The Feel It Advent-ure 2020: Door 17

I have three Qs in the box – Madlyn Quebec, Quiet Elegance, and The Quadraphonics.

Let's go with The Quadraphonics with a fine slab of mid '70s group soul. The sort of sound that leaves you with a warm glow.

According to Discogs the group hailed from Milwaukee and this was their only release Originally on Innovation II it caused enough of a stir for Warner Bros to pick it up for national release in the US, although I'm not sure it made it past promo stage. A Contempo release in the UK hints at the fact it must have had some action in the UK too. I was going to say that would presumably have been Northern action, but this sound is, to my ears, a bit too slow, lush, and dare I say it sophisticated for the Northern dancefloors of the time? 

The track is basically a cover of Betcha If You Ask Around by Velvet which saw a release on Perception in 1973.

I love it.

The Quadraphonics – Betcha If You Check It Out 1974

The Feel It Advent-ure 2020: Door 16

Plenty of Ps in the 45 soul box but I fancy a bit of jazz tonight.

I was over the moon to find this in a charity shop not so long ago, buried in a large boxful of (very) easy listening – James Last, Mantovani, the usual charity shop fare.

It has been on my project list all year to expand my wall of album covers, and when it finally happens this is one that will be going up.

The headgear cocks a snook at Covid-19. Definitely not de rigueur at the moment... but when the vaccine roll out properly kicks in you just see – it will be all the rage.

An Atlantic album of this vintage just has to have the label shown too – those colours!

And as a bonus, with this being some very cool jazz, here is a picture of "Lord" Claude – one very cool cat.

Dave Pike – Devilette 1966

PS: And the "Lord" is a Devilette

The Feel It Advent-ure 2020: Door 15

 

A quick bit of forensics tonight.

In the dead wax of this 45 is the word PERCEPTION a matrix number, T-1502A crossed out, T-1506B, and F/W.

The latter two markings make perfect sense, being the matrix number of this 45 and this track being the B side, and F/W standing for the legendary Frankford /Wayne which is the lab that would have done the mastering. Frankford/Wayne didn't set up in New york until 1973, so as this 45 was released in 1972 the mastering must have been done by F/W at Sigma Sound in Philly where they initially worked, as far as I can work out.

So what about the T1502A matrix that is crossed out? Well, Who Could Doubt My Love originally appeared as an A side on Today 1502, so the same master must have been used.

PERCEPTION? Perception and Today were sister labels run as part of Perception Ventures, established in 1969, so either the umbrella company is being referenced or Odds And Ends were originally going to appear on the Perception label. Almost certainly the former as Odds And Ends had already had two single releases on Today, in '70 and '71.

I have only just learnt that Patrick Adams, something of a producer legend in the Disco and Boogie arena later in the '70s on labels such as P&P and Salsoul, ran the Today label. Today managed a total of 31 released singles, the last one being early in 1974 after which the label ran into financial difficulties (didn't they always!)

You can find a good potted history of Odds And Ends themselves here.

This track has a killer intro and settles into a very nice groove.

Odds And Ends – Who Could Doubt My Love 1972

The Feel It Advent-ure 2020: Door 14

They go on, and on, and on. Deep into injury time now. I think the Brexit trade talks must be being conducted with the title of today's song as their mantra.

Aaron Neville – You Can Give, But You Can't Take 1968

Incidentally,  The more I look at it the more I love that Bell logo. It's taken me a long time to fully appreciate it.  

The Feel It Adventure 2020: Door 13

Running down the alphabet Little Milton could qualify as an L or an M, or indeed a C (for Campbell). In my boxes he is filed under M. No rhyme or reason to that really as, for instance, Little Beaver and Little Richard are both filed under L. That will no doubt cause me no little consternation sometime in the future and propel me into a blind panic as I try and find one of these artists' records.

I bought what amounted to a small job lot (they were listed individually by an ebay seller and I won them all) of Little Milton 45s earlier this year which swelled my collection of his singles considerably. That happened to be around the same time Mr Finewine featured a lot of his Checker output on Downtown Soulville (come to think of it that show was another decorating soundtrack). That show may have inspired my purchase but I think I had already bought my little batch by then.

Little Milton has only featured once before on Feel It – back in 2014, behind Door 22 of that year's Advent-ure. High time we had another another one then. This is a great version of a well known song that originally had Italian lyrics. Leiber & Stoller penned the English lyrics and Ben E. King was the first person to have an English version released, in June '63. Here in the UK we will probably all be most familiar with Shirley Bassey's rendition which was also released in '63 and peaked at #6 in the UK charts. And who had the highest charting version of the song in the USA? Look to Wales again – it was (Sir) Tom Jones who reached #14 in the Billboard charts in 1970, again a great version.

Little Milton – I Who Have Nothing 1968

The Feel It Advent-ure 2020: Door 12

Behind Door 9 there was The Gorilla. In that post I referred to Major Lance's The Monkey Time. Now here we are at L and so it is the Major's turn. To be honest I had forgotten I had a copy of this 45 when I referred to it a couple of days ago. Finding it as I riffled through the Ls in my box has sent me on quite a journey.

Firstly, I can tell where and when I found this record. Until about three years ago I would record in a spreadsheet all my finds “in the wild”. That spreadsheet tells me I found this 45 at a car boot sale at Lansdown near Bath in April of 2011, and it cost me 50p. (Aahh, those were the days when you could still regularly turn up something worth having at a car boot, particularly the Lansdown one which has sadly declined even more than most.)

So what about the name and address sticker on the label? One thing I certainly can't describe, although I would love to know, is the journey this 45 took down the years from being bought as a charting single in 1963 by Elizabeth, presumably in Charleston, to being in a box of unloved singles in a field near Bath, England in 2011. At the time I would certainly have Googled that name and address. But at the time I'm guessing I drew a blank. I just Googled it again and this time I can put a face to Elizabeth!

Ashley Hall in Charleston is a private girl's school and is still in existence. Googling Elizabeth's name and the school now brings up a link to the school's 2014 year book which can be downloaded as a pdf. In it Elizabeth is featured (as Elisabeth) and pictured(!), and received an annual “professional development award” from the school. She is referred to as a graduate in '64. This fits perfectly with the timeline of this Major Lance 45, so now I can picture Elizabeth, in her final year before graduation, dancing The Monkey with her friends in her boarding room at Ashley Hall! *

A little bit more Googling led me to two Youtube clips of her speaking, as an entrepreneur, at events in Atlanta. At the time of the videos she ran a company, also based in Atlanta, called Womenetics; although pursuing that avenue led to a dead end as it seems to be no longer active. I'm guessing (hoping) she is now enjoying a well earned retirement.

I can't help but notice that Ashley Hall is a rather “posh” looking school and I wouldn't have forseen the original owner of a 45 by Major Lance to be from such a background. There is quite a juxtaposition, especially considering the segregation that still existed in the USA in the early '60s, especially in the South. But then why should I be surprised? Major Lance was just another product the emerging '60s pop culture really and pop music was on a journey that began to transcend barriers of class and colour (and now I'm picturing the thousands of screaming teenage girls following The Beatles around; and Major Lance once opened for them).

Now here's another thing: I looked up this single on 45cat where I found a recent comment linking to this story. It's worth reading. And I have learnt something – the 60^th, and current, Mayor of Atlanta, is Keisha Lance Bottoms, and she is Major Lance's daughter. Furthermore she was, for a short time, in the running to be Joe Biden's running mate.

Major Lance – The Monkey Time 1963

Major Lance – Mama Didn't Know 1963

* and I'm betting Mummy didn't know :)

The Feel It Advent-ure 2020: Door 11

 A bit of a mover for a Friday night. The Kelly Brothers started out as a Gospel group in the late '50s and also performed as The King Pins. In the Mid '60s they moved to the Sims label and very much followed the trend in dropping their overtly Gospel sound and moved into the Soul and R&B arena. I don't think they are that well known but they certainly released a good deal of 45s, 45cat lists 28 US releases.

Watch out for the worm hole in the middle of this one (I don't know how else to describe it!)

The Kelly Brothers – Haven't I Been Good To You  1968