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Robbk

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Everything posted by Robbk

  1. A little more confusion for US Soul collectors who were baseball fans: There was a baseball player named Lou Johnson (nicknamed "Sweet Lou" - for his sweet swing with the bat? - or was it his sweet singing voice?). He played for The Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Because Lee Maye and a couple other baseball players were also professional singers, Sweet Lou was also often confused with Big Top's Lou Johnson. Lee Maye would record and take singing gigs mostly during the baseball offseason. But during rare 3-day breaks between games, he'd sometimes leave the team to do some music recording (With a group, or solo). I saw a recording of baseball's Sweet Lou Johnson singing, one time, so I know he could sing. I don't think he ever went pro, however.
  2. Wasn't Lou Johnson from The Greater New York/New Jersey/Connecticut Area? As far as I remember, L.V.Johnson was a Chicago artist. They certainly were 2 different people. Lou Johnson of Big Top, Big Hill and Hilltop Records was much older than L.V. (5+ years).
  3. And then, it can be changed back to something incorrect (just as "facts" can in Wikipedia)! The "Information Age" is not 100 % a good thing.
  4. What's going to happen when all of us who lived during that time will be gone. Who will be able to correct these ridiculous errors? If such errors are made only 50 years later, how much of a realistic idea do we have about what really happened in ancient Sumeria? In 100 years, "Ancient Alien Theory" will be accepted history, and Erich Von Däniken will be a revered expert historian!!!
  5. They are right. Top photo: Frank Wilson on piano, other man is Hal Davis. Middle photo: Marc Gordon on left, Hal Davis on right of Marvin.
  6. Thanks. Nice to see a music thread to which I can contribute, for a change. Sadly, 95% of my notifications of action on these fora in the last several weeks has been for the "Show Your Great Photos" thread. I guess a large portion of our regular posters are enjoying their holidays. As I dwell in 5 homes in 5 different countries every year, roaming from place to place like a Gypsy, I don't take holiday vacation trips. So, I poke my head in here almost every day, after arriving at my next house or flat. That's because, in each case, I'm home again, and get back into my normal routine after the usual 2 days of welcoming parties from my family and friends in each place.
  7. Yes, Bobby Relf sang lead for several groups in the early 1950s, many for John Dolphin's labels (Recorded in Hollywood, Lucky, Cash, Money) as well as Leon Rene's Class, Dot, and a bunch of L.A. labels. If I remember correctly, he went to Fremont High School with several other singers, where many of the big early South Central artists lived. The other big schools for talent were Manual Arts and Jordan H.S. Bobby was a sweet singer in the early '50s (a lot of ballads sung in the Jesse Belvin style). He started as lead of his first group, The Laurels. He also later sang with The Crescendoes, the Upfronts, Valentino and the Lovers (Donna Records) The Hollywood Flames and Bobby Day and the Satellites. He also sang solo as Bobby Valentino, and Bobby Garrett. Throughout the 1950s, members of many of the L.A. R&B recording and appearing groups were virtually interchangeable. Singers like Gaynel Hodge, Jesse Belvin, Bobby Day, Bobby Relf and many others could end up recording stray songs with other groups because that group had a singer missing, and they were at the same recording studio that day. Also, competition for jobs at venues was keen, so many singers were regular members of two, and sometimes even 3 groups at the same time, while also accepting solo gigs and also getting background singing work in the studios as much as possible.
  8. This is all quite puzzling. Sometimes companies had small staff, just working on the fly, with one arm not knowing what the other was doing. There were lots of ad-hoc actions and people not really knowing what they were doing. Imperial had Lew Chudd and only a few workers handling all of Imperials duties before they were bought out by Liberty Records. Just like Tamla(Motown), Chess, VJ, Modern, Aladdin, Specialty, etc. they were single entrepeneur, or family-owned business with a handful of workers handling all the various duties. And most were highly unorganised. No surprise that so many errors were made and there was so much inconsistency in policies and actions, and how the labels and company representations were.
  9. I'm not with my US 45s now, so I can't check. I know I have some with the X, from within the range of about 5400-5900 series. The Xs appeared both on designated DJ issues as well as on full-coloured store stockers. I don't remember the Xs appearing on both sides, so I always assumed that the X stood for the "hit" or "play" side, as the small marking (diamond) seemed to indicate the NON-hit side on US Decca/Coral/Brunswick 45s. But I never had that explained to my satisfaction. So, I'll be curious to find out the real answer.
  10. They are both original, from different pressing plants. I think that the top one is the Chicago (Midwest) pressing, and the bottom was pressed in L.A. (West Coast).
  11. What if they sang "The Same Thing"? Nice to see the young'uns listening to an accomplished group singing real music, for a change.
  12. Louvain did not remember any additional details about Jean Banks more than I did, and unfortunately, Banks' Grandson, Christian Parkman, never answered my message.
  13. Sorry! I'm even losing long term memory now. It's quite a bit longer than the drive I used to take from the Chicago south suburbs to Detroit 2 Saturdays a month, which was over 3.7 hours. I don't know why I remembered Terre Haute be so much farther north than it really is. It's actually in the southern half of Indiana. But, it's still reasonably close to both Chicago and Detroit for truck deliveries. Americans think nothing of driving 350 miles.
  14. The "C" probably stands for Chicago, as records pressed at Terre Haute were Mastered at Columbia's Chicago studio, given that the "T" for Terre Haute was also present on the record.
  15. It WAS a good seller. But, both the gray and pink pressings have a ZTSC code, indicating they were pressed in Columbia's Terre Haute, Indiana plant, which is pretty darn close to both Detroit AND Chicago (I'd guess less than 2 hours by truck). The particular deal that Don Davis had with Columbia, and their quality of pressing and mastering probably meant more to Revilot (Don & LeBaron) than the small shipping cost. On the other hand, knowing what I know about how fast styrene wears, I might have chosen ARP and gone local. On the OTHER hand, the styrene was probably cheaper, and may have saved them money there. That's a question for Don or LeBaron. But, sadly, one they can't answer. What do you mean by "Columbia press more locally?" They didn't have a plant in Detroit. They were close to both Detroit and Chicago, and had a New York plant. Seems to me they were pretty well located to compete with RCA. What other major had better pressing locations?
  16. None of them were pressed in Detroit. They were all pressed at Columbia's Terre Haute, Indiana plant. Yes, it makes sense that the gray ones were first. I only saw the pink ones in Chicago and L.A. So, maybe the grays were distributed only in Detroit, and the pinks elsewhere.
  17. Maybe Columbia Terre Haute ran out of pink paper near the end of the first print run? I've seen enough of the gray ones to indicate that they don't represent a small, test run. Running out of a certain coloured paper and using another random colour has been mentioned by pressing plant personnel as the reason for that several times.
  18. There seems to be more action here, lately, than all the Soul Music threads, combined!
  19. If it has a delta number but no monarch stamp, then it could well have been pressed at Alco (Steel Co.) also in L.A.
  20. I've got one of them, and was pretty sure it was pressed in the '60s. But, I'm in Denmark now, and not with my 45s. And after leaving here in 5 weeks, I'll be in Munich for 7 weeks, so I won't be able to check till September. But, maybe the Delta 84187 was a 2nd pressing. I know '71 was too early for press-ups for The NS Scene. But maybe he had a reason. Maybe Mouldy can ask him about the full history of every Shelly release?
  21. If that were true, that would mean Shelly released "Packin' Up My Bags" on Shelly 2 years AFTER Imperial picked up "Mama's Love"/"Gonna Build Me A Man". I thought they both were issued in 1969.
  22. Yes, "Mama's Love"/"Gonna Build Me A Man" on Imperial was also listed as '69. So, I guess my memory was wrong.
  23. That sounds too late, unless Shelly did a re-pressing in '69. I think it was 1966, or 1967 at the latest, if I remember correctly.
  24. So, Garrett recorded The Tribulations at Harmony Recording Studio on Melrose Ave. In Hollywood, and Imperial "sweetened it" (added strings?), or remix?, and changed it to stereo for their release. I remember it being played only for a week or two on KGFJ. Jimmy Connor's "Let's Get Married" was played for 2 months, and got better sales in Southern California.
  25. I saw those Shelly Records at all 3 Dolphin's of Hollywood (Vernon & Central) ,(Manchester & Broadway) & Crenshaw & Leimert, as well as Pat's Records on San Pedro Place and Vernon, Sam's and Flash Records, as well as Crains, back in the mid-late '60s. It was pressed at Monarch. It must have been recorded in L.A. There weren't any good recording studios in San Bernardino that I remember. I remember that The Tribulations appeared in South L.A. clubs a few times. I always thought they were the same group as The Imperial Tribulations. Their releases were pretty close in time. There wouldn't have been 2 different Tribulations groups operating in Southern California at the same time.


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