Roburt

Seems that there's been a film documentary out there for around a year all about the music career of 70's wild funkster Betty Davis. I 1st came across her when I bought a copy of her mid 70's UK LP 'Nasty Gal' ... but she'd been married to Miles Davis in the late 60's & then cut two albums for Just Sunshine in the early to mid 70's (ahead of Nasty Gal). She was always a bit of an acquired taste (musically) but no doubt the film will be worth watching.

More US singers / groups who toured the UK extensively in 1967 .... all brought over by Roy Tempest (just ahead of him starting on his 'fake group' phase). Roy Tempest used to sign up UK based groups who's job was to open the show for the US acts and then back the star of the show up for their performance. One group that took on this job for him in early 67 was Bobby Hanna & the Canadians. Bobby Hanna (originally from Scotland, brought up in Canada, moved to London & then Australia) landed a contract with Decca shortly after this & ended up cutting a couple of tracks that were played on the NS scene in the 70's.

Here's the EP (& a track off it) ....

It wasn't just the Nth West that had great soul acts playing there in 67 .... London had even more live acts on and places like Sheffield, Portsmouth, Dunstable, Boston & Birmingham were also doing well ....

Seems the Cashbox R&B Ratings didn't quite tally with the other music biz mags that year ... ... NEW SOUL GROUPS: No Artistics in their Top 10 (though the Precisions were in @ #10) ...

More end of year listings ....

Lots of great obscure cuts made in 67, but the major labels / acts were pretty fine too back then ...

As Andy said, he's the same guy as T J Williams. Timothy Williams / Timmie / T.J. all one guy ... here's his BMI song writers page ... I guess King George (Clemons) would know all about him (see separate thread bout King George -- By George)

Both groups were chasing the sound of the Impressions (& both had Chicago connections of course).

Done some more research & it seems the soul period @ the club had kicked in fully by late 69 ....

For collectors only -- US & UK broadcast organisations in-house records ... oddities that some like to acquire ...

He made another album with Discovery (in Sweden) in 1983 which included some soul, jazz & some rock songs, so I guess he remained in the country, settling down there. Maybe, he's still happily living up in Scandanavia. His most sought after Swedish recording though remains his old cover of Don Gardner's NS dancer ...

KING GEORGE -- He started out in Virginia (grew up there), relocated to New York where he joined Don Covay's Good-timers before going solo, playing club dates & doing some recording ... was then tempted across to Sweden, where he again recorded ... AND .. while based up there, played live shows in Denmark, Holland and the UK ... moved on from doing soul numbers as music tastes changed and then faded from the scene in the 70's ... Anyone know what became of him (George Clemons) ???

Yes, there's an old thread on the club ... but that just dealt with the 70's happenings at the venue. It's also been mentioned in old threads about the 60's / 70's soul club scene in Yorks / Notts ... but nothing that I can see that states when the place started to feature live US soul acts on a regular basis. A top London based soul singer played the club in late May 68 but (as stated above), I think Edwin was the 1st US star to play the venue later in that year.

They did have Amboy Dukes on in April 68 & that outfit got bookings at the Twisted Wheel too. Also had Pesky Gee on (who had been the resident band @ the Nite Owl in 67) plus State Express (who used to back up Edwin Starr in the UK back then) .... but the 1st booking at the club for a US based soul act (as far as I know) was Edwin Starr at the end of September 68 .... I think this was their first all-dayer too (& they didn't do niters) PLUS they'd also renamed themselves from the NEW BROKEN WHEEL to the BROKEN WHEEL SCENE .... I have no idea who the Soul Package were (on in August). No doubt a short lived UK group who did covers of soul songs. I lived just up the road (in Donny) then and I don't recall any Sth Yorks mods going to (or even mentioning the club) back then ... guess there were too many bigger / better / more hip places to go back in 68. ... anyone know of other US soul acts who appeared at the club in 68 ?? ...

Just when did the Broken Wheel start booking US soul acts ? I was a regular at the Twisted Wheel, Gondola / Skyline (Hull) & Tin Chicken (Cass) back in 68, so it wasn't on my radar back then ... but ads I have for gigs at the club show they weren't booking top soul acts till late summer 68 at the earliest (they did book the Alan Bown that summer but the group were already well into their 'Toy Land' phase by then) ....

The above chart & the one below illustrate that by summer 69, reggae & reissues were taking over ...

Another guy who performed soul in prison (& cut while there) was Baltimore's Jasper 'Syng' McGowan ......... Syng was first jailed in 1948/49. Eventually, he joined a singing 'convict' group in jail & they were dubbed the 'Wayward Sons'. This quartet started to perform, in & out of prison and became known nationally. McGowan, in conjunction with cellmate (& fellow group member) Russell Quarles also started to write songs (by the mid 60's, they had penned 450 together). Jasper got out of jail after serving much of the full term on his 1st conviction but was found guilty of an armed robbery offence & sent back 'inside' in 1958. His case was was taken up in 1962 by Mrs Betty Feldman who worked for 2 charitable Foundations that helped prisoners. She took up Jasper's case & eventually managed to win him a re-trail (on the 2nd offence) in 1964. In November 64, the group (Jasper -- 39 years old & serving 15 + 5 + 5 yrs for armed robbery; Russell Quarles -- 35 years old & serving 20 years for robbery; John Madison -- 23 yrs old & serving 30 yrs for murder/ robbery; Archie Shaw -- 35 yrs old & serving 20 yrs for larceny) performed at a big concert staged at Maryland Penitentiary. The group had already cut 2 songs, When his re-trail came up, Jasper was described as a model prisoner who was leader of the singing quartet, the Wayward Sons. He won that appeal but was not released from Maryland Penitentiary as he still had some time to serve on his first offence (also a robbery for which he had received a 10 year sentence). A re-trail on the 1st robbery conviction was asked for, also granted & when the Maryland State Attorney decided not to press on with the case, Jasper was released on 21st September 1965. Betty started a record label (Hope) & cut him on quite a few numbers. Associated subject ... soul singers who spent time in prison (though they didn't record while inside; Wilson Pickett, Barry White, Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, Ike Turner, Gary US Bonds, James Brown, Ronald Isley, Rick James, Bobby Brown, Billy Preston & more AND MORE RECENT ARTISTS >> Lauren Hill, Lil Kim, Tupac (think he might be classed as a singer of sorts) + 2/3 other rappers.

The 1st R&B chart in Record Mirror was published in July 65 (it's the top chart in my 2nd post above -- with "I Can't Help Myself" @ no.1). An August 69 chart ....

AND a couple more ... lots of the top UK soul 45's (the ones that have stood the test of time) failed to register at all coz they were slipped out without any promotion or info on the artists back then ...

More of those old charts I do have ...

Anyone out there got copies of 1966 UK R&B charts ? I have some 1960's B&S mags that featured UK 45 charts but these are mainly 68 onwards. Ahead of the start up of Home Of The Blues / B&S, the only mag I know of that featured a UK R&B chart was Record Mirror. I have quite a few of those but not many from 66.

More old BBC radio show live recordings that I'd love to get to hear .........

The Raelettes @ the BBC .... (other stills from the show can be viewed on the Ray Charles Video Museum blogspot site) ...

Another BBC TV show 'missing in action' is the one recorded by Ray Charles on Friday Sept 20th 1968 ... quite a few decent still photos exist of Ray & the Raelettes in the BBC TV studio but the show itself seems lost forever. This is a great shame as I believe it was the 1st live recording made of his then new set of Raelettes (Susaye Greene, Barbara Ann Lesure (Beverly LeShure ?), Barbara Nell Terrault & Verlyn Flenaugh). This line -up had evolved since early August when the original group had quit over pay / treatment (Merry Clayton, Alex Brown, Gwen Berry and Clydie King). Before the make-up of the new group had settled as the 4 listed above, the likes of Rita Graham (of Rita & Tiaras) had been co-opted in at short notice. The line-up of the Raelettes that came to the UK soon changed again & by early 69 the members were Susaye Greene, Mable John. Vernita Moss & Estella Yarbrough. So the footage of the group that did the BBC show would have been quite historic. The whole Ray Charles package (including Billy Preston) went to do concerts across Europe straight from the UK and some footage (only B&W though, not colour) of shows from that period still exists ...