Robbk

(1) As far as I remember, from what was related to me from others based on what Robert had told them, and what I heard him say in interviews, and the date code on the Versatile record, and what is written in the Soulful Detroit Fred Bridges article, I concluded that The Fred Bridges Versatile Record WAS. indeed, a Correc-Tone production, that was recorded at Special because that was before Correc-Tone's studio was completed, and Golden was out of cash to pay for its pressing, because he had used all his ready cash to pay for his new studio's equipment and materials. So he sent Bateman to New York to Shop some of their recordings in pressing/label/distribution/partial publishing deals. He did the same with The Pyramids sold to VJ, The Donays, Laura Johnson, and Marva Josie, and a few others. (2) I assume that those "Chimes" weren't Willie Jones' Chimes, but rather James Cleveland's Gospel Chimes (of Detroit), also known as "The Original Chimes", who recorded for Carmen Murphy's House Of Beauty Records. (3) Yes, that is "Carnegie Center" (Music Hall) located in Pittsburgh, PA. Robert also pronounced a few other proper nouns in a very funny way. "Carnegie Hall" is in New York City. But Robert called their venue "Carnegie Center" which is located in Pittsburgh and also has a music hall. So Pittsburgh must be where they performed.

Well, it is valuable to me, as I got to hear Bateman's voice, and so, get a better feeling for how he felt about past events, than I had had hearing about those events second hand from others (For example, his decision to leave Motown, based on Mickey Stevenson's steering him towards Wilbur Golden's plans to form his new Correc-Tone Records, and recording studio, which Stevenson told him HE was jumping too (for the big salary raises Golden was offering, and also telling Bateman that Eddie and Brian Holland and Popcorn Wiley were also jumping ship, possibly to leave lots of room for advancement for himself (as he really may have been planning not to leave after all)). When Bateman went to Berry to ask for a raise in pay, and after being turned down, threatened to leave for Golden's offer, Berry wished him good luck in his post-Motown career. Gordy then went to The Hollands and Stevenson, and offered them significant pay raises and bought them brand new Cadillac cars. Bateman felt stabbed in the back, and I heard that in his tone when he spoke about the incident and Stevenson taking what would have been HIS job as chief producer. As it turns out, only Wiley, and his fellow Satintones (some of whom morphed into Correc-Tone's Pyramids), and Janie Bradford who remained Motown's secretary and contracted songwriter, but moonlighted for Golden as a songwriter, under the alias of "Nikki Todd". Ex-Motowner Don "Juan" Mancha signed with Golden as another producer. And Herman Griffin left Motown to form his own Hit and Hit Sound Records, which, I believe was at least partially funded by Golden and distributed by Golden's distribution system (small regional only at first) and later, nationally, by Atlantic Records. There were some other recollections from Robert that gave me good insight, as well. They were all as I had guessed, but it's nice to have them confirmed from "the horse's mouth. So, I greatly appreciate your work and your sharing it with everyone instead of forcing us to buy a book (which I'd have bought gladly, anyway).

(1) dftmc.info does NOT have "Love is What You Make It", or "Last Night I had a Vision", which, together, make up half of the 4 Eddie Holland songs I remember that were on a 10-inch recording studio acetate, from late 1964 (if I remember correctly), which was a Motown in-house demo, rather than Jobete Music Co. "Proof Of Ownership" acetate, pictured above (which Tom DePierro and I also had found in Motown's Vault (clearly made by Mike Valvano for Quality Control review), which 13 years later, we considered for potential release in Motown's "From The Vaults" LP project). (2) I'm sure that several Motown collectors in USA, who always kept to themselves, got several of them, which is why The NS community doesn't know where they landed. Nobody knew what records I had until the first NS DJ found out about me and my collection quite a few years after Brits were coming to The US looking for rare Soul records. There were some US collectors who were unknown by even most US collectors until they died and their collections were sold off.

Thanks Graham, for this interesting interview. I didn't learn anything new, but it did confirm a lot that I had heard from other old-time Motown insiders and other people involved with '60s Detroit Soul.

Your legitimate Golden World Studio acetate or vinyl in-house demo record indicates that Parker either took Hughes to Detroit to have Mike Terry record him, and arrange the songs, and also conduct the background track sessions, OR, tha Parker conducted Hughes' vocals sessions in Chicago or L.A., and had Terry produce the instrumentals sessions using Detroit (mainly ex- and then-current Motown musicians (moonlighting). Lots of Motown records had their recording session split between 2 cities, with vocals in one and instrumentals and background vocals in the other, or vocals and instrumentals in the city of the artists record company, OR with everything but a few extra instruments tracks and final mixing in the other city, or everything except final mixing in the 2nd city's recording studios. I remember split sessions by Joe Hunter for Duke Records in both Houston and Detroit, and by Hunter in Detroit for Golden World, and by Bert Keyes for GW in New York. As the music sounds like Detroit's musicians, he recorded, at least the instrumentals there, and also did the final mixing there. have you heard that Fred Hughes' vocals were recorded there? Unless we see some documentation or statement by people that were there at the time, I'd still guess Parker ran the vocal sessions in Chicago or L.A.

Goffin-King, Stevenson-Hunter, Van McCoy, Ashford-Simpson, Ashford-Simpson-Armstead, Whitfield-Strong, H-D-H, Fuqua-Bristol, Cosby-Moy-Wonder, Lieber-Stoller, Rudy Clark, Strong-Sanders, Dean-Weatherspoon, Smokey Robinson, Robinson-White, Barry-Resnick, Greenwich-Barry, Lowman Pauling, Curtis Mayfield, Mayfield-Butler, Chuck Berry, Billy Davis, B. Gordy Billy Davis-G.Gordy, Bateman-Holland-Gorman, Sharon McMahon, Mann-Weil, Maron McKenzie, etc. Too many to remember.

Those Herman Griffin and Ed Wingate partnership productions that were issued by Wand and Columbia/Date were, indeed produced and recorded in Detroit. Diane Lewis was certainly a Detroit artist. But Herman's ladyfriend (were they ever married) Gigi (lead of The Charmaines) was from Cincinnati. But, most of his recordings of her were done in Detroit or Toledo. But, I believe that all the Columbia recordings were made in Detroit. So, we should consider them Detroit productions.

Tom DePierro and I had an acetate of that recording in our stack of acetates and demo records for "From The Vaults", we found in The Motown Vault. I had it on my suggested list for one of our project's later LPs. I don't recall that one turning up in those 1980s and 1990 auctions, where most of them ended up in The UK. I remember that it had Eddie Holland's name on it along with the song title, so it must have been a Motown demo record, rather than the creme-coloured red typed Jobete Music "Proof of Ownership" acetates. But, now that I think of it, I seem to remember it also being on a bigger Lp-type acetate, containing 4 songs, all by Eddie Holland, if I remember correctly. I think it was from 1964. I remember finding the demo record because I remember being glad it was from the period 1962-1964, because that was my favourite Motown period, and I was fighting hard with Tom to get as many of the earlier sounds in the LPs. We found several more cuts from that period by several artists in that stack. If no one in The UK NS or Motown Collecting communities remembers seeing it, maybe an American or Canadian bought it?

To me, The Roddie Joy also sounds like Richard Tee's (NY) band, rather than Motown, or a Wingate Funk Bros, or Davis-Taylor Solid Hitbound recording. It's a bit tinnier, although it's one of Bateman/Tee's better Detroit style copies.

"Do The Duck" was a "G & G Production", which probably stood for Griffith (Herman) and Gordon (Marc). So Jobete's Co-Manager, Marc Gordon brought a song written by his own Jobete Music writing crew (The Lewis Sisters) to Griffith's Joker Records to press it and release it on local L.A. artists, because Motown did nothing of importance with it (e.g. not recorded by a star Motown act, and not given a release with a strong marketing push). So, we see the symbiotic relationship L.A. Jobete music had with Joker Records. Joker would provide some songwriter-producers who could write songs whose demo recordings produced by those producers could entice Motown to buy the songs, increasing Jobete's profits, and paying their staff, and Joker would also fund and produce the recording session of the production of the L.A. artist or group's final recordings, an the pressing of the records, and use their own distributor to distribute the records IF Motown DIDN'T buy the songs or have a successful sales level IF they did. That set-up formed a hedge against the potential danger of Motown's not buying songs or not creating significant residual income from their releases, allowing Jobete Music and their local L.A. record company's and their producers to get a reasonable shot at generating the sales and songwriting and music publishing residual income themselves. That worked well for the L.A. producers, Marc Gordon and Frank Wilson's "You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet", "Let Me Know" and a couple others by Mary Love with her contract with Modern Records, but not with any of the Joker issues, as Joker didn't get nearly as good songs, and didn't have the best distribution and marketing staff connections. Personally, I think "Love's Gonna Do You In", by The Autographs was a good enough recording, and The Autographs were a good enough group to have a big regional hit, or minor national hit. They were really talented singers and a tight group with good harmony, and they were tight with their dance choreography, too. Like so many other groups, they could have been big stars if Motown would have signed them in 1965, and given them a proper push. But Joker didn't have the marketing clout. Griffith was a well-respected DJ in the business, but he was interested in too many different things (Civic projects, Charities, other business ventures (He owned Crain's Records, and I believe, one more business), and had big time commitments for KGFJ and his job there,- so he couldn't concentrate fully on Joker, and he didn't have a talented enough staff at the label to make it big with Griffith pulled away in so many directions.

Wilson went elsewhere, to Soul City Records, because that was Marc Gordon's label. He may have formed that label to sign promising artists that Motown didn't want to record (Al Wilson and The Versatiles, who had changed their name to The Fifth Dimension, who recorded 3 demo tapes at Motown that didn't impress Motown Enough to release a record on them (until they were signed by Motown in the 1970s). Those 2 acts had most of Soul City's releases.

"Was the Joker Records label, based in Los Angeles (?) associated with Motown? ALL the releases are published by Jobete music, the publishing affiliate of Motown Records. Did Berry Gordy own or part-own this label and use it to release records that didn't suit the main Motown labels?" L.A.'s Joker Records was owned by LA KGFJ DJ, Herman Griffith and a partner, and he was friendly with Hal Davis, who, along with producer, Marc Gordon, ran Motown's Jobete Music's West Coast Office. And ALL of Joker's songs were NOT published by Motown's Jobete Music. "Jan-Cris Music" was Joker's in-house publisher, and published most (about 75%) of their songs. Jan and Cris were the names of Griffith's two daughters. The reason for 8 of Joker's songs being published by Jobete is that several of Joker's producers and songwriters were writing songs for Jobete L.A. (like Chester & Gary Pipkin, Vince Love, Charles Wright, Willie Hutcherson (Hutch), and others). A few of them were signed to Jobete as songwriters and Producers, who produced the "proof of ownership" recordings and artist demo records. Whatever they produced that Jobete wanted to own, the company bought. Even when Jobete bought a song, the local L.A. writer/producers, by contract, had the rights to put out commercial record issues on artists not signed to Motown (often demo singers and background singers), IF and when Motown had not issued its own commercial release on that song, within 6 months of buying its publishing rights. That is how so many Jobete songs were released sung by Mary Love (LA Jobete background singer) on Modern Records, and so many Jobete songs were issued on Joker Records, and Jobete LA producer Frank Wilson, issued songs sung by himself on his own local label (Power Records), as well as VJ's Tollie Records, and by Connie Clark on Joker.

Yes, Soul King was Ron's label. It had about 5 issues (all Detroit Soul previously unreleased on vinyl). I didn't ask him, but Ron was always a real stand-up guy; so I'm guessing they were "legal".

I only ever remember seeing the light orange issue, and am pretty sure I saw it in a used records bin before 1970 (maybe 1965?). So, my guess is that it is the 1962 pressing. But, I can't be sure. I was looking for records a LOT more during the early and mid '60s than after 1969, when I was in my last year of undergraduate university and in 1970, when I was in Graduate School (university). I'll be curious to find out if the dark orange is the 1970 pressing, or just a different 1st issue press run.

Very nice to hear things from "the horses mouth" (the guys that made the music). Keep 'em coming!

Thanks Steve, for that clarification. I had thought that Garrison Records was half-owned by Garris and half by one of the Scepter-Wand partners, or the Scepter Wand Firm, similar to Motown' Rich Records (half owned by Berry Gordy and the other half by Rev. James Hendrix (and was treated like a Motown subsidiary).

Many, if not most of those Manhattan addresses were skyscrapers with large suites with hundreds of post boxes (like 1619 and 1650 Broadway). Tiny, and other small, and even mid-sized record companies had post boxes in them, to have a prestigious Manhattan address. Many of them did not have an office in those Downtown buildings, as they never could have afforded the rental costs. Even having the same suite number only meant that they were only one of several hundred post boxes in a suite filled with post boxes, that looked like the outer area post box room in a large local, or regional post office. Those 3 subsidiary labels probably just had a single room, each, inside Calla's suite of offices (which may not even been located in Lower Manhattan). And they probably all used (borrowed) Calla's meeting room to hold their business meetings.

Garris was in charge of daily operations of both Wand, and his own, Garrison Records (a Wand subsidiary). So, he may have signed the deal before the decision was made as to whether or not it was going to be released on Wand or Garrison. But, I doubt that it was first slated for Garrison and later changed to Wand. It had previously sold very well in Chicagoland, so I think they intended it for Wand from the start, to give it the best chance (promotional push) all over USA, whereas Garrison had less ability to push records outside of The Northeast, and Great Lakes Area (despite both labels being distributed by Scepter-Wand's distributors all across the nation).

I got the Ivorys on the early label font/design in late 1966, so this post has the order correct, as I also remember the later Despenza issues' designs coming in 1968 or 69, and again at the beginning of the 1970s, after its Wand run, whose issue I didn't see sold or promoted, in Chicago record shops, but only found later in thrift stores or discount store record stock dump-offs.

This is all true. The Tangiers on Decca WERE the same group on Specialty, and same as The Jets on Aladdin, ? Marks on Swing Time, Turks on Cash (with Jesse Belvin added), and Bobby Day & Satellites on Class. They had Robert (Bobby Byrd (Day) and other L.A. resident singers in their group. They were MUCH older than the Baltimore group, with NO connection possible that I can imagine.

I don't recall coming across any tapes or acetates, or demo records of "Call Me" by Chris Clark while sifting through The Motown Vaults in the 1970s, or seeing any reference to that on any Motown Unreleased CDs, or lists of Motown Recordings. I certainly would have listened to it for possible inclusion in "From The Vaults". I also don't remember seeing it on the website with the list of all Motown recordings. Chris Montez had a hit with "Call Me" in 1965 in USA; while Petula Clark did in The UK. But that was a completely different, Pop song. Edward Hamilton's song is a long-time favourite of mine, I bought when it was out.

That's not too bad. It was a bit muddier at the beginning (1st 12 seconds, or so), when Edward was speaking faster, and slurring his words a bit. So, I missed too many in the first few sentences to get much from that part. But the rest was understandable. It sounds like his memory for dates was mixed up. It sounded like he and his group (The Arabians?) were still in high school when they went to interview and try out at Motown, but were told they were too young, and to come back after they'd have graduated. So, they must have been about 16 or 17 years old. But, the year mentioned was 1966. Yet, Edward mentioned that they had had 3 records out before that interview. But the interview with Don Davis, who had been recording The O'Jays andThe Playboys/Fabulous Playboys was during Davis' and The Coleman's DaCo period, before the changeover to "Thelma Records". That must have been during 1961. So, Edward must have been born in 1944 or 1945. Then, he mentioned being interviewed by Harvey Fuqua (Maybe that was when Harvey owned Tri-Phi, in 1962 or 1963. THEN they visited Motown in '66? That sounds too late. I think they went to Motown in 1963 or 1964. Maybe his memory for the years was cloudy, or he was coming up with memories so fast that the listener can't tell which information he popped up with matched with which bits of information he'd given us before. At least we now know around which years he was born, which usually had just a question mark on his bios which I've seen. He'd be just about my age now, maybe one year older. Anyway, we'll be glad to hear the entire interview even at this quality. Thanks for your hard work. I always like to hear what happened in the 60s Detroit music scene, when I was a late teenager scrounging around in that City's thrift shops, and record shop bargain bins. I had little knowledge of what was going on inside the record companies, at that time. I've learned a lot since, but really enjoy filling in the gaps even this many years later, when many of us who were around, are now gone from this Earth.