Robbk

I would like the following: Miracle, Gordy, Mel-O-dy, Soul(Motown), VIP, Anna Records, Tri-Phi/Harvey/Message, Fortune Records - or Fortune/Hi-Q, Correc-Tone/SonBert, Thelma/GeGe, Golden World/Ric-Tic/Wingate, Maltese, Stephanye, Solid Hitbound/Revilot/Groovesville, Groovesville/Groove City, Robert West Productions(Kudo/Flick/Bumble Bee/Contour/LuPine), Magic City, MAH's/D-Town/Wheelsville USA/Wheel City/MRC/Exit, Mickay's/Ring, Johnnie Mae Matthews Productions (Northern/Reel/Art/Bon/Jam/Northern-Del-La, etc.), LaBeat/Mary Jane/Cool School, Carrie/Ricare/Staff/Arnold/Lanrod, Karen/Carla/Moira/Ruth, HOB/Spartan/Soul/Starmaker, Sidra/Drew, Chex/Volume, Twirl/Storm, Hi-Lite/Rem/Pillar, One-derful/Mar-V-lus/M-Pac/Midas/Toddlin' Town/Kellmac, Boss Records (Chicago), United/States, Chance/Sabre, Parrot/Blue Lake, Cortland/Witch/Ermine, Renee/Sta-Set/Conduc/Lu-Cee/Big 3/Toi, Al Benson/Nayjean Productions (Crash/Glow Star/Mica/The Blues), Cobra, Bea & Baby, Marvello, Barry Despenza Productios (Contact/Despenza/Dispo), Giant(Chicago)/Globe, Zodiac/Aquarius/Boo, Formal/Night Owl, Daran, Tip Top/Nike/Chapel, Nation/Salem, Ran-Dee/Markie, Master Key Group, C.J. Productions, Mel London Productions(Chief/Profile/Age/Starville/Tamboo), Jack Daniels Productions (Bright Star/4 Brothers/Jadan/Chi-City), Tuff, Gotham/20th Century(Gotham Philadelphia subsidiary), Old Town/Paradise, Savoy/Gospel, old Jubilee, Sue/Symbol/Crackerjack/Broadway/Eastern/Juggy/J-M, old Kent, Excelsior/Exclusive, Apollo, Prestige, Highland, Post (Imperial subsidiary), Music City (Oakland label), SAR/Derby/Andex, Rainbow, Herald/Ember, Recorded in Hollywood/Lucky/Cash/Money, Hollywood, Ebb, Arvee, Blue Cat, Mark-X, Fame, Vault, Red Robin, Whirlin' Disc, Maylenn Dist., Dore, Keymen Dist., Flip, Dig/Ultra/Eldo, Flash, Vita, Magnum, Fantasy/Galaxy, Bobby Sanders Productions(Soultown/Kay-Bo), Glory, Lenox,Baton/Sir, Grand, Constellation, Caddy, Barry, 4-J, Celeste, Goldband, H.B. Barnum Productions(Little Star, etc.), Crimson, Swan, XYZ, As to existing company sleeves that I still need more of: Old Aladdin (1953-56 with photos of artists), old Atlantic (1949-55 with photos of artists), old Modern/RPM/Flair/Crown(1953-57), old Dootone(1954-57)/Dooto, old Imperial (1953-55), old Peacock (1953-57), latest Gone(1959-64), Bethlehem, 4-Star, National Record Distributors (NRC), Gee/Rama In the early 1970s, I bought 500 Specialty covers from label owner, Art Rupe, for about 8 cents a piece (his cost was 5 cents), he did me a favour. It wasn't worth his time to make the $15.00. They were deluxe quality, thick cardboard with slick outer sides and very bright, indelible colours (black & yellow). I still have some 50, or so, extra, in case I add any more to my collection (label run). I still have extra generic Motown, Motown, Tamla, Chess, VJ, Jubilee-Josie, Cameo-Parkway Dist/Cameo/Parkway, Jamie-Guyden, Jamie, early '50s King, Federal, De Luxe, Atlantic, ATCO, Class (both Blue and Red), early '50s Modern, and The Majors(All RCA/Vik/Groove/X), (all Columbia/Okeh/Epic/Date/Bang/Shout/Gamble), (all Decca/Brunswick/Coral), (all Capitol/Tower/Uptown), (all MGM/Cub/Metro/Verve), (all ABC, ABC subsidiaries mix/APT/Bluesway/Tangerine/Chancellor/Impulse/Probe/Oliver, (All United Artists UA/Unart/Musicor/Veep/DCP/Solid State), (all WB/Loma/Reprise/7 Arts/Warwick),(all Bell/Amy/Mala), Colpix), ARDCO (Allied Record Dist.), CIRCA, Universal(Uni/Revue/Kapp/Congress), London Dist.

He shouldn't have to buy it. He always got one of the 6 pressing plant test pressing copies. One other was sent to Quality Control, one to The Motown Corp. Record File, one to The Jobete Music Record File, and 2 were left at the pressing plant. My guess is that he kept all his personal copies.

I find it interesting that of Gordy's 3 songs given to Kent, Chess only released "That's Why....." (Printed as "Dat's Why..."), while "Am I The Man" was only released by a tiny New York indie label, Wizard, and Kent's "Lonely Teardrops" never came out.

I have no sense of humour. That's why I'm a comedy writer! The sad thing is that there were many, many record company owners a LOT worse than Gordy. He was a saint compared to Goldner, Levy, Tarnopol and the like.

600 pages of 1st hand memories of Detroit music during the '50s through the '70s is well £40, even with misspellings.

If Mr. Wingate were still alive now, you can be 100% certain that Al wouldn't be saying anything but nice things about him.

It might interest you all to learn that during the 1960s, approximately 79% of the records pressed at Columbia Terre Haute were for Detroit labels, 20 % Chicago (+Northwest Indiana) labels, and 1% Other Midwest (mainly St. Louis and Indianapolis, and a couple from Milwaukee). Apparently, local and regional Michigan plants couldn't handle the tremendous volume of Detroit product, while Chicago pressing plant competition to Columbia had most of Chicagoland's market sewn up. So Columbia gobbled up the Detroit indie label market. Interesting situation. The '60s Soul (spurred by Motown) and the "Garage Band" phenomena in Detroit blossomed so quickly and unexpectedly, that local facilities and potential entrepeneurs couldn't keep up with it. Luckily for Columbia, Chicago and Terre Haute were close enough to Detroit to serve both big city markets.

NO-neither the Chicago, nor the New York artists with records shown above were the "Handy Man" Jimmy Jones.

Is a "Calvalier" a Knight who rides a baby cow, instead of a horse?

No. Al Williams had a rounder head. I've seen a photo of him years ago.

Yes. And we hope our Dutch friends didn't take a whipping from Swarte Piet! I'm not a Christian, so I know that Saint Nicholas died in Anatolia about 1,700 years ago. But Father Christmas was a Norseman, so Happy Christmas (Glad Jul, Glaedelig Jul, Prettige Kersdagen, Frölich Weihnachten, Joyeux Noël, Hyvää Joulua, Feliz Navidad, Buon Natale, Happy Chanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, enz.) anyway!

I used to think there were only 6 store stockers pressed up originally as the test press run for the first pressing, which was cancelled by Berry Gordy. I had seen only the 2 of them in The Motown and Jobete Record Files, and the 2 that were originally found by Ron Murphy at ARP, and the copy that was given to Quality Control (Berry Gordy's would have been the other of the 6 test copies. But, seeing the copy with the hole pressed into it (for sale at the reduced price, leads me to believe that there might have been a single, small press run made especially for The Andantes (similar to Raynoma Gordy's special press run of 50 of her Little Iva Miracle Record. I still think it is extremely rare, as I never saw one in circulation. The hole-pressed one may have bee among records from Motown that had been given to a Detroit store owner. It's very hard for me to believe that that issue ever got to any stores, as I was visiting Detroit record stores and thrift stores, and visiting distributorships 2 Saturdays a month in 1964, and asking for any new Motown releases, and never saw it. I saw virtually every record that was actually released. I Think there were actually small press runs of Kim Weston "A little More love" before the pull-back, and same with Oma Heard on VIP. But, I believe the only existing Patrice Holloway and Andantes on VIP were the 6 press run test pressings, and then those press runs were cancelled (just like the Frank Wilson), with the possibility that a small batch were pressed up to satisfy The Andantes. In any case, I think there have been only 5 or 6 copies seen by collectors and people in the industry. It should still go for very big money.

I see now. The "audition copy" is darker and sharper. So, maybe it was just a vanity press run.

So, there WAS a DJ issue! That means that it wasn't just a "vanity" press run, but, perhaps, a small "test" run, just in Detroit, to satisfy The Andantes that it was "officially" released, but, quickly called back, as was done with Oma Heard's VIP single.

As far as I know, he was the piano player in The Miles Grayson Trio, and started out working in San Diego, California. He moved to Los Angeles in the late early to mid 1960s. He had records out on several small Soul indie labels in L.A. and San Diego during the 1960s. He was arranger on many reecording sessions in L.A. during the '60s and '70s.

As I stated above, I don't think The andantes' release was ever intended to be marketed or have sales. Berry wanted The Andantes to always be available to sing backgrounds to sweeten most Motown releases. So, he didn't want them having a hit record, and wanting to have a featurede singing career and want to go out on road tours. He had no intention of putting a push behind marketing any release of theirs. I think their VIP release was just a token "gift" to placate them, and received a "personalised" pressing level of only 50 or 100 records, as was done for Raynoma on her Little Iva Miracle record release.

No. None of those I mentioned had a drill hole. So, THAT copy is yet one more. There must have been a special small press run for The Andantes, perhaps of 50 or 100? Something like what was done for Raynoma Gordy's Little Iva Miracle record.

I have a mint one, with Quality Control in green placed on it with a hand stamper. Tom DePierro had one and there was one in the Motown Corp. Record File and one in the Jobete Music Co. Record File, and Ron Murphy had one, and I had seen one more (all during the early '70s. So, I know that there were more pressed than the 6 usually made from the pressing plant test pressing run. They were all yellow store stock. I never saw nor heard of any white DJ issues.

I have no doubt about this. I'm sure a press run of bootlegs would be made not only with the Surinaamse Sweet Soul collectors residing in The Netherlands in mind, but also sales in The Caribbean (both Dutch-speaking and non-Dutch speaking islands).

"Like A Nightmare" and "If You Were Mine" are "Pop Crap"? Or did you mean The Cute-Teens' cuts were crap? - I'd agree with THAT. But, The Cute Teens were Raynoma Gordy and her cousins, NOT The Andantes. So, I'm confused. I think The HDH composition, "Like A Nightmare" is a decent up-tempo Motown song, and would have been a regular-level Martha & Vandellas' mid 1964 release. I can't imagine Motown releasing a version of either of those awful Cute-Teens' cuts, although, they DID release some Motown versions of pre-Motown songs written by Berry, Gwen, Anna and Billy Davis published by Bengal, Fidelity, and Ro-Gor Music. But, those were much better songs.

Thanks. I'll skip it, then.

Can you please give me the URL of the homepage of that forum? I haven't heard of it. I only know of Soulful Detroit Forum.

The Charters' record was released on Motown subsidiary, Mel-o-dy Records. So, it was more than Motown-related. It was a Motown record. Whereas, The Cute-Teens was a Berry Gordy producton leased to Aladdin, and, as far as I know, it was NOT produced at Motown (I guess because it was pre-Motown (recorded during the time Ray-Ber Music Co. operated (or, perhaps, a little before that firm started up?). The Charters were a Toledo, Ohio group, who had written their own songs, and, if I remember correctly, had recorded their songs in Toledo, and just paid Motown to press up one batch of demo records for them. Maybe it was 25, 50 or 100 of them. Only 2 white DJ copies are known to exist today. So, it is dead rare. No pressed records of The Charters' Mel-o-dy 104 were sitting among The Motown Record File's Mel-o-dy Records or The Jobete Music Record File during the 1970s to 1980, when I had access to them - unlike The Frank Wilson Soul 35019, both of which were there (and those were NOT the two White DJ copies Ron Murphy found at ARP. So, we know there were at least 4 copies of The Frank Wilson seen, but only 2 of The Charters'. So, The Charters' was technically rarer. The Berry Gordy-related Fidelitones' Aladdin release, pressed up at the same time as The Cute-Teens, was not nearly as rare as The Cute-Teens'. I never saw The Cute-Teens' release in circulation, only photos and scans. But I saw a few copies of The Fidelitones (and it had a store stock press run. I never heard of a Cute Teens store stocker seen. Freddie Gorman was a member of The Fidelitones. There were rumours that Eddie and Brian Holland were members of that group as well. But, in later interviews, they said they were not in that group. I've seen a list of that group's members, and they were all well-known Detroit '50s and early '60s singers, with members that had, at times been with well-known Detroit groups.