Roburt

In 1980 I bought a new car from D C Cooks of Wath. needed to return it a week later to get a few niggles sorted. As it was a bit of a drive from Worksop, I decided to just hang about till they were fixed (3 hr or so). So I decided to take a walk in the Mexboro direction. Passed a 2nd hand shop in a terraced row & he had put a few import 45's out front in a pavement rack. Some Verve / MGM imports were among them, so I dived in for a better look. Pulled out a 20 box of the Superiors (a mix of issues & demos). Some other 'obscurish' Verve / MGM items as well. Put 17 Superiors in the box + a copy of 4 other 45's ... (a Sam The Sham being one of the others) & went to ask the owner how much for the full box (now containing 21 singles). Beat him down to £1 for the box. None of the others were decent rekkids but I made a bit from the Superiors 45's. However, I'm no business man & this was pre- Tinternet. So I got bored of having so many spares, so I swapped quite a few with guys selling stuff at local soul nights and ended up selling the last few to guys I knew for £1 or 30/- each. Should have held out and sold them more slowly.

Examples of the art work @ the Wynwood Walls project in Overtown . . . . . . .

I was down in the Overtown area today. It is being gentrified at present. Lots of new development going on plus loads of art galleries have sprung up in old buildings. A big graffiti art outdoor project is now a very popular draw over an area of a few blocks. Got back home by taking the I-95 freeway so must have passed quite close to the old record shop.

I'd have a go . . . . but some of what I remember already out there (the chapter on the Wheel in 'In Crowd' book).

UK based 'husband & wife' team (? . . . maybe brother / sister) who played live gigs most nights of the week from mid to late 60's. Used to hand out tambourines to audience members to get the atmosphere going at their gigs but always used to lose a few at every show (tea leafs in the crowd). Always put on a good show, nearly always playing covers of currently popular Motown / Stax / Atlantic type tracks. Never really broke thru on record. Seem to recall seeing them late in 1967 playing at the Nite Owl in Leicester. Root stayed in the biz for many years, in later times fronting a blues band that also recorded at times.

'And The Echoes' got their strange name by just retaining what they were known as when they sang with Tommy Vann as Tommy Vann & the Echoes. Tommy got a different set of guys to back him up & his old guys just kept on going under their old name ... they played numerous gigs over a period of years in their home town of Baltimore. Here's a gig they played with local / DC area outfit the Van Dykes ....

Dr J Bobby Cole's business card in the mid 80's .... with many thanks to 'Mad Lad' Colton . . . .

As was posted above, Stevie's "Love A Go Go" was a massive anthem at the Mojo in 66/67. "Going to a Go Go" was also massive as we all used to sing Going to a MoJo AND Love a Love a MoJo over the real words ... Stringfellow played it off the US LP from almost the day that album was released right thru to the end of the club in September 67. I bought the 'Uptight' LP when it was a new UK release and bought the French ep on a visit to USA Record Shop in Paris in the late 70's. Just in passing, I was a regular guest on R Searling's Soul Sauce radio show on Radio Hallam in the 80's and we would do Mojo related slots. On a couple of these, I played "Love A Go Go", so Richard was certainly aware of the track back then.

I didn't know that, He (Bobby Cole) was involved with the MS track made by the 'World Famous' Mad Lads in the mid 80's.

Ramona is still very active on the Toledo (& Detroit) music scenes. She posts most weekends on Facebook about her gigs.

Thanks for that. So the stydio was contained in the building that used to stand next to the Big AJ Store shown above ... pity I can't find any old pictures of this location when the building was still standing.

The UK mod version .... neither this or the Majors is as good as the original by the Imps ...

Yea, Von Taylor was the real guy behind the Gina Hill cuts (Von Taylor usually based himself out of Montgomery Ala) .... he had a long ongoing association with Dan Brantley. On the net it says that some guys in the studio backing band on Gina's tracks went on to become BRICK, which makes sense as they were from Atlanta.

What's the label's record sleeve look like ??

Lou-Neita also operated out of a building in a nearby town, College Park. This is the next place south of East Point & is situated near Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta Int Airport. The outfits address in College Pk was 3815 Sth Main St. Once again the actual building has gone but the 2 next to it still exist (modest places) ... The Big AJ Store is 3817 S Main St, so the Lou-Neita building was to the right of it ... I've now got the current address of the guy who ran the label's recording sessions & we head out to the US in a couple of days time ... so I'll contact him to find out more about the label and it's releases.

As usual when good quality soul is involved, Sir Shambling has been there first ... https://www.sirshambling.com/artists_2012/B/the_bishop/index.php ....though once again, very little in known about the company or their artists .... Looking at the East Point street scene today, there is no evidence that the building that housed the Lou- Neita organisation (offices / studio / warehouse ?) ever stood there .... the newish building on the left is 1618 Thompson, so the old Lou-Neita building must have stood where it's car park is now ...

This label has had a couple of mentions on here down the years but no real facts on it were posted up. Anyone here know much about this label that operated from East Point a small city just SW of Atlanta. It seemed to have big ambitions in 1970 and cut, released, distributed some decent soul sides. Their best artists (that I know about) were the Bishop (real ID ?), Thelma Wilson & Gina Hill. They also released country & white christian music, but that don't interest me.

The first time I heard Tommy's record "School Of Life" it had a real effect on me. How one man could so accurately detail such a traumatic event in people's lives and then transpose that message onto vinyl with such feeling and emotion is beyond belief ... the song and his interpretation of it was so perfect that it has stayed with me for these 45 years. Most times, I like my deep soul to be gut wrenching gospel inspired abandonment but Tommy showed me that you can display a bucketful of restraint and yet still totally deliver your message. His take on this song renders it a true masterpiece.

When they played the Prestatyn Weekender, I was tasked with writing their bio for the web site & programme. I made the theme of my piece ... a great soul group who also had disco hits .... when the guys read it they were over the moon & I couldn't do anything wrong in their eyes all that weekend .... I asked them early on the Friday if they would consider performing one of their Chubby & the Turnpikes tracks. After they realised these were still popular with UK soulies, they asked their UK music director (who had always led / provided their British musicians on previous visits) to source the music for a C&T song and to include it in the show. He was an arrogant prick & said yes but just continued to arrange the show as he wanted it to go. Anyway, the time came for them to perform & there was no score organised for any C&T number ... they guys weren't too phased though .. they mentioned their previous existence during their performance & sang a couple of snippets of those old songs accapella (which went down well) ... NICE GUYS ALL ROUND .. BTW, my fave album by them is the mega 'Madam Butterfly' .... Tavares + Sam Dees ... nothing is better ......

To back up my previous post ... here's two things Buddah Records management were working hard on that June / July .... They provided Sussex / Hot Wax artists with major support on a big NY show (see below) ... . . . . AND ... They commenced a major campaign to launch a whole new project that seemed to almost instantly fail in a massive way..... the CELEBRITY AUDIO MAGAZINE (LP) ..

Around that time (June / July 72) Buddah were having more success with distributed label releases than with their own output .... Sussex (Bill Withers), T-Neck (Isleys), Hot Wax (Laura Lee, Honey Cone, 100 Proof) & Curtom (Curtis, Impressions, Donny H & June C) stuff was keeping them really busy. Most of their own summer releases got little or no promotional push & those 45's just seemed to have been put out in promo format, sent out to radio stns and forgotten about (& no radio DJ's picked up on them at the time). They were however still getting chart action on the Trammps & Barbara Mason's earlier 45's (#306 & 296). Both artists had follow ups released in Sept 72 (#319 & 321) and those releases got some push. I guess the Jesse James 45 was put out to keep Jesse happy as his artists Chee Chee & Peppy had some small success with their Buddah 45's following their 71 big hit "I Know I'm In Love". The Chee Chee & Peppy tracks were cut by Jesse at Sigma Sound, so I guess his own stuff was also laid down there.

The connection between the Eddie Carlton Philly cut & the Lorenzo Manley LA track was (Eu)Gene Dozier ... Gene writing the songs under his alter ego 'Detroit' name Billy Jackson .... the Eddie Carlton recorded version wasn't actually finished till after Gene moved from Philly to Detroit ... The Lorenzo Manley version was cut after he relocated again (from Detroit to LA) ... just for the record, the Original Sound cut doesn't actually feature Lorenzo at all. Gene & his partners only had enough cash to fund a studio session for one track on Lorenzo, that being "To Prove My Love" -- the A side of the OS 45 ... ... . . . . . . when OS wanted to license that track, Gene coupled it with a demo track he'd voiced himself -- "Swoop Down On You".

Thanks to Dennis Mack Guy Hennigan John Smith .... .... a right motley crew getting a mention

The UK 60's ones on Stateside, Atlantic, Sue, Minit, Chess, Tamla Motown, Direction & the like are highly collectable.