Robbk

Chicago's Gems were a Girls Group lead by ultra-high voiced Minnie Ripperton. The Riverside Gems are very likely to have been a New York Metro group, given that Riverside was a NY label, and their producer was Jesse Herring, Jr. Neither group had national hits. So, there was no reason for either to even know about each other. The Chicago Gems were well-known in Chicagoland. I'd bet virtually nobody knew who New York's Gems were. Their records didn't sell at all. At least 3 of Chicago's Gems' records had good Chicago local sales, and some other Midwest area sales. No way to confuse them. Chicago's Gems were led by ultra-high-voiced Minnie Ripperton, while the New York group lead singer had a deeper voice. Chicago's Gems were a tighter group, working better together in tight, more intricate harmonies.

I remember it being out in 1959. Was it really recorded as early as 1958??? I just looked it up. It was recorded on March 6, 1959, and not released until late April. What a weird memory I have! Half the time I can't remember my own name, how to walk or talk, and yet I can remember when songs came out over 60 years ago. I remember loving "There Goes My Baby" BECAUSE of the sweet strings, and that most of the R&B music on the radio in 1958 had gone WAYYY-YYYY downhill from its height in 1953-54, each year. '58 was the WORST! -until FUNK started bumping all the sweet Soul (except Motown) off the radio in 1966. The new Drifters' style was a breath of fresh air, and started the transition of "R&B" to "Soul".

Here's The Janettes' "He's Crying Inside" from late 1962-early 1963: The lead is a lot closer to Cholli Maye's voice than that of Shirley Alston, but Cholli's seems quite a bit deeper. But singers are certainly capable of singing in deeper or higher registers.

I read the comments on all the you Tube postings of her Gold Record, and MANY of the poster claim they "heard" that Cholli was really Shirley Alston backed by the rest of The Shirelles. But I think that is a lot of people mentioning that because they saw a lot of other comments stating that, and it is all from one, original incorrect guess. I think Cholli's voice is far, FAR away from Shirley's, and the background group on Cholli Maye's "You'll Never Get Away" is much, much better at harmony, and more full-sounding than The Shirelles were on most of their cuts.

After listening to several cuts by Blues, Jazz and Gospel singer Margie Anderson, who was big throughout the 1950s, and is likely to have been much older than Cholli Maye, I've come to the conclusion that Cholli was NOT Ms. Anderson. The Janettes sound, from 1962-63, is roughly in the same NY Girls Group genre as Cholli Maye's 1964 gem (which is when the big change to a more modern sound (Phil Spector,Leiber/Stoller, Barry/Greenwich, Goffin/King, Mann/Weil, etc.) occurred. So, I think that Cholli could have been a member of The Janettes. She was likely to have also been a member of one or two more New York groups. And, of course, it's very possibly that she also recorded as a soloist under another name, including, possibly, her birth name. But, unfortunately, my not being well versed on how search engines work, I'm not the best candidate to find information on her doing Internet searches.

I've never seen the name "CholIi Maye" on another record, but I know I've heard her voice on several different records. I'd bet the family farm that she was a member of a couple New York Metro Area-based girls groups. The Cholli Maye cuts were written by Charlie Callelo, and published by Franki Valli's and Charlie Callelo's Valbo Music. It has the sound of the 1963-65 Linzer-Randell-Artie Ripp-Bob Crewe New York Girl's Group Sound. Interestingly, when I googled "What was singer, Cholli Maye's birth name?", The Cholli Maye record came up, together with a record by Margie Anderson, and one by The Janettes. The Janettes' lead voice was different from Cholli's, but maybe the latter was a member of that group. I'm going to listen to several songs sung by Margie Anderson, to hear if the voices match.

This is true, and John Lee used about 2-3 more names that weren't listed here. He was DEFINITELY the king of AKAs! Detroit's Royal Jokers also recorded, previously (during The 1950s) as The Serenaders, Muskateers, Royals, and Scooters for 16 different labels (Roxy, J-V-B, Coral, Swing Time, Red Robin, DeLuxe, Venus, Dawn, ATCO, Hi-Q, Fortune, Metro, Keldon, Big Top, and Wingate). Detroit's Crowns became The Thrillers, then The 5 Jets, then The Five Stars, then The Voice Masters (and 2 of the latter group helped form Motown's Originals). But this group operating from 1952-to well into The 1970s, had a lot of personnel changes.

I knew about THOSE threads. I knew that Lowell was able to save some threads from the 2004-2010 period, and, a handful from 2001-2004. But they are significantly less than 10%of the "classical threads" from 2001-2010, and NONE of Joe Hunter's posts remain.

Thanks. But this link seems to be dead.

Joe used to post now and then on our Soulful Detroit Forum during our early days (2001-2005), and answer our questions about the early days of Motown, and his own career afterwards. Unfortunately, in 2010, when Lowell changed our platform to keep up with The Internet's technical growth, we lost most of the archives of our 2001-2007 threads. The same is true for most of the threads that contained posts by lots of other Motown and Detroit musicians, singers, arrangers, producers, sound engineers, and other people who were in the music business in Detroit during the 1960s. It's a crying shame, as many of those discussions we had, would answer a lot of the questions people here have been asking in recent years. We lost tonnes of record label scans and photos of people back then, too. It saddened me terribly when those archives were lost.

She was also an excellent singer in her younger days.

So, as I had guessed, The Rose Marie McCoy recording was a demo to try to sell the song to a Record Company, but, unfortunately, we don't know who financed the demo.

Wow! The Rose Marie McCoy is stupendously beautiful! Helen Miller was a writer for Screen Gems-Columbia. Does anyone know who was the producer, and what record company paid for the recording session?

That happens often when several full boxes are much later found at distributors' warehouses. I was living in L.A. in 1967, but traveled all over USA, and can tell you that the Tag copies were always ever-present during the '67-'72, and the Jo By copies were rare.

Thanks.

Thanks. yes, I had seen that statement for a long time. But Discogs has had several errors over the years. So, I wanted to know what the well-informed members on this forum knew from someone here possibly having had contact with the family of the original people involved.

Wow!!!! 89th and Oglesby had to be a residential house in South Chicago, which was walking distance (a few blocks) from where I lived (at 89th and Chappel near Stony Island Park)!

"United Record Distributed" must be a printer error. I doubt that they wanted it printed that way, meaning "This is a record distributed by United Record Distributors".

Are you saying that The Conservatives were the same group as The Specials? I don't see any evidence of that on this record. I never heard they were the same group. I see that Johnny Jones, who worked previously with Curtis Mayfield, wrote this song.

Yes, I noticed a LOT of stock from United at John's "Barn" in the 1980s, that I had left at United in the 1970s.

United Distributors (owned by The Leaner Brothers) was a big distributor in Chicago. They distributed a lot of indie Chicago labels, as well as some national majors.

Scepter picked up Jack Montgomery's "Dearly Beloved", and that sold some. So, why would Wand not even start pressing The Honeybees just because "Humphrey Stomp" failed? I'm sure I saw The Honeybees on Wand back in the later mid '60s. at least a photo of it.

Is that the same Brooklyn group (The Puzzles and Four Puzzles) that sang "I Need You"/bw "My Sweet Baby" on Fat Back Records during the 1960s? They had been a Doo Wop group before they switched to Soul.