Mike

Yet more sad news reported Former Temptation member Damon Harris (born Otis Robert Harris, Jr. died today at 7:17.pm at the age of 61 source: http://www.facebook....umniAssociation Wikipedia Info http://en.wikipedia....ki/Damon_Harris The Young Tempts/The Young Vandals As a teenager growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, Otis Harris, Jr. was a major Temptations fan, and idolized in particular the group's falsetto, Eddie Kendricks. Patterning himself after Kendricks, Harris and his friends John Quinton Simms, Charles Timmons (actually name was/is Kareem Ali, who went on to perform with Glenn Leonard's Temptations Revue), and Donald Knute Tighman, formed a Temptations-inspired vocal group during his high school years called The Young Tempts ("Tempts" being a nickname for the Temptations). The Young Tempts recorded covers of two 1966 Temptations' songs, "I've Been Good to You" (a song originally recorded by The Miracles), and "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby," for The Isley Brothers' T-Neck Records in 1970. Motown Records filed an injunction against T-Neck because of the group's name; the 45 was withdrawn and re-issued with the group credited as The Young Vandals, and reached #46 on the R&B charts. At about this time, Billy Griffin joined the Young Vandals' lineup. After two more T-Neck singles, " In My Opinion" and "I'm Gonna Wait For You", The Young Vandals broke up, because Harris felt that college would be a more sensible endeavor than a singing career. The Temptations In April 1971, a friend convinced Harris to audition for The Temptations, who were doing a series of shows in nearby Washington, D.C.. The group had just replaced Eddie Kendricks with Ricky Owens from The Vibrations, who was giving uneven performances, and The Temptations were again looking for a replacement. Harris performed first for Temptations Melvin Franklin, Richard Street, and Dennis Edwards before auditioning for group leader Otis Williams. Williams was hesitant about taking on the young singer, who was nearly a decade younger than the rest of The Temptations. Franklin, Street, and Edwards voted to accept Harris, however, and he made his onstage debut a few weeks later as first tenor/falsetto. Around this time, Billy Griffin replaced Smokey Robinson in The Miracles. When he joined the Temptations, Otis Harris changed his name to Damon Harris, because, in his words, "the group already had an Otis" Harris continued to perform with the Temptations for four years, providing Kendricks-esque lead vocals on hits such as "Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)" (1971), "Take a Look Around" (1972), the #1 pop hit "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", (1972, a three-time Grammy Award winner), the #1 R&B hit "Masterpiece" (1973), "Plastic Man" (also 1973), He leads on "Love Woke Me Up This Morning" from the All Directions album (1972) and is featured prominately on hard-to-find The Temptations Live in Japan (1975). According to Otis Williams' book, The Temptations, he was fired from the group in 1975 because of inappropriate statements he made that affected the perception of the group in the eyes of the public. New group After leaving the group, the dejected Harris decided to reform The Young Vandals with Simms, Timmons (Kareem Ali), and Tighman, renaming the group Impact, and signing a deal with Atco Records in 1976. Working with a Philadelphia soul production team, Impact recorded a number of minor soul and disco hits, including "Happy Man" and the #5 disco hit "Give a Broken Heart a Break". The group released only one album on Atco, 1976's Impact, before being dropped from the label because of low sales. Impact signed with Fantasy Records in 1977 and issued the album The Pac is Back, which also suffered from slow sales. The group disbanded and Harris recorded some solo singles of his own including 1978's "It's Music", and the album Silk. Damon Harris soon retired from music and moved to Reno, Nevada to complete college. In the 1990s, he returned to music and began touring, sometimes billing himself as The Temptations Review Starring Damon Harris. Richard Street, another ex-Temptation, periodically performed with Harris' Temptations review until he formed his own Temptations group. At the age of 47, Harris was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he learned he had had for five years. After successfully being treated for the disease, Harris founded The Damon Harris Cancer Foundation in 2001. The organization is a non-profit company, designed to heighten awareness of prostate cancer diagnoses and treatments. The organization has a special focus in reaching African-American audiences, as African-American men have an approximately 60% higher chance of contracting prostate cancer than white men, and are twice as likely to die from the disease

Now available from BBE Disco Love 3 - Even More Rare Disco & Soul Uncovered - compiled by Al Kent Disco Love is a series of fabulous disco records that you have probably never heard of. All superb records presented to you by the legendary Al Kent from the unlikeliest disco haven of Glasgow. Al's been buying records a few years now, usually ignoring the in-demand or more obvious titles and searching a little harder for fabulous disco records that you have probably never heard of. Disco Love 3 contains just some of them. Not only that, but most of them are exclusive, unissued re-edits, spliced specially for this album by Mr. Kent. And there is also a bonus Disco mix by Al Kent of all the tracks. call here to buy it all on cd, vinyl or mp3s, listen to tracks and all that sor tof thing http://www.bbemusic....lease=BBE224CDG Disc: 1 1. Continuous DJ Mix - Al Kent Disc: 2 1. Mighty Gents (Al Kent's Edit) - Mighty Gents 2. Hungry - Sandy's Gang 3. Disco Unusual (Al Kent's Edit) - North By Northeast 4. Oh! Baby / Get On Down - Bo Galigher TSB Inc. How Long Is Forever - Frank And James 5. Is It Wrong - Magnetic Force 6. Human - Neo Experience 7. Waiting In The Wings - Marion Javius 8. Dancer's Theme - Ronnie April 9. Disco Music (Al Kent's Edit) - Sil Austin 10. How Long Is Forever - Frank & James 11. I Want To Be With You (Al Kent's Edit) - Gregory Andre And Two Plus Three 12. Something About You (Al Kent's Edit) - Moses 13. Hustle On Down (Pt.3) - Michael LeGrair And The Band That Played All Night 14. Disco Fever (Pt.3) (Al Kent's Edit) - Rhond Durand 15. For You - Cherish

Have been passed on news and a request for images regarding a planned book to tie in with the launch of the film Northern Soul While its tied in to the film launch, I've been told that this is going to be a 'loose' tie in and that the end result should be more than the run of the mill type movie tie in publications Here's the call.... CALLING FOR IMAGE SUBMISSIONS. To mark the launch of Northern Soul the film we will be releasing a book, which we are starting to work on now. The book will feature Northern Soul memories from the people that made it happen, along with a lovingly written study of the scene so far, original photography from the film and your personal photos from back in the day. This project has real lifelong soul fans and active scene members at the helm, so rest assured it will be an excellent compliment to the film and a worthwhile study of our beloved scene in it's own right. We'd love to include your memories, so if you would like the opportunity to see your photographs included in the final book, please send scans of your photos and any associated memorabilia (flyers, membership cards or patches) for consideration to the website below. http://northernsoulthefilm.com/sponsor Please be aware we require images to be scanned at 300 dpi and no larger than 2mb. We look forward to seeing your memories.