By Wonder B (64.144.197.227) on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 11:36 pm:

I am picking up where the thread ended..

OK About The Parliaments here's what I know... I interviewed George Clinton 6 times over the past 10 years and he mentioned almost every time that he had recorded for Motown with the Parliaments... the thing is, he says he can,t remember what tracks were in the can LOL
Like he told me time and time again 'If you lived the 60's you can't remember them' LOL
I also happen to be friends with the former head of Motown France, a guy who owns three labels including CLASSICS (which you can see in every record store of the world at the jazz section), and who also issued the early sides by Patti Austin and the long lost album by Bettye LaVette from 1972...
He too told me that The Parliaments recorded for Motown... he used to go to Detroit and go in the vaults, sometimes making acetates for his own collection of tracks that hadn't been put out commercially... That's how I saw a Frank Wilson track on an acetate that had never been released (and I am telling you this song is the bomb LOL)...
About the Parliaments he also told me that the tapes might be either shelved without any mention which would make them hard to find or where labelled but... here's the story he told me :
He said that (sorry I am typing this from the top of my head so I'll have to ask him the exact names the next time I see him) there was a woman who was in charge of the labelling of the tapes at Motown and that she had a way of classifying things that made it almost impossible for anyone else but her to find her way in some of the archives... don't know if it's true but that's what he told me...
That gives a few leads but I find it hard to believe that Clinton, who was very active writing and producing during the 60's, would not record except for that Golden World 45....

Before I end this post, and to give you an exemple of George's not so great memory, I found a couple of years ago while digging in a record store a sheet proof of PARLIAMENT's 'UP FOR THE DOWN STROKE' original art cover.... I had asked myself for years why that LP had an art cover that was nothing like any of the other albums... that blurry photo looked weird to me... and the proof sheet I found (I have both sides) bears the same Casablanca number (which means they were about to release it when they decided at the last minute to pull the plug on that one and put the blurry pic instead)
That cover has a very different lettering and has a different title for the album 'WHATEVER MAKES BABY FEEL GOOD'... there's a picture where G.Clinton dressed as a Shaman is about to rip off with long nailed hands an almost nude girl lying on the floor and wearing a kind of fur bikini (LOL)
The back side is another shot of the same session...
Knowing this stuff was at risk if I showed it to George (I paid a nice sum for this stuff LOL) I made a B&W xerox of it and showed it during the interview... he almost went nuts lol saying that he had forgotten EVERYTHING about it and that he was so glad I could revive his memory... LOL
He sure took away the xerox like he would have done if I had brought the original art cover LOL
So I wouldn't be too certain he can remember well about things that took place 10 years before that...

Wonder B

By aoooolcat (61.58.181.126) on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 12:31 am:

Wonder B
I listed quite a few songs that George et al wrote which were published by Jobete... can't remember the thread's name off hand, but I'm sure you'll find it if you do a search of the arhives.
Graham
PS - Have you read the "A New Day Begins" thread?

By dvdmike (65.208.234.61) on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 09:10 am:

i know he co-wrote "I Can't Shake It Loose" which appeared on Diana Ross & The Supremes' "Love Child" LP. The Jackson 5 also covered "I'll Bet You".

By HW (12.110.192.128) on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 12:31 pm:

The Motown vault tapes happened to be well-organized. The system you may be referring to are a series of masters that are coded by letters and numbers, which are by now easily discerned. Took a while but we have it figured out now. I'd be happy to be wrong but the only recordings masters in the vault by George and/or The Parliaments are Golden World masters.

If anything turns up, though...

By Wonder B (64.144.197.227) on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 02:13 pm:

Thanks for the answer Harry.... I am sure you have dug yourself into this matter so I have good reason to favour your opinion instead of George's LOL
And yes aoooolcat I have read the thread on A New Day Begins... Furthermore I do have all the singles produced by GC or issued by the Parliaments except for the one on FLIPP rec...

Wonder B

By Rich (162.33.235.185) on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 02:41 pm:

Just theories Wonder B ...

Supposedly The Parliaments cut demos following their audition for A&R chief Mickey Stevenson in the summer of '62. Calvin Simon thought they'd practically recorded enough material for an entire LP.

Secondly, in early 1964 - while Clinton was writing for Jobete New York, the Group (or folks posing as the group) recorded a number of tunes, one of which "I Misjudged You" was due to come out on Motown's V.I.P.label. Again Calvin seemed to think there was nearly enough material recorded for an LP.

Somewhere on here I read that one of these sets of master tapes were stolen and believed to be somewhere in England.

Anyhow, I usually look to the song-writers to guess where/when the songs originated. If a tune was written by GC & Vivian "Tamala" Lewis like "I Can Feel the Ice Melting", "Let Me Be", "Look At What I Almost Missed", "Time", Little Man", Put Love in Your Life", then I assume that these songs date from around '64 and could have possibly been demo-ed in NY.

A number of tunes were also written by the combo of GC, Fuzzy & Ernie Harris or GC, Fuzzy & Grady. A lot of these weren't re-recorded so its hard to say much about their history other than they go back to the Barbershop. One of the tunes was "Junk Man" credited as having been written by GC, Ernie & Fuzzy, may be the same tune Fuzzy recorded as "Mr Junk Man" for his first solo album.

By Ralph (209.240.198.62) on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 03:33 pm:

Wonder,
I'm certain the Parliaments did not record at Motown in 1972. I was running the studios at that time and surely would have been aware of this, if for no other reason than to say hello to George who was an old friend. I think Harry is correct in stateing that any Parliament tapes in Motown's archives are Golden World acquisitions.

By LG Nilsson (213.89.29.129) on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 - 06:09 pm:

This sounds like a recording from around 1967 - 1968. It is a Jobete song, misspelled Jobette on both sides� and George Clinton also wrote the B-side alone �If You Can Stand Me�. I don�t think any other artist have recorded these songs. Was George Clinton still a writer at Motown/Jobete at that time?... and what names are behind Parlor Prod.?



Lars

By Rich (12.90.52.14) on Wednesday, May 28, 2003 - 06:15 pm:

Lars (Another great scan). Raynoma Berry closed-up Motown NY in the spring of '64, meaning that Clinton's writing association with Miss Ray & her company would have ended then and there. The songs were recorded and released in '64 or '65, long before the GC's Golden World days (1966) or the buyout by Motown. Parlor Productions is George Clinton. The name I'm guessing is a play on the Parlor-ments (sp) name or the barbershop (beauty parlor) connection. If he had production help, I don't know who it would have been.

Tamala (Vivian) is the mother of George's son Tracey Lewis (Trey-lewd).

By LG Nilsson (213.89.29.129) on Sunday, June 01, 2003 - 03:47 pm:

Many thanks for the interesting info Rich!

Lars

By Rich (162.33.234.72) on Tuesday, June 03, 2003 - 02:07 pm:

BTW Lars, Parlor Productions produced "I Say Yeah" b/w "Westside Party" on The Pets for Joe Evans Carnival label in 1965 around the same time as the Tamala Lewis single for Marton. So it may be that Clinton & Joe Evans (Carnival) together were Parlor.

I've read where Jobete New York would record acetates of the songs that were written by their staff-writers (Sidney Barnes, George Kerr, George Clinton, etc.), which were submittedby Miss Ray to Detroit, in the hope that they would be produced on one of Motown's stars. I don't know what Motown's policy was with regard to keeping acetate's from New York but, supposedly there were 100 or more songs submitted from August, 1963 to April, 1964. The sessions were typically arranged by Bert Corteaux and features Eric Gale (guitar), Bernard Purdie (drums), Jimmy Tyrell (bass) & Richard Tee (organ) as the band, with Norma Jenkins often handling the vocal. The arranger and band were the same folks used on George Blackwell's northern soul classic "Can't Lose My Head". The same band was also utilized by Joe Evans at Carnival.

Interestingly, George Blackwell's Smoke & Joe Evans Carnival labels were at one time located on the 300 block of the same street (Chadwick) in Newark.

small world - Peace

By Scratcher (65.238.127.231) on Tuesday, June 03, 2003 - 03:50 pm:

Rich,

Those are some of the songs Both George Clinton and Calvin Simon are talking about when they say they recorded for Motown but nothing was released. But George insists they recorded more in Detroit after the NY office closed.