Picked up the "The Chi-Lites/The Romanceers" album on Pickwick recently.

Chi-Lites are a well documented soul super group. But what about The Romanceers? Does anyone have any info about them? They seem to be an all girl group. Their recordings on the album sound a bit "basic" in orchestration, so the songs might have been demos. Maybe they were a studio only group?

I don't know if we'll ever find out who the Romanceers were . Pickwick either leased music from legitimate artists or just had some studio group remake the hits of the day. At first glance this album looks like it's from Earth, Wind and Fire until you look closely- 

18 hours ago, The Yank said:

I don't know if we'll ever find out who the Romanceers were . Pickwick either leased music from legitimate artists or just had some studio group remake the hits of the day.

I found the following in a 2005 thread on soulstrut.com that was about low budget record labels...

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i think the romanceers tracks were recorded specifically for pickwick. i dont think those were acquired from another company. obviously they didnt have enuff chi-lites tracks to fill out the album, so they got some studio cats to do the hits of the day (1972, i'm guessing). probably the same folks that played on soul mann & the brothers' pickwick LP - you know, the one where theyre doing songs from Shaft.

The poster's name was "pickwick33" and early in the thread I've linked to they state:

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 ...just look at my username - sh*t, I could talk about budget labels for days! Don't start me talkin'...

Reading through that thread, pickwick33 does appear to be an informed source.

On 27/12/2022 at 16:46, Benji said:

Picked up the "The Chi-Lites/The Romanceers" album on Pickwick recently.

Chi-Lites are a well documented soul super group. But what about The Romanceers? Does anyone have any info about them? They seem to be an all girl group. Their recordings on the album sound a bit "basic" in orchestration, so the songs might have been demos. Maybe they were a studio only group?

I have no doubt that they were a studio only group.  I've never seen any physical vinyl or acetate record of a group with that name, or any other reference to a group with that name.  I suppose that they could have been an actual existing group who made studio recordings and released recordings under another group name.  Budget record labels used both such existing groups for studio work, and also individual singers to piece together an ad-hoc group only for that single session.  

there was a group...alas not these from 1944 

 

58 minutes ago, Kenb said:

there was a group...alas not these from 1944 

Not sure if it's the same group as the one in the ad, but also came across quite a lot of info on Felipe 'la voz' Rodriguez and "Los Romanceros" (the Romanceers).

Wikipedia page for him here, but in no way connected to the Pickwick Romanceers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Rodríguez_(singer)

guys, many thanks for your input! I think it's now safe to say the Romanceers were a studio outfit and they recorded specifically for Pickwick.

As said before their recordings are pretty sparse on the orchestration side so I first thought the songs might have been demos. Now I think Pickwick simply tried to save money and hired just a few musicians instead of proper studio bands.

They have three songs on the album, all were chart hits around that time, "walking in the rain with the one I love" (love unlimited), "You're the man" (M. Gaye) and "First time I ever saw your face" (R. Flack). I'm not really into the Gaye and Flack covers but the Love Unltd. one is great. I prefer it to the original version.

The Chi-lites tracks are just the a- and b-sides of their 3 Blue Rock 45s.

On 29/12/2022 at 23:02, Benji said:

guys, many thanks for your input! I think it's now safe to say the Romanceers were a studio outfit and they recorded specifically for Pickwick.

As said before their recordings are pretty sparse on the orchestration side so I first thought the songs might have been demos. Now I think Pickwick simply tried to save money and hired just a few musicians instead of proper studio bands.

They have three songs on the album, all were chart hits around that time, "walking in the rain with the one I love" (love unlimited), "You're the man" (M. Gaye) and "First time I ever saw your face" (R. Flack). I'm not really into the Gaye and Flack covers but the Love Unltd. one is great. I prefer it to the original version.

The Chi-lites tracks are just the a- and b-sides of their 3 Blue Rock 45s.

maybe they just re-used existing tracks from other comps

this site looks like a decent pickwick/hallmark resource, had a quick look on the us page

bit of a rabbit hole though, so only went so far

http://topofthepopslps.weebly.com/