Rock Meeting

Johnny King

Rock Meeting
Wr. Phil Medley, Nine Rock Music BMI

Dot Records
June 1958


Original release on the Nine Rock label located
at Rockfeller Plaza, New York City

I wonder how many original releases exactly had Dot Records ?

★

Johnny King may also be the same artist on the Monticello label (Rochester, New York, 1959), on Florence Greenberg's Tiara Records ("Gondola Rock", 1959) and on Guy Records (1961).

★

Writer and director of the Nine Rock/Dot singles is a pre-"Twist and Shout" Phil Medley.

Biographical details on this prolific songwriter, producer and bandleader are surprisingly rather sketchy for a such prolific and talented songwriter (339 titles listed in the BMI online database). See BMI database HERE.

I believe I've found one of the earliest mention (AND picture) of Phil Medley :



Sgt. Medley former cadet, this talented GI from Boston organized and directed the Cadet Glee Club whose reputation as a musical group is widely known. A former student at Virginia State College, where he was a versatile athlete and scholar, Sgt. Medley was recently selected the outstanding soldier at TAAF (i.e. Tuskegee Army Air Field, Alabama]. He is married to the former Miss Carolyn Holland of Danville, Va., his college sweetheart.

The Afro-American (August 26, 1944)






.

I Got A Rocket in my Pocket

Another batch of space-themed label pics. Curiously enough, there is NO Rocket label listed in the huge Bob McGrath's RnB discography.

Any comment including the words "Elton" and "John" will be ignored.

Cincinnati, Ohio
country singer Jay Johnson own label
Pressed by King Records, 1962

Appleton, Wisconsin
Gold Star Recording Company
Capitol custom press, 1962
Jerry Williams and his Rockets
(member Bob Timmers, of Rockabilly Hall of Fame fame)

Nashville, Tennessee
A product of the ultra-primitive Globe Recording Studio above Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, the famous liquor haunt around the corner from the Grand Ole Opry. (Cub Koda)

Friendswood, Texas
contemporary square music

Boston, Massachusetts
1958
For the label story, see Mellow's Log Cabin

Branson, Missouri
Baldknobbers
King Records custom pressing

Crowley, Louisiana
(Glen Owens)
Owner J.D. Miller renamed it Rocko
late fifties

Unknown location
(I'll found one in the end)
(Don Bishop)
A great mystery!

Marshall, Texas
(Ray Strong)
Starday custom series, pressed by King Records in Cincinnati

Chicago?
The Staccato's
Arr. Lew Douglas
Pressed in Chicago by "Midwest Record Pressing", 1963

Alamogorda (sic), New Mexico
(Bill Lamm)
early seventies
Mastered by Sound of Nashville

Unknown location
(The Velvets)
Pressed in Cincinnati by Rite Records
1960

Rochester, New-York
(Ronny Hines)
Fine custom recording

Portland, Oregon
(The Five Men of Swing, vocal Jack Scott)

A product of the Air-Tone studios, Philadelphia
(Johnny Toto and the Nostalgics)



.

All Thru The Night

The Moore Twins
(Larry & Gary)

"All Thru The Night"

(J.O. Duncan, J.D.A. Music)

Cue Records #1053

1963 or 1964

The flip, "I'm Still Around", has an annoying female backing and can be heard indeed on YouTube, purveyor of great, of not so great and, mostly, of very bad music.

★

Larry and Gary Moore, twins from Brazosport, played the guitars and sang at various venues, radio and television in and around Freeport, Texas. It seems that they were very popular as some people are still remember them. Sheila Skaggs Hale, anwsering to a Fxxxbxxx inquiry inform us that "Larry Moore is in Hollister MO. I'm sad to report that Gary died many years ago.". Not much to add except that they also had another single, on the Todd label : "It Can Never Be The Same / Rosemary " (1964).

★

Cue Records was owned, in Houston, Texas, by Jimmy Duncan, songwriter, singer, composer, author, arranger and producer, best known for his 1957 song "My Special Angel", a #1 country/western hit for Bobby Helms.

I must say that I've been doing a lot of internet searches and that I'm still confused by several contradictions and little mysteries regarding the biography of Mister Jimmy Duncan. For now, I'd rather not say.

★

Cue Records had four different numerical series at various times :


79xx series - 1955-1957

Starting in 1955, just before Christmas, there was Cue #7923/4 by Jimmy Duncan himself (Goodbye To Love / I Asked The Lord). followed thru 1957 by a dozen of singles by the Scholars (member : Kenny Rogers), the Saints and the Sunny Land Trio.


1200 series - 1958

Four singles by The Angel Sisters, Don Angelo and the Saints. These four singles all resulted from some sort of a (rather surprising) deal with famed New-York producer George Goldner.


1050 series - 1963-1964

Dormant between 1959 and 1963, the Cue label was reactivated but had only a handful of singles, the most notable being by bluesman Gatemouth Brown (Summertime / Leftover Blues)


750 series (date unknown)

Two singles only (by Louise Hart and another by Chano)

.

Orbit With Me

October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite. That's was the start of a craze. At such extent that Irwin Zucker jokingly devised a parody of Top Ten :

Billboard (December 16, 1957)
Hollywood – Now that we’re concerned with satellites, sputniks and the like, disk promotion man Irwin Zucker figures ther’s gotta be an « Outer Space Top Ten» To help the Martian d.j. programming, Zucker compiled the following list :

1 The Last Time I Saucer Paris
2 Ol’ Rocket Chair’s Got Me
3 It’s Moon In January
4 Don’t Satellite Under The Apple Tree
5 How Comet You Do Me Like You Do, Do, Do ?
6 Martian Thru Georgia
7 You’re Getting To Be An Orbit With Me
8 Oh, How I Missile You Tonight
9 I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Space
10 My Sphere Lady

There was an explosion of new space-themed label names, among them, Orbit.

I've collected here pictures of the different Orbit labels that I can find. Only one picture for each label.

Detroit, Michigan

Eugene, Oregon
The Orbit Sound "Heard 'Round The World"

Detroit, Michigan

Williamson, West Virginia

Glendale, California
Pre-Sputnik (early fifties)

Hollywood, California

"The Sound That Out Of This World". Pop label launched by Richard Vaughn's High Fidelity Recordings in 1958.

M-G-M Records subsidiary

Name changed to Cub when, according to Billboard (April 7, 1958) it was learned by MGM that there were four other labels on the market employing the Orbit name.

Hollywood, California

unknown address

Texas

DeKalb, Texas

Nashville, Tenn.

unknown location

Nashville, Tenn., eighties

New-York City, 1964

Houston, Texas

Starday Custom Series

Frederick, Maryland

Cape Canaveral, Florida, 1962

unknown location

Macon, Georgia

Hunstville, Alabama

St. Joseph, Missouri - 1961

Syracuse, New York, seventies

241 W. 82nd St., Los Angeles, Calif.

Detroit, Michigan - 1976

282 11th Avenue, Newark, New Jersey

Rochester, New York, 1958

Centerport, New York - 1978

And finally :

Almost Orbit. A Bobby Towers production.

.

Half Past Midnight

Tommy Love and the Deadbeats

Half Past Midnight

D.Hecht-D.Carroll, Jupiter Music ASCAP

1962

A blues number already issued the previous year on Dondee Records, but with a different song on the flip side (Stop Stop). The Orbit flip is Wow! Wow!, a rocker a la Larry Williams available on a few compilations. But Tommy Love's voice is much more comfortable with the slower sides.

Two or three dozen of Orbit labels blossomed in the fifties and the sixties. On this one, located in Los Angeles, I know only one other release (Carolina rockabilly Ray Whisnant).

★

Don Hecht is perhaps best remembered for writing the Patsy Cline 1957 hit, "Walkin' After Midnight.", a song that she reluctantly recorded on November 8, 1956 :

Trying to sound like Kitty Wells wasn't working and she didn't want to be recorded pop. In '57 she was about to lose her contract when she reluctantly recorded a song called "Walkin' After Midnight." According to the Don Hecht who wrote the song, Patsy balked at recording the tune yelling, "It's nothin' but a little old pop song!" Like most female artists of the time who had no control over the songs they recorded, Patsy relented and was soon glad she did. Before the song was released, she used it to audition for the nationally broadcast Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts show. She ended up singing that song and winning the contest.

But that's Lynn Howard who was the first artist to record "Walkin' After Midnight (Accent Records #1044) reviewed in Billboard (October 6, 1956). A song that I have still to hear. While her "Red Thunderbird" is available on a few comps, her "Walkin'" version remains stubbornly uncomped.

★

Tommy Love made perhaps his recording debut on Federal Records through Ralph Bass and was certainly a Los Angeles artist. I didn't find much info about Tommy Love and no discography. So, here is a draft compiled by myself.

DISCOGRAPHY
Tommy picture is taken from the picture sleev of Bagdad 113

58 Federal 12331 : Tell Me, Tell Me / My Crazy Heart
58 Federal 12342 : Ice Cream, Soda Pop / My One True Love

61 Dondee 1937 : Half Past Midnight / Stop Stop

62 Orbit 4889 : Half Past Midnight / Wow ! Wow !

62 Dondee 1941 : Just Walking (My Blues Away) / Big Black Blotch
-- Dondee 1946 : Forbidden Love / Loneliness, Meet Emptiness
-- Dondee 1947 : Dreams Upon Dreams / Slokum
?? Dondee (EP) Tommy Love 10836 Big Black Botch (Plus 5 more)

62 Rev 1001 : Love Bug Is Buggin' Me / Your Heart Is Like A Swingin' Gate

64 Bagdad 1002 : Take My Hand / Dream In A Dream
64 Bagdad 113 : Lost Dreams / Green Door