Chloe

Sister Grace Capellas

Chloe

According to Sister Grace Capellas once the soloist of The Singing Sisters :

There is a unique connection between the artist and the Divine. When we look at the life of St. Francis of Assisi, he was a troubadour. Francis used his musical gifts to serve the Lord. Like him, if there is a need and you have the talents, you must use them. Sometimes gifts can get suppressed, but we must not hide them as in the parable of the steward who buried the talents given him. In the same vein, from the very beginning my mother told me, “When you sing, you must always offer it up to God.” Performance is prayer.

When I was in Syracuse in New York, I was the soloist of the Singing Sisters of Syracuse. We did albums and even cut a gold record. I remember always getting these beautiful floral bouquets after performances and taking them to my room. One day, one of the sisters said to me, “Don’t you want to put your flowers in chapel?” Having already offered up my work to God, I quipped, “No, God gets the singing; I get the flowers.”

"Chloe" was originally released on a Century Custom album in 1965 (#20991).  Track here is from the CD "The Annoying Music Show"

B-B-B Baby

El Rojo

Redd-E Records #5003

1958

El Rojo, whose real name and/or biography is unknown to me, is described in the Billboard magazine dated 8 Oct. 1958 as the Edmundo Ros of Bermuda.  A second single on Redd-E 5006 featured "Play Ball You All"  a rock vocal runthrough on a baseball theme, co-authored some years back by New York Yankees' annoncer, Mel Allen.

B-B-B Baby

Redd Evans opened his own label in New York, Redd-E Records,in February 1954.

Redd Evans (1912-72) composer, author, publisher, musician, singer and record executive, was most famous as a lyricist, whose hits included “Rosie the Riveter,” “There! I’ve Said It Again.” “Let Me Off Uptown,” “No Moon at All,” “Don’t Go to Strangers,” “American Beauty Rose,” “The Frim Fram Sauce,” and “If Love Is Good to Me.”  He was also a singer and he may have been a better-than-competent ocarina player, at one time a member of the Horace Heidt dance orchestra. 

The most popular number of his was "Rosie the Riveter," co-written with John Jacob Loeb.  "Rosie" captured the nation's imagination; and during the war pictorial versions of her at work, notably one by Norman Rockwell, graced bulletin boards and magazines throughout the nation.  The song was usually played so that between the words "Rosie" and riveter", there was a pause during which a rapid drum roll approimated an air hammer flattening a rivet.

Jazz singer Anita O'Day, at the age of fifteen, met Redd Evans. She credited him later with introducing her to the existence of riffs, which she defined as a "repeated musical phrase.".

Little Bit Of Blues

Slim Harper

Wil-Row WR-203/WR-204

1957

Newark, New Jersey

Slim Harper and his brother Rocky as kids back in Virginia used to listen to the Blue Sky Boys and The Bailes Brothers on the radio out of WBT in Charlotte, N.C.,

“Every day at noon they’d come on and we’d listen to ’em. That’s what got us started really,” Rocky Harper recalled. “We started playing trying to imitate those guys. I played the mandolin and Slim played the guitar.”

In 1952, Slim Harper, formerly with WXGI, Richmond, Va., joined WLVA, Lynchburg, Va.,  replacing Curley Garner,.  In 1957 he was running the “Midnight Jamboree” over WVNJ-Newark,  In 1958, the Slim Harper Show featuring Billy Sage and the Virginia Playboys had been booked by Smokey Warren to hold forth indefinitely each Friday and Sturday night at the Scandia Club on Route 28, Garwood, New Jersey.

While in New Jersey, Slim Harper also recorded  for Anchor Records and Wagon Records. (1957-1958)

Slim moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona in the sixties where he recorded for the Goldrose label

Little Bit Of Blues


Blues On Parade

Happy Birthday, Sweet 16

Greg Gifford : Happy Birthday, Sweet 16

A cover on a Discount Disc EP, a subsidiary of Pickwick International.  Perhaps their most obscure label (among others : Bravo, Hurrah, International Award, Grand Prix, etc.)

Milk Cow Blues

Milk Cow Blues

Here is Bob Cox on his own Magnet label.  Under the sticker, original printed credit is probably The 32 Bar Ranch Hands; which was his own band. Date unknown (early sixties?)

Bob Cox, a popular singer and musician in the Prescott, Arizona area for many years, grew up in Sweetwater, Texas before settled in Arizona where he  began working farm labor and performing. Cox performed on local radio with Marty Robbins in several talent contests and also with Jimmy Wakely and Dub Taylor.  He played in the many bars and watering holes along Prescott's famous Whiskey Row, including the historic Palace Saloon.

He passed away in 2012.

Swing Little Carmella

Two curiously similar instrumentals.  Both from the early sixties.

"Swing Little Carol" by The Renegades, a Butte, Montana band produced in Spokane Washington at Sound Recording Company. Lead Guitar – Cliff Champeau.

"Carmella" by the Tommy Scott band with Gaines (Jr.) Blevins on guitar on the Katona label out of Hollywood in the Starday custom series.

The Renegades


Tommy Scott Band

Welcome Heartache

Green Mountain 1130
"Starday custom" from Glens Falls, New York

late '65 or early '66?

Bernadette Williams has been a regular with Pete Williams and the Ranchers on WRGB-TV in the mid-sixties and has sung on radio stations in Schenectady. She also has shared the stage with Hank Snow, Dottie West, and Ernie Tubbs,   Inducted into The New York State Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2002.

Welcome Heartache

Freddie's Marilyn

Here is Freddie Dino backed by his Fabulous Jerrels on Star Artists, a Rochester label, pressed by the Capitol Records custom division in 1965.  This is the last of three singles on Star Artists, soon renamed Capitol Star Artists, owned by Don Redanz assisted by Tony Powlowski (the Tony of The Don & Tony Show)

Is this the same Freddie Dino on the Queen label? I don't known

Freddie's Marilyn

A Gruntin' And A Groanin' (The Wrestlers Song)

Maurice Tillet "The French Angel"

Scat Man Crothers's  recording of “A-Gruntin’ And A-Groanin’ (The Wrestlers Song)" backed by the Red Callender Sextet, combined R&B with professional wrestling, which was just getting some high profile popularity on TV out of the Olympic Auditorium in L.A.   It was issued on Intro in 1951, a subsidiary of Aladdin Records. The Billboard's reviewer wasn't that impressed by this side : "Another case of a good performance and flimsy material, here some nonsense about the wrestling matches" (Billboard, May 26, 1951)

The French Angel (picture above) was one of these wrestlers who appeared in L.A. at that time. Maurice Tillet (The French Angel's real name) is widely believed to have been the inspiration for the cartoon character "Shrek", although DreamWorks has never confirmed precisely from where Shrek's inspiration arose.

A Gruntin' And A Groanin' (The Wrestlers Song)

Twist And Shout

Candice Aull
with

Dick Holler's Holidays

Vital 64 V-107
1965

This is probably Candice Aull Ralston born in 1948 who graduated from Batesburg Leesville High Class in 1966. In 1973, Candice founded the Stepping Out Dance Studio in Lexington, South Carolina. That's the sum of my knowledge regarding Candice Aull.

On Dick Holler and the Holidays, see That'll Be The Day

Twist And Shout

Rock And Roll King

Rock And Roll King

Carl Jones pays tribute to Elvis, the King of Rock & Roll (1977)

Morris “Carl” Jones (1913-1985)

Musician and Chicago-based record producer, Carl Jones was born in Waxahachie, Texas.  As a teenager he took up the banjo and eventually addet trumpet and trombone to his instrumental repertoire. He got a show on the local radio station, WXA, singing and playing. Jones soon joined the Carolina Cotton Pickers, the first of many groups to which he belonged.  He moved to Chicago in 1937 and in 1945 recorded two sides for Mercury.  He founded the C.J. label in the late fities, eventually followed by two more, the Colt and Firma labels.  He is best known for his output in the blues field, having recorded Earl Hooker, Mack Simmons, Hound Dog Taylor, Homesick James and Detroit Junior.

Jones's record company was never more than a boutique operation, and he maintained his nine-to-five job in the liquor distribution business and worked on Sundays as a bartender at a famed South Side blues bar, Theresa's.

When Jones died in 1985 he was still operating his record company.


[Info above from Robert Pruter]

Cumberland Spoons

Joe Jones known to many as "Mr. Spoons" made his living off tips for many decades by playing the spoons.  He described himself as an "ignorant" man but as usual explains it away with a wise thought.  "If you're intelligent, you've got to work 'cause you owe it to the world.  If you're stupid, they put you to work to keep your hands busy and out of trouble.  But if you're just ignorant... well then no one much wants ya, so they leave ya alone."

His brother-in-law had four degrees and has to borrow money from him  all the time.  Think about that before taking your law boards!

See him live here at the Kentucky Horse Park Bluegrass Festival in 1991

Cumberland Spoons

Matchbox

Hit Records was a Nashville-based label founded in 1962 by producer William Beasley which specialized in releasing cover versions on 45 RPM singles usually sold for a list price of 39 cents (less than half the price of the major label originals) in five-and-dime stores and supermarkets.

Here on lead vocal is probably Bobby Russell fronting The Jalopy Five

Follow this link and be ready for a really nice surprise, courtesy of the tireless Drunken Hobo (a/k/a Apes Ville)

Matchbox

Playboy

Born in Memphis, Tennessee around 1935 Charles Jones, better known as Jeb Stuart, had a long musical career.  From the beginning of his career, Stuart seems to have oriented himself toward the white audience. He grew up idolising Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Elvis, Fats Domino, and Little Richard, and left Memphis to study at the Chicago Conservatory of Music under Frank Lavere, one of the writers of Nat King Cole's hit ''Pretend''.  This Zale single is missing from his various  discographies available online.

While in Chicago and before he came back to Memphis, he recorded these four singles :

My Dearest Treasure / My Silent Heart  ~ WING 90068 -1956 (As Charles Jones)

Bring Down The Curtain / Playboy  (As Charlie Jones)   ZALE 1301-2 -  1957

You Forgot About Me / All Broken Up ~ (As Jeb Stuart) MAESTRO 1004/5   1959

Ichaban Josan / What A Beautiful Face ~ (As Jeb Stuart) SHAR 2 - 1959

Also, while in Chicago, Charles Jones/Jeb Stuart managed Faith Taylor & The Sweet Teens (Federal and Bea & Baby Records).

More info:

http://thatsallritemama.blogspot.com/2015/10/jeb-stuart-on-cotton.html

 http://www.sirshambling.com/artists_2012/S/jeb_stuart/index.php

http://koti.mbnet.fi/wdd/jebstuart.htm

Playboy

Wild

Recorded for the Mecca label, in West Seattle, by Joe Boles in 1959.  The Vanguards added the Du-ettes as vocalists, and performed together on the Seattle Bandstand TV show.  The Du-ettes (Bonnie Dee Sloan and Annie Laurie Sloan) were the daughters of Sterling (Bud) Sloan, owner of Mecca Records (920 3rd Avenue Seattle, Washington)

 

Wild

 

Crying Time

Maxwell-56 45-M200

Sara Jo with The Trovadores

Song written by Donald E. Teachout, also known as recording artist Troy Onteare and also owner of this tiny (three singles) Maxwell-56 label out of Wheeling, West Virginia. From 1964.

Crying Time

Honey Buggie

A former student of Millikan Junior High School, Linda Green of North Hollywood was discovered by Muriel Sanders and Jack Elton;  they've been coaching her for a couple of years when Ray Bolger (actor who played Scarecrow in MGM's classic The Wizard of Oz in 1939) was lucky to hear about her.  And 13-year Linda Green soon appeared in 1960 with Jerry Lewis and Ray Bolger in night club dates in Las Vegas. When she returned from a four-week stay in Las Vegas, pressure of recording and engagements soon forcing her to drop out of junior high and she attended Hollywood Professional School with such young recording stars as Cathy Young and Brenda Lee. 

Fred De Moss wrote "Honey Buggie".  From Yorba Linda, where Nixon was also a resident, Fred De Moss later wrote a pro-Nixon song, "Richard Nixon Is The Man".

Honey Buggie

Jelly-Bean

Obscure group on the equally obscure Carthay label.  The Galaxys 45 is rare, that's all about I can say about them. 

Incorporated in January 1959, Carthay Records, first located at 1614 N. Argyle in Hollywood,  released their first release in April 1959,  an unreleased master recorded the previous summer by the thrush Mimi Harp and heavily promoted by KLAC radio. According to Cash Box, August 16, 1958

     . . . To help bring talent to the attention of record companies,

    radio  station KLAC-Hollywood, Calif, inaugurated a “Sun-

    day Scoop” series Sunday, Aug. 3rd, with a spin every 15

    minutes from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. of an unreleased master record.

    The first waxing to get the treatment was “Going To Heaven

    Ridin’ a Mule”, recorded by Mimi Harp. Total plays were 52 for the period.

Shortly after the first release, Carthay moved not too far at 1608 N. Argyle and issued five more singles in 1959 and 1960.  A last release, five years later oddly enough, were on a Denver, Colorado band, The Fogcutters, record which was leased to Liberty Records.



Carthay label discography

101      Mimi Harp    

A - The Morning After (The Night Before) (Winn, Gould, Lidville BMI)

B -  Goin' To Heaven (Ridin' On A Mule) (Joe Lilley, Mark Warnow ASCAP)

     Arranged And Conducted by Danny Gould

     Promotion :  Irwin Zucker

     Master purchased (but not issued?) by Ed Brown prexy of Mun Rab Records

102      Zola And His Horn

A - The Slide (H. Winn, Moonbeam Music Co. BMI)

B - Marching To The Coliseum (E. Alperson Jr., N. Malkin, Fairlane Music, Lansdowne Music (ASCAP)

103      The Galaxys

A - Jelly-Bean (Dwight Davis, Moonbeam Music Co.)

B -  A Lover's Prayer (Robert Robertson, Moonbeam Music Co.)

104      Mickie Adrienne

A -  I'll Remember Johnny (Walter Straub, Moonbeam Music Co)

B -  Mr. Heartbreak (R. Freed, B. Weber  , Fairlane Music ASCAP)

105      Johnny Prophet

A -  (I've Got) Two Arms (Winn-Gould, Lidville Music Co BMI)

B -  Find A Penny (Winn-Gould, Lidville Music Co BMI)

Arranged And Conducted By Danny Gould

110      Bob Grabeau (1960)
A - (I'm Gonna) Be You (Alperson-Winn, Fairlane Music Corp. ASCAP)

B - Passing By (Alperson-Winn, Fairlane Music Corp. ASCAP)

777      The Fogcutters (1965)
A - You Say  (Eric Karl Circle Seven BMI)

B - Cry, Cry, Cry!  (Don Cameron, Circle Seven BMI) 

           Leased To Liberty Records, Issued on Liberty 55793

Jelly-Bean

Pianola Pete

Newark-born Harriet Kay by the time she was nine was singing "professionally" at weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc. At 12 she made her first TV appearance as one of Marie Moser's Starlets — like Connie Francis among other young artists — over Newark's WATV. 

Her first record was also the initial release on the Gibraltar label, which was part of Gibraltar Music, a publishing enterprise operated by Bill Harrington. Other records followed on Jubilee, Dawn and X, all released in 1955.  

In 1957 lots of things happened to her.  Firstly, she changed her name (she didn't like her old one). Her hair, once a wicked platinum blonde, was now just a semi-provocative honey blonde. And she was signed to a major company that issued on her about ten singles and one album between 1957 and 1959.

Pianola Pete

Dark Glasses

Billy Joe Royal needs no introduction.  This is his second single for Boots Woodall's Fairlane label issued in January 1962. Both sides written by Joe South.

Billy Joe was earlier the featured vocalist with the Savannah, Georgia band of Buddy Livingston, The band once included Billy Joe Royal, Joe South and Ray Stevens.

Buddy Livingston was considered the Elvis of the Coastal Empire and played all over the area, including at the Bamboo Ranch in Savannah and the Barn.   Buddy played bass guitar and was the lead man for the band. They played almost every night at a club called "The Bamboo Ranch" and even had their own 30-minute television show on WTOC for a while.

They hired a young singer named Billy Joe Royal, and before long, the band was called "Buddy Livingston and the Versatones--- featuring Billy Joe Royal."

Perhaps

Dark Glasses

You Ain't Gonna Get It

Ellen Sutton  had relocated to the West Coast at age 17 in 1941 from her native Pittsburgh to appear on Gene Autry's radio show.  That year she also recorded for Columbia's Okeh subsidiary  as Ella Sutton.  In 1943, the young vocalist, reportedly 240 pounds, was teamed with The Prairie Pioneers for the Camel Caravan musical show which toured the Western States in 1943. 

Camel Caravan (in tribute to the sponsor's product, Camel cigarettes),  a regular series of country music tours to stateside military bases, was organized by Nashville promoter J.L. Frank along with Grand Ole Opry manager Harry Stone,.

In the early fifties, Ellen Sutton had several records with pianist Sir Hubert Pimm.  On this Kem recording from 1952 she's backed by Sam Weiss on drums, Buddy Cole on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar and Paul Sarmento on bass.  There was a last (?) record on Kem, "You Can't Buffalo Me" in 1953 also with the backing of Sir Hubert Pimm.

What happened to her after 1953 is not known.

You Ain't Gonna Get It

My Lover

Sugar And Sweet

Cozette and Marshall Morris were Sugar And Sweet.  Besides that, I can't find much about this duet, despite some ten records issued in the sixties and seventies.   Their discography can be found here (n.b. the Excello single issued in 1956 is probably not by them).  Mel Alexander wrote both sides (and possibly produced the record), while James Carmichael was the arranger.

The duo was managed in the mid-sixties by Charles Cascales.  This is the same booking agent who, in 1974,  was accused in a federal indictment of passing off several female quartets as The Shirelles.  Part of the undoing began when the bogus Shirelles were playing in Phoenix and Omaha, while at the same time the real Shirelles were entertaining 20;000 fans packed into Madison Square Garden.  Most of the bogus groups were Mexican-Americans and sometimes a white was thrown in for good mesure. [see Jet Magazine, 18 April 1974)

"Cool It Baby", the flipside, can be found at YT.

My Lover

Let's

Boston singer who had two singles on the X label, a RCA subsidiary in 1954-1955.  Other records are on Mood and Hub.  According to a snippet published by Jet Magazine (September 24, 1953) "Jan Strickland, Boston's gift to swooners over crooners, lives with his white manager and the daughters of the family regard him as a brother. "

Let's

Live Like A King

Teen-Beats
featuring Don Frassa
Las Vegas Strip Records

1962

From Billy Miller's article published in Kicks magazine #7 :

Don [Frassa] sez of their first record sesh in '61: "Me, Larry, and Lyle went to this little recording studio caled Chollie Music in Westside, the black part of town.  It was actually this guy Chollie Wright's house and we recorded in his bedroom which was covered with egg cartons.  We didn't even have drums there.  We used a Sparklette water rack, the metal part where the jug goes in.  We were so shitty!  It took us forever to record that thing.  "That thing, as Don Calls it, turned out to be a wailin' stomper called "Live Like A King", originally written by Chollie in 1957 for the famed LA R&B group the Twilighters who cut a rippin' version on Ebb.  Before relocatin' his "operation" to Las Vegas, Wright masterminded some legendary West Coasr group records on his own Cholly label. He's also to be saluted for the impossibly rare "Annie Kicked The Bucket" by The Nutones on the Hollywood Stars label.

Kicks full article (my scan)
Ah! That unforgettable sweet tar-odor printing ink!

Billy Miller, editor of Kicks Magazine and owner of Norton Records, died in 2016. See you soon, Billy...

Live Like A King

Elvira

June LaSalvia

June LaSalvia, then June Dussia, was already a nationally recognized authority in age group gymnastics when she came from Florida to Nashville, Tennessee in the mid-seventies.  She is noted as one of the first yogis in the Nashville area.

She wrote some songs in the seventies recorded by country artists such as Charley Pride, Sammi Smith or Dolly Parton's younger sister, Stella. 

Aerobics music was the trend in 1982, as noted by Richard Harrington in an article published by The Washington Post (May 22, 1982) In Tone With the Music :

The fastest selling discs in any record store these days are not likely to be by Pat Benatar or Rod Stewart or John Denver; it's Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons, Joannie Creggains and Carol Hensel who are hot now.

What they're pitching are not Rocky Mountain highs, but sleek and sexy thighs. And, with the exception of Simmons, these newest recording stars aren't even singing, they're barking out instructions as direct as any marine drill sergeant: SHAPE UP! ...

And indeed, in 1982, June La Salvia recorded her own exercice program, backed by The Lean Jeans Band.  Her "Country Aerobics" album, "How The Waist Was Won", was produced by Sidney Singleton at The Singleton Sound Studios and issued on Plantation Records.

  Elvira