Robbk

(1) There were a couple news articles about the formation (foundation) of Phelectron Records, and its in-house music publishing company (Trevenia Music) in 1965, in the music industry trade papers (magazines). They covered the basic structure of the new companies, and a little bit about their 2 singing artists, Terri Goodnight and Jackie Day. Apparently, The Cochrans had their own connections to people who knew about the budding young talented choir singer (Terri) (perhaps a member of their sponsoring church?), and probably someone who was a friend of Jackie's. (2) Cyril Roberts simply wrote a song that Jean Cochran thought would be a good vehicle for Terri. I doubt that Jean had any direct contact with him. She probably merely dealt with that song's music publishing company. Had Roberts been involved, at all with Phelectron, Jean would had picked his brain for advice, and possibly asked for a demo tape of how the song should be sung, and also asked him for recommendations of people to contact, recommendations on experienced producers and arrangers to use, recording studios and engineers, distributors to approach, and a marketing man to deal with DJs and distributors and getting gigs for her artists. Roberts would recommend friends and associates from whom he could get "Brownie Points)" (goodwill "favour" credit), and then, she might have made less mistakes in operating her label.

The producer for both of Terri's Phelectron Records was Ken Easton. I can't remember ever seeing his name on a Soul record. I'd guess that he had been a classical musician, and only involved in the production of classical and MOR music. I don't recognise the sound engineer, Mike Dorrough, never having seen his name related to any recording studio that dealt with L.A. Soul, or Pop music. Terri's main songwriter was Phelectron's owner, Lawyer Johnny Cochran's wife, Jean. Everything I've read about the label points to Johnny(a successful, high-powered lawyer), not having much to do with the day-to-day operations of the company, and that he set it up because Jean, (a wannabee songwriter), wanted to get into the music business. The only other songwriter, Cyril Roberts, was a well-known, and successful, Los Angeles, Soul music songwriter and record producer, who worked as a free-lancer on many of L.A.'s small Indie labels from the late '50s to , at least the early 1970s (if not later). It appears that Easton knew nothing about The Soul Music market, and had no connections at all in it. Jean Cochran somehow, came to like a Cyril Roberts' song, and had Terri sing it. But, clearly Roberts didn't work for Phelectron. IF he HAD worked with them, Jean would have had Roberts be her A&R man, and use HIS connections to DJs, distributors, musicians/arrangers, recording studios, pressing plants, marketing, etc. to find the right songs for her, market her records(get them heard by the right people), played on the radio, at least a local distribution deal), and he'd have promoted them to the local record shops, etc. And she'd at least, have then had a chance to get some sales. The Phelectron set-up smacks of just being analogous to a "Vanity Press" situation for an aspiring author who wants to get a novel published. A rich benefactor spends a lot of money to give the Wannabee person the chance to live out his/her dream. Johnny Cochran spent the money to set up a record label for his wife to "play at" running a record company, writing songs that get played on the radio, getting songs sung the way she'd envision them, and take some young, aspiring, talented singers and bring their talents to The World (make stars of them). But THIS situation couldn't work, because neither Johnny, nor Jean, had the connections in that industry to help them succeed and advise them what to do to succeed in that business. And Johnny had no time to devote to learning about how things worked in that field.

I can tell that Terri was an accomplished singer, who had a trained voice. She had an operatic style, like Liz Lands. She had attended basically "all White schools" and so, had a standard TV American accent (like Barbra McNair). And like Barbra, she didn't change to The Southern US African-American dialect just to sing Soul-style songs. So, her singing style was not a good one to sing Soul "Stompers" like "They Don't Know". Her style not what Soul music fans are expecting or what they think is good, because it sounds "weird" and not like what they heard and came to love. She sang in an award-winning Gospel choir, and her Gospel singing was quite good. She can carry as tune very well, and really has a nice singing voice. She just used the wrong style for the songs Easton (or Cochran) picked for her. Cochran was quite a sharp character (in the first tier of US Lawyers). You'd think he would have realised that those songs were wrong for her style, and had an accomplished Soul singer demo the songs for her so she could mimic the proper style. If American singers who don't know two foreign words can sing entire songs in a language they don't know, just by mimicking the sounds phonetically (Motown did that a lot), Terri could have mimicked a Soul singing style with no problems.

(1) I didn't know that even a 2nd copy was found after mine. How many of them are known now? How many Jackie Day Phelectrons are known? (2) Leipzig is a helluva lot farther from L.A. than 1,000 miles! Maybe it is 1,000 miles from Lancashire? What do you mean by the record being published 40 years later than 1990, or 1965? (3) I didn't know there was a 2nd Terri Goodnight Phelectron record! Can someone post scans and sound files (at least snippets) of it? Did Jackie Day have more Phelectron releases? Did Phelectron issue rercords sung by any other asrtists? Was this record obtained from the producer (Ken Easton), or from Johnny Cochran? I found "The Victory Song" on YouTube. Terri's singing is not very good, but the instrumental is awful, noisy and tinny. They really didn't know what they were doing. I also never saw that one, or heard anything about it. I'd bet that it never got to a record shop.

My guess is that it was a test, AND a cost-saving measure. And it was recorded 2 or 3 years after "I'd Think It Over". Is there a date anywhere on the record? Does the 10 incher have a date on it?

African-Americans didn't make up traditional English surnames like "Willingham". Usually those surnames came to African Americans' families from their ancestors having been slaves on British or former British, later American landowners' plantations. So Doris Duke could have shared a surname with former Pastel, J.B. Willingham, by marrying former Cadillacs group member, Gus Willingham. As both The Pastels and The Cadillacs were New York groups, maybe Gus and James were cousins. Or, maybe they were simply both descendants of different slaves who had lived on the same plantation, or 2 different plantations owned by related owners named Willingham. In any case, they are at least loosely connected by having a surname that started from a town or village in Cambridgeshire, or in Lincolnshire. And thus, they'd be, at least, connected in that same way, with English families whose surname originated from their ancestors having come from those places. Your friends might even be related by blood to those R&B singers, IF their ancestors were related to those plantation owners. We all know how THAT sort of thing happened. Did Karl have any American Colonial plantation owners in his family history?

(1) Maybe "J.B. Williams" was an alias used by singer/Songwriter J.B. Willingham? He had been a singing member of The Pastels. And, more pertinent, as a prolific Brill Building (Screen Gems-Columbia Music songwriter, he was likely using Associated Recording to record most of his demos, as it was only a couple streets (blocks) away. He could have been just getting a demo of his own song recorded, for pitching to prospective artists or major record labels. I can't place Williams' voice with Willingham's, as Dee Erwin (Ervin) was The Pastels' lead, and I don't remember hearing Willingham sing solo. But the singer on the file above, singing "I'd Think it Over" had a very smooth, trained voice. He could easily have been a member of The Pastels, who sang great 5-part harmony. It could also be just one of Screen Gems' regular ad-hoc demo singers. (2) IF the song was published by The Hill and Range Music Publishing Co., AND the recording project was a demo being recorded by that company for later marketing to record companies or individual singers, WITHOUT yet having any involvement with prospective clients, then I suppose you could call the demo recording "project" a "Hill and Range Production". It seems like a strange way to refer to it. It makes it seem as if you thought Hill and Range had its own record label (as a division of their company). But "I'd Think it over had nothing to don wit Hill sand Range. And the Soul song, "Don't Wanna Be Hurt No More" doesn't sound, at all like a Hill and Range (old-fashioned Tin Pan Alley-style) song. I'd bet that that was a BMI song, and could easily have been another Screen Gems song, recorded a few years later. I wouldn't have guessed that a major, like Screen Gems (Colpix (Columbia Pictures) would be so cheap, as to use the same ancient demo record 3 times! Or, at least twice. "Ooh Bop Sha Bam" was a Jazz standard written by Dizzy Gillespie. Maybe this demo was first made by Willingham for his Pastels in 1956? I looked at my Pastels' records on Mascot and Argo, and as I remembered, they never released a version of that song. There WAS a Jazz vocal version, Even Billy Eckstine sang it. So, maybe The Pastels sang that song in their repertoire for auditioning to get record label contracts before they signed with Mascot in 1955? This makes sense, as J.B. Willingham wrote first for Aldon Music (Al Nevins/Don Kirschner), which was later bought out by Screen Gems-Columbia Music. "Oh Bop Sha Bam", likely a '50s written and performed song, was probably first cut on this demo record as a one-sider, and maybe Associated gave a discount to Willingham on his recording, in 1964, to let them cut his new demo on the unused flip side. I looked up J.B. Willingham on ASCAP, to see IF he ever got a song of his published by Hill and Range. They have no record of one. The credit to "W. B. Willingham" on Sam Fletcher's Tollie record was a printing error. It should have read: "J. B. Willingham". BMI website lists (correctly) J. B. (James) Willingham as the writer. The other song, "Don't Wanna Be Hurt No More" was probably sung by a Screen Gems-Columbia songwriter or demo singer for a later project. So they re-used this demo record. It's got a much later sound, like 1966 or 1967.

It probably didn't sell even a handful. I never saw it in any shop in 1965 or 1966. I'd guess it had no commercial sales. I found mine along with the Jackie Day in a Goodwill thrift store in South Central L.A. We didn't stock it at any of the 3 Dolphin's of Hollywood stores. Neither did Flash, Sam's, Crain's, Pat's, Lonny Cook's record shop, or any of the other LA stores, Chicago or SF Bay Area stores have it. It was the only copy of that record I've ever seen or heard of. While, it seems that a couple other copies of Jackie Day have turned up since. I don't remember seeing it at the local distributors in L.A. I frequented Record Merch. once a week. That was the main outlet for local Indie Soul labels. It never got there. The fact that even the Jackie Day release didn't get stocked in local shops tells me that Phelectron didn't know the first thing about how to market local Soul records, and had no connections with distributors, record shops, local DJs, or anyone else in the record business who could get their records heard, or even seen by the public and known to exist. I'm sure that Jackie Day was pissed that her record couldn't even get known to exist in public awareness. Even if she didn't get her full residuals from record sales and Juke Box use from The Bihari's Modern Records, at least she was able to earn a living with personal club appearances, because her Modern cuts got some airplay on local Soul stations. Terri Goodnight, on the other hand, probably had no singing career, at all, as I never saw a venue appearance advert poster, her record in a shop, never met anyone who had heard of her, never heard of anyone else finding another copy of her record, and she didn't sing well enough to pass a tryout to get a nightclub gig.

The name Trebishaw rings a bell in my distant memory. But, I'm not sure where I heard it, or if it was linked to a new car dealership (in its title). I also can't connect it at all to being involved in financing music recording projects. Maybe he did some of his own car sales TV commercials, saying, "Hi! I'm Al Trebishaw. Here at (Chicago Suburb name)_ _ _ _ _ _ _ Ford, or Chevrolet, or Buick,..etc. We're bustin' with bargains on our last year's models!" But I don't remember his surname being in a dealership title. Maybe he was a silent partner in a small Chicago record label or two. I can't remember where I heard it. But it's an unusual name, the kind that sticks in the mind. Like Debrackishaw. We should ask The Yank if he remembers him having a car dealership.

All of the Motown people seeking outside work had an in with VJ when Barrett Strong worked there as a major songwriter and assistant producer, during late 1962-64.

Never saw that J-2. It must be very rare. As to the Poets, at least one or two boxes of that one must have escaped Juggy's cache.

Never saw that J-2. It must be very rare. As to the Poets, at least one or two boxes of that one must have escaped Juggy's cache.

Yes, I knew all about Freddie The Mailman Brown, who part-owned Kable and Mickay's records, and bought out Mickay's Record Shop. He wrote a LOT of songs with Joe Hunter. Yes your sentence referencing Brown wasn't clear at all. I didn't know he wrote for McCoy. In fact, I think this was a different F. Brown.

The F. Brown could be Detroit songwriter and producer, Frank Brown, who wouldn't be the singer named "Fred".

Maybe that J-2 record ONLY made the "Pick Hit" category because the error was made, listing its label as "Sue Records" due to recent familiarity with The Poets being a Sue contracted group, as Sue's distributor may have told radio stations NOT to plug Juggy's new J-2 label's releases because Sue's assets were in receivership, and there were questions as to whether or not the J-2 releases had been recorded and paid for using Sue's assets, which had been awarded to Sue's creditors.