Robbk

No, Earl Van Dyke wasn't playing piano on "Let Me Be Your Boy".. That was Correc-Tone's on-house pianist/arranger, Willie Harbert. I don't have any confirmation that Martha and The Vandellas were on "Lonely No More", but was told by Ron Murphy that that worked for Freddy Brown on both Mickay's and Ring, as well as on Kable (as The Dell Fi's). I know they were on "Just One More Time". I'll take another listen to "Lonely No More". Afer listening, I can say that Martha and The Vandellas were NOT on "Lonely No More, even as secondary backups. All I hear is a male group. Maybe it was The Legends, who recorded for Mickay's at the time, and made regular appearances at "The Hideout", at that time.

I talked to people from Detroit, connected with Motown, or knowing people there, and being in the business themselves about Correc-Tone, and The Supremes' involvement. Yes, they were moonlighting there in early 1962. Their recordings were made during spring 1962, backing Wilson Pickett, and probably James Velvet (ex-Satintone James Ellis?). I don't believe they were the backing group of Gino Washington on "I'm a Coward" (or any other song of his). I had always heard that The Rochelles (who backed him with credits on his 1964 Amon and Wand releases), who were his friends in high school, and also were in his club review act, backed him whenever he had a female back-up group, at least through 1966. The pre-Supremes, as The Primettes did all their back-up work for Robert West in late 1959 and early 1960, all in Detroit. Everything I read about the late 1962-early 1963 Enrica release said that it was recorded in New York, and James Duddley (AKA Dudley) was at that time, a New York Artist (although originally from The South), and those Primettes were a New York group, with no connection to Detroit, and the name was used without any knowledge of Robert West's Lupine Primettes, whose name was unknown because, even when West had his late release of their Lupine record to take advantage of The Supremes' Motown success, it was only distributed in Michigan and Ohio. No one in New York would have heard of them. I believe that The Enrica record was only listed as being The Pre-Supremes because of the group name, but never seen any evidence that The Detroit group had anything to do with that record. And I can't believe Detroit's Supremes (ex-Primettes) went to New York to record those Enrica cuts, which were certainly recorded after The Supremes were contracted to Motown. That CERTAINLY would have come out some time during the last 55 years. Wilbur Golden saw that saw that Motown was doing well, and that Ed Wingate, who had also entered the business recently, was enjoying running expenses through his record business to his advantage, regardless of whether or not he made money on selling the records, he decided he wanted to enter the record business, too. He secretly approached Brian and Eddie Holland, and Popcorn Wylie, and got them to agree to come work for him at his new record company. Robert Bateman said that Brian and Eddie came to him and told him that Golden offered them a good regular monthly salary to operate his new record company, as songwriters, producers and A&R men, and to also set a a new recording studio. They agreed to jump ship from Motown to work for him. He had asked them to get more of Motown's crew to come and join them at the new label. So Bateman said with that option open to him, he went to Berry Gordy and asked him for a regular salary at the level Golden offered, and Gordy refused. So, Bateman quit right then. When he talked to Golden to take the job, Golden not only offered him the producer's job, he offered him the A&R/Director of Operations job that was supposed to go to Brian. It turned out that a couple days before that, Berry had found out that Brian and Eddie were leaving, and offered them a solid salary and bought them each a Cadillac, to get them to decide to stay with Motown. Bateman was peeved at The Hollands for not informing him of that. But it was too late, he had formally quit. He got the job of handling the setting up the new recording studio and hiring other people. He hired Jazz pianist, Willie Harbert as the main arranger, and brought in his Satintone groupmate, Sonny Sanders as a writer, arranger. And brought in Janie Bradford to moonlight as a songwriter(using her alias as Nikki Todd), and Ron Davis as a writer. He brought The Supremes in as moonlighting background singers. Martha and The Vandellas were already moonlighting for Chief Funk Brother, Joe Hunter, at Freddy Brown's Mikay's Records, and with them for Armen Boladian's Ring Records (really Mickay's masters). He also brought in ex-Satintones, Vern Williams and Sammy Mack as writers and as a new group, The Pyramids, and also brought in William Weatherspoon as a writer, Don Juan Mancha as a writer and producer, and young, aspiring singer/songwriter, Laura Johnson as the company's secretary.

The Netherlands only has 150 people, and only one of them is named "Russell", with no last name? Having a frontal lobotomy is not a good thing for a record dealer to have. The post office in USA should have sent it back to the sender, with a note: "Please list a complete address, when shipping items to countries with more than 14 million people, and where their convention is to use both given and family names! We want to keep decent relationships with cooperative foreign post offices. We also suggest you seek medical help!"

Yes,I remember the Hitsville sleeves still in use in 1966, but I also remember the LP sleeves before 1967 (at least starting in 1966. I remember when they were only the navy blue version, with earlier LPs than those on this black one, and for many months before the branched out into the other colours (black, red, green, and brown, in addition to newer blue versions, with newer LPs. I'll see if I can find the earliest blue version. I'm sure there was a fairly long overlap period of the different sleeves, because the distributors got whatever sleeves were used by the pressing plants, and just like record labels, they used whatever stock they had on hand, not throwing away older designs when a new one came out.

I was around in 1961, in The Chicago Metro Area, and periodically looking for records also in Milwaukee and Indianapolis, and on trips to Los Angeles and San Francisco. I saw NO Motown or Tamla company covers of ANY kind until 1963. The Blue Motown covers were first in just 1963. The red ones in both 1963 and 1964. The Black Tamlas were out at the same time as both colours of Motown. The Hitsville covers started in mid 1964, and lasted into 1965. The LP festooned covers started in 1966, and lasted into the late 1960s. I'd bet BigBoppa wasn't even alive back then. The red Motowns were around longer than the blue ones.

The pink Motowns all came in generic brown sleeves. The Blue Motown sleeves didn't start until late 1963, if I remember correctly. But, I admit to keeping my earliest Motowns in them, and then those directly after them in the red Motowns, because, I want all my records in company sleeves, if it is possible. Same goes for my Tamla records. My early Gordy records, Miracle, Mel-O-dy, Soul, and VIP are all in 1962-64 Hitsville covers, until they run out, then in the LP photos on white background design 1965-67 Motown Corp. sleeves, as are the later Motowns and Tamlas.

Is it MY fault that Red Bird made no company sleeves for their US issues? I think US Red Bird records look better in British Rec Bird sleeves than in generic, blank white ones. What is much funnier, is that I keep my 1949-1955 Chicago Al Benson Parrot label records in London Parrot sleeves.

A few more:

I can just hear them singing: "El Señor Creador............... " Is it sung in Spanish or English?

Here are a few more: I wish I had this Revelaires' record to fill my Burgundy sleeve (1954 Detroit R&B Group ballad):

Here are a few more:

I like really hard-to-find sleeves of late 1940s and '50s R&B labels: Too bad I don't have a Ravens' National 45 to put in this one. I did buy Ol' Man River from 1949, but that was only on 78 when I bought it.

DING! DING! DING! - Or should I say, CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! - We have a winner!!!!!!

You never saw one in L.A. or Denver, New York, or Chicago?

I once had a Detroit record on Puff Records, that was found in USA, and taken to The UK. Rod Shard got ahold of it (either it had been found by him or Dave Withers on a USA trip). He sent it to me, in Los Angeles(at that time) in a swap for some records from me. I didn't like it enough for the value I swapped to him, so we re-adjusted the trade, and he replaced it with a record I wanted more. So it was returned to him from L.A by me, either by post, or I hand delivered it to him on my next visit to him (at least once a year, but sometimes 2). So, it started, issued in Detroit, probably was distributed to another US city, then was found by a Brit, and taken to The Greater Manchester Area, then sent to L.A., then sent back to The Greater Manchester Area. I don't know where it went from there (probably another city in The UK). But that's a lot of miles.

Ha! Ha! I've bought hundreds of 45s in various cities, towns, and even a couple countryside swapmeets or markets all over England and Scotland, that came from The West Coast of USA, and bought over 50 UK issues in L.A. and a handful I found in The San Francisco Bay Area (about same distance from London as L.A. because, although it is not as far south, it is farther west, than L.A. Too bad I didn't buy any UK or US, or Canadian 45s when I was in Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur? Those are about as far as one can go from the East Coast of USA (half way around The World.

Thanks. It worked.

Actor, game show host, comedian, and anything but an accomplished singer, Robert Q. Lewis was another of "Winners Destined For Headlines in 1954". This "gem" was one of his hits: What surprises me is that this terrible song was written by such excellent Brill Building songwriters, Hal David and Leon Carr.

I dislike this much more than Cox's version. The guitar is nice (but only sporadic, a few notes at a time. The singing is abysmal. It's "corny", the kind of country farmers' music that drove me to "Race Music", back in the early '50s. Thank goodness we made annual visits to Chicago, back then, so I could get records.

I didn't know that Wally was a C&W yodeling cowboy singer! I had seen that RCA record hundreds of times back in the 1950s, but never had the guts to listen to it, and I never heard it played on the pop stations, back in Winnipeg. Once we got to Chicago, I never heard it, even though it might have been played, sporadically, as an "Oldie", on the Pop stations, - or, more likely, on the Hillbilly C&W stations. But. I didn't have any Hillbilly friends.

Are you telling me that Mr. Peepers WASN'T a SOUL singer??? Hoe kan dat nou????

You could tell that Rita was a Jazz singer by her singing style, even on this Soul song. It's sung like a Jazz singer singing a Broadway show tune. So, she was married to my favourite Jazz musician! I never knew that. One learns something new every day (besides forgetting other things).

Is that 400 miles from Detroit somewhere in Ohio? I also seem to remember a Ravins record on a turquoise Frank Brown , Michigan label (probably recorded in Detroit (Maybe Dearborn Records - I don't think it was MSK), from about late 1966 or 1967). THAT one was always the one I thought of was the hot Northern record. But now it seems that it was only the Demo Ristic record that was played on the scene.

I agree that there is no possible connection between the 2 groups. Upon listening to both sides of the Ravins' record again, I've come to the conclusion that the singer is Caucasian, and the name of the group is for the instrumental band, with one band singer included in their ensamble. 1963 all the way to 1969 is way too far, in any case.

As to the spelling of the group's name. If it is true that it was really The Ravens - that makes me wonder if it could then have been an outgrowth of the 1963 Detroit group on Mike Hanks' MAH's Records, The Royal Ravens. Jimmy Ricks' Ravens had broken up, with Ricks going solo in the mid 1950s, and later forming The Raves. So, the name "Ravens" was available in 1963, and the Detroit group was, apparently, the only one using it. The gap between them, and Dave Hamilton's Ravins/Ravens would have only been a couple years. They may have still been intact as a local Detroit group, doing local club gigs. Too bad so many of the old-time Detroiters, who were teenagers or older during 1963-1967, to whom we once had access, are now gone. I'll see if I can get ahold of a few, and ask them about the group and whether the record ever made it to shops and the radio.