Roburt

I had been going to niters @ the Mojo & Nite Owl up to summer 67 (they were bringing in licensing for clubs that didn't sell booze that year & it had been said that the Mojo wouldn't be granted a license, so niters there were ended & Sunday alldayers begun). So we drifted off to the Nite Owl for our niter fix. But the Nite Owl was closed after the 1st weekend of December. We had made 2 visits to the Wheel ahead of that, but from early Dec 67 we defaulted to the Wheel niters. GETTING TO MY POINT AT LAST ... the Wheel had live acts on at every niter (UK groups in the summer when audience numbers dipped due to folk going off on holiday). BUT from our first visit to the club (14th October) the thing I remember most was that just about every live act would do their version of "Knock On Wood". It got so we hated that part of each show (even though we liked the song). Don't know how true it is (not musically trained) but I'm sure I read somewhere that Steve Cropper (working with Eddie Floyd) created the music to the verse of "Knock On Wood" by reversing the notes from the earlier Cropper song "In The Midnight Hour".

Think much of the history of the Scene Club was covered in an old thread ... 1960's London Mod / Soul Clubs SCENEMAN posting the most informative info.

Seems jazz groups still ruled the roost @ the Flamingo at the start of 1962. But during the early part of that year, jazz acts played the niter sessions BUT the acts on had started to also include R&B songs in their repertoire. Thus jazz front men like Earl Watson & Tommy Whittle were leading jazz outfits. Also on the bill were the likes of the Birch Heckstall Smith Quartet. Main man in this jazz group was Dick Heckstall Smith. He was soon to join Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated. They cut the groundbreaking album 'R&B from the Marquee'. The following year, he was a founding member of that band's breakaway unit, the Graham Bond Organisation. So he became one of the UK's fore-runners in the R&B field (despite his 5 or so earlier years as a main man on the London jazz scene). MARCH 1962 Flamingo niter ad ...

Early R&B niters ... LONDON >> Friday & Saturday nights in January 1964 ...

The first allniters weren't R&B or soul related, they go back to the jazz years -- late 50's / early 60's. London January 1959 & 1960 ...

Seems some labels would poach their 'promo guys' from other labels ... a good idea I guess as they'd already have many existing contacts with the right people at lots of radio stns ...

I have dozens & dozens signed @ Southport (& Morecambe) , Cleggy & Prestatyn, maybe even a couple from Fleetwood ... all on the sleeves (apart from a few early ones & a couple where the artist just did their own thing). Got Garnet Mimms autograph back in 1967 but as I didn't know I'd get access to his Mojo Club dressing room till a few minutes before the event happened, it's just on a scruffy bit of paper (though I have done my best to 'upgrade' it).

SOUL SPOTLIGHT – BENNY GORDON by Steve Guarnori .... A detailed piece documenting Benny's career & how Trude Heller assisted him with lots of live bookings at her clubs. Trude was a person of influence in New York in the 60's and ran 2 night clubs there. The 1st of these she named after herself (it was located @ 9th & 6th Ave in Manhattan). The 2nd was her TRIK club. This was near Times Square @ 49th & Broadway. This corner had a long entertainment history (having earlier been home to the famous Club Zanzibar & then the Turf Restaurant & Bar). Trude Heller took it on in the mid 60's and renamed it the TRIK. It was a few steps from the Brill Building & not much further from 1650 Broadway (the Hit Factory building). So the TRIK was right at the centre of New York's music hub. Trude booked all sorts of black acts, regular performers there being Benny Gordon & the Soul Brothers (see ad). Like many NY Jews, Trude relocated to Florida as she got older. She moved to Palm Beach (now home to Trump) and opened yet another club (she again named this Trude Hellers but added Patio on the end). Of course, Benny Gordon was a regular attraction at this club too.

Johnny Rivers SOUL CITY label was first distributed by Liberty & then became part of Liberty (the 45's stating A PRODUCT OF LIBERTY RECORDS INC). I wonder if that label had it's own promotional guy/s too (or if Johhny or one of his staff carried out those tasks for the acts who had product out on the label).

Anyone know if the various Mercury labels would have had a combined promo team or separate ones for each label; Mercury, Phillips, Fontana, Smash ? As they put out so much product & each label had it's own specialties, I'd guess it would have made more sense to have separate teams (though guys dealing with radio DJ's over a specific area would source them suitable 45's from all of the labels I guess). Also, I've made no mention of United Artists / Liberty up till now. They weren't exactly one of the top majors but they were a big outfit that mainly dealt in pop / rock material (though they did have some major soul acts: Bobby Womack, Gene McDaniels, Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose, etc).

A black group who's 45 did comply with the usual 'way of working' back then -- though this was a bit later in early 1969 -- the Watts 103rd St Band. Now this outfit made records that were 100% aimed at the black market -- members of the group went on to find a lot of success (Al McKay & James Gadson for instance). They had found their way to Warners via Bill Cosby (they backed him on his recordings & he was on Warners). Their big 45 hit was "Doing Your Thing" and this first broke on US radio. But it didn't break JUST on R&B radio stns, Top 40 stns were playlisting it as early as any R&B stns. The first radio stns to get behind this 45 were WIBG (Philly - Top 40), WDAS (Philly - R&B), WYLD (NOla -- R&B), WRAW (Penn - Top 40), WEEX (Penn - Top 40) and WFIL (Philly - Top 40). So this single abviously was a major BREAK-OUT sound in the Philly & Pennsylvania area first and then it's popularity spread out across the States. So the Warners promo team must have been mainly working it to Top 40's stns (though of course, they had the resources / money so the 45 would also have been sent out to every US R&B stn too).

If you check the above Detroit area chart from a Top 40 stn, one 45 jumps straight out at you .. The Sport 45 by the Sonics (Four Sonics actually) seems out of place. But the song had recently been a bit pop hit for Dusty Springfield & so a DJ at this pop stn must have thought it a good idea to play a locally cut version of the song & it must have caught on with the stn's audience (hence it gaining a high placing on their chart) ... The Sport label was of course a Detroit black owned indie label & so wouldn't have had the means to market their 45 to many radio stns at all, never mind a top local Top 40 stn. SO THERE WERE ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS TO THE NORMAL RULES ...

The thread Robb has going on Jimmie Reed Jr got me thinking. When you check out US R&B radio stn charts from the 60's, it soon becomes obvious that many major labels didn't really know how to get soul records much airplay. The likes of RCA and Uni / MCA had large promotional departments but little or no expertise with regard to the black audience. Their promo teams had built up strong ties with many Top 40 stn programme managers / DJs and so had the right connections to get a new 45 blanket playlisting on 'white' Top 40 stns. Back then, radio plays were almost always the way to national chart success. So, to have radio DJ's waiting for you to contact them with regard to new releases was a major plus. While Chess, Motown, Atlantic, Stax, Amy / Mala / Bell, Modern, Scepter / Wand & many more did have the right guys / contacts in place to instantly get their new releases lots of plays, the major labels didn't. There were exceptions though. Columbia did alright with their Okeh releases, the Minit stuff got decent airplays, Loma was almost the same (though Warner label stuff was mainly marketed to Top 40 stns not R&B stns. Many Mercury (& Fontana / Philips) soul releases also seemed to get lost when it came to black radio exposure. As Robb made mention, Jerry Butler was an exception, as to a lesser degree was Dee Dee Warwick (though having a more famous sister's 45's high on the R&B charts must have helped her releases). ABC also had a team dedicated to promoting their soul releases to R&B stns. I guess the likes of the Okeh, Loma & ABC (maybe even Mercury) labels had their own dedicated promotional teams that maintained contact with jocks at R&B radio stns. Is much know about how these guys operated (those reaching out to R&B stns to get airplay) and how many of them there were (the US R&B stn network was massive with stns in almost every city / large town across the entire country. OF COURSE, their were SOME advantages in a black act being signed to a major label. The budget assigned for their recording sessions would have been larger -- the best producers / arrangers would have been hired to oversee their sessions, etc. PLUS when they had a decent release, it would be marketed very well to Top 40 stations. So in the 'golden period' for soul product (mid to late 60's -- when many Top 40 stns were looking for new soul 45's to plug on air), a new soul single could even be 'broken' & go on to become a pop chart hit via plays on Top 40 stations. Anyone here have knowledge of the workings of the promo teams at the likes of Okeh, Loma & the like ... AND how it compared to what those @ Chess, Motown, Stax were doing ?

I agree with Robb about the majors not having the people / expertise to market soul records to US black audiences. The likes of Mercury / Fontana / Phillips + RCA + Uni / MCA + Columbia (apart from their Okeh division) + Warners + (to a slightly lesser degree) Capitol never had the right promotion guys to get to R&B radio jocks. AND It was R&B radio stns that broke just about all soul 45 hits. ABC did much better with black audiences & Liberty / Minit / Imperial were a bit better but I'm unsure if you'd class them as being in the same league as Mercury, RCA & the like back then. The likes of Chess, Motown, Atlantic, Stax, Amy / Mala / Bell, Modern & many more did know what they were doing when it came to getting airplay on their soul singles. The Flamingos were a big group of long standing by the mid 60's but Phillips (part of Mercury) only really managed to get chart action on their "Boogaloo Party" 45 and then it got nearly as much airplay on US Top 40 stns as on R&B stns. About the best it performed on an R&B stn was up in Cleveland ..

To further complicate matters over this song ... BMI / ASCAP have just these 2 entries ... there's lots more of course, but for other songs with the same title ... none registered to Johnson / Callier.

Spelling Terry Callier's name correctly has seemed a hard task for many in the US ... in the UK, we were a little better ...

Many say that about 5 or 6 acetate copies were made for most recordings .... BUT I'd guess it wasn't as simple as that. I'd say bigger record companies might make more as they'd have A&R teams based in various cities (New York, Chicago, LA) and would want input on a proposed release from the different teams. On the other hand, a poorly financed little indie label (or a independent producer / artist manager) might only have had the funds to order a couple of copies. You're right though, some acetates were made for US radio station use, to gauge the audience reaction to a proposed new release -- no idea if they'd be the ones first supplied to the labels A&R guys or if extra would be ordered to send to the radio jocks. THEN OF COURSE, there were the actetates made for music publishers -- these being sent out to artist's managers or label A&R guys with a view to them getting one of their acts to record the song.

As Robb & Sebastian have said, Jimmie Jr was an integral part of his dad's blues band & Snr was signed to ABC Bluesway. Jr was cutting tracks behind his dad for ABC in 1967. Jimmy Snr had 2 albums out on ABC Bluesway (& 2 x 45 + a 45 on EXODUS) and Jimmie Jr featured heavily on all these tracks (as one of his dad's backing musicians). The 2nd ABC album was SOULIN (however just about all the tracks are just Jimmy's usual brand of blues, no real SOUL on show at all) ... ...

It wasn't always UK Beat groups that made such crap covers -- The Buckingham's took on a British styled name & performed surrounded by UK flags, but they were really from Chicago. I think this version of Cannonball Adderley's jazz & pop chart hit is JUST a bit inferior to Marlena Shaw's version (which came between the two) ... well, it's actually much worse than the two earlier versions even though this was the bigger US pop chart hit ...

Here's one that actually added a new twist to the original (though I still much prefer the US original) ...

A song that many groups / acts performed back in the mid 60's (& later) was the Isley Brothers old cut "Nobody But Me". A UK beat group also had a go at the song & recorded it too ... AND it ain't that good an attempt ...

THIS TOPIC must have been covered here in the past but I can't recall such a thread in recent times ... We all know how many UK beat groups got their start / had hits by covering US hit R&B songs. The list runs to many; the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, Moody Blues, Walker Brothers (they were Americans but based in the UK), Searchers, Hollies, Fourmost, Hermans Hermits, Freddie & the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana & Mindbenders, Dave Clark Five, Brian Poole & Tremeloes, Merseybeats & many more. Lots of solo artists followed suit; Cilla Black, Craig Douglas, Sandie Shore, Georgie Fame, Frankie Vaughn, Dusty Springfield, Kenny Lynch, Cliff Bennett & Rebel Rousers & many more. I never really got into many & apart from the likes of some Georgie Fame tracks, never collected them. I'd find stuff @ UK boot fairs, 2nd hand shops and buy them (if the price was right) but then sell them on to mates such as Paul Temple. Some of the above actually cut great versions as covers; Georgie Fame, Dusty, Cliff Bennett, etc + other covers that weren't hits were half decent too (from the likes of Tom Jones, Action, etc. etc.). I suppose the cover of "Yes I'm Ready" by Barbara Kay is sort of OK (but a complete carbon copy of the original). But for every good UK cover version there were dozens of awful ones. Below are three of the worst (IMO) ... anyone else here have similar 'hates' they'd like to post up ...

I'd love to have a Grammy award for a R&B winner to go in my record room .... Such as one of these detailed in this video ...

AND an ad from one of their live gigs ... the group were the house band @ the new All Star Club (near Liverpool St stn) for over a year 66 / 67 ...

A couple of goodies to own (by Joe E) ...