Rockabilly Duos

Another early compilation, featuring rockabilly duos. Actually, these are all male acts and I always intended to do a second volume but other projects were in my mind that are in progress now. I hope I will finish some of them in the next week. If this is the case, please make yourself ready for some great track lists with lots of obscure, rockin', and partially never re-released recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. I was able o locate some real gems and at the moment, I am gathering enough info for some interesting liner notes. In the meantime, enjoy the harmonies of George and Earl, Jimmy and Johnny, Wade and Dick and some others!

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track list:
1. George and Earl - Done Gone
2. Jimmy and Johnny - Can't Find the Door Knob
3. Mike and Jim - Baby Don't Knock
4. Wade and Dick - Bop Bop Baby
5. Jimmy Lee and Wayne Walker - Love Me
6. Mike and Jim - Dungaree Cutie
7. George and Earl - Stop, Look and Listen
8. Farmer Boys - Cool Down Mame
9. Jimmy Lee - Look What Love Will Do
10. Tom Tall and Ruckus Tyler - Don't You Know
11. Jimmy and Johnny - Knock on Wood
12. Farmer Boys - My Baby Done Left Me

Mud on RAK

 Mud - Rocket (1974), RAK 1 C 006-95 707

 Mud - The Ladies (1974), RAK 1 C 006-95 707
Today's post is a bit unusual, thinking of which music normally appears on this blog. Mud was a British Glam Rock band of the 1970s; they had several hits in Europe during the decade. Please do not search for pictures of them unless you want to see men in women's clothers and with women's haircuts. That's why I decided to leave it out to post a picture here. Let the music speak for itself.

1970s Glam Rock was influenced a lot by 1950s rock'n'roll music. Guitar breaks and typical 1950s lyrcis were two of those elements borrowed from rock'n'roll. The genre's leading exponent Gary Glitter even appeared in 1970s Elvis styled suites.

The fast moving "Rocket" is certainly the top side hee and it was a hit in the UK (#6), in Germany (#9) and several other European countries in 1974. "The Ladies" is a mid-tempo rocker which is good but nothing special.

Line-up: Les Gray (vcl), Rob Davis (ld gtr), Ray Stiles (bs), Dave Mount (dms)

Volume 3 review

A rockabilly trio from Canada, the Royal Crowns present their third studio album "Volume 3." Their first two releases were highly acclaimed and their debut album "32 Miles from Memphis" even reached the "National Post's Top Canadian Albums of All Time," a success not many rockabilly bands achieved. The Royal Crowns are Jason Adams on bass and vocals, Danny Bartley on lead guitar and vocals, as well as Teddy Fury on drums and vocals. All of the featured songs on "Volume 3" are original compositions by the band members.

The disc kicks off with the powerful performance of a song called "You Sure Know What You're Doin'," followed by a couple of more solid rockabilly ouings. "Could It Be" and "Please Stop" head more into a pop-rock'n'roll sound direction, the latter being reminiscent of Elvis Presley's late 1950s and early 1960s soft pop songs. Probably the best song is "Pill Poppin' Papa," a raw and stomping number with a great lead guitar.

"Volume 3" is a rockabilly album full of power, energy, and rhythm. Highly recommended to every rockabilly enthusiast. In my opinion, there could have been a bit more variety in the instrumentation and arrangements. A piano here or an acoustic guitar there would have completed the album but that's my personal taste. However, all songs are solid and at least good performances with Danny Bartley playing always an agressive and outstanding lead guitar. "Volume 3" - an exemplar of modern rockabilly.


Visit the band's official website

Carl McVoy on Hi

 Carl McVoy - Tootsie (Hi 45-2001), 1957 

Another bobsluckycat post presented by Mellow's Log Cabin 

Carl McVoy was Jerry Lee Lewis's older piano playing cousin. He worked construction in the Memphis area with Ray Harris. Harris knew Bill Cantrell and Quinton Claunch who were songwriters and workers at Sun Records, in some capacity or other as well. Harris wanted to start his own record company. He also had no maney. He wanted to record Carl McVoy. McVoy had been in the studios at Sun with Harris, Cantrell, and Claunch and they taped some things, none of which impressed Sam Phillips in the slightest. They did do a demo of "Tootsie" and McVoy's arrangement of "You Are My Sunshine."

They took that to a record shop owner in Memphis named Joe Cuoghi and talked him into getting together the financial backing to put this record out. Coughi and his lawyer and a couple of friends managed to scrap up $2500.00. Not much even in those days. I don't know how many copies of Hi 2001 were pressed, even at .25 cents a piece or less, I'm guessing 5000 copies max were printed. The cost of shipping out the records, the cost to take this into a modern custom studio (probably RCA or Starday) in Nashville and re-recording the new master tapes and the other added expense of incidentals ate up the money.

Here's where my speculation comes in based on the facts as I read them. Cuoghi had friends in the juke-box and distribution business and could get the record placed in those distributors hands and juke boxes fairly easily. Probably on spec. None of that initial offering of "Tootsie" went to radio stations or only a very few, so far as I can tell, due to the rampant and crazy payola being paid under the table to D.J.'s at the time. The distributors got the records and farmed them out to the juke-box operators on their bills of lading and got paid for them.

Here's where I come in. In late 1957, the juke-box operator in our town put a copy on the teen hang-out across the street's juke box. I heard it there the same day and walked over to his shop and bought his only other copy. I liked it and I kept it for years.

Joe Cuoghi bought out his partners before this first record was released. Harris, Cantrell and Claunch had equal shares of stock at the inital set up of the company. After that buy-out, Cuoghi owned all but 90 shares of the initial stock, and became head of the company.

After the records were shipped, the record distributors in large part refused to pay for them (maybe Cuoghi owed them money from previous dealings. Who knows.) At just about the same time in early February 1958, Carl McVoy secured a spot on one of Dick Clark's first Saturday Night Programs on ABC TV to do "Tootsie". (Dick Clark never could be touched concerning the mob or payola, but it was highly suspected that Nick Mamerella, Dick Clark's number 2 man had mob ties in Philadelphia for years.)

That TV exposure brought in orders for the record which Cuoghi and Company couldn't fill, since they hadn't been paid for what was already shipped and now had no money to work with. They took it to Sam Phillips right away and he bought it to re-issue on his Phillips International label right away, but by the time he actually got the record out and it was starting to get radio air play. The momentum had passed and the record died. (Phillips paid $2600.00 for the record and bought it outright. In 1970, after Shelby Singleton bought Sun Records copies of the record were still in the warehouse, either returns or unshipped stock and priced to sell at $5.00 a piece). Cuoghi just about broke even.

 

Sometime after that in 1958, the company was reformed with the original four, plus Coughi's lawyer and two "silent" partners and they had an influx of new capital from the "silent partners". Fresh capital was floating around at that time from many sources. Hi Records was then able to release 15 more 45's unsuccessfully into late 1959, when they secured a National Distribution deal with London Records New York Branch which stayed in place for 18 years. London did not distribute much except their own American and English out-put. This was virgin territory for them and they made a fortune in time. The whole company turned then, with Bill Black's Combo gettin radio air-play, juke-box slots nationwide, and a new aggressive venture into the field of LPs which was a success from the start.

 Bill Black Combo - Do It Rat Now (Hi 45-2064), 1963 - with Carl McVoy on piano

In 1960, Carl McVoy bought out Quinton Claunch's stake in the company. I'm thinking he got it pretty cheaply since he was probably owed money. McVoy, by this time, was the pianist/keyboard player for the Bill Black Combo which was churning out hit records right and left. Bill Black died in 1965. McVoy quit shortly after that and took a buy-out and went into the contruction business. He died in 1992. Carl McVoy was a talented musician and arranger make no mistake about that and his contributions may have slipped through the cracks.

RIP Eddy Bell / Doc Watson

In the last few days, the music business has lost two great musicians, both of them were masters in their fields.

Polka legend and rock'n'roll star Eddy Bell aka Eddie Blazonczyk died May 21, 2012, in a hospital in Chicago. He led America's number one polka band for decades but retired in 2002 due to health problems. He was 70 years old.

Folk music legend Doc Watson passed away on May 29, 2012, in Wake Forest Baptist Hospital Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The blind guitar picker from North Carolina was one of the most influential musicians during the last 50 years and has influenced generations of folk/country guitarists. He also teamed up with such legends as Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, or Clarence Ashley. He was 89 years old.

Barn Dance review

If Charlie Poole or Fiddlin' Doc Roberts would have used recording equipment by today's standards, listen to this album and you know what it would have sounded like. "Barn Dance" by Little Black Train is an album full of authentic, traditional old-time music right from the mountains. In the same category as the Black Twig Pickers, Little Black Train covered a lot of old tunes by familiar rural mountain artists.

The album kicks off with a rendition of Dick Justice's "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down" variation entitled "Old Black Dog," a lively and well-sounding track which surely let the listener expect more. "Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down" is a rough and rural Southern gospel song, while the title track "Barn Dance" takes you into an old barn to enjoy the music of a string band playing on an old fashioned barn dance. The track list includes more gems. On "California Blues," Little Black Train replaces the jazzy accompanimen of the original Jimmie Rodgers recording with a more traditional Bluegrass arrangement. Another highlight is their version of the Carter Family's beautiful "Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow." Reading the track list will offer you versions of some of old-time music's most influential and successful artists' songs. It presents American music's roots.

"Barn Dance" is definitely an album with great titles. Listening to this album will take you into the deep South of the 1920s. A band to watch and an album to recommend.


Visit the official website

Coral Rock'n'Roll Party

Another bobsluckycat post presented by Mellow's Log Cabin!

In early 1956, this album was released by Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft to many European countries. These was no comparable American album from Coral, released in the USA. 1956 was the year that many styles and small record labels converged with the big national labels fueled by payola to the d.j.'s and the distributors and some really good music coming out that was different and that was aimed squarely at the core audience which was the 12 to 22 years old demographic or so.

The Supreme Court of the USA struck down "separate but equal" in 1954, segregation was rampant in the land. The record business was in the forefront of change. Small independent labels had sprung up since World War II with fresh new ideas and artists and were taking a greater market share almost daily. New recording equipment, i.e. Hi-Fidelity recording and magnetic tape came into wide use as well. King Records had Blue and Red labels on their records for one thing. Blue was "race", Red was everything else, but mostly country music. King switched to an all blue label in 1954, and dropped most country recording artists as their contracts ended by the mid-50's. King also released a wide range of music on its subsidiaries Federal and DeLuxe. King then concentrated on Blues, R&B, and Jazz aimed at the target audience and Blacks as well.

Not wanting to look like the parents record label, RCA Victor had in house start-ups Groove, "X" and Vik for a while. Decca did as well with Coral and Brunswick to some degree, and on and on. Nobody in early 1956 really knew what Rock-n-Roll was for sure and they still don't, in my opinion. A lot of the music heard on this LP just went away or to adult middle of the road venues. Elvis had hit big as did many others by this time and everybody was just scrambling to make a dollar. Enjoy this LP for the time capsule it is.

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track list:
1. Steve Lawrence - The Chicken and the Hawk
2. Alan Freed - I Don't Need Lottsa Money
3. Lawrence Welk - Rock'n'Roll Ruby
4. Georgie Auld - Plantation Boogie
5. Don Cornell - Teenage Meeting
6. George Cates - High and Dry
7. The McGuire Sisters - Rhythm 'n' Blues
8. Freddie Mitchell - Freddie's Boogie
9. The Goofers - Flip, Flop and Fly
10. Sarah McLawler - Blues for Rex
11. Johnny Burnette - Tear It Up
12. Bill Carey - Goin' to Chicago Blues
13. George Williams - The Rompin' Stomper
14. The Lancers - Little Fool

01 - Steve Lawrence: A popular "Pop" music singer who starred as the featured male singer on the "Tonight Show" for four years along with future wife Eddy Gorme. Lawrence covered this R&B hit by Big Joe Turner on Coral 61563 in late 1955 with no success.

02 - Alan Freed was a very influential D.J. first in Cleveland and then at WNEW in New York City. He put this record out in 1956 on Coral 61660 with no chart action.

03 - Lawrence Welk & His Orch featuring Buddy Merrill, his band member on lead guitar and country style vocals usually, attempted Rockabilly on Coral 61649 in 1956 without any success. I have no idea why.

04 - Georgie Auld & His Orch. covered "Plantation Boogie" on Coral 61381, recorded April 04, 1955. Lenny Dee had the hit on Decca in January 1955 and it was also covered by Red Foley with a Country vocal, also on Decca, the main label of which Coral was a subsidiary.

05 - Don Cornell, a "Pop" music singer out of the big Band Era with Sammy Kaye's Orch, had several pop hits through the 50's by himself and also with Johnny Desmond, And Don Cherry as the "3D's" on Coral. This song from early 1956, Coral 61584 failed to chart.

06 - George Cates, born in 1911, was the musical director of Coral Records for a number of years and was closely associated with "movie" music. This unknown cut has to be from from some jazzy album, but I have no information otherwise.

07 - The McGuire Sisters, three sisters from Ohio signed with Coral in 1954 and were extremely popular and had a long string of hits and hit cover versions from then through 1961. This song, from early 1955 failed to chart, however.

08 - Freddie Mitchell was an R&B, Jazz piano man who cut this song on Brunwick 84023 in 1953 for that label which was the "race label" at the time for Decca.

09 - The Goofers were a "white" cover act on Coral who covered a lot of Black artists between 1954 and 1956 and sold a lot of records to a still very much segregated audience. This was one such record from 1955, Coral 61383. They borrowed heavily from the Bill Haley & The Comets sound, thanks to producer Paul Cohen. This sold a lot of records and got tons of air-play on radio stations where Big Joe Turner had no chance of being heard over the air.

10 - Sarah McLawler was a hammond organ player much in the style of Bill Doggett, her R&B and Jazz infused sides were released,on King Records, Brunswick and finally on Vee-Jay between 1952 and 1956. This cut was released on Brunwick in 1953.

11 - The Johnny Burnette Trio consisting of Johnny Burnette, Dorsey Burnette, and Paul Burlison were discovered while appearing as contestants on the Ted Mack Hour TV show (much like today's "American Idol" show) and signed to a contract by Coral Records. They were from Memphis, Tennessee, but not from the "Sun" stable. They had some moderate hits through 1959, when the brothers split and started separate singing careers in California to great success. This song, Coral 61651 is from early 1956.

12 - Bill Carey had several releases on Coral in the Mid-50's all in an R&B vein and maybe he was a singer with Count Basie's Band or Johnny Otis's Band, given the vibes on this recording. I have no other information. His style is somewhat in the Joe Williams vein.

13 - George Williams & His Orch. recorded this big band R&B instrumental "The Rompin' Stomper" in 1953 and it was released as Coral 61121. It was a popular theme song for many D.J.'s.

14 - The Lancers formerly on Trend Records where they had a 1953 hit entitled "Oh, Sweet Mama Tree-Top Tall", signed with Coral records in 1954 and like the Goofers had "white" covers of Black R&B artists between 1954 and 1956. This song, Coral 61616 charted in 1956 briefly.

Research and notes by bobsluckycat.

The Spitfires on Jaro Int.

The Spitfires - Catfish (Jaro Int. J-77004), 1959

The Spitfires - Fireball Mail (Jaro Int. J-77004), 1959

Another bobsluckycat post presented by Mellow's Log Cabin

Actually, the Spitfires were nothing else than a pseudonym used by Billy Lee Riley for one single release on the Jaro International label. It was Riley's first release after "One More Time" b/w "Got the Water Boiling," his last record on Sun Records (Sun 322, ca. June 1959). Riley was possibly still under contract with Sun when recording for Jaro but knew his contract wasn't renewed. Though, he had to use a pseudonym for releases on other record labels since he was tied to his Sun contract.

Newspaper article from 1957

Riley and his band at the Sun Studio, ca. 1957. From left to right:
Jimmy Van Eaton (drums), Martin Willis (sax), Pat O'Neill (bass),
Jimmy Wilson (piano), and Riley

"Fireball Mail" and "Catfish" were cut in 1959 in Memphis, Tennessee, likely in one of the many independent recording studios like Fernwood. Both sides were instrumentals and still had the "Little Green Men" sound, which suggests that they also recorded these sides with Riley. It's sure that Roland Janes played guitar with possibly Riley on guitar or bass, Jimmy Van Eaton on drums and Martin Willis on sax, leaving only an unknown piano player.

How these cuts ended up on Jaro is not quite clear. Riley started to produce his own records from 1959 onwards and used several pseudonyms on small labels in the following years. Jaro was a subsidiary of Top Rank Records from New York City. The Spitfires' single was one of the first to be released on the label. In August 3, 1959, Billboard gave "Fireball Mail" b/w "Catfish" a promising review but the single failed to chart.

"Very Strong Sales Potential" - Billboard pop review of Jaro 77004 on August 3, 1959

Larry Donn RIP

Arkansas rockabilly legend Larry Donn died May 1, 2012. This message is an especially sad one to me since I had steady conctact with him over the last time. He was a friendly person and always willing to help. He will be greatly missed.

Budget Covers Part I

Rockabilly and country from the famous Starday/Dixie labels. I have possibly enough material for a second one, which will pop up here perhaps in the near future. The Dixie EPs were produced by Starday for the Stewart Sales Company from Chicago, a mail order business that sold the records over Mexico border town radio stations. Most budget label companies would sign unknown local musicians to record the hits and issue them under various names, leasing them also often to other labels. In contrast, Starday used their singers whether they were famous or not (George Jones being one example).

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track list:
1. Leon Payne - Blue Suede Shoes
2. Thumper Jones - Heartbreak Hotel
3. Benny Barnes - I Walk the Line
4. Leon Payne - My Baby Left Me
5. George Jones - Singing the Blues
6. Sleepy LaBeef - You're So Easy to Love
7. George Jones - Eskimo Pie
8. Roger Miller - Who Shot Sam
9. Earl Aycock - I'm Comin' Home
10. Benny Barnes - There You Go