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This vocal group comprised Tommy Tucker -tenor, Clarence LeVille or Lavell- bass, James Crosby-tenor, Yonnie Peoples and Dave Johnson-lead.

Hudson 4 was also issued as by The Belvaderes.

Tommy Tucker (born Robert Higginbotham, 5 March 1933 - 22 January 1982) was born in Springfield, Ohio. He is best known for the 1964 hit song, "Hi-Heel Sneakers", that went to number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.





Hudson Records was located in St. Louis, Missouri and owned by Ted Hudson. Information below was found at The Living Legends Foundation website :

Theoplis ‘Ted’ Hudson

"The easiest way to sum up my forty-six years in the music industry is to say, "Time flies when you're having fun." My whole family enjoyed music. We would frequently patronize the only African American music store in St. Louis. In 1950, I realized the popularity of this entertainment medium, and its potential for growth. As a result, I opened my first retail record store, "Hudson's Embassy Records, Inc." The logo was a phonograph record with the credo "First With The Latest" emblazoned on the rim.


The "Embassy" portion of my name came from the concept that American Embassies serve as safe havens for American Citizens overseas. I wanted to give artist a safe and friendly outlet for their music and music lovers a safe and friendly place to listen to and purchase music. By 1982, Hudson's Embassy Records, Inc. expanded to eleven retail record stores. In addition, the concept for "Hudson's Embassy" was franchised six times. In 1965, I opened one of the first African-American owned distribution companies serving approximately 100 independent record labels and artists with distributions along the the Eastern seaboard, Midwest and Southeast.


Ted's One Stop, Inc. opened in 1968 as a wholesale operation servicing local and regional retail record stores. I also opened an advertising/promotional agency, a recording studio for independent record labels and artists and an electronics wholesale business. I am fortunate to have been a founding member of the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers (NATRA) and the Black Music Association (BMA). As for the future, I recently resigned my political office as Committeeman of the 19th Ward of the City of St. Louis. My wife and I plan to sit back and enjoy life's little pleasures. I'll probably always own some type of business, it's just who I am.

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1961 teen record on a Kirksville, Mo. label owned by Dick Lowrance, who may have been helped to start his own label by Skip Frazee and Bill Lubensky, owners of Jan Records located in Marshall, Missouri (as the Rite account number found in the Red Flame disc is the same as the one found in dead wax of the Jan records (#156).

The following releases were pressed by the RCA Custom Division.


Red Flame label discography

1002 Ike Haley & the Red Blazers
Lucille
A Thousand Miles Away

1003 The Red Blazers
The Weaver
Hot Potatoes

1004 Ike Haley & the Red Blazers
There Is Something On Your Mind
Stronger Than Dirt

1005 The Twilighters
Spellbound
My Little Angel

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Evert Songer has had at least another release as Everett Songer and the Echoes : "Ann" b/w "I Sang I Love You" on Top Side, another St. Louis label. He is now a Maynard, Arkansas resident.


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Larry Dallas Niswonger obituary :

Larry Dallas "Deeds" Niswonger, 62, of Cape Girardeau died Wednesday, June 14, 2000, at Fountainbleau Lodge.
He was born August 13, 1937, in Cape Girardeau, son of Pinkston and Ella Welker Niswonger.
Niswonger had been a welder, and also an antique dealer. He was a country and western musician in the 1960's and early 1970's, and a music writer. In his early life he was in Boy Scouts and played on various sports teams. [...]
[Tuesday, June 15, 2000 edition of the Southeast Missourian, Cape Girardeau, MO.]

In 1971, his seven year old daughter, Cynthia Lynn, won the title of ‘Little Miss Firecracker’ and the Cape Girardeau Bulletin -in its issue dated July 8, 1971 - bring us on this occasion a little more information on her father :

" The daughter of Mr and Mrs. Larry Niswonger, owners of The House of Glass on Hwy. 61 N., is making plans to become a country and western star. She comes by her liking for music naturally. Her father is the emcee for the Country Boys who entertain every Saturday night at the Seven Cedars. He has recorded several pieces in Memphis which are played on radio stations. His latest record is « The Mansion You Stole », and a previous one, « I Forgot to Remember To Forget ».

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A Presley-ish tune on the A-side. They were at least two other Kay labels pressed by Rite. This Kay label is out of East St. Louis, Missouri.

Kay label discography


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1969 country on a St. Louis, Missouri label owned by Tony Mazzola.

Scotty's Studio was the studio operated by DeWitt Scott ( see Helling and his Hillbilly Buddies post)

Members (names printed on label) :

Dan Morgan*
Tom Charleville**
Steve Mulliken
Sal Kuenzler

* vocal on Tell Me Baby
** vocal on Wine Wine Wine

Garage. According to the Louie, Louie discography the band was from Manchester, Missouri. I am unable to find confirmation of that information. They are not these Nightcaps, who recorded the original Wine, Wine, Wine.

DeWitt Scott ("Scotty" to his friends) was born in Amarillo, Texas in 1932 and grew up in Yukon, Oklahoma. He played Western Swing and country music in the local night clubs, radio and TV in Oklahoma City, Okla. City. DeWitt Scott moved to St. Louis, Mo. in 1951, played TV shows and local night clubs. He was influenced by Noel Boggs, Merle Lindsey and the Oklahoma Night Riders. He backed up Grand Ole Opry groups while playing at Johnny Rion's Hillbilly Park and The Lindy Ballroom in St. Louis.

In 1966 Scotty started Scotty's Music in the basement of his home.

In 1971 he put on the "First Annual Steel Guitar Show" which played to 400 people.

DeWitt Scott bio

The St. Louis Steel Guitar Convention

Slim Wilson (1910-1990) began his radio career in 1933 after KWTO went on the air in Springfield, Missouri. He did brief work for radio stations in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Denver, Colorado, before returning to Missouri. In his musical career, Slim worked with different singing groups for example, Slim and Shorty, Flash and Whistler (Lennie Aleshire and Goo Goo Rutledge), The Goodwill Trio featuring Speedy Haworth and "Aunt Martha" which later became The Goodwill Family when Guy Smith joined the trio. He was also the lead of The Tall Timber Trio with Bob White and Speedy Haworth. Slim became a regular on the Ozark Jubilee and later hosted his own nationally syndicated TV program, "The Slim Wilson Show".

He did numerous transcriptions in the 1940's and 1950's but his commercial cuts have rather been rare.

Pianist/vocalist/bandleader Sammy Grimes was born in St. Louis, and began playing piano at the age of four – inspired by his father Fred Grimes Sr. , who played guitar, harp, violin and piano. A friend of both Roosevelt Sykes and Walter Davis, Sammy formed his own band in the early 1950’s following a short stint with the Ernest Jones band. However, it was not the blues of Sykes and Davis that the Grimes band was modelled on, but rather the big band style of Buddy Johnson.

« We played all over St. Louis, the Moonlight, the Riviera, the Levee on 4th and Carr - -- jumpin’ place, we played there for a long time – and the Dugout on Olive. I also played at the Regal Theatre on Eastern for Bo Diddley and Mickey and Sylvia. We used to have stage shows that were booked in there and we were considered a house band for them. Dave Dixon would broadcast about me, ‘my man Sam Grimes’, he gave me a whole lot of publicity. (Dixon) would always call me for the shows he promoted. »

Sammy’s first 45’s appeared on Carter Records being issued as the Sammy Grames Band. Grimes tried without success to shop the record in Chicago – both United and Chess turned it down. His next sides « Deep In My Heart »/ »Yes I Love You » (Carter 5618), featuring vocals by Floyd Alexander, were disappointing. The disc was issued as being by the "Sonny Grim Combo».

Sammy and his vocalist Vicky recorded four titles for Bill Stevens, owner of Stevens Records at Premier Studios on May 10 1959, including a Vicky-led reworking of « Don’t Want To Lose Your Love », « Falling for You » and a brace of uptempo instrumental workouts for the band – which, at Bill Stevens’ suggestion, was augmented by Chuck Wheeler on guitar for this session – completed the quartet. At the time, nothing from the session was released.

Source : Bill Greensmith, liner notes, East St. Louis – The Stevens Sessions, CD Sequel Records, 1997.

Side one -- 38413

Flight Of Pegasus
Oceans Of Fantasy
The World To Be
Lost In The Pain
Checkout

Side Two – 38414

Bon Jour Mr. VIP
Journey
Inner Reflections
Field Of Lonely Eyes
Future

Rite account number 5767

Michael Angelo :

I was born in 1954 in Topeka, KS, but raised in Kansas City, MO. My full name is Michael Angelo Nigro. I began my recording career in 1975 by becoming a studio musician at Liberty Recording in Kansas City. Between recording commercials and backing other artists I started doing my own recordings. This was the birthplace of the original Michaelangelo album. After about a year I left Liberty Recording to become a studio musician at Big-K records, also in Kansas City. By coincidence Big-K used the same type of recording equipment as Liberty Recording, so I finished mixing the first album there. It was released under the Guinn label in 1977 and was a limited release with only 500 of them pressed.

Read more HERE

Bon Jour Mr. VIP

Children stare into space,
And contemplate a mongrel race,
Of those who eat our bones with grace,
With sin dehind their faces.
Thirsty men will dig their wells,
And drink the words that they will sell,
And hear the lies that they will tell,
Or change the words in places.
Bon Jour Mr. VIP, you’ve fooled us well,
You’ve mastered your deception so well, so well,
Greedy fools will sell their soul,
And masquerade from hot to cold,
And then deny their being told,
With grins upon their faces.
Corporations smear the count,
And terminate the ones who dought,
The righteous wrong of their amount,
And leave to them no traces.
Respective hippocritic thieves,
Who swear to God and make believe,
The truth is all that they perceive,
While dollar bills he chases.
They’re the cancer of our times,
Suppressing us into the binds,
Of this is yours and that is mine,
Your names he then erases.

If you like what you've heard, get the full album HERE.

Side one [39863]

1. Reno Junction (Terry Swope)
2. 2. Rockin’ Fever (D.R.Quinn)
3. If You Want (Walt Hummel)
4. Yellow Pages (Russ Pyburn)
5. Your Love (Donald J. Brundridge)
6. Six String Guitar Pickin’ Man (Michael Angelo-Sonna Legrand)

Side two [39864]

1. King Ot The Highway (Terry Swope)
2. Legend Of The Hillbilly Cat (Charle Kellogg-Michael Angelo-Sonna Legrand)
3. Your Special Way (Neva Cessnum)
4. Form Follows Function (Jeff Littrell)
5. You’re Living In My World (Ron Hake)
6. Your Living With The One You Love (D.R. Quinn)

All Selections BMI Momu Publishing Co.

Musicians :

Jeff Littrell : Drums & Piano
Terry Swope : Bass, Lead Guitar & Sax
Doug Mcbain : Sax
Jack Hensley : Steel Guitar
Beki Nixon & Terry Swope : Backup Vocals

Produced & engineered by Charlie Kellogg & D.J. Brundridge
Arranged By Terry Swope & Jeff Littrell

Recorded & Mastered at Big K Studio K. C. M.O.

The Big K label was owned by Charlie Kellogg. He (and the Ozark Drifters) recorded hillbilly in late fifties and in the sixties on :

Manning –59-61
Central – 61
Laredo (Chicago) - sixties
CARS -67
Peach (Nashville) -68

Acknowledgments : Meikel Jungner

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