Robbk

Jimmy Ricks had left The Ravens by the late middle '50s. His first new group was The Ricketeers. His second was The Raves. The Raves (NOT Ravens) backed him up on "Daddy Rollin' Stone" (according to the ATCO label.

Because Hazel and Robert Coleman were Berry Gordy's first inlaws, and they kept a civil relationship with him, AND Don Davis had worked at Motown and knew many of their musicians (and he also knew them from his playing guitar on non-Motown sessions with many of them), Davis' DaCo, Thelma and GeGe sessions used mostly Motown musicians. It should be no surprise that so many of them sounded a lot like Motown cuts.

I prefer the unreleased version, as the vocals and instruments sound cleaner/clearer. The released version seems to have more bass.

Here's a link to the released Apollo version:

Here's a link to the unreleased version:

You are correct. There was no DaCo release of "Honkey Tonk Woman" because it was the second "option" release in the lease aggreement. Apollo chose to also release the 2nd record, so it came out only on Apollo. I only meant it was the "DaCo version" because it was a DaCo production that remained with them, while the Apollo released version is, by definition, the "Apollo version". I should have just called it the unreleased version.

As far as I know, ALL their cuts were made at one session at United Sound Studios in Detroit run by Don Davis. I believe there were 2 takes on that song. I seem to remember the DaCo version having the more old-fashioned sound. So, I guess that when Davis offered them to Apollo for lease, they chose to release the version with the stronger horns, to get a more "modern" sound.

Pretty beastly country that Sonora Desert. One of the worst deserts in The World.

My original 106A has 97700 scratched in and "Bell Sound" stamped, and 106B has 97699 scratched in, and "Bell Sound" stamped. So, your vinyl markings are legit.

Not true. Only an authorised Moyl can perform a circumcision. Almost all,.....if not all, rabbis are NOT Moyls! I've never heard of a rabbi performing a circumcision.

Here are scans of the original, and the black on white boot on red plastic. There was also a similar boot on black vinyl. I don't have the blue stock boot.

There were a few different boots. One was a black on white DJ issue, with red plastic, on which the print lines are weak (slightly blurry), due to the label being photocopied. There is only "IN 6311A" and "IN 6311B" etched into the run out area. The original has silver print on a darker (navy) blue hued background than the colour store-stock boot, which is slightly less "navy blue", and slightly more turquoise in hue. The original has IN 6311 etched on both sides, with the song titles also etched into the groove runout. I don't have the coloured stocker boot, so I can't tell you what's in the groove trail.

I knew Darryl and his brother, Jeff. They collected old R&B records. They had many thousands of records. I haven't seen them since the early 1970s. John Hillyard, like Chris, was quite scruffy (and also very eccentric). He also had long hair and his clothes were far from clean. He lived in Hollywood, and had tonnes of records-many in his apartment, and lots more in a warehouse. He was very inconsistent in his pricing and memory. But he knew a lot about all genres of records.

Hahaha!!! This almost made me wet my pants! I'm alone, but I burst out laughing so hard my stomach muscles ache. When I met Chris in the mid/late '60s, he had a moustache, beard and scraggly unwashed hair down his back to below his waist. He wore unkempt, unwashed clothes. His eyes look like those of "The Children of The Damned". He looked right through you. He wore a bent, beat up, tall, stovepipe top hat. He looked like Charles Manson playing a fairy tale character. Years later (presumably when he turned "Punk"), he had very short hair and seemingly clean clothes. For whatever reason, he appeared more scary than ever! Did you get to meet John Hillyard? Do you have any stories about him?

His tastes were NEVER diverse. He liked ONLY "the genre of the moment". Everything else was garbage. He dropped old likes instantly (like an estranged ex-wife or ex-girlfriend) when he got onto his new love! Bizarre, eh?

Good deal! That's a VERY expensive book.

I don't know how "The Uncle Willie" started, or who it was named after. But, if I remember correctly, it started in Chicago (where I was living at the time). We had a release by The Daylighters ("Mama, Teach Me How To Do the Uncle Willie"), and by Lttle Natalie, Henry (Ford) and The Gifts("It's Uncle Willie"). Seems like they were using the name "Willy" in songs back in Blues songs in the '30s and '40s (it was slang for the male "member". We had "Willie and the Hand Jive" from The Johnny Otis Show in 1955. Maybe Bob A. know the origin from one of his interviewees?

The Mouse The Bug The Waddle The Afro-Twist The Elephant Walk The Cinnamon Cinder (from the nightclub of that name) The Bounce The Ubangi Stomp the Jump The Flick the Hook and Sling The Fish The Broken Hip The Clam (Elvis' failure) The Donkey Walk The Continental Walk The Gorilla The Karate monkey The Martian Hop The Mess Around The Wrangler Stretch (for a jeans commercial) The Flea The Del Viking The Boomerang Snake Walk The Crawl The Olympic Shuffle I have records with almost all these so-called "dances"

The Fly The New Boston Monkey The Froog The Uncle Willie The Philly Freeze The Funky Broadway The Bird The Beatnik Walk The Beatle Walk The Funky Chicken The Dog Walkin' The Dog The Freddie The Weegee Walk Loop De Loop Bear Mash Stomp The Limbo - "How Low Can You Go?" The Strand- What is "The Stran"? The Bump The Hokey Pokey ('30s -'60s) The Freak The Sissy The Cissy Strut The Push And Kick The Slide The Wobble The Slauson The Slauson Shuffle The Disco Duck The Hippy Hippy Shake The Sham Shim-Sham Shuffle

Sorry to say that I haven't seen Chris since 1985. 1984 was the last year I spent an appreciable amount of time in L.A. working with Airwave Records. Although still an owning partner, I spent only a couple months each year there, having started working full-time for Dutch Disney Publications in late 1984 (and spending much of the time in Holland). I did see Chris in 1985, as he was very friendly with Tom DePierro. But, I never saw him after that. I did hear that Chris helped take care of Tom when he was dying of cancer, and that he ended up with Tom's record collection. I first met Chris in the later mid '60s, when he was a big Rock-A-Billy fan. He had just moved south from Central California, and lived in the back room of Poohbah Records, in Downtown Pasadena. He had hundreds of thousands of Rock & Roll and Rock-A-Billy records mostly by Caucasian artists. In the late 60s, he switched his taste (and allegiance to '50s R&B. Then,at the beginning of the '70s he switched to Soul. Then, in the mid '70s he switched to hard rock and Punk. He'd continuously change what he liked and turn over his whole collection and sales stock (hundreds of thousands of records) to something different. How very strange! Sort of like John Hillyard (another bizarre character). Of course, most serious collectors are plenty weird. I wonder what people are saying about me? (eh, Rod?)

I know Chris Peake very well.

Ha! Ha! With my accelerating senility, I have virtually NO short-term memory! I can't remember ANYTHING that's happened in the last 30 years. So, naturally my stories are all from the '50s and '60s. I haven't paid attention to anything that's happened since the end of the 1960s, in any case! I like to hear stories about the "old days", and I hope others here do, as well.

I don't remember the company (some bakery). That was almost 50 years ago. I doubt that even Steve would remember now. But they were the standard American dessert pies (no meat-we don't eat those here in North America!). You know the American style-apple, cherry, peach, lemon merangue, blueberry, raspberry, lemon custard, banana cream, blackberry, boysenberry, chocolate cream, pumpkin, etc. We call 'em tarts in Holland. I guess you'd call them tarts as well (?).

Most of you familiar with The US collectors and L.A. know of Steve Propes. He was an R&B/early Soul collector living in Long Beach in the 60s-'70s (probably still there). He built his collection thrift and junk shopping. He wrote books about record collecting, thrift shopping and cleaning and care of thrift shop finds. He has been a DJ with an "oldies" radio show on Calif. State Long Beach's PBS radio station for over 30 years. When I relocated from Chicago to L.A. to attend university in 1966, I started making a thrift/junk shop/record shop tour each Saturday. The first time I went through Long Beach and its environs, I met Steve at a thrift store. He told me I'd never find anything in that area, as "he had it all locked up." He pointed to his pie company truck, telling me that all the thrift stores saved their records for him to get first look. I know that's partly true, as I saw him take pies into the back of the stores a few times. But I also know that some of the shift employees put out good records he didn't see now and again. Whenever I'd find anything good, and he would walk in after me, he'd storm to the back room and chastise the workers for not giving him first look. He was serious about amassing records for his collection and swapping.