jimmyjrg

I tried to reach out to Ken Clee to get some discographies I'm researching, but I noticed his website is down now. Does anyone know if he's still providing discographies or selling his Directory of American 45s book?

Thanks Kenb. If anyone else has this, I'm still looking for a clear photo of the 'Tony Had A Dream' article in R'n'B World May 1, 1969.

R'n'B World (later Afrostar) was published by Go Publishing in New York between 1968-1971. It covered the wider soul scene and was distributed nationally. I'm looking for a specific issue: R'n'B World May 1, 1969 that has an article about Tony Lawrence and his Harlem Cultural Festival as seen in the photo below I found on Worthpoint. I've been trying to find copies but no libraries or archives seem to have this title. If anyone knows of one please let me know. My main interest is to find anything related to Tony Lawrence and the Harlem Cultural Festivals, so if anyone has some copies and some time to skim them I'd appreciate anything you can find. Or if you just have this issue I'd appreciate a clearer photo if possible. Thanks in advance.

I know Bob Abrahamian has some fans here, so I wanted to share this mix he made in 2010. It was created for DJ Shadow's Shadow Radio in 2010. Here's the description from back then: I recently got MP3s of all the radio shows and uploaded them to YouTube and thought this one might be of interest here:

Thank you both. Since publishing we've had a few more people reach out, so I'm sure there will be an expanded version or follow up article in the future. Peter, I agree. The threads on SS with images and everyone sharing information are fascinating to read. It's a great community here.

Hi everyone. Thank you for your patience, we have now published the article about John Hillyard: https://www.djshadowreconstructed.com/post/remembering-john-hillyard Thank you to everyone in this thread and others who shared their stories about John. Unfortunately, there were a few people we still hadn't been able to speak with, but it's been a few years now and the time seemed right to just publish it. Thanks again, and happy new year.

Ah that makes sense. Thanks you!

I have a few Tony Lawrence records on different labels and they all had the same address of 17 W. 60th St. (Suite 503) N.Y. 10019. Any idea why? Did lots of NYC labels share the same mailing address back in the 50s and 60s? The labels are Festival, Jude, and Lo Lo (distributed by Calla Records at this address), and then I've seen the same address for Beekman Records too. I don't know much about the NY scene so this made me curious.

Thanks for the info! I was told John moved to Merced in 1989, but maybe they meant he moved his records/store because he started working at Steve's Coins around then. That's crazy if he was still living in LA!

Sorry for the delay. I'm still working on the article, and hopefully it'll be done soon. I've managed to identify John's parents and some relatives, but unfortunately no one alive who knew him before he left Canada. I recently found a news clipping from 1993 with John and someone called Andrew J Ornelas. They opened a record store together at 655 W. Main Street, Merced called Hillyard & Ornelas Records. I'm trying to track down Andrew, and was wondering if anyone here knew him? It's the first time I've heard him mentioned. They're pictured together in the attached image from 1993.

Thanks for sharing Steve. Do you remember any particular bands he worked with? I've read he worked for Imperial Records, where he met Kim Fowley and then they recorded together. But I haven't found anything else concrete. It sounds like the store you visited was Steve’s Coins. The other two guys were probably Steve Crissoni and Joe Mendez.

I'm looking for the following 45s and albums which I haven't seen online, but did exist according to mentions in Cash Box magazines. Tony Lawrence - unknown title (1956) Beech Records Tony Lawrence - I’m Much Too Young / St. Louis Blues (1957) unknown label Tony Lawrence - Confessin’ (1958) unknown label Tony Lawrence - The Continental Album (1961) possibly on Silver Bid Records Tony Lawrence's Harlem Cultural Festival TV Record Album (1970) possibly on A & T Records (not the 45 released in 1969) I'm happy to discuss price. At this point even knowing whether these exist at all would be nice. So if you have them please let me know.

Thanks Ion. I'll check them out. We've had a great response from everyone contacted so far and hopefully we'll get the article up in the new year. At the moment we're still chasing some leads about John's early life as it's a bit unclear what he was doing before he sold records in California. But hopefully we'll find out more soon.

That was great to read, thank you for sharing everything. I wonder what John would have made of the basement at Records? There was meant to be a lot of interesting stuff in there that DJ Shadow eventually mined when he was putting together his first album.

Yes that's the one. Wow, that's a great coincidence. I'll be sure to mention it in the article about John.