Open Up Your Arms

Randy Lee

Open Up Your Arms

Everest Records

1960

Randy Lee first recorded in 1959 for Spann Records, while he was a student at the University of Chattanooga. The elvisy "Open Up Your Arms" was recorded at the Bradley Studios in Nashville in early January 1960. It was his first session for Everest Records, directed by Leroy Holmes.

For a (partial) discography see Rockin' Country Style. (NOTE : the bio information is certainly wrong, Randy Lee is born around 1940 and wasn't the Randy Lee disc jockey and performer on WCDJ (Edenton, N.C.) in 1959).



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Hawaiian War Rock

The Gem Tones

Hawaiian War Rock

Scarlet Records

Chicago, 1960

"This five-piece Henry Mancini-meets-the Champs group became the first Chicago group to appear on "The Dick Clark Show" that morphed into "American Bandstand." They played the instrumental "Hawaiian War Rock," which was recorded at Hall Recording Studios at 218 S. Wabash. Gem Tones saxophonist Harry Manferdini went on to score more than 80 films, including the "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" movies."

"The Gem Tones were the backing musicians on Carl Bonafede's recording of "Were Wolf " (TEK Records) ... Harry Manfredini on sax..Ken Cerretti on keyboards... Pete Walsh on guitar...Emil Rotondo on bass...Jack Bouchelle on drums"

Picture of the Gem Tones and above details are from the Carl Bonafede blog HERE.




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Ooo Yah Yah

Paul Babbitt

Ooo Yah Yah

Stylo 2104

1959

Little Rock, Arkansas



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Pretty Eyed Baby

Al Trace and his Orchestra

Vocal by Lola Ameche

Pretty Eyed Baby

Mercury Records

1951

Lola Ameche, featured vocalist on this record, was born Lorraine DeAngelis in Chicago, IL, She is also known as Lola Dee.

Lola Dee grew up on Chicago's west-side communities. Her father was a drummer and she started singing before the age of 2, delighting her family. Her first public engagements were amateur shows starting at age 9 with the support of her mother. At the age of 14, she was heard on an amateur program ... Read more HERE (Wikipedia)




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Cherokee Love Pain

Johnny Ringo
(and the Gunsligers)
(Dale Puckett - sax)

Cherokee Love Pain

(Bud Spriggs, Bill Owens Music ASCAP)

Circle B Records

Instrumental




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Shakin Like A Leaf

Clyde Pitts

Shakin Like A Leaf

C. Pitts - Loretta Ricketts, Trickle Music

Toppa Records

Billboard reviewer wasn't that impressed by Clyde Pitts' effort issued by Toppa Records, a label owned in Covina, California by Jack Morris, a local DJ.

Pitts tries hard on this rocker but the side doesn't come off. (Billboard, August 22, 1960)

Born around 1939 in Mississippi, Clyde Pitts played lead guitar in some country band around Jackson in the fifties before recording eight singles between 1960 and 1968 for six different labels. After his recording career was over he has worked as a songwriter (and a rather prolific one). He co-wrote songs with big names such as Carl Belew, Van Givens (AKA Tommy Blake), Billy Deaton....

His most successful song was "Sweetheart Of The Year" sung by Ray Price (Columbia, 1969), a song Clyde recorded himself before for Monument Records in 1968.


Clyde Pitts discography :

1960 Just A Reminder/Shakin' Like A Leaf Toppa 1018
1961 Baby, Don't Believe Him/Lonely Side Of Time 4-Star 1751
1962 Race With Heartbreak/Better Side Of Him Challenge 9165
1962 Heartbroken/Mister Me Everest 20002
1966 I'm Gonna Change My Telephone/Let Me Be Me Columbia 43713 PS
1966 Who Let This Heartache In/Would You Believe It Columbia 43820
1966 Gone You're Gonna Be/Lover, Let Go Columbia 43945
1968 If The Song Fits/Sweetheart Of The Year Monument 1068

Clyde Pitts in BMI database

Clyde Pitts in Rockin' Country Style

N.B. : Jerry Pitts - listed in Rockin' Country Style - is his younger brother.




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Smoke Stack Lightning

Herby Joe

Smoke Stack Lightning

(Abco 101, 1956)

The Abco label was founded by Elias P. Toscano and Joe Brown in 1956. Toscano set up a studio behind the store he had at 2854 West Roosevelt in Chicago. His store was « AB Television and Record Sales, a television sales and service outfit, a retail record store and a one-stop record distributorship. Toscano’s friend Joe Bedno worked promotion for the label and helped operate the AB-one stop.

The concentration for Abco was blues. There was only seven releases — two bar-band blues, one Louis Myers and the other by Morris Pejoe, and four blues with a more up-town sound, two by Arbee Stidham, one by Herby Joe, and one by Freddie Hall. There was one vocal group release, by the Rip-Chords.

Brown dropped out of the operation during the summer of 1956, and Toscano and Bedno reorganized the firm as Cobra Records in August [1956].

Source : Robert Pruter




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Cha-Lyp-So - Baby

The Nobletones

Cha-Lyp-So - Baby

Black vocal group on C&M Records, Elizabeth,N.J. a label owned by Castino Queen and Mary Linkowitch (also owners of Wanger Records)




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Hotcha Cha Cha Brown

picture credit : Marv Goldberg

The Flares

(Beverly Harris, lead)

Hotcha Cha Cha Brown


Felsted Records

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Satellite Sadie

Bob Keefe

Satellite Sadie

Scope Records

1959

★

The Scope label was set up in Chicago in 1955 by Archie Levington.


According to Billboard (September 17, 1955)

"Archie Levington , owner of Studio and Midway publishing firms, has set up his own recording company, Scope, which will primarily serve as a showcase for his own tunes. [...]

and :

All Scope disk labels will carry a stroboscopic design with which buyers and dealers can determine the speed accuracy of their turntables."

Scope Records, Houston, Texas, 1962

Similar "stroboscopic design"
on a label also named Scope

Coincidence?

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Bunny-Bop

Mabel Williams and Buddy Barnett

Bunny-Bop

Vocal Buddy Barnett

Scarce primitive bopper with prominent piano (played by Mabel Williams?) on red vinyl, recently sold on eBay (winning bid : 227.50 US$).

Listed in Rockin' Country Style (unknown location and no label shot). Perhaps from Texas as the label looks like a TNT custom press. ?

Soundfile is from the Buffalo Bop CD "Wailin' Wildcat".

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I Get Weak

Tiny Lewis

I Get Weak

Linda Records

The flip side of the better known "Rockin' Too Much", much available on various compilations or on YouTube.

From 1959. Was re-issued two years later on the Tap label.

The only release on the label and, perhaps, the only Tiny Lewis release, ?



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I Wanna Know

Emmy Lou

I Wanna Know

Lute Records

Produced by Ron Barrett

1961

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As Long As I'm Moving

DIAMOND LIL

with
CONVERSE ALL STARS

As Long As I'm Moving

Screaming Grease 4369

A 1982 cover of a song first recorded by Ruth Brown for Atlantic Records, 1955.

★

Diamond Lil

Bio (from rateyourmusic.com)

Born Savannah, GA, United States
Also Known As Leslie Diamond [1960s], Queen of All Glamour, Diamond Lil With Converse All-Stars

Savannah born female impersonator, pianist and singer Diamond Lil is often credited as the first drag queen to abandon lip-syncing and opting to instead perform live with an accompanying band. Following a sodomy attack at gunpoint near a local Tybee Island American Legion at age 17 and discharged from a secretarial position in the Air National Guard, the entertainer moved to Atalanta in 1965, got married, divorced and performed under the androgynous stage name Leslie Diamond in cities as far away as Columbus, Ohio.

Unintentionally borrowing Mae West's nickname at a 1968 premier performance in Atlanta's Mrs. P's supper club, the "Diamond Lil" moniker stuck. Shows at small establishments began drawing a regular following, with Sweet Gum Head cabaret and Club Centaur being the 1970s venues in which the act was developed. By the early 1980s, Diamond began a recording career that culminated in the release of a debut LP in 1984. Making a home in Atlanta's Buckhead section, the "Queen of All Glamor and Grease" also became a local advice columnist and obituary writer. The turn of the millennium saw a small Diamond Lil resurgence, with a couple of newly released live & reissue recordings coming to market.

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The Girl in Chinatown

The Esquirers

"The Girl in Chinatown"

(Hudson, Baker, Boney, Mingo Music Publ. BMI)

Internationale 276

756 7th Ave. N.Y.C.

Arranged by Abie Baker


★

Obscure New-York label who also issued the same year - 1963 - Sandy Vale's "How To Succeed In Records Without Really Trying" (Abie Baker was again the arranger).




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Discombobulated

Rex Johnson

Discombobulated

Harbert-Hakim, St. Lawrence Music BMI
Kem Records

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That's the Trouble with Love

Jane Bowman

That's the Trouble with Love

(Joe M. Huling - Bob Chilton, American Music BMI)

Acclaim JB-1001

Produced by Jim Canada


★

Probably her first (before her two singles on Sapien Records, on which the wilder "Mad Mama" was issued).

Around the same time (year 1961) was launched another Acclaim label, also from California. As I can't find a release for Sapien 1001 AND any other release on the same Acclaim label, I assume this Acclaim label had to change its name and became Sapien.

Producer (and A&R) Jim Canada was involved with all these Jane Bowman recordings.


Update April 4, 2018
Link is dead but you can hear the song at YouTube here

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Wayne Cochran on Deck

Wayne Cochran

Little Orphan Annie

Monkey, Monkey
(You Do It Like This)

Deck 151

Billboard : October 26, 1963




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Rocket Baby

Jack Martin

Rocket Baby

Chart 3010

This somewhat obscure Chart label is listed in Rockin' Country Style.

No location is given. As far as I can tell, the only fact which can be assumed is that the label was the subsidiary of a recording studio located at 420 Broad St., Nashville, Tennessee. I'm not sure about the ownership or even about the studio's name : Fidelity Recordings or Globe Records. Probably issued around 1958, and like the other Chart records listed in Rockin' Country Style, was never reviewed by Billboard.

Mosberger, one of the songwriters, is Steve G. Mosberger (b. 1906-) whose name pop up on various "song poem" records labels, such as Fable, Abbey, Dial and Allstar.



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