Capture The Art Blog's

A page from the book " The Cincinnati Sound" by Randy McNutt



The "Us Too" Group

Label : Us Too

20057 – I'll Leave You Crying





20058 - The Girl With the Golden Hair

In the late summer of '67 Shad O'Shea (Counterpart Records) (who was still working as a State Farm Insurance agent, employing Len Gartner briefly) took the group to Ray Allen's studio in Louisville (Shad's studio of choice until he built his own) to record their next record. Len wanted to add some orchestration to the record, so they hired a flute player and recut "I'll Leave You Crying", speeding up the tempo and fattening the organ. They also recorded a new song, "The Girl With the Golden Hair" using a similar production. Len played the organ on "Girl..". Shad held off from releasing the 45 for some reason (probably he was trying to shop it to a major label) so the group had a very few copies pressed up on their own label, stating "promotional copy". Shortly after WSAI DJ Tom Dooley (with whom the group had done a couple on-air appearances) called up Hi label owner Joe Coughi and played "I'll Leave You Crying" over the phone. Joe bought the rights over the phone, and put the record out as is. The record did well locally, making top 20 on WSAI and WUBE,and also got some action in scattered cities across the country. Hi pushed "Crying", although Len was behind "Girl" to get the pick side.