The Feel It Advent-ure 2024: Door 7

Hello, who is this at the door?

Ah, it's you again Mr. Campbell, welcome.

Little Milton was prolific throughout the 60s and most of his singles, especially on Checker, are worth picking up. This one is a stormer.

Little Milton - Grits Ain't Groceries  1968   

The Feel It Advent-ure 2024: Door 6

We spent a few days in Memphis on our Deep South road trip. It warranted a few days as, of course, there was a lot to see and experience: 

We stayed at The Peabody so were treated to a duck march every day for starters :) 

Graceland was not as glitzy as we expected it to be, and all the better for it. The house itself was much smaller than I expected and had quite an intimate feel. The whole experience was well worth it.

Sun Studios was well worth a visit, it's great to know studio space itself is virtually unchanged from the Fifties.

There was great live music - and food - on offer from the bars on Beale St. 

The Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel was a really moving experience.  

And, of course, no trip to Memphis would be complete without a visit to the Stax Museum. They have a wall of records there which displays every single released on the Stax and Volt labels. Not quite every single actually, there were eight missing when we visited, and I have one of them! (Joni Wilson on Volt, which I have featured here a couple of times in the past). I could donate my copy but I don't feel ready to part with it yet. 

It was appropriate, then, that I bought a Stax single at Shangri-La Records.

The B side of this single I have written about twice before here, initially in 2006 (the first year of this blog's life!), and then again in 2010 when I wondered why I was all of a sudden getting a lot of views on my original post. It turned out it was because the song had appeared on the Treme soundtrack. This all seems like such a long time ago now. Just A Little Overcome  I have always had on a Stax compilation album. In the original post I said that you could probably pick up a copy of the single it appeared on for no more than £10. Little did I know then that I would finally pick up a copy of it (for $7) in the city of its birth.   

Time to give the A side an airing.

The Nightingales - I Don't Want To Be Like My Daddy  1971           

               

The Feel It Advent-ure 2024: Door 5

Here is another great record released on the Checker label. This one predates yesterday's Little Milton 45 by a few months, and was a big hit in the Summer of 1965. This clocks in at 3 minutes 20 seconds which is actually quite a long track for a mid sixties soul record.  

This is another single that can be found in all three 60s incarnations of the Checker label. And after I said yesterday that this particular design was believed to not have debuted until 1966 this has now got me wondering. I notice the release number (13738) is suffixed by an R on the label. The R does not appear on red label copies of this single. So does this mean maybe that it was reissued in 1966?   

This is a stunning piece of Deep Soul which I first came across as being the opening track on Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures Vol. 4 CD back in the noughties. All five volumes of those CDs are absolutely essential if you are, like me, a lover of Deep Soul.

The Knight Bros. - Temptation 'Bout To Get Me  1965     

The Feel It Advent-ure 2024: Door 4

Here's Little Milton again, and it won't be the last of his this month.

I put this one on my want list a couple of years ago now. I would have had to have paid £20 - £25 for a copy in the UK and there aren't that many about. So, although this has seen some plays, I was happy to find it for $3.

This one hits a groove and doesn't let up. I would have thought it would have been a staple on the Northern Soul and Mod scene but it only seems to be semi-known.     

Checker had a number of label designs down the years. It is generally accepted that the silver on red one here lasted from 1957 to 1965. It was superceded briefly by the "checkerboard" design but by 1966 a more basic blue design had taken over. I have seen copies of this single on all three designs. Any on the red label must have been using up old label stock.      

Little Milton - Sometimey  1966

 

The Feel It Advent-ure 2024: Door 3

We're staying in the back room of Shangri-La Records for a few more days yet. 

Like Little Milton, I have amassed a few Ella Washington singles over the years. Very much championed by John Richbourg, her secular recording career spanned 1965 to around the end of 1972 in which time she released 13 singles and one album. I have copies of over half of those singles now.  

She has a wonderful voice, a good range, and she can really let rip. She does have a bit of a lisp which is more or less noticeable on her various recordings and can be a bit of an acquired taste (for instance it does detract a bit from her performance on the B side of this 45 - If Time Could Stand Still - to my mind), but it does make her sound really down home I think.

This was one of her last secular releases. The sound of Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals is all over this record. More of Fame and Muscle Shoals in a few days time.    

Ella Washington - Too Weak To Fight  1972

You can, of course, read more about her and her career over at Sir Shambling's site.

The Feel It Advent-ure 2024: Door 2

I have a fair few Little Milton 45s in my collection, and after this year's trip to the Deep South I now have a few more as you will see as we move on through the month.

Most of the 45s I have of his are on Checker, this is the first one I have picked up on the Bobbin label. It's an early one, released around February 1959. Consulting his singles catalog on 45cat it would appear his very first single was released on Sun on Christmas Eve 1953. He would carry on recording and performing pretty much right up until has death in 2005. According to Discogs he had been born James Milton Campbell Jr. but legally dropped the "James" after he discovered he had a half brother of that name.      

Bobbin is a cute name for a label I think. Discogs again enlightened me that Milton co-founded it in 1958 with KATZ radio manager Bob Lyons. It was eventually bought by Chess and absorbed into the Checker label where Little Milton would go on to release so many great singles in the sixties.       

Both the label and vinyl of this 45 look pretty worn, not surprising really as it had not long celebrated its 65th birthday when I found it in one of the boxes of second hand singles out the back of Shangri-La Records. It plays remarkably well though    

The A side is Long Distance Operator which is a fine upbeat number but I'm going to feature the more bluesy B side here because it has just a little more background noise which I think can add a bit of charm to the listening experience, and seems entirely appropriate for a 65 year old record.     

Little Milton - I Found Me A New Love  1959

The Feel It Advent-ure 2024: Door #1

“I have made the snap decision to do a Feel It Advent-ure again this year. Having being absent for almost a year this is probably a foolhardy decision. But we shall see.”

Sound familiar? I’ll forgive you if your reply was “No”. But in fact that is what I said three years ago, just before I embarked on my 2021 Advent-ure.

So with minimal adjustment I will say the same again three(!) years later: I have made the snap decision to do a Feel It Advent-ure again this year. Having being absent for almost a year nearly three years this is probably a foolhardy decision. But we shall see.”

It is a somewhat easier task this time as the rekkids have chosen themselves. 

Earlier this year Mrs Darce and I road tripped around the Deep South of America, covering four States – Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The route was planned around a musical theme, I’m sure you can guess some of the destinations. Along the way, of course, I kept a nose out for some records, and, with heartfelt thanks to my very understanding wife, we found ourselves in a few record shops and thrifts along the way. The little stack of 45s pictured are what I picked up.

I will work through them in chronological order of purchases as best as I can remember where they were purchased. The first few, including the one featured here from the great Syl Johnson, came from Shangri La Records in Memphis.      

Syl Johnson – Dresses Too Short 1968

The B side is great too!

Syl Johnson – I Can Take Care Of Business 1968