Robbk

Could you really trust the Indian postal service??? Or, at least costly!

Many of The Don Davis Stax records I was including in the Revilot/Groovesville/Solid Hit category, as they were recorded in Detroit by Solid Hitbound, and Davis simply brought those masters into his Stax deal.

Yes! After (1) Motown/Tamla/Miracle/Gordy/Soul/Mel-O-dy/VIP, I'd put (2) Chess/Checker/Argo/Check-Mate, then (3)King/Federal/Deluxe/Bethlehem, then (4) VJ/Falcon/Abner/Vivid/Tollie/Exodus, then (5) Atlantic/ATCO/Cotillion, then (6) Mercury/Wing/Emarcy/Smash/BlueRock/Philips/Limelight, then (7) GoldenWorld/RicTic/Wingate, then (8) Thelma/DaCo/GeGe/KO, then (9) Columbia/Okeh/Epic/Date, then (10) Imperial/Aladdin/Lamp/Liberty/Minit, (11) Modern/RPM/Flair/Crown/Kent, (12) Duke/Peacock/BackBeat/SureShot, (13) Revilot/Groovesville/SolidHit/GrooveCity, before we possibly finally get to Stax/Satellite/Volt/Enterprise at (14). And probably, actually, I like Chance/Sabre, and Parrot/BlueLake, and RedRobin, and OldTown, and Rama, and Jubilee/Josie, and some other 1940s and 1950s labels better than Stax/Volt, if we use the "You would have to forever do WITHOUT your records from THIS label", test.

I like the older Stax records a lot, but, I LOVE, and can't live without my Motown music!

Sorry to hear this news. I loved her singing. I started buying her Tamla records in 1960, and continued with her stay records during the mid to-late 1960s. Now, unfortunately, both she and one of my favourite singers, Little Willie, are gone. Lots of great memories.

So sad to hear this unexpected news. Lamont's music brought a lot of joy into the lives of literally millions of people. He'll be sorely missed. Here's a favourite of mine:

I've never seen a St. Louis-based Copa Records. I have a couple records on The Texas label. Both my Houston-based Copa label records have 8000 series catalogue numbers, with that same number and a -A designation for the plug side. So, unless the Texas label changed their cut number series, that 5-digit number (15235) probably comes from a different, St. Louis-based Copa label (not likely to have been affiliated with the Houston label.

Many thanks for clearing this up. So, as only one member sang on the recording, I take it that they were a self-contained band of musicians with one singer, or a few took turns singing?

As for the so-called "group" who recorded, it may have been The Sun Ra Arkestra playing the music, and one of its members singing the vocal. It certainly was a solo singer. I hear no background singers at any time. Or, it may have been one of the singers who Sun Ra recorded on other releases.

I just read a bio of Sun Ra, which mentioned that in the beginning of the 1970s, he and his partner, Alton Abraham, moved their operations to Philadelphia. Here is the portion that concerns us: "His own El Saturn Records albums were usually printed in editions of 75 copies per album, and were sold primarily at live performances. Many of Sun Ra's early albums were recorded at home by Ra himself on wire or early tape recorders, and are decidedly lo-fi. Despite the technological limitations, Ra used some innovative recording techniques, and these recordings provided an unprecedented level of documentation, and were inspirational in showing how artists could take control of the means of production and distribution of their works. Prior to the 1970s, most of these albums were produced in Chicago through the 'El Saturn Records Research' enterprise established by Ra and his colleague Alton Abraham, while later El Saturn Records were produced in Philadelphia." He and Abraham moved their operations to Philadelphia in 1968. Near the end of 1968 he and The Arkestra started a long tour of California and the rest of The West Coast for quite a long period. And both the recoding in question and the record's label appear to sound and look like late '60s. So, that record could well have been recorded in New York, and then released after the move to Philadelphia in early 1968, or was recorded in Philadelphia soon after the move. They may still have pressed it at their former pressing plant in Chicago, just because of their past long-term relationship with them.

So, my idea that someone was trying to get more info on Enterplan, to see who they were, and they found a company with that name located in Philadelphia, but it had no relationship to The Abrahams' and Sun Ra's Enterplan Music Co., may be the actual explanation.

It COULD have been a move by The Abrahams to The East Coast, and a later release of an earlier master. It could also be the result of a researcher looking up Enterplan, and finding a company located in Philadelphia that was NOT related to The Abrahams and Sun Ra's Enterplan Music Co.

Yes, now that I think of it there were several Philadelphia and New Jersey records that used a plant with that same font and label design. So, I guess it could possibly have been an East Coast pressing plant, as well. And that particular Clock Records was likely owned by the owners of Enterplan, although not necessarily a subsidiary or sister label of El Saturn Records, as it may not have come from the same period. However El Saturn Records, like Saturn Records, were both operated by Jazz artist, Sun Ra, who operated out of Chicago. And Chicago's little Mack appeared on El Saturn, as well. So, I still would guess that was a Chicago pressing and a Chicago-based label, especially as Saturn and El Saturn were owned by Alton Abraham, his brother, Atis Abraham, and Le Sony'r Ra (AKA Sun Ra, and Herman Blount), and were headquartered in Chicago. And, upon a few other listens, I've changed my mind, and would vote that the singer is or was an African American. That recording may even have been a Sun Ra Production. Maybe that Enterplan on Philadelphia's Morton Street was a different company that had nothing to do with music recording? I don't remember reading or hearing that Sun Ra had an office on The East Coast.

An end of the '60s or beginning of the '70s Chicago record I've never seen! Pressed in a Chicago plant. Sounds like a Caucasian group, as Mal stated above, in the mold of The Outcasts. Upon several more listens, I've decided the vocalist was an African-American.

I always thought The "Y" spelling was correct, and that the group had used that spelling to be different from the 1950s Mercury R&B group. I never saw the Wand issue until the early 1980s. I don't remember seeing any show posters for them, so I don't know which of the 2 spellings is correct. I have seen them referred to in print as "The Ivorys".

Maybe that's the Spanish pressing? "RECUERDOS TOMÁS"

Too bad that was a misprint. "The Masquaders" would have been an unusual, and, thus, memorable, group name.

At 75+ the memory can play tricks. I've probably seen the two-word "Shot Gun" 3-4 times in my life, and the proper printing 1,657,439 times, and when I looked at the "Shot Gun" label, it looked right.

I know what a "shotgun" is. But, I can't remember ever seeing that record's title as one single word.

And her sister, Dee Dee felt compelled to take it on, as well!

I was all set to elaborate on a very unlikely, roundabout way L.A.'s Dolly and The Fashions could possibly have ended up recording a VJ song for Mercury in Chicago, connecting Richard Parker running VJ's Soul music production in L.A., and VJ's Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken shutting down their L.A. operation and taking the master tapes back to Chicago, and Ewart Abner shopping the unfinished Fashions' masters to Chicago's Mercury office for as much cash as they could get, as they had no money to press anything except Jerry Butler and a few Exodus records they thought might hit. But, after listening to The Tears 2 cuts, and several Dolly and The Fashions' cuts back-to-back several times, I could hear that the two lead singers' voices are not really close, at all. I have no idea how that rumour started, but it must have been started by a deaf person. The Tears' lead singer was a fair amount older than "Dolly" (Miss Moody), and her voice is a lot richer and heavier than Dolly's, and the tones are just too different. And the overall group sounds are very different from each other, as well. But, it is interesting to hypothesize as to how a Midwest or East Coast artist could end up contributing to a West Coast recording, and vice versa. I was blown away finding out how Mickey Stevenson ended up co-writing a couple songs that ended up on Leon Rene's Class Records in 1958, when I was sure he was living and working in Detroit at that time, working for Carmen Murphy's House of Beauty Records, and Gwen and Anna Gordy's Anna Records. It turns out that Stevenson hadn't visited a relative in L.A. He became friendly with a songwriter from New Orleans, who recently moved to Detroit, and they wrote a few songs together. And the guy returned to New Orleans with the songs, and shopped them to Rene, who still commuted between L.A. and New Orleans, because he still had family there, and more importantly, still had connections to the music industry there, and signed singers and groups from there, and used musicians from there as well. So, often, those weird connections of artists and labels and producers from different areas of North America make sense, once we find out the back story. But, unfortunately, in this case, incredibly, no knowledgeable people even from back when The Tears' recorded their Smash cuts, can tell us who they were. Surely they recorded other recordings under another name. But, I'm amazed that with my being from Chicago myself, and having been there during 1965-66, and same for Bob Pruter, and with all the Chicago producers, artists, and collectors we talked to back then, we never found out. And Bob Abrahamian also never talked to anyone who knew who they were is amazing, as well. I'd bet that even if we had talked to Andre Williams, Burgess Gardner, and Wade Flemons a couple years after that recording session, they wouldn't have been able to tell us who they were. Maybe they were from Milwaukee or Des Moines, or Indianapolis, or Fort Wayne or South Bend. Nobody remembered knowing what Chicago high school they attended, or seeing them at an amateur try-out, or singing contest, or a local "sock hop", or "battle of the groups" that were held at the local park recreation centres. I saw lots of the groups Bob A. interviewed at "Battles of The Groups" park events, and saw a lot of posters or flyers circulated to high school bulletin boards advertising those. I never saw The Tears listed anywhere. I saw Donald and The Delighters, The Desideros, The Accents, and many other groups when they were just amateur high-schoolers. Usually, if we never saw anything with the group's name before a record came out on them, the group came from out of town, or the record company changed their group name right after their signing. I think that The Tears likely sang under a different name before that record came out.

I'm pretty sure that Dolly and The Fashions were an L.A. group, and The Tears were a Chicago group. Look at the Smash Record: Chicago's Wade Flemons wrote the song, Chicago's Andre Williams produced it, and Chicago's Burgess Gardner arranged it. It was on a Mercury Records subsidiary, and Mercury had a large office in Chicago, where that label was founded, and had its only office for many years, and The Chicago office specialized in Soul music from 1962-67, especially on its Blue Rock and Mercury labels, but also on its Smash, Philips and Fontana subsidiaries, and even on Limelight, its Jazz subsidiary. Dolly and The Fashions only had releases on L.A. labels, as far as I remember. It IS true that some artists moved to other cities and recorded there, or were sent there to record after being signed. But, I find it difficult to believe that Mercury signed Dolly and The Fashions in L.A., and then sent them to Andre Williams in their Chicago office, to record, under a new name. But, the fact that neither The Yank, nor myself, remember The Tears appearing in Chicagoland, and Bob A. didn't learn anything about that group from anyone he interviewed. I should have asked Bunky Sheppard if he remembered who they were, back in the 1980s, when his family of labels occupied the suite of offices next to ours (Airwave Records). But, I had a lot more questions for him that were more important to me than that one. But it's really strange that no one else based in Chicago who I asked knew anything about them, including Bob Pruter, Larry Montgomery, and all the Soul collectors I used to talk to. So, it's tempting to think that it might possibly be one of those weird situations in which a West Coast group was in a Midwestern or Eastern city on vacation, and managed to get an ad-hoc recording session from a major label through some unusual happenstance. Only, the name changes were usually because the group was currently under contract to record for another company. But, I doubt that Dolly and The Fashions were under contract, at all, let alone to a tiny L.A. label like Ivanhoe or Tri-Disc. Amazing that NO one, in all our researching and interviews has found anyone who remembers who The Tears were. Also amazing that none of the children or grandchildren of the group's members have posted on YouTube that their Mom or Grandma, or Auntie was a group member. I guess there is a good chance we will never find out who they were.

This certainly isn't the version I heard on the radio back in the day. Not only is the instrumental a lot weaker, but Tammy seems to be tired and disinterested. Good thing this wasn't the version they plugged and went commercial. It would have died instantly.