Whilst based at East Forrest, West used Bristoe Bryant's studio at 93 East Alexandrine as it was within easy reach, just a few hundred metres north, off Woodward. Avenue.

The studio was in the basement and Music City record store was on the ground level. Bristoe was also a disc jockey on radio station WJLB, which means there was possibly much  to be achieved by making recordings there. 

Also using the studio were Berry and Raynoma. Raynoma recalls paying $10 per hour studio time and $10 for radio advertising.

In August 1959 Bristoe's recording equipment found it's way to the new Hitsville studio on West Grand Boulevard.

The matrix number on some of the Flick/Contour/Bumble Bee 45's are preceded by the letter 'S' as per the above label scan. 

Ron Murphy explains. "The letter 'S' is for Sheldon Records in Chicago. When they received a tape from a record company which did not bear a matrix number Sheldon would assign one.

By 1961, they were pressing so many Detroit 45's that they eventually changed the prefix to 'D' to highlight that it was a Detroit recording.

I visited Sheldon in 1966 and again in 1969. They had a nice set up, all in-house, from the lathe to cut master records, printing labels, pressing machines and recording studios too.

In my opinion they cut the best sounding records of those times."

Notes thanks to David Meikle
 

DESIGN AND GRAPHICS BY LOWELL BOILEAU