Robbk

Sounds to me like a mixture of The East L.A. Chicano Soul Sound, with some straight Pop, and straight "60s Rock", mixed in. Too much production, too many instruments, not enough emphasis on guitars.

This doesn't sound tome like what I remember as early-to-mid '60s "Garage Band Music". It sounds more like a cross between "Punk" and some of late 60s "Rock Music". The "Garage" music I remember came out of Surf guitar instrumentals and C&W/Rock-A-Billy guitar instrumentals, and was very simple, with just heavy guitar, drums and organ or piano/keyboard in the background, and had a long break in the middle with a raucous guitar solo. I repeat that almost ALL these songs are not THAT. Garage Bands were mainly young men and late teens practising their guitars and drums in their Dads' garages. For example, Bob Segar's earliest records were Garage. Detroit had several of those bands, who appeared at some of the R&B Soul clubs. Many of them didn't even sing. They were instrumental bands. Texas had a bunch. The later bands who were termed "Garage" should have been deemed to be from a different genre with a name noit using "Garage", to avoid confusion.

This is basically "Pop", too.

THIS IS '60s "Garage Band" style! Heavy emphasis on Guitar and organ, and only also drums. No horns or strings. Long break in middle featuring both organ and guitar. Screaming vocal. Not sweet like much of the "Blue-Eyed Soul". More of an "Angry Young Rebels" style. Blue-Eyed Soul is a lot closer to standard Soul than it is to "Garage". I don't know about 1990s "Garage". That may be totally different from '60s "Garage". IF so, they should have thought of a different name for it.

This is absolutely NOTHING like 1960s "Garage" music. No guitar solo. It has horns. It's plain "Pop", to me, with an extremely light touch of "Blue-Eyed Soul", in a couple very short spots. Guitar isn't prominent enough. Too much production.

Thanks for informing us that it had to have come out in 1972 or later. Do you know who CHUCK Johnson was? - and IF related to Clarence?

THIS is "Garage"! Simple, Guitar, drums, keyboard/organ, screaming, raucous guitar solo break! (unsweet). I don't know why so many people call this a "Soul song". It's a Garage song with an extremely small Soul tint in a couple short few second spots. I haven't listened to all these songs; but those 10-12 I've listened to, or heard before, are mostly"Blue-Eyed Soul".

This is not much more "Garagey" than "My Girl" by The Temptations. It's a Soul song (other than a couple seconds of minor key organ chords).

Most of these songs on this thread are NOT pure "Garage". Most are "Blue-Eyed Soul", some are Blue-Eyed Soul/Garage hybrids, one or two are Blue-eyed Soul/Funk hybrids. As I remember, Garage Rock songs virtually always have a very energetic (usually raucous) guitar solo break near the middle, and don't have the horns that many or most of these songs do. They are mostly guitars, drums and keyboards/organ. Most of these are too studio sophisticated, made by complex productions.

Thanks for posting that. Not only did I not know his group recorded for a New York label, but I didn't know he was the vocalist for Bill Doggett's show. I also didn't know he was born in Nashville.

There are always outliers, so a stray was probably before 1958. But we started to see that term for a music style in 1958 and 1959. And by 1960-61, it was fairly common. By 1963-64 it was entrenched as a new genre of Music, now detached from R&B (but lots of songs were transitional, and had several elements of both. I'd like to read The Yank's answer to this question, to see if it differs at all.

I don't think that Tress label from New Jersey recorded Edwin's Cleveland group. I think that's a local N.J. group. For one thing Edwin's bios always state that his Futuretones group only had one 45 released. The Tress N.J. group had several. And the Tress group is singing in a very East Coast Doowop style. In my opinion (and that of several other R&B/Doowop collectors), Cleveland groups sang more in Chicago/Detroit Style (Which is why The Moonglows Cleveland record on Champagne Records, sounds pretty much like their Chance and early Chess cuts' style, and why The Five Quails sounded Detroitish and Chicagoish on their releases. I'm sure The Tress Futuretones recorded in NYC. Also, I don't think Edwin's group recorded as early as 1957. Also, I don't see a group member that looks even remotely like Edwin in that group photo. The lead singer's voice doesn't have the same tone as Edwin's. I'd bet the farm that isn't him.

Do you know if Edwin sang lead with The Futuretones?

Red Balloon 1000. Not in the 01-03 series. Jason Sean Music? They had no group members named Jason, or Sean (James Westbrook, Lee Brown, Larry Dotson, Larry Maxwell, and David Robinson). The publishing was shared with ASCAP's Chappel and Butler Music??? A lot of different people had their fingers in this eventual release. It's not likely to have been a Sebons Foster production. And Chuck Johnson got producer credit. Could HE have been Clarence Johnson's son, or brother? Roger Massey and Detroit's Mikki Farrow wrote the song. The group, must have left Foster's Nation Time/Salem Records, and gone out on their own, taking the recorded demo of the song to Clarence Johnson, who took credit for producing the session, got it recorded and pressed it up on Red Balloon (now using it as his "OWN" label). I think this must have been in late 1970 or early 1971, AFTER Red Balloon 01-03 ( The Reggie Soul, The Ledgends, and Sunday Williams releases). By the way, - according to the group members, told in the interview, the letter "d" in "Ledgends", was a label printing error, and the group decided to continue spelling their name that way, to keep consistent with their only record out at that time.

Yes, Red Balloon 01. It must be dead rare. I've only seen one copy of it. A collector friend had it. Bob Pruter didn't have it. I don't think Bob Abrahamian had one. It must have been after The V Wagers' Nation Time/Salem Sebons Foster releases. That must have been Clarence Johnson using Red Balloon for his own purposes, picking up a record from that group's manager.

Thanks Dave, for the tip on Bob's interview. I remember that he got the whole story from The Ledgends' interview. We were both right that something was fishy about that L.A. Address. Curtis McCormick was the creative head of the group. The other members were Carl McPhan, Lee Dees, and Lamar Greer. Curtis and the group rented an office on Michigan and 35th St. But, after doing that they didn't have enough cash to pay for recording studio time and pressing up records. So they hooked up with Clarence Johnson to finance those services, and to get their records distributed by his Master-Key Distributing, or IF possible, to be picked up by a national distributor. They said they had their own music publishing company, and didn't know why its name was left off their records, and Johnson's Moo-lah Music was there in its place. And they didn't know that Johnson re-issued "Gotta Let You Go" his own Locket Records, without telling them. And it got some local sales, and they got no money from it. Johnson also never paid them anything from the national deal with Commonwealth United, and they didn't even find out it was picked up until quite a while later. But Johnson probably got nothing from Commonwealth United, as they produced almost no sales, much less than the local Chicago labels. And even if they did have several thousand sales, their distributor probably wouldn't have paid them until it reached big city or regional hit level. They also mentioned that Red Balloon never had anything to do with Los Angeles. They think he just put on that false address to impress national distributors to pick their records up. Maybe it was an address of a contact of Johnson's in L.A. who could front for him? In any case, we've got our answer. The Eddie Sullivan interview didn't give any details about Red Balloon. I always thought it was a Clarence Johnson label in the Master-Key group, with an office on The South side. And that's just what it was. So we've found yet another group of young singers who were taken advantage by a greedy record company owner.

I'd bet it was Clarence Johnson. 2nd choice Cameron. They may have owned the label together, but Johnson had more assets. He owned more labels through the years. Sullivan only worked on one record for them, as far as I remember, but they ran the sessions.

That was around end of summer, 1963. I'm sure there would be lots of songs we'd call "Soul Music" released long before then. I think lots of Five Royales' recordings on Apollo Records from even 1949-53 would be considered "Soul", but also R&B; and there were hundreds of others. So, for me, there was a 5-8 year overlap of those 2 genres. So there can't possibly be a "first" "Soul" record. There were hundreds of transitional records, moving from one genre to the other.

All the artists, writers, and credited people on the records that I've seen (Reggie Soul, Sunday Williams, The Ledgends, Clarence Johnson, Johnny Cameron, Eddie Sullivan, Curtis McCormick, Moo-Lah Music, etc. operated out of Chicago). I think their offices were in Chicago, too. I've seen Red Balloon Record issues with Chicago pressing plant labels, clearly pressed in a Chicago Area plant, without the balloons graphics, by The Ledgends. So that must have been the first pressing. They were distributed by Master Key, in Chicago. So, I don't think the L.A. address came from opening an office there because they became distributed by a national distributor located in L.A., because when The Ledgends' records took off, they got it picked up by Commonwealth United, located in New York. Starting out in Chicago, and keeping their production there, did they pick up a major financing partner located in L.A.?

Wow! I'd like to know which Detroit R&B and Gospel groups Dennis sang with before 1961. He was called up to The Army as soon as he reached age 18 (Born Feb. 2nd 1943). So, he'd have been 16 and 17 in 1959 and 1960.

My memory must have deserted me on that post. I DO remember a Detroit collector telling me that Dennis Edwards was once a member of The Celebrities, but not that he was their lead singer, and not that he was definitely a group member when they recorded the Boss Records cuts. He didn't say that THAT Dennis Edwards was Motown's guy, but I think he meant that, otherwise he'd have mentioned that this was a different Dennis Edwards.

I always wondered how that New York C.J. Records chose their name without knowing about Carl Jones' Chicago-based C.J. Records, which was still going strong in 1967 and into the 1970s. I guess it was because The New York C.J. operation was a Pop rather than R&B/Soul-oriented label, and wouldn't know about Jones' Midwest operation, which only distributed to The East Coast (NY/Phil) when they had a major regional hit, like they did with Betty Everett, and a couple others. As neither CJ labels had a major National hit while they were operating simultaneously, no problem came up.

That's the spelling of the historical Indian religious figure's name. But the record company was spelled: "Buddah Records" (despite having a logo with a statue representing The Buddha). Record companies often have strange names.🤪

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?