| Author |
Message |
 
Ron Murphy (ron_murphy)
4-Laureate
Username: ron_murphy
Post Number: 107
Registered: 4-2004
Posted From: 68.42.90.140
| | Posted on Monday, August 09, 2004 - 7:54 pm: �� |   ��� |
I was listening to Detroit's local DJ Ernie Durham's late night show on WJLB live from the Gold Room of Twenty Grand which ran from midnight to 2AM that he did in addition to his afternoon show...I would listen as long as I could before falling asleep, on this night in late February of 1961 Ernie says "oh here comes Berry Gordy with his new group The Contours"...Ernie lets Berry introduce the group and then Ernie says "let's play their brand new record ".
I'll never forget how excited I got when I heard that record "Whole Lotta Woman" what a jam, and I had to have it, so on my way home from school the next day I stopped by the record store but they didn't have it yet but said they would get it.....well it took 2 weeks but I got it and went home to play it only to find out that it was different than the one I'd heard on the radio , also I remembered that Ernie had not played it since.
now this version was good but not as good to me as the first one....I looked at the label that showed a master number of H55523 but in the wax it showed number H656 (H55656) I said I'll bet the one I heard that night must have the same label with the same number in the wax as the label showed.
about a couple of years later after the big hit "Do You Love Me" came out here comes an album with "Whole Lotta Woman" on it, so I buy that and go right to the cut to play it thinking that maybe they put that 1st version on there, and I get shocked as it's a 3rd version recorded just for the album which to me was not near as good as the first two.
over the next 20 years I keep a lookout for the original version I heard on the radio that night but never turned up a copy in Detroit and then a collector comes in from New York to trade records and I got it, but by then I had forgot what it sounded like, but when I played it the excitment that I felt that night came back.
I think why I never found it in Detroit was because Gordy did a better job getting them back, where a few months before some of those other versions of "Shop Around" escaped. |
Don (don)
6-Zenith
Username: don
Post Number: 585
Registered: 4-2004
Posted From: 68.75.189.112
| | Posted on Monday, August 09, 2004 - 8:43 pm: �� | ��� |
Hi Ron, I've always loved your compliation work. The D was a exciting time & place of a era. Feel proud, your a lucky man.
Don
Chicago |
matt weingarden (mrfinewine)
1-Arriviste
Username: mrfinewine
Post Number: 7
Registered: 8-2004
Posted From: 64.74.45.38
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 1:27 pm: �� | ��� |
thanks, ron. the reissue 45 (which i bought at your store on warren about 15 years ago, i think!) is completely different from the original 45 version i've heard (not sure which of the two that is). then there's the original lp version AND the reissue lp version, which sounds like it was recorded 3 or 4 years later, more of a mid-sixties sound... |
Ron Murphy (ron_murphy)
4-Laureate
Username: ron_murphy
Post Number: 109
Registered: 4-2004
Posted From: 68.42.90.140
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 4:23 pm: �� | ��� |
hi Matt: that repro you have is the original version (H55523 master) the 2nd version has the same label but shows the higher H656 number in the wax. |
matt weingarden (mrfinewine)
1-Arriviste
Username: mrfinewine
Post Number: 10
Registered: 8-2004
Posted From: 65.244.21.132
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 4:53 pm: �� | ��� |
ah, that makes sense. thanks, ron. |
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