Robbk

Thanks.

Was this an unreleased cut from their ABC or Curtom periods, or just a fairly obscure ABC LP cut? Or was it unreleased from the time gap between the lapse of their VJ contract, and their signing with ABC, and it's a Curtis Mayfieldless Impressions recording, like those that were picked up by tiny New York labels in 1960-61?

I have since learned that Val Brown was Frank's son. The 4 Hollidays/ Four Hollidays (Jimmy Holland's group), were from Detroit, and resided in Detroit, but also recorded for some Chicago labels. The Celebrities were a Detroit group, which had Dennis Edwards as their lead singer, for some of their existence. I don't know if Frank Brown was an owner, or full owner of Detroit's Boss Records (which had no connection to Ric Williams' Chicago-based Boss Records (of 1962-63).

Thanks! I listened to the Johnny Earl cut. He is DEFINITELY NOT Tommy Good. I can't imagine why a poster would think this singer was Tommy. The 2 voices sound NOTHING like each other. I'd like to listen to the "Other" Motown cut by a Johnny Earl, who a poster has heard is NOT the same Motown "Johnny Earl" as sang on this CD. Why would they have 2 different Johnny Earls recording for them within only a few years of each other, and not insist that they differentiate their names in some way??? That doesn't make sense. That occurring with songwriting credits (2 different Frank Wilsons at the same time) is bad enough (should have made one or both use a middle name initial); but for a singer, they should have insisted on having the 2nd (later - signed) singer, use a middle initial. I didn't like most of the songs on the snippets. To my taste, the unreleased material is getting into the dregs now. No spectacular find on this one. It was interesting to hear Marv Johnson sing in his normal (non-falsetto) voice. I have now heard a Serenaders' song I don't like (first one out of 20+ from 1957 to now). The version of "Baby Hit and Run" sounds like Billy Gordon's put on (not natural) gravelly voice. I assume it must have been an unused first take, as the other take I've heard with him on lead was much better, although I like William Weatherspoon's version best (even better than Dennis Edwards' (although all 3 are good, and much better than this one). I was also verey disappointed in Jimmy Ruffin's version of "I Feel Like I'm Falling In Love Again", which I had hoped would be much better, like The Fantastic Four's version, which is my favourite song by them.

Can someone tell me where I can hear at least a snippet of The Johnny Earl song? Maybe I'll be able to identify the voice. And yes, there were tapes and acetates of "tryout sessions". That's likely what the Skip Cunningham recordingis. I doubt that he had ever been given a Motown Records singing artist contract. I'd love to hear "We Call It Fun" by The Hit Pack, as well. I WILL get a copy of the entire CD, but, until I get it, i'd like to hear snippets of all its songs

I should have stated: "before moving to 'The North'.

The information above is confusing. It makes it appear that Armstead was born in Washington State. But later, it states clearly that he was born in Mulga, Alabama. He lived there until joining The US Armed Services (Army?). After he returned, he moved north with his family, to Detroit. He spent his only his later years in Washington State, and died there. Joshie was born in The South, and lived there before moving to The North (New York and Chicago).

The recording sounds like the singer could be Norma. But it is difficult to be sure. The voice doesn't give telltale clues that it is another person.

Thanks! I figured "Shy" wasn't her real surname. I bought her Brunswick and Dakar records. I also remember "Spring Fever" but didn't buy it.

Is that the same woman as Chicago Soul singer, Jean Shy? I've always thought that that surname couldn't be her born family name. Maybe if it was spelled "C-H-I it stood for "Chicago"- hence "Jean Chi" . Maybe that was her nickname, later used as a stage name. But after becoming her official stage name, she spelled it "S-H-Y" instead of "C-H-I" to avoid people thinking it should be pronounced like "Chee"?

That can't be a Maltese cut. Is it known to be a Carnival production, or a later recording?

That looks like an original to me. I have several Lauries with the record/credit information sides reversed. That isn't a "sign" that such a label indicates a bootleg.

He was a French Citizen of Moroccan extraction. Had he ever become a British citizen? Does The UK allow new citizens to keep their existing citizenship as a dual citizen?

Morocco, although legally, a protectorate, was treated by France for most of their hegemony, like a colony. There were many French citizens living there, and, as in Algeria, Moroccans could become French Citizens. That process is how Soussan's family (or he, himself) became French citizens, and were able to move to France. And, of course, Simone (Simón) resided in France for quite a few years before moving to England. He grew up there.

There was also a Surf guitar instrumental group named The Andantes, who recorded for a tiny local label, and picked up by Dot records in 1963. I think I seem to remember that there was yet another Andantes group.

My impression was that ASCAP was the older association, and started with the New York Tin Pan Alley trade of mostly standards, and BMI was the newer of the 2, and started out grabbing a lot of the WWII and post WWII trade from the glut of new independent record labels signing new singing artists, which included "Race Music, C&W music, Gospel, and other genre niches. That included R&B. Of my 40,000 singles and couple thousand LPs, the great bulk of my r&B group and single artist songs that were written by the newer, non mainstream, non major label, songs that were NOT old standards were registered with BMI, rather than ASCAP. Probably 95% of my R&B and ;60s Soul songs were BMI. It was only when groups and single artists sang remakes of old standards, that the songs were registered by ASCAP.

Sorry to read this sad news of another great singer from my generation. They're ALL passing on and however more years until they are all gone, and I am too, along with them, is going fast and will come before I'd want it to. That's a fact of life, and we have to accept it. But it is sad, nonetheless.

Thanks for pointing that out. Do you know how Ralonzo got the name "Phelectron"? Does it have something to do with atoms or electricity? Did he have a tremendous amount of energy? Overactive (hyper)thyroid? On Speed?

Thanks. I thought the articles said Jean was Johnny's wife. I just assumed that. I didn't think Johnny was old enough to have a 20+ year old child. And was thinking about Ed Wingate's starting up Golden World for his future wife. The articles DIDN'T say what her relationship to Johnny was. So, Johnny set up the label for his daughter to start a career in music. Nice to have rich parents.

(1) There were a couple news articles about the formation (foundation) of Phelectron Records, and its in-house music publishing company (Trevenia Music) in 1965, in the music industry trade papers (magazines). They covered the basic structure of the new companies, and a little bit about their 2 singing artists, Terri Goodnight and Jackie Day. Apparently, The Cochrans had their own connections to people who knew about the budding young talented choir singer (Terri) (perhaps a member of their sponsoring church?), and probably someone who was a friend of Jackie's. Cyril Roberts was a songwriter for the label, as well as Jackie Day's producer. I would have guessed that he would have been made their A&R man, and manage the company until Jean could get up to speed (sort of how Bob Hamilton ran things at Golden World's start, until JoAnne Bratton could get up to speed in experience in the business). (2) I was wrong about Jean Cochran just using a song Cyril Roberts wrote. Roberts WAS involved with Phelectron, in a major way. He was the producer of Jackie Day's record, and writer of "Naughty Boy". So, one would think that Jean would have made Roberts her A&R man, and picked his brain for advice, and possibly asked for a demo tape of how Terri Goodnight's song should be sung, and also had him make recommendations on experienced producers and arrangers to use, recording studios and engineers, distributors to approach, and use him as a marketing man to deal with DJs and distributors and getting gigs for her artists. And so, with Roberts leaning on his past experience in the business, Jean might have made less mistakes in operating her label, and had at least some small modicum of success. With Roberts involved, I'm not sure why she chose Easton to produce Terri's 2 records (unless he had previously produced records sung by her choir). Still, being as they decided for Terri to sing some Soul-style songs, why not have Roberts produce them, and have her practise copying the style the demo singer used on the songs until she got the style down, before recording? If she was uncomfortable recording that kind of music, why have her record it? I guess Jean as a very young woman, new to The Business World, with no one to guide her but a songwriter and ad-hoc producer, who hadn't owned a record label up ton that time, as far as I know, and her father, very busy most of the time, was apparently, based on the results, overwhelmed with the challenges that most tiny, independent labels faced, even when run by people experienced in that business. They seemed to not have a well-thought-out, logical plan of operation, and were just making decisions on-the-fly.

The producer for both of Terri's Phelectron Records was Ken Easton. I can't remember ever seeing his name on a Soul record. I'd guess that he had been a classical musician, and only involved in the production of classical and MOR music. I don't recognise the sound engineer, Mike Dorrough, never having seen his name related to any recording studio that dealt with L.A. Soul, or Pop music. Terri's main songwriter was Phelectron's owner, Lawyer Johnny Cochran's wife, Jean. Everything I've read about the label points to Johnny(a successful, high-powered lawyer), not having much to do with the day-to-day operations of the company, and that he set it up because Jean, (a wannabee songwriter), wanted to get into the music business. The only other songwriter, Cyril Roberts, was a well-known, and successful, Los Angeles, Soul music songwriter and record producer, who worked as a free-lancer on many of L.A.'s small Indie labels from the late '50s to , at least the early 1970s (if not later). It appears that Easton knew nothing about The Soul Music market, and had no connections at all in it. Jean Cochran somehow, came to like a Cyril Roberts' song, and had Terri sing it. But, clearly Roberts didn't work for Phelectron. IF he HAD worked with them, Jean would have had Roberts be her A&R man, and use HIS connections to DJs, distributors, musicians/arrangers, recording studios, pressing plants, marketing, etc. to find the right songs for her, market her records(get them heard by the right people), played on the radio, at least a local distribution deal), and he'd have promoted them to the local record shops, etc. And she'd at least, have then had a chance to get some sales. The Phelectron set-up smacks of just being analogous to a "Vanity Press" situation for an aspiring author who wants to get a novel published. A rich benefactor spends a lot of money to give the Wannabee person the chance to live out his/her dream. Johnny Cochran spent the money to set up a record label for his wife to "play at" running a record company, writing songs that get played on the radio, getting songs sung the way she'd envision them, and take some young, aspiring, talented singers and bring their talents to The World (make stars of them). But THIS situation couldn't work, because neither Johnny, nor Jean, had the connections in that industry to help them succeed and advise them what to do to succeed in that business. And Johnny had no time to devote to learning about how things worked in that field.

I can tell that Terri was an accomplished singer, who had a trained voice. She had an operatic style, like Liz Lands. She had attended basically "all White schools" and so, had a standard TV American accent (like Barbra McNair). And like Barbra, she didn't change to The Southern US African-American dialect just to sing Soul-style songs. So, her singing style was not a good one to sing Soul "Stompers" like "They Don't Know". Her style not what Soul music fans are expecting or what they think is good, because it sounds "weird" and not like what they heard and came to love. She sang in an award-winning Gospel choir, and her Gospel singing was quite good. She can carry as tune very well, and really has a nice singing voice. She just used the wrong style for the songs Easton (or Cochran) picked for her. Cochran was quite a sharp character (in the first tier of US Lawyers). You'd think he would have realised that those songs were wrong for her style, and had an accomplished Soul singer demo the songs for her so she could mimic the proper style. If American singers who don't know two foreign words can sing entire songs in a language they don't know, just by mimicking the sounds phonetically (Motown did that a lot), Terri could have mimicked a Soul singing style with no problems.

(1) I didn't know that even a 2nd copy was found after mine. How many of them are known now? How many Jackie Day Phelectrons are known? (2) Leipzig is a helluva lot farther from L.A. than 1,000 miles! Maybe it is 1,000 miles from Lancashire? What do you mean by the record being published 40 years later than 1990, or 1965? (3) I didn't know there was a 2nd Terri Goodnight Phelectron record! Can someone post scans and sound files (at least snippets) of it? Did Jackie Day have more Phelectron releases? Did Phelectron issue rercords sung by any other asrtists? Was this record obtained from the producer (Ken Easton), or from Johnny Cochran? I found "The Victory Song" on YouTube. Terri's singing is not very good, but the instrumental is awful, noisy and tinny. They really didn't know what they were doing. I also never saw that one, or heard anything about it. I'd bet that it never got to a record shop.

My guess is that it was a test, AND a cost-saving measure. And it was recorded 2 or 3 years after "I'd Think It Over". Is there a date anywhere on the record? Does the 10 incher have a date on it?