Results for “ted”

I listened to no new music between 1984 and 1987. Instead, an obsession with 60s soul and R&B led me down the path of dusty record stores, car boot sales and charity shops in an attempt to find some musical thrills. I made an exception for the Prisoners. The Medway-based garage rock four-piece were one of the most exciting live acts I have ever seen – in those days, as a callow youth, they were mind-blowing. A devastatingly good rhythm section consisting of Johnny Symons on drums, James Taylor on organ and Allan Crockford on bass, were fronted by guitarist-vocalist Graham Day, whose voice gave them a soulful edge and who wrote songs that were truly memorable.

The group had formed at school and made their debut album “A Taste Of Pink” as a document to their early days together, at a point when Taylor was supposed to be heading North to start university. It had a raw sound influenced by the Kinks, the Beatles, the Who and the Small Faces, but its inception was fuelled by the DIY ethos of punk. The sleeve was put together around Graham’s kitchen table and they took the resultant pressing to Rough Trade to see if they would distribute it. Taylor didn’t stay on at university, John Peel picked up on the album and the Prisoners suddenly found themselves with gigs in London.

Their presence in the capital saw them sign to Ace Records’ Big Beat label, where they recorded their second album, “The Wisermiserdemelza”, and the “Electric Fit” EP. This period saw the band record many of their best-loved songs, including ‘Last Thing On My Mind’, ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Melanie’, honing their influences and creating their distinctive sound.

A side effect of being with Ace was Graham’s access to the company’s latest Northern Soul LPs, which inspired him to write a new set of songs for their next album. That release, “The Last Fourfathers”, is probably their most satisfying recording. The group worked with Russell Wilkins of the Milkshakes and Graham’s vocals were captured to perfection on numbers such as ‘Nobody Wants My Love’, ‘The More I Teach You’ and ‘Take You For A Ride’, whilst on the electrifying ‘I Am A Fisherman’ you could properly hear Alan’s harmonies for the first time. Our CD version of the album contains a recording of the live highlight ‘Hush’, the Joe South song the Prisoners made their own, only to have their arrangement appropriated by the Charlatans on their hit ‘The One I Know’ and by Kula Shaker for their cover of ‘Hush’.

The group could never quite bring themselves to want success enough, but in 1986 they made one final attempt by signing to the Stiff Records subsidiary, Countdown, run by future Acid Jazz Records owner Ed Piller. The band didn’t like what producer Troy Tate was trying to turn them into and were on the verge of falling apart. The record that emerged, “In From The Cold”, contained impressive songs and performances, but the group advised their fans not to buy it. Stiff Records collapsed into bankruptcy at about the same time.

There was just enough time left for a swipe at the music industry with ‘Pop Star Party’, which was then partially wiped and lost, before the Prisoners called it a day. In the years since, all except Johnny have kept up a presence in music, making many great records in a variety of settings, whilst they have reformed intermittently to make triumphant returns to the stage. I am thrilled to have seen them at their peak. Big Beat have reissued their whole catalogue, with plenty of bonus material. If you don’t own every piece of music by the band, you’re losing out.

Barney is the former U.S. Editor of Mojo and author of, among other books, Say It One Time for the Brokenhearted (about country soul), Across the Great Divide (about The Band) and Waiting for the Sun (about L.A.). He is now Editorial Director of ROCK'S BACKPAGES, the Online Library of Rock & Roll, featuring thousands of classic articles and interviews by hundreds of the best rock writers of the last 40 years. JOIN TODAY at www.rocksbackpages.com

Urged on by rare soul collector Gilly, who had solved the Northern Soul mystery of “What was the identity of the singer who recorded the Rose Valentine cover-up ‘When He's Not Around’?” (as played on acetate by Richard Searling in the latter days of Wigan Casino), Ace Records went ahead and purchased the tapes and rights to the work of Detroit producer Dave Hamilton. Gilly told me how Dave had been an original member of Motown’s Funk Brothers, had played guitar on ‘Reet Petite’, ‘Boom Boom’ and ‘Please Mr Postman’, had recorded the Chalfontes for Mercury and had run the Topper label. He also said there were some great unissued numbers that Dave had copied onto a reel for him to get played on the Northern Soul scene.

I was not that knowledgeable about the Wigan cover-up, but I realised it made a great story and would create much interest. After Dave’s untimely death, I visited his widow Alice and listened to some of his tapes. I thought they were worth gambling on. At the time I could identify only one full CD’s worth of material with a few spin-offs for other compilations. We shipped the tapes back to London, allowing us the luxury of time to fully explore the material.

Our first “Dave Hamilton’s Detroit Dancers” CD featured most of the tracks that had drawn us to the catalogue. In further researching the tapes we began to discover unheard gems such as ‘Who Are You Trying To Fool’ by Little Ann (the true artist on that Rose Valentine cover-up), a recording later described by Ian Levine as the best non-Motown Detroit soul production. The rare soul collecting scene continued to view Dave’s work favourably and records such as ‘Sweep It Out In The Shed’ by Tobi Lark, Dottie & Millie’s ‘Talkin’ About My Baby’ and James Lately’s super-rarity ‘Love, Friends And Money’ went from strength to strength. Then the rare funk scene exploded and Dean Rudland was able to compile a BGP CD of late 60s and early 70s grooves. Additionally Dave’s jazz productions on himself and his tight band came out as the unreleased “Soul Suite” LP he had hoped would make his name in the late 60s. Dave’s jazz background also led to several of his tracks featuring in our “Mod Jazz” series and there were some excellent modern soul recordings from artists such as of Gil Billingsley and James Carpenter.

Meanwhile, we had been sitting on many unmarked tapes. Every few years we would haul a couple of boxes up from our storage facility, don the headphones and plough through several days’ worth of recordings. These varied from poorly copied old jazz radio shows to fully produced versions of songs Dave was trying to get to Motown’s Jobete Music publishing company. Tapes for some incredibly rare 45s eventually turned up, along with odd acetates, allowing us to release a third volume of “Detroit Dancers” and a new volume of funk, followed by a general “Detroit Soul” CD.

The EU then joined in the fun with a request from the Finnish company Timmion to issue an LP of Little Ann’s recordings. The faux 60s album was a great hit, particularly among the younger soul demographic, and it led to a similar project on O.C. Tolbert, who also cut enough tracks for a very impressive Kent CD of his own.

That one mythical 1966 recording that remained embedded in an old acetate was responsible for eight great CDs and we’re still counting. From small acorns, mighty oak trees do grow, and we’ve not even started on the gospel tapes yet.

About as far from Pat Boone as you can get are the true believers in the power of rock’n’roll to raise hell, whilst speaking in tongues and letting most all of everything hang out. Fuelled by the increasingly powerful radio stations broadcasting across America, post-war teens came out of the MOR closet and ignited by the spark that was Elvis, quiffed or bouffanted their hair and cut loosefrom the restraints of austerity. Suddenly anyone could be a rock’n’roll star, with a few chords and a backbeat and enough attitude to carry it off. As the big companies were slow to get it daddy-o, indie record labels sprang up to fill the void, and into the void was sucked the weird, the wonderful, the wild and the downright demented.

Some 30 years later these demented teens inspired a whole new desire to take apart rock’n’roll and reconstruct its constituent parts into a brand new monster. And so it came to pass that the meek may have inherited the earth, but the sun, the moon and the stars were domain of extreme rock’n’roll and long may it wail.

photo caption: The Meteors, courtesy Chiswick Records

GWP were the initials of Gerard W Purcell, an artist manager who had great success with country musician Eddy Arnold and trumpeter Al Hirt. He also worked with Lena Horne, the poet Maya Angelou and Dizzy Gillespie among many others. In the mid-60s he expanded the recording side of his business with Gale Garnett and several R&B acts, notably Benny Gordon and Kenny Carter. For the Benny Gordon releases he used veteran producer Teacho Wiltshire, but by the time of the Kenny Carter recordings he had brought in Larry Banks to produce and provide great songs. Other acts that fell under Larry Banks’ auspices were the Geminis, the Exciters and his life partner Joan Bates, aka Jaibi.

Originally married to R&B singer Bessie Banks, with whom he made the deep soul classic ‘Go Now’, Larry fell in love with Joan Bates, a singer with the Pleasures group, and they set up as a couple. He then cut another deep soul masterpiece, ‘You Got Me’ by Jaibi, this time for GWP Productions, who placed the record with the Kapp label. Still pursuing his own singing career (he originally sang with the vocal group the Four Fellows in 1955), he cut ‘I’m Not The One’, another GWP/Kapp deal.

GWP’s big hopes for the R&B market lay with the emotive vocals of Kenny Carter, who released three singles on RCA in 1966. Our excavation of the tape vault revealed another 10 sides, mainly big-voiced ballads, including some standards intended for an LP. Some sort of fall out between him, GWP and RCA led to the project being shelved; a real pity as the material is superb.

Success came GWP’s way when Cleveland vocal group the Hesitations came under Jerry Purcell’s management once Kapp decided to move the act away from the Detroit-based Pied Piper production team to GWP and Larry Banks. GWP had been responsible for bringing Pied Piper to RCA with singles from Lorraine Chandler, Sharon Scott, Nancy Wilcox, the Cavaliers, the Dynamics and the Metros, who managed an R&B hit and issued a full LP. However, GWP switched the Hesitations’ style from happening black music to sophisticated ballads and had immediate success with a soulful revival of ‘Born Free’, which became a major hit and led to two albums aimed at mature black and white markets.

When sales eventually dwindled, the Hesitations were released from their Kapp deal, which led to Jerry Purcell forming his own GWP label in 1969. Larry Banks having moved on, the new production team included acclaimed arranger Ed Bland, who was given young songwriters Ray Dahrouge and Billy Terrell to work with, along with superb vocalist Debbie Taylor and the Persians. The Persians arrived with New Jersey producer George Kerr, whose team was used on other GWP releases and productions, including Alice Clark’s monster Northern number ‘You Hit Me (Right Where It Hurt Me)’. Ed Bland signed up very cool jazz outfit the Pazant Brothers and recruited funky females Betty Barney and Little Rose Little.

There was immediate success when the first release, Debbie Taylor’s ‘Never Gonna Let Him Know’, became an R&B hit but, despite top quality soul records and a new subsidiary called GWP’s Grapevine, the label failed to score another hit and lost its way releasing oddball pop records and a series of orchestral LPs inspired by the signs of the zodiac.

Jerry Purcell reverted to artist management and, once he retired, was happy to set up a deal with Ace Records to purchase his R&B recordings, which included unreleased masters from Benny Gordon, Jaibi, the Shaladons, Milton Bennett, Bobby Penn, the Modettes and others. The Kenny Carter sides are still in contractual dispute but we continue to work for their release.