boba

Someone just announced in the soulfuldetroit forum that Willie Cager just died last weekend. Apparently he was living in Lansing, MI when he died, I knew a couple of people in Chicago who knew him from back in the day who were looking for him. Sad news.

are there other titles on the label? isn't that fox sex title an 80s thing?

both janus 45s were only issued in baltimore, the harder we try is the easy one (lots of copies around), the hard one is 'cross my heart' which is also very good.

they were also the same group as the inclinations on janus so they has 2 45s as the inclinations, one of which is very hard to find. One of the members was previously in beverly and the del-capris on columbia.

Here is a photo. From left to right: Eddie Dunn, Ralph O'Neil, Jerrone Johnson, Emmett Gardner. Eddie Dunn is the guy that sings lead "to be happy enough" (one of my favorite records of all time), "Not too old to cry", etc. There's nothing else I can do besides presenting audio and visual evidence of the facts so this is my last post on this topic. At this point if people want to post any conspiracy theories, ignore the photo, etc. go ahead.

again, there is nothing to 'debate' or 'question' here, given that you can hear the artists themselves talk about recording and singing these songs, performing them on tv, etc. I can't believe this is even an open issue. Are you proposing that I staged an interview with fake artists? Or that they lied about being on record?

thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it.

maybe not you specifically, but speculation about artists identity, race, etc. is not 'debate'. Plenty of people here and on other forums post misinformation as 'fact' based on their speculation, which is equivalent to spreading lies. It gets posted to a public site and people further spread the misinformation. People can 'debate' whether they like a record or not, I don't see most factual and historical information that people just make up as something that to be 'debated'. The whole reason I post interviews with artists is so that people can hear their accounts from the source -- e.g. they don't even have to believe me. I just can't believe that even after posting that and a link people still are speculating when there is nothing to 'debate'. I might sometimes speculate about an artist, record, etc. but I will always put it forward as straight speculation unless I have actually confirmed facts from a solid source.

haha Ted, I think you sold two of the records for him by advertising here. One thing I found is that no matter what ebay auction I point to, no matter how shady (I am NOT saying this seller is shady), posting about it here is instant advertising and guarantees more hits. Either way, the seller is a nice guy, it's Brad Hales, the people's records guy whose store burned down recently.

Hey Brian, Greg would probably know more as he's talked to him, but I think Tommy Dorsey actually lives in Georgia now. Emmett told me he was a photographer in Atlanta, I think. Just FYI, I don't know if that is true or not.

There are two lead singers in the group. Eddie Dunn and Emmett Gardner. Eddie Dunn sings on the 'beach' sounding records (as you refer to them) and Emmett Gardner sings on the harder sounding records. Their goal was 'modern harmony', 'big parade' was supposed to sound like the 5th dimension -- e.g. sort of like up and away in my beautiful balloon.. "his friend" can listen to the interview for more information as to what they were trying to do. I already know what both records sound like (I own every trends 45 and all 3 45s they previously recorded as 'ze majestics') and have talked to the three surviving group members, I know who sings on what tracks. I don't understand how people just start rumors and spread lies around like fact, it's very frustrating. Tommy Dorsey (the guitarist for the trends) actually wrote a record for the Okaysions and the Okaysions covered at least one of their records. It was the dream of many Black groups to crossover to the pop market.

Also, if you just want to know the group members, it is Eddie Dunn (deceased), Ralph (I forget his last name, he's a pastor in Michigan now, but it's in my interview), Emmett Gardner Jr. (same guy as on Maxwell), Jerrone Johnson (later of Channel 3). If you want to prove their race, all you have to do is listen to two of the group members talk about themselves at: www.sittinginthepark.com/interviews.html Like is your friend going to listen to them and think that they are white people or that they are lying about being in the trends?

That is not true (I'm not doubting he told you that, just its accuracy), his wife was in the trends for a while, not the ivories. You can listen to both the trends and the ivories interviews on my website. Jerrone of the trends (and later Channel 3) actually had a Trends photo with Tommy's wife in it, but I don't have a scan of that one. What's funny is that even though Tommy wrote the Ivories 45s, the Ivories seemed to think that Tommy Dorsey was just a mailman from the neighborhood and not connected to the Trends... but that couldn't be true because the trends and ivories went to the same high school and it would just be too coincidental. I have two ivories photos and two trends photos and they are all black in all photos. I will post a trends photo when I get home.

I have a photo of the trends, what do you need it for? The main lineup did include 4 people, but they also had a guitarist (Tommy Dorsey) and his wife sang on a few 45s. Thanks.

If he's just dumping an mp3 playlist it doesn't take a lot of time to list everything

the connie tanzell record is much harder to find than the other two, there was one on ebay very recently but I hadn't seen one for sale in a long time before that.

there was an international recording co in chicago, by the way, it was that weird IRC label that put out mostly rock / polka stuff

I have seen other test pressings and acetates that have listed Toddlin Town, it's not that surprising that it said m-pac on that one (essentially the same label owners). I still haven't managed to catch up with the guy my friend talked to to ask what the deal is with the 'four temples' though, I will follow up when I do.

it is extremely common to find a collection of 45s in the US in somewhere like a thrift store (or more commonly a garage sale) in this type of case. Usually it means the records are clean at least. Sometimes there are crumpled pic sleeves punched through the thing though.

That's fine, thanks.

thanks again for the feedback. You guys should listen to the Reginald Torian interview from last week if you haven't, just because it's very interesting. Thanks.

Hi. On my radio show I just did an interview with the Chicago group the Rotations. The Rotations were a self-contained band / group from the Princeton Park homes on the South Side of Chicago. They were one of the main groups attending Harlan High School in the mid-60s, and were classmates with such groups as the Five Stairsteps, Specials, Sequins, etc. After several near-misses with different record labels (including Motown), the Rotations ended up releasing their only single, Special Category b/w Old Love for Gerald Sims' Gerim label in the late 60s. The group broke up in the early 70s, but several of the members continued to be involved with music throughout the 70s. Member Miles Gregory later wrote the hit "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" for Rose Royce. You can listen at the bottom of my interview page at: https://www.sittinginthepark.com/interviews.html Thanks for your interest. Thanks, Bob

wow, you are awesome, thanks.

audio of 'oh baby': obaby.mp3 audio of 'heavy soul': heavysoul.mp3

to each his own I like it better than the edward st. ann actually.