Tuesday, January 25, 2011

It Must Be Love / Besame Baby

Buying those 45's often you really did get 2 songs that you liked . Released as Johnny Maestro , not as the Crests . Coed 562
Discography information from Disco File http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5970079-disco-file
by Fernando L Gonzalez

It Must Be Love - A side



Recorded November 10, 1961,  Besame Baby   B side - 


 R.I.P. JOHN (May 7, 1939-March 24, 2010)


Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Randy Atcher and T bar V Ranch



Remember rushing home to watch T bar  V Ranch on your giant 14 " black and white tv after school ? And the music " Brush Your teeth Each Morning ?"
At Large In Louisville has  a nice reminiscence about actually being there http://atlargeinlouisville.blogspot.com/2008/07/down-on-t-bar-v-ranch.html
More on Randy Atcher 
Randall "Randy" Atcher (December 7, 1918 – October 9, 2002) was an American country musician.
Atcher was born in Tip Top, Kentucky, the fifth in a family of eight. Soon after his birth his family moved to North Dakota, and then back to Kentucky when he was twelve. As a high schooler, Atcher played guitar and mandolin on WHAS radio in Louisville. He intended to continue his education at Western Kentucky State College, but a flood at the family home quashed the plan.
In 1938, he left Louisville for Chicago and put a band together there. He won slots performing on WJJD and WBBM and became a local star; he also recorded occasionally with his older brother, Bob Atcher. During World War II he spent nearly four years in the Air Force, and married his wife Daphne, an Australian. Upon his discharge he returned to WHAS, performing on their Old Kentucky Barn Dance, and signed a contract with MGM Records. WHAS expanded into a television division in 1950, and the next year Atcher formed a new band, the Red River Ramblers, who performed on the WHAS children's show T-Bar-V Ranch every weekday at 4PM. Randy, the star of the show, and his sidekick, Cactus (played by Tom Brooks, brother of actor and comedian Foster Brooks), sang songs, performed skits, and gave parenting tips. In 1953, White Castle began advertising its hamburgers through the show, the first of several companies who contracted product placement.
The show ran until 1970, when it was abruptly cancelled. the Red River Ramblers, who included George Workman on bass, Shorty Chesser on guitar, Bernie Smith on guitar and banjo, Sleepy Marlin on fiddle, and Tiny Thomale on piano, also performed on the Hayloft Hoedown TV show (which ran to 1971) and live at local state fairs and events.
Thanks to  Bruce Nussbaum for sending this link with more great information
http://www.hillbilly-music.com/artists/story/index.php?id=13560

More Info







Saturday, January 15, 2011

More on The Five Stars and Ronnie Haig from Indianapolis. Thanks Dennis Bell

This came in from Dennis Bell
Make sure you check out his fabulous oldies web sites . Just look on the left side bar  of the blog under music links
http://home.insightbb.com/~dennismbell/oldies/
http://home.insightbb.com/~dennismbell/farcorner/

 All of you all please send ideas for us to research and send your personal stories .

The backing band on Atom Bomb Baby was Boyd Bennett.
http://www.colorradio.com/five_stars.htm

Interview with Bill Campbell of 5 Stars is in this link
http://www.colorradio.com/interviews/5_Stars_Interview11_2010_Bill_Campbell.mp3

http://www.colorradio.com/Ronnie_Haig.htm

Source

Color Radio with Brian Lee   http://www.colorradio.com/
http://www.kvmr.org/  Internet Radio Available
He also has a blog 

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Love You So - Ron Holden




To start off 2011 , here is an all time favorite -


 Check it out for the whole story
 http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8705


Ron Holden and the Thunderbirds ended up at Fred Rasmussen’s Acme Sound and Recording home studio in North Seattle (7551 28th Avenue NE) with hopes of cutting his “Love You So,”  “Louie Louie” -- and perhaps something else.
 “We did it in Fred Rasmussen’s living room. For 19 hours there were 14 people in this room which was 10 x 12 [feet] -- it was the engineer, his wife, his daughter, and his dog sitting there on the couch, and a couple of the guys’ girlfriends. Larry Nelson was playing the claves and Chuck Markulis was playing the tambourine. Little Willie Bell and I were in the alcove and the other guys were all in the other room. And every time the dog would bark, we’d have to start over! On “Love You So” it was up into the 90s on takes! It was ridiculous!”
The Thunderbirds had worked out an arrangement of “Love You So” that employed the unusual and hypnotically off-beat Caribbean-derived clavĂ© pulse. The song, however, kicks off with what is considered (by modern-pop-single-standards) an impossibly long -- twenty bar -- instrumental intro before Holden’s plaintive vocals begin. It was apparently after cutting “Louie Louie” (with Bell on vocals), that the crew decided to try another song and Holden improvised some lyrics over a raucous riff that became the thrown-together gem, “My Babe.”
Session completed, the Master Tape was sent to Challenge Records, which promptly shipped it back saying that their corporate focus had recently shifted to Country/Western music. But Nelson and Markulis reminded them of their previous agreement and the label compromised by shipping the would-be record moguls 5,000 label-less copies of the “Love You So” / “My Babe” single. That was when Nelson and Markulis’ Nite Owl Record company (423 Boren Street) was born. The first task was designing, printing, and gluing (one-by-one) new labels on those discs.
Sidebar Dave Marsh in his book Louie Louie http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=dave+marsh+louie+louie&x=0&y=0, , has a lot more about Ron Holden and the Playboys

Comment - The Good Old Days , right 

June 13 , 1960