Mike's Riff

Mike Mitchell on sax

Mike's Riff

Mitchell, RoJo Publishing / Jalo Music BMI

Twin Star Records

1958

It's Joe Allen & his  Alley Cats on the other side ("I Want To Thrill You") .  Presumably Mike Mitchell was one of these Alley Cats.  This is a second issue on a label with which Dart, a New-York/Fairlawn, New Jersey label, owned by Roger Sherman, shared a numerical series.    The record was first issued by Jack Gale's Jalo label, out of Baltimore, Maryland.

 Nothing is known about Joe Allen and his Alley Cats.  My research regarding Mike Mitchell has been slighly more fruitful.

• He is certainly "Mike Mitchell, a saxophone player, the only white fellow" of a group of young male musicians who decided in 1958 to start a recording company in Baltimore : Howfum Records.  The last letter was for Mike Mitchell according to Carroll Williamson (the W of Howfum).
•  He is also certainly "the great sax player" enlisted by a Baltimore sixties band named The Del-Rays :  "Sometime around 1966 Jack Hyatt left the group to get married and became a lawyer.  We then enlisted a great sax player by the name of Mike Mitchell. He was a meek guy who reminded you of Don Knotts *, but boy could he play. Mike played with us off and on...

*Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts : played Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show.

There is also Mike Mitchell and the Play Boys on Bango Records (1962)  and Mike Mitchell’s Men of Music who backed Arena Allen on "Shattered Dreams" (Fine Art 221, 1961).   Bango and Fine Arts, both out of Detroit, had the same owner and issued several Philadelphia acts.  So, there is a possibility that he is also the same Mike ...