Hi all, I've posted here in the past as a guest. My name's Pea, I'm in San Diego CA, and I'm always digging and buying/selling interesting things. Sometimes I need help identifying exactly what I've found.

I recently found this 4-song 10" acetate that has "Devotions" written on the label, along with the song titles "Shadow Of A Doubt," "Caravan," "Cowboys & Girls," and "Never Love Another." The only other thing written on the label is "#435." To my ears, the singers/style sound similar to The Devotions on Nation Records, but honestly I have no idea. Looking for input/opinions. You can listen to an mp3 with excerpts of each song here.

Thanks for your help!

Hi Pea , welcome to the forum.

I'm liking that a lot , especially that haunting 'Caravan' track , has a touch of 'The Delco's - Arabia' about it to my clothy old ears.

I'm taking a liberty and reposting the link seperately here as I only noticed the vague hightlight in your post when the cursor happened to pass over it , some folks might miss it altogether.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/h0eg739gxhww04560uooa/devotions.mp3?rlkey=3uf514oc0fnh0xi56redytqmj&e=1&dl=0

The third track is a version of a Joe Bataan track "Cowboys to Girls" , no idea which came first though.

Joe's is from '69

Edited yesterday at 23:361 day by Woodbutcher

The original version of "Cowboys To Girls" was by the Intruders in 1968.

Hmm, ok, interesting! The label has it written as "Cowboys & Girls." A Gamble/Huff song that the Intruders also recorded. I would have to assume that the version on my acetate is a cover, rather than an original demo. I somehow doubt that a Gamble/Huff song would have a low-budget demo like this.

The 4th song is this but,the acetate version starts in a minute later than the original-

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by The Yank

Thanks again! I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff. Note that my mp3 only has excerpts of the songs.

Are the music publishers on the non re-make songs listed. Nation was owned by Sebons Foster and their house publisher was Sebons Music. The Devotions' record on Nation had the publisher: "Chatt Lee Music" These singers don't Sound to me like The Chicago-based Devotions. In any case, I doubt that these songs were sung by The Chicago group. These are much rawer singers, off key a lot and the non-re-make songs are not very well-written, and not arranged very tightly like The Nation Devotions. Also, The Chicago group recorded in 1965. These cuts were done in '69 or '70, and don't sound like Chicago recordings. Detroit's Devotions were a female group. So we can rule them out. These are also not the New York Doo-Wop group from The 1950s. Maybe these are The Philly Devotions, before they made it big in The '70s? Except the latter had a falsetto main lead singer, and everything I heard by them sounded heavily like The Sound of Philadelphia, with heavy strings (like The Stylistics and Delfonics).

I think there were a few more Devotions groups, but as I remember NONE of them sounded like this group.

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by Robbk

The only info written on the label is what's in my original post. I agree that this doesn't sound exactly like the Nation Devotions, that was just the group named that that sounded the most similar, at least that I could find. It's such a generic name for a group that it could be anybody or nobody, really. If it helps put it in context, this came from the estate of a guy who worked in studios, film, TV, commercials, industrials, etc decades ago, and I also found an acetate of the record below, but with a different, presumably unreleased b-side. Now, what this guy's involvement with both records was, I don't know.

OK, now the forum is letting me post images, so here's the label. B-side is blank.

5 hours ago, peahix said:

The only info written on the label is what's in my original post. I agree that this doesn't sound exactly like the Nation Devotions, that was just the group named that that sounded the most similar, at least that I could find. It's such a generic name for a group that it could be anybody or nobody, really. If it helps put it in context, this came from the estate of a guy who worked in studios, film, TV, commercials, industrials, etc decades ago, and I also found an acetate of the record below, but with a different, presumably unreleased b-side. Now, what this guy's involvement with both records was, I don't know.

A kids' garage band from rural Wisconsin! I'd guess it would be Jim Kirchstein' Cuca/Night Owl operation, except that he pressed up his own demos, and they didn't look like that. He was involved in TV and radio commercials, and probably film, too. But this is most likely someone else. The names on the "Demo Record" don't ring a bell, at all. I think we're at a dead end unless someone else joins the thread or thinks of a good way to search for clues.