Robbk

Jackie would have done wonderful things coming to Motown in 1961, working with Smokey, HDH, Stevenson-Hunter, Fuqua-Bristol, singing in front of Funk Brothers' instrumentals! It was a crime against humanity! I was devastated in 1961 hearing the rumours that he'd be moving to Motown, and seeing over the years, that he never did.

I also seem to remember that New York's Beltone leased one other Chicago production during the 1962-63 period (I think it was a single artist), but I can't remember what it was, but I think it was one of the missing catalogue numbers on Global Dog's and SoulfulKindaMusic's label discographies.

Not only did New York's Beltone Records pick up Chicago's Dontels, but they also picked up The Opals' (Okeh female group) first record, "Two-Sided Love", a Maurice Rogers production.

Great article!

Only 14, eh? Time flies by quickly! Is Mel still alive? I haven't seen a post from him on ANY forum in maybe 14 years.

Sorry for the misinformation, of course, Maurice Jackson owned Maurci Records, with Simmons and Chandler only working for him )despite rumours that Chandler was a part owner.

The last I ever heard on it was that her vocal was not yet found. Does anyone know that it HAS been found???

Nice to see you back, Mel! Stay safe from The Virus. I love too many Blues songs to make a short list, and don't have time to make a long one. Now semi-retired, still writing and drawing a few comic book stories. But, stuck in L.A. because of The Virus. Haven't been back to Holland or Denmark for a whole year!

Thanks. I knew he was too young, and am almost 100% sure that The Bruce Scott who worked mostly in Detroit, but also a little in Chicago, was an African-American. I think I've seen him in a few photos, too.

He just CAN'T be the same guy as the '60s Detroit songwriter!!! He's too young, and I can't picture him having hung out with the inner-City crowd.

Although they could have been one in the same, based on listening to a 30-second snippet, it seems this is a different version, seemingly with tracks recorded in Detroit added. Frank's vocal sounds the same, but it sounds like a n Earl van Dyke organ track has been added. It's hard to tell if any of the rest of the instrumental is different. You can hear 30 second snippets at this website: https://www.juno.co.uk/products/a-cellarful-of-motown-volume-5/789779-01/

One of my favourite songwriters. Sorry to hear this news. But he lived to a ripe old age. I have hundreds of his songs on record. RIP.

It's not only that if you google "Marc Gordon" you get sent to that website, it's the fact that the website includes a brief history of The Motown Marc Gordon in his so-called biography. Whoever set up that website, not knowing much about that subject, wanted to get more information on its subject. So he must have googled "Marc Gordon", and not been too observant, and not noticed that the birthdate showed 1935, and maybe not noticed that the man was already deceased. And he was unlucky enough to have been sent to a website that didn't list birth and death dates, nor a photo (which would have shown he was a Black man). To have that information as an integral part of his website and have "cross contamination", he would have had to have opened up his site for public access to allow public contribution, like Wikipedia. This just seems very weird because anyone who has any relationship to the Canadian Marc Gordon to make a website about his customer service consultancy expertise should know he wasn't a Black man, and he didn't work for Motown as a record producer, or he shouldn't be making the website without obtaining an official biography from the person being touted, or his personal business office; and he shouldn't add anything to his website before getting it approved by the person's office. This looks like some kind of assanine failed attempt to make some kind of joke.

I don't get what that BlackBean website is??? The Motown-related Marc Gordon was an African American who was born in the 1930s, and died at age 74 in 2010. That White guy pictured on BlackBean's site is still alive, and maybe in his early 50s right now. Yet BlackBean claims that young, Canadian customer service executive had the Black Marc Gordon's past, which occurred before the Canadian Marc Gordon was born!

Yes, once Jobete Music Co. ACCEPTED any given song produced by these employees/independent contractors, it was automatically owned by Jobete. But, they didn't accept every song offered to them from the overall production. They "bought" only what they wanted out of what was available (offered). I don't know the exact working relationship between Hal Davis and Marc Gordon (as individual employees PLUS being and independent contracting company (perhaps Finesse Music Co.?)). I got the idea that they were paid a base salary as Jobete Music Co. employees, and then received some additional fees as independent contractors, for each song accepted (bought?) by Jobete. I'm not sure if Frank Wilson, Chester and Gary Pipkin, Al Capps, and the other writer/producers received payment from both sources. But, I would guess that if more of their songs were accepted, they would have earned more money. I have no idea whether or not some of the writer/producers other than Hal Davis and Marc Gordon (Wilson, The Pipkins, Capps, and the others) were employees, or JUST independent contractors, receiving fees for each accepted song. I would guess that Wilson was also an employee, and, perhaps The Pipkins were, but probably the rest (Ed Cobb, Willie Hutch(ison), Al Capps, Charles Wright, and Vince Love weren't). It was clear that Berry (Motown) didn't want to sink tons of operating capital into running a big operation in L.A. that would add a lot of operating expenses to their overall firm overhead operating cost. But, they DID want a presence on The West Coast. They didn't know how much such an operation could help them, so finding a local, existing, successful producer/record label owner/A&R man to subcontract to them (at least until they would decide to run a full-fledged operation there). Hal Davis and Marc Gordon filled that bill, but didn't want to give up their independent operations. So, a hybrid operation was set up. In that way, Motown could just siphon off the best of their production, and save a lot of operating costs. If individual singers (The Holloway Sisters, The Vows, The Versatiles, Little Lisa) appeared marketable, and producers did well (Frank Wilson) they could sign them to artist contracts, and/or hire them directly.

Thanks for pointing that out. I was only guessing. In any case, the Aug. Ikettes' recording of "I'm So Thankful was made more than 6 months after Jobete Music bought the song, because Motown hadn't recorded it, nor slated it for recording and releasing during the contract-specified time window. Barbara Randolph's recording follows my other scenario that specifies that Motown didn't lose the rights to record a song and release it after the 6 month window, but simply lost the rights for "first release", explaining why there could be L.A. Jobete song releases on both Motown and non-Motown labels at roughly the same general period(a few months apart), and also in totally different years.

There might be, and also may not be. Same for "You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet". Both songs on the Tollie release could have been the same exact recordings that Marc Gordon and Frank Wilson sent to Detroit as the demos for use as guides for the eventual Motown release artists. The songs were not recorded by Motown on one of their own artists, and therefore, not had a release within the the time specified in the producer's contract, so release rights reverted back to Marc Gordon and Frank Wilson. So those two leased the 2 recordings to VJ's Tollie Records. Motown still kept the tapes because Jobete Music owned the publishing rights, and Motown still had the rights to release a version on their own artist, they only lost the EXCLUSIVE FIRST rights to release. BOTH Marc Gordon/Frank Wilson AND Motown still had the rights to release records using those recordings in perpetuity after that, until some change in ownership would arise. Sometimes the recordings made for Jobete's proof of song ownership, and those made for singing guides for the eventual Motown commercial singers had complete (finished) instrumental track mixes, and sometimes not. When they weren't finished, they would differ from the "version" on the released non-Motown issued record. When the non-Motown record's instrumental was much more complete than the "proof of ownership" tape or acetate in The Motown vaults for a song that wasn't recorded on a Motown artist in a finished version, we can assume that it was re-recorded by the independent producers, or finishing tracks were added by them, later, after Motown's right of first issue deadline had passed. Sometimes, however, when the "proof of ownership or singer guide version was finished enough, the producer decided to release it as is, on his own label, or lease it, as is, to an existing record company. I'm still waiting for a mid-1964 Detroit-recorded version of "You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet" by Mary Wells, backed by The Funk Brothers and Motown Band to be found among the vaulted material! What was Mary Wells' loss was Mary Love's gain, and probably got her her work With Motown in The 1970s, after they moved to L.A. The "Tollie" recording may be the same recording as "Motown's " (or should I say, Jobete's). As I've written many times before, during 1963-66, Jobete Music Co. Los Angeles was operated by Hal Davis and Marc Gordon. They were employees of Jobete Music, but their services were NOT EXCLUSIVE to Motown. Under their contracts (Frank Wilson, and the other Jobete L.A producers were also included in this), they wrote songs, and produced recordings for proof of ownership, and as guides for final recording singers). Level 1) They could still produce recordings to NOT even be offered to Jobete, and could be produced by them on non-Motown artists, and released on their own non-Motown labels. Level 2) They could record songs offerred to Jobete Music, that Jobete might turn down, and not purchase. THAT is what I would call "NO interest". An example of that scenario is "The Things You Do To Me" by The Vows. Of course, Hal Davis and Marc Gordon would then publish through their own, Finesse Music, and release on their own label, or lease to someone else's label. The Frank Wilson Tollie record is NOT that situation, but rather Level 3), the case in which Jobete Music WAS interested, and bought the song, and published it. Clearly Jobete Music had interest in those songs they purchased, but not enough compared to the hundreds of other songs they published during the 6 to 12 months after their purchase, to record them by one of Motown's artists. There was a time period after the purchase that Motown had to record a given songwithin, or rights to release the first version would revert back to the L.A. Jobete producer. If I remember correctly, Motown had to record the song on one of their artists within 6 months after the purchase, or the producer could then release it. IF Motown recorded it on one of their artists, I believe they had 3(or, possibly 6) more months to release the record, or then, the rights of first release would be over, and the producer would have the rights. I believe the Barbara Randolph version of "I'm So Thankful" fit that scenario. Jobete bought the song, and had Randolph record it. But it wasn't released in the 3 months after, so there were no "first rights" any longer, and the producers were free to lease the productions to Modern Records, and I also think Modern paid Davis/Gordon to produce the final recordings on The Ikettes' session.

I guess that "Our Love...." was written by George Clinton's crew for J.J. Barnes, in that twilight period when Solid Hitbound had just started Revilot Records, but not yet started their distributing; and J.J. Barnes was still under contract with Wingate's Ric-Tic Records, and he recorded it before moving over to Solid Hitbound's labels (Revilot/Groovesville). However, as a Solid Hitbound Production, one would think that the publishing would have been split in half by Myto and Revilot Music. But, there is no way of knowing what the details were. music publishing rights were just one of several different ways to share profits or get money to various project members for their contributions (financial, creative or production tasks) to getting the record made. For some reason, Davis and Taylor agreed with Ed and JoAnne that Myto would get ALL the music publishing rights for this song on this pressing regardless of the fact that Golden World was no longer distributing Davis' and Taylor's releases. Maybe they still owed Wingate money for other services previously rendered?

Don Davis started working for Ed Wingate's Golden World/Ric-Tic Records in 1965, before he started his patnership with LeBaron Taylor in Solid Hitbound Productions. He had started his own Groovesville Records in 1963. When he started working for Wingate, he had Wingate's Golden World distribute his Groovesville records. In that deal, Wingate's Myto Music got to split the publishing of Groovesville's songs distributed by Golden World, at half and half, between Davis' Groovesville, and Wingate's and Joanne Bratton's Myto Music. The Wingate-distributed Groovesville Records were red and white. When they changed to turquoise blue, that signified that that was after Davis left Golden World, and had set up his partnership with LeBaron Taylor in Solid Hitbound Records, along with Revilot Records, and Solid Hitbound started their own distribution company, which also now distributed Davis' Groovesville Records. So, the publishing on all Don Davis' productions now reverted back to 100% Groovesville Music. So, they had been "Myto Music songs" only during the period Golden World distributed the Groovesville records. I wasn't aware that "Our Love Is In The Pocket" was ever published by Myto Music. If it was, it was probably only for a short overlap period, when Davis and Taylor had already started Revilot Records, and while they still had Wingate's Golden World distributing their Groovesville records. and the earliest of the Revilot and Solid Hit releases were then also distributed by Wingate, before Solid Hitbound started operating their own distribution company. Then Myto would still have been splitting the publishing rights with Groovesville Music, and would split with JanSurMar, Thermo, Eddobar, and any publisher Solid Hitbound was using, for those first few releases. Davis and Taylor started operating on productions while Davis was working with Wingate, before they started the 2 new record labels, and they also leased some of their productions to major labels. They also operated their new labels a short time before starting their own distribution company, which not only distributed Revilot, Solid Hit and Groovesville, but also Clay McMurray's Red Cap, LaSalle. Brute, and several others (some of which had previously been distribute by Wingate).

Here's another example, and it's a label that had very few releases, and these 2 were just a few months from each other, so how did they forget that number was already used???? "Blind Girl" by The Del-Tours, and "Black Girl" by The Desires, on Mel London's Starville Records, from 1967. There are many, many more that haven't been listed on this thread. I just can't remember them, offhand. I only remembered this one because The Del-Tours record was brought up on another thread.

I always heard they were a New York/Northern New Jersey Metro group. They were definitely not The Chicago group who recorded for Beltone and Okeh. There was also a male Opals group during the early 1950s, who recorded for Apollo Records, and a couple other New York labels.

"Blind Girl" got a few stray plays as a new "test record", but never got in even an infrequent rotation, as far as I remember. "Black Girl" by The Desires was played a lot more, and sold decently locally and was stocked in a lot more shops. I saw The Del-Tours in a shop and played it, and then bought it. Incidentally, this is an example for the "Releases With The Same Catalogue Number" thread, both being Starville 1206. Amanda Love's "I Don't Mind" was played more, too.

This is the PR announcement by Talty & Jan's publicist. They were worried about problems with Chess because of the clause in the contract that read "No songs written by Curtis Mayfield will be accepted for production". I'm sure they still felt safe in getting this released by another label because it was recorded previous to her signing her artist contract with Chess. They just leased that old Spring 1963 recording to Stacy in November 1963, they didn't have Stacy record it that late in the year. The same was true of their releasing "Behind The Curtains" on Night Owl. Jan and Don were safe (probably told to them by their lawyer, who advised they add the contract comment in their press release. Clearly she was okay contractwise, as Chess released "I'm Over You" soon after "These Tears" flopped, and several other singles, one-by-one at regular intervals, for 2 years after. There was no long gap, which could account for her leaving Chess after fulfilling her contract with "These Tears", and then she and Don having a rapprochement with Davis or Phil Chess, and signing a 2nd contract. Jan apparently had an exclusive artist contract with Chess, which didn't allow her to do any recording for any other record company while she was under contract to Chess. She didn't, as although the Hootenanny and Night Owl releases occurred while she was under contract to Chess, the recordings were made under the auspices of, and paid for, by different producers, and those owners of those productions had the rights to commercial use of those products, and the right to release new records with those recordings, whenever they wanted to do so. The add-on in the press release was only to let Chess know that Talty and Jan knew their contract obligations and that they weren't breaking them. This was because Chess didn't know whether or not those 2 releases were recorded before she signed her contract. If Billy Davis were to bring up his irritation about the 2 releases, Don could show the recording studio receipt, showing the individual songs. He had to keep those for his Formal Records' taxes. Jan Bradley was still a Don Talty (Formal) artist - she was on lease to Chess Records, just like Marv Johnson was a Berry Gordy artist while under contract with UA.

Although this was released after "Mama Didn't Lie" in Dec. 1963,I believe it was recorded along with other cuts done with Mayfield, BEFORE "Mama Didn't Lie" became a smash hit, and that was before Chess offered a contract to Jan. The Night Owl record's cuts were also produced by Talty with Mayfield, BEFORE Chess leased "Mama Didn't Lie". Her new contract with Chess stated that she couldn't work with Curtis any more. That didn't prevent Don Talty from leasing cuts he made on her working with Curtis and The Impressions before she signed with Chess. The Hootenanny(Stacy) release was cut before - so, no possible problem. The lease to Night Owl (probably owned by Talty, Jan, and Curtis) was, indeed released later than "Mama didn't Lie", but Chess had no claim on it, and couldn't legally prevent the 3 of them from releasing it, because it belonged solely to them, and was recorded BEFORE Chess signed Jan. Talty had 3 releases on Jan from the recordings with Curtis on his own Formal Records, all before Chess leased "Mama Didn't Lie", after its local success on its Formal Records release, and after she was offered the Chess contract, Talty released the Night Owl record, and leased the Christmas record to Stacy/Hootenanny. On Hindsight, Talty and Jan should have not had her sign with Chess, and gone with Mayfield and his crew at ABC IF Chess and Mayfield had the falling out before Chess offered her the artist contract, while her Formal record was just being leased by Chess. I think that was the case, because the disagreement probably came about when Curtis told Chess what cut he wanted for himself out of Chess' ongoing deal with the 3 of them. Jan would have been best off by going with Curtis to ABC, where he worked with Johhny Pate as arranger, and sometimes also as producer, and there was a "Curtom" production crew, including The Impressions as back-ups, Curtis on guitar, Curtis, Johnny Jones, Jerry Butler, Billy Butler, and Major Lance as sometimes songwriters. That group probably would have gotten her more hits than Talty did for Chess, and also more than The Chess writers and arrangers did. However, it could be that the disagreement caused by Mayfield's discontent came AFTER Jan and Talty signed, and then Chess gave them an ultimatum that she'd have to quit working with Mayfield, or they would tear up the contract. They had lots of money and could hire much better lawyers than Talty could. So, they would be afraid to tear up the contract themselves, for fear of losing a big lawsuit. Besides, Talty had gotten her an artist contract with a big, successful label, and he had reason to believe that Billy Davis and his production crew could do just as well for her as Mayfield/Pate could do for her at ABC. But this whole situation just points out how very important the quality of songwriting and production values are to even an excellent singer; and also shows how important having a producer who has a good rapport with the singer, and also knows how to get the most from that singer, and has the singer's best interest at heart (not just for his or her own success). Such a situation can make the difference between the singer making an entire life's career out of singing, or only doing it for a few years and being forced to get a common "day job". A couple years later, Jan was out of The Business.

Jan wrote this completely on her own based on trying to copy Curtis Mayfield's style as best she could, because she got her only hit with his song, and she didn't like Talty's songwriting, and Chess had a disagreement with Curtis on producer credits and pay, and told Talty and Jan to not use Mayfield any more. She did such a great job emulating his style that I wish she'd have written a bunch more like that, as the rest of her Chess material was lousy. At least she got Mayfield's other songs written for her out on Talty's Formal Records, and "Behind The Curtains" out on Night Owl Records. Those were all great, having The Impressions backing her.