Luther Randolph & Johnny Stiles - Cross Roads (single)

Luther Randolph and Johnny Stiles were two-thirds of the trio (Weldon McDougal III was the other) behind the Philadelphia soul label Harthon in the 1960s. The label put out some great singles by Barbara Mason, Herb Ward and others.

Randolph, who played organ, and Stiles, a guitarist, also released at least three singles under their own names, including the two-part Cross Roads, issued on Harthon in 1960 and later picked up for national distribution by the leading Philadelphia label of the period, Cameo/Parkway. The Cameo 45 was re-released in 1963 when it bubbled under Billboard's Hot 100 (July-August), but never actually made the chart itself.

Cross Roads is a slice of funky soul-jazz with just organ, guitar and drums. You can grab it from the link below. For the MP3, taken from the Cameo 45, I edited the two parts together for a 4 1/2-minute jam.

Cross Roads (Parts 1 & 2) 

As far as I know Cross Roads has never made an appearance in a digital format. And it doesn't seem to have turned up on LP either. However, the 45 did appear with a rather odd picture sleeve when it was released in The Netherlands.

Billy Mure - Tough Strings

Guitarist Billy Mure (1915- ), like Buddy Merrill, was heavily influenced by Les Paul's multitrack recordings and his LPs, like Supersonics in Flight on RCA Victor and Supersonic Guitars on MGM, contained lots of pyrotechnic fretwork.

Alas, his albums didn't sell all that well and are now quite collectible.

Mure got his start during the big band era, joined the station orchestra at New York's WNEW in 1947 and did a lot of work in the recording studios. (For a biography of Mure, visit Space Age Pop Music.) His playing on the Ames Brothers' 1950 hit Rag Mop is sometimes cited as the first rock 'n' roll guitar solo. There's no question that Mure plays some hot licks on that record, but whether that constitutes rock 'n' roll is highly debatable.

Tough Strings, his only album for the Kapp label, came out in 1961 and consisted of cover versions of mainly instrumental hits by the likes of the Ventures, Floyd Cramer and Jorgen Ingmann. You can listen to what he does with the Ventures' Walk Don't Run from the link below.

Walk Don't Run

Tough Strings isn't available in a digital format, but there are several of Billy Mure's MGM albums available as on-demand CD-R's or downloads. These are almost certainly sourced from vinyl, so the usual listen-before-buying caution applies.

As for Mure himself, he's still playing frequently (as of Feb. 2013), at the age of 97, at Squid Lips Overwater Grill in Sebastian, FL.

To close, the Ames Brothers, with Billy Mure on guitar.


The Ames Brothers - Rag Mop-1950 by CASVI_Factory

Charlie Spivak - Autumn Nocturne (track)

Trumpeter Charlie Spivak (1907-1982) led one of the most popular dance bands of the early 1940s and managed to keep a band together until 1959, long after most other bandleaders had called it quits.

Spivak's orchestra wasn't a jazz big band, even though he came up through the jazz ranks and spent much of his life around jazz musicians. This was strictly a dance aggregation.

Spivak made many of his best records for the Okeh and Columbia labels in the 40s, including Autumn Nocturne, recorded in 1941. I've taken the MP3 of this tune from a 1972 Columbia double-LP set called Big Bands Greatest Hits, Vol. 2.

Although the recording is clean, it's marred by some totally unnecessary, echo-laden fake stereo. Still it'll give you some idea of how good this smooth dance orchestra was. The link is below.

Autumn Nocturne

Spivak's output for Okeh and Columbia is highlighted on a 24-track, 77-minute collection on the Collectables label. Presumably this CD does not have the added fake stereo effects.

You can buy it direct from the distributor's website, Oldies.com, for about half the $14.98 list price.

Many of Spivak's Okeh and Columbia sides, including Autumn Nocturne, are also available as downloads from various sites.

Here's another one of his Columbia recordings, accompanied by some spiffy visuals.

California Montage - Young-Holt Unlimited (single)

Young-Holt Unlimited was formed by bassist Eldee Young and drummer Redd Holt in 1965 after they left the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Depending on which Young-Holt record you're listening to the pianist was either Hysear Don Walker or Ken Chaney.

Young-Holt's big hit was Soulful Strut, in 1968.

The 45 of California Montage (b/w Straight Ahead) was released the following year and is perhaps the rarest of  the trio's recordings. It's only other appearance on vinyl was on a Young-Holt greatest hits album.

California Montage comes from Dave Grusin's score for Winning, an auto-racing film starring Paul Newman.

You can grab the Young-Holt Unlimited version of California Montage below.

California Montage

California Montage has appeared on several northern soul CD compilations and on a 2005 CD from the British label Edsel, Wack Wack: The Best of Young Holt. It's still available in limited quantities.

And finally ... here's some brass-infused Young-Holt on Soulful Samba. If you want to own a non-clicks-and-pops copy of this song, it's on iTunes.

Xavier Cugat - Say Si! Si!

Cuban-born bandleader Xavier Cugat (1900-1990) did more than anyone else to establish the popularity of Latin dance music, particularly the rumba, in the U.S. during the 1930s and 40s.

Cugat continued to be a popular live (particularly in Las Vegas) and recording artist long after the commercial peak of Latin dance music had passed. In the 1950s, he was recording for RCA Victor and from his catalogue for that company the budget label Pair put together a compilation called Say Si! Si! in 1994. This long out-of-print release was issued in all three formats -- vinyl, cassette and CD.

Among the recordings on Say Si! Si! was Granada, which first appeared on a 1959 RCA release, Cugat in Spain.

You can get Granada from the link below. The MP3 is taken from the cassette release of Say Si! Si!.

Granada

Say Si! Si! is available on CD for next to nothing (how does 10 or 11 cents sound?) in the Amazon Marketplace. Cugat's RCA recordings have been repackaged numerous times on CD and many of them are available as downloads. Check the usual sources.

Below is a rather odd Cugat novelty, Gesundheit, issued on an RCA Victor 45 in 1958 (Billy's Cha Cha was on the flip side).

The Mark II - Confusion (single)

The Mark II was a collaboration between two musicians from Warwick, R.I., Wayne Cogswell and Ray Peterson. This Ray Peterson is not the one who recorded the 1960 hit Tell Laura I Love Her.

Cogswell was a session guitarist at Sun Records and also made inroads in Nashville, writing songs for Chet Atkins (Teensville) and Skeeter Davis (Someday, Someday). In 1960 Cogswell decided to move back home to Warwick and it was there he hooked up with Peterson.

The two decided to form a record label, Wye Records, and for their first release chose to record their composition Night Theme, which became a solid national hit. According to the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame the two adopted a rather unusual technique of four-handed piano, with Cogswell at the bottom on bass and chords and Peterson at the top playing unison or harmonized melody.

(Read more about Wye Records and the Mark II at the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame Archives.)

Unfortunately when it came time to record a "B" side for the single Peterson wasn't available because he'd injured a finger and Freddie Starks was called to fill in. The flip side of Night Theme was Confusion, another Cogswell-Peterson tune. Other musicians on the date were George Azevedo on sax, Bob Petteruti on bass, drummer Jack Welch and Kenny Bertch on vibes. Grab the tune from the link below.

Confusion

There were no more hits for Wye Records after Night Theme and the label packed it in after a dozen or so single releases. The company did not release any albums.

From YouTube here's the Mark II's one and only hit.

The Starsound Orchestra - Rockin' Guitar

The anonymous K-Tel instrumental band The Starsound Orchestra reared its head again in 1994 for this CD release. In this case the head isn't particularly ugly; in fact if you're going to listen to cover versions of rock instrumentals you could do a lot worse.

The Starsound Orchestra moniker has adorned all kinds of K-Tel releases over the years -- rock, big band, disco, easy listening and classical. Most of them should be left to moulder in thrift store bins. But if you spot this one pick it up. A sample track is available below.

Walk Don't Run

You've probably suffered through some pretty inept cover versions if you listen to this sort of thing, and while The Starsound Orchestra's take on Walk Don't Run doesn't come close to the The Ventures' original, it's not an embarrassment either.

The CD version of Rockin' Guitar has long since disappeared from K-Tel's catalogue, but the album is available as a download almost everywhere.

Here's an example of The Starsound Orchestra name being used for one of K-Tel's collections of big band standards -- and it's pretty decent, too. This album is easily obtained in either a triple-CD box or as a download under the title Big Bands Greatest Hits. Some of the titles in this set are also included in a double-CD K-Tel set called Stompin' at the Savoy, so you're better off buying the box with three discs.

John Evans - Latin Brass

John Evans was a pseudonym for Belgian bandleader Francis Bay (1914-2005). You can read more about Bay at Space Age Pop Music.

Bay used the Evans name on several albums in the early 1960s for Directional Records, an imprint of Premier Albums, a company that was notorious for its poor quality budget label pressings. Although the LPs on Directional were a step above the usual quality of Premier product, they still fell far short of those being issued by such labels as London Phase4 and Command Records.

Premier aimed its Directional product at the same market as Phase4 and Command -- stereophiles looking for albums to show off their stereo systems. Premier even copied Command's style of art work and gatefold covers for the Directional albums.

The Directional label had a very short life span, even though Premier ran a full page ad in the Nov. 6, 1961 issue of Billboard espousing the imprint's supposed technical superiority.

Latin Brass was the first release on Directional Records. A sample track can be had below.

April in Portugal

To make matters worse, all of the tracks on Latin Brass had been released on earlier albums under the Francis Bay name on such labels as Omega and Phillips. Some reverb was apparently added for the Latin Brass release in a weak attempt to live up to the "Directional" sound claim.

Here's a further sampling of Bay's Latin sound, this time under his own name on the Phillips label.

Shirley Scott - Satin Doll

This 1963 release, which was recorded two years earlier, was one of two Duke Ellington tributes that organist Shirley Scott (1934-2002) recorded for the Prestige label.

The bare bones session had Scott backed by just bass (George Tucker) and drums (Mack Simpkins) and the music is a little more sedate than what you'll find on most of the organist's LPs.

To promote Satin Doll to radio DJs Prestige issued a 45 single of the title tune backed with C Jam Blues. Both sides were considerably shortened from the album tracks. From the link below you can grab the 45 edit of C Jam Blues.

C Jam Blues

The Satin Doll album has not been released on CD and its availability as a legal download appears to be limited to the U.K.

From YouTube here's the full album version of the title track.

For another sample of Shirley Scott's work view this post.

Sonny Stitt - Soul Girl

This 1973 LP is a bit of an oddity in the Sonny Stitt catalogue. The Paula release combines soul-tinged numbers (complete with female vocal backing) with some straight-ahead jazz tracks in an obvious attempt to appeal to both the R&B and jazz markets. Unfortunately it failed to attract much attention from either.

Soul Girl has had two releases on CD, one on a Japanese reissue that is still available if you'd like to part with about $30 of your hard-earned cash. The other was on a now deleted disc titled I Should Care, released on Jewel (a sister label to Paula) in 1996. Copies of this release, both new and used, can be had very cheaply in the Amazon Marketplace.

You can grab a sample track, taken from a 1973 cassette version of the album, from the link below.

Got to Get Over

For more info on Sonny Stitt read these previous posts on Guitars & All That Jazz (One, Two, Three).

Here's a wonderful Stitt live performance on Lover Man, date and place unknown.

Georgie Auld - Cole Slaw (Sorghum Switch) (single)

Although Toronto-born tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld (1919-1990) was a product of the big band era (Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman), some of his 1950s recordings veered into rhythm-and-blues and rock 'n' roll territory.

Case in point is this 1953 recording that Auld made for Coral. Cole Slaw came from the pen of Jesse Stone, who wrote classic early rock 'n' roll songs like Shake, Rattle and Roll, Don't Let Go and Flip, Flop and Fly. When Stone composed Cole Slaw in 1942 the tune was known as Sorghum Switch, but by the time he recorded it  for RCA Victor in 1949 the title had changed. Tenor sax man Frank Culley waxed a competing version for Atlantic that made the R&B chart.

Auld's 1953 rendition was issued on both 78 and 45 the following year, with something called Dark Green on the flip side. Get his recording of Cole Slaw from the link below.

Cole Slaw



Georgie Auld's recording of Cole Slaw never seems to have made it onto LP or CD. But the flip, Dark Green, was on his 1956 Coral LP Lullaby of Broadway. Some of the tracks from that album, not including Dark Green, are included on a 2003 import CD, Double Image, available from several sources.

Neither Dark Green nor Cole Slaw are available as downloads.

From YouTube, here's composer Jesse Stone's vocal version of Cole Slaw.

And finally Frank Culley's 1949 hit recording.

Mickey McGivern - Ring of the Twelve String Guitar

Guitarist Mickey McGivern, born in the eastern Ontario community of Pembroke, was one of Canada's busiest session musicians in the country field during the 1960s and 70s, recording for the RCA Victor, Quality and low-budget Arc labels. He also released several albums under his own name on Arc, including Ring of the Twelve String Guitar.

This album probably dates from the mid-60s, seeing how it includes a version of Walk Right In, which was a huge hit for the Rooftop Singers in 1963. Although the song was originally a country blues recorded in 1929 by Cannon's Jug Stompers (Gus Cannon, the leader of the group, was the composer), not many people were familiar with it before the Rooftop Singers waxed it.

Mickey McGivern's version is available below.

Walk Right In



McGivern still lives in the Pembroke area and in 2011 celebrated his 80th birthday. The Pembroke Observer newspaper covered the celebration at an area tavern and included a brief video. Check it out. Be warned, however, that the sound quality is less than ideal.

Here's another brief performance video of McGivern from YouTube, date and place unknown, although it's obviously of relatively recent vintage.