boba

Hi. Today on my radio show I interviewed Eddie Cherry, of the groups the Fabulous Crystals, the Fads, and TC Lee and the Bricklayers. Eddie was originally from Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Eddie moved to the South Side of Chicago in 1958, after completing high school in Arkansas. Inspired by Little Anthony and the Imperials' "Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop", Eddie started a group with his high school friend Lewis Young (who had also recently moved to Chicago). While trying to learn how to sing, the group was initially mentored by their neighbor Don Porter of the Spaniels. After Don stopped working with the group, Norman Palm of the Pastels began to help the group continue learning how to sing. Palm ended up leaving the Pastels and joining the group, who eventually named themselves the Fabulous Crystals, after a local movie theater called the Crystal Theater. The group practiced for a couple of years, and even ended up picking up a female singer while singing in Jackson Park. The group released their only single, "Left front row", on their manager John Delano Banks' "Delano" record label. The single was not promoted and received little airplay in Chicago. In the early 60s the group won a talent show at Medina Temple; the winner of the show got to return to the temple to perform on a week-long "Brenda Lee Twist Show", a revue with Brenda Lee, Solomon Burke, and other pop stars. The group got a new manager who booked the Crystals on a "Twist" tour of the midwest; the group toured performing hour-long Twist shows at White nightclubs. The Crystals toured doing Twist shows for about 5 months, until the group broke up after a member left. Around 1964, Eddie met another singer, Bob Pittman (previously of the Gospel Paraders), who formed a new group called the Fads. The group practiced for a couple of years and ended up getting a record deal with Mercury records. The group cut their single, "Just like a woman" / "The problem is" at the St. Lawrence recording studio. While at the studio, the Ideals saw the group rehearsing their song, "You lost and I won", and asked to record it themselves. Although the Ideals' record got play in the city, the Fads' own record, "Just like a woman" (released on Mercury and also scheduled but never released for Mercury's Blue Rock sub-label) got little play. The Fads were then taken by local singer and promoter TC Lee to Cincinnati to record backup for Lee on the King record label. Lee had previously recorded on King's Federal Subsidiary with the group the King Pins. Lee renamed renamed the Fads as the Bricklayers; the group went with him, hoping to be successful as a new act with a new name. "Up and down the hill" / "Get away from here", was released as by TC Lee and the Bricklayers on King records, but only received a little play in Ohio. The group soon broke up, only having done studio recordings and never having performed live. You can check out my interview at: https://www.sittinginthepark.com/interviews.html additionally, I did a music show after my interview. You can listen at: https://www.sittinginthepark.com/1-4-2008.mp3 following is a playlist. Thanks for your interest. Swinging Hearts - Spanish love - NRM Incinerators - You think you're cute - Soundex Ballads - This is magic - Tina Twi-lites - No greater thing than love - M-Pac Roy Jones and the Shells - Satisfied - Swirl Invitations - Watch out little girl - MGM Channels - I've got my eyes on you - Groove Mill Evans - Why why why - King Clara Hardy - I dream of you - Tuna Dynamics - Whenver I'm with you - Top Ten Uptowners - Lovers to friends - Captown Primes - Who can I turn to - Lota Soul El Pooks - Trisha - Orivious Magnetics - Let me comfort you - Sound Trap Collectors - Cruel World - Jerrel Darrow Fletcher - Sitting there that night - Jacklyn thanks, Bob

Hi. I recently picked up these two acetates from a former motown collector. One is eddie holland "day dreamer". The other is an unknown artist with a track called "darling". It is supposedly the Originals but the artist is not identified on the record. Was this ever finally released on some motown CD and if so, or through some other knowledge, can anyone confirm the identity of the artist? I searched here for the other track day dreamer, and found some discussion about how Ady Croasdell owns a copy of the acetate. Is this a well known track? Are there any other known copies of this in existence? Thanks for any info. Here are scans...

finess has a great sweet soul side. i like the 'special one' side on the renee williams, a beat up copy sold for $36 on ebay recently so maybe 100 pounds is closer to the value. it is hard to find.

if something shows up on popsike that means it HAS been on ebay. if something does NOT show up on popsike it means nothing because popsike does not index all auctions. so popsike cannot answer most of the questions here as to whether something has NOT shown up unless it shows up in popsike.

try: https://www.lotuslandrecords.net/

it was on ebay like 3 times in the last year, one ended very recently

i also have the billy. cheap at least.

for 4000 of them i would think you would have to go with shelving though, but i'm sure your boxes would be great for others. in my experience you have to get bookshelves, it's not like LPs that are much bigger and more awkward than books. you just have to find a bookshelf with the right dimension, either some ikea-level thing or get someone to make a custom shelf.

i didn't have any actual info other than my friend sourced this and had copies a long time ago, he would have more real info though, i will try to ask him.

does anyone know if tim brown's merger that he had at 1000 pounds got any bids?

this is only vaguely related to your post, but I when went to the house of one of the dontells, who is really into roller skating (which is still really big on the south side of chicago today). when i told him how old I was, he was like "I have a pair of roller skates much older than you!" and he pulled out this ridiculous pair of 50 year old roller skates. they had holes and patches all over. he said he was still wearing them, like for show, but that his shoe person finally refused to fix it more and he couldn't find anyone else willing to fix it so he had to buy new shoes for his skates. he also had this awesome embroidered custom roller skate bag with two pouches and strap that went over his shoulder.

that's kind of horrible that, as a singer, instead of people wanting to hear your big hit ("show and tell", etc.) they want to hear an extremely obscure record by someone else who isn't even you and that got no play, and you actually have to perform it and pretend it's you.

i think the second press is a legit reissue by the label owner and not a boot btw. the combinations voo doo second press on carrie actually has a different label number.

oh sorry, someone already identified it

i don't know what it is, but the second one is obviously a sly stone cover

tons of oddball unknown records have never been on ebay. in terms of big chicago records, i have never seen the cods - she's fire, combinations - whatcha gonna do, deltours, admirations on peaches, etc. someone in another thread said they saw the admirations but I haven't seen it.

one of my favorite records of all time

wow, I never knew that. the tobi lark is a detroit record, i wonder what the detroit-chicago connection was or if monique was somehow from detroit.

the photos in this specific one are awesome, they got great material from the yodi folks

george redman was supposedly very crazy and very flaming, it's not suprising that he played with the writing credits too. He credits the desires as "dee desires" on one record and credits the impulse as "dee impulse" and called himself jorge rojohombre on a few records.

are you asking because i'm an obsessive nerd?

There are no common members between the intensions and the mandells. I just can't win by the intensions is a totally different song. "I love you" by the intensions shares the same backing track as the mandells / carpets "just can't win" but it is also a different song with different lyrics. To make it more confusing, the Summits on United International cover the Intensions version of "just can't win", but titled as "love is blind". George Redman, the label owner / producer, reused backing tracks without the groups' knowledge. Are you confused yet?

the lead singer is a super-nice guy with a great memory.

I interviewed both the mandells and the intensions, you can listen here: www.sittinginthepark.com/interviews.html the carpets are from kansas city. the same producer, george redman, was involved in all the recordings. the intensions are the same group as the measures.

maybe, I can check later, maybe I'm forgetting one