(297) SUNSET STRIP RECORD COMPANIES : CRYSTALETTE

Crystalette was a small label in Hollywood that seemed to be most interested in signing local talents like Johnny Stark and Dodie Stevens, who had a hit with 'Pink Shoelaces' and then headed over to sign with Dot Records to make albums. I confess I never met either of them, but I knew of them, because of the association I had with Dot.

Johnny is profiled over at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame site:
http://www.rockabilly.nl/artists/johnnystark.htm
According to this site "Johnny also sang on the Gene Vincent show doing his hit record Be-Bop-A-Lula and sang with Elvis's past group the Bill Black Combo. Johnny also worked with Eddie Cochran & Ritchie Valens..."

JOHNNY STARK :



And here is DODIE STEVENS in an interview along with a song sample:

AMERICAN SONGWRITER MAGAZINE SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME - NOMINEE LIST FOR 2010

Kevin Richards reporting for AMERICAN SONGWRITER MAGAZINE: You can go to the article linked above but this is the list as it applies to those we have or will be blogging about here at WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC!

Non-Performer Songwriters
Jackie DeShannon – * Bette Davis Eyes * Breakaway * Dum Dum * Everytime You Walk In The Room * Put A Little Love In Your Heart" (Jackie was a performer but these hits that she wrote were recorded by other artists.)

Performer/Songwriters
Dion DiMucci – * Born to Cry * Donna The Prima Donna * King Of The New York Streets * Love Came To Me * Runaround Sue."

David Gates (Bread) - * Baby I’m-a Want You * Diary * Everything I Own * If * Make It With You

Leon Russell - * A Song For You * Delta Lady * Superstar * This Masquerade * Tight Rope

A CONVERSATION with WES BRYAN on CAROL KAYE

It's Tuesday February 22nd, 2010 at 4:19 PM. Wes Bryan and I are sitting here together on the computer...

WES BRYAN: I knew Carol Kaye. "The Wrecking Crew" was originally all of Phil Spector's people... people like Jerry Cole. Carol was a member of Musicians Local 47 and in the studios with a lot of other great musicians, some who became my friends or who I hired when I was producing.

CHRISTINE TRZYNA: Which friends were those?

WB: Glen Campbell for one. Jerry Cole...

CT: Did you ever work with Carol?

WB: No, I was working with Jerry Cole and Joe Osborne but I saw her around studios and I knew her work. Carol could play the hell out of that bass. In fact if you were giving out a GOLD MEDAL, a SILVER MEDAL, and a BRONZE MEDAL, Carol, Joe, and Jerry would be scrambling to win within seconds of each other...

CT: What was the relationship between Carol, a woman in the studio in the early 1960's music business in Los Angeles, and the men?

WB: There was a hell of a lot of competition, because there is good money to be made as a studio musician, and lots of people went from the road into the studio or the studio onto the road. THE GREATEST BASS PLAYERS WERE IN LA!

Carol Kaye was THE ONLY WOMAN playing the bass in the studios. The guys treated her like a little sister. She was personally a little bit on the shy side and very particular about her playing.

She had a lot of class, a lot of elegance - bet she still does!

CT: If there was anything you could say to Carol Kaye right now what would it be?

WB: She's been there and done that, and I look forward to reading the memoir she's been working on for a decade! It'll be a big seller, especially among the music loving crowd, and all the people - the fans - who love all the people she worked with as well! I'll be sitting in the front row at her book signing, waiting to buy my copy!

C Wes Bryan and Christine Trzyna All Rights including Internet and International Rights Reserved.

(296) SUNSET STRIP RECORD COMPANIES : DOT RECORDS

Pat Boone was the star of Dot Records, owned by Randy Wood, a Southerner, who may've been more open to talent from the South. According to Mike Callahan and Dave Edwards, who we are linking to here, he had over 60 hits on Dot, as late as 1968. While working for Pat and in and out of Randy's offices I met Lawrence Welk's son. Thanks to this YouTuber who loaded up three of Pat's earliest Dot Records recordings!

L.A. WEEKLY article on CAROL KAYE - WOMAN MUSICAN and MEMBER OF THE WRECKING CREW

Christine here: I have been reading the L.A. Weekly for years. Like many publications during this Recession/Depression, it's getting a little slim and deciding what articles to publish based on how much paper advertisers are supporting must be a nightmare! Truly, so much great journalism by great writers has come out of the L.A. Weekly, which is still free.

Link now to the article (excerpt below) on bass player of studio fame Carol Kaye by Jessica Hopper...

Thursday, Feb 18 2010

"You may not know Carol Kaye's name, but you know her work. You've probably heard at least a few dozen examples, and all the words, too. She spent the '60s as the most requested session bassist in L.A., playing on many of the tracks and albums that form the American pop canon: the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, "La Bamba," "These Boots Are Made for Walkin," Joe Cocker's "Feelin' Alright," the Doors' "Light My Fire," "I Am A Rock," "Wichita Lineman," the majority of Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound"–era productions, as well as most of the Monkees discography. ...

Carol Kaye is said to be the most recorded bassist in history, with a purported 10,000-plus tracks to her credit."

(295) SUNSET STRIP RECORD COMPANIES : SPECIALTY RECORDS

Little Richard was the pride of Specialty Records, a label that also had Sonny Bono on board as a promotions man. We're linking to Dave Edwards and Mike Callahan for the story of the label here - they do a great job of it!



Little Richard once gave me a Bible!

(294) SUNSET STRIP RECORD COMPANIES : LIBERTY RECORDS

This is the record company that Cliff Gleaves walked into and made his own deal with Snuffy Garret ! Cliff was a friend of mine and Elvis' and yes he's is in our book. One of the main reasons Cliff headed over to Liberty was that this was the label that made Eddie Cochran famous. Eddie had "Summertime Blues" and "Come on Everybody," on Liberty. As you may know Eddie died young in a cab accident while in England and so, like too many of my peers, his career was cut short by an accident.

We're linking here to Mike Callahan and Dave Edwards (and a couple other new writers) who do a great job of profiling the history of Liberty on their non-profit site!

Now in '62 Buddy Knox, who I went on a road tour with, had an album out on Liberty and he recorded a song we wrote called "ALL BY MYSELF." Here's the RCS Discography link to hear a few bars of that song!

http://rcs-discography.com/rcs/ss/29/ss29390.mp3

(293) HOLLYWOOD RECORDING STUDIO : DEL-FI LABEL BOB KEANE

Del-Fi was a small label owned by BOB KEANE, who passed away December 1, 2009.

He was the man who signed Ritchie Valens and if you've seen the bio-pic about Ritchie called La Bamba, you know that his records were recorded simply, without a lot of equipment. Yet, as you can hear on the Youtube video below, very simply, the no frills appoach showed just how good Ritchie was.



Bob went on to also produce the successful surf band, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, who we blogged a bit about last summer when we were talking about the surf music sound, and even a young Frank Zappa.

We're linking to an article from LA Observed about Bob... He also wrote a memoir...

Tonight begins the SUNSET STRIP RECORD COMPANIES

These small labels were essential to us singer-songwriters who were busy writing songs and pitching our original material all over town!

Quote from JOHN by CYNTHIA LENNON - John Winston Ono Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980)

From JOHN by Cynthia Lennon C 2005 author
page 49

"John Loved Buddy Holly and the Crickets, so they toyed with insect names. It was John who came up with Beetles. He changed it to The Beatles because he said if you turned it around it was "les beat," which sounded French and cool. They settled on Silver Beetles."

Cynthia Lennon

THE BIG BOPPER

We're linking to the official BIG BOPPER site here! (
J.P. was once a prominent D.J.... as Cliff Gleaves also was once...)

GOOD NIGHT GENTLEMEN!

GRAHAM NASH on BUDDY HOLLY

According to Cynthia Lennon, John started wearing his thick eyeglasses again when he saw that Buddy Holly did...

1959 PLANE CRASH YOUTUBE VIDEO

Buddy Knox and I were on tour when the news reached us.

RITCHIE VALENS LIVE SINGING DONNA

I met Ritchie in New York backstage of one of Alan Freed's Rock and Roll concerts.



Christine here: Check out my blog about the Grammy Museum and Ritchie!

LINK ABOVE to the official RITCHIE VALENS SITE!

ELVIS PRESLEY MEETS BUDDY HOLLY

(292) FEBRUARY 3 1959 BUDDY HOLLY, RITCHIE VALENS, and the BIG BOPPER

Today is the 51st anniversary of the plane crash that killed three of the biggest rock n rollers in their time...

We've blogged about these men before (and you may want to use the Google search feature to scan this blog for previous posts.)

This year we decided to post some videos throughout the day to celebrate their talent and contribution to music ...

BOBBY DARIN LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 52nd GRAMMYS

My dad "didn't have an ounce of quit in him." Dodd Darin



Last night Bobby Darin won a LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD from the GRAMMY people. I am so proud of Bobby!

Bobby and me and the guys used to hang out at diners and restaurants in New York. Once he moved to Los Angeles I saw him on a movie set or in his office. Dodd mentions his dad was thought of as cocky but around us guys he was just one of us.

Wes

A CELEBRATION of THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

In honor of the Big Bopper - J.P. Richardson, Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens, we're posting videos on our YouTube station (to the left in the sidebar) as well as a great number of posts on February 3, 2010.

You can also use the Google search feature to read past posts on these artists!

We want to thank the YOUTUBE CONTRIBUTORS who make such historical music/video posts possible!

As we see it the MUSIC of the 1950's never really died. Not with artists such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones covering tunes!

WE LOVE RCS DISCOGRAPHY

Had a little communication with Terry Gordon over at RCS Discography and we wanted to give you the NEW LINK here!

Been some changes. The university server will no longer carry RCS, which has been a volunteer project for some time. This means Terry and his associates and contributors will take the site to a more independent situation.

Terry keep us posted!

We'll be posting on the SUNSET STRIP RECORD LABELS

Friends, we've been reading some of the comments come our way and we're going to write about some of the smaller labels that dotted the Sunset Strip in the early 1960's coming up...

Christine Trzyna and Wes Bryan

I FEEL LIKE CRYING : PAT BOONE ON LONDON AMERICAN RECORDINGS

(291) PAT BOONE records I FEEL LIKE CRYING

When I was first in New York there had been a comparison of my voice with Pat Boone's. Then, while in Los Angeles, I was recruited by Pat to work for his company as a demo maker and songwriter. Pat recording this song (and "Wishing Again") which was written by Red West and me. (Today I Feel Like Crying is on Pat's album "The Fifties - Complete.")
So I was working for Pat's publishing company, Cooga Mooga, and Pat was not only recording, but producing, and interested in presenting songs to other singers. Guess who I wanted to record this song? Perry Como!

As you may know from reading my blog, when it came to the crooners Perry Como was one of my favorites. And while working for Pat, I was introduced to Perry through Jack Spena.

(290) HOW DID ELVIS FEEL WHILE HE WAS ALIVE ABOUT IMITATORS ?

The truth is Elvis was very aware of competition. He had to be.

Elvis educated himself about the music business. He sent one of the entourage out to buy all the Top 40 records for his juke box at the house. He watched movies and television performances. He had his preferences of course, and he had a recording contract to fulfill, so of course he wanted his songs to be the best selling and shortly he would, like most musical artists of our generation, have more competition than ever.

But 1963 would prove to be a very good year for Elvis Presley...

Often, as had happened to me, a regional market artist would quickly record a version of the song, and the result was split sales and no one having a hit that could pull in the big money.

Because Elvis thought of his closest friends as brothers, he expected none of us to directly compete with him when it came to recording the SAME SONG. At the same time he seemed complimented when someone tried to sound like him.

PJ Proby FORUM and PETER JAMES

We just picked up a link here from the P.J. Proby Forum about the Peter James Controversy.

We don't think there should be any controversy any more. The controversy was stirred by speculation because Peter James was not locatable. P.J. Proby knows he isn't Peter James. P.J. is alive and well, still touring, playing the music that made his life. We owe it to P.J. to believe him when he says he is not Peter James. He knows who he is. He knows what he recorded.

The story lies in the independent labels and small labels on big labels that made for the music business in that era and the fact that people who made demos for other artists sometimes launched careers of their own. It was not at all uncommon for a person with a song or two to approach a label and make a deal. This is something Cliff Gleaves did with Snuffy Garret over at Liberty.

At the time I don't recall anyone else I was around the studios in LOS ANGELES wearing an eye patch! I don't know why Peter wore one or for how long he wore on. It could have been a short term temporary eye-patch. The main thing is that Peter James was a real person and, it's my feeling, that like Jerry Capeheart and a lot of other people who worked in those studios at that time, most likely he has passed away. We remain open to hearing from the real Peter James or his family.