Volume 8

The name John Schachtel wakes no showbiz-dreams. Quite different from his pseudonym “Henri the Pari” – even when the spelling isn’t quite like the French capital.
John Schachtel was an American soprano-saxophone-player, who fabricated a beautiful, seemingly oriental sound between Rock’n’Roll, tango and exotica with his small and unusually-manned combo – his “orchestra” consisted next to him of accordion, bass, drums, percussion and two guitars. Under his civil name he composed for colleagues like Sam “The Man” Taylor, among others.

“Abdullah’s Pets” was released in 1958.

In a group of four, they came from Middletown, Ohio: Martha, Mary Lou, Gayle and Judy Shepherd – and they appeared in the music scene with their happy and uncorrupted tralala at a time, where the predominant definition of Rock’n’Roll was “somehow loud, somehow young”. They were both. And successful: until 1963 they had several hits and their concert- theatre- and nightclub-gigs lead them around the world.
At the time of the “Rock’n’Roll Cha Cha Cha” (1956), they built the line-up of brat-like vocal-groups in the legendary Alan Freed shows, together with the Bonnie Sisters (see DATUML Vol. 1).

We already introduced Ruth Wallis, the queen of exotic songs, in Volume 1 of “Down at the Ugly Men’s Lounge”.
In 1957, the great singer and songwriter participated in the raging calypso boom and released a whole album based on this musical idiom: “Cruise Party”.
The song about the girl with the swinging behind and the big basket on her head is probably the climax of the long-player. Like on most of her albums, she was accompanied by bandleader Jimmy Carroll.

Even people who only know the history of hillbilly-music superficially, know the Roy-Acuff-classic “Wabash Cannonball”.
The band surrounding Billy Wayne turned it into the “Nite Train To Wabash” in 1961 – the title itself is another reference to Roy Acuff, the king of country music, as one of his many hits was the “Night Train To Memphis”.
Sound-wise, Billy Wayne and his combo oriented themselves on the then very popular style of the Bill Black Combo. This unique, dry and relaxed groove will surely come back to us throughout this series!

Reed Harper & The Notes, also known as Reed Harper & The Three Notes or simply as the Reed Harper Trio, were three singers from Brooklyn, who tried themselves in several genres between pop and Rock’n’Roll from 1955 to 1962. “Walking Together” was released in 1958 and is one of the most powerful creations by Reed Harper, Paul Cardile and Bobby Feloa. The song was written by the R&B-top-composer and -producer Clyde Otis and his long-standing, favourite protégé Brook Benton.

The guitarist Irving Ashby (1920-1987) started his career in 1940 in Lionel Hampton’s Big Band. He can also be seen in the company of Ada Brown Fats Waller in the 1943 film “Stormy Weather”.
After some busy years, in 1947 he replaced the legendary Oscar Moore in the Nat King Cole Trio and quickly became the focus of the second classical line-up of the group, consisting of Cole himself (piano), Joe Comfort (bass) and sometimes Jack Costanzo (bongos) as a fourth member. After he left the band, Irving Ashby became one of the most booked studio-guitarists in Hollywood. Film-music, R&B, Rock’n’Roll, Country and Western, Pop, Jazz, Psychedelic – Irving Ashby knew and was able to play everything.
Especially in the 50s and early 60s he and Joe Comfort often worked with the bandleader, pianist and organist Ernie Freeman. As part of the Ernie Freeman Combo, both can be seen in the accompanying ensemble of the Platters in the movie “Rock Around the Clock”. Ernie Freeman wrote and produced the “Guitar Rock” in 1957 for his long-standing, reliable colleague.

When this recording was produced in 1955, George Cates had been the chief-arranger for the Lawrence Welk Orchestra for a long time, an orchestra which at the time tried to bring the most royal music from swing to polka and from western swing to Irish hymns into the American living rooms through their own, weekly TV show. Over many decades the audience loved “their” Lawrence with his charming German accent (he came from a German immigrant-family, was raised in a German-speaking community in North Dakota and only learned the English language as a young adult).

Whenever George Cates needed musicians for productions outside of the Lawrence Welk Champagne Music Makers, he went to his friends from the Welk Band. Just like for the recording of a slightly gospel-y Rockabilly-number on hand, which was supposed to reconcile the metropolitan audience with the young Rock’n’Roll. In the same year, the 19-year-old Buddy Merril joined the orchestra as a guitarist. No genre or style had any secrets to him, but especially in Rock’n’Roll he seemed untouchable. The solo on this recording is his through and through. The clearly recognisable banjo was played by Lawrence Welk himself. Even though the accordion was his main instrument, he always had a nostalgic connection to the tenor-banjo, which he sometimes proved in his TV show.

Unfortunately, we do not know anything about the Four Hues.

Arthur Altman and Jack Lawrence wrote “All or Nothing At All” in 1939. It became one of the biggest hits by the orchestra of Harry James, with its young singer Frank Sinatra. Today, it is a favourite taken out of the American songbook.
Page Cavanaugh (1922-2008) founded his trio by the example of the Nat King Cole Trio, right after the end of the second world war and had some hits as well as appearances on national television with it. His two fellow musicians were Al Viola (guitar) and Lloyd Pratt (bass). Their unique stylistic feature was the soft, almost breathlessly presented unison-singing.
In 1958, when Page Cavanaughs version of “All Or Nothing At All” was released, the trio hadn’t been playing in its original line-up for quite some time. The unique singing-style, however, was still part of their appeal. Instrumentally, they expanded their line-up by a saxophone-player and a drummer for this recording – that’s Rock’n’Roll…

Roby Davis was a French saxophone-player, who used to come up with speedy dance-music productions in the most modern style in the early 1950s. Besides that, he was the husband of Andrée Davis-Boyer (1918-2012), a musc-manager and Music-Hall-principal. Her most famous venture was the company “Scopitone”, a label for video-jukeboxes which played a big role in the French music industry during the first half of the 1960s – hence her lifelong nickname “mama Scopitone”, which she wore with pride. Roby Davis and Andrée Davis-Boyer were also the parents of the famous singer Florence Davis.

Roby completed his recordings with the most various musical combos. On the 1962-released EP “Vive le Madison”, the Wurlitzer-electro-piano was very dominant and one of the composers of the original pieces is credited as “Johnny Ward”. At this time, the internationally manned Hazy Osterwald Sextett regularly played in Paris. Its most popular drummer was the Belgian John Ward. So…is this, by any chance the international top-showband lead by Hazy Osterwald, playing under a pseudonym?

If this is the case, we are listening to the following line-up: Curt Prina (Piano), Dennis Armitage (tenor-saxophone), Werner Dies (guitar), Sunny Lang (bass), John Ward (Drums) and of course Roby Davis himself on the tenor-saxophone. Hazy Osterwald was apparently only left with the job of getting cigarettes in between takes.

The Love-Label was one step ahead of most other small, independent record labels: it had a major, worldwide hit in 1958 with “Topsy Pt. 2” by Cozy Cole – an instrumental pieve by the great jazz-drummer. It was also Cozy Cole’s band which formed the backbone of the Love Orchestra, a flexible studio-band lead by either Hal Dennis (owner of the label) or Alan Hartwell (music publisher and husband of the hereby introduced singer).

Savina, with full name Savina Cattiva, only rarely used her last name on records – but there are some instances of it until 1962. As a model and actress, she used the pseudonym of Severia Schiada before she switched sides in 1963 and started writing and producing, for example for Kathie King – now using her birth name Savina Hartwell.

José Melis Guiu (1920-2005) was born in Cuba, studied music in Paris and leftto the USA at the outbreak of WWII, where he was leading bands in troop support and got to know the eccentric radio host Jack Paar. When Paar switched to television to take over the still existing “Tonight Show”, José Melis became his bandleader. Both left the “Tonight Show” in 1962. By then, Melis was long known to be a great pianist, so he went on to work with great stars and became part of the American star-Olympus.

“Rockin’ The Keys” was released in 1958 on the label Seeco, which was mostly known for its Latin releases.

First off: we’re taking the freedom to correct an apparent grammatical error and are adding an apostrophe to the “Kings” of the original label of this record, stemming from 1957.
There are various signs that the King’s Jesters are actually the legendary Park Avenue Jesters, a showband who already garnered some success in 1947. In the following years they tried out several styles between ink-spot-imitations, Italo-American humour and wild R&B. “Rex The Hex” might be the final release by the band. If our research is right, at the time of the recording the band consisted of Joe Rinaldi (aka Joey Reynolds, clarinet and saxophone) and Tony Stumpo (piano). But what about the rest – that sounds more like a duo than a proper combo? Well, that’s all we got. After all, we aren’t even sure it is the same band as the Park Avenue Jesters…

Titus Turner (1933-1984) was an R&B-doyen, who released his first records at the age of 17 and whose compositions, in the interpretations of others, became enormous successes. This nice cabinet-piece was created in 1961 as an almost completely overlooked B-side to the single “Pony Train”.

The number was released in many countries, but somehow, only in Great Britain one “Bla” was left out of the official name of the song. Or maybe it was a mistake? Well, whatever…it’s only Bla-Bla(-Bla) anyway!

This song has probably one of the longest continuing histories in Rhythm & Blues, Jazz or Rock’n’Roll overall. It is originally based on a comic sketch, which was written and popularised in 1918 already, by comedian John Mason.
Many other comedians were inspired by the joke of a drunkard who can’t find his way back home – especially Dusty Fletcher, who celebrated remarkable successes on the stage of the Harlem Apollo Theater with it.
In 1946, the Californian saxophone-player and bandleader Jack McVea composed a chorus for the sketch and recorded it with his first band.
This recording was the start of a whole “Richard”-wave: cover-versions (from Louis Jordan, Count Basie and Dusty Fletcher among others, answer-recordings, foreign-language-versions (even in Chinese and Armenian) and so on…

The bandleader and organist Bill Doggett (1916-1996), who shaped black swing as a pianist and arranger in the 1930s, played the piano for Louis Jordan in the 40s and defined the sound of groovy Hammond-organ-and-tenor-saxophone-bands in the 50s (“Honky Tonk pt. 2”), reduced his 1961 version to the chorus. The actual plot of the sketch was left to the imagination of the listener, but the brilliant soli as well as the joyful choir on the record didn’t need a comedian to work.

Al Brown was the first artist we introduced you to at “Down At The Ugly Men’s Lounge”.

Now, he’s celebrating his Lounge-Comeback with “Route 66”, that one immortal composition by Bobby Troup. Al Brown’s version presumably stems from 1960 already but was only released one year later.

Aimable Pluchard (1922-1997), short: Aimable, was one of the most popular accordion-players from France for several decades.

Next to the musette-Repertoire, common for accordion-players, he often brought exotic elements into his program. For that, he used the Hammond-organ among other instruments.

In his “Aladin Cha Cha”, a co-composition with the film-music composer Gérard Calvi from 1960, accordion, organ, orient and exotic rhythms form a perfect melange.

The singer Ed Gates White (1919-1992) released most of his records between 1948 and 1962 under nobly names such as The Great Gates or The Man From The Moon Gates. Compared to that, the simple sounding “Ed Gates” from his 1962 epic “Can You Feel It Pt. 1” seems almost spartan. At least a “Dr. Kenneth Minor-Howell” is listed as a saxophone-player on the label – one reasonably royal sounding name!

Even though he was quite successful as a singer, in 1956 he focused on running his own nightclub. Only there he started learning the arts of the piano. Soon, the organ followed and starting from 1959, all his records were organ-instrumentals.

Next to all his business-endeavours Ed Gates stayed active as an organ-player in cocktail lounges up to his death in 1992.

Fortune Records in Detroit was a different record company, especially when it came to their studios and the casual professionalism of their musicians. The company was founded in 1946 by Devora Brown and released new records way into the 70s. However: almost everything released in the early and mid 60s on Fortune or its sister-label Hi-Q sounded like brand new music from 10 years ago. Especially the two records forming the complete work of Bobby Bernell are perfect examples of this. 1964 he released his rockabilly-single “Move Over Big Dog”, which sounded just like it was recorded ten years prior in Memphs! His R&B-try-out “Stay Away From Me”, released two years before with the vocal group The Dreamtones, perfectly embodies the typical Do-It-Yourself-Charme of Fortune Records.

In the 50s, the trio of Hammond-organ, tenor-saxophone and drums was omnipresent throughout the US. Whether it was in jazz-bars, R&B-clubs or at senior gatherings: everyone could be amused by such a trio, in which the Hammond-player also took the role of a bass player with his pedals, making the trio a technical quartet. Even economically interesting!

The John Buzon Trio could play nearly everything – the three musicians Jack Russell (drums), Loren Holding (saxophone, clarinet and flute) and John Buzon (Hammond-organ) had a very versatile repertoire. On “Inferno!”, their 1959 debut-LP, they demonstrated their versatility and smoothness, especially in combining different genres. Rock’n’Roll? Mambo? No problem – “Mambo Rock”!

A little warning: “Mambo Rock” may not be confused with the song of the same name, recorded some years earlier by Mike Pedicin and Bill Haley!

In 1964, the Seattle, Washington-based label Bolo proudly released an album with all its released hits to date. Of course, not missing: the 1962 success-song “Hey Mrs. Jones” by Tiny Tony & The Statics.

The black-and-white Sextet from Burien, Washington consisted of Anthony “Tiny Tony” Smith (vocals), Merrilee Gunst (Wurlitzer-piano, vocals), Karl Peters (Drums), Bruce Robertson (Bass), Neil Rush (Tenorsaxophone) and Jum Spanos (Guitar) and was part of the top combos at college parties between Seattle and Tacoma.

“Hey Mrs. Jones” was only a local hit, but the song made some waves: Jimmy Witherspoon, Ramsey Lewis and the Buddy Morrow Big Band all released covers, among others.

Merrilee Gunst went on to marry Neil Rush, changed her name to Merrilee Rush and became a big popstar by the end of the century, thanks to the song “Angel of the Morning”. One can only wonder, if she sometimes thought back to the day in the small Bolo-Studio, when she played the role of Mrs. Jones, sitting behind her electric piano…

When “Party Time” was recorded by the Ray-O-Vacs in 1954, the band had a big stylistic and line-up transformation behind them. Five years prior they just appeared on the scene: elegant and jazzy combo-sound, laid-back interpretations of old, known pop-songs (their version of “Besame Mucho” was one of the R&B-top-hits of 1950), carried by the slightly sleepy voice of Lester Harris (real name Harry Lester) – irresistible, like dozen of recordings proved time and time again. The band consisted of the already mentioned Lester Harris (vocals and cocktaildrums, a kind of mini-drumkit, known to be a side-instrument for singers at the time), Leoparte “Chink” Kinney (tenorsaxophone), Joe Crump (piano) and the bandleader Jackson “Flap” McQueen. In 1951 Lester Harris left the group and tried to start a solo-career; however, he died already in February 1953, by the age of 33.

His successor was the similar sounding Herb Milliner. More recordings followed, also with singer Babe Hutton (also referred to as “Babs Hallaman” on some pressings). And then, William Walker’s hour came: as a fifth new member, he didn’t only bring a new guitar sound with him, but also knew how to use a raw, somehow country-esque and gospel-y sounding shout-voice. An early example of the “new” Ray-O-Vacs-Sound was released in 1954 on the microscopically small Emjay‑label: “Having a Ball Tonite” was almost entirely overlooked by the public.

But in the same year, the composer, arranger and producer Howard Biggs took things into his own hand: he sent the band to a better studio, arranged the song a tiny bit different, gave it the new title “Party Time” and landed the band a contract with the much more famous Kaiser-label. Two years later Atlantic released the recording on its Atco-label. A lot of expenditure for a song, that unfortunately remained without success.

In the late 1950s, the Ray-O-Vacs said goodbye to the music scene.

In the early 60s, the French music market was blessed with a continuing number of Charly Green-releases. However, there was no continuous style or even the same musicians behind it – some music historians even suggest that Charly Green is merely a pseudonym, used to publish recordings by several different studio groups. Possible…

Whoever’s behind it, “Darling” from 1962 remains an excellent, exciting shuffle-number!

Arthur Prysock (1924-1997) was a mighty baritone, like many of his contemporaries in the 1940s. Almost every R&B-bandleader at the time was looking for their own Billy Eckstine-impersonator and Arthur Prysock was hired by Buddy Johnson, the “King of the One-Nighters”. After eight years with the Johnson-Orchestra, Prysock went solo in 1952 and became one of the most popular black entertainers, continuing well into the 70s with many hits, a (however short-lived) own TV-show and several Grammy-nominations.

For the known ballad-specialist Prysock, the idea to cover Roy Browns 1947 classic “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, just like Wynonie Harris and Elvis Presley did before him, was definitely a B-side project. Which is how the song ended up on the back of his 1960s single “My Everything”!

Who was Crazy José? The Liner notes of his only album, released in 1959, are fairly in-depth, but don’t really tell us anything about him. Only three names appear: those of producers Herb Wasserman and Ray Passman, who also wrote in different constellations on five songs on the album. The other name is Dwier, who wrote two songs, including “Tea House Blues”.

Whoever Crazy José actually is: behind all the mystery is a lot of crazy rock-chaos with out-of-tune piano sounds, which works surprisingly well!

Uh, oh…Pat Morrissey….

To some, she belongs in the Top-5-Jazz-singers of all time. Others think she’s simply the most beautiful vocalist of the 50s. However, most have simply never heard of her.

Pat Morrissey was born in 1929 and experienced her entry to showbiz as a child actress in radio plays. As a professional singer, she had her debut 1952 in a nightclub in Florida. Quickly, word of mouth about her talent had its way and she played in famous clubs such as the New Yorker La Vie En Rose or the Crescendo in Hollywood. By the end of 1953, the accompanying photo was published. It was part of a press release, saying that this blonde newcomer was about to play the leading rose in a film about Mae West.

The movie never came into fruition. But audio recordings of Pat, they existed! A handful of singles and two LPs are still proof of Morrissey’s vocal talent.

“Why Don’t You Do Right” is, in its original, a 1941 blues-classic by Lil Freen. In 1943, Benny Goodman released his version with the singer Peggy Lee, and by 1957 the song was part of the first album by Pat Morrissey – a sensation! However, a sensation without any result…

Already in the 50s, Pat could be seen and heard in some of London’s nightclubs. By the early 60s, she travelled through the whole UK, married a royal millionaire and lived there happily ever after.

One more photo, from a press release from the 9^th of January 1956: Pat Morrissey introduces the world to a ground-breaking novelty in a Chicagoan beauty salon – a hairdresser hood with built-in speakers! Pure science fiction!

Most listeners of the hit song “La Dee Dah” by Billy & Lillie were probably not aware of the fact, that they were actually listening to a record by the Billy Ford Combo.

The Trumpet player Billy Ford (1919 – 1983) found his own Ensemble in 1945 after several years in known orchestras. Depending on the label, the bands he was fronting were named Musical V-8’s or The Thunderbirds. Only with Josie he finally became the leader of his own combo. In 1955, by the time of the recording to “A String of Pearls”, a standard from Glenn Miller, the band probably consisted, next to Billy Ford, of Freddie Pinkard (Drums), Frisco Bombay (Guitar), Howard Anderson (Piano), Jimmy Holmes (Tenorsaxophone) and Frederick “Money” Johnson (Bass).

Lillie Bryant (from Billy & Lillie) only became part of the group two years later. The rest is history…

The Four Tophatters, Pat Vassello (Trumpet), Carmen Falconieri (Guitar), Chet Sondinsky (Accordion) and Blazie Pollack (Bass) gave their stage debut in 1954. Their debut recording “Dim Dim The Lights” became such a big success, that Bill Haley covered the song later on, making it a no-11-hit.

Archie Bleyer, owner of the record label Cadence and producer of The Four Tophatters – who, ironically, never wore a tophat on a single one of their photos – ordered the band from the very beginning to get a studio drummer, who gave them their signature Rock’n’Roll-Sound.  On “One Arabian Night” he changed even more: no more trumpet, no accordion, but two saxophones. True Arabian…

The Playboys from Philadelphia started around 1951 with the typical “Northern Band Sound” of their hometown. Bandleader and -founder was saxophone-player Ray Dee (real name Ray D’Agostino). After a couple of line-up changes, local successes and experimenting with different rhythms and styles on several record labels, they finally landed their big hit in 1958 with the ballad “Over The Weekend”. However, while everyone was celebrating the ballad, most people overlooked the compelling B-side of the single: “Double Talk” was a composition of the ex-members of two influential R&B-groups: Leonard Puzey (1926-2007) was founding member of the Ravens, while Gregory Carroll (1929-2013) used to be a singer with the Orioles. Since their year together in the Band Dappers in 1956, they worked together as songwriters. “Double Talk” proved itself to be an ideal Rock’n’Roll-Song, which was later covered by Conway Twitty in 1958 under the name “Double Talk Baby”.

At the Time of the recording, the Playboys consisted of Ray Dee (Tenorsaxophone), Ronnie James (Guitar), Irv Mellman (Piano), Lou Mauro (Drums), Joe Franzosa (Bass) and the new singer Sammy Vale. There was also an additional baritone-saxophone-player in the Studio, whose identity remains unknown. Later Russ Conti, a former member of Freddie Bell & The Bell Boys, joined as a new pianist. The Playboys released their last record in 1962, before disbanding in 1964.

It seems like a nice story: an obscure band plays somewhere in a small nightclub, is discovered by a label-mogul, who not only offers them a record deal, but also a collaboration with the biggest star of the label. This is exactly how the first album by Meri Ellen & her Cohorts came to life. This quartet (besides Meri Ellen, three anonymous singers and instrumentalists playing accordion, guitar and contrabass were part of the group) somehow convinced the executors of Design Records at a small concert…but not enough, that they’d be left alone with the recording of their first album. And so, it came that the group was joined by two additional musicians in the studio: Howie Mann, a known jazz-drummer, was hired to boost the rhythm of the band. They were furthermore joined by the biggest name of Design Records, the incomparable Don Elliott (1926-1984)! This multi-instrumentalist played vibraphone, trumpet, mellophone and bongos. Besides that, Don Elliott was an exceptional singer and looked like movie-star. He released numerous albums under his own name and was part of uncountable recordings as a studio-musician. Shortly: a real star!

The album by Meri Ellen & Her Cohorts seems to have been recorded in one sitting, on a single afternoon. Maybe time or costs played a role in this decision – however it gives the impression, that Don and Howie just “randomly” played along and needed to leave quickly. Or maybe they wanted to leave? Maybe they had a date with Meri, without the Cohorts?

“My Funny Valentine”, however, stems from the 1937 success-musical “Babes in Arms” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hard and is an absolute classic of the American songbook. Have fun with this version!

Actually, Carl “Ace” Carter  (1931-1996) was a jazz-pianist of rank, but the chances for success and richness through a Rock’n’Roll-production were so tempting, that he left his musical purism aside.

As a result, 1958 saw the release of the “Mexican Rock”, a song which, with its oriental flair, could easily also be named “Arabian Rock”, “Turkish Rock”, or “Persian Rock”. Later, Carl “Ace” Carter came much closer to his musical idol Count Basie, by replacing him after his death 1984 as the pianist in the Count Basie Big Band.

The unusual Rock’n’Roll-number “Wine, Women and Gold” was written by one of the most peculiar figures of the 40s- and 50s-music scene: eden ahbez (real name George A. Aberle, 1908-1995). He always put a lot of value on the small letters in his name – capital letters were in his opinion reserved for the gods. In the 1940s he lived as a proto-hippie in a tent under the first “L” of the “Hollywood”-sign in L.A. and tried to sell his compositions to famous singers. His breakthrough as a songwriter came with “Nature Boy”, which Nat King Cole turned into a million-seller in the year 1948.

In the following years, eden ahbez wrote more hymnal songs, including a suite for Herb Jeffries which was based on “Nature Boy”. At the end of the decade, he even released his own album with fascinating exotica-music. Most of his released compositions, however, tended to be a bit weird, just like the Rock’n’Roll-number “Wine, Women and Gold”, which he offered to his friend Don Carson. He gave it to the vocal-group The Carsons, in which Linda Peters, Peggy Spencer and Bryan Peters sang. Musical accompaniment came from a legendary figure: Perry Botkin (1907-1973). Botkin was one of the first jazz-guitarists, who already in the 1920s switched the banjo for the guitar. Since the 30s he worked as a studio-musician, composer and engineer for radio, records, movies and later even TV and was one of the most prolific workers of the Hollywood music scene. The recording session with the Carsons was simply a job for Perry Botkin, but at least he brought his son Perry Botkin Jr. along, who later reached similar success to his father playing the ukulele.

The leader of the Carsons, Don Carson, continued with his vocal group and released several records under different names such as Don Carson & The Casuals or Don Carson & The Whirlaways, for which eden ahbez also wrote songs from time to time.

Not unlike Steve Gibson & The Red Caps or Romaine Brown & His Romaines, Chris Powell & The Blue Flames were a band which stood for both smooth vocal-group-sound as well as whopping combo-music. Before the drummer Chris Powell tried his luck as an R&B-Bandleader in Philadelphia, he played, among others, in the legendary swing-band of bassist John Kirby and built himself an excellent reputation.

Members of the Blue Flames were, next to Chris Powell, Vance Wilson (tenor-saxophone, bongos), Duke Wells (piano), the two guitarists Eddie Lambert and Bill Jennings, James Johnson (bass) as well as the singer Johnnie Leak aka “Johnnie Echo”. “Mambo Gunch” is not much more than a quickly recorded B-side-jam from 1954 – however, the drum- and shout-inferno has a unique appeal.

Ruth Wallis (1920-2007) embodied the sinful song unlike any other American vocalist. Starting as a typical swing-era big band-singer, she later began to work on her own program for nightclub-engagements, revolving around the topic of sex.

All of her songs (which she wrote herself!) were somehow about this number 1 topic, if frivolous or simply pornographic. It doesn’t come as a surprise that she was therefore often arrested on stage or expelled from a city. Her records were regularly confiscated, radio-plays were often simply forbitten. Obviously, it was not easy to find a record label that was courageous enough to work with her. As a result, she founded her own company Wallis Original in 1952 with two partners, on which all her collected works were released from thereon.

With her 1959 album “Love Is For The Birds” she took new paths: from sex, she turned to the bittersweet side of love. She was accompanied by bandleader Jimmy Carroll, who, during his career, also worked with stars such as Cab Calloway or Marlene Dietrich. The Rock’n’Roll-number “Ain’t Gonna Throw Any Rice” is one of the best of the album.

Luckily, there is no such lack of information on Romaine Brown. While he studied the viola at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia during the day, at night he was the pianist for the popular Jazz-singer George “Bon Bon” Tunnell. In 1943 he definitively decided on a jazz-career and started as a pianist with the Four Toppers, who quickly turned into the Red Caps and belonged to America’s most prolific and successful R&B-Groups for the next twenty years – under several names, like The Five Red Caps or Steve Gibson & The Red Caps. They also managed to enthral a white audience in Hollywood, Atlantic City, Wildwood or Las Vegas and even brought their rocking R&B to the Ed Sullivan Show in 1952. After ten years as the Red Caps Romaine Brown finally started his own band.

Romaine Brown & His Romaines consisted of Roy Hayes (guitar), Bobby Bushnell (bass), Henry Rucker Green (drums), Earl Plummer (vocals) and Romaine himself on the piano. Later, Earl Edwards joined the band on the tenor-saxophone.

“Ooba Dabba Dabba Da” was released in October 1956 and was the penultimate Release by the band, before they disbanded in 1959 and Romaine Brown returned to the Red Caps for one more year. He died in June 1986 at the age of 71.

Unbelievable, but even the seemingly inexhaustible Prof. Bop-archive had no information on Frankie Castro whatsoever. Only one thing’s for sure: he is not the Elvis-impersonator going by the same name, who you can rent for any kind of occasion in the US nowadays.

“Steamboat” was a song by the Drifters, composed in 1955 by the saxophone-player and singer Buddy Lucas (1914-1983) and was at least popular enough to be covered for the white market – in the version by “our” Frankie Castro, supported by the Jack Halloran Sisters and the Carl Stevens Orchestra.

Talking about Mickey “Guitar” Baker:

He himself (1925-2012) was a top performer in the New Yorker studios, maybe the most booked guitarist when it came to Rhythm & Blues. Together with his duet-partner Sylvia Vanderpool he signed an artist-contract with Rainbow Records in 1955 for the duo Mickey & Sylvia.

One of the later main attractions of the label was discovered by Mr. Baker himself: the Bonnie Sisters, whose Rock-A-Mambo number “Cry Baby” became a seasonal hit in early 1956. No surprise: the three girls (Par Ryan, Sylvia Trotter and Jean Borgia) maintained a charming vocal style that landed well with the young Rock’n’Roll-audience.

As Mickey Baker was part of the Bonnie Sisters-backing band anyway, the idea of a collaboration was obvious. Sylvia Vanderpool played the rhythm-, while Mickey Baker played the lead-guitar. Shortly after the release of “Track That Cat”, Mickey & Sylvia changed their label and landed one of the biggest hits of the season in 1956/’57 with “Love Is Strange”.

In the same year, 1958, an Album was released, which would serve as a promotion tool for various regionally known TV-disc-jockeys. “TV Record Hop” included pictures of Buddy Deane (WJZ), Herb Sheldon (WABQ) and Ted Randal (KPIX). Here you can see the Texan version with Nick Reyes (KFDA). The Music on the record was a section through the wonderful world of teenage dance music between R&B, Cha Cha and Big Band Jazz. Especially the “Rock-Cha” was presented as the new wave of ’58. “Dansero” by Billy Mure and his studio-combo The Rockin’ Guitars is seen as the hymn of this wave and was also featured on the album.

Billy Mure (real name: Sebastian Mure, 1915-2013), a real virtuoso at guitar playing, was one of the top performers of the New York studio-scene between the 40s and 70s. Besides that, he worked as a producer and engineer. With “Dansero” he tried successfully to imitate the sound of Mickey “Guitar” Baker.

Always looking for new teenager-talents, the songwriter and music publisher Billy Sherman became aware of the only 16-year-old Diane Maxwell at an amateur-competition at the George Washington High School in Los Angeles in 1958. He arranged for her to appear in the prestige-TV show of Lawrence Welk, where she enchanted the audience with her version of “As Time Goes By”.

After some appearances on the TV show “The Breakfast Club” she was offered a record contract by the young label Challenge, whose co-founder was the singing cowboy-star Gene Autry.

In October 58, shortly after Diane’s 17^th Birthday, her first album “Almost Seventeen” was recorded, which consisted mostly of costly arranged and produced ballads. “Love Charms” brought some exotic charm into the album – a composition by the busy pianist, singer and Rock’n’Roll-original Ray Stanley, who recorded the song just two years earlier himself with Eddie Cochran on the guitar. Diane (sometimes “Dianne”) Maxwell recorded and released records until 1961, when her singing career slowly faded.

Bruno, His Guitar & His Brunos…one of the biggest mysteries of music history. Or not, because when you look at all clues and simply add two plus two, you’re much closer to the riddle’s solution.

Bruno…guitar…de Filippi…the sound…

Again, we turn to the music scene of Philadephia, whose main protagonists were often Italo-Americans. For a long time, Frank Vitue (actually Frank Virtuoso, 1923-1994) was one of the most popular bandleaders, who had several successes with different bands over the years. In 1958, he landed an international hit with the “Guitar Boogie Shuffle”. His lead-guitarist was James Bruno, who’s depicted in this photo.

As Frank Virtue produced his recordings in his own studio all by himself and sold many of those recordings under different names to different labels – and due to the fact that the Brunos’ sound is similar to that of Virtue – it seems likely that “Too Much Chianti” is simply a number by the Virtues, for which the role of the bandleader was given to Virtue’s colleague Bruno. In case this qualified theory is true, the musicians on this recording must be Ralph Federico (piano), Frank Virtue (bass), Joe Vespe (drums) and Joe Renner (tenor-saxophone).

The title “Too Much Chianti” is of course a reference to the hit by The Champs from one year before, “Too Much Tequila”.

The recordings by Bruno, His Guitar & His Brunos were also released in France and Italy.

Mike Pedicin, who died in 2016 at the age of 99, was also a big name in the early Rock’n’Roll-scene of Philadelphia. He formed his first swing combo already in 1940. One of the founding members was the Rock’n’Roll-legend Dave Appell, another one the bassist Lou de Francis, who spent his whole music career with Mike Pedicin. Mike’s combo belonged to the first white ensembles who experimented with Rock’n’Roll in clubs in Philadelphia and the closely located holiday paradise Wildwood, NJ – contemporaneous with other pioneers like Jimmy Cavallo, Charlie Gracie and Bill Haley. “The Dickey-Doo” was their 1958 try to establish a dance craze for the TV show “American Bandstand”, presented by Dick Clark. The song’s title referred to Dick Clark’s son Dickie. The other side of the single was a re-release: “Shake A Hand” was already released in 1954 and is a cover of the 1953 R&B hit by Faye Adams. Now, in its second try, the song would become a great hit for the Pedicin Quartet. The “Dickie-Doo” however was quickly forgotten – until now, that is.

At the time of the recording, the Mike Pedicin Quartet consisted of the name-giving bandleader (alt-saxophone), Sam Cocchia (alias Sam Cooke, guitar), Buddy La Pata (piano), Lou de Francis (Bass) and Al Mauro (drums and vocals).

“We Like Birdland”, in the version by The Satellites, was first released in 1960 on the small Palace-label. After that, the single was re-released several times on different labels in Europe and the US until 1964. After the saxophone-player Joey Ambrose (born 1934, also known as Joey d’Ambrosio) left Bill Haley & The Comets in 1955 together with bass player Mashall Lytle and drummer Dick Richards, they founded The Jodimars, a band which went on to become one of Las Vegas’ most popular Rock’n’Roll acts. Following the end of The Jodimars, Ambrose went back to his hometown of Philadelphia and formed The Satellites, who shortly after also played in Las Vegas’ lounges.

Joe Ambrose spent big parts of his life as a musician on the stages and orchestra pits of Vegas, until he regularly toured worldwide with his old colleagues of The Jodimars and other former Comets as Bill Haley’s Original Comets in the 90s.

The saxophone-player, pianist and singer Al Brown (1929-2009) was the Doyen of Baltimore’s R&B-scene for many years. His father Alphonse was already a popular jazz-musician and played in Don Redman’s orchestra for a long time. His three sons Al Jr. (tenor-saxophone, piano, vocals), Charles (alt-saxophone) and Donald (trumpet, vocals), chose the same career as their father and formed, together with Grafton Martin (guitar), Andrew Walker (bass), Orney Pate (drums) and Cookie Brown (vocals), the Tunetoppers, who became one of the most desired accompanying bands for package-tours across the eastern States under the management of Al. At studio-recordings, the Baltimore jazz-legend Mickey Fields (tenor-saxophone, piano) regularly helped them out.

After Al Brown’s single “The Madison” created a worldwide dance craze in 1960, he released an album and several singles under the name Al Brown & His Tunetoppers, partly with his Baltimore-band, partly recorded with New York studio musicians. “Take Me Back” was also released in 1960. Al Brown died in 2009, at the age of 79 years.

More from Al Brown & His Tunetoppers can be found on “Down at the Ugly Men’s Lounge Vol. 2”

Welcome to the Ugly Men’s Lounge!

Our jukebox is peppered with preciosities of the music history until 1962: rock & roll, rhythm & blues, mambos, cha chas, exotic sounds and unbelievable strange stuff!

The history of music holds more secrets than you could imagine…
„Down At The Ugly Men’s Lounge“ will give you a hand to uncover a few of them.

To read the facts about the artists of „Down At The Ugly Men’s Lounge“ visit this site.

Further english informations will follow as soon as possible.

Have fun!

Prof. Bop