Teenage Vamp

Jeri Lynn Fraser

Teenage Vamp

Written by Al Siegel

From the LP "Two Tickets To Paris"
Roulette Records R 25182

1962

Her career was guided by Al Siegel who has similarly served Ethel Merman, Dolores Gray and Frances Langford among others.

Jeri Lynne Fraser began performing at age of six in a local talent show at the Bolton, CT Town Hall.  She sang Oh Johnny.  Jeri Lynne performed in many local events in Connecticut and the surrounding communities.  At 11 years old Jeri Lynne was a 3-time winner in the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour, a nationally televised program.  This qualified Jeri Lynne to perform in Madison Square Garden.  At 12, Jeri signed her first recording contract with Big Top Records and at 13 signed with Columbia Records.  During this time, Jeri Lynne performed with many notable artists including Sophie Tucker, Frankie Avalon, Gene Pitney, Johnny Tillitson, Brian Hyland, Buzz Clifford, Freddie Cannon, Curtis Lee, Tommy Boyce, and Tony Orlando.

    Jeri Lynne was the female lead in the 1962 “twist” movie entitled Two Tickets to Paris with Joey Dee.

More info here 

Jeri and her Boys at the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour

singing All Shook Up 

(September 20, 1958)

Jeri Lynne Fraser discography

Big Top 3015 : If / Now I'm Of Age  (As By Jeri Lynn)
Columbia 41790 : Poor Begonia / Catch Me
Columbia 42032 : Give My Your Arm, Papa / Lessons In Love
Columbia 42234 : Poor Joe / Take T Easy Baby
ABC Paramount 10395 :  Hush, Harvey, Hush / You Spolied Me
ABC Paramount 10438:  Movie Queen / Are You A Guy With A Line

Roll On Big Mama

This video was posted on YouTube by Gary Robinson on May 3, 2012 who wrote : Country singer George Self from Nacogdoches, Texas singing his 1956 release "Roll On Big Mama" (actually 1957, not 1956).

George Self died shortly after  in June 2012. 

George W. Self, 89, of Cushing, Texas, died Sunday, June 3, 2012, in Nacogdoches, Texas.  He was born October 2, 1922, to Tommie E. and Amanda Gage Self in Cushing, Texas. He made a career of serving in the U.S. Navy and was a lifetime member of the VFW. He survived the sinking of the U.S.S. North Hampton at Guadalcanal. He was also a member of Landmark Baptist Church. -

Long Tall Sally

Lincoln Rand

with The Reveliers

Long Tall Sally

Adona AD-1444

(1961)

This is the first record of this Hammond, Indiana native whose real name is Robert Dolan.   Dolan founded the short-lived Guild Craft Studios in 1964 and studied philosophy at St. Meinrad Seminary College.   In his seven years of monastery and seminary, Dolan got involved in recruitment films for the priesthood and convent. He starred in a slick film — as a rock singer — but people became more interested in him as a rock singer than as a priest.   In 1972, he got the music bug again. “I simply went and started a single act and by October of 1972 the Celery' Road Show blossomed."

Father Bob Dolan (1965) 

Bob Dolan as Elvis (1977)

★

Adona Records

East Chicago, Indiana

Owners Frank Dudek, Robert Billen

Years active : 1960-1962

1441 Bob Bilen 
1442 Little Satan and the Easy Rocks
1443
1444 Lincoln Rand
1445 The Jades
1446 Dick DeWayne Combo  

No Need For Crying

Ricki Pal

with Adam Ross Orchestra

No Need For Crying

w & m Joe Lubin, Irvin J. Roth a.k.a. Adam Ross, & Ricki Pal (1958-10-23)

Arwin MM-115-45

1958

Ricki Pal, "23-year-old nitery thrush" was signed to a three-year contract by Marty Melcher, head of Arwin Records (and also the abusive husband of movie star Doris Day).  

 

The flipside, Just Outside of Love, saw some action on WIVY, Jacksonville, Florida in November 1958.   Ricki Pal was on American Bandstand on 30 December 1958.  This is seemingly her only record. 

No further info.

Honky Tonk Woman

Patti & The Nite-Lites
Patti, Dave, John & Doug

Patti Haack, vocal

Honky Tonk Woman

Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy.

Nite 7218

 

Patti Haack

Real Estate Servicing Coordinator at the United Bank of Iowa

(From The United Difference, UBI Bulletin, December 2014)

If you see her in Ida Grove, Iowa say hello from me, would you ?

Dancin' Bill Bo' Jangles

Stepin Fetchit

Dancin' Bill Bo' Jangles

Ferris 904 
1956

Stepin Fetchit was born Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry.   His bumbling acting style stereotyped African Americans in the early years of cinema.  Though he perpetuated a negative image of African Americans, even the critics agreed he had great comic timing as a stable boy or slave, and he became the first major black film star to become a millionaire.

Perry was born in Key West Florida in 1902. At age 14 he toured the south in minstrel shows and later was a vaudeville singer, dancer and comic. He changed his name to that of a racehorse winning him money in Oklahoma, and eventually made it to Hollywood, where he made dozens of films.

At the height of his fame Perry owned 12 cars and employed a staff of 16 servants. He later squandered his fortune and declared bankruptcy, and by the 1960s was a charity patient at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

Perry died of pneumonia and congestive heart failure on Nov. 19, 1985 in Woodland Hills, California, an extraordinary entertainer who opened doors for black actors that followed, more free to display a limitess range of talent.

Stepin fighting the devil

(Pinkney Roberts' semi-nude exotic dancers "The Pinkettes" in their dressing room)

Young Stepin wanted to be a priest.  He studied for a year in a seminary in New Orleans before coming to Hollywood.  Impurities were troubling Mr. Fetchit.  Temptations had descended along with sudden riches, as they so often do.  Stepin was going to mass each morning to be on condition to wrestle the devil the rest of the day. 

Miss Ann

 

Harold Horn

 

Miss Ann

E. Johnson - R. Penniman

Venice Music, BMI

 

Produced by Bobby Wayne

Jerden 750

Harold Horn was rhythm guitarist in the Bobby Wayne band.  Because Harold is an Indian, Bobby Wayne called his band The Warriors.   Harold Horn can be heard here as the vocalist of the Bobby Wayne band singing Long Lean Baby, a song unissued at the time.

Not sure at all about who was the mysterious Enotris Johnson, composer of Miss Ann, Jenny Jenny and Long Tall Sally, all sung by Little Richard and composer of no other songs.  According to some sources, Enotris Johnson adopted a young Richard Penniman, back in Macon, Georgia :

Enotris Johnson and his wife, Ann Johnson, devout white Seventh Day Adventists, adopted and raised a total of a dozen children, both black and white. One of these was Richard Penniman, who took on the stage name of Little Richard in the '50s. The Johnson's ran the Tick Tock Club, where Richard first performed.

For other sources, Enotris was a little girl :

Honey Chile, a popular disc jockey  introduced Robert Blackwell (Little Richard producer in New Orleans) to a young girl named Enotris Johnson who walked from Appaloosa, Mississippi to New Orleans to find Little Richard and sell him an idea for a song, because her aunt was sick and they needed the money to put her in the hospital.

Go figure. Was Enotris Johnson a real person ?  Or perhaps, the songs were not penned by Enotris Johnson but by another person of the same name ?   You can't really count on internet for debunking the false beliefs.  Incidentally, I've read that Yoko Ono is a singer.  And Tutankhamun is my ancestor.

The Enotris Johnson case is discussed here

 

Jazzy Little Mama

Bunny Sigler

Jazzy Little Mama 

(David Reed,  Tinker Music ASCAP)

A Music City Production

Arr. by Dickie Howard

Hi Lo 102

1958

This is the very first record by this Philadelphia soul and r&b artist, " a musician, a singer, a songwriter, a producer, a mentor to others and a man who had rubbed professional shoulders on an equal status with such legendary Philadelphia icons as Bobby Caldwell, Bobby Martin, David White, John Madara, Len Barry, Linda Creed, Cindy Scott and of course The Mighty Three triumvirate of Gamble, Huff and Bell"

It's almost impossible to find reliable information on the Bunny Sigler recording early days and their chronology, even from the usually dependable ones.   The best source of information I've found about the early career of Bunny Sigler in the late fifties is this article from 2013 by Dave Moore found here    (although Hi Lo is spelled Hi Low...)
I've not be able to find much about who was behind this record.  Surely Frank Pingatore was closely associated with its production, but I can't imagine him as a label owner.  Frank Pingatore owned Tinker Music, the publishing company and wrote songs for Steve Gibson and the Red Caps who had the two other known records on this tiny Hi Lo Philadelphia label.  The Music City credited for the production is perhaps the music store and concert venue on 18th Street and Chesnut in Center City opened in 1947 by a drummer named Ellis Tollin and his business partner, William Welsh.

Frank J. Pingatore, Jr.

Frank Pingatore of Wilmington, Delaware passed away December 17, 2012 at the age of 82.

The son of the late Frank and Margaret Pingatore, he was the longtime owner of Pingatore Hair Designs. Prior to owning Pingatore Hair Designs, Frank was in the music business for many years. He began playing trumpet at an early age and became an accomplished professional player and had his own orchestra. He studied with Rhinehart for advanced trumpet skills and performed pop, jazz and rhythm & blues.

Frank attended Julliard for Composition and Theory and was a member of the ASCAP (American Society Composers, Authors, & Publishers) since 1955. He wrote many songs at an early age, and was the founder of Tinker Music Publishers. In 1953 Frank was presented a song, "Around the Clock," to revise, arrange, and rehearse with Bill Haley and the Comets. He arranged the union of country with rhythm & blues, wrote a new intro and revised the lyrics giving birth to "Rock Around the Clock"! He worked on many of Bill Haley and the Comets early hits, writing "Two Hound Dogs" and "Happy Baby," as well as writing for the Jodimars.