Robbk

No Motown completists here interested in this find? I am surprised. We have an e-mail in to Al Abrams, to see if he remembers anything about these recordings. Clearly they were just demos to test the newly acquired recording equipment, and the rumour about them being pressed on an unnumbered pink Motown 45 issued before The Miracles' "Bad Girl" is inaccurate, based on misconceptions and quotes taken out of context. I'm wondering if Wylie just sold the tapes to that Australian guy, because Gordy had no plan to use them for anything.

Here are links to the cuts for you to listen: Leedon was Australian record label owner Lee Gordon's label. It has been surmised that Gordon, while in Detroit in 1959, visited Motown, and apparently, liked "Rumble", and leased the 2 cuts from Motown, for immediate release on his Australian and New Zealand labels. Either he had a connection in Detroit, from whom he was referred to Motown (possibly promoter, Mickey Schorr?), or while there, he heard "Rumble" played on the radio. The rumour is that a small press run of unnumbered pink Motown pressings were made to hand out to DJs. I really wonder if "Rumble" was played at all by Detroit DJs. IF so, Gordon may have heard it on the radio. Do any of you old-time Detroiters remember hearing "Rumble" by Popcorn Wylie on the radio in summer 1959? I find it interesting that neither song has rights owned by Jobete, Bengal, Fidelity, Ro-Gor, Stein and Van Stock, or any Motown-related music publisher, currently listed on BMI.com or ASCAP.com., and even more interesting that Australian label-owner, Lee Gordon, listed himself as co-writer of the two songs (together with Popcorn Wylie) on the pressings of his New Zealand (and likely his Australian) releases. THAT makes me wonder if he did that as he was giving Wylie his only chance to get artist publicity and songwriter royalties, as this was the two cuts' only commercial release (e.g. Motown never released this record).

According to a Richard "Popcorn" Wylie discography, the following 2 cuts on Australia's and New Zealand's Leedon Records in 1959 were also on an unnumbered Motown 45, ostensibly before TLX2207, "Bad Girl" by The Miracles, which came out in September of 1959. Here are scans of the Leedon sides: I looked up the record and songs on "Don't Forget The Motor City", and they weren't listed. I looked up the songs on BMI.com and ASCAP.com, and the songs weren't listed. I never saw nor heard those 2 cuts on tapes or acetates in The Motown Vault, or on any official or unofficial Motown recordings or record list. They do sound like 1959 Motown recordings, with Popcorn playing the piano, and someone sounding very much like Beans Bowles on the sax, and with Motown's early house band (Joe Hunter's Band, but with Popcorn on piano, rather than Joe) doing the backing.

In scarfing up thousands of 45s in the '50s and '60s, I had hundreds of instances of thinking I already had a record and passing it up, only to find that I didn't have it, and going the other way, not sure if I had it, and, so, buying it, only to find that I already had it, with 3-4 extras among my duplicates. It was impossible to take lists around with me and look all up and down a list each time I looked at a record. With prolific groups like The Platters, Flamingos, Drifters, and single artists like, Muddy Waters, Bobby Bland, etc., it was virtually impossible to remember which non-hits I had by them, and which I didn't have. That's how a collector builds up a stock of tradeable and saleable duplicates, in addition to condition upgrading.

Those lyrics certainly ring a bell with me. I have heard that song many times. But, i can't place it now, out of context. Maybe I havent heard it for the last 40 years.

Dora Hall, aged grandmother whose millionaire husband, Leo Hulseman, financed her narcisist recording "career" from profits from his Solo Cup Company (water cooler cups). She sang mostly re-makes other legitimate stars' hits. Margaret Whiting was a very poppish 1940s Pop singer who had a NS hit with a song she recorded in the mid 1960s. I wouldn't term Little Lisa a Soul artist, despite her singing over But, then, quite a bit of so-called Northern Soul was never considered Soul Music by me. some Motown backgrounds.

That Horace recording is not nearly as good as the Enterprise version. Is it a much later remake? Where was Horace located, and who produced it and put it out?

Your issues were both pressed at RCA (Midwest) , thus the stamper and L8OW codes. That was probably a regionwide issue. Maybe the issue being offered to De-To was a local pressing at a small Detroit plant that was the first small local pressing (thus the etching-only of the H numbers (Motown's in-house code). I can't imagine enough interest in Eugene Remus' cuts to warrant a special lookalike boot. If such a boot had been made, it would have been made for Motown completists, and we'd have seen more early Motowns and Tamlas booted, as well as the Rayber, and probably the rarer Miracle records. ​

I concur that Eugene Remus did NOT have a boot in the early '80s when a few Satintones (Motown and Tamla) and Miricles on Motown and a rare Miracles' Tamla side were all booted. If you scan it and put it up here on this thread - with good resolution, I (and probably others of us here) could tell you if it looks fake.

I can't check mine as I won't be with my US 45s until September. But it sounds like it MIGHT be legit. I don't remember ALL the early Motown pressings having machine stamped-in entries. Have you checked "Can't Forget The Motor city" website?

Henry Hull was one of the great American film actors.

The otherwise very extensive and thorough bio was missing Carl's contract and time with Mercury Records. Not so critically important, but I was surprised, nonetheless.

Absolutely! That has got to be an original West Coast styrene pressing from Monarch. The boots photocopied off an original label had weaknesses and thin spots in the black print. The blemishes and fading on the label appear to be from a very long period (like 50 years).

Clearly, that is "Unity" Records. The part that looks like a "C" is the extension of the letter "U", analogous to the extension to the right of the lettern "Y".

My guess is that the value isn't all that great. I doubt that it is sought by many R&B collectors. Holiday was one of the many labels owned and run by Bobby Robinson (famous NY record shop owner). There were several very good mid-'50s vocal group harmony releases on that label.

"Oh Baby" is a Kent Harris song?

I don't profess to have any "inside" information on those particular events. I am only surmising based on knowledge of the industry and logic. The scenario I described has happened thousands of times, and I can't imagine a different set of events that could have led to those same occurrences.

The first pressing occurred before Spector changed the deal, or demanded his pressing/distribution deal logo rights (that were erroneously unheeded) be carried out, and got A&M to get that done on the 2nd pressing. Then, he caught their oversight error in the 2nd pressing (of forgetting to put his logo on the B side), and made them do that on a 3rd pressing. Both parties certainly thought that there was more than enough demand for all the pressed records to be sold. Spector likely demand that A & M not send any more "faulty" pressings to the distributors. But A&M not wanting to waste money, probably sent them against his wishes, knowing he'd never be able to prove they were not from the already distributed and sold batches.

What about " A fan of 'all Soul music that's faster than a draggy torch ballad' "

I like "Goodbye Baby" by Little Janice. It's a bluesy torch ballad. Too slow for most of you on this Forum. But a very memorable song.

That's where the 5,000 copies of "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" by Frank Wilson are stored. They never melted them down. Of course, if they are all put on the market, they'll be down to a Quid apiece!

Yes, Carl. The early days of Soulful Detroit (2002-2006) were truly classical. We had a lot of industry people as regular posters (as I listed above - singing artists, musicians, producers, label owners, sound engineers and major record collectors. We had many classical informational threads, with personal histories and stories of what happened back in the day, discographies and threads with multiple hundreds of high-quality scans. Part of my expertise on Detroit R&B and Soul came from what I learned from many of those people, and we major Detroit collectors pooled our knowledge, and discographies and scans so that we filled in a lot of the "missing" records in label runs (just as we do on Soul-Source). That forum is now a shadow of what it was during its first half of its existence.

Well, it was the MALE members of The Elgins. But missing Elgin Saundra Mallette Edwards.

On "Motown Junkies", we have had Cornell Blakely, Robert Dobyne, Frances Nero, Carolyn Crawford, Ray Oddis (Otis), and some others posted or still post, plus several children of '60s artists. We have also had some children of '60s artists post on Soulful Detroit.

Yes. Several members there led that effort.