Amoeblog

Small Worlds, Globe Style

Label Gallery 19
Johnny Otis Back To Jazz Jazz World Records LabelConcert Hall Reocrds Label Tchaikovsky Aurora's WeddingConversa-Phone Records Label
Godfathers I Want Everything I'm Unsatisfied 12" LabelLois Walden Walden Lp Earth Records LabelNini Rosso Godfather Lp Globe Records Label
Yothu Yindi Treat LP Hollywood Records LabelGeorge Jones LP Internation Award Series Records LabelEddie Noak Remembering Jimmie Rodgers LP Wide World Records Label Psycho
Jimmy Reed Sing The Best Of The Blues LP VJ International LabelKenny Loggins High Adventure LP Columbia Records LabelSugarman Three Pure Cane Sugar LP Daptone Records Label
Albert Hay Malotte International Sacred Recordings Christian Artists Recording Corporation Record LabelDissidenten & Lem Chaheb Sahara Electric LP Globe Style Records LabelMarvelettes Please Mr. Postman LP Tamla Records Label Original White Globe
Ray Martin & His Orchestra German Dance Party LP Universe Records LabelT.S.O.L. True Sounds Of Liberty Change Today LP Enigma Young Records Label Brazil

Continue reading
Posted by Mr. Chadwick on September 5, 2008 at 12:02am | Post a Comment

Digging Through the Record Stacks - 2

The Diablos featuring Nolan Strong, originators of the Detroit / Motown sound.

Music historians often site The Diablos as the originators and early archetypes to the Motown sound. Formed in Detroit in about 1950 by high school students Nolan Strong and Bob "Chico" Edwards, the Diablos derive their name from, El Nino Diablo, a book Strong was reading for a school report. From the start the group's sound centered on Nolans’s eerily ethereal, lead tenor voice. (Musical talent ran deep in his family: Nolan’s cousin, Barrett Strong, wrote "Money'' and many other R&B standards.) Other original Diablos members included Juan Guiterriez as the second tenor, Willie Hunter singing baritone, Quentin Eubanks as bass with Edwards on guitar, and later on Nolan’s brother, Jimmy, would join the group as the second tenor.

In 1954, the Diablos went into Fortune Records to cut some demos. The owners of Fortune, Jack & Devora Brown, who founded the label in 1947, immediately signed them. Their first single, "Adios My Desert Love" (Fortune 509, 1954), was written by Devora Brown. However, their second single and masterpiece, "The Wind" (Fortune 511, 1954), was written by the group. This ballad has a curiously ghostly quality and takes full advantage of the groups strongest points; a simple guitar line plays with a light vibrato, filling in behind the perfectly sculpted background harmonies singing "blow wind," as Strong's incredibly delicate, smooth as silk lead carries over the top. The atmosphere takes on a rather strange quality during the bridge when, backed by a quirky plate-reverb effect, Strong quietly recites his lines about his missing lover.  All and all, and truthfully, this cut is slightly bizarre but so evocatively captivating.  And, of course, it went nowhere, until some eight years later when "The Wind" was re-released in 1962-- this time it found a national audience, hitting the lower rungs of the Billboard Charts. “The Wind" is now regarded as a doo wop classic and is much sought after by collectors. The Diablos would continue to record for Fortune Records until the mid sixties, though with various lineups, perhaps the reason the last few releases were credited to only Nolan Strong.

Continue reading
Posted by Whitmore on April 15, 2008 at 09:41pm | Post a Comment

Ron Miller

classic motown songwriter dies at age 74

This week legendary Motown songwriter Ron Miller died at age 74.



The Associated Press obituary:

Songwriter Ron Miller, whose tunes included pop classics "Touch Me in the Morning" and "For Once in My Life," has died. Miller died Monday of cardiac arrest at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center after a long battle with emphysema and cancer, he was 74.

Miller got his professional start in the music business in the 1960s, when Motown founder Berry Gordy saw him perform at a piano bar and invited him to Detroit as one of the label's first songwriters and record producers. His songs have been recorded by many leading artists, including Judy Garland, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Ray Charles. "For Once in My Life," written with Orlando Murden, is one of the most recorded songs in history, with more than 270 versions, according to All Music Guide. A rendition by Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder won a Grammy award this year. In 2005, Charles' and Gladys Knight's version of Miller's "Heaven Help Us All" picked up the best gospel performance Grammy.

Born in Chicago, Miller was a die-hard Cubs fan, who wrote his first sad song as a child about his beloved but hapless team, his daughter said. Before meeting Gordy at the piano bar, Miller made ends meet by selling washing machines and taking odd jobs. He served in the Marines, as well, and was stationed all over the world. Throughout the 1970s, Miller wrote the book and lyrics to many musicals, including "Daddy Goodness" and "Cherry," based on William Inge's "Bus Stop." Barbra Streisand recorded "I've Never Been A Woman Before," from the musical, for her "The Way We Were" album.

"My father will be reborn every time someone sings one of his songs," Lisa Dawn Miller said. "When they feel joy or sadness or any emotion, that will be my dad and his words." Miller is survived by his wife, Aurora Miller, and six children. Here is a list of some of his songs:

Continue reading
Posted by Whitmore on July 28, 2007 at 08:50pm | Comments (4)