Robbk

I was in Chicago partly during the time of the record's run, and for parts of the year following. I always remember seeing many, many more Alteen copies than Chess. Alteen never stopped selling theirs, and had it pressed several times. The Chess deal was made to get NATIONAL distribution. But the record did nothing outside the 3-state lakefront area (Lake County, Indiana, City of Chicago and suburbs (Cook County), and greater Milwaukee), all areas Alteen could service (by car).

It absolutely could be. I still remember seeing new store stockers of the Alteen showing up in stores long after I saw the first Chess pressings in some stores. The lease agreement may have stipulated that Alteen could continue to supply Alteen's previous client stores who reorder; or it could have stipulated that Alteen could continue to sell to stores within The City of Chicago, or throughout "Chicagoland"(Cook County, Illinois, and Lake County, Indiana).

Ha! Ha! Alteen had a group called "The Suburbs"? Was that from the start of the decline in prejudice, and The Black Community's finally being allowed to leave the confines of The South Side and West Side of Chicago, and move into Harvey???

The promotional stamps being on 9631 makes it seem that 9631 MAY have been first. But 3000/press 8625 is a LOT closer to 8652 than 9631. So, why would they start their movement from press code numbers (Buster Benton and Robert Taylor), and then change to a different record number series (3000), and THEN go back to 9631 (a press plant code #) almost a year later in 1969 (8625 and 8652 were 1968), and THEN press the 2nd press run going back to the new record # series? I find it interesting that Alteen didn't make a special DJ issue press run for 9631, as Drake and The En-Solids' 8652 had special DJ copies run with "Radio Station Copy" printed under their label name.

As far as I knew (or thought I knew) the 8600-9600 number series was from their pressing plant number code, and the 3000 series was the record number. But the printer reversed them on some issues (press runs). Notice that the 9000 series of "Ain't Got No Problems" listed Alteen's address as 8204-8208 South Stony Island Avenue (which, incidentally, was only about 1 mile from where I and my family lived when we first moved to Chicago (South Chicago District) in 1959. My father's store was about 2 miles the other side of where Alteen was (on Halsted St. (on The South Side). I remember that corner of 82nd Street and Stony Island, it had a shop at 8202, another at 8204, and one at 8208. I left for L.A. in Fall 1965, and only spent the summer in Chicago. But, the label on the right lists only 8208 as the address. That makes it appear that Alteen either expanded from 8208, adding 8204's adjacent building (between the 2 press runs), or started with both buildings, and dropped their lease for the other one because of rising overhead for pressing new records (2nd pressing of "Ain't Got No Problems", and, possibly also the first pressing of The Superbs' (both of which sold decently locally). My guess is that the 3001 pressing was first, because THAT is the one I bought when it was out (during Spring Break, or the beginning of Summer of 1969). And it was the one which must have sold more, because I've seen hundreds of that in the record stores and at the distributors, and I've seen very few of the 9600 pressing in all my years. My guess is that they started off with the one store front, and took over the adjacent one when the former tenant's lease came up, because they had a fair amount of income coming in from sales of Drake & The En-Solids, and Sunday's first press run, and perhaps had signed The Superbs by then, and had plans to release a record by them in a few months, and , based on their talent, thought they would bring in lots of sales . That would indicate that the 3000 series was the first release, and 9600 was several months later. But that is all conjecture. It could be the exact opposite, that they started big, and had to cut down their space because their distributors weren't paying them (as was common in that industry-I learned that the hard way), and they couldn't come up with the rent for two storefront buildings. Your list above has 9631 first, and 3000 below it. Do you have exact release dates for each press run?

During 50 years of digging through literally millions of 45s and LPs I've never seen another one.

Now I remember! It was Jack DuPree who lived first in Berlin, and later, in Hamburg, for many years. It was Albert King who lived near me, in Oldenburg, for several years. Both of them appeared in venues in both Bremen and Hamburg.

Gloria Scott was from The San Francisco Bay Area, and appeared in both The Bay Area and Los Angeles Area. So, I would guess that her Tonettes were the same people as the L.A. group that recorded for Modern Records. But I would also assume that THAT group would have had NOTHING to do withThe Tonettes from the east coast, who recorded for Cameo-Parkway sub labels and ABC-Paramount, and small New York labels.

Could "The Smith Brothers" actually be "The Just Brothers"? If he was trying to use old, unused tapes to pretend to have new product, and was disguising the artist names to do so, that seems plausible.

Aha! So THAT's the reason for "R. Montague" instead of "N. Montague". It stands for Rose Montague. So Nathaniel Magnificent Montague wasn't involved. Just a coincidence that the group's name was changed to "The Magnificents".

You think all 3 45s were Simon Soussan bootlegs?! Why would he place them on a made-up label named after Ashford's daughter? Wouldn't that have been more likely to get to Ashford's attention, by being noticed, either by him or his friends or relatives? That wasn't Soussan's style. He would have just released them on his own Soul Galore label, with fake or minimal credits, and the claim that the rights were leased to Soul Galore. Why would he put Magnificent Montague's name on the credits, and change the name of The Smith Brothers to Montague's group (The Magnificents)? That could just catch the eye of Montague, or his friends in L.A. - make him realise that he had had nothing to do with their production, and, so, he'd likely contact Ashford about this, to warn him that someone might be booting the latter's recordings. On the other hand, it is really difficult to understand how Ashford could name a label after his daughter, lease it to a label in The UK, and then forget he ever did that (even if the question was asked 30 or 40 years later. Those are not things one does every day. To my knowledge Ashford had never before leased recordings of his to a British label. I myself, am starting to get senile, and losing long-term memory now. But I can't imagine forgetting starting up and naming a new label after my own daughter. Soussan would have had to know that Ashford's daughter was named Miko, and that Ashford had had some dealing(s) with Magnificent Montague. But it makes no sense at all for him to put information on bootlegs that might alert producers and label owners that someone is booting their recordings. This is all very puzzling to say the least.

Thanks Ady. That makes the situation quite different. I assume 1976 was after they had split up, businesswise, so she established Baku Music for her new solo projects. And so, she was involved in Miko/Magnificent, at least to the extent of Ashford arranging for her to be paid her royalties. So Ashford's covering up the old credits on the demos was apparently just done to make the recordings appear to be newer recordings than they actually were, so that MAM would take on the project.

I find it interesting that MAM's Magnificent Records has The Magnificents as a group, and has R. Montague as a co-writer with Jack Ashford on an instrumental song. This leads me to believe that it was a co-production (or some kind of production deal) between ex-DJ Magnificent Montague and Ashford. Although his first name was Nathaniel, so why the "R" first initial?

No. This guy's voice isn't as smooth, mellow, or sweet as C.P.'s. I don't think it is William Weatherspoon, because this voice doesn't sound like the so-called Witherspoon demo version of "Baby Hitand Run" (although, that isn't 100% confirmed to be Weatherspoon). Maybe this IS James Dean. But, I thought that Weatherspoon (generally supposed to be the better singer) (who sang in DooWop groups) supposedly sung all their writer demos.

Maybe because Ashford, now living in L.A., knew they were a British label, but they had an office in L.A. with whom he could deal conveniently; and as they were mainly, or by then, only dealing in Britain, he figured they could distribute easily to the Northern Soul-oriented sellers. Why they were pressed on US 45 format might be because his NS advisors (connections who suggested he press up any previously unreleased masters he had) told him The Northern collectors value US pressings more than British, if they are repressings (not original releases at the time of recording).

That is, indeed, what this action implies.......that Jack had possession of the tapes of the outtake versions and unreleased cuts. He could release those without Lorraine's knowledge. Just because he moved to L.A. didn't mean he couldn't continue operations of or "revive" his Detroit label. He could have released all these cuts on Triple B, with Lorraine handling the day-today operations in Detroit, and him commuting back and forth; OR he could have moved Triple B's operations to L.A. (as Robert West did in moving LuPine from Detroit to Las Vegas), with Lorraine commuting to L.A., or just having her sign legal papers and send them in the post.

I see now that this was more directed by Blackpool Soul's comment that MAM was a MAJOR label, which is one of the reasons I thought it was the London MAM. But, I see now that The MAM/Magnificent/Miko record lists "Baku", and "Bon-Jose Music" as the publisher, instead of Jack Ashford's original "Daedalian Music". So, it looks like this MAM/Magnificent/Miko label in Beverly Hills, California was NOT Ashford's, but that he leased the pressing, and label rights to the owner of that label and distribution rights to that new label's parent company?; and perhaps "Baku Music" represents the partnership of Ashford and Magnificent/Miko's owner, and maybe "Bon-Jose Music" represents MAM Records or the distributor? In any case, I'd guess that Ashford didn't own that CA label.

Yes, almost all of what I like is 1967 or back. But I still have knowledge of a reasonable amount of what was being released in 1968-70. I was still buying many of the Motown records at that time, and of those almost 100 1970-71 records I own, probably 95 of them are Motown labels with '60s-sounding cuts on them (I didn't buy The Temptations' "psychadelic songs" (unless they had a reasonably sweet cut on the flip, but bought The Miracles, later Martha & Vandellas, Four Tops, "new" Supremes, Jimmy Ruffin, Jr. Walker, Stevie Wonder, etc., plus a couple '60s sounding Chicago Sound records. That Spring '66 date was when I stopped listening to WVON and KGFJ, as there were too many songs I didn't like (James Brown Funk etc.) to wade through before I'd get to hear something I'd like, and also a lot of the DJs were talking through the songs. I hated when Magnificent Montague would keep replaying the ending of a song and keep shouting "Five and a half more bars!!!" Ah.......The GOOD old days! I didn't know how bad the music would get!

Well, this shows my ignorance of The 1970s. My interest in music lies mainly between 1936 and 1970. I own many thousands of 45s from 1947-1969. I own something like maybe 100 between 1970 and 1972, and, perhaps 3 or 4 after that (other than the Airwave records I kept as keepsakes). To be honest, If someone put a gun to my head, and said: "Name an artist who recorded for MAM Records, I would exist no more. I only know the label from flipping through bins of 45s during the 1970s and early '80s. I just saw the label above and the typed description above, which reads: "Miko (MAM)" So, I assumed the record was on The Miko label, which was a subsidiary of '70s MAM, as it looks like a '70s label design. So, sorry about the confusion. Please just disregard my comment, as it is clear the situation with this record is far outside my experience.

That happened a lot when major labels (who didn't have much knowledge about how to market a run-of-the-mill recording Soul music by a group unknown to the general public, and also who didn't have the sales force with the distribution and sales connections to the main Soul Distributors and record shops (i.e. RCA, Capitol, Columbia, WB, MGM). MAM fit that group. They sold almost no Soul music. This recording was NOT appealing enough to the ears general Pop fans to sell itself, needed because the artist's name was unknown. So, I'm guessing that MAM didn't get many orders for it, so the initial pressing was very low, and they couldn't even sell those. So no more press runs were made.

These 2 recordings sound to me like two different takes. They are very similar, but seem to have differences in the vocals, length of the trails, and different mixes, as well.

I've just listened to several Joe Matthews cuts. The singer doesn't sound like him, either. Maybe it was Billy Kennedy?

I've listened to the recording several times and it doesn't sound like Emmanuel to me. This voice sounds deeper, and a lot less raspy than Emmanuel's. I'm going to listen to Joe Matthews' more bluesy cuts to see if the singer sounds more like him.

Yes it does. I think, if I remember correctly, both Lasky and Matthews recorded it. Spyder could have gotten the tape from Clay, or Joey King Fish, or Hazel or Robert Coleman. He knew them all. I know he and Clay were friends. They both were regular posters on our Soulful Detroit Forum for many years. And one of them brought the other to the forum (I'm pretty sure Spyder brought Clay). I just read above, Clay was Spyder's manager at that time. Well, he was also one of Thelma's 3 major producers at that time (Don Davis had left to work with Golden World, and on his own Groovesville Records by then). So Clay had a lot of clout at Thelma, and he was Spyder's manager. So Spyder simply asked Clay to find him a tape to use for the flip. I assume that Clay had no demos sung by Spyder at that time. That shows you why you should always have a couple cuts handy, in case of such a situation. Too bad you all didn't ask this question several years ago. I could have just asked them both what went down.

No wonder Spyder's lip sinkinjg on that song was so lousy! He hadn't sung that song much at all, because he hadn't recorded it and had little time to practice it when he started making appearances. And listening to it, it sounds very like a Thelma, Clay MacMurray or Joey King Fish production, rather than a Theodore/Coffey production (his MGM producers/arrangers (who produced a thinner, cleaner sound, and less Funky material. I always wondered why that one cut sounded so different from the rest of his MGM LP/single cuts.