Raymond Swartz & his Guitar
Web Records
WEB1084
Issued just in time for Christmas 1956, Raymond Swartz wrote some other tunes, including "Loneliness In My Heart" which was recorded on Carellen (by Betty Jayne) and also on Mona-Lee by the same singer.
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| Joan Gardner (1928-1992) |
Little Hank
& The Rhythm Kings
Rhythm & Range 45-101
(Nashville, Tennessee - 1956)
This is jazz star Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford's first record which he made for a little-known label in Nashville while studying music at Tennessee State University in the mid-fities. The Memphis-bred saxophonist directed the Tenessessee State Collegians jazz band and fronted his own combo during college. Little Hank & The Rhythm Kings played jumping dance music six nights a week at the Subway Lounge in Nashville's Printers Alley. According to Crawford, "Christene" was written, produced and bankrolled by Roy Hall, the hillbilly boogie pianist who wrote "Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On". Crawford supplies sax and vocal. He left Nashville in early 1958 to join Ray Charles's group, soon becoming Charles's bandleader and eventually signing his own deal with Atlantic Records.
Bio (Wikipedia)
"Train To Satanville" by Gin Gillette is a song that had intrigued a lot of people, wondering who she was. There was some speculation about Gin Gillette being actually Robie Lester, owner of the Musikon label, but, as we'll see and hear, it's not the case.
For Musikon Records of 3456 Floyd Terrace, Los Angeles, she only recorded two tracks as Gin 
Gillette in 1961. The conductor listed on the label was Jessie Sales, who at first known as that great Dixieland drummer from Denver, and when in California, he became an essential part of the recording scene for blues and R&B on the West Coast. Sailes has been described by studio bassist Carol Kaye as being a bit more of an outsider on the L.A. studio scene, Sailes' greatest and most personalized appearance on a rock record would have to be on the single that many fans consider one of the great classic rock hits of all time, "Let's Dance" by Chicano rocker Chris Montez.
Please read this interesting story from 2018 here by Gabriel Owens "Meet Virginia, a Kroger employee with a country music past"
Gin/Ginny/Virginia Carllile/O'Boyle/Gillette discography:
Virginia Carllile - Where Are You (Tex, 1955)
Virginia Carllile - Tired Of Your Honky-Tonk Love (Tex, 1955)
Gin Gillette - She'll Never Let Him Go (Musikon, 1961)
Gin Gillette - Train To Satanville (Musikon, 1961)
Thumbs Carlyle & Ginny O'Boyle - Indian Girl, Indian Boy (Epic, 1962)
Thumbs Carlyle & Ginny O'Boyle - Now that you're leavin' me (Epic, 1962)
Hear Virginia, Gin & Ginny
(the keyword is satanville)
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| Ginny in 2018 |
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| Dodie Randle Credit : Hillbilly-Music.com |
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| Pic from "Spinning The Blues" sheet Music, UK |
Date of Birth 31 August 1927, Watsonville, California, USA
Date of Death 19 September 1992, Palo Alto, California, USA (brain tumor)
As a five year old boy, the story goes, Ernest Torres Chavez would scale a fence next to the family's first home in North 11th Street in San Jose, California, and quietly enter the house next door. The neighbors then would be surprised to hear the boy making noise on the guitars stored in the back room. The music stayed with him. He left San Jose High School at the age of 17 to join the National Guard, where he played tenor sax at his base in Tacoma, Washington. Released from active duty in 1947, Ernie joined the San Jose jazz combo called Three Bees and a Queen. He played around the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The group, which also featured pianist Jose Castro and singer Treasure Ford, reached its high point in the early 1950's when it was given second billing at the London Palladium. In the 1950's he settled in Los Angeles, where he played for several years with Cuban-American composer Rene Touzet and his Latin jazz orchestra. He also worked as a member of the house band at the Band Box, a well-known comedy nightclub. It was there that Don Rickles often used Mr. Chavez as a straight man, hurling racial slurs at him while Mr. Chavez chuckled and the audience roared. One night Mr. Chavez came back with a swipe of his own, recalled Rita Chavez-Law who married Mr. Chavez in 1950. "Some day I want to be just like you, Mr. Rickles" he said. "How's that?" Rickles asked. "Vicious." said Mr. Chavez. The audience roared. Rickles never asked him back on the stage after that. Other LA stints included music arrangements for Nancy Wilson and filling in for recording sessions with band leader Harry James. He also had a one-time speaking role in "The Ring". Other bit parts included Musician roles in "strangers When We Meet" and a spot on the TV series "Bourbon Street Beat." After his divorce in early 1960's Mr. Chavez returned to San Jose. He played sax and flute for lounge combos around the Bay Area for 30 years. A working musician until health problems took him off the stage, Mr. Chavez developed a brain tumor and died in 1992.
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| Billboard rev. 24 Nov. 1956 |
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| Cash Box rev. 5 Jan. 1957 |
"Thirteen Women and Only One Man" — it sounded like a good idea to Dickie Thompson when he wrote the song in the early 1950s.
"The lines went something like, 'I had two gals every morning serving me breakfast in bed/I'm telling you, Jack, one rubbed my back while the other one rubbed my head,' But the idea proved too salacious for the early rock 'n' roll generation — or perhaps their parents. Disc jockeys played Thompson's song [Herald Records 424, 1954) for a couple of weeks, then decided it was too risqué and pulled it off the air.
Music producers didn't give up on it, though. The song was rewritten for Bill Haley and His Comets. The rock-'n'-rollers recorded "Thirteen Women" as their A-side — "Rock Around the Clock" was on the B-side.
The Haley version is an atomic fantasy song about a working guy dreaming of being the only man to survive an H-bomb attack. Audiences and radio stations found the hit a vast improvement. Nuclear annihilation, it seemed, was an acceptable reason to have multiple lady friends.
The change in lyrics didn't seem to faze Thompson, though. The musician received residual checks for decades even though most performers recorded the H-bomb version.
Miss Myles is a young lady of limited vocal talent but she's abundantly endowed otherwise, a fact which helps fans overlook her vocal limitations.And Steve Allen had teasingly noted in 1957 :
She's appeared on my TV shows several times and I've noticed that our crew, a pretty casual group - not easily impressed - always pays strict attention when she's out there, standing with her feet slightly apart, her head tilted a little to one side. There's no doubt about it - Meg is one singer who's fun to look at. (Steve Allen, notes to Liberty LP Just Meg and Me, 1957)For your desert island enjoyment, here is a selection* of 13 covers, 5 female, 6 male and two instrumentals :
1 - Dinah Shore - Thirteen Men
2 - Ann-Margaret - Thirteen Men.
3 - Girlicious - Thirteen Men
4 - Jane Wiedlin - Thirteen Men
5 - Melina Soochan - Thirteen Men
6 - Dickie Thompson - Thirteen Women
7 - The Renegades - Thirteen Women
8 - Chance Halladay - Thirteen Women
9 - Danny Gatton - Thirteen Women.
10 - Darrel Higham - Thirteen Women
11 - The Fuzztones - Thirteen Women
12 - Tommy Oliver - Thirteen Women
13 - Electromaniacs - Thirteen Women
Satellite Record Co., a new label , headed by Skip Stanley with offices at 44 West 88th Street" has released its first pressing "Satellite Baby" and "Planets" Skip Stanley, A night club and TV comic, has worked the Casa Seville at Hempstead, Long Island, Cafe-of-Tomorrow, in Chicago, Lake Club in Springfield, Ill. Larry's Potter Supper Club in Hollywood. Ralph Stein, formerly a&r man for Flair-X Records, did the arranging on the first Satellite release, and will continue in that capacity.
First release on Satellite? Not quite, earlier in the year "Planets" had already been issued on his own Satellite label [SX-91] backed with "Manganese Blues". Anyway, Skip Stanley went to radio stations around New York City to get them to play his record. But Hoffman couldn't land a record deal, and spent $3,000 on trying to get the song pushed.
When he was four, he tried to break into acting. It was 1932, he auditioned for a role in the The Little Rascals. Hoffman's mom was bed-ridden with tuberculosis, so a family friend drove Stanley to the audition.He had enlisted in the Navy during WWII, and during the time Mao Tse Tung was driving Chiang Kai-shek out of mainland China, Hoffman was stationed in Shanghai and saw dead bodies of G.I.s floating in the Whangpoo River, which was a tributary of the Yangtze.
The director made Stanley's guardian leave the room, which made him panic. He said they began to ask him basic questions -- like where he was from, his name -- and he just froze. The studio called him back for another interview, but the same thing happened. He didn't say a word. He still thinks of that moment, and says; "What would have happened to me in that career if I just talked?"
BECKER TAKES COMMAND POST
(Billboard, September 4, 1965)
NEW YORK — Loren Becker, named this week as general manager of Command Records, has been in training for the job for nearly 20 years. The 39-year-old New York native has been associated with Enoch Light, founder of the label, since 1946, as a recording artist, chief cook and bottle washer, and as sales manager.
Becker's first brush with the music industry came at the age of 9. He sang on a New York radio station in a Horn & Hadart-sponsored show and was a regular for three years.
After high school graduation Becker went into the service. His job was putting together weekly shows at Fort Meyes, Va., and other military installations.
Amateur contestThis was the tag end of the big band era. Enoch Light, then as now a leading orchestra leader, was runnin a "Date With a Disk" talent show in various theaters throughout the nation. The format consisted of members of the audience performing on stage, with winners selected each day, with weekly and monthly competitions following. The grand winner was awarded a recording contract.
One of the entrants was Loren Becker. Becker quelified for the finals, and, with the intercession of Light, who called the commanding officer at Fort Meyers, he got a three-day pass so the singing solider could compete.
Becker won, cut "Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside" for Don Gabor's Remington label, and became a professional singer after his Army discharge.
Band Singer
In the post-war years, Becker won the Arthur Godfrey "Talent Scout" contest on CBS Radio, appeared as a band singer on Robert Q. Lewis' CBS Radio show, then joined Enoch Light's band as a singer.
During this period he recorded cover songs of top hits for various labels, among them Eli Oberstein's. He also worked with music publishers to gain his basic training in that phase of the business.
In 1952, when Light mover over to run Synthetic Plastic's Peter Pan label, Becker joined the organization as Light's right-hand man
Doubled in Brass
He was a performer for the kiddie label, and he doubled in brass as a salesman. This was before the days of rack jobbing, and Becker visited chain stores, department stores and other retail outlets to push the product.
Later, when Prom was organized as a pop label, Becker continued to couple his work as an artist with his duties as a promotion man and salesman.
In 1954, When Light left Synthetic Plastic to form Waldorf, a budget label, Becker came his sales manager. As sales head of the 99-cent label, he met most of the key retailers and some of the rack jobbing pioneers and learned the nuances of merchandising records.
Grand Award
Light's next label, Grand Award, was the predecessor on Command. Grand Award made its debut when the 12-inch LP was just coming into its own, and Command, listing at $5.98, was a label that played an important role in the acceptance of stereo.
When ABC-Paramount bought Grand Award in 1959, Light was set up as head of the autonomous division and Becker came along as sales manager.
But although Becker was Light's right-hand man through all these years, he was hardly his alter ego. Both men have the same attitude toward the recording business — to run out top records with the emphasis on quality rather than on number of releases. And while Becker's operation of the label will not differ radically from Light's, he does have his own ideas about a&r and about merchandising.
Few ChangesWith Light's departure, the Command organization will remain intact. That's the way Becker wants it. The five-man sales force, one of the most efficient in the business, will stay at its present strenght. The release policy — from 15 to 18 albums a year — will also be continued.
While Command is generally thought of as a quality pop label, it is building up a small but effective classical catalog. It concentrates on the warhorses, and with such name conductors as William Steinberg of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
When Becker isn't working, he's home in Redding, Conn., with his wife and two children, Jimmy, 12, and Lauren, 7. He keeps trim by playing tennis.
Mr. Jacobs came from a theatrical family. His mother's ancestors were cantors in Russia, and his father performed in vaudeville acts until the late 1920s, when he founded Jolly Joyce Theatrical Agency Ltd.
At age 13, Mr. Jacobs began helping out at the business owned by his father, who was known professionally as "Jolly Joyce." He would stop in after school every day, and by the time he graduated from Olney High School in 1949, Mr. Jacobs was working full time - and overtime.
With his father, Mr. Jacobs booked dozens of top acts of the 1950s, and the agency became the exclusive agent and manager for groups including the Comets and Boxtops.
"Three guys came in one night wearing cowboy hats. They needed a bass player. They said they were the Tennessee Ramblers and they worked at WBT in Charlotte, N C. They had just made a movie with Gene Autry."The Ramblers were one of the biggest country music groups in the nation in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Roberts, joined the Ramblers and with them made a movie with Autry ("Ride, Ranger, Ride") and with Tex Ritter ("Riding the Cherokee Trail"). He also began recording with and without the Ramblers. He did some of the vocals for their Bluebird recordings. He was also a member of the WBT Briarhoppers. During that time, Marty's name was Tex Martin.
