Cryin' Eyes

King Alex And The Turnpikes

Cryin' Eyes

Weightless

Central 45-314004
1963?

The label gave writer's credits to Frankie George, owner of the Black Orchid.. According to King Alex,  "He was just a club owner. He didn't write no songs and he didn't play no music. He helped me produce the record, but I wrote it."

Alex Littlejohn (1934-2008)

"King-Alex" (Alex Littlejohn) was born July 29, 1934 and passed away March 15, 2008. He performed at local venues, regional and national blues and jazz festivals. He performed with the late Tommy Soul, Lester "Wizard" King, Albert Collins, B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lawrence Wright and the Outlets, Leon Estelle, "Little-Joe" Robinson and Claude "Fiddler" Williams - just to name a few. Williams and formal training at UMKC's Conservatory of Music helped Alex refine his ability to play the bass. He was the first African-American bassist to play an electric bass in Kansas City through the Conservatory. Provine "Little" Hatch, George Jackson and many others performed with King-Alex at area venues to include Club Paradox, Mack's Tavern, Kansas City Blues and Jazz Festival, and the Epicurean. He has several recordings to his credit to include Hot as a Coffee Pot, Huchia-Cuthia Lovin' Man, Sweet Banana Pie, Little Girl from New Orleans, and Grinding Stone.

Littlejohn was inducted into the Elder Statesmen of Kansas City Jazz in 2002 along with former employer and life-long friend Richard "Dick" Berkley.

Central Records was a subsidiary of Shelter Music, which was a subsidiary of Midwestern Recorders. All three owned by Gene Smith, who was also manager of the World War II Memorial building;

All In The Name of Love

Jenny Jamison

All In The Name of Love
 (Betty Sue Perry, Sure-Fire Music, BMI)
Gateway Records GR-1003
1961
Also released and distributed nationally by Dot Records

Jenny Jameson (1932-2014)

Born Virginia I. Wineinger in Carryville, Arkansas. At the age of three, she moved to Kenneth, Missouri where she attended grade and high school. Moving to St. Louis she started professional entertaining with her own group, The Rimshots. Virginia was the first female disc jockey in the Midwest and worked at KSTL radio since 1965 for 25 years.

She was married to LeRoy Kemp, a steel guitar musician, she met while entertaining the troops in Thule, Greenland. Together they raised 7 children.

I'll Be Lonesome From Now On

Monte Davidson
I'll Be Lonesome From Now On
M. C. L. Records No. 5811
[1968]

Monte Davidson was an Ozarks regular since the early 1960s, and led the house band at the Lodge Of The Four Seasons, in Lake Of The Ozarks, Missouri. He also toured regionally, did Vegas, and eventually retired the band sometime in the 1980s.

John Drake Robinson in his book Coastal Missouri: Driving On the Edge of Wild recalls:

(...) I miss seeing Monte Davidson, who sang country songs at a bar in the underbelly of Harold's resort, a little cantina called the Wild Times Saloon. It isn't Monte's music that I miss. I miss his barroom persona, his bull-in-a-china-shop style. Every night he rode into the saloon on Gomer, a real live Brahman bull. The bull would sway through the crowd, between tables with drinks and hors d'oeuvres and patrons, some amused, some petrified. Monte wore an electric cowboy suit that lit up like a movie marquee, and he'd sing and strum his guitar while Gomer moved through the crowded bar. I never saw Gomer get excited or kick a table over or spill anybody's drink. I think they must've kept Gomer pretty happy. I know everybody else seemed sedated (*) when Gomer plowed through. And when he left the building, I can't recall that I ever saw any Gomer piles. But that was years ago, and I assume Gomer is glue, or stuffed, and the wild times are mostly outdoors now.

(*) there were no reports of the bull being under the influence while performing, but Gomer was known for his penchant for beer and peanuts, according to Davidson.

Voo Doo Doll

Voo Doo Doll

From the album J Ann C Trio At Tan-Tar-A (Burdland Records 3300, 1966).
The trio : Carl Russell, guitar; Jerry Dugan, drums, Ann Delrene, vocal.

The J Ann C Trio holds forth in the elegant Cliff Room six nights a week. On Saturday evenings the trio usually moves up to the spacious ball room for an evening of pleasurable dining and dancing before hundrers of Tan-Tar-A guests.

Andrea Arnold, a former majorette at Fabens High School (Texas), a vocalist and guitarist of the J and C Trio, has used the stage name of Ann Delrene. The trio has been performing at Tan Tar-A Lodge at Osage Beach resort in Missouri for over three years before recording a LP issued on Burdland Records (Jefferson City, Missouri).

I'll Meet You By The River

The Sheppard Singers

I'll Meet You By The River

Show-Me 1158

Unlisted Starday Custom release out of Potosi, Missouri. From 1966.  Members included Marjorie Sheppard (1925-1999) and her father Orvil Sheppard.  The Sheppard Singers sang gospel on KYRO Radio Station and also at many churches in the Potosi area.

Sitting Here Thinking

Ken Capehart




Sitting Here Thinking

Hart Record 45-966
1962

From St. Clair, Missouri, in the Starday custom series

Ken Capehart (1924-2013)

Kennneth Charles Capehart, known to all as Ken, 89, St. Clair, passed away Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013,
Ken was a Christian and longtime member of First Baptist Church, St. Clair.  During his working career, he was a member of United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America Local 1839, St. Louis, where he worked on various projects as a carpenter through the union hall.  He was proud to have served his country in the U.S. Army during World War II..  Ken earned five Bronze Stars and a Good Conduct Medal for his participation in several campaigns in Europe, including Normandy and central Europe. He had a passion for music, playing guitar and singing in his band, Ken Capehart and the Carol County Ramblers.  He even backed up Loretta Lynn when she first started out. Ken also loved to fish.

He's All Mine

Miss Judy Wilson

He's All Mine

KaRi Records 101

1962

One of the first production of Foster and Rice.  Both were already recording artists and both had singles issued by Fernwood Records in that year 1962.

 

Foster and Rice crossed paths while working some shows together in 1961 and 1962 on the Missouri nightclub circuit, and as radio disc jockeys at KTCB in Malden, Missouri.  The duo discovered that Rice had a special aptitude for melodies (“His melodies would sing to me,” Foster said), while Foster had a penchant for lyric writing, and together they made for a formidable songwriting team.

The songwriting team of Jerry Foster and Bill Rice have become one of the most successful song writing teams in country music.

That's What I Want You To Do

Aleene Strawn

That's What I Want You To Do
 

Strawn-Davidson
Shelter Music BMI

Choice 850

1957

 Leroy Davidson, his wife Millie and Harold Hassler, 1971

 

Choice Records, offshoot of One Stop Phono Records, a record distributing chain located in Kansas City owned by Leroy Davidson, was active between 1956 and 1958.

In 1960, Davidson launched a new label, R label.  The initial disking by Zig Dillon and Frank (Shake Aplenty) Frazier were recorded with the aid of Sam Phillips and Scotty Moore, of the Sun Records organization, and "both men will continue to aid in the recording of R label artists".  (Billboard July 18, 1960)

Why Did You Leave Me

Billy Peek

Why Did You Leave Me

B.Peek, Billy Peek Music Co. BMI

RCA press L8OW-4895

Peek Records 101

Produced by Rick Darnell & Ray Stallings

 

April or May 1960

 

Billy Peek was born in South St. Louis, and as a child growing up in the 1950s he lived for a time in an apartment above a bar known as the Peek-A-Boo Inn.   There he began playing the country guitar with his father.   When he was a bit older he heard the music of other burgeoning St. Louis musicians such as Chuck Berry and Ike Turner ...

Not long after the release of his first record (on Carter Records, "Pretty Blue Eyed Baby") Chuck Tillman and Peek were invited to appear on the St. Louis Hop's first anniversary show alongside Chuck Berry.  For Billy Peek this was a chance of a lifetime; not only would he be appearing on television for the first time, he would be doing so with his idol...

Billy Peek's main claim to fame is having played, recorded, and toured extensively with Chuck Berry, and Rod Stewart.

 ★

Billy Peek discography  (note: yes, same Billy Peek on Royal Crest)

Rockin' Country Style

Video Billy Peek with Chuck Berry - It Came Out Of The Sky (Santa Monica, 1975)

Video Producer Patrick Murphy profiles professional guitarist, Billy Peek.