Robbk

Rudy West had known Jap Curry for many years previous to 1958. They had been label mates with Aladdin Records near the beginning of the 1950s. They were probably discovered by Aladdin scouts and signed at the same time. They must have appeared together on the same shows/billings around Virginia back when they were starting out. Curry's band may well have back up the original Five Keys in shows or even in some recordings.

Some Inferno releases probably went into 1962. In addition to "No Matter/Hey Girl" on Inferno 4500, I have Rudy West "Love Sick/Billy Boy" on Inferno 151, and I've also seen another Five Keys' 45 on the label.

That's certainly a Chicago pressing from a Chicago pressing plant. But that doesn't mean much. I have an Inferno Five Keys pressed at an East Coast plant. I've always heard that that particular Inferno Records was a New York label. The Five Keys were originally from The Hampton Roads area of Virginia (near Virginia Beach and Newport News). And they recorded on The East Coast. Jap Curry (their producer and owner of Inferno?) stayed in Hampton Virginia. They may have recorded there or New York. The label may have been located in Virginia, I'm pretty sure they were operating out of either Virginia or New York when they recorded for THAT Inferno label (which had nothing to do with Harry Balk's Detroit Inferno Records. They had absolutely NOTHING to do with Chicago or Detroit. Curry never even went on the road when his records were hot on Aladdin. He had his own studio. I suspect that he may have recorded all his productions in Virginia, rather than even traveling to New York for a weekend.

That confirms what Joe Hunter and Fred Brown said about it, that they recorded it in 1963 (but they could only remember that it was a local, Detroit group, but not remember who the members were).

Yes. Willie Harvey was the guy. Does anyone know anything else about him? He must have been from Detroit. I don't remember anything else he's done. But, he may have also been a member of a known Detroit group.

I have both the LP and the EP. The cut "I'm No Plaything" wasn't labeled correctly. It definitely was NOT Willie Jones. Vice was too low for Willie. I remember seeing the singer's real name, and recognising it as a Detroiter. But, I forget his name now.

It was a Boston group, leased from Fleetwood by Ed Wingate. Not sure what he was thinking. He didn't have the connections to market that on the "bubblegum stations". I guess that the same crowd that bought "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies might have bought it. But Golden World wasn't going to market it to the right places. I guess it was just another tax write-off, taking the industry standard record production/marketing rate, and putting virtually no money into it, just as he did for his C&W release on his C&W label.

That sounds a bit like Dusty.

I'm hoping SOMEONE will pick up the project and finish it. I think that Mrs. Murphy had some unreleased masters that would have been added to rare 45 recordings. The CD would have a lot more interest for R&B and early Soul fans than for northern "Soulies", as much of the music is from 1958-60. But some of the 1963 "HOB resurrection material" under Dino Courray from HOB, Soul and Starmaker Records is NS crossover. There were other Detroit collectors involved (and I might contribute records and information to the project). Maybe Ady Croasdel and Ace/Kent are already involved or might do. We should ask him about that.

Haven't most of the warehouses been cleaned out? I saw an awful lot of United's Chicago stock sitting at John Anderson's in Kings Lynn in the early '80s. I think that stuff was gathered up by somebody. it just wasn't thought of as a good Northern style in 1980. But maybe all the stock in those boxes found their way to US collectors back in the '70s.

No, They were yellow store stock. I don't think they were destroyed, as United's stock was seen by a lot of people. I guess they just never got to UK.

"I'll Be Your Winner" was from their Soulhawk days. Was "Spaceland" from that period as well? Wylie and Hestor certainly never had any connection to Ernest Burt and Magic City Records.

I saw several boxes of it at United Record Distributors in Chicago near the end of the '60s or the beginning of the '70s. I could have bought them all for 50 cents apiece. But I left better records than that there. Somebody got United's leftovers in the '70s (Anderson ended up with some of it. I don't think those boxes were destroyed. But that wasn't a rare record during the '60s. I used to see lots of copies of that, the Bobby Copney and the Bobby Treetop, as well as most of the later Tuff singles.

First, we have to confirm that Lee and Harry Gates were two different people. Harry was lead singer of The Caravelles on Starmaker, and was also in another group (I forget which). He also wrote both of Lee gates' songs, and wrote a fair amount of songs for Bob Schwartz' and Ed Kaplan's productions, and some other Detroit labels. I don't remember seeing Lee Gates' name on any other records. We had some threads about them on Soulful Detroit, but we never got our questions answered. Unfortunately, Ron Murphy died before he could finish doing the research for the CD for Carmen Murphy's labels (HOB, Starmaker, Soul, Spartan, etc.). I don't know if any of the people from Enterprise/Ruby/Dynamic/Heart are still around. Maybe some of Ed Kaplan's MSK people can remember about Harry Gates?

This is absolutely true. We had that copy of The Frank Wilson in Tom's office for about 5-6 years. Soussain was up in the record room looking for records for Tom to tape for him. I doubt that Tom would have let him take that out of the office, I think that Soussain just put that, and I believe The Andantes on VIP under his coat and walked out with it, never returning to get his tape. Tom told me that he found it was missing just after Soussain was looking through the record files. Soussain did get some tapes earlier from Tom (some bootlegs came from it). Soussain had hundreds of '60s Soul cuts pressed up at Monarch pressing plant in L.A. Several were facsimile boots. Most were new (incorrect) label designs, based on available label colours and fonts, just using the proper label name and label information with off colours, wrong font and simple label design. Others were pressed up on his "Soul Galore" label, possibly (or probably) without his obtaining the rights to those songs (although he printed"Licensed exclusively to Soul Galore Productions). He had records pressed there throughout much of the '70s, and into the beginning of the '80s.

The original isn't all that hard to get. Why would a boot go for so high? I guess that when there are hundreds of collectors looking on e-Bay, there are always a few that want a particular record so badly, they are willing to overpay for a facsimile boot, just to have the sounds on vinyl.

I Think that Harry Gates was Lee's brother rather than the same man using two different first names. Harry was listed as lead of the Caravelles on Detroit's Starmaker Records in 1962-63. His voice has the same distinctive familial tone to it, but, yet sounds a bit different from Lee's. Maybe it was Lee who sang lead on "Toy Soldier", but the song was written by his brother. We should have someone talk to some people that are left from that time (they are dropping like flies, and those who remain alive have their memories of that time growing dimmer and dimmer. Harry Gates was a writer with Ed Kaplan's labels, and with the Enterprise/Ruby/Heart/Dynamic labels, and worked with Mike Hanks and Carmen Murphy at HOB/Starmaker/Soul and with Joe hunter and Fred Brown. Surely there are a lot of people left that will remember him. They might remember his Dramatics group.

I hadn't thought you were disputing my theories. I am just bringing up questions about The Tomangoes' record, to see if anyone here knows the answers. From what source did the rumour that the backing tracks were from Bob Seeger's band come? I have heard that as well. I know that Gino Washington had connections to the "Detroit Garage Band Scene" as he played at a lot of Colleges and clubs with garage acts. that's how he connected with The Atlantics. He may well have met Bob Seeger that way. He may have leased the tracks from him. But, to me, the Washpan tracks sound more "Soulish" than any Bob Seeger cuts I've heard (A Squared and Cameo). Still, I don't rule anything out. Isn't Gino Washington still alive? If so, why doesn't someone contact him and write his difinitive bio?

Isn't Ed Wolfrum still around? He commented on SDF a while back (maybe 2001 or 2002. Some SDF people had contact with him. Maybe we can ask him if he remembers who the singer was? Maybe Ralph, Russ or one of the other ex-Motown engineers might still talk to him. Of course, having engineered thousands of sessions, they usually can't remember details like that from 50 years previous.

Yes, I'm aware of that. The Atlantics were the first band that backed up Gino Washington. But, no Detroiters that we know of remember The Tomangoes as a back-up band. So, did Gino Washington just get hold of 2 of Bob Seeger's band tracks, and just have Dusty Wilson (or someone else) record vocals to them, and call them The Tomangoes? Why have several different sources (some of them usually reliable) stated that they had heard that it was Dusty Wilson singing at least one of those 2 recordings, if it IS, indeed, not Dusty Wilson? I don't remember any other connection of Gino Washington to Dusty Wilson. But, of course, the DetroitSoul recording community was relatively small, and almost everyone crossed almost everyone else's path one time or another. I don't see why they wouldn't have met.

I dobt it. Bob Schwartz was a Detroit guy. Schwartz is to German as Smith and Jones are to English. There are thousands of unrelated Schwartz families.

That recording using the same backing track as The Creations' (Bridges/Knight/Eaton's) "A Dream" on Zodiac Records.

Is there a chance that Lou Beatty had it re-pressed in the '70s to take advantage of NS sales?

Yes, THAT'S the bloke. Give a listen to his Enterprise cuts, and then "Toy Soldier, back-to-back. I think he's the group's lead. We'll probably NEVER find out who the groups other members were.

I've seen both legit versions with & without Mike Terry credit (with Nashville Matrix), but never without NM. Was there really a coloured facsimile boot with no stamp (presses in the '70s)? If so, it must have had very few pressed up.