Robbk

Yes those styrene pressings with the delta and that label design are Monarch (L.A.) pressings, and other label design and colour differences are from Midwest, East Coast, and Southern plant press runs.

Ronnie Savoy (Eugene Ronald Hamilton) produced them, probably in Detroit, rather than New York, given that Travler Music published the songs, Don Davis and Freddie Pride co-wrote the Billy Soul song on Velvet Sound, and Don Mancha (partner in Travler Music and their associated Detroit Productions on Jack Montgomery and The Honey Bees) did the marketing. Also, the first pressing of Velvet Sound 367 was pressed and distributed by Don Davis' Solid Hitbound Productions, and was pressed on styrene at Columbia Midwest (Terre Haute, Ind.), where most of Solid Hitbound's records were pressed. I assume the "Chico" Hamilton listed was yet another AKA of Eugene (Ronny) Hamilton, rather than the well-known Jazz drummer, who had played with Count Basie, and been one of the leading Jazz drummers in the 1950s through the 1970s. It would have been too much of a coincidence that two different, unrelated Hamiltons, from 2 different genres of music would have written and produced that Velvet Sound record. I don't think the drummer, Chico Hamilton produced any Soul vocal releases. Perhaps the "Chico" was an error by the printer, who was a Jazz fan, and hadn't heard of Detroit's Hamilton Brothers. Ronnie's brother, Bob Hamilton (AKA Rob Reeco), was the producer on the instrumental on the flip. The "Hamilton" listed on the writing credits of the Billy Soul Velvet Sound 45 was also Ronnie, rather than Dave Hamilton, quoted by John Manship on YouTube, where he uploaded its soundfile.

Can you please show us hi-res scans of the label, and tell us what is etched, engraved, and stamped in the runout?

Of course all 5 records are on the same Me-O Records that was owned by Romeo Taylor. His name and his personal music publishing company, Rocarmeo Music, is listed on all 5. The Martiniques was recorded in 1965 (not sure if it was released that early. The Tootsie Rollers sounds like 1965 or 1966. The Richard Wright sounds like 1965. I'm guessing that the other two were probably recorded between 1968 and 1972. They have a much later sound than the first 3 in the 1000 series. As I stated before, I think Taylor brought The Martiniques' and Tootsie Rollers' recordings with him from Detroit, and released them later, on his L.a. label.

Lew Bedell re-issued '60s Dore Soul recordings all throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, not just to meet foreign demand, but mainly for The US Oldies market.

Wow! Morris Kaplan's kid!! He certainly should know the answers to some of our questions! He was old enough to have known a lot about his father's operation from 1962-1966. And he was probably involved directly, by that time.

Yes, it was a two-sided hit. Both were played in Chicago. I saw a lot more copies on Danceland than on Roulette. But, in L.A. there were a lot more on Roulette.

That is likely for The Tootsie Rollers. But, it is not for The Martiniques, whose "Unknown Love" on Danceland records in 1963, and "Broken Hearted Me" in 1964, charted regionally, and gave the group a big following. They were successful playing clubs in the region. Unknown Love" did so well, regionally, that Roulette Records picked it up for national distribution, and it charted, and became a minor hit nationally. The Martiniques were very well known in The Detroit Metro Area.

Duplicate post due to merger of the two threads.

From what I remember, The Martiniques broke up in 1966. I DOUBT that they moved on to become The Royal Jokers on Wingate. Perhaps ONE of them joined The Royal Jokers. That group was an on-going local institution in Detroit, starting when they formed in the early 1950s, with falsetto lead, Willie Jones singing like Clyde McPhatter. They had some national hits, but were ALWAYS one the the most popular local groups, all the way through at least the mid 1960s (which included their Wingate release's period-through 1966. It was my understanding that The Wingate group was descended from the earlier group without any mass change, such as happened with The Drifters and The Falcons, but with only individual new members when one member left the group. Long-time lead singer, Willie Jones was still with The Royal Jokers on their Wingate cuts. But, at least most of the former members must have still been with the group.

We had another thread here on Soul-Source going into a lot of depth on this discussion. I'll repeat what I know. The Martiniques on ME-O are the very same Detroit group that recorded for Detroit's Danceland Records, who were led mainly by Herschel Hunter (brother of Ty Hunter), who also was the lead singer of Detroit's Moments, who recorded for Herman Griffin at Hit Records. Romeo Taylor was originally from Detroit, but moved to L.A. in 1965. Then, he bounced between the two cities. That was told to me by my friend, Ron Murphy (Detroit producer and record masterer), and corroborated by a few other Detroiters on the thread to which Rod referred. I participated in that thread. We theorised that Taylor recorded at least The Martiniques' vocals in Detroit, and probably The Tootsie Rollers' too, and possibly the background tracks for both records, as well. I had a discussion of this situation with a poster claiming to be the son of one of The Martiniques' members, who told me that the group never went to L.A., and shockingly, his father told him that they never heard of Thurman Hollis (who was given credit for co-producing the session, with Romeo Taylor, and getting credit for co-writing the songs). His father told him that the group members had written the song, and that a different producer (a family member?) had produced the session. I think I remember him saying that his father didn't know their recordings had been released until someone showed him the record, a few years after the session (making my theory that it was recorded in 1965, and not released until 1967 or 1968, very plausible). To me, The Martiniques' and Tootsie Rollers' cuts sound like they were recorded in Detroit. ALL the ME-O pressings I've seen look like L.A. pressing plant pressings and L.A. late '60s label designs. We surmised that Romeo Taylor recorded those 2 groups in Detroit in 1965, and took the masters with him to L.A. He started The ME-O label in L.A., and made other recordings there, including Richard Wright and The Star-Vells (who I believe were L.A. artists. I bought The Martiniques in L.A. during the late '60s, and saw whole boxes of it at Record Merchandising (distributors). I have no idea why some people connect the label with West Virginia. As far as I remember, Thurman Hollis was a Detroiter, and worked with The Falcons on Big Wheel Records, and is somehow related to Sandy Hollis, who recorded for that label. I think I've seen his name on a couple other Detroit labels. No one I talked to from Detroit remembered The Tootsie Rollers being local to Detroit. And the record never showed up there. But, I still believe it was recorded there. Both that recording and The Martiniques' sound like Detroit recordings from 1965. I don't believe that The Martiniques were still together even in 1967. I think they broke up some time in 1966. I've heard the Romeo Taylor and The Star-Vells on Celestial (L.A. label), and Richard Wright and The Star-Vells on ME-O, and both sound classically like L.A. recordings. I know I've seen The Romeo Taylor and The Star-Vells' Celestial record many times, and seen several Richard Wright records on small L.A. labels. I'm sure he was an L.A. artist, who appeared on the local nightclub circuit. I'm sure I've seen his name on venue posters/billboards down in South L.A. back in the mid-late '60s, and early '70s. I wonder if he was related to Charles Wright, or Arthur Wright?

Yes, THAT'S the very same L.A. singer to whom I was referring. But I think she probably wasn't REALLY their cousin. I heard from a few sources, and also read in a few interviews with Brenda, or people quoted her saying that they just told people she was their cousin because she and Brenda were best friends. I think some people who had heard they were "cousins" started an urban rumour. Pat was also in Brenda's first group, The Watesians, recording for Bob Keane's Donna Records.

Somehow, I rather doubt that. We'll be "spirits" (non-alcholic" of course), and so, we'll "speak", or exchange thoughts using "mental telepathy" (at least something equivalent, given we'll have no physical brain. But, I don't think we'll be talking about bootlegs, or Simon Soussan, or anything as mundane as Soul music. We'll be discussing MORE IMPORTANT things, like existential matters, such as "is 'is' is?". Or, if we've been good enough to go to "the GOOD place", maybe we'll be able to have a giant record barn with all mint copies of EVERY Soul record ever made, whose grooves never wear out, and a harem full of women who like all the same music we do, and don't mind our spending time playing them, and don't complain about our spending money on them instead of our kids.

More proof that there were more than 2 members. Ollie would have described them as a "duo" had they been composed of only 2 "members". I never heard anyone describe a duo as a "group". A group is 3 or more. Maybe the 3rd member was a cousin. Several 3 and 4 member groups which included siblings, were filled out with cousins, so they could be an all-family operation. They often had a parent or uncle or aunt managing them. I couldn't find anything detailed about the make-up of The Gambrells online. We may have discussed them in detail on Soulful Detroit Forum. I remember a few threads where we discussed The Gambrells, but can't find one with details on the members. But, most of those great early long, detailed discussions which often had input from older Detroiters who personally knew the artists and their families were lost when we changed the website's platform and format in late 2004, and more were lost later (2009?). Lots of threads from our start in 2001, especially through 2004, were filled with obscure detailed information, because, at that time, our subject matter was still mostly, just Detroit Soul. We had a lot of Detroit Soul collectors, and Detroit people from the music business from the 1960s and 1970s posting regularly at that time. It's a great shame, and loss to posterity, that we lost most of those great threads.

Here's an advert for Pioneer Recording Studios from the 1960s, showing that they (Sussman and Rubin) also ran Pioneer Records and Tru-Soul Records.

Yes, it brought a few tears to my eyes. But, it's nice to hear his voice every so often. Nice that "Sitting In The Park" 's interviews have been saved, and we also have these interviews of Bob. I have had a lot of family members and friends who left no recordings. So, I can only remember their voices from my memory, and from dreams. But recordings, and film are a lot nicer, as they are more accurate, and then trigger other memories of those people. I'm relatively old, and don't know how long I'll be around. But even if it's 20 more years, that goes by really fast (as one gets older). So, I hope I'll be in contact with Bob again, after I go. The older I get, the more I believe that's possible. I know that sounds irrational, but The World is plenty ridiculous even when one has had a good foundation in the sciences, and has good mathematical logic.

The Gambrells were a local, Detroit group. Pat Hunt was an L.A. artist. Was there also a song writer/singer named Patricia Hunt, who was from Detroit? Pat Hunt got credit for writing the song. But, I don't recall a songwriter from Detroit named Pat or Patricia Hunt. L.A.'s Pat Hunt wrote songs for Jobete Music, but she only worked for them in L.A. with Hal Davis, Marc Gordon, and Frank Wilson. That song was written in 1966. I wonder if Wilson could have taken some of Pat's songs which had been rejected by Motown, to Detroit on one of his early trips there, and sold it to Alan Sussman's and Gary Rubin's "Tru-Soul Music", the music publishing arm of their (Detroit's) Pioneer Recording Studio, that also owned Pioneer and Tru-Soul Records? Yes, those same Gambrells were backing up Scott(y) Bray, who had releases on both Pioneer, and Tru-Soul. I'm sure the two sisters were NOT the whole group. I'm sure I saw photos of 3 ladies, and also may have seen them appear on a Windsor Ontario dance TV show, Swingin' Time, from 1966 or 1967. That would be quite a coincidence, if their 3rd member was also named "Pat Hunt". But a lot stranger things than that happen all the time. However, I suspect that their 3rd member had a name some of us know as a Detroit singer, who was also in other groups, or had solo releases. Yes, both "Jive Talk", and "Find A Love" are fabulous, and I like both better than any of their Ollie McLaughlin productions (which is very surprising, as I love most of his work), and better than their Mike Valvano productions that appeared on MGM's newer Cub Records label(and I usually like most of those as well (such as "My World Is On Fire" by Jimmy Mack)).

I agree that the Earl Beal from The older, Philly Silhouettes couldn't be the guy in The Tangeers. But, possibly he was his son (named Earl Beal Jr., who simply added an e and an l to his 2 names for a "stage name". It would be quite a coincidence to come from generally the same area (Baltimore and Philadelphia shared almost as many local ties as Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and the 2 men look enough alike to be father and son. And the ages work a LOT better than the Tangeer being 44 years old.

The '50s group was from Philadelphia, and the Trenton group seems to be from Central New Jersey. So, it seems clear that the 2 groups had no connection.

Trenton New Jersey is closer to the Philadelphia market than New York (Northern New Jersey) Market. It was always considered "Downstate". So, I would guess that everyone in Trenton would have been well aware of the 1950s group. THAT group was still going strong on the club circuit in 1964, and had a regional hit with "Dollar Sign" that year. 1964 is too close to 1968 to have had no connection. The Re-Vells were really a very well-known local Philadelphia (and thus, Eastern Pennsylvania/south New Jersey group. So, I believe it is VERY UNLIKELY that a new group would come up with that name out of the blue. Someone would have told them to pick another because of the former group. By the same token, it is not very likely that The 1950s group would have stayed intact all the way to 1968. Actually, they had already had at least one line-up change between 1961 and their 1964 Kapp release. I'm guessing that they had at least one more between '64 and '68. I would bet that roughly half the members would have been new by their Trent-Town release.

Apparently from Trenton, New Jersey. I wonder if this Lemons was related to George Lemons and his family in Detroit? It's a fairly uncommon name.

WOW! Ray Stevens, C&W/Novelty singer, of "Ahab The Arab" fame, produced that song. Will wonders never cease?

I'd like to hear that. I'm a big fan of The Originals. I've liked C. P. Spencer since his time with The Five Jets, starting in 1954.

Impossible to keep just one record out of several 10,000s. The old desert island problem. But, I never even had a single favourite song from the first day in 1953, when I heard both "Red Sails In The Sunset" and "My Saddest Hour" by The Five Keys, and "Golden Teardrops" by The Flamingos. All 3 are STILL my "favourite song" to this day 66 years later, and there are probably more than 100 more added to them, which mean not one iota less to me than those 3.

As far as I remember, they were for ALL current products (which include BOTH new AND represses).