Going Down To Bloomfield Center

 

Komik-Kazee

Going Down To Bloomfield Center

Going Down To Bloomfield Center (instrumental)

Stardust Records SR-8301
1983


Vocalists (pictured on the sleeve) were Elizabeth Kast, Jack Keller, Thomas Gilpin, Kevin Reid, Sallie Schoneboom, Lisa Siccone, Ken Schwartz

The band :
 Jeff Hays, bass
Bob Marino, guitar
  Jim Thomas, drums
Ken Schwartz, piano
plus
Nantara, synthetiser
Joe Passaro, percussion

This is  the second record engineered and produced by George Louvis for his own Stardust label, located on Valley Road in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.

Komik-Kazee was a group of comedians. Ken Schwartz was the guy who put the group together and wrote this song and did most of the writing for a lot of the skits that they did.

Kevin Reed, one of the members of the group, happened to work at George Louvis dad's restaurant. So Kevin told they were going to be doing a show at Rascals and he invited everybody from the restaurant to come see him.  So they all ran up to Rascals in West Orange to watch them and one of the things they did was this song, Going Down To Bloomfield Center.

George Louvis :

And when the show ended, I talked to Ken and I was like, that's a great song, you know, what are you doing with it?  And he didn't have anything to do with it. So we got to talking, we negotiated a deal. I signed him to Stardust and we put the record out. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. They only had one song, so for the B-side, we did an instrumental version, like a dub version

Learn To Speak Fluent Broken English

 

 

Does anyone have this record they could share?

Singing-instrumental duo, Laura & Bill Paer, appeared at the Steak Pit in Paramus, N.J in 1962 before recording this album, issued in 1963 or 1964 on their own Adjill Records. Bill Paer moved to Costa Rica in the seventies. Now Dr. William E. Paer Fairmont, he presents himself like this :

I'm a clinical psychologist, television personality, and author of several books. The most recent ones are We're Having Sex Right Now!, The Lollypop Factor and A Much Better Way (available as an audio book and in printed version). I have practiced in San Diego, California and am currently practicing in Costa Rica, Central America where I have been on television for the past 28 years.

I am passionately interested in communicating my findings based on more than 40 years of experience, and discussing with others who have read my books. At this time I'm intensely involved in getting my message out there. I feel it is most needed and unavailable in conventional circles.

Specialties: Psychotherapy, no nonsense psychology, author, guest speaker

Pat Patterson

Samuel Roosevelt Patterson Jr. born 17 September 1925 in Logan, West Virginia, died 6 September 1980 in Washington, D.C. He recorded as Pat Patterson. His best record is probably "Boppin At Mid-Nite" on Moko Records, out of Union (New Jersey) from around 1957. Then he moved to the Washington, D.C. area, where he is rumored to have been a drummer and talent manager. He copyrighted several songs between 1952 and 1956, notably "Ratamacue" in 1956, a song he later recorded for Morty Craft's Warwick Records. There was a last release of a single on Nippon Records (as Sing-A-Poor Charlie), and that was all, as far as I know.

"Boppin At Mid-Nite"

 

His six sides plus two unissued acetates are included in this zipped file.

Boppin At Mid-Nite                                 Rock An' Roll Story

Rat-A-Ma-Cue (part 1)                           Rat-A-Ma-Cue (part 2)

Sho Rho Bho                                            Dollars Worth Of Dimes

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.

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

The Jayne Mansfield Story

The Opposable Thumb

The Jayne Mansfield Story
Starring Loni Anderson & Arnold Schwartzenegger

Transitional Records
1990

The Opposable Thumb is John Schnall, an animator from New Jersey, who was involved with a  project at WFMU called Midnight Matinee, for over ten years. It was a radio show, mixed live, using samples from primarily film and television. There are tons of mp3s available at his website, if you'd like to learn more about the project, which ran until 1998 at the popular free-form New Jersey station.

Little Bit Of Blues

Slim Harper

Wil-Row WR-203/WR-204

1957

Newark, New Jersey

Slim Harper and his brother Rocky as kids back in Virginia used to listen to the Blue Sky Boys and The Bailes Brothers on the radio out of WBT in Charlotte, N.C.,

“Every day at noon they’d come on and we’d listen to ’em. That’s what got us started really,” Rocky Harper recalled. “We started playing trying to imitate those guys. I played the mandolin and Slim played the guitar.”

In 1952, Slim Harper, formerly with WXGI, Richmond, Va., joined WLVA, Lynchburg, Va.,  replacing Curley Garner,.  In 1957 he was running the “Midnight Jamboree” over WVNJ-Newark,  In 1958, the Slim Harper Show featuring Billy Sage and the Virginia Playboys had been booked by Smokey Warren to hold forth indefinitely each Friday and Sturday night at the Scandia Club on Route 28, Garwood, New Jersey.

While in New Jersey, Slim Harper also recorded  for Anchor Records and Wagon Records. (1957-1958)

Slim moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona in the sixties where he recorded for the Goldrose label

Little Bit Of Blues


Blues On Parade

Mr. Blues

A five-foot blond bombshell from East Orange, N.J., Mundy Lee recorded this song in 1961 for Embassy Records, a Newark, New Jersey label. Her record, arranged and conducted by Bucky Harris and written by Paul Dino, was leased the following year to Seg-Way Records. The following years Mundy Lee toured with U.S.O's Music Makers Organization in Iceland (1963) and Japan (1964)...

Mr. Blues

Vladimir and The Grave Diggers

Vladimir Twist


Drac Walk

 Mel Par 45-1006
October 1962

Review from Kicks Magazine #6
 Inscription on the Billy Miller's copy reads
"when you hear this 'abortion' don't tell
anyone you know me!"

Vladimir, aka Ronald Klugman, aka Ron Barry
1944-1995

Born in Newark, N.J., Ronald Klugman was a son of Fani (Pickar) Klugman of Springfield, N.J., and Samuel Klugman. Actor Jack Klugman was his uncle.   A 1966 graduate of Emerson College, Boston (B.S. in Speech Broadcasting), he was a radio personality, under the name Ron Barry, with WEST and WEEX, Easton, and WBAX, Wilkes-Barre.  As big a fan Ron was of Dark Shadows, he was an even bigger fan of Laurel and Hardy, and as an adult got to know and befriend Stan Laurel.
 

Ron Barry has been collecting Elvis Presley records since 1956. "Being born and raised in New Jersey," said Barry, "we never heard the original Sun records, because their distribution was limited to the South. So Elvis had already made the five Sun records before I heard about him. But once I saw him on the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey "Stage Show," I knew he was going to be a big star." It was then that Ron started building his file of Presley discs. 

In 1961 when Barry was working as a production assistant for WPIX-11 TV New York, he asked his boss for Stan Laurel's address in hope of acquiring an autographed picture. After a few weeks the photo came, and, to Barry's surprise, a personal letter from the famed comedian.

That first letter developed into a four-year pen pal relationship between young Barry and the aging Laurel. "Very few carried on pen pal relationships with Stan," Barry said, adding that he received the last letter just two weeks before Laurel's death. "He wrote me every two weeks whether I did or not."

Later, while at W.E.S.T. in Easton,Pa. as the story goes, Ron was home sick one day and turned on the t.v. where he saw an episode of Dark Shadows. He became so enamored with the show that he eventually would make several trips down to the NYC studios to visit with and get to know the actors, as well as watch tapings of the show.  Over a 2-3 year period he interviewed many of the actors on his radio show, either in person in the Easton studio, or over the phone.  Using members of his radio show production crew, Ron created a parody version of Dark Shadows entitled 'Dumb Shadows'.

As far as I know the Mel-Par single was his only record.  But young Ronnie certainly wrote other songs.  One of these was sent to Stan Laurel in 1962.  In a letter addressed to Richard [Sloan] dated Nov. 28th, 1962, the actor wrote :

 No, I've never talked on the phone with Ronnie Klugman, but have heard him on tape a couple of times, he sounds a normal nice chap then suddenly lapses into that 'Horror' character mentality - I imagine he 'Hugs' the character too (a la that picture!!) Am enclosing you a tape of his latest idea for a record he sent me, I think its titled 'The Lumbago Limbo" or something - he requested my opinion - I of course am not familiar with this type of Opera - told him I was strictly a "Siatica Shuffle" man with a touch of 'Hi Nonny Nonny'.!

I've Got It

Joey Delmar
I've Got It
Lovett-Bendinelli
Britone / Ben-Lee Music

Bell-Glade Records
A division of Dimarcap Enterprizes, Inc.
Laurel Springs, New Jersey

1962

The rarest of the Joey Delmar two singles produced in 1962 by B & L Productions (Frank Bendinelli and Lee Leroy Lovett) and one of their earliest, before Patty & The Emblems (1964)

Musician-producer-songwriters Frank Bendinelli and Leroy Lovett formed a production company, Ben-Lee Music, that generated tracks that were leased to other labels, as well as sides that were put out on their own small Philadelphia labels, like Benn-X and Sonata. The exact routes (whereby each side got placed where) are painstaking to trace nowadays; all the lay fan needs to know is that the Ben-Lee umbrella produced obscure Philadelphia soul throughout the decade. Twenty-four of their 1963-68 efforts were collected by the Kent Soul label (Ben-Lee's Philadelphia Story , 1999).

The other single on Joey Delmar, issued on Britone 1001 (Friendship Seven / Happiness) is available on YouTube

Johnny's Yo Yo

Nancy Ford
Johnny's Yo Yo

Jean JR-724

1972

In 1969,  Nancy Da Feo decided to take up the guitar as a hobby. She also was interested in country music. A friend, Wade Dawson, who led a country band, taught Mrs. De Feo a few chords and, after she had mastered them, offered to let her sit in with his group.

Using her maiden name, Nancy Ford, she joined a quartet called the Nashville Kats. In 1971, when the leader of the group left for Florida, Miss Ford took over the combo and, as Nancy Ford and the Nashville Kats, it has become one of the most active country bands on Long Island, where she was the vice president of the local Country Music Association.

Nancy Ford was the first act signed by the brand new Jean label launched by Alithia Records whose president Peter Kraljevich and vice president Vito Samela decided to enter the country field in 1972.

Alithia Records has been set up in 1971 by The King Insulation Co., North Bergen, New Jersey-based firm specialized in pipe and wiring insulation.  The singles lines kicked off with a record by Barbara English

Rock 'n Roll Music

Bob Lenox
with the Promenade Orch. & Chorus

Rock 'n Roll Music

 1957

Budget label, a product of Synthetics Plastics Company of Newark, New Jersey.

Bob Lenox, whoever he really was, got his assumed name when he did first a Hula Love cover, originally a hit for Buddy Knox, for Promenade Records.

That was the gimmick often used at Promenade, recording sound-a-like covers of the hits of the day, and billing the singer-for-hire with a moniker vaguely reminding the original.  That's how you can find on Promenade such artists as John Garrison (Wilbert Harrison, Kansas City), The Grasshoppers covering The Crickets, Dottie Gray covering Doris Day, Dick Stetson (Stood Up, Ricky Nelson), or even Eli Whitney (Elvis Presley)

Bob Lenox, who are you really?

Let's Dance

Little Becky Cook

With the Mad Lads

Let's Dance

CBM Record Co. 45-504
59 Court St., Newark, N.J.
1961

CBM Records discography

45-313
Gene Granville With Delresse, Music By The Intruders

Horror Rockin Dance / Don't You Know 

words & music : Gene Granville &  Harry Jubin, Cape Ann Publishing Co, Nashville, Tenn
Arranger : Cliff Houston
Produced by Harry & Lisa Marlo
CMB Records

79 Willow Street , Carteret, N.J.
1964

45-314

Little Becky Cook And The Rag Mops, Music By The Intruders

The Itchy Scratch / God Bless This Moment ‎
Arranger : Cliff Houston
Produced by Harry & Lisa Marlo

1965

no cat. number

The Abstrack Sound
Your Gona Break My Heart / Judge Him If You Can
Publisher : Rambed Publ. Co., BMI
Arr. and produced by Catena & Monetti

1966

Possibly the same CBM label (unconfirmed) :

45-501

Tommy O'Tan 

Blue Moon / Sunset Rock

Oh Boy !

The Grasshoppers
with the Promenade Orch. & Chorus

Oh Boy !

Promenade Hit 24
1957

After a cover of "That'll Be The Day" (Promenade 14), here is again The Grasshoppers covering another Buddy Holly hit.   The versatile Grasshoppers can be found also on other subsidiaries of the Synthetics Plastics Company of Newark, New Jersey, such as Peter Pan (children subsid) and Diplomat (budget albums)

Sing along with the Grasshoppers : The Chipmunk Song

Sing the Beatles hits and other Liverpool sound

Witches Rock

George Vee
and
The Nephews

Witches Rock

Pink P-1011/1012
1959

Penned and arranged by Norman Helfant and Jerry Luongo (© Norman A. Helfant & Gerald J.Luongo)
One-off 1959 label from New Jersey.  Real name of artist is George Vishnesky.

Mr. Luongo later served as mayor of Washington Township since 1989.  He also served 13 months in jail (2002-2003) :

In April 2002, Luongo was sentenced to serve 13 months in jail for his role in misusing campaign and community program funds for personal use, which included rent and mortgage payments, car payments, credit card bills, vacations and restaurant celebrations.. He was ordered by U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson to make restitution of nearly $15,000, along with fines in excess of $20,000, which in total equal the amount that Luongo misappropriated as stipulated in his plea agreement.

During his 11 months at Federal Prison Camp, Eglin, Luongo wrote the book Surviving Federal Prison Camp: An Informative and Helpful Guide for Prospective Inmates, which was published in February 2004

Surviving Federal Prison Camp: An Informative
and Helpful Guide for Prospective Inmates

Till I Hm - Hm - With You

Billie Jo

Till I Hm - Hm - With You

T.Berry-El Ivins, Palma Music ASCAP
Melodic Records

1964

Pennsylvania or New Jersey?

This song copyrighted as  "Till I Mhh Mhh Mhh With You" by Elwood Arthur Ivins & Thomas Anthony Bodalski. on September 15, 1964 will not offend  the ear of the most prudish listeners.

Elwood A. Ivins of West Deptford, NJ died Saturday, December 31, 2011, aged 81. He grew up in Chews Landing and most recently lived in Mullica Hill before moving to West Deptford.  A retired carpenter, he worked for Carpenters Local #8 in Philadelphia, PA. Elwood served in the US Army and loved sports and trips to the casinos. He also enjoyed fishing and hunting and was a member of Glendora Buck Club, but his passion was music. He was a musician in various venues in South Jersey and served 8 years as President of the Lucky Steel Country Musicians Fund.

My Baby Left Me

*

Loren Becker - My Baby Left Me
18 top hits 193
1956

(Subsidiary of Waldorf Music Hall)

The following informative Billboard article is from 1965, when Loren Becker was named head of Command Records,

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 contest

This 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 Changes

With 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.

Beach Party

The Echoettes and Johnny
Music by Big Fat Mike and his Fatheads

Beach Party
Sprofera-Hilliker; M E Inc., BMI

Swell Records
Music Enterprises Inc.
744 Broad St., 

Newark, N.J.

1959

From the sunny shores of New Jersey come The Echoettes, who are probably Grace Hilliker & Judy Sprofera, composers of Beach Party.  They made locally enough splashes for catching the attention of George Goldner who issued two of their compositions  "Your Love" and "Donny" on his Goldisc label in 1960. The record was issued as by "Dee and Lee"

Nothing more is known about this record.  This is not the Swell label releasing The Humanoids "Space Walk/The Flight Of GT-5". And this is not the Echoettes on Train Records, who were Betsy and Laura.  

The other side is by Johnny and The Echoettes which can be heard on YT.  Johnny is possibly Johnny Pascale.

Who Can I Believe

Judy Stewart

and her Beatle Buddies

Who Can I Believe

Mayhew-Stride

Janon Music ASCAP

Diplomat 45-0101
Synthetic Plastics Co.

Newark, N.J.

1964

b/w I'll Take You Back Again.  Both songs were also on the album issued by The Beatle Buddies on Diplomat Records (#2313).  The album doesn't have the Judy Stewart credit, doesn't have any songwriter credits.  But it does have a picture of the anonymous ladies on the cover.

Aubrey Mayhew, composer of the song and also probably producer of the Beatle Buddies, grew up in Washington and went into the music business in the late 1940s, first as a booker, then as director of the Hayloft Jamboree on the radio station WCOP in Boston.
After working for budget record companies such as Pickwick Records and Diplomat Records, he formed Little Darlin Records.He was also known as passionate collector of John F Kennedy memorabilia.

Aubrey Mayhew was in Houston in November 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. At the time, Mayhew was working for the New York-based Diplomat Records. “I was staying at the Shamrock Hotel in Houston, trying to buy some George Jones tapes from Pappy Daily [the owner of Jones' Starday record label],” he said. “The Kennedy assassination happened right there on television. I immediately called a friend in Houston, who brought over two tape recorders and all the tape he could carry.

“We recorded everything off the television for about 12 hours. I rushed the material back to New York, and we put out the first ‘Kennedy Speeches’ album. At that time, we had 300 Woolworth stores in our pocket. We got prime display. We sold about 3 million albums in four months.”

This incident led Mayhew to his affinity for Kennedy memorabilia.  His prize possession is the Texas School Book Depository. “Why did I buy it?” he asked me. “It was a premium item for my collection. I paid $600,000 for it.”

Mayhew removed the original window where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy. Mayhew claims the window is stored in Nashville, but some in Dallas argue that it is not the original window. “There’s a debate over everything in life,” Mayhew said emphatically. “I don’t lie! I don’t cheat! I don’t steal! I saw them take that window out.”

Mayhew, 81, died in 2009 at hospice care facility in Nashville.

Blue Jean Blues

Sharon Strauss

Blue Jean Blues

Richard Kleiner-Jane Douglass White

Opportunity Music, ASCAP

Target EXP 503

If it's on TARGET it's a hit

1957


Sharon Strauss, 1962

Sharon Strauss was raised in Oceanside, N.Y., on the south shore of Long Island, though she spent summers with her grandmother in Danby, Vt., in the shadow of the Green Mountains.

Sharon Strauss, the daughter of  Mike Strauss, a winter sportswriter at The New York Times,  had appeared on Paul Winchell's TV show and was a junior at Oceanside Junior High School, when she recorded her first 45 for Jubilee Records in 1957.

In 1963, she married George Parker, a member of the family that owned the Concord Resort Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, N.Y..  Her mother-in-law told her: “Remember, you married a hotel.”  And the new Mrs. Parker gave up her ambitions to be an entertainer and instead became a hostess at the famous celebrity hotspot, greeting visitors as the manager of guest relations.

These were the glory days of the Catskills, and Sharon recalls: “It was pre-cruise ship, and this was like a cruise ship on land.  When people came down to dinner, they dressed.”   The dining room held 3,000.   Guests included the Rockefellers, Kennedys, singers, dancers, “and every famous athlete of the day.”

Discography

57    Jubilee 5275 : A Hole In The Fence / Matchin' Kisses
57    Target 503 : Blue Jean Blues / Rattlin' Around
57    Target 504 : (You're The) Purtiest Thing / Over & Over
62    ABC 10349 : Don't Keep Your Friends Away From Me / Don't Let Him Know (The Truth)