Robbk

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.

Not likely, as from 1964-early '72, there were recording sessions 24 hours a day, round the clock in The Snakepit, and they also recorded some at Golden World, and in both places after the major portion of the company's employees moved to L.A. in mid 1972, until late 1974. After Motown relocated to L.A. those who stayed in Detroit (MOST of Motown's previous musicians), became freelancers, who, in addition to their sporadic Motown work, worked for Ed Wingate's Ric Tic, Armen Boladian's Westbound, HDH's Invictus/HotWax, and other Detroit labels, plus, they worked on sessions for which major nationwide record companies wanted to record in Detroit. Plus they also traveled to Chicago and Philadelphia to work on sessions. There was no more moonlighting, because they were not on salary with any particular record company. The DID record a lot for non-Motown companies, but, even adding up their post 1972 work to their pre-1972 moonlighting work, I would guess that that might not (and probably wouldn't) be more than their phenomenal crankout, non-stop, 16-18 hour daily marathons during their peak Motown years.

Well then, my theories about Epperson and Fred Hughes are likely to be correct. Epperson, as a Peacock artist MUST have been one of the singers sent to Detroit in The Joe Hunter-Don Robey production deal. Mike Terry was the arranger on many of Hunter's sessions in Detroit, with the Pied Piper and Duke/Peacock/Backbeat/SureShot artists. And Mike Terry's arranging Fred Hughes' "Don't Let Me Down" session was due to Richard Parker hiring him (but we still haven't established whether Parker brought Hughes to Detroit, or brought Terry to Chicago for the recording, or whether some of the recording work was handled in both cities).

Nice to finally find out that ALL Garland Green's cuts with Jo Armstead involved, were recorded in Detroit.

IF Minnie Epperson recorded in Detroit during the mid '60s it would have been during the Joe Hunter/Don Robey deal. But, her peacock recordings didn't sound to me like they were recorded in Detroit, and I didn't see any credits to Hunter on her 45s. Do you have any documentation or quotes claiming she recorded in Detroit?

Regarding Fred Hughes' "Don't Bring Me Down"....... Hughes' producer with VJ Records was Chicago's Richard Parker, who ran VJ's L.A. production office, and was its main producer. He recorded some of Hughes' sessions in L.A., and some in Chicago. Parker had a Detroit connection in the mid 1960s, when he produced and recorded for Golden World/Ric Tic, I believe, as a part-time free-lance producer, rather than full time, while he still resided primarily in Chicago, but also, part-time in L.A. I always thought that "Don't Bring Me Down was recorded in Chicago, with Mike Terry travelling there, rather than Parker bring Hughes to Terry, in Detroit. However, Terry, in addition to periodically going to Chicago to record for Jo Armstead's and a few other Chicago labels, also worked heavily in Golden World Studios, on Ric Tic and Golden World sessions. Still, I think the odds are a lot greater that Parker brought Terry to Chicago, perhaps along with a few Motown Funk Brothers moonlighting musicians, to record "Don't Bring Me Down" and a few other cuts. I doubt that Terry flew to L.A. to record that for VJ. But, Chicago was a relatively short auto drive (a few hours), which Terry and moonlighting Funk Brothers and other Detroiters, like Fred Bridges, The Brothers of soul, Mike Hanks, Ollie McLaughlin, The Four Hollidays, The Funk Brothers/Andantes/other Motown Musicians, Andre Williams, and many others often made. Do you have documentation that that song was recorded in Detroit?

That scenario was also true in Germany, where since WWII, the German cities, especially near US military bases, adopted American Soul music in their clubs, and that music was also spread heavily by the children of American (especilly Black American) servicemen, who married and had children with German women. Naturally, young Germans, after that terrible war, blamed their parents' generation for "allowing" The Nazis to ruin their country, and its reputation throughout The World, and rejected their own past- and wanted to rebel against it-and follow a new and different path. US culture, brought by The US servicemen, was very different. And the Soul Music of The African-Americans was a lot more different from what they were used to, than US MOR Pop music. Lots of them adopted Lily-White Rock and Roll. But others, who wanted to rebel even more strongly against their Nazi parents' generation, could do so by adopting Black man's music, sort of spitting in Hitler's face (because he considered them inferior and subhuman. I'm surprised there weren't also mass conversions to Judaism, and adopting of Yiddish Klezmer Music!

THAT wasn't the driver in ALL these cases. At least in USA and Canada, sometimes it was a matter of the combination of too much talent, too many excellent productions to get onto the radio airwaves or into the clubs and other in-person venues, and poor choices made by record producers and record company quality control decision makers, and record company owners regarding what the public wanted, or knowing how to get their recorded songs to the potential listeners who WOULD HAVE loved to hear them. In USA and Canada, there were thousands of people who would have loved hundreds (certainly at least several thousands) of the Nothern Soul or Beach, or Shag songs that never made the radio, or were played on a light rotation for only a few days and didn't sell. They just never got the chance to hear them. These include mostly normal people, who were Soul music fans, but not major record collectors, and who would buy records only because they liked them, NOT with their rarity as a contributing factor. A LOT of the so-called "Northern Soul" wouldn't have been considered "crap" to such potential buyers. Most likers of Soul Music would have liked quite a high proportion of the Motown recordings that never came out (especially those that were recorded between 1962 and 1970, and a lesser, but still quite significant percentage of the Detroit and Chicago Soul recordings from 1964-70, and a lesser, but still significant proportion of the Philadelphia, New York, l..A., Texas, Miami, Memphis, and New Orleans Soul Music which was recorded during 1960-75. It was simply too much to get to the proper audiences. That is probably just the same in any industry. There are lots of different reasons why an existing product can't get to its potential market, in the best that would be best enjoyed by its potential consumers. That is one of the flaws of capitalism and human nature.

But, I've seen Thelma lists with Pat Smith having 3 different pairs of recordings (6 songs that could form 3 single releases. They all were written by Thelma Records songwriters and produced by Don Davis. At least the 2 slated for Thelma 103 had ZTSC numbers assigned, that matched the time period perfectly. Maybe Marvelous Ray WAS Pat Smith. Maybe Ms. Smith WAS someone named Ray, from Cleveland, using Pat Smith as a stage name, when contracting with Thelma Records in 1965, to be a vocalist on records for them. Maybe James Abner, from Cleveland, having the same last name as Ronnie Abner, who worked with Don Davis was just a coincidence. The Marvelous Ray version of Pat Smith's "Going Through A Whirlpool" sounds to me as EXACTLY the same recording, vocals same singer, instrumental exact same musicians and take and mix. So, IF my ears don't deceive me, I want to know how James Abner got those masters that should have been in Don Davis' or The Colemans' hands in January, 1966. If The Colemans sold those masters to James Abner, they would have also had to sell the publishing rights and copyrights to the writing of the songs, for those credits on the Abner record to be legitimate. But, I thought that the masters to those 2 songs were among Don Davis' masters obtained from his son during The 1990s. In any case, I hope we can find out the answers to the tie-ins between Thelma and Abner Records, and Marvelous Ray and Pat Smith. Do you Know if any of her other records on Abner had any other Thelma songs on them? Or other Detroit written, or Detroit produced/recorded songs? Did they list Ray's family name?

So, Marvelous Ray was a legitimate 1960s release of those Pat Smith Thelma recordings! Then, who was James Abner? Where was Abner Records located. How did Abner get hold of Thelma masters while they were still operating? What is the relationship of The Peps' Ronnie Abner to James Abner? Was Ronnie Abner's real full name Ronald James Abner? Interesting that Ronnie was co-writer with producer Don Davis on "Whirlpool" by Steve Mancha, and Don Davis was producer on both songs, but they are completely different songs, with different titles, different lyrics, different tunes, and different instrumental music. The label design and font are the same as Syd Nathan's Cincinnati King Records pressing plant. So, whoever put this out may have pressed it in Cincinnati. Thelma was still operated by The Colemans and Joey Kingfish Stribling in January 1966. But Don Davis was gone, and, Ronnie Abner and Tom Storm's Peps were gone, although, I'm not sure whether or not Abner was still writing some songs for them. Davis ended up with the masters from his own Thelma productions. So, I'd guess that he took them when he left Thelma in late 1965. But, it would seem odd to me for him to release a one-off issue on a one-off label pressed inn Cincinnati, and not use Groovesville music as the publisher. And why would Detroit's Ronnie Abner go to Cincinnati to press up a record? This all seems very strange. I hope some others here will know the answers to these questions.

Does anyone know who James Abner was? Ronnie Abner was a member of Tom Storm and The Peps, who recorded for Thelma (on their GeGe subsidiary label, and Ronnie was also an assistant producer to both Don Davis and Norman Whitfield, as well as a songwriter for Thelma. There must be some connection. Maybe Ronnie's full name was Ronald James Abner? I think that despite The Peps moving on to other labels in mid 1965, Ronnie continued writing songs for Thelma into 1966. The Abner label design looks like a common New York label design from 1965-67, but, was also Syd Nathan's Cincinnati-based King Records pressing plant's label design font for most of that labels 45 RPM producing period. I have also seen a few Detroit and Chicago, Texas, West Coast and East Coast records use it possibly into the early 1970s for re-issues, and maybe even issuing new finds from newly found master tapes and acetates of never-before issued recordings. Could all such records have been new issues to service The Oldies demand in USA, The Beach Scene, The French-Belgian-German Soul and and the UK NS Scenes? Steve Mancha's "Whirlpool" was written by Ronnie Abner and Don Davis. It is an entirely different song from The Pat Smith song that was discovered from her master tape, and looks suspiciously to me as if it must have been covered up as by "Marvelous Ray", and then became a "Hit" on The Northern scene, and there was so much demand for it (perhaps in the late 1970s or early 1980s?) that it was pressed up on the Abner records pressing. The people making the pressing order gave the song's real writer a nod, by using the name Abner, but, as it was still being covered up, didn't want others to discover what it really was, so it wouldn't be so "exclusive" any more, so they changed the first name to James. They used "Abner" for the label name as well to make it look somewhat feasible as a possible legitimate 1960s non-Detroit record, using the Cincinnati font.

Is this Marvelous Ray "Whirlpool" the exact same original Thelma Records early 1965 recording of Pat Smith singing that song? The instrumental is the exact same. The voice sounds exactly the same to me, as well. I wonder if the Abner label was owned by Ronnie Abner, who was, at that time, still a member of The Fabulous Peps, who also recorded for Thelma on their GeGe subsidiary label. Abner was also a songwriter and assistant producer with the company. This record list "James" Abner as the writer. I wonder how "James Abner" got ahold of the masters for this record, which should have been owned by Hazel and Robert Coleman or Don Davis, depending upon the agreement with Don Davis upon his leaving The Thelma Records partnership. And He took credit for writing the song, and somehow got the publishing rights, too.

Is this Marvelous Ray "Whirlpool" the exact same original Thelma Records early 1965 recording of Pat Smith singing that song? The instrumental is the exact same. The voice sounds the same to me, as well. I wonder if the Abner label was owned by Ronnie Abner, who was, at that time, still a member of The Fabulous Peps, who also recorded for Thelma on their GeGe subsidiary label. Abner was also a songwriter and assistant producer with the company. This record list "James" Abner as the writer. I wonder how "James Abner" got ahold of the masters for this record, which should have been owned by Hazel and Robert Coleman or Don Davis, depending upon the agreement with Don Davis upon his leaving The Thelma Records partnership. And He took credit for writing the song, and somehow got the publishing rights, too.

That gap between The Rose Battiste release in December '64, and the Joe Matthews in May '65, must represent the cash poor period Thelma experienced, plus some weeks to gear up the held up projects waiting on the initial lease front money. The Pat Smith songs were both recorded, but Thelma chose not to release them. Maybe, during that time gap Pat decided to end her career before it began (marriage, attending college, getting a decent-paying day job)?

Sorry. I was just going by the 2 dates you listed above for The Fedro and Wild Deuce articles in Record World. As you posted the Fedro article first and Wild Deuce second, I assumed the articles' dates would be in the same order. Given that the lease was agreed upon in March, then, it seems likely that Davis leased the record to Wild Deuce, because Thelma was out of cash, and the up-front lease "down-payment" portion would help them fund some other record recordings and pressings they had planned. I didn't see "Lucky To Be Loved By You" on Ron's list, so, that schedule, or slated list, must have been made after Davis, or Joey Kingfish had decided that it would need to be leased out.

I think "Time To Think It Over" was slated as the "B" Side of "Whirlpool".

Check out my post above this one, which mentions Pat Smith's scheduled, or slated release of "Whirlpool", as #103.

I've got it on turquoise commercial stock copy, and only ever seen that issue (3 copies (including mine). I think it was the rarest, by FAR. I never even saw it in one of the major Detroit Soul or R&B collectors' collections. Although, I believe one or two of the biggest had it.

Originally, I thought so too, but I saw a Thelma in-house scheduled release list(that Ron Murphy had a copy), that had a female single artist, Pat Smith, scheduled for 103 ("Going through a Whirlpool"). I think Thelma needed cash badly (which was one of the reasons Don Davis, later, decided to leave), and they were forced to lease that one out, because they didn't have the cash to press up enough copies to saturate the markets nationally, nor a relationship with a distributor who could handle that. I think it was Davis seeing the writing on the wall that Thelma Records was going to go out of business, rather than The Colemans forcing him out because he was doing a poor job, because the appointed their in-house band leader, Joey King Fish Stribling, to take over Davis' role as A&R man and chief producer, rather than having a better candidate than Davis ready to hire. So, it's most likely that leasing the Lasky record was just a desperate measure to bring more operating cash in to remain afloat.

I'm guessing that the vocals and instrumentals were recorded in Detroit(United Sound?), but the final mixes were done at RCA Chicago.

Sorry! I should have written: "why his name didn't appear on a producer's credit on Kapp Records DJ issues" issued after he left Pied Piper". Certainly, recordings released on Kapp, on which his name appeared as a songwriter, could have been written previously, when Hunter was working for Pied Piper under the RCA contract, during its early period, before they started also with Kapp.

I don't know where I saw Wilxy's reference to the Tobi Legend record on New York's Mala Records. But, that was also a Detroit production by John Rhys, who was working at that time for Harry Balk's Impact Records, as can be seen by Balk's music publisher's name, Gomba Music. This was a Detroit-based singer's Detroit production, leased to a New York record company Amy-Mala-Bell Records, in a pressing and distribution deal to get national coverage. So, it wasn't an out-of-Detroit label sending its New York artist to Detroit to take advantage of Detroit's music industry's talents and facilities. Melvin Davis' releases on Bell Records occurred for the same reason. Davis had produced them in Detroit, and leased them to Bell to get national distribution. George McGregor, another Detroit drummer and record producer also leased some of his later productions to major labels in New York to get national distribution. One of these was Rena Scott's "I Just Forget That Boy" leased to Columbia's Epic Records. After Ed Wingate sold off most of his Golden World assets to Motown, he produced recording sessions at United Sound Studio, and leased them to Wand and Columbia Records. Diane Lewis' "Please Let Me Love You", originally released on Golden World subsidiary, Love Records, was later leased to Wand, as was the follow-up record, "I Thank You Kindly", released directly by Wand. He also produced a record by The Players on Columbia. Other Correc-Tone leases to national labels were The Pyramids' 2nd release, "What Is Love?" leased to Chicago's VJ Records, Timiko's (Tamiko Jones') "Is It A Sin" (produced by Robert Bateman and Popcorn Wylie, and leased to Chess, Freddie Bridges' "Baby Don't You Weep", leased to New York's tiny, Versatile Records (Correc-Tone's version sung by Wilson Pickett had been leased to Double-L, and later was re-issued on Price's label's distributor, Liberty Records. Ha! - Writing this all out in a book illustrated with label scans would have been no harder than making all these posts!

As far as I know for sure, only Marva's 2 Correc-Tone recordings "Later For You, Baby", and "You Lied" that were leased to Bob Shad's New York label, Time Records, were recorded in Detroit, other than, possibly, "I Don't Care", which is the A side of her follow-up release to the Time record, on New York's Sahara Records, which was a Correc-Tone song written by Marva, ex-Satintone, and Correc-Tone arranger, Sonny Sanders, and Correc-Tone's main arranger, and in-house band leader, and piano player, Willie Harbert. If it was recorded in Detroit's Correc-Tone Studio, its master tape was also taken to New York by Bateman to lease along with the other 2 cuts, but Shad didn't want it. So, Bateman leased it to New York's tiny Sahara Records, run by later Motown producer Al Cleveland and Arthur Crier(former member of The Mellows and Halos). It sounds very like a Correc-Tone recording as opposed to the New York-sounding flip, "Heartbreak City", produced and written by label owners, Cleveland and Crier, and arranged by a New York arranger and band leader, Bill Ramal. The only other possibility was that Marva, herself, signed on her own with Sahara Records after Shad dropped her, without even trying a 2nd 45 on her, and she wanted to sing that Correc-Tone song she had rehearsed when with that Detroit label. After that, she signed with United Artists in New York, and did all her recording for them there. I assume that she had moved there from Toronto by then. After her UA contract was up, as far as I know, she recorded only Jazz, and none of that recording was done in Detroit.

Based on the 2 voices, I can tell that his girl was DEFINITELY NOT L.A.'s Marsha Gee, who recorded for Capitol's Uptown Records. I guess she was apparently an unknown singer who recorded this at Philadelphia's Virtue Studios, assuming someone found an acetate with no artist name. But, do we even know what the real Marsha Gee's real family name was?