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.

Thank you. If you find any more I'd love to see them too. It's crazy how cheap his records were compared to now.

Thanks for those photos! Do you mind if I use them in the article? Also thanks Blake for the extra info too. I'll have to look through the credits of some Phil Spector releases and see if he's credited anywhere. I found a rental ad for the 4457 Rosewood Ave property, with the same phone number. It's from Dec 1970 and was $135 a month and is described as a two bedroom place. I'm guessing he moved in around then.

Just a quick bump. I wonder if some of the other people who have met John might be able to chime in? It looks like some of you aren't active currently so apologies for the @ 's @Rob Wigley, @Dave Thorley, @Mikevague, @foolish fool , @Arthur Fenn, @Platters 81, @Blake H, @neckender, @JOE TORQUAY I'd really like to understand how everyone found out about him? If anyone remembers a specific newspaper or magazines he might have advertised in, I'd love to find some of his old ads. I'm also interested to hear any other recollections about him, to get an idea of what type of person he was. It seems like he was pretty fair on prices, but became quite eccentric in the 90s. Any other anecdotes or thoughts would be great to gather. Thanks everyone for your help so far.

Thanks for that. I'll see if I can get in touch with both of them.

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but I was reading about Fun City earlier and I don't think John Bennings ran that Fun City. The Fun City that put out the Eddie Long 45 was a sublabel of Julmar and didn't seem to have a connection to Bennings. But then there's another Fun City who put out a 45 by Bobby Belmont, and Bobby Belmont put out some 45s on Laurie Records, which is where Bennings ran the Spectrum sublabel. So there's a clear connection there. This is just going off information I've pulled from Billboard, Cash Box, and Jet magazines, but I've updated the Discogs listings accordingly as I think I'm right.

@Blackpoolsoul Thanks, that link was actually how I found this forum initially

How did you all find out about him? Were there specific newspapers or magazines he might have advertised in? It sounds like he had a lot of customers from the UK who knew about him. Whenever I look up his name I find a Canadian politician, but I'm guessing there's no relation haha.

Thanks for that! Yes, he definitely worked with Kim Fowley. His 1968 album Born To Be Wild was dedicated to John, and John also makes an appearance on the album Good Clean Fun from 69. Notably the track Motorcycle.

This is a photo taken in John's store in Merced from 1993. Picture is of Stan Green who did early artwork for DJ Shadow's releases.

Thanks for that tip. I'm seeing if I can get a scan of Trendsetters book. Here's a photo of DJ Shadow, John, and Lyrics Born circa 1993. From what I've read, it sounds like he had the dreadlocks since the 1980s at least.