Onion

Sherry Grooms

Onion

Boudleaux Bryant

Acuff Rose Pub. BMI

Southern Artists Records

Mockingbird 1001

1965

Sherry Ann Grooms, fourteen-year old of West Memphis, Ark. has won a number of local contests in 1964.  She had been encouraged in her singing career by Fred Bevis, a Florence resident and the girl's general manager.  In 1965, she appeared four times on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour and recorded this first record, possibly in Arkansas at Southern Artists Records.

In December 1965, she was the headliner of a variety show at the Florence Coliseum. On the same bill were the Fame Records Studio Band, "Barry" & the Psychos from Memphis, Lendon Smith and the Genteels, Maggie Sue Wimberly, The Travelons, Fred Frawley and band and others

She had further records on ABC (1966-1967), Cotillion (1969), Elektra (1977, with Even Stevens) and Parachute (1978).  Some were minor hits in the country charts.

Fred Bevis, her manager, was the Florence, Alabama resident who had converted an old casket factory at 3614 Jackson Highway (Sheffield, Ala.) into a four-track studio, which he sold in 1969. The new owners named it "Muscle Shoals Sound Studios"

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.

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)

Double Bubble

Larry Brinkley

Double Bubble

Lee McAlpin-Randy Wilson

Lyn-Lou Music BMI

Magic 3011
1965

Earliest releases on the Magic label had a Memphis address, later releases a Middleton, Tennessee address.  Magic Records was owned by Jimmy Darnell and Lee McAlpin. 

From Jackson, Tennessee Larry Brinkley recorded locally for Jaxon (unissued cuts) and Charlie Roach's Westwood.  See his discography in the Rockin' Country Style website.

When the rockabilly days were over, Larry teamed with Lee McAlpin (who played piano with Carl Perkins' band) and they wrote songs together, notably "The Man in the House", recorded by Loretta Lynn.

This is one of the last (or the last) release on the label, more obscure than the earlier Larry Brinkley offering on the label which was "Right String, But Wrong Yo Yo" (Magic 3004)

Nu, Nu, Nu

The Taylor Maids

Bobby Pring's Orchestra

Nu, Nu, Nu 

Romano, Bradford (ASCAP)

Eureka 6752

1954

Eureka, the Gold label, division of Stanley and Livingston, Inc. Hollywood, Calif.

The Taylor Maids, three striking decorative blondes, were sisters who answer to the names of Pat, Beverly and Shirley Taylor.   They began their professional careers singing in army hospitals.    Said one sergeant, "Those girls were so darn pretty they didn't have to sing."     Bob Hope discovered them in 1950 and immediately booked them to accompany him on a Korean tour. Hope was so enthralled by the girls that when he made his TV debut he brought the Taylor Maids to New York. 

After four singles for Capitol Records in 1955-1956, Pat called it quits to devote time to her family.  Beverly and Shirley tried to find a third person to keep the act going, without success, and both wound up getting hired in Florida as airline stewardesses. 

More details can be found here