A Postcard From Canton [Massachusetts] celebrates the accomplishments of one of the town’s most “esteemed citizens” — and industrious tinkerers:
[James Amireaux] Bazin came to examine a simple free-reed instrument when he was 23 years old. A group of men brought him a broken pitch pipe and asked him to repair it. Bazin made the repair but also created a new invention, which became a sliding brass pitch pipe that could be adjusted along a series of pitches from c” to d’”. From this small invention he began making several variations on the theme and eventually moved to reed trumpets, which he invented in 1824. For many years his trumpet accompanied the choir at the Unitarian Church in Canton Corner and reputedly it could be heard “a mile away.” In 1831 Bazin invented a harmonica. In fact, Bazin had only read about the harmonica invented in Germany, so it is likely that indeed this was the first reed harmonica in America.
MelodicaWorld‘s Alan Brinton informs us that the Hohner Soprano, a button-style melodica, “appears to have been first announced in early December, 1958,” while earlier that same year, André Borel, introduced the Clavietta, a keyboard-style melodica. Is it possible that Borel is the unacknowledged pioneer of the keys-based melodica? MelodicaWorld‘s Daren Banarsë took the time to search the British LIbrary for UK publications that contain “Clavietta adverts” and found this one published in the 11 February 1960 edition of Stage and Television:
Zero to 180’s dubious quest to identify the earliest recording of a melodica has thus far led to two popular recordings [“Tint of Blue” by The Bee Gees and “Ice Cream and Suckers” by South Africa’s Soweto Stokvel Septette], as well as a serious composition by Steve Reich [“Melodica“] — all from the year 1966.
Fortunately, “Quirky 45s That Bubbled Under” from this past March broke the logjam with the discovery of Stu Phillips and the Hollyridge Strings (celebrated in 2013) as unwitting innovators who, in 1964, might possibly have been the first to commit melodica to tape in an attempt to emulate John Lennon’s harmonica lines on The Fabs’ very first single for EMI’s subsidiary label, Parlophone:
“Love Me Do” The Hollyridge Strings 1964
A promotional/demonstration copy of the original “Love Me Do” Beatles release on Parlophone (with Paul’s last name misspelled as “McArtney) was sold in 2017 via Discogs for $14,757 — making it “the most expensive 7-inch single ever sold,” as reported on the Gibson Guitars website in 2017.
Note the scandalous “McCartney-Lennon” songwriting credits:
But wait! This television clip of Ray Conniff from three years earlier playing an Italian-manufactured Clavietta now means 1961 is the year to beat (although it should be noted that the studio version of “Midnight Lace” uses a harmonica for the melody line):
“Midnight Lace” Ray Conniff Orchestra 1961
According to the person who posted this video clip —
The Ray Conniff Orchestra and Chorus TV show “Concert In Stereo” in 1961.
Honorable Mention
1965’s “Bossa Melodica” by Dutch bandleader Gaby Dirne & His Orchestra
The Clavietta, it has been said, is a “keyboard version of the accordina.”
Pat Missin states that US patent no. 2461806 (above rendering) “was granted in 1949 to André Borel of Paris, France” for his “chromatic harmonicon” that was manufactured under the name, accordina. Borel would later be granted a patent for a “mouth[-]blown free reed instrument with a piano-style keyboard and both blow and draw reeds,” notes Missin.
The legacy of James Amireaux Bazin, meanwhile, includes “lap organs, table organs, a seraphine, and several larger instruments,” according to A Postcard From Canton. “What is amazing is that his earliest instruments were patented, sold reasonably well (although at a loss), and today are in private collections as well as the Museum of Fine Art, the National Museum of American History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Darcy Kuronen, a noted expert on early musical instruments, writes of Bazin: ‘Each of his surviving examples of his instruments shows a restless desire to improve their operation and versatility, with no one model bearing much resemblance to another.’”
For those who wish to delve further into the history —
One trivia bit from The Rolling Stone Rock Almanac that didn’t make it into Zero to 180’s big Summer Beach Read:
April 30, 1965: The Kinks begin their first headlining UK tour, with The Yardbirds and Goldie and the Gingerbreads providing support.
I have always been curious about the ‘all-girl’ beat group with such a playful name, so a quick browse of their discography in 45Cat immediately drew me to this 1965 French EP with the arty and urbane cover photo:
There was something appealing about the song title “The Skip,” so I queued it up on YouTube and, what do you know — it’s a jaunty organ dance instrumental produced by Shel Talmy, of early Who and Kinks fame:
“The Skip” Goldie and the Gingerbreads 1965
As the crawl text in the YouTube streaming audio clip above notes, “The Skip” began life as the B-side of a Decca single that was released April, 1965 in the UK, as well as the closing track on a French EP (noted above) issued by Decca France three months later. Sadly, “The Skip” never graced any of their US singles, nor did it appear on an LP, as Goldie and the Gingerbreads’ recorded legacy consists solely of 45s — Billboard’s Chris Hutchins explains why in this report from London, one of the “Music Capitals of the World,” in the October 2, 1965 edition:
The successful all-girl American group Goldie and the Gingerbreads, based in Britain, is breaking up because the girls claim working together is not profitable. They had a hit here [Top 30] earlier this year with “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” on Decca. Now Goldie is going solo, two of the others are hoping to form a new group and the fourth is returning to the U.S.
Chris Hutchins would subsequently report in Billboard‘s February 5, 1966 issue that “Immediate [Records] has signed Goldie, who previously led the U.S. all-girl group Goldie and the Gingerbreads who were signed to [UK-based] Decca.”
Fascinating to discover in the course of poking around that Goldie recorded the original version of Goffin & King’s “Goin’ Back” in 1966 prior to The Byrds’ better-known version released the following year as a Columbia 45 (and included on The Notorious Byrd Brothers). Goldie’s version, heartbreakingly, was withdrawn from the marketplace at the insistence of the songwriters due to unauthorized lyric changes, thus paving the way for Dusty Springfield’s subsequent hit version, as detailed by Paul Howes in The Complete Dusty Springfield.
Use of “King’s English” [Going vs. Goin’] in UK song title
Au contraire, counters Goldie herself (in a comment you will find attached to the end of this piece):
“The Song ‘Going Back’ was not withdrawn, Goldie made a decision to withdraw it -Goldie did not like being questioned about lyric change, and asked Andrew L Oldham to withdraw it. Reason being; Dusty made a big to-do as to why the song was given to Goldie after she ( Dusty ) held on to the demo by Carole King for possible future recording of the song. To make things worse, Dusty claimed I even changed a lyric …to which the response from Carol King was….I like what Goldie did.”
Genyusha “Goldie“ Zelkowitz, who later become known as Genya Ravan, would sing in Ten Wheel Drive and make four solo albums between the years 1972-1979. NPR Weekend Edition‘s feature piece from 2016 informs us that this pioneering musician (leader of the “first all-female rock band to be signed to a major label”) returned to the music world in recent years as a host of two radio shows — “Chicks and Broads,” featuring women artists and “Goldie’s Garage” showcasing new talent — on the Sirius/XM channel “Little Steven’s Garage Underground Garage.”
2016 would also see the reissue of “Going Back” as the B-side of a UK 7-inch, with the previously-unreleased “Could It Be” as the featured track [recorded in January, 1966 — link to 45 Cat record of EMIdisc acetate].
Prior to the formation of Goldie and the Gingerbreads, Goldie would join – and then subsequently assume leadership of – Coral recording artist, The Escorts, as evidenced by the evolution of the group’s name over the course of justthree singles: The Escortsvs. The Escorts Featuring “Goldie” vs. Goldie And The Escorts.
A 2005 Haaretz feature piece on Genya Ravan, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who emigrated to the US in 1947, offers an astonishingly unfiltered biographical overview in which we learn —
Her first boyfriend was a Puerto Rican named Colorado who would be memorialized years later in a song she recorded with Lou Reed.
An impromptu “audition” for The Escorts earned Ravan an invitation to become lead singer by the group’s leader, none other than Richard Perry, future A-list record producer (Ringo Starr, Carly Simon, Harry Nilsson, Barbra Streisand).
Before signing to British label, Decca, Goldie and the Gingerbreads first inked a contract offered by Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun, who was suitably impressed with the group’s performance at NYC’s Peppermint Lounge.
Goldie and the Gingerbreads were barred from releasing “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” in the US by the single’s producer, Alan Price, who is said to have taken the recording without permission.
At a live performance in 1972 while on tour with Sly & the Family Stone, one audience member in attendance with family, Muhammad Ali, impelled the show’s producer — in response to Ravan’s liberal use of the F-bomb — to dispatch the police, who ended up arresting her.
*Reminder: This site viewed optimally on a full-screen computer, not a smart phone
George Barnes recorded a boss guitar instrumental – “Spooky” – that should be part of everyone’s Halloween soundtrack:
“Spooky” George Barnes 1962
Billboard conferred three stars (“moderate sales potential) upon this B-side, as well as its A-side “Trainsville,” in their June 23, 1962 edition. Exactly fifty years later, in 2012, someone would pay $126 for a copy of this record.
“Spooky” serves, coincidentally enough, as the final track of a 2-CD retrospective — Restless Guitar (1952-1962) — from 2015 that was released in Spain.
I agree with 45Cat and (unwitting) Zero to 180 contributor, mickey rat, who declares George Barnes to be “an important but neglected figure in the development of American popular music” (not to mention, “one of the very first people to play electric guitar”). Another 45Cat contributor, porcupine, notes the similarity between these two tracks and 1959’s Guitar: Twangy With a Beat album, recorded by Barnes using the nom de guerre, Dean Hightower (an alter ego solely on the ABC-Paramount label).
Dean Hightower: The Back Story [courtesy of Discogs]
Hi…I’m George Barnes’ daughter, and can tell you the history of this album. It was a one-off for ABC-Paramount, who wanted to compete with Duane Eddy and — knowing my father could play anything, which he did as a NYC studio musician — asked him if he’d record something in that genre. He didn’t want to associate his name with it, so took the pseudonym Dean Hightower as a joke. The name’s a fake, but the stereo mix is real. Some people love this album — but this is certainly not representative of his entire body of work! I recently launched The George Barnes Legacy Collection, in case anyone here is interested in learning more about this jazz great and electric guitar pioneer: https://georgebarneslegacy.com
Cheers, Alexandra Barnes Leh
People have forked over considerable cash for George Barnes’ 1959 Country Jazz album, — as much as $250 and more. But wait! For just 1/10 of that amount, you can purchase the entire Country Jazz album remastered on compact disc, plus “rare selected tracks from the airchecks of Barnes’ early national radio performances on NBC’s Plantation Party.” For those who prefer vinyl, Modern Harmonic has re-released Country Jazz in gatefold format that includes extended liner notes and images from the CD.
Rodney Gene Jr. plays “Hot Guitar Rag” from 1959’s Country Jazz album
What a kick in the pants to discover that YouTube does not yet have streaming audio available for Barnes’ debut 45 on Decca — “Hot Guitar Polka” (although you can hear its flip side “Clarinet Polka“, which was used as the theme song for Max Ferguson’s “Rawhide” Canadian radio program). Fortunately, you can hear a great version of “Flintstones Theme” from the album Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, recorded live at Concord, California’s Willow Theater in 1977.
This Just In: Zero to 180 has been informed by Alexandra Barnes Leh, producer of The George Barnes Legacy Collection, that a video for “Hot Guitar Polka” will be part of the promotional push for next year’s re-release of 1958’s Guitars By George! album.
“Organizing an octet of musicians from the Chicago Symphony, George created non-traditional jazz with the unusual instrumentation of electric guitar with clarinet, bass saxophone, English horn, oboe, flute, piccolo, piano, vibes, bass and drums. The George Barnes Octet became a highly-acclaimed weekly feature on the ABC Radio Network.” [excerpt fromArt of Sound Gallery]
Two guitar wizards supplying all the music of a full orchestra. The program is played to perfection, and includes much of the material Barnes and Kress performed at the White House Christmas Party last year. With ease they segue from the mellow “Willow Weep for Me” to the sparkling “Girl Friend,” with a standard version of “Sentimental Journey” completing the bill.
Ten Duets for Two Guitars — Kress & Barnes’ “Guitar Karaoke” LP – 1962
Note: “On the even numbered tracks, there’s only the accompaniment played by C. Kress for ‘the home guitarist to join in.'”
Instructional LP – 1961
Collector’s note: Highest prices paid for George Barnes vinyl? Private label release of a “rare, impromptu” session of duets with pianist Ralph Sutton that have sold for $429 in 2015 and $371 in 2013.
Young Professional + Ubiquitous Session Guitarist
Barnes’ obituary in the Sept. 6, 1977 edition of the New York Times notes “he was a member of the musicians union playing in a trio in Hammond, Indiana, when he was only 12 years old.”
Art of Sound Gallery notes that at 17 years of age, “George was the youngest staff arranger at NBC in Chicago and soon became a featured artist on the nationally-broadcast Plantation Party.”
Q: Do you have any idea how many recording dates you have played on?
A: “Between 1951 and now, I have recorded 23 albums under my own name. From 1953 to 1961, I recorded 61 albums with the Three Suns alone. From 1961 to the present, I have recorded with practically every bigname singing star from Frank Sinatra to Bing Crosby, Patti Page, and loads more. It would be very difficult to find a singing star I haven’t recorded with. They tell me down at the union, that I have recorded more than any other person in their contract file. I don’t know how many recording dates I’ve done, but one day I intend to add them up. I know the number is well into the thousands.”
“The George Barnes Estate receives no royalties from all of those European re-releases [mentioned above] … it’s a terrible and heartbreaking ripoff experienced by many American artists and their families. But my relationship with Modern Harmonic is quite the opposite, for which I’m grateful.”
It always helps to have streaming audio within arm’s reach to make music history more of a ‘multimedia’ experience.
From reading Young Gifted and Black: The Story of Trojan Records by Michael de Koningh & Laurence Cane-Honeysett, for example, I have picked up a number of helpful listening tips and historical revelations, such as this one:
King Records makes an appearance early in the book when the authors recount the rise of Duke Reid, owner of Treasure Isle, one of the top Jamaican labels in the 1960s:
“In the early ’50s, Reid’s wife, Lucille, won a substantial lottery prize, which she invested in their future by buying a business, an off-license called the Treasure Isle Liquor Store, which was located in the same run-down ghetto area that the Duke had patrolled [as a police officer] for a decade. The store was such a success that, in 1958, they relocated to larger premises at 33 Bond Street.
It was normal practice around Kingston for shopkeepers and bar owners to play recorded music to attract customers. Not to be outdone, Reid rigged up a 78 rpm record player in the shop, with a speaker outside the front door, and discovered a formula for increasing his turnover. Nothing drew in the music-hungry local people like a Wynonie Harris record rocking out through the speaker and carrying right across the street.”
The First Trojan Record
The authors identify the very first Trojan 45 release on page 32 — nevertheless, from the comfort of your computer, you can pull up the titles of the A and B sides of TR-001 yourself in three easy steps:
Observe the very first item listed — “Judge Sympathy” by Duke Reid [& His All-Stars] b/w “Never to Be Mine” by Roland Alphonso — with a release date, 28 July 1967, that coincides with the label’s founding by Lee Gopthal and Chris Blackwell.
“Judge Sympathy” Duke Reid All-Stars 1967
“A classic tale of a rude boy getting his comeuppance -or not- in court.”
It is highly improbable, of course, that producer Duke Reid appears on this recording but rather, as YouTube contributor rudeboy6000 states, “Alton Ellis and John Holt are probable guest voices [ref.: Trojan Records].”
< click on all song titles below for streaming audio>
Two years after its founding, the Trojan organization would expand operations in 1969:
“Another significant move in that year was the appointment of St. Kitts-born Joe Sinclair. Joe had been with the Musicland shop at 23 Ridley Road since 1965 … and had elevated the premises to be the number-one retail outlet of the chain. He was rewarded with an appointment as the manager of Trojan Records.
Joe was an accomplished keyboard player and, as well as being responsible for the day-to-day running of the office, moved into playing on and producing records. He founded the Grape label in late 1969 as a ‘take on Apple‘ and started to record UK-based group The Rudies on crunching skinhead-friendly numbers like the revamped ‘Guns of Navarone‘. Some of their records were covers of other artists’ tunes, such as ‘Shanghai‘, which was similar to the Lloyd Charmers original, already released by Pama.
“As reggae gained a firm hold in the charts and minds of Mr. Average Record Buyer, the stars of rock took notice, including The Rolling Stones, who had championed black music since their early days. Under the headline ‘Rudies Play at Mick Jagger‘s Wedding‘, the 10 June 1971 issue of US magazine Rolling Stone reported, ‘At the slightly seedy Cafe des Arts, where the reception was held, a local band opened the show and flopped. Next came The Rudies, a thumping reggae group big in their own scene in Britain. They lifted up plenty of souls ready for a set by Terry Reid and his band.”
Depends What You Mean By “Exclusive”
Part of the UK reggae industry’s colorful history includes a bit of “double dealing”:
“The other problem that confronted [Joe] Sinclair, and that had caused headaches far back for Chris Blackwell, was the [Jamaican] producers’ philosophy of getting as much mileage out of a record as possible. Sometimes Trojan were offered a brand-new recording from Jamaica; they would buy the master tape from the producer and issue it on one of their labels. Pama would have gone through a mirror-image situation with the same producer, who would have two or three copies of his ‘exclusive’, which he would proceed to sell to rival companies before jetting back to the sunshine with a maximum profit.
Sometimes two rival companies’ labels would release a record almost simultaneously — such as Marley‘s “Lively Up Yourself“, which appeared on Trojan’s Green Door imprint and Pama’s Punch label — or, if one unfortunate owner saw it already out on the street, they would just shelve their release. Trojan Records own a considerable number of recordings that they have never released due to this problem, and one can conjecture that the other labels active at the time also had a box of unuseable master tapes.”
This inter-label rivalry (according to Wikipedia – please don’t hit me) “had been fuelled by Bunny Lee’s earlier licensing of Derrick Morgan’s ‘Seven Letters‘ to both Pama and Trojan.”
Both singles released in 1969 – on (Trojan-owned) Jackpot & (Pama-owned) Crab
JA’s Omnipresent Engineer
Syd Bucknor, audio engineer emeritus, receives a musical salute on page 55:
“The engineer at Harry Johnson‘s session at Dynamic Studios on the day that ‘Young, Gifted And Black‘ was recorded was Sid Bucknor. A first cousin to Clement ‘Coxson‘ Dodd, Bucknor started his recording career at Studio One in around 1963. He was with Lee Perry when the youthful Wailers first auditioned for the studio and was impressed by their sound. History vindicates his opinion.
Sid estimates that, by the end of the decade, his hand was present in around 70 per cent of all the recordings coming from the small island, so great was the demand for his talents as a freelance producer and engineer. He estimates that the average number of recordings he would undertake in a normal day was a staggering 12. He never had to look for work as his reputation preceded him and most producers looked to him to turn a song into a hit.
As a professional engineer and producer at Dynamic Studios (after leaving Studio One and his freelance career), he recorded work for, among others, Bunny Lee, Harry Mudie, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin and Leslie Kong. He was the engineer on Johnny Nash’s smash ‘I Can See Clearly Now‘, engineered the formative DJ work of producer Keith Hudson with Big Youth on ‘Ace 90 Skank‘ and worked on the first three Marley Island albums. He also remixed both Duke Reid’s and Coxson’s work at various times to give ‘a more up-to-date sound’.
Sadly, much of Sid’s work has been unrecognised, and it is only now that account has been taken of his vast input to Jamaican music. He recalls that, in the reggae heyday of the start of the ’70s, ‘I would be asked to do two mixes of a tune, one for Jamaica and a lighter one for the UK as a new burgeoning market for their products and their need to retune the sound accordingly.”
Clyde McPhatter and the Trojan Connection
One original era vocal legend, tragically, was not able to hang on for the roots rock revival scene that began to take shape in the early 1970s — Rob Bell recounts:
‘Here’s one artist probably no one in the world knows had a Trojan connection – Clyde McPhatter, lead singer of the Drifters in the early ’50s, who then branched out to a solo career by around 1955 or ’56. Huge influence on R&B – you can listen to thousands of R&B or doo-wop recordings from the ’50s and hear Clyde’s influence. Enormous.
‘He was in London for awhile around 1971 [the master index shows that Clyde recorded in 1970 for Trojan], down on his luck. I don’t know how he showed up at Trojan, but he did. We cut a session with him and The Rudies, with ex-Pioneer Sydney Crooks as producer. Four tunes, assigned Song Bird matrices. Somewhere around SB 1027 to 1032 A and B, as far as I can recall … For some reason, Graham [Walker] and Lee [Gopthal] hated him, and I remember having to tell Clyde that we had no bread for him on the one occasion that I met him.
‘It is not a moment that I recall with relish. He seemed like a nice man and was certainly a singer for whom I had a very high regard. As far as I know, these titles have never been issued.’
Actually, one single ‘Denver‘ would be issued on the “pop-slanted” B&C label in September of 1969 — a nicely arranged piece of pop soul (penned by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham) that would be one of the last releases from the legendary vocalist, who succumbed to alcoholism in 1972 at the age of 39.
UK release in 1969 + Picture sleeve for Spain – 1970
I Roy vs. U Roy vs. Hugh Roy
Forget what you learned in school: U before I, except after Roy. Rob Bell explains:
“I myself was responsible for one cock-up, and that was calling toaster U Roy on his early UK releases Hugh Roy. As you know, Jamaicans tend to drop Hs, and to add them sometimes, viz Marley’s line in ‘Trench Town Rock‘, ‘an ‘ungry man is a hangry man’.
So little old middle-class Rob Bell, one of whose tasks it was to prepare label copy, very carefully typed ‘Hugh Roy’ on the copy for those releases … As I did all the label copy for at least two years, I am sure I am responsible for many cock-ups! However, in my defence, I took the details from the Jamaican label, or got the info from the producer — both sources being, of course, absolutely infallible!
(If it’s any consolation to Rob, the toaster’s debut LP, Version Galore, was issued by Duke Reid in Jamaica in a sleeve proclaiming the artist to be I-Roy!)”
“Full-price ska/reggae albums sold in minute quantities. The Tighten Up series did sell well, but that was because they consisted of compilations of singles that had already sold very well indeed. Trojan wanted to piggyback other titles … hence the ambitious TTL reissue project.”
Tighten Up‘s first volume featured primarily previously-released Trojan 45s and was given the TTL “budget” designation (“though no one now can recall what these initials stood for”). The authors further explain —
“Priced at just 14/6d – the cost of two singles – this album moved units, and its first pressing on the original all-orange Trojan label sold out quickly. It was repressed with a slightly altered sleeve design using the new orange-and-white label design, which was introduced in 1969 …”
“Tighten Up Volume Two appeared quickly afterwards and was not only much more up to date in its tracks; it was also a sizzling selection of recordings … Tighten Up Volume Two was Trojan’s all-time best-selling album and would remain available for many years, such was its enduring popularity. It even score in the pop album charts, the entry rules for which were promptly revised to exclude budget records!”
“Tighten Up Volume 3, issued in 1970, took the pretty girl off the sleeve and on to the bedroom wall with a splendid double-album-sized poster nestled in a die-cut sleeve. The young lady peeped through the central hole and, when the poster was opened out, revealed the titles of all the album’s tracks painted on her finely toned body. It may have been a gimmick, but because of the poster Tighten Up Volume 3 became legendary in every school classroom and extremely popular on the skinheads’ walls.”
Here’s a link to the track listing for Tighten Up Volume 4 — six songs per LP side.
With respect to Pama’s competing series of budget-priced oldies — Straighten Up — Lloyd Bradley, in 2000’s Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King, would simply say that the “sleeves were tacky enough to make Trojan’s lewd efforts look classy.”
Trojan’s reliance on “strings reggae” would hurt the label during the 1970s, as reggae audiences gravitated toward a heavier roots sound as the decade progressed. The label would have liquidity issues in the mid-1970s and find itself under new ownership: Marcel Rodd of Saga/Allied Records. Former Island staffer, Dave Hendley (“with the departure of Tony Cummings”) would be promoted to Artists & Repertoire. The authors take the baton:
“So in the late ’70s, Trojan was drifting, as the only product which producers would offer them was rejects from other deals or substandard work. Due to the company policy of not paying to the same level as their competitors, such as the rapidly expanding Greensleeves Records, Trojan’s reputation in the marketplace had taken a dive. Marcel Rodd was determined to reverse this trend. And so February 1979 saw Dave Hendley, Mo Claridge and fast-rising reggae DJ David Rodigan heading out to Kingston. Dave’s brief was to raise the Trojan flag in Kingston and sign up some acts – although the company had provided no contacts for him to visit.
Due to Dave’s resourcefulness, the outcome was Sugar Minott‘s Ghetto-ology album and The Morwells‘ 12″ disco 45 ‘Kingston 12 Tuffie‘, with a stunning remix by courtesy of Prince Jammy.”
Dave Hendley breaks down the economics for the rest of us:
“Trojan would pay £300 max for a disco 12” single, while the going rate was £400, and they would only pay up to £2,500 for an album, when up to £4,000 was the normal price. I badly wanted a Freddie McGregor album that Niney had and, give him his due, Rodd went to four grand, but Niney wouldn’t let it go for that. Freddie was just so big back then. I tried for the ‘Hard Time Pressure‘ 12″ single from Sugar Minott but couldn’t get it due to the money. In the end I put it out on my own Sufferers’ Heights label.”
“[Page 81] After the departure of Dave Hendley, Trojan began a period of comparative inactivity, seemingly reissuing the same dozen golden oldies in as many permutations as possible, until it was sold to Sharesense Ltd. in 1985…
[Former Chairman, Colin Newman] No matter what some people want to say about the period in which we ran Trojan, we think we acted in manner that was fair and reasonable. We think we gave care and attention to the music, care and attention to the artwork, care and attention to the way the music was presented to the public. We enjoyed doing it and, as you know, we built up other labels which had other genres of music — again, all built up with direct artist relationships. with very few problems. We built up a big chart list of British singles charts, tracks that ha individually been in the charts, and we mixed the benefit of those releases with Trojan’s expertise, in terms of the ability of putting tracks on compilations and things like that. And we had some success with TV ads, probably the most famous was ‘Israelites‘ by Desmond Dekker for a TDK ad [Maxell, actually], with ‘My Ears Are Alight’, which we thought was great and very funny.”
Desmond Dekker’s “Israelites” = Maxell Cassettes
Lord Tanamo’s “I’m In the Mood for Ska” = Paxo Stuffing
Toots & the Maytals’ “Broadway Jungle” = Adidas Footware
Mastered From Vinyl: Superior to Master Tapes?
Those of you who wondered if Trojan’s often murky mixes were somehow caused by limitations in your sound system, you can now rest assured that neither your ears nor playback equipment were at fault:
“Many high-street retailers disliked stocking reggae singles due to their poor sound quality. Joe Sinclair explains the reason:
‘Apart from the big producers like Leslie Kong and Byron Lee, who provided us with master tapes, we always had to dub off a record for our releases.’
In other words, a normal Jamaican-pressed record would be used as the master copy for the Trojan release. All the inherent faults of the none-too-special JA pressing would thereby be transferred to the UK issue, along with a second step away from master-tape sound quality.”
All playlists below in order by catalog #
All dates indicate year of release in the UK — not Jamaica
Amalgamated: According to Discogs —
Founded in 1966 by Joel Gibson (a.k.a. Joe Gibbs) at his radio and TV repair shop on Beeston Street in Kingston, Jamaica, Amalgamated became one of the fastest-rising labels in correlation with the uprising of Rocksteady music. Though the credits almost always read “Produced By Joel Gibson”, production was actually handled by Lee ‘Scratch‘ Perry for the first two years, followed by Winston ‘Niney‘ Holness who took over for the following six years after the fact.
Says the book: “Some of the best sides from 1968 and 1969 were collected on Amalgamated’s Jackpot of Hits compilation.” Also of note to historians: “… the sides by The Cobbs are believed to be Ken Jones‘s productions.” Worth pointing out that obscure early reggae track ‘Red Red Wine‘ by The Immortals – flipside of AMG 869 – “has nothing to do with its more famous namesake.”
Reggae label based on Bunny Lee productions. This label contains releases on multinational markets [from multiple producers, actually].
This UK label were originally started in 1969 as a subsidiary of [Grame Goodall‘s] Doctor Bird Records. Trojan Records took over in 1970, and the label lasted until around 1980. Attack was briefly revived in 1988 until about 1991, issuing compilations of classic Jamaican music from the sixties and seventies.
Zero to 180 emphasizes the array of producers issued on Attack besides Bunny Lee, including (but not limited to) Tony Brevitt, ‘Prince’ Tony Robinson, Warwick Lyn, Winston Riley, Phil Pratt, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin, Lloyd Coxson, Lee Perry, Pat Rhoden, Sidney Crooks, Ernie Smith, Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, Eric Donaldson, Linval Thompson, and Harry J.
UK reggae label and a subsidiary of Trojan Records initiated for productions from Rupie Edwards. Active between 1970 and 1972 and released a total of about 35 releases on 7″.
Originally a subsidiary of Island Records in 1968, Big Shot was absorbed into the Trojan Records group when it spun off from Island that same year, and became one of Trojan’s top secondary subsidiary labels, particularly thanks to its consistent output of material from controversial artist Judge Dread.
Zero to 180 notes the variety of producers whose recordings were issued on Big Shot: George ‘Clive’ Tennors, Ken Khouri, Paul Khouri, Derrick Harriott, Bunny Lee, Niney, Sonia Pottinger, Herman Chin-Loy, Eric Barnett, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin, Des and Webster, Les Foster, Winston Riley, Rad Bryan, Lloyd Daley, Hugh Madden, Glen Brown, Lloyd’s TV & Radio, Lloyd Charmers, and Lloyd & Glen, among others.
Blue Cat Records (UK) was a subsidiary label of Trojan Records. Around 70 records were released on the label between 1968 and 1969, with a variety of early reggae and rocksteady releases from artists such as The Pioneers, The Untouchables, and The Maytones.
Zero to 180 notes the various producers who were represented on Blue Cat, including Dermot Lynch, Joe Gibbs, Charles Reid, Coxson Dodd, Clancy Collins, Charles Ross, Enos McLeod, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin, Nehemiah Reid, and others.
UK reggae label launched by Trojan in 1970 as a subsidiary label for Jackie Edwards and his productions. Almost halfway through Bread’s 20-issue existence, Jackie’s output seemed have been switched to Trojan Records and Horse, with other producers taking over the Bread label [such as Lee Perry, Clancy Eccles, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin, and Bunny Lee].
Clancy Eccles label. Established by Trojan Records in 1969 as the UK counterpart to Clancy Eccles back-a-yard operation in Jamaica.
Clandisc ground to a halt early in 1972, and Clancy Eccles seemed to disappear from the recording scene.
Zero to 180 notes that by 1972, Downtown would showcase the work of other producers, including Kenneth Wilson, Derrick Harriott, Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, ‘Prince’ Tony Robinson, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin, Gussie Clarke, Glen Brown, Clancy Eccles, and Byron Lee, among others.
UK reggae / ska label, active from 1968 until late in 1973 when Trojan Records didn’t need the label any longer. Originally initiated to handle output from Arthur “Duke” Reid. Also, label issued Joe Mansano production with ‘blue’ Joe labels and ‘DU’ catalog numbers. Later, label got separate catalog numbers with ‘JRS’ prefix and brown/yellow design.
Zero to 180 adds this observation:
Plenty of producers showcased on this imprint besides Duke Reid: JJ Johnson, Harry J, Joe Gibbs, Lynford Anderson, Hot Rod, Winston Lowe, Clancy Eccles, George ‘Clive’ Tennors, Byron Lee, Bart Sanfilipo, Herman Chin-Loy, Sir Collins, Maurice ‘Blacka Morwell’ Wellington, Rupie Edwards, Lloyd Charmers, Bruce Anthony, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin, Lee Perry, Keith Hudson, Pat Rhoden, Glen Brown, Neville Willoughby, Phil Pratt, Lloyd Daley, Sonia Pottinger, Vincent ‘Randy’ Chin, Hugh Madden, Dennis Bovell, Gussie Clarke, Bunny Lee, and Whistling Willie, among others.
Duke Reid, a subsidiary of Trojan Records, was a UK reggae label active from 1970 until 1972, issuing Duke Reid / Treasure Isle Productions exclusively.
This Trojan subsidiary dealt with releases from Byron Lee‘s Dynamic Studio (formerly WIRL, or West Indies Records Limited) and spanned some 55 releases between 1970 and 1972. Aside from Lee’s productions, Dynamic also put out material from a variety of other producers recording at Dynamic at the time, most notably Syd Bucknor, Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, and Tommy Cowan.
Adds Zero to 180:
Other producers include Max Romeo, Barry Biggs, S. Francisco, J. Franscique, Eric Donaldson, Neville Willoughby, Neville Hinds, Comic Strip, Winston Wallace, Jimmy Sinclair, C. Wilks, and Geoffrey Chung, among others.
British reggae label started in 1969 and released about 90 vinyl 7″ singles until it’s end in 1974.
Zero to 180 adds this note:
A multitude of producers spinning the dials on these 45 tracks: ,Lloyd Charmers, Derrick Harriott, Alvin ‘GG’ Ranglin, Rupie Edwards, Keith Hudson, Laurel Aitken, Nat Cole, Harry Mudie, Neville Willoughby, La-Fud-Del, Herman Chin-Loy, Sir JJ, Vincent Chin, Lloyd Daley, Lloyd’s Radio & TV, Bunny Lee, Pat Rhoden, Federal, Bush, Sonny Roberts, Lee Perry, Harry J, Duke Reid, and Randy’s, et al.
Check out the Clavinet-like sounds coming from Jerry Whitehurst‘s electric harpsichord on “Wild Blue Yonder,” side one’s closing track from Lloyd Green‘s third solo LP Day of Decision, an album that was recorded (like Stones Jazz) in one day — in this case, on June 18, 1966 at RCA Studios in Nashville:
“Wild Blue Yonder” Lloyd Green 1966
Lloyd Green: Steel Guitar Billy Sanford: Lead Guitar Jerry Reed: Lead Guitar Jerry Shook: Guitar Roy Huskey,Jr.: Bass Glen Davis: Drum[s] Jerry Whitehurst: Electric Harpsichord
Somehow I failed to notice the significance of this announcement on the album’s back cover until now:
“The Baldwin Piano and Organ Company of Cincinnati, Ohio recently invented and began manufacture of a completely new electric Harpsichord.
This instrument is being used for the first time in the ‘Day of Decision’ album. You will notice the various unusual sounds on the different bands; these are just a few of the sound combinations possible on this instrument.
A number of musicians, who have played the Harpsichord, feel that it is the most original and versatile new instrument to be devised in yours.”
Cash Box‘s Tom McIntee would talk up the exciting array of sounds made possible by Baldwin’s new electric harpsichord in the patriotic liner notes that accompany this album:
“Something new has been added to America in this performance. That something new is Lloyd on the steel and Billy Sanford and Jerry Reed on guitars. That something new is an acoustical electric harpsichord. An amazing instrument that sometimes sounds like a kazoo, sometimes like an organ, sometimes like a tuba. The great majority of tracks in this album are old, but the sound is something new. It’s a breath of new life into an America that sometimes grows weary beneath its burdens.
“Lloyd Green plays a Sho-Bud steel guitar” – back cover
The Baldwin electric harpsichord would be used most notably on “Because” from 1969’s Abbey Road by [K-Tel artists] The Beatles, as well as the opening theme to TV’s “The Odd Couple,” according to Spectrasonics (who states that the keyboard was “developed in the early 1960s by the Cannon Guild and marketed by Baldwin from 1966 into the early 1970s.”)
“Each note has its own string and jack, which employs a pick and a damper felt. When the key is depressed, it raises the jack which causes the pick to pluck the string, then come back down and pass over the string and come to rest on the damper. It’s a pretty neat design, but somewhat flawed in that the picks can and will break, and the jacks themselves become brittle. On this one in particular, we had all the jacks replaced with brand new ones. It takes a lot of adjustment to get it right, but once it’s right it sounds awesome.”
This design includes a “very unique pickup system,” in which, as Baldwin’s own literature explains —
“Each pickup can be activated by two switches, one for the treble half of the keyboard and one for the bass. Individually, the treble and bass switches for each pickup can be set for either the left or right volume pedal. All of these tonal combinations can be doubled with a foot control that [indecipherable] the overall tone of the keyboard. The Baldwin two-channel amplifier with tremolo, reverberation, and its exclusive Supersound tone controls bring the tonal possibles to a phenomenal total.”
Click on image below to view in Ultra-High Resolution
Despite the ingenuity of design (did I mention that the CW-9 model includes an “amplifier housed in the same compact floor unit as the two volume pedals”?), Vintage Keyboard Studio affirms that Baldwin electric harpsichords are, indeed, “pretty rare,” most likely due to the challenge of maintaining the instrument’s integrity over time. The relative durability of the Clavinet would account for Hohner’s dominance of the electric harpsichord market by the early-to-mid 1970s, the funky new keyboard’s Golden Age.
Postscript: Jimmy Webb mentions the Baldwin electric harpsichord in his 2017 memoir, The Cake and the Rain, within the context of his work as a songwriter for Johnny Rivers’ new record label, Soul City in 1966-67:
That was the spirit of the time … innovation and the exploitation of new technology. Al Casey played a Japanese guitar called a biwa on [The Fifth Dimension’s version of] “Go Where You Wanna Go.” The Baldwin Electric Harpsichord was a new invention. We procured a prototype, and [Larry] Knechtel and I sat side by side combining a plethora of keyboards and organs. We visited the ubiquitous electric sitar, a fad that started with Joe South‘s “The Games People Play” and ended a month or so later. The studio had been full of gourds, castanets, congas, jawbones, tin cans full of popcorn, Styrofoam cups full of BBs, wind chimes, and thumb harps. Hal Blaine developed a set of tuned tom-toms of different sizes, flared around his perch like a keyboard. Ringo Starr heard about these and asked Hal to come to London to bring a set.
Note: For optimal presentation, view website on computer screen
[Note: Piece updated on February 15, 2019 – see special coda at the tail end]
Zero to 180 is intrigued to discover that today’s featured song is the sole composition attributed to Vic Coppersmith-Heaven [whose impressive audio engineering CV includes Cat Stevens, The Rolling Stones, Billy Preston, and even Stanley Kubrick] on Discogs. This entrancing and otherworldly (near) instrumental can only be found on the 1982 double LP anthology Music and Rhythm that features artists who performed in the first World of Music and Dance (WOMAD) festivals in the UK organized by Peter Gabriel, with help from heavy friends. For the 1980s college crowd, Music and Rhythm served as a gateway album of sorts into “Worldbeat” (i.e., music from outside Europe & the US).
The early-to-mid 1980s would find this idealistic, clueless college student in thrall to a cassette mix of The Jam‘s brilliant run of singles (compiled in chronological fashion by Tom Newbold), culminating in their double-A side masterwork “Going Underground” paired with “Dreams of Children.” The single-sentence summary blurb below from Wikipedia very much captures the extent of my knowledge at that time about the engineer/producer with the distinctive name:
Vic Coppersmith-Heaven (born Victor Smith in England) is an English sound engineer and record producer best known for his production work with The Jam.
Those of us who were initially surprised to see the producer behind The Jam’s finest 45 included in the track listing of Music and Rhythm wondered, therefore, to what degree his preceding work might have informed his musical sensibilities. As it turns out — not in the slightest:
“Pensgosekan” Vic Coppersmith-Heaven 1982
Preston Hayman: Percussion & Gamelan Vic Smith: Guitars & Gamelan Tony Levin: Bass Paddy Bush: Gengong Johnny Warman: Voice
Composed & produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven.
Recorded at Eel Pie Studios & The Manor – Spring 1982.
Engineered by Richard Manwaring & remixed at Crescent Studios. Note: “Pengosekan” fades into a short excerpt from The Ramayana Monkey Chant recorded by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven in Bali — February, 1982
Music and Rhythm‘s liner notes, for one thing, were a tip-off that something more “avant-pop” was afoot on this exclusive recording:
“Vic is best known as a record producer, and over the last five years he has been associated with some of Britain’s most contemporary and successful groups, notably The Jam.
Besides his production work, Vic spends much time pursuing his passion for Bali and its culture. He visits the country frequently, and has made many field recordings of music traditions in that region. In ‘Pengosekan’, especially recorded for this LP, he uses Balinese orchestral percussion — gamelan — instruments to embellish the rhythm track, and overlays this further with vocal improvisations derived from the Balinese Ketjak[or Kecak] or Monkey chant.
We would like to thank Vic for his enthusiasm and faith in this album project as a whole, and we are also indebted to the Indonesian Embassy, Mr. Suparmin and Mr. Abidin in particular, for their kind co-operation and loan of the gamelan instruments used on this track.
We would like to thank [Pete Townshend-owned] Eel Pie Studios for their kind co-operation in the recording of this track. We would also like to thank the Virgin Manor Studio, and Richard Branson in particular, for their kind donation of free time in completing this track; and for their first-class attention and co-operation on this project.”
UbuWeb helpfully elaborates on the history behind this ancient tradition, with this explanatory text that accompanies their streaming audio of a 20-minute field recording from Bali:
“Performed by more than 200 men seated in tight concentric circles around a small central space reserved for the chief protagonists,” the ketjak (loosely called “Monkey Chant”) was first recorded in Bali by David Lewiston and released by Nonesuch Records in 1969. As a spectacular and alternative performance mode, it has had a germinal influence on western performance and poetics since then.
David Lewiston’s original comments follow:
‘While the ketjak is a creation of this century, it is descended from something much more ancient — the trance dance, the dance of exorcism called sanghjang; its ancestry is clear. Ostensibly, the ketjak is a reenactment of the battle described in the Ramayana epic — in which the monkey hordes came to the aid of Prince Rama in his battle with the evil King Ravana — complete with a chorus imitating monkeys, as they chant the syllable tjak.
But as perceptive observers have noted, the ketjak is primarily a dance of exorcism. Its connection with the sanghjang remains unbroken. As pointed out by Walter Spies and Beryl de Zoete in Dance and Drama in Bali, “Most of the movements are exorcistic in origin and contribute together to produce a tremendous unity of mood … to drive out evil as by an incantation. The cries, the crowding, lifted hands, the devouring of single figures, the broken lines of melody bewildering to butas [demons], who can only move straight ahead, all enhance the exorcistic effect.”‘
Glenn Kotche at University of Maryland — sans crickets
Imagine Zero to 180’s surprise 20+ years later during 2009’s Bang on a Can Festival at University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center when [Wilco drummer] Glenn Kotche performed his own interpretation of the Balinese “Monkey Chant,” a composition that not only was included on 2006 solo album, Mobile. but also served as the subject of a 15-minute film by Brendan Canty of DC’s legendary Fugazi [and currently The Messthetics, with bassist Joe Lally and guitarist Anthony Pirog {also of Janel and Anthony}]:
Glenn Kotche – “Monkey Chant”: A Movie by Brendan Canty
In an exclusive exchange facilitated by the filmmaker himself (thank you, Brendan!), Glenn Kotche had this to say in response to Zero to 180’s basic query:
Q: Had you been aware of “Pengosekan” by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven prior to composing “Monkey Chant”?
A: I’m surprised, but I’ve never heard that song before – just heard it for the first time after getting this email! The crickets don’t surprise me though. I included those since all of the recordings that I based my version of the Monkey Chant (Ketjak) on, were recorded outdoors in Bali – so the insect sounds are prevalent and add a really nice atmosphere. Most of those recordings were from the Nonesuch Explorer Series btw. I assume Coppersmith-Heaven noticed that while experiencing it live or was inspired by similar recordings.
2006’s Mobile released on Nonesuch – is that ironic?
Coda: Who Is Walter Spies and Why Are We Talking About Him?
Zero to 180’s eyebrows went up upon receiving this email from Steve Feigenbaum of Cuneiform Records — Silver Spring-based independent label [last celebrated here] that released Janel and Anthony’s Where Is Home in 2012:
I own that Music and Rhythm album and it was a great revelation to me when I first got it when it was released in 1981 or so?
Really like it and really like Vic’s track.
The monkey chant was invented as a tourist kinda thing from ancient, borrowed elements of traditional culture by a German!
Steve’s Wikipedia link immediately brought me to a “Russian-born German primitivist painter” named Walter Spies, who is a “person of interest” in Michael B. Bakan‘s article published in the June, 2009 edition of Ethnomusicology Forum entitled “The Abduction of the Signifying Monkey Chant: Schizophrenic Transmogrifications of Balinese Kecak in Fellini’s Satyricon and the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple,” a scholarly piece that “begins with a historical overview that situates kecak’s own history as a Balinese cultural phenomenon within broader frameworks of hybridity, schizophonic and appropriative processes, and international filmmaking, devoting special attention to the contributions of Walter Spies.”
Walter Spies with Ketut the Cockatoo and Ida Bagus, the Monkey c. 1935
Further sleuthing would reveal that — “according to the standard English leaflet text used by many groups all over Bali” (so says Kendra Stepputat in her research piece entitled, “The Genesis of a Dance-Genre: Walter Spies and the Kecak“) —
“Contrary to popular belief the Kecak dance is not particularly old. It was probably first performed in 1930, although the chorus had its origins in a very ancient ritual of the Sanghyang (trance) Dance, which is still performed sometimes in the village.”
“Kecak is one of the most popular dramatic dance forms performed for tourists on Bali. It has been developed cooperatively by Balinese artists and Western expatriates, most prominently I Wayan Limbak and Walter Spies, living on Bali in the 1930s, with the explicit purpose of meeting the tastes and expectations of a Western audience. Driven by economic considerations, in the late 1960s kecak was standardized into the kecak ramayana known today.”
Feigenbaum gets the last word:
That Music and Rhythm record holds up really well, I think. It never came out fully on CD. I still have my truncated CD AND the original vinyl.
I liked it because it cast a very wide net from The Specials to Peter Hammill!
For the sixth year in a row – on its December 12th anniversary date – Zero to 180 has once again made the dubious and (it needs to be said) rather contemptible decision to post one of its own homemade recordings, under the laughable supposition that the “composition” in question is somehow deserving of a worldwide audience. It’s not — let’s be clear. This is the musical equivalent of a vanity license plate that serves, awkwardly, to salute another year’s efforts by Zero to 180 in its pursuit of the preservation of cultural memories in danger of being lost.
Those who have stumbled upon this post are invited to ignore this annual exercise in self-indulgence — a pathetic attempt to conflate my “work” (to the extent that it exists) with the greats who have come before. Let’s not kid ourselves that anyone, beyond family and close friends, might possibly be interested to learn that this year’s recording is not of the usual ancient vintage but something organized very recently in a makeshift recording studio in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“Mrs. Fletcher” (Dub Mix A) Dub-ble Trubble2018
“Mrs. Fletcher” (Dub Mix B) Dub-ble Trubble2018
Not much is not known about these recordings other than the fact that one musician (yours truly) laid down the guitar and bass lines, while another musician, who served as producer and mixmaster, provided all other sounds.
In its way, “Mrs. Fletcher” extends the ‘pop dub’ aspirations expressed twenty years earlier in “One (Love),” Zero to 180’s final four-track home recording in Cincinnati before the big move 500 miles eastward — ten years or so before the first appearance of the Rocksteady Kid.
Zero to 180 Milestones: Let the School-Age Years Commence
Inaugural Zero to 180 post that established a bona fide cross-cultural link between Cincinnati (via James Brown’s music recorded and distributed by King Records) and Kingston, Jamaica (i.e., Prince Buster’s rocksteady salute to Soul Brother Number One).
1st anniversary piece that featured an exclusive “Howard Dean” remix of a delightful Sesame Street song about anger management (with a special rant about how WordPress’s peculiarities made me homicidal the moment I launched this blog).
2nd anniversary piece that refused to acknowledge the milestone but instead celebrated the under-sung legacy of songwriter/session musician, Joe South – with a link to South’s first 45, a novelty tune that playfully laments Texas’s change in status as the nation’s largest state upon Alaska’s entry into the Union.
3rd anniversary piece that revealed the depths to which Zero to 180 will sink in order to foist his own amateur recordings onto an unsuspecting and trusting populace.
4th anniversary piece that formalized – as a public service – musical chord changes for an old (and tuneless) “hot potato” playground game called ‘The Wonderball.’
5th anniversary piece that paid tribute to the Buchanan & Goodman “break-in” records that helped fuel (along with Mad Magazine) this young music fanatic’s appetite for satire.
Philip Paul‘s stellar stick work really drives this “killer” instrumental version of “Fever” that features organ (Milt Buckner) and vibes (Gene Redd) — recorded at Cincinnati’s King Studios on March 5, 1963:
“Fever” Milt Buckner 1963
Organ: Milt Buckner
Drums: Philip Paul
Bass: Bill Willis
Vibes: Gene Redd
“Fever” — rightly selected as the A-side of a 1963 single release on King subsidiary, Bethlehem (paired with “Why Don’t You Do Right“) — would be characterized 54 years later as “Mod Popcorn R&B” when sold at auction.
“Fever” would also be one of the highlights of 1963 long-playing release The New World of Milt Buckner, an album produced by Hal Neely, arranged by Gene Redd and Milt Buckner, and engineered by Chuck Seitz. (with cover design by Joseph F. Wood). 2013 would see the album reissued on compact disc in Japan.
“In late 1958, Audio Lab was formed as a budget label subsidiary to Cincinnati-based King Records. From 1959 -1962, Audio Lab released a lot of material that had never appeared in album form, including rare albums by Bullmoose Jackson, Annie Laurie, April Stevens, Lattie Moore, [Hank] Penny, the Light Crust Doughboys, Bob Newman, H-Bomb Ferguson, Sticks McGhee and John Lee Hooker.”
One track that enjoyed a second lease on life via Audio Lab was the first (non-45) album appearance of a song that would become a part of the American cultural fabric years later when used as a recurring skit on TV’s “Hee Haw” – link to related Zero to 180 history piece. As Both Sides Now observes, “The original version of [‘Pfft! You Were Gone‘] made its first (only?) LP appearance on [the Kentucky Colonel] Audio Lab album” (Bear Family’s 20-track CD compilation from 1984 Hangover Boogie doesn’t count).
Another great example of King material previously not available on LP —
1962 Audio Lab LP attributed to Moon Mullican entitled Instrumentals (that also, oddly, includes two tracks by Hank Penny and one song each by Mel Cox & Cowboy Copas).
All of these instrumentals are fairly obscure, especially the 1947 Cowboy Copas B-side “Jamboree” that got much better buzz in Billboard ‘s Dec. 13, 1947 edition compared to its A-side “I’m Tired of Playing Santa Claus to You”: “Plenty of good hill country guitar and fiddle in an instrumental potpourri of folk melodies” [streaming audio for “Jamboree” not yet available on YouTube, unfortunately].
Gerald Wilson Orchestra’s early 1954 Los Angeles sessions for Federal and King – including “Mambo Mexicana” – would be reissued five years later on an Audio Lab LP entitled Big Band Modern, a reminder of the mambo mania that had gripped the nation at the time this song (today’s featured track) was released:
“Mambo Mexicano” Gerald Wilson Orchestra 1954
Based on available discographical information, these 1954 recordings would appear to be among the earliest in a career that would span well into the new century, as NPR’s 2011 piece “The Gerald Wilson Orchestra: A Living Legacy” affirms (Wilson, as it turns out, is one of many famous jazz musicians who “did time” in Earl Bostic’s band — in this case, one of four trumpeters who played on a December 4, 1958 Los Angeles recording session (six tracks, including “My Reverie” and “All the Things You Are“).
Today’s featured artist: Gerald Wilson & HIs Orchestra
Kicking off our rogue’s gallery of Classic Audio Lab LP Covers is this modernist gem:
Grammar maven in me cannot allow disparity in song titles below go unremarked:
Zero to 180’s sprawling history trawl “Rare & Unreleased King” made passing reference to another surf-ploitation LP issued by King Records – 1963’s Surfin’ on Wave Nine – and even threatened to make that album the focus of a future history piece … whose time has come today.
Compared to Look Who’s Surfin’ Now (King LP previously celebrated here) Surfin’ on Wave Nine is a bit more of an organic affair, with only a modest amount of jiggery pokery involved.
According to Ruppli’s 2-volume Kings recording sessionography, we can only be certain that two of these songs — “The Fox” and “Buzz Bomb” by The Vice-Roys — were recorded in Cincinnati.
The Vice-Roys would record their songs for King in three sessions: c. Nov/Dec 1961 (“Moasin'”); c. September, 1962 (“Seagreen”); and April, 1963 (“The Fox” & “Buzz Bomb”). Worth noting that King would issue a split single in 1963 with “Seagreen” by The Vice-Roys chosen as the flip side for “That Low Down Move” by Hank Ballard & the Midnighters. But, as Discogs notes, “Seagreen” actually began life as an A-side issued on Bethlehem with the title “Seagram’s” – ostensibly a salute to the whiskey brand. Both Sides Now Publications recounts the controversy:
In 1960, an instrumental rock band called the Viceroys brought Bethlehem an instrumental master they called “Seagrams,” apparently thinking the name of a hard liquor brand would be hip for teens. Bethlehem liked the tune and released it. Unfortunately, Seagrams Corporation didn’t think it was funny and threatened to sue for trademark infringement, and some stations refused to play a song with the name of a commercial product without being paid for advertising time. A sheepish notice in Billboard on March 23, 1960, said, “We Goofed!” and explained that “Seagrams” was now changed to “Seagreen.”
Worth noting that in that same March 23, 1960 edition of Billboard along with the official industry notice from King Records saying “We Goofed!” was this wink-wink news item:
Just Call This a Real Loaded Idea
SAN FRANCISCO— A novel record promotion originated by Bob Earl, San Francisco branch manager for King Records, has been picked up by the national record distributor and will be repeated in Cincinnati, Chicago and New York.
Bethlehem’s new recording of “Seagram,” sung by the Vice-roys, prompted Earl to include a half pint of Seagram’s VO whiskey and a package of Vice-roy cigarettes when delivery the disk, all wrapped up in gay “Mardi Gras” gift paper. Uniformed messenger delivery personnel called upon local deejays in the four top r & b and rock and roll stations in San Francisco and Oakland — KSAN, KEWB, KDIA and KYA.
The Nu-Trons would record two sessions for King — the first (“Tension” and “Wild Side”) in May, 1963 (possibly in Cincinnati — Ruppli is uncertain) and the second (“Malibu Mal” and “Ninth Wave Out” in June, 1963.
The Tramps‘s sole contribution “Maharadja” is the earliest contribution to this various artists compilation (August, 1961), but alas — the recording is leased from another label.
Mickey Baker‘s guitar instrumental classic “Zanzie” (previously celebrated here) was recorded – along with “Gone” – June, 1962 in Paris.
Without a doubt, the song most likely to grab your attention is “The Wobbler” which likely was recorded late (November?) in 1961 by The Wobblers:
“The Wobble” The Wobblers 1961
Listen to King Surf Albums on the Radio!
This Saturday – September 8, 2018 from 6-8 PM – there will be a King Surf Party! In 1963, King Records released several surf albums, Surfin’ on Wave Nine, Look Who Surfin’ Now and Freddie King Goes Surfin’, in response to the California craze. Join WAIF FM radio hosts, Rock-it Rick, Midwest Surf Guy and Handsome Dan, as they play tracks from these King compilations on the legendary “Rockin’ & Surfin’ Show.” Those who live outside Cincinnati can tune in on the web – click on the link to WAIF 88.3 FM.
Photo courtesy of Brandon Wu Photography
