Robbk

Yes. The Mighty Marvelows was easy to get on WDJ when it was out. But, I've seen very few of The Continental 4 (of course, the fact I was in Chicago, rather than Pittsburgh, might explain those two points.

I hate being old and having most of the last half of my life's memory unretrievable until I see or hear something that triggers it! Of course, I knew that Kim was from Cleveland, and was married to Freddie. And he produced records mainly on The East Coast, but a few in Cleveland, too.

Wow! I've never seen nor heard of either the Kim Tolliver or the Porgy Williams. at least , I knew there must be other Sylves records than the Porgy and The Monarchs. But, I've never seen a Castro record before. Freddie Briggs producing Kim Tolliver. I'd have guessed it was an East Coast (probably New York Metro Area label). But the label design and font look like Midwest. Does anyone here know who owned Castro and where it was located?

1973-5 seems about right. And there were missing numbers in 45 Cat's Curtom discography around then. Maybe The Demolition 45 I remember is one of those missing numbers. For example, 2004 from October, 1974 is missing (only number since 1971 missing. May be THAT was The Demolition issue I saw?

The name "Demolition" rings a bell in my cloudy memory. I'm sure I've seen it before. When I picture in my mind's eye, a Curtom 45 with the group name, "Demolition" on it, it seems to look like something I've seen. I probably saw that 45 and just didn't bother to buy it, because it was a '70s record with a too modern sounding group name to be something I might like, and the songs were probably not written by a writer I liked. In any case, they were a semi-Disco group. So, I wouldn't have liked their material. There is no Curtom record by them on 45 Cat. But I'm pretty sure I saw a 1977 or 1978 45 by them.

My copy, and all the copies, of that record, and all the other Villa Magicians' records I've ever seen were the yellow label versions on the independent Villa, asnd orange labels on The Cameo-Parkway distributed issues.

The 2nd I knew, but the poster on Soulful Detroit stated that all were part of The extended Sextette, appearing together as a self-contained group, not needing musicians supplied by the venue. So, I had guessed that The Magicians (who also recorded for other labels) joined together with The Frank Jones Band(Sextette plus added strings, horns, and percussion) to form the self-contained band/vocal act.

I have a handful of Chicago acetates and vinyl studio demos and another couple of handsful of rare Chicago white DJ issues I found in thrift stores in Chicagoland and The Tri-State Area over the years, But not that Sable Record. Although, I bought The Magnetics' store stock issues.

Yes! The Northern Soul Scene thought "Double Cookin' " sounded a LOT like Motown, not helped by Simon Soussan covering it up as by "Bob Wilson and The Golden Strings", implying that it might have been an unreleased San Remo Golden Strings cut (with several Funk Brothers playing on it). And, I had thought California's Villa Records was the same label as Pancho Villa's yellow Villa Records of Philadelphia, because they both had the same name and label colour. I figured that Pancho leased The Checkerboard Squares' cuts from a producer from another state (Detroit or Washington D.C.), and that The Magicians were a Philly group. I'm surprised it took me all these years to find out the truth.

WOW!!! Those are nice finds!!! That Sable white DJ is dead rare!

I asked about this on Soulful Detroit Forum, and NONE of the old-time Detroiters knew about The Checkerboard Squares, or "Double Cookin' ". I also found out that Villa Records of The Magicians, Checkerboard Squares, and Oz & The Spurlings was located in The Bay Area, (not the same yellow label as Pancho Villa's Philadelphia label). Furthermore, the poster stated that all 3 of the groups I mentioned above were manifestations of the same band, with The Magicians and Oz and The Spurlings acting as the band singers in a combined all-in one, self-contained instrumental/vocalists' band. It appears to me that The West Coast Villa label was a regional, California only - distributed label (or possibly a slightly wider West Coast distribution). We never got "Double Cookin' " in Chicago, and i don't remember ever seeing The Magicians' records in shops there. Out of the half million or more records I looked through there over 15 years, i may have seen one used/beat copy in a thrift shop once, that must have been brought there by someone who moved from California. I'm guessing that Oz and The Spurlings were the actual Musicians singing, and The Magicians were a regular singing group that teamed up with The Frank Jones Sextette plus a few added strings and percussion musicians to form a band/vocalist self-contained band, like E.J. and The Echoes.

Ha! Ha! And who would ever guess that I've been a comedy writer since 1984?

I don't hear EITHER of their voices in "Come Back Baby" or "La La". After hearing both sides of the record so many times in the last 15 hours, I now think it is a Latino (Puerto Rican) group from Spanish Harlem, The Bronx, or Brooklyn. Jimmy Diggs' voice is deeper than Come Back Baby's lead, and doesn't have the vibratto, and unique accent, and the high voice is much fuller and richer and much more sung from the diaphragm than the lightly sung-from-the-throat style of all the high key background singers on "Come Back baby". The tonal qualities of of The Knight Brothers are just too different from any voices I hear in "Come Back Baby". Also, it would seem really unlikely that The Knight Brothers, who were very hot in Chicago, with Chess in 1966, would also get a concurrent recording placed with New York's Jubilee Records, who had no office in Chicago. Why would they go record in New York for Mike Lewis, when they had a good thing going with Chess? I know that weirder things than that happened on occasion. But, I really doubt that such a thing happened, and the voices are just too different, to make it even possible.

Thanks! That rumour that they were from Detroit probably occurred very early in its play on the Northern soul scene, when the song was still covered up as Bob Wilson and The Golden Strings - and thought possibly to be a really rare , recalled, or non issued San Remo Golden Strings cut. And that stayed in my memory, and I never knew that it was revealed that they were a Bay Area group. "Double Cookin' " does sound a bit like a Detroit instrumental. I'm also not all that surprised that it didn't sell or chart even in the rare record market in Pittsburgh, given that it got no airplay in Chicago, and only a couple test plays in L.A. So, Jubilee-Josie distributed it to all 3 big regions in USA, but it probably just sat in the distributorships, or in the stores of a few of the biggest Soul record shops. After hearing the La La side again, which I probably only played once after buying the record, and never again, I feel that it might very well be a Latino group (Spanish Harlem Puerto Rican?) (It has an East L.A. Chicano sound to it). So, I might have found it in a bargain bin in Wendzel's Music Town or in a Boyle Heights or East L.A, thrift shop.

Weren't The Checkerboard Squares from Detroit? I know a few Detroit musicians still around who played in instrumental groups in Detroit back in the '60s (Ralph and Russ Terrana, Denis Coffey, Stu Bass), I'll ask them if they know who The Checkerboard Squares were, and how to contact any of them. You can't succeed if you don't try. So, I agree that it is always worth trying, especially if one has the time. Better to track down people while they are still alive, and their memories are still intact, than after they are gone.

Is Mike Lewis still around? Artie Butler probably wouldn't remember who they were. He arranged sessions for hundreds and hundreds of groups. Last I remember, he was operating a recording studio in North Hollywood. We (Airwave Records) used his studio several times during the early 1980s. I imagine he'd be about 82-85 years old now, and not remember that group, just like Joe Hunter didn't remember who was in the original Dramatics, and Robert Bateman and Robert Gordy didn't remember the names of many of the people that crossed their paths 50+ years before being interviewed about them. To people working every day in The Music Business, it was just their job, and they worked on hundreds or even possibly thousands of recordings. They weren't historians and cataloguers and trivia experts like serious, big-time record collectors are. To them, most recording sessions and record projects over a long career were just the daily details of their work. They didn't spend time memorising all of them. They did their work, got paid, and moved on with their lives. Now, if they happened to have been sent to the interviewee by a family member, or a close friend, or been a part of an innovative or special project for the producer, then they might be remembered 55-60 years later. But the odds of the producer being alive, with his full memory intact is slim, and the odds of those special circumstances are even slimmer. So, we all must wait with patience for the grandchild, who can lead us to a child of the producer or one of the members, to comment on YouTube. Yes, the record was pressed on The East Coast, and Monarch, in L.A., and if memory serves, at RCA in The Midwest. It was fairly common to be around during its run, and to find throughout the late '60s and 1970s. But, it wasn't played in Chicago that I can remember. Maybe The Yank can confirm or deny that. I remember it got a few plays on KGFJ in L.A. Not sure about KDIA in The Bay Area. But, I don't remember it charting in California. I'd guess it probably charted in a few cities in The East. It seems like the type of sound that would have done well in Pittsburgh (Mad Mike used to find rare/obscure R&B and Soul, and play it on his radio programme). I guess it might also have had a chance in Baltimore and The Virginia and North Carolina Shore Areas, as well - also, maybe in Buffalo, NY.

To MY ears, the background group's chorus members sound Caucasian or, possibly Latino, while the single falsetto voice sounds Black, and the lead singer could be Caucasian, Laztino, or Afro-American. I lived in Ghettos in Chicago, L.A. and S.F. Bay Area, and Lily White suburbs in all 3 cities, as well. And living in California, one hears a LOT of Latinos speaking. And so, I am rarely wrong about voices and accents. I don't remember a group with such a make-up. But New York Metro Area had Spanish Harlem, with both Black Latinos, and mestizo Latinos. So, ALL the different combinations are possible. This group is really tough to peg. I thought of this group simply as another Black Soul group, since buying the record in the late mid '60s. But Brooklyn was filled with mixed groups of all 3 "races". So, it would be difficult to get any leads from their overall sound. We'd need to recognise an individual's voice, or we need to find a relative or friend of one of the group on their YouTube record posting, otherwise we likely won't ever know who they were.

WOW! I recognise THAT voice! I'm sure I have several other records by him. But, unfortunately, I can't connect a name to him. I've always liked that rich, full voice. I'd bet I even have at least a few of his group's best songs on some of my hand-made cassette tapes. But, I no longer have a functioning cassette player, nor the time to sit through hundreds of tapes to find the group, even if I would buy a new cassette deck and have it shipped to me. No! This guy's voice is too different from Jimmy Beaumont's. The Stoppers' lead has a much richer, more full voice, with vibrato that I've never heard in Beaumont's voice. And yes, The Stoppers' "Come Back Baby" was pressed on styrene at Monarch. I can see the temptation to think it might be Jimmy Beaumont because he worked with Mike Lewis and Stu Weiner, and Artie Butler not long after, or very near the same time. But the voices are just too different.

That certainly wouldn't have been out of character Nate McCalla, owner of Calla Records, was rumoured to have been mobster, and Morris Levy's Roulette Records (Calla's distributor) owner's iron fisted right hand bouncer/hit man ("muscle"). Mob-related record company owners used their record companies to launder their illegally gotten monetary gains.

Negative! Dave was asked about the 2 Monique tracks and said he had no knowledge of Jackson's company or how they got his tracks.

Thanks Dave! You have a good next year, too, and stay safe!

By The HDH crew at Invictus/GoldWax. I never knew about that one!

It's no surprise that The Bouquets' "Welcome To My Heart" sounds like Detroit. That song was produced, written and arranged by ex-Motowner, Robert Bateman, in his Motownlike style he created in New York using what he learned at Motown about songwriting, producing and arranging, and gathering together a great band, led by pianist, Richard "T", (who had been Jobete Music New York's house band (best, by far in creating The Motown Sound, outside Detroit. I have no doubt that some or most of Richard "T"'s band played on that recording, probably as well as Sidney Barnes' Blue Cat recordings, and Roddy Joy's Robert Bateman productions on Red Bird.

I didn't mean that EACH MUSICIAN was playing music 24 hours per day 7 days a week. They worked in shifts. I meant that The Snakepit was open, and Motown salaried and/or piecework musicians were working there 24 hours a day, 6 or 7 days each week during those peak years. From 1962 on, they had several musicians who played each instrument, so they all weren't needed for each session. For example, during their peak, Motown had Joe Hunter, Johnny Allen, and Johnny Griffith on piano - after Hunter left salaried position, to become a freelance producer, he still worked at Motown sporadically, much of the rest of 1964, as a contract worker on a session by session basis. Popcorn Wylie could play in random sessions after he returned. Earl Van Dyke could fill in on some sessions when he wasn't needed for playing organ. Maurice King played on heavily orchestrated sessions. For drums, for example, they had Benny Benjamin, Pistol Allen, and Uriel Jones, at their recording peak. But, they also used other Detroit drummers on a session by session basis, like Melvin Davis, and George McGregor. They had several Sax players. A large proportion of Detroit's recording session musicians worked as auxiliary session players at Motown.

After Motown moved to L.A., and only Jamerson and I think, one more Funk Brother went with them a few months later, The remaining funk Brothers were soon taken off salary, if I'm not mistaken, as their workload with Motown dropped slowly but steadily. They were made back into piecework workers, and free to record in Detroit and other cities, for any other company who wanted to use them. They worked quite a bit for Ed Wingate's Ric Tic, Don Davis (with Stax-Volt, Cotillion and his later free-lance projects with major and small labels, Arman Boladian's Westbound records, and HDH's labels, and probably on a few of Ollie McLaughlin's later projects. I do remember hearing on interviews and reading that PIR and other Philly Sound labels used them to record some of their projects in Detroit, and also sometimes brought them to Philadelphia to record. I think I remember Dennis Coffey, Bob Babbitt, Ray Monette and Bobby Eli mentioning that The Funk Brothers traveled to Philadelphia to work for PIR.