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Laura Johnson – I know how it feels

Brent 7035 US Year 1962

Track 1 – I Know How It Feels Track 2 – Wondering If You Miss Me

This heart wrenching soul ballad is an absolute pearl and one I keep very close to my heart. A song to play late at night, with a stiff hard drink, on your own (well maybe with a pet friend), and not one that I play in public too often. A mysterious recording, certainly not an easy one to find particular specs on, so I had to visit my fav’ research web site Soulful Detroit once again for most of the info here.

Laura Johnson, an amateur singer from Detroit, who happened to work in the Correc-tone’s offices, paid for her own studio time and recorded these two stirring tracks at Wilbert Golden’s legendary Correc-tone studios. The self-penned “Wondering If You Miss Me”, and “I Know How It Feels”, which was written by infamous Popcorn Wylie and Motown’s Janie Bradford, and produced by Robert Bateman, were released in ’62 on Bob Shad’s New York Brent label. It’s likely that Correc-tone’s session musicians of that time, bassist James Jamerson, drummer Benny Benjamin and guitarist Robert White recorded on these tracks, but I can’t confirm that. I’m pretty sure that’s the incredibly beautiful “Andantes” backing her up here.

Laura also had a hand in writing a couple of gems cut by Marva Josie, including the excellent “Later For You Baby” which was released on Brent’s sister label,Time, also released in ’62.

“I Know How It Feels” was earlier released by The Satintones on Motown (the first band to ever record for that label) in ’61, then also with The Marvelettes on their Please Mr.Postman LP debut, that same year in November. Both versions are a delight in their own ways, but Johnson gets the badge of honor for me.

Seems not too many people out there really knew much more about this elusive artist and these remarkable isolated recordings. Sadly, it doesn’t look like Johnson was to ever record again, and with that remarkable tone, it’s the greatest shame!

The Correc-tone Story

Brent 45 Discography

Posted by seven45rpm | December 25, 2013 | Categories: New Breed Popcorn, RnB, The Ladies | Tags: 745rpm, brent, Brent7035, Correc-tone, Correctone, LauraJohnson, newbreed, popcorn, PopcornWylie, seven45rpm, soul | Leave a comment

The Jackson Sisters – I Believe In Miracles

Prophesy Records ZS7 3005 Year 1973

Detroit based sibling funksters, The Jackson Sisters, bring you this absolute killer version of Mark Capanni’s I Believe In Miracles, circa 1973.

The Jackson Sisters were a soul family group from Compton, California, comprising of Jacqueline Jackson-Rencher (the eldest), Lyn Jackson, Pat Jackson, Rae Jackson and Gennie Jackson (the youngest). The girls would practice on an old beaten up piano in their dad’s garage, composing songs after school, and would draw all the neighboring kids to watch. After a handful of talent show wins, the young siblings soon found themselves opening for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, then known as The Mark Taper Form. It was Smokey’s farewell concert (entitled The Last Miracle) and include other feature acts including Al Green, Edwin Starr, Eddie Kendricks, The Whispers and The Three Degrees.

It was 1973, and within that same year, they signed a contract with a small recording company, Prophesy Records in Beverly Hills, California. That is when they recorded I Believe in Miracles, co-written by Mark Capanni & produced by Bobby Taylor. This track is truly a rich and rare funk, soul classic, with amazing harmony vocals, and a tempo that really would light any dance floor on fire! I believe it is the youngest of the sisters, Gennie, that takes most of the lead vocals on the song (I’m guessing she’s running that bridge that leads to the monster chorus), and her vocal power is pure brilliance. And no surprise that they were nominated for best new vocal group for the Black Image Awards and best new female artist by Record World Magazine in 1974-1975 which was announced on Soul Train an aired Feb. 22, 1975.

Sadly the parent album, scheduled to be released on Tiger Lily Records in 1976, was withdrawn, although a few promo copies went into circulation and they now retail for big bucks as one would expect. The musical tracks were the works of the late great Gene Page. The vocals were produced by Pete Moore of the famous Smokey Robinson & The Miracles along with Bobby Taylor.

While they did get to release a few 45’s, Miracles is the most sought after and not too easy to find. Originally on a red Prophesy label with the flip (Why Can’t We Be) More Than Just Friends, and also as a white label promo with 2 heavy cuts of track A, one in big fat mono! There was also a release on UK label Mums Records, and a re-release on Polydor in 1976.

The original version of I Believe In Miracles, which was first recorded in 1973 and performed by Mark Capanni, is an absolute beautiful soul masterpiece, well deserved of the highest praise and well worth tracking down. Despite the Capanni version having been pressed, it failed to make an impact and the record was pulled, making it very sought after. But it was the Jackson Sisters that did the dance floor business, with their feverish thumpin’ funk monster, which was unleashed in 1974.

Baby Earl & The Trini-dads – Back Slop

S.P.Q.R. 45-3317 US Year 1964

Well I’m going to start off by saying that this here, has to be one of my favourite examples of crossover R&B and Ska! It moves, and it shuffles, and oh just so nicely!

Tenor Sax extraordinaire Earl Swanson and his Trini-dads are killing it here on this one off 1964 recording, but actually this band of merry men is one of many incarnations of producer Frank Guida and his Legrand Records house band, The Church Street Five.

Guida owned a number of record labels, including Le Monde (distributed by Atlantic), then Legrand (home to many early sixties hits by Gary U.S.Bonds) and finally sister label S.P.Q.R. (distributed by London). Guida was of Italian extraction and while stationed in Trinidad during the Second World War, he fell under the influence of calypso, an obvious influence passed on in many of his productions. Much of the Gary U.S. Bonds sound was created by the Church Street Five (based in Virginia), featuring Gene “Daddy G” Barge and Earl Swanson on the earlier cuts. The Church Street Five also featured Ron “Junior” Fairley on bass, Willie Burnell on piano, Leonard Barks on trombone, Eric Sauls and Wayne Beckner on guitar, and Melvin Glover and Nabs Shields on drums.

Everybody Do The Ska is the flip, and it’s a much more traditional ska-reggae composition that really is out shined by Back Slop!

While Jamaican ska was originally influenced by the sound of American R&B and jazz picked up in Kingston from radio broadcasts in New Orleans and Miami, the sound of early 60’s ska also had an impact on American pop music of the same era. And here is the what can happen when both these beautiful styles marry. This uptempo instrumental is really hot stuff. The ripping guitar blues solo, the Baby Earl grooves, the constant but addictive rhythms, mixing boogaloo with soulful ska, it’s made strictly for the dance floor!

Other facts: Guida opened a record store in Norfolk, Virginia, named Frankie’s Got It in 1953 (it’s motto was Shakespeare’s “If music be the food of love, play on!”, which later became a song on a Bonds B-side).

SPQR is the abbreviation for the Latin, Senate and Citizens of Rome, emblem of the Roman Empire (Senatus Populesque Romanus) and may have been a nod to Guida’s family’s original home, but it may have also stood for Sound Proof Quality Records.

In 1955, Ruth Brown met Swanson on the Griffin Brothers Orchestra tour and soon married, but sadly Swanson was not a nice husband at all! He was a womanizer, drug user and a wife beater, and made Brown’s life hell (you can read in more detail of the relationship here Icons of R&B).

Referencing…

45 Discography for SQPR Funky Virginia Peach Fuzz Forest

Macro On The Bass Ruth Earl Wed

Posted by seven45rpm | December 24, 2013 | Categories: Cool Cats, Ska, Soul | Tags: 745rpm, BabyEarl, Backslop, RuthBrown, seven45rpm, soul, SPQR45-3317, TheTrinidads | Comments Off on Baby Earl & The Trini-dads – Back Slop

Billy Daniels – Woe Woe Woe

Liberty 55716 US Year 1964

Not a lot of information can be found on this massive Daniels recording, but I have to say it’s up there in my top favs to spin and not an easy one to find.

Daniels’ (born in Jacksonville, Florida, 1915) most recognised and popular recording That Old Black Magic is what you’ll find on the A side here. First recorded back in around 1948 for Apollo records (1101), it had quite a few successful releases on Mercury (5721 10″ Shellac where it was released as That Ol’ Black Magic, Mercury 5721×45 7″ 1950, a UK picture sleeve EP and also on Oriele) so it’s is obviously a re-release. On this Liberty release, over a decade later however, we have the almighty Jack Nitzsche reworking the Mercer-Arlen composition, and the production is what you’d expect from this great “Nitzsche era” of recordings. It’s smooth and it’s cool, and the overall sound is far more “hip” than the earlier recordings, but it’s on the flip where the real black magic happens!

Woe Woe Woe is the one you want to drop on this 45, and I’m not sure what really happens here to Daniels, but I can only assume that he was somehow possessed by the devil in that studio session! Maybe it was all the fame and those late nights in Vegas, after all it was 1964, what a place to be! Maybe after all his success with ballads and standards, he wanted to finally just give it all…and he certainly does here, come that short monstrous chorus line. The sax solo here is so, so very slinky and sexy, and I really want to know who is responsible! The percussion is slick, the tempo is dangerous, and the sound is big and nasty! Then adding those sultry, foxy backing vocals…well, it just makes this the most thrilling 2 minutes of soulful rocking R&B you’re likely to ever experience!

As always, I’m keen to find out more about this recording, especially the recording artists! The promo – audition cream copies seems to appear more often than the regular liberty copies, but still not an easy one to get your hands on, and well worth the hunt!

Spectropop Nitzsche Discography

Posted by seven45rpm | December 24, 2013 | Categories: Cool Cats, Soul | Tags: 745rpm, BillyDaniels, BillyDanielsWoeWoeWoe, Liberty, Liberty55716, seven45rpm, soul | Leave a comment

Wilson Pickett – Let Me Be Your Boy

CUB Records – 9113 US Year 1962

Track 1: Let Me Be Your Boy Track 2: My Heart Belongs To You

This has to be my favourite track from Alabama soul whiz, Wilson Pickett. Released in March 1962, after departing from his former vocal group The Falcons (fellow band members included Bonnie Mack Rice, Eddie Floyd and Joe Stubbs) to pursue a solo career, it seems that this song didn’t reach the success it well and truly deserved!

Research is telling me that this was the one and only recording he did with CORREC-TONE, but the track was also picked up that same year by (independent) CUB Records of New York. Pickett wrote the sweet flip “My Heart Belongs To You”, however the studio’s keyboardist Wilbert Harbert penned the electrifying A-side, “Let Me Be Your Boy”, while Sonny Sanders and Robert Bateman oversaw the sessions.

Pickett’s CORREC-TONE and CUB experience was short lived, moving on a few years later to Atlantic Records, where history was made with huge successful hits such as Mustang Sally, Land of 1000 Dances and so many more. There were two re-releases of this recording a few years later on M.G.M (UK-1965) and also on Verve, (www.45cat.com) and I’m guessing sparked on as a “cash in”, due to his success with the hit “In The Midnight Hour” that same year. There also seems to be a Spanish EMI-Verve picture sleeve out there.

Pickett must have been around 21 at this time, and the maturity in his technique and the overall song composition is truly astounding and obviously ahead of it’s time. The blue beat-ska rhythm and dynamics here, is what really made me fall so in love with this track. That, along with the upbeat tempo, and of course those familiar and incredible backing vocals by none other than The Supremes (aka The Primettes) makes it a dance floor filler!

I have the beautiful deep red Cub issue, which doesn’t seem to surface very often, and would love to know any other artist’s involvement with this recording!

Highly recommended reading about the Correc-tone Wilson experience can be found here…

http://soulfuldetroit.com/web16-correctone/05/05-Pickett.htm

Also check out Pickett’s very smooth Hey Joe 1969 Atlantic

Posted by seven45rpm | December 23, 2013 | Categories: Cool Cats, Soul | Tags: 745rpm, cub, latin, seven45rpm, soul, WilsonPickett | Leave a comment

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Seven45rpm A home for the children of the 7" 45 revolution!

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Laura Johnson – I know how it feels

The Jackson Sisters – I Believe In Miracles

Baby Earl & The Trini-dads – Back Slop

Billy Daniels – Woe Woe Woe

Wilson Pickett – Let Me Be Your Boy

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