Robbk

I haven't read Al's book. Did he mention the reason Wingate fired Redd? It couldn't be just his making an expensive long-distance telephone call on JoAnne's phone. He must have been talking over a personal deal with a record company in New York (maybe Musicor, or his financier of Redd Coach?) that wouldn't involve Wingate. Or was it a completely unrelated thing Redd did? In any case, it must have been a misunderstanding about Redd's relative independence from Wingate's employment of him. Maybe Ed thought Redd agreed to provide his songwriting and record producing services EXCLUSIVELY to HIS (Wingate's) operations, while Gene assumed that he was still a free agent, who could work on outside projects that wouldn't involve Wingate, as long as he'd fulfill his contract obligations to the latter, (as the written contract probably didn't including wording covering that subject, but Ed thought they had that understanding from their verbal discussions).

I think that could have occurred. I don't think Al would make that up. He'd have had to leave because of the sale, anyway. But that happened, and Wingate didn't like what he did, so that was likely the reason. Redd had things going in New York that he cared about more. Redd Coach started up not all that long after, and it must have taken some months of lead time for setting it up. So, he must have been looking for something that would look more promising than his revenue coming from his Detroit work.

Ed Wingate owned several hotels, apartment buildings, a few nightclubs, a Taxi cab business, ran numbers game, and other sources of income. He was hoping to do really well with Golden World, but didn't need to. He bought it partly for Joanne's entertainment, and some prestige. He wasn't making anything like Berry Gordy was with Motown, but Golden World WAS making money. It was said that his problem was that he had some things go wrong in one of his other businesses and needed a lot of cash right away. The word got out when he started asking for a big loan. Gordy jumped on that and offered him an amount he couldn't refuse, to get him out of business as a possible competitor (a Million Dollars was a LOT of money in 1966). Wingate re-opened Ric-Tic on a VERY small scale, and kept it going another 2 years, but lost interest after that. He hadn't earned as much as he thought he would renting out studio time. But that was because his own productions were on a bigger scale than he had planned. But THAT wasn't the reason he sold out. He hadn't really failed in that business. He was progressing towards doing well. There was only one Motown. He sold out because of other reasons. Succeeding in the music business wasn't his great goal in life. It was just one of many businesses he owned. IF he became a giant success at it like Berry Gordy did, and very quickly (after just a few years) he'd have been happy. But he certainly wasn't crushed by failing to do that (unlike Joanne, whose heart and soul was invested in it). At least my view of it is based on what I heard. Very early in Tamla's history (1961) when Ed came ton Berry, to get some advice on how to start his new record company, Gordy invited him to come into Motown as a partner. But Wingate turned down the offer, because he knew both of them were too strong-willed to compromise, and their working together wouldn't work. That shows me that it being a record company wasn't his dream. It was just one of many different attempts to make more money. IF it would make him a millionaire in just a few years... GREAT! If NOT, he'd move on to trying something else. If it had been his major goal, he'd have come back with a new record company over and over again after failures (Like Mike Hanks did several times - which only stopped because he got killed).

The most comprehensive description of Golden World's history that I can remember seeing is This "Webisode' at Soulful Detroit Forum's Archives' "Tours": https://soulfuldetroit.com/web07-golden world/golden world story/index.html I could add some details based on what documentation I've seen and what I've heard from insiders and Detroiters from the industry, who were around when those events were happening, and were told relevant information or 2nd hand descriptions from insiders, relating to your questions, but I'm very busy right now, working on a few different projects, and already being pulled in too many directions, and at almost 80, it's tough to rustle up the energy for even one task at a time. So it will be a while before I can get to this. I've already posted what I know (or, at least, have been told by trusted sources) related to some of your questions , on some previous threads on this forum and on Soulful Detroit. However, I can't remember, offhand, on which subforum they're located, nor their exact thread titles. But I do remember that we've discussed these issues before. Maybe I can clear some protracted time to post some brief (concise general) descriptions of what I remember within several days from now. But, maybe someone else here can remember the title of threads here, where we've discussed these questions. One thing you should remember is that Wingate's and Bratton (Jackson)'s operation was never nearly as large as Motown's, and so, they never had more than a handful of salaried, full-time employees. Everyone else, including the producers, background singers, songwriters, arrangers, session musicians, etc. were either ad-hoc workers, or free-lance contractors, paid by the project, or piece-work production or task, or similar basis by contract. Very few worked full-time and exclusively for GW/Ric-Tic. Sonny Sanders, Popcorn Wylie, Don Davis, Rich Morris, Richard Parker, Sidney Barnes, George Kerr, Gene Redd, Jr., Joe Hunter, Gil Askey, George Clinton, Freddy Gorman, Mike Terry, Sammy Lowe, Robert Banks, etc. All were free to work on outside projects while working on productions for Wingate (and most of them had other things going throughout their run at GW. Sonny Sanders was working with several other Detroit labels early in his GW run. He DID leave GW in late 1965, when he was offered a full time job with Carl Davis' Chicago Okeh Records office. But, even then, he probably started working on his first few Okeh productions before leaving Wingate, and was still allowed to finish up his last scheduled sessions with Wingate. Sanders was still spending ,some time in Detroit even while working in Chicago. So, he still did some "moonlighting there (maybe mostly on weekends?) Barrett Strong started working in Chicago in 1962, and worked with Calvin Carter at VJ, and met Carl Davis while working in Chicago. Strong had met The Artistics when they'd been appearing at venues shows in which Motown groups were also appearing. He and their lead singer, Marvin Smith, became good friends, and Strong offered to write several songs for Smith's group. Davis liked Strong's writing and asst. producing on recording sessions, so he offered him a full-time job with Okeh. Gene Redd had worked as a songwriter and artist demo producer for Jobete Music's New York office, and so, was a colleague of George Kerr and Sidney Barnes, and George Clinton in that capacity. Berry Gordy had Kerr & Barnes and Clinton make some trips to Detroit to present songs, record demos, and eventually, after closing down The New York office, asked them to move to Detroit to join Motown's writing and producing staff there. After several months working for Motown, they became dissatisfied that their songs weren't getting final recording (with "hit treatment", (most songs were just recorded as demos), and any that were final were only given flip side level instrumental mixes. We can only assume that they decided to leave, to gain more artistic control of their projects, and a better chance to make money. As they were in Detroit, they must have either come to Ed Wingate's attention, or they went to see him, looking to work for him. Wingate liked their work and they started working on productions. George Kerr found a financier in New Jersey to back a new label for him(Maltese), and Wingate allowed them to work out of his office, with Golden World distributing that label, and sharing the publishing when Wingate's own writers or producers were also involved. Kerr & Barnes and Clinton introduced their Jobete NY colleague, Gene Redd to Wingate, and Wingate made a similar distribution deal with him for his new Stephanye Records, sharing Maltese's office and using Wingate's Myto Music as publisher. I'd guess that there was no falling out with Wingate. Kerr, Barnes, Clinton and Redd were forced to leave partnership with Wingate when Gordy bought the recording studio (which included the office space), the contracts of Wingate's artists, publishing company, tape library. And Wingate signed an agreement to not operate a record company in Metro Detroit (or Southern Michigan), causing him to operate his stripped down, tiny, new Ric-Tic operation out of his house, with only a few artists/groups, and to make his new corporate address in Illinois, and record his artists mostly in Chicago. So, Redd returned to New York (where he'd never really left), and Clinton joined his former GW colleague, Don Davis at Davis and LeBaron Taylor's Solid Hitbound Productions (Revilot Records), and George Kerr returned to New Jersey (where he'd also never left - just having rented an apartment in Detroit-and commuting between there and New York). As to the ratio of recordings issued commercially to recordings made, I'd guess a much higher % of Wingate's recordings made were issued than that for Motown. I don't think we are missing very many that were recorded that were never issued. I noticed that SOME of the recordings on The Groovesville Masters bootleg tapes sold in The UK during the early 1990s were really Wingate productions, rather than Don Davis' own Groovesville productions. They were probably taken mostly off acetates, rather than from master tapes. Many Wingate acetates were left in Studio B when Motown took over, and they were just thrown in with Motown acetates (which is why Stephanye acetates like "My Kind of Girl" were found in Motown's storage). I don't think there were more than maybe a small handful of Wingate recordings for which we don't currently have recordings. More to come when I get some time.

"The Temptations Sing Smokey"

Thanks. I wondered why downstate, Centralia, in the middle of C&W yodeling country, would producer a Soul record. This meshes better with The Softiques' members memories of not recording any other songs, or having any releases. There were no backup singers, so I assume THESE Softiques were Spears' band musicians. Another of life's coincidences that the C&W record was pressed in Chicago, within no more than a couple years of the Soul group's Sheldon demo.

Apparently, The Softiques backed up John Spears on a Soul record from a tiny label in a farm town in rural Illinois. Unfortunately I couldn't find an MP4 of it on YouTube.

Yes, this and ALL other Sheldon Records are just demos, whether on acetate or vinyl. And they're not even made for distribution to DJs. The Softiques' was likely a special order, made by McCormack, who didn't want 100 or 200 DJ copies pressed, but only wanted to pay for maybe a box of 25 demos to hand to a few DJs with whom he had some connection or intro, and a few that he or General Johnson could use to promote the record to record companies. Bob A (may he rest in peace) said that member Betty Berry said that only a few were made. That's why it is so rare, and only a couple are known.

Thanks Dobber, Was The Condors on Sheldon issued on a vinyl commercial issue that looks like a real commercial record company label - something like The Softiques' Sheldon DJ copies? I knew The Condors same recording on Limelight, and as The Condors only on a Sheldon demo acetate. I have hundreds upon hundreds of US Midwest (and even some East Coast records) mastered at Sheldon. And an awful lot of Chicago Area productions were recorded there. But, to my knowledge, they didn't really operate a commercial record label (unlike many other recording studios who had their own successful record labels, some even operating subsidiary labels, as well. The Softiques seems to have been an unique, special case. I've never seen another Sheldon record that were vinyl non demo one-offs, but were actually commercial-looking DJ vinyl pressings. There was one other Sheldon Records issue with the same coloured label design as The Softiques; but it was just an an advert to promote Sheldon's services, with various 10 seconds snippets of the various music genres they'd recorded.

Thanks very much, Hunter! This is one of the few of his interview I haven't yet heard.

Clearly, the recent pressing's version with the chopped of ending of "Two Kinds of Boys" was taken off an acetate left at Sheldon's recording studio, in case McCormack would be successful using the small run of DJ copies to shop his record to a "real" record company. Sheldon didn't really have a commercial record label. They mainly recorded mastered records, and cut demo acetates or vinyl demos. I was shocked to see that they pressed up commercial-looking DJ issues with a colour label for McCormack. I rather doubt that the press run was more than 100 (2 boxes of 50), probably only 50. They are dead rare. I don't think they got any airplay. I didn't hear them played on WBEE, WVON, or WNYR. And from Bob's (May he rest in peace) comments, I assume that the girls never even knew the DJ issues were pressed up. They probably knew only about a couple demo acetates McCormack got, to shop the record to a real record company. Betty Berry (Crawford), lead singer on "Bashful" went on to hook up with Ruth Moore, to be in a couple later groups (Destiny and Coffee). Gloria Lewis, (Lead on "Two Kinds of Boys") left the business when she became pregnant, and the group broke up. "Two Kinds of Boys" is a super mid '60s Chicago Soul Sound, which is right up there in quality with lots of Curtis Mayfield's and Carl Davis' best, and deserved a better fate. Too bad The Girls didn't get any money from their 2009-present sales. The interview mentioned that Gloria Carver and Valencia Gray were the other 2 members. I'd like to find out with which other labels McCormack worked, and how General Johnson was involved (as financier and marketer?).

Thanks Marcos, But I'm trying to get to his Artist Interview shows, specifically, his interview of Betty Berry (Crawford) of The Softiques. I was blocked from the site, with an error message that seemed to imply that the website doesn't exist. Maybe the security settings on my new computer are set too high? Robb

I tried to go there, and got an error message that implied that it is no longer accessible (or in operation). I had thought that some people were given access to it to save it.

Interesting to see a photo of little Simon, with his mother and aunt from Morocco (probably taken after they moved to France). And it's also interesting that one of our Airwave Records singing artists, Art Posey was co-writer, together with Simon, on "Mr. Big Shot". It's a very small World!

This was a really weird situation, which rarely occurred in most small label leasing deals to distribute nationally. In most cases, the small record company makes their first pressing locally, and if the sales go very well, hasn't received enough revenue back from them to pay the cost to press up enough records to meet the high new demand from the record shops. So they make a regional or national pressing/distribution deal with a larger record company (label) who has much wider distribution and good distributor sales coverage. Often, the smaller label has not enough cash left for pressing enough records even for local coverage. So, the small label leases sales and distribution rights to the larger label and distributor, even for their local area. When the smaller label did have enough cash, they usually kept the local rights for themselves, and continued to press locally (as Tamla did in 1959-60 when they leased some of their records to United Artists and Chess). The first pressing of this Ballad's' release was pressed locally in The San Francisco Bay area. (I bought it new). The second Wee Records pressing was pressed up in Chicago, or L.A. most likely pressed by VJ, the lessee label, probably along with their VJ DJ issues (also containing the "Bunky's Pick" endorsement) as a precursor to VJ's national store stock pressings and their distribution. Bunky Sheppard was still a producer with VJ at that time, who also had his own labels distributed by VJ. A local San Francisco Bay Area label wouldn't have printed the "Bunky's Pick" endorsement on their records, without their being distributed by VJ. It only appeared on Bunky's own labels, and his VJ productions. I suppose that The Wee owners insisted upon retaining the Bay Area sales rights, but didn't have the money to press up their new local issues, and wanted to fill the local shops' orders as soon as possible. So they had VJ press up a new batch of Wee issues to get them out faster, possibly save a bit of cost, and have VJ just recoup their pressing costs from the first batches of VJ sales. You are correct that this 2nd Wee issue is, by far, the rarest issue. I've only seen a couple of them, whereas, I've seen hundreds and hundreds of the first (Oakland) Wee issue, and many more hundreds of copies the various VJ pressing issues (from L.A., Chicago, New York, The South). I think this 2nd Wee pressing was pressed in Chicago (based on the label design and font). L.A.'s Monarch VJ pressing of this record with "Bunky's Pick" on it had a similar style, but the print was sharper, and the letter thickness (width) was a bit different.

Thanks for remembering the thread and posting this. My copy was a bit different. It had James Brown on both sides, and I remembered him singing along with the rhythm track that was the backing for The Bobby Byrd side on this issue. I could have sworn that James was singing to it, rather than just talking. But, it was 55 years ago, and his singing on his last King and his Polydor records didn't sound all that much more melodious to me than just talking. But, my photographic memory still tells me BOTH sides were James, and he was backed (at least on one side) by the Rhythm Track that backed up Byrd on this issue. Maybe mine was just a variant of this public service issue? Maybe there were two different pressings? And maybe my memory just added the "Good Gawd" and screeching yells, and, perhaps a few grunts (conflated from other Funk songs of his). Too bad! MY memory's version was better (and funnier) than this. And that's the way my friends remembered it, too. It's a bit of a disappointment. The "legend" that we morphed it into, was much better than the "real thing".

"Any Girl in Love" by Gladys Knight & The Pips was a big surprise to me. I don't recall ever having heard that song. We had, of course, screened Kim Weston's version for placement in the "From The Vaults" LP series. And I like that one slightly better. But Gladys Knight's version is also very good. I especially like that an extra track with a sax solo was added to the break. But, I like Kim's vocal better, and also like The Temptations' background vocals better than The Pips. I find it interesting that Johnny Bristol wrote and produced a new song for Martha and The Vandellas in 1969 that copies their first hit style from 1963, from "Heatwave", which already had a couple clones in "Quicksand" and "Live Wire". I guess that after 2 years of diminishing sales, he thought to gamble on going back to what made them popular. It's good, but not very memorable, because it sounds like several (many?) other Motown songs. Nice that these new 7 inchers have been made available for 45 collectors.

I can't believe it's been 10 whole years since he's left us. His saving the knowledge of our especially our rare and lesser-known Chicago Soul music heritage, as well as helping many of the former music artists, made The World a better place. It's a shame he left it so early in life. I hope he's in a better place now. Just like Dr. Robert Stallworth, Robert Campbell did for Chicago Rhythm & Blues, Blues and Jazz of the 1930s-early 1950s, and Robert Pruter did for late 1950s and 1960s Chicago Soul, Bob Abrahamian helped to chronicle especially obscure 1960s and 1970s Chicago Soul, for posterity, for the newer generations to learn about their heritage and be able to listen to a lot of great music that they wouldn't have been otherwise able to hear. Interesting to me that he found a fair amount of great recordings by combing South Side record shops and thrift stores many, many years after I did, that I never saw, and in addition, he made the effort to meet as many of those artists as he could. We were very fortunate to have him as a member of this forum. And I'm very glad to have met him, and dealt with him personally. He was a stand-up guy, and will be fondly remembered.

I have that record. I think the "A" side, Gene Chandler's "Miracle After Miracle" is 1000 times better. The Van Dykes were a "Four Seasons clone group", whose original label was New York's Co-Op Records, which released several of their 45s. After having a minor regional hit with "Miracle After Miracle", they had to change their group name to "The Van Dyke 5", because of The Van Dykes, who had been recording for King Records. Here is one of their charted cuts from their original Co-Op label:

I have a couple 45s by The Vondors, who were from Columbus, Ohio, and recorded in Cleveland. I have their record, Holiday 125 "Look In The Mirror"(vocal)/"Foot Loose"(Instrumental)". I think I got it in 1966 or '67. My copy is a darker orange, but couldn't be thought of as being red. I think it sold decently in The Columbus area, because I've seen several copies. I've never seen any Vondors' record on a red label. I've never heard "Rich Girl". I'd love to hear that. "Look In The Mirror has a great "Chicago-like" late '60s sound, with a super sax break! Here it is:

A very interesting theory! Knowing what some of the record company owners did to save money, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. And, of course, when the record shop owners complained that they got demos instead of store stockers, they would just apologise and claim it was a printing error, but the customers won't even notice the small print.

Thanks for the snippets! I really like the idea of the Doo Wop song. Too bad they hit those flat notes. The base parts, however, are super. It sounds like straight out of New York in late 1956 or early '57. Takes me back to my early teens. Which Shrine group sang that one?

Yes! I agree 100%. JD Bryant's A side is one of my couple favourite Shrine cuts. It's a shame it's not included. Why was it left out? Not available for remastering? - or the only available copy was too beat up?

Must be backstock directly from Sammy Kaplan's kids or grandchildren.

Thanks. I have The Supremes Four, Twilighters and Harvey Scales & 7 Sounds, and Birdlegs & Pauline on 45. But I never heard The Esquires (which is very nice). I hadn't ever heard Step by Step, and 2 of the Betty Moorer or The Devilettes. I guess I should have gone to Kirchstein's more than once.