Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Goodbye Mr. Blues


Bob Ehret

Goodbye Mr. Blues
Betty Stallings - Lu-Tal Publ.

Hamilton Records

1958


Bob Ehret (Air-it), picture from the label on a single he had in 1976 on Trans-Western Records produced by Earl J. Foster, Jr.

His previous recordings were on Aladdin Records in 1957. His "Stop the Clock" was then introduced by the label as "a dynamic rock and roller, which has even more punch than "Rock Around The Clock".

Bakersfield, California was where he performed most of the times.

His Aladdin and Hamilton singles are listed in Rockin' Country Style. I can't find much more info on Bob Ehret.


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Monday, May 28, 2012

Crying The Blues in My Dreams


John Bennefield With The Hollaway Sisters

Crying The Blues in My Dreams

A.Benjiman - J. Bennefield
Stars, Inc. - Lowery Music Co., Inc.

Stars 553

1957


John Bennefield started his own radio show when he was only 14 in the early fifties. In 1964, he was on WGUS, Augusta, Ga. He was then married and had three children.

The Hollaway Sisters remains ungoogable, unfortunately.

The Stars label was the first, or one of the first labels, launched by Bill Lowery in 1955.



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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Oh Baby, Whoa Baby, Oh

The "We're Not" Sisters
with the Rosebud Orchestra

Oh Baby, Whoa Baby, Oh
(Burden, Evelyn Music BMI)

1957

Judy Hayden, Sharon Peek (or Peak?) of Chandler and Sally Marshell (or Martell?) were the We're Not Sisters, three students at the Oklahoma State University. The trio won on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts television show winning $1,000. The trio made several apperances on an Oklahoma City television series.




Judy Hayden born in 1938 in Quapaw, OK. Later played various nurse characters on TV's "M.A.S.H." (1972) while her first husband, actor Mike Farrell, was a cast member in the role of Captain BJ Hunnicutt.

Mike Farrell wrote in his autobiography :

Judy Hayden, a great-looking, very talented graduate of Okalhoma State University, had come west to get her master's degree in theater before applying to teach high school. She had been part of a popular singing trio in school, but wasn't sure about pursuing a career in the business.

Great-looking, surely she was. She also had probably what it takes when in 1961, a then OSU graduate, she played in "Guys and Dolls" at the University auditorium, for a three-day run, the role of Adelaide, a Hot Box nightclub stripper.



Bill Burden was the founder of Rose Records in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he run also a talent agency , Rose Artists Incorporated.

He apparently later gave up the music business and relocated to Dallas, Texas, where he owned Memory Master®, a registered trademark used for Educational Services-Namely, Conducting Classes, Lectures, and Correspondence Courses, and Distributing Printed Materials For Use Therein For the Improvement of the Memory and Mind.

He owned also Chocolate Lovers, (1996) wholesale club memberships for chocolates and other candy.



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Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Queen Of The Mardi-Gras


Marty Wyte

Queen Of The Mardi-Gras

Shammy Records
405 South 9th St.
Nashville, Tennessee

1959


Song was re-issued on William R. Dobslaw's Revue label (Chicago, 1960) and twice on Brosh Records.

Listed in Rockin' Country Style. According to this discography, there is a "Floyd Cramer, Chet Atkins" credit on the Shammy & Revue labels that I can't find on my copies. Only Brosh 700 has the mention "WSM Orchestra" printed at the bottom of the label, but no trace of Floyd Cramer or of Chet Atkins ?




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Monday, May 14, 2012

Waiting At The Station


Hoot Gibson

Waiting At The Station

(H. Gibson - W. Maxwell, Lowery Music BMI)

Peach Records


Not the rodeo champion and cowboy actor (1892-1962), I assume.



Update : the following info is provided by Westex.

Hoot Gibson was- for a time- an Odessa boy. He ran Coronado Sound Studios and released at least 3 45s on his own imprint including one by Johnny "Peanuts" Wilson, another by Eddie Williams, and an Orbison-styled rocker by Jan Lessard. David Box worked in his studio a bit as did Ray Rush and Ted Grobel. The venture was short lived.

I'm not sure anyone really knows where Hoot came from... just that he was from down south, as in south Texas... and he moved out this way in the early 60s.

Weldon Rogers, also from this area of Texas, also had a release on Peach at around this same time.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Fly Pretty Baby

The Pepper Pots

Fly Pretty Baby

Bernie - Roth - Writer
Fredrick BMI

Crystal Records

November 1958


Clean Chicago vocal group with jazzy backing. Johnny Dee was the leader of the Pepper Pots. Their two Crystal releases charted on local radio.


Pepper Hots Discography

58 - Crystal : Fly Pretty Baby / Coffee And
59 - Crystal 110 : El Cumbanchero /A Foggy Day
59 - Personality 1006 : Dee Light / Sahara
60 - Panlin 7320 : Ruby Duby Du / Leather Jacket Cowboy
60 - Zirkon 1019 : Ruby Duby Du / Leather Jacket Cowboy (Canada)
61 - Rella 1001 : Hum Along / Rock, Little Baby, Rock





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Thursday, May 3, 2012

Shanty Tramp

Betty Dickson

Shanty Tramp

Wr. Reuben Guberman, Music Frank Linales

K.G.M. 1003



From the movie "Shanty Tramp" released in 1967 produced by K. Gordon Murray who hired a Cuban exile, José Prieto, with a limited résumé (the 1964 horror short Love Goddesses of Blood Island) to direct, plus a crew principally composed of nonunion Cuban Americans.
Shanty Tramp (1967). Murray's best -- and best-known -- original production features cast of unknowns invoking all the verities of the Southern exploitation picture: dissolute dame, rape, incest, nudity, miscegenation, patricide, bikers, fiery car explosion, moonshiner, gangsters, false prophet, lynch mob, and go-go dancing. Vampiric-looking small-town slut tempts slimy revival preacher, fends off welshing biker leader named Savage, willingly submits to -- then betrays -- young, confused black man, and winds up facing off carnally against drunken Daddy Dearest. Tennessee Williams on a shoestring. Memorable line: "Crazy like, man. Like me and my chick want to find a dark corner somewhere anyway, Daddy-o."



the King of the Kiddie Matinee

K. Gordon Murray was a Florida-based producer and distributor of low-budget motion pictures. From the late 1950's through the mid 1970's, Murray released at least 66 films, which can be broken down into three categories:

1/ Murray imported, redubbed and released some 30 horror films from Mexico.

2/ Murray released over 20 fairy tale films to a "Weekends Only" matinee audience, virtually creating the highly lucrative "Kiddie Matinee" marketing niche. These films were either redubbed imports, rereleases of older films, or original productions.

3/ Murray released about a dozen exploitation films, risque adult dramas designed both for drive-ins and adults-only grindhouses. These included imported foreign films and original productions.

Further reading : Miami's B-Movie Mogul by Michael Yockel ( a very detailed article)



Singer Betty Dickson - an institution in South Florida's show business community for over fifty years - passed away on December 7 [2006?] after a long bout with ARDS. Starting in the 1950s, Betty performed with jazz greats like Tiny Kahn, Chubby Jackson, Lionel Hampton, James Moody, Harry "Sweets" Edison, John Williams and Louie Bellson. She's perhaps best known for her work with pianist Eddie Higgins,... From Betty Dickson's obituary found only HERE (a jazz and blues japanese website?).

Lyricist Reuben Guberman, a self-proclaimed "fat Jewish maverick," had a long and varied career in film production, public relations and other trades. Working for Murray his job was translating the original language scripts into English dialog for the voice-talent. See 8thman.com HERE




Note : the label release information (and the sound file) is from the Buffalo Bop CD "Restless Doll". I have no label pic to offer, no further information on the original release, perhaps a LP ?



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