Fred Saxon continued to produce for
Tera Shirma after Ernie was gone.
The Patti Young thing was a dead issue and I can't remember what happened
with her after 'Head and Shoulders'.
Anyway, as we moved on, Fred picked up a group known as The
Southbound Freeway, a rather quirky, hippie group. One of the things recorded was
a rather unusual song titled...'Freakout Freddie's Psychedelic
Used Car Lot Blues'.
Well the song was
hot. I used to get my records pressed through RCA. They had
contacted me to tell me they were having equipment problems
and that the pressings would be delayed a couple of weeks. Fred
was desperate to get the song out and wanted to put the group on
The Robin Seymour Saturday afternoon TV show.
Robin cast a lot of influence
in the Detroit music scene, so it was an important show to do. As I remember it (at this point Fred
may have a different slant on the story...it's all from a perspective
of a lot of years ago) I wanted to wait until the records came in.
Fred
talked me into it and the group appeared on the show doing the song.
Everyone freaked...including Robin...who when the group ended the
song, proclaimed loudly...THAT'S A HIT!!!!
Well momentum is everything.
I didn't have any records to back up the fervor, and once the records finally arrived interest
seemed to be waning and we lost out.
It was only recently I
learned that the group had gotten a couple of other deals
with other labels over the song but again nothing happened. So apparently, as I learned from Richard Norris in
England, there are several labels out there with the same
song. He told me that it is quite a collectors item.
Over the years I wondered if
I had waited until the records came in, would the song have
happened?
All speculation and water under the bridge.
Notes thanks to
Ralph Terrana
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