product even on midweek nights when there was no where at all to go.

Would love to see a couple of the Frollicking Kneecap ads. No doubt Ady would too, as he used to attend the sessions there. I have started & added to similar threads (on here) in the past about London 60's clubs, the Mojo Club, Nite Owl Club, etc. I have quite a few ads for similar clubs located right across the UK.