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Roburt 189 posts -
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Back in Jan 64, you could catch Major Lance at the Knight Beat and just 5 days later Garnet Mimms was on at the same place.
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it has to be the same group, antler records was a buck ram label
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LARS ..... Yes, I'm sure I have a few. I'll take a look.
On the road at present (another short break.... but somebody has to take em) so checking up on soul facts is more diffficult than usual at present -- as is finding decent internet access -- but I'll post a few things anyway.
Miami back in the 60's was a very strange place. Loads of great shows starring soul acts BUT two very different scenes.
There was the 'white audience' shows at venues such as South Beach hotels & posh clubs where Motown & top soul acts were regular entertainers whilst the acts themselves had to find different places to both sleep, eat & watch shows (they were allowed on the hotel show room stages but couldn't have a room or meal in the self same establishment).
Then there were the places where the black audiences went; the Continental Club being just about the top of these venues.
The likes of Sam & Dave, the Professionals, Roy Hamilton, Bettye LaVette, The Laddins (aka Steinways) were regular performers in the black venues whilst the best selling Motown acts were ever present performers in the South Beach hotels.
...... But some 'strange' acts crossed over to the white venues.
An outfit that landed regular gigs on the 'white' side of the divide were the Jesse Ferguson Gospel Jazz Singers. From their name their reportoire can't have been too familiar to the audiences they were playing for. Even stranger, the group decided a change in name might land them a higher profile & recording contract. So the Gospel Jazz Singers became Jesse Lee Ferguson & the Outer Limits (& they did land that record deal).
A guy who got regular bookings on both sides of town was Chuck Jackson, he got loads of bookings in the black clubs on the strength of his Wand R&B hits. When his revue played the white hotels in the later years of the 60's, it was billed as 'the Motown Sound that's a leader on every chart'.
An 'out of town' female to play 'white' gigs was Margie Hendrix -- well known to Ray Charles fans but hardly a household name (in her own right) in the pop charts or white households. The Original Drifters were still securing 'white' gigs in 1968 but I guess more as an oldies act who performed their early 60's pop chart hits.
Another 'lesser known' act to get quite a few 'white' bookings was Teddy Washington & the Soul Searchers. I don't think this outfit had a connection to DC's Soul Searchers (but I could be wrong).
Pity you can't catch such acts in the area these days.
Edited by Roburt