boba

the lovelites song isn't the same song, is it?

the person selling on ebay is not rich rosen, rich rosen rarely sells on ebay

it is a south carolina GROUP though, probably recorded in detroit.

Hi. Today on my radio show I did an interesting interview with singer Kennis Jones. As a child, Kennis moved from Grand Rapids, MI to the South Side of Chicago. Kennis lived in the Harold Icke homes at 22nd and State street. Kennis got interested in music at an early age via his father, who sang with Sam Cooke and with the Wings of Faith gospel group. Soon after moving to the south side, Kennis formed the Flairs, with his brother Loren and three other members. With little experience the group did an initial performance at the Regal weekly talent show and were unsuccessful; the group then practiced daily for an entire year before performing again, perfecting their harmony and choreography. The Flairs became local favorites, playing clubs and winning talent shows. The group soon found a backing band, the Statistics, who lived at Wentworth Gardens, the projects just south at 35th and State. The group also found a manager, Darnell Glover, also from Wentworth Gardens; Glover recorded the group on his Southtown record label. "I want you" / "All I need" was the group's first single; the record had an excellent late-60s Chicago sound and received some local airplay. About a year later Kennis was discovered by James Shelton (owner of the Daran record label) while playing piano in the lobby of Shelton's hotel. Shelton had Kennis write music to some tracks that were initially intended to be recorded by the Chi-lites (who had recently left Shelton's labels to go to Brunswick records). The Flairs, under a new group lineup, recorded the tracks and Shelton released the group's second single -- "Where you live" / "You got to steal it" -- on his Rap record label. The single also had a great Chicago sound and received some local airplay. The group continued to do local shows and Kennis began to focus on songwriting. Kennis hooked up with producer Jim Porter, who initially wanted Kennis to work with his group the Eight Minutes. Kennis wrote the track "Next time he'll be good", which was released by the Eight Minutes on the perception record label. Kennis also auditioned the Flairs for Porter, who ended up recording a new lineup of the group; the group changed their name to Velvet in order to make a fresh start. "Give it up" was released in 1972, locally on the Lovelite label and then nationally on Perception. "Give it up" had a more modern, Stylistics-inspired early-70s Chicago sound, and became the group's biggest hit (going all the way up to number 8 on WVON's charts). Kennis began to focus more on songwriting, working at Brunswick records writing tracks that were recorded but never released, by several Brunswick artists. Porter released a second single -- "Betcha if you ask around" -- as by Velvet, but the group was actually totally different and did not include Kennis at all. In the mid-70s Kennis decided to go to California to pursue his music career. After initially spending time with members of Earth Wind and Fire, Kennis eventually got an interview with Smokey Robinson. Smokey immediately signed Kennis as a personal songwriter. Kennis wrote many songs for Smokey, a couple of which were released, including the excellent cut "If we're gonna act like lovers" from the Big Time soundtrack. In the early 80s, Kennis left Smokey to pursue a solo career. Kennis cut the excellent track "Mr. Postman" which he released as a 12" on his own Soft Soul record label in 1986. Kennis has continued to perform until today. He is currently working on a new album; you can check out tracks from his new CD or contact Kennis directly via his myspace page: https://www.myspace.com/kennisjones or his personal webpage: https://softsoul-kj.com/ You can listen to the interview on my interviews page: https://www.sittinginthepark.com/interviews.html thanks for your interest, Bob

this is hard to find on the oceans label, but common on RCA

i got my money back with paypal. i spent a long time trying to contact him and even left him phone messages. he didn't respond to phone, ebay messages, paypal messages, etc. paypal refunded my money. i send him another message via ebay saying i still wanted the record and that i would pay him again if i got it and that i would leave negative feedback in 3 days if he didn't respond at least. he didn't respond to that either. 5 days later i got the record with no response ever. i had forgotten to leave a negative, fortunately for him.

does anyone here have a nice (300dpi or better) scan of the big frank and the essences photo (not scanned from the booklet, scanned from the original)? I have a lot of photos to trade. Did the CD have a fads photo by any chance? the fads guy I know doesn't have a fads photo (only a photo of a doowop group he was in that recorded) and he would love to get a fads photo. I have a vv and the superbs photo which is insane, to put it nicely, they are not a very good looking group.

Thanks for listening, it's 7:30-9pm central time on WHPK, 88.5FM Chicago. You could theoretically listen live at www.whpk.org but Uk I think is 6 hours off so it would be 1:30AM-3AM. You could even call up, I have an interesting one tonight but he's on the phone so you couldn't call for that. I have interviews booked every week through january now, you can pm me for a schedule if you want. At least one of the december interviews will involve a group of northern interest... The one tonight will be Kennis Jones of the Flairs / Velvet, though. You can check out Kennis' myspace and new material at: https://www.myspace.com/kennisjones thanks, Bob

thanks everyone for the info

I always thought that the essences guy was the same guy as big frank murphy on phillips. I thought so just because it was another "big frank" on the same label and also because he has the same deep voice (which also does sound like frank dell). Did you talk to Frank and did he confirm that he was the essences guy? if so, is he also "big frank murphy"?

i pulled mine out and it did say 2006 on it. Dante's webpage must be wrong. vaguely related, but supposedly verna and rob (or at least verna) was in the group in addition to lou ragland. Their daughter emailed me and I sent her an mp3 and she said she and her mom (verna) didn't recognize the track.

didn't get it yet, I will let you know when it arrives. I don't know of a 12" but the page says he's on another label now. thanks.

what is the mercury and starflower record referred to in his bio: https://www.frankdell.com/bio

i think the attic records had one on ebay maybe 6-12 months ago.

sorry, I missed chalky's clarifying post...

it's not, the echoes / "and the echos" are called that because they were tommy vann's backing group -- "Tommy vann and the echoes". no connection to the detroit group.

i looked at the scans in the thread and I see they all don't have bob lee's publishing so you might be right. I guess he just had LA contacts (e.g. there was that billy watkins thing).

are you sure jimmy robbins was a california artist? I thought he was in Chicago and later moved to California. My friend did talk to him as he licensed the Patrizia and Jimmy record on ALA for his kiddie soul comp. I guess I could potentially call him and ask him if it was important. Either way, you could be right about the impression release being first, it definitely charted on jerhart and doesn't it have bob lee's publishing on all the other releases? Either way Bob Lee did have LA connections so it would make sense as he rerelased Billy Watkins' 45 on Jerhart and he was an LA artist.

as a side note, if I had a million dollar bill I would spend it all on 45s

it charted nationally on billboard R&B, it was bob lee's only hit record ever.

volcanic eruption is 2002 not 2006

soul generations track is a slow 70s ballad.

If someone is arguing that it's just thematically the same, that's a common theme in love songs. For example, the soul generation's biggest hit was a totally different record called "million dollars" talking about how if the guy had a million dollars he would spend it all on his girl. musically the record is not the same.

comes up occasionally, used to be around in quantity, for example, the wax museum used to have and probably still has some (along with the statlers on sue for example, but this is more common).

If a promoter wants to contact Eula I can get contact info from the Numero people.