Astronote Blues

 

Big John

Astronote Blues

Astrol Records PB-764 (Capitol Records custom pressing)
1963

Tiny Memphis label. They are only two other records on Astrol Records, all from 1963 : Calvin Newborn and Johnny Scott (later owner of the Portra label). Who was Big John, I don't know. 

But the guitarist on his record is certainly Calvin Newborn, a member of the Newborn jazz dynasty. He played on BB King's vinyl debut "BB's Boogie" on the Bullet label. That's Calvin on guitar with father Finas (or Phineas) Newborn Sr. on drums and brother Phineas Jr. on piano. The family band held down the floor at Memphis' Flamingo Room every weekend (where young Calvin often beat Pee Wee Crayton in legendary after-hours "Battles of the Blues") and even hit the road as Ike Turner's band with "Rocket 88"  

Ike Turner taught Calvin how to drive - in return, Calvin taught Ike his first guitar licks. Calvin also taught Elvis Presley how to gyrate, using his own "Calvin's Boogie" as inspiration for hip-shaking.

Chloe Harris

 

Chloee Harris (1964)

Discography 

Frank
105 Lizzie / Grandpa  - 63
107 Love, She’s Wonderful / Saturday Night Slide  - 63

Hickory
45-1253 Little People / Mama, I'll Be Good – 04-64
45-1302 I'm Having A Party / My Daddy Said – 03-65

According to The Tennessean, a Nashville newspaper in its issue dated May, 24 1964 Chloee was a sixteen years old sophomore at Cohn High School |Nashville) where she was taking bookkeeping, biology, english and choir. English gives her the most trouble, she said. Her manager Jay Rainwater had big plans for her. But the person with the biggest plans was Chloee. Standing something under five feet tall, she was reaching for what she said she wanted. Reaching Up "I always wanted to sing but everybody said I couldn't, mainly because of my age," she said. "To me I wasn't too young. I wanted to do it." 

I'm pretty sure her first records were done as Chloe Harris at the Nashville Globe recording studios, singing four songs penned by Frank Lyle Buck, amateur songwriter living in Copperstone, New York. Other known singers on the Frank Lyle Buck/Buck label are Sonny Marcel/Sammy Marshall and Mary Kaye, names well-known to the song-poem music collectors and singers who have never recorded elsewhere than in Nashville at that Globe Recording studios. That's why I'm pretty sure that Chloee Harris recorded her first records as Chloe Harris.

Edit (16/6:2024) : added Granpa soundfile, with thanks to Apesville

Baby Jean

 

Baby Jean Hamilton came to the attention of Phoenix, Arizona local producers Buddy Wheeler and Bob Taylor (hence Double B Productions) who waxed “Oh Johnny” and then made a deal with the Chicago-based Stacy Records. Hamilton was the sister of “Small Paul” Hamilton, a fixture on the local scene with his frantic James Brown style performances. Paul also sang with Arizona-based Dyke and the Blazers.

Baby Jean discography

Sept 62 – Stacy Records UA 505 A Double B Production
Dist. by United Artists Records

If You Wanna (Garnes, Price, Wright, Pinkney, Old Taylor Music, BMI)   
Oh Johnny (Garnes, Price, Wright, Pinkney, Old Taylor Music, BMI))

63 – Picadilly Records #501   

Beware The Tall Man  (B. Wheeler, B. Taylor, Old Taylor Music/Renda Music BMI))
I’ve Got A Feelin’ (B. Wright, Old Taylor Music/Renda Music BMI)


Robert C. Taylor, Jr. (1927-2001) , a.k.a. Bob Taylor or "Big Bob" Taylor, was a session drummer and rock 'n roll songwriter in Phoenix, Arizona. He played on lots of records of Duane Eddy & The Rebels between 1957 and 1962, recording at Floyd Ramsey's studio in Phoenix. Taylor also played drums on guitarist Al Casey's recordings for Stacy Records, and for many Lee Hazlewood sessions.

Buddy Wheeler was also a Phoenix musician, playing a bass and pedal steel guitar.

According to the book "Superstar in a Masquerade" describing a Leon Russel recording session from September 1963, Larry & Mike's "Queen Of The Starlight Dance" was released on Bonnie Guitar's Picadilly label and published by her Guitar Music. I find this very doubful
I don't know about the Picadilly ownership, but I'm sure that Guitar Music on Baby Jean's Picadilly release wasn't a publishing company owned by Bonnie Guitar, company more probably associated with Lee Hazelwood.

Baby Jean's four songs are available here.

Dear Abbey

 

The "Con-Dons"
Vocal : J. P. Hammond

Dear Abbey
Nary-Zigler, Michaelene Publ. BMI

Carlton 587
1963

The Con-Dons were : Bob Stone, leader and bass; Norman Chapman, guitar; Herbert Homsby guitar and vocalist, and J. P. "Pete" Hammond, drummer and vocalist. Band from West Virginia produced by Tom Nary and Randy Zeigler. 

Norman Chapman, a former member of the Rollin' Rockets (probably the Eddy Seacrist' backing band on K&C Records) and a member of the Martha Carson gospel group.  The following year, in 1964, he recorded for Buddy Starcher and his BES label (I Dood It / The Swerps) while J. P. Hammond backed by The Versa Tones released one single on Magna Records (Beckley, West Virginia) : I'll Walk Away (Slowly) / Suicide.

The Conner Family

 

The Conner Family : the four brothers and a sister recorded their first single in 1963. They were at that time : Jimmy 20, Otis Jr. 16, Larry 14 , Alan 9, and  Becky 15.

It was a cold September day in 1960 in Houston, Texas when Otis L. Conner, Sr. walked through the front door of the Conner home carrying an arm full of packages. His four sons, Jimmy, Otis Jr., Larry, Alan and his only daughter Becky came scrambling into the living room at his call. One by one the packages were opened. The first held an electric guitar, the second : an electric bass guitar, the third revealed a mandolin, the fourth: a snare drum and sticks, and the fifth : a tambourine, microphone and amplifier.

Within two weeks the Conner children had learned their first song - a rendition of "Milk Cow blues". Within a year the family had put together 30 minutes of material and the Conner Family hit the road. . .

the singles (all issued in Oklahoma)

1963 - The Swingin’ Conners (Boyd 122)
    Walkin' The Chalk / Milk Cow Blues

1966 - The Conner Family (Conner 001)
    Little Johnny Rhythm / A Lesson In Love

196? - The Conner Family (Captain 1005/1006)
    Talkin’ About You / The Pickup (both wr. Conway Twitty)

Note : missing from this compilation is "The Pickup"

Sha-Boom Bang

 

Brother Zee and The Decades
From L. to R. : L-R on the picture above; Al Linde, Bobby Zoidis and Charles "Pedro" Buford

Sha-Boom Bang

In 1963 three members of The Vice-Roys on Ramco Records, recorded on the same label as Brother Zee & The Decades. 

Picture and info from The White Doo Wop Collector blog

Go Gillis

 

Go Gillis

Recorded by Dale Hawkins, words and music by Dale Hawkins and Henri Loridans.  

Dale Hawkins of "Susie Q" fame did this campaign song as a favor for senator of Louisiana Gillis W. Long  when he ran for governor of Louisiana back in 1963. Only 500 red label 45s were pressed and the record has the same song on both sides.

One of the rarest Dale Hawkins 45.

Acknowledgements : George Long, son of Gillis Long, with thanks

Rolling Like A Stone

 

Jerry Foucha

Rolling Like A Stone

b/w  If It’s Better

wr. & arr Herbert S. Jones, Shenell Publishing Co.
Directed by Eddie Williams

Trajon Records Co.
710 So. Galvez St.
New Orleans, La.

1963

⚜

According to mickey rat (at 45cat) the label (and Trajon Pub. Co.) were owned by Gaspar L. Trapani & Herbert S. Jones.  Herbert S. Jones also registered something called The Galvez & Poydras Social & Pleasure Club as a business in 1963.

Jerry Fouche discography

Trajon 101 - If It’s Better / Rolling Like A Stone - 1963
Nola 728 - Music Time / Come On, Baby - 1966
Hot Line 913 - I Believe In Miracles / Wake Up - 1967

Uruguay

 

Flecker and the Countdowns
Scotty GQP-424

1963

Uruguay

Unlisted early release on the Scotty label, a division of Gateway Recordings of Pittsburgh. Composed and produced by Jack Withum (John F. Withum), who may be Flecker in person. On the flip, Flecker is backed by The Vincentians ("There Shouldn't be Roses").

 

Devil Named Sue

 

Windy Craig
Cevetone 518
1963
 
 


Devil Named Sue


Love Me



 Wendell "Windy" Craig (1940-2020)

Wendell won a guest disc jockey contest at WATS in Sayre, PA, in his senior year in high school which inspired him to change his major from Engineering to Radio and Television. He worked at Syracuse University radio station WAER, and after graduation he was a popular DJ in Ithaca and Syracuse, where he was known as the "Weird Beard" at radio station WOLF. He set a world record for riding the Ferris Wheel at Suburban Park in Manlius, NY, stepping off the wheel after 183 hours at 4:02 pm on September 6th, 1964.

Humpti Dumpti

The Kingsmen
F.D. Arnold 2105/2106
South Bend, Indiana
1963

    John Chappelow - Lead & Rhythm
    Rick Webster - Lead & Rhythm
    Ron Bennett - Lead Singer & Sax
    Dan McLean - Drums
    Paul Romine -?
 

Humpti Dumpti


Good Night Sweetheart (Bonsoir, Cheri)

Kangaroo

 

Killer Joe Piro
Kangaroo
Cleopatra Records unissued

1963 or 1964?

Frank “ Killer Joe " Piro had it made . A Lindy Hopper in the thirties , teacher of Afro-Cuban dances at the Palladium in the forties and fifties , he became the favorite instructor of the jet set in the sixties.

Bio at the Space Age Music website

Wikipedia

In the early fifties, he opened his own studio on 54 West 55th Street in Manhattan, where many in New York's high society came to take dance lessons. Invariably keeping a step ahead of trends, over the decades he taught what would become the mainstays of the discothèque scene: the Mambo, the Cha-cha and the Merengue, then the Twist and later the Frug, the Frog, the Watusi, and the Hully Gully.

His students included the Duke of Windsor, Sita Devi Gaekwar - Maharani of Baroda, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Ray Bolger, Luci Baines Johnson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and, by 1965, more than a million other Americans, according to an obituary in The New York Times.

 

 Killer Joe Piro on "To Tell the Truth" (April 27, 1964)

Tarzan & Jane

Tarzan & Jane

 Roger Price & Fay Dewitt

1963

Roger Price (comedian) (1918–1990), creator of Mad Libs, Droodles and elephant jokes, Roger Price was an author, jokester, cultural critic and truly original voice in American comedy.

Tarzan & Jane is a track from his LP, The Elephant Record, produced in its entirety in a real jungle by very creative elephants, on The The Elephant Elephant Record Record label in 1963.

Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch

The cover art for the Frank Zappa album shows the classic Droodle, by Roger Price

Castaway Lounge, Cleveland, Ohio (July 1963)

Conway Twitty Recorded Live At The Castaway Lounge, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963

Raw and greasy. This record was reviewed in 2010 by The Hound on his blog. As I completely agree with him and lazy as I am, I have no need to write some silly lines myself. Here is what he wrote:

It's Conway Twitty and his band Recorded Live At The Castaway Lounge, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963, and with thumpin' versions of Money, Elmore James' Shake Your Money Maker, Ain't Goin' Home, a killer reading of Is A Bluebird Blue that is way better than the string laden studio take, as well as many Jimmy Reed and Bo Diddley tunes, we see that Twitty's 1963 set list was pretty much the same as that of the Rolling Stones who were just learning to tune their guitars across the pond, and whose U.S. arrival on the heels of the Beatles a couple of years later would end Twitty's career in rock'n'roll.
What I like about this album is that it's a rare recording of rock'n'roll as it was heard in night clubs that served booze, not teenage package shows full of screaming kids. I can just see the crowd-- bikers, blue collar workers, beehive hair-do's and capri slacks on the women. Twitty knew how to play for these folks, they like their music raw and greasy, and that's just how Twitty played it for them.

Heat And Hot Water Supplied

 John Madden And The Hidden Persuaders

 

Heat And Hot Water Supplied

 

wr. Benintente, Donaldson
Chippewa Music, BMI

 

Tomorrow 45/CW-02 

Pressed by Columbia Custom from 1963.  William K. Benintente wrote the lyrics and Barron A. Donaldson the music.  Diskery was based in Cranford, New Jersey.  If it wasn't for the owner of Chippewa Music (Donaldson) who took care to file a copyright for the label design, I wouldn't be able to describe it. Just in case you want to know:

Chippewa; today's hit sounds are
found on Tomorrow records. [Arrow,
tepees & clouds; futuristic form] 

Barron A. Donaldson in 1956

Hootchy--Koo

Wayne Tursso
and Tim's Galaxies Orch.

Twayne T-100 (PE-802)
1963


Hootchy--Koo


Playing For Keeps

Two covers (Larry Williams & Elvis Presley).  "Playing For Keeps" penned by Stan Kesler was first recorded as a demo for Elvis by Barbara Pitman.

Wayne Tursso (1938-2016)

Wayne Charles Tursso was born in St. Paul, MN, on September 18, 1939. He grew up and received his education in South St. Paul, MN, and later attended Brown Institute, in Minneapolis, MN.

From May of 1962 until February of 1965, Wayne served in the US Army. After his discharge, he lived in Minneapolis, Des Moines, IA, and Detroit Lakes, MN, before coming to Fargo, ND. He worked at several radio stations and sold insurance for AAA and Prudential. He worked in sales and circulation for the Fargo Forum, until he retired in 2014.

In 2015, Wayne became a resident of Golden Living Center, Moorhead, MN, where he died on November 2, 2016, at the age of 77.

I Thought I Told You Not To Tell Them

I Thought I Told You Not To Tell Them

Bluesy version of the Marie Knight R&B classic.  Mark El Jackson  wrote the song.

Dori Carrroll made her first television appearance in Bloomington, Indiana.  She toured with Bobby Helms and recorded a duet with him, issued on Kapp Records in 1966 (Kapp #777 - Things I Remember Most).

The only release on this Grand label?

South Street

Fran Cooper

Twin Hits 5009



South Street

Twin Hits was operated by Barney Young and Gloria Parker.   Barney was a music publisher, composer, personal manager, lawyer, and song plugger.  Gloria, who was his co-composer, star performer, and fiancee, was a versatile bandleader, contralto, marimbist, and musical glasses virtuoso.  

 

Covering the hits of the day, the recordings by pseudonymous artists were produced by Ed Chalpin for his PPX Enterprises set-up.

 

Barney Young died in 1969. Miss Gloria Parker's official website is here

 

Keeping You Alive

Rose Mary White And Grable Garrett

Keeping You Alive



Rose Mary White

Sugar Boy

One-off Detroit release from 1963. Both songs written by Othea George (also credited as the arranger), Gabriel Garrett & C. Washington.

George, Garrett & Washington were all members of The Four Tracks, of Tony & The Technics  and later of The Four Voices.

Rose Mary White is unknown to me, but Grable Garrett is probably Gabriel Garrett.

My Guy On Nine

Becky Cooper
Her only record?
1963


My Guy On Nine


Patiently