Ape Man

Ape Man

Rather obscure Memphis artist despite the release of at least five singles issued between 1962 and 1966. James V. Yancey (his name) switched to record production after his singing career was over. At Sun Studios, he recorded Li'l Smokey Miller in early 1966 (Black Gold#500) and later Len Barrow for his own Yanden label (3494 Obion Road, Memphis).  One Judd Wood seems to have been one of his regular partners in songwriting.

Discography

Zone 1500   (1962) (as James Yancey)
I Need Some One / Uncle Bum

Penthouse  (1963)
Painting The Town Blue / Hat's Off To You Mister

Wildfire   (1965)
Best Friend You Ever Had / Stop The Music

Black Gold  (1966)
Ape Man / Lions Den
   
Express 712 (196x)
Cotton Patch / Loneliness Finds Me

I cannot find a date for the 45 on Express, a tiny but long-lasting label owned by Bob Taylor, the singing truckdriver.

Black Gold Records and Black Gold Productions were operated by Tom Phillips, brother of the Sun Records owner.

I Found Salvation in my Death Cell

Spoken word (evangelical rants) by Leslie Douglas Ashley. Recorded in prison on death row circa 1963.

"Leslie Elaine Perez, formerly Leslie Douglas Ashley, has seen her fair share of troubles. She first made headlines back in 1961 during a lurid Houston sex-torch murder, when, as a young male transvestite, he and his teenaged prostitute girlfriend, Carolyn Lima, shot Fred A. Tones after a three-way sexual encounter went bad. Panic-stricken, they burned his body, then led police on a three-week chase through Mardi Gras in New Orleans all the way to Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan before they were captured."

"Their Houston trial was a circus. Spectators fought over gallery seats to hear X-rated testimony. News headlines blazoned "Gun-Torch Murderers" and "Beatnik Killers." Houston, a city steeped in Bible Belt tradition, with a hefty appetite for sin, reveled in this wicked story." "The judge would not allow the defense lawyer to enter evidence discovered about the victim - a religious family man, but a Jekyll-Hyde type with a second identity and an arrest record. The defense case collapsed. Leslie and Carolyn were sentenced to death by an electric current."

"A new legal team learned the D.A. hid psychiatric reports supporting an insanity plea. A last-minute reprieve saved Leslie and Carolyn on the eve of their execution. At her retrial, Carolyn blamed everything on Leslie. Carolyn was sentenced to five years; Leslie was sent to a mental institution. He soon escaped and made the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List." After six months at large, he was captured working as Bobo the Clown in a traveling carnival."

"Leslie was convicted again but sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He was released after five years of chopping cotton in Texas prison farms. Once free, Leslie got the sex-change operation he had always wanted. His mother, Sylvia, paid for it." "When Leslie Douglas Ashley became Leslie Elaine Perez, in the eighties, she also became a political activist. Before her sordid past was revealed, she earned enough votes to make a runoff for the chairmanship of the Harris County Democratic Party in Houston in 1990.

She has since been active in the AIDS awareness campaign and has also participated in demonstrations against capital punishment." "For the past thirty years the media has fed off Leslie's bizarre life and has persecuted her as a social aberration, but Robert Bentley, for the first time, gives her whole, uncensored story in Dangerous Games." "Leslie, a survivor, mixes in her life the macabre and slapstick humor. And her down-home sweetness makes her one of the most charming killers you'll ever read about."--
Book summary
Dangerous Games: The True Story of a Convicted Murderer on Death Row who Changed His Sex and Won Her Freedom
Robert L. Bentley; Carol Publishing Group, 1993

This page has a detailed story with newspapers clips and illustration, and including the audio file

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

Vietnam Blues

Vietnam Blues

What better way to finish the month with a nice little depressing song?  Here is one, courtesy of Miss Earnestine Quick (of Arkansas, I assume) on the Jonesboro label Jon-Ark.

 

Chicken Delight(s)

"Dance the Chicken Delight Ring-A-Ding"

Instructions

Chicken Delights

Track list

"Chicken Delight Twist"
"Dance the Chicken Delight Ring-A-Ding"
Chicken Delight radio spot (1963)

Two instrumentals from promotional one-sided carboard flexi records. No artist credit on record. Early sixties. Bonus: a radio spot from 1963.

The Chicken Delight restaurant chain were known for delivering chicken dinners to your door via a VW Beetle with a fiberglass chicken on the roof

He's The Law

Conny & The Bellhops
He's The Law

Artisan World Recordings AW 0001

Led by Conny (Edgar M. Conrad III), lead vocalist and saxophone player, this Pittsburg, Kansas group was the first real rock 'n' roll band in the region.  Formed in 1958, original members, in addition to Conrad, were Russell Pryer, rhythm guitar, Carl Sipes on keyboard, Tommy Schockley, lead guitar, and Clarence Sharp, drums. 

Three of their recordings are listed  at the Rockin' Country Style website. (on Damon Records and R Records)

 

This Artisan World release is unlisted.  Probably recorded in Memphis (their first 45s were recorded at the Sun Studios by Stan Kesler) as Beckie Publishing Co is the song publisher here.

The 'Beckie' publishing house, named after Sam Phillips' first wife Rebecca 'Beckie' Phillips was owned by Gene Lucchesi, a Memphis businessman and also perhaps partly by Stan Kesler.  Gene Lucchesi recruited Stan Kesler in 1962 and formed Pen Records.  It's on the first Pen release by The Skylighters that the Beckie (Becky) publisher was first in print (I think), hence, a probable 1962 date for this Artisan World release? Or later?