Our friends at Light in the Attic Records, who are distributing Said I Had a Vision, have posted a long-form interview with the Bachelors. You can find that here–be sure to read to the end, where we announce our upcoming projects in collaboration with brilliant North Carolina songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Willie French Lowery, who served as Clyde McPhatter’s bandleader and fronted heavy psych bands Plant and See and Lumbee before striking out on his own. More details forthcoming, but suffice it to say that we are thrilled to be working with Willie, whose career and musical practice are legendary and inspiring.
David Lee visited Chapel Hill on the weekend of April 2nd with eight family members in order to accept the North Carolina Folklore Society’s Brown-Hudson Award. Our very full weekend included lunch with Bill Ferris and other pals, an interview for NPR’s The Story (which will be airing shortly), and of course, David’s performance of “I Can’t Believe You’re Gone” and “I’ll Never Get Over Losing You,” accompanied by a cassette deck he brought from Shelby. We also ate a lot of hot dogs.
In other David Lee news, our friends at the superb Light in the Attic label in Seattle are now distributing Said I Had a Vision. Numbers are dwindling, but you can still purchase a copy from us directly or from the good folks at LITA.
Paradise in the papers! Friends, when you have a few moments of ease, please peruse the following full-length article and two new reviews of Said I Had a VisionandTobacco a-Go-Go.
In their eleventh issue, Charlotte-based concern Shuffle, a fine magazine dedicated to the music of the Carolinas, has published a thoughtful piece about David Lee, Paradise of Bachelors, and Said I Had a Vision, featuring some choice quotes from the man himself. (But who is this Brendan Gleason character? The Irish actor?) Read the online version here, or if you live in North or South Carolina, pick up a paper copy next week. Thanks be to the Shufflers!
Mark your calendars, Visionaires: David Lee will appear at the North Carolina Folklore Society’s Brown-Hudson Awards ceremony at Girard Hall on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus at 2:45pm on Saturday, April 2, 2011. Register for the free event here. Read more about the Brown-Hudson Award here.
Bill Ferris has a vision in Other Music, NYC, January 2011.
Brothers and sisters, 2011 is now upon us and within us. 2010 is spent, consumed, history. Onwards!
This month we received the repressing of Said I Had a Vision, which is now available for sale directly from us, as well as from select record shops internationally who carry items distributed by Mississippi Records. The repressing features a new green LP label, but otherwise, it contains all the same materials as the original. Because we sold out of the initial 500 copies so quickly–thanks to y’all for making that happen–we weren’t able to distribute any LPs to press and media outlets of the print, virtual, telegraphic, or smoke signal varieties. Regardless, Vision has ended up on a few interesting Best of 2010 lists, which you can access below. Thanks to those enterprising Folks in the Know who kindly covered the album, and please email us if you’re interested in reviewing it for your publication or website. (Thanks also to Bachelor supporter Bill Ferris, who sent us the wonderful photo above.)
“Unlike many releases of its kind, this is no revel in obscurity for obscurity’s sake. David Lee made some outstanding records. In fact, with such a slim discography to his name, you could say that nearly all of his records were outstanding — and all of them, of course, have been long out of print until now… Sacred and secular, white and black, it’s all killer and no filler… The Paradise of Bachelors team has left few if any stones unturned in compiling their tribute to David Lee — their extensive liner notes put the triumphs and travails of the Washington Sound principals in fascinating geographic and historical contexts, and what emerges is a charming, complex, and sympathetic portrait of Lee, who will turn 75 this year and who, judging by his reminiscences in the booklet, has no regrets concerning his career. “Said I Had a Vision” is a labor of love in the great David Lee tradition, and it made for one of this listener’s favorite records of 2010.”
Hilariously, courtesy of Chris Toenes, we ranked #1332 on the Village Voice’s 2010 New York Pazz and Jop list, just a few beneath Bardo Pond’s latest and 1331 pazzes and jops beneath Kanye’s new joint.
Other 2010 best-of mentions can be found on the blogs A Wrinkle(boro) in Time and the Perlich Post; in the staff picks of Tempe, Arizona’s Hoodlums Music; among WXDU’s top local releases; and via Lynchburg, Virginia’s Speakertree Records. Let us know if you’ve cited the record yourself, or if you’ve found mentions elsewhere. More press forthcoming, friends, as well as news about upcoming releases…
Stay tuned for a dance party in honor of both the repressing release and, um, the concept of partying, at Chapel Hill’s Nightlight on February 19, 2011. We’ll be announcing details shortly on the Book of Faces. Bo selecta!
Whoa. Thanks to DJ Mental Feelings of Philadelphia, DJ Nate Smith of Durham, and the owners and staff of Carrboro, North Carolina’s All-Day Records and Bowbarr for launching this flagship Vision release party into the ecstatic strata. In addition to the slideshow of photographs above (courtesy of Miss Coco M.) please find below links to downloadable recordings of all four hours of Soundsystem madness, a live PA mix soundtrack guaranteed to fulfill all your wintry dance party needs. Psych burners, honky-conch nodders, soul blazers, and disco wobblers–like the man said, DON’T FORGET TO BOOGIE!
The Bachelors have been remarkably busy over the past month, with three record release parties in Shelby and Carrboro, North Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina. Whether you could join us or not, we hope you enjoy the above slideshow of images (courtesy of the Missus) from the Shelby event at the Don Gibson Theater, presented in collaboration with Destination Cleveland County and the Smithsonian New Harmonies exhibition, featuring a panel discussion with some of the Vision musicians and performances by the Constellations, David Lee, and Joe Brown and the Singing Mellerairs. These photographs offer a fair representation of the evening, though we weren’t able to capture the lively and diverse audience or Joe Brown’s astonishing dance moves.
On Saturday, October 23, the Bachelors traveled back to Shelby, NC to watch an historic performance by Cecil P and the White Street Band, the Constellations, David Lee, and Ann Sexton at the Cleveland County Arts Council, one of the final concerts of the local Art of Sound festival.
On the occasion of Ann Sexton and David Lee’s first reunion after over twenty-five years, we Bachelors were finally able to meet Ann in person. She was just as David has described her to us–gracious and lovely. She was thrilled (and even a little teary) with the photos and recordings we shared with her and excited about the upcoming release of Said I Had a Vision.
We were delighted to be able to introduce David as he received the Heritage Bridge Award for lifetime musical contributions to Cleveland County.
Backed by the Constellations, David performed both sides of his 1985 SCOP 45, the uptempo “I Can’t Believe You’re Gone” and the mournful ballad “I’ll Never Get Over Losing You,” which appears on Said I Had a Vision. No one was expecting the dance moves!
Brownie Guest led the Constellations–joined by Bunny Clyde on saxophone and two of original drummer Harold Allen’s sons on vocals and guitar, plus second organist Richard Putnam–in both “If Everybody” and “The Frog,” their two cuts on Vision, plus a number of other classics. This concert represented the first time the original Constellations had performed together in over forty years, and the first time they had ever performed onstage with former Ambassadors rival Bunny Clyde and the younger band members. Brownie offered some percussive cane-thumping for emphasis!
Ann and David were clearly moved to be together again, and their emotional duet on “Love, Love, Love (I Want To Be Loved)” demonstrated that the musical chemistry between them has not diminished with the passing of years.
Ann’s set was fiery, and her seasoned showmanship and interaction with the crowd resulted in both head-bobbing and a few blushes during a dialogue about Jody and “You’ve Been Gone Too Long.”
As promised, we’ve prepared a multi-media posting about the early days of Joe Brown and the Singing Mellerairs–originally known as the Melloaires and later as (The Exciting) Singing Mellerairs or Singing Melleraires–complete with scans of several great pieces of ephemera straight from Mr. Brown himself, and intermingled with choice tidbits from our afternoon interview on January 24, 2010.
In addition to Mellerairs-related stuff, the long-time singer also hooked us up with images of three more local gospel outfits, two of whom made records with David Lee–the Sensational Gates of Shelby, North Carolina and the Gospel I.Q.’s of Grover, North Carolina–and one who did not–the Gospel Melodyaires of Woodruff, South Carolina. Read through to the end of this posting for these images as well as audio of our favorite sides from 45-rpm records that we have collected by each group, none of which were produced by David Lee, and therefore none of which will appear on our forthcoming “Said I Had A Vision” compilation. Consider it web-only bonus material.
Although Mr. Brown and other close family members have stayed for decades near Earl, North Carolina–a border-lying town about half-way between Gaffney and Shelby–Mr. Brown was born in Spartanburg in 1938, where the family lived for a time before relocating to Gaffney and then to Earl and Shelby. Mr. Brown, who also enjoyed basketball and baseball, was a student at Camp High School in 1953 when a man whose name escapes his memory asked him to rehearse with an up-and-coming collection of singers:
“I sang in church, and I can’t think of the guy’s name now. He came by one day, in fact we were living over there on that hill right there. He said ‘how about you come to rehearsal.’ I said ‘nah, I ain’t interested in that.’ He kept on after me, and so I went to rehearsal one Tuesday night, went to rehearsal, I was 15, and I start singing in rehearsal with them, then the next rehearsal, I went back again, then I kind of liked it a little bit. Went back again, I said ‘it sounds pretty good,’ I didn’t think I could sing that well, but I went back again, then I got a song, and then I sang it, and I began to feel the song and everything. Then the first thing you know, I didn’t want to miss, I just wanted to go on and start rehearsing, start rehearsing, and that’s where I started from.”
Also in the mix early on were Robert Byers, brothers Donnie Garnett (bass guitar player) and James Douglas Garnett (guitar player), and brothers June Wallace and P.J. Wallace. Each member can be identified by his first and last initials in the postcards below, which were likely printed in year one or two of the Mellerairs’ lengthy career.
“As we kept singing, we decided that we wanted to do something on our own, we wanted to sing our songs, our style. You know it’s good to sing somebody else’s style, but you can’t get nowhere singing other groups’ songs…most groups around here weren’t singing their own songs…it was good to sing other groups’ songs, but that wasn’t what I wanted.”
Although he had made some home demos with reel-to-reel recorders over the years, it would be nearly two decades after the founding of the Mellerairs that Mr. Brown finally released their first recording. “Sinner Man” and its similarly-themed flip “You Can’t Hide Sinner” are raw and intimate thanks to what was apparently a fly-by-night studio operation run by a Gaffney resident named George Davis. Mr. Davis didn’t offer mastering services, so Mr. Brown mailed a tape containing the two songs to Detroit, possibly Archer Pressing, for lacquers and then for vinyl.
The Mellerairs would make several follow-up records in the late 1970s and 1980s, most of which were in conjunction with David Lee in Shelby. Mr. Brown recalls meeting David Lee at a gig in the 1960s, and describes how they would eventually collaborate:
“Well, he was at our singing once, and he said that ‘you know y’all can sing pretty good.’ He said ‘how about me writing some songs,’ he put them on tape, and I would take the tapes, and we would take them to the rehearsal, and we would listen to them, and we would try to put the music to it, and do everything just like that…he sang the part the best he could sing it, and then I would take the tapes…and I would take them back to my group, and then we would sit down and play them and listen to them and see what music and what key that we could put the songs in that we’re singing…then when we thought we had everything intact, we would take it back to David and let him listen, and if he wasn’t satisfied we’d go back and sing it, and put it in a key. That’s how we got with David.”
Mr. Brown is kneeling on the left in this later photograph. We will tell more of his story in future postings and/or in the liner notes for “Said I Had A Vision”.
Not until our interview with Mr. Brown were we aware that Lee Brown, whose name appears in the production credits of the Sensational Gates’ Impel-label 45, was one of his four brothers (Jake Brown is deceased; Rayford Brown is a great, semi-professional bowler who stays in Shelby; and Louis Brown is in Kings Mountain, North Carolina). Hassie “Lee” Brown passed away on December 27, 2009, and may he rest in peace. A long-time manager of the Gates, he is seen sitting in this 1980s-era shot and was likely involved in the production of the tune that follows.
It is tough to date the group’s two known vinyl releases–the one for Impel and this Greenville Mark V Studio-recorded beauty that is not even on a label–but we suspect it was a follow-up due to its smoother production.
On our recent trip to Cleveland County, we narrowly missed meeting Reverend Billy Houze, one of several Houze brothers who sang and held leadership roles with the Gospel I.Q.’s. We are thankful that Joe Brown has held onto this black-and-white glossy.
Besides cutting two sides with David Lee, the I.Q.’s made at least two 45s and an LP (titled “Trouble In This World”) for Su-Ann Records, one of Hoyt Sullivan’s prolific Greenwood, South Carolina / Nashville concerns.
Coming out of Woodruff, Gentle Johnson’s name does not betray the rough gospel-funk that he and his group laid down on wax in the late 1960s, also at Mark V. A future Paradise of Bachelors pursuit may be to learn more about the Greenville-Spartanburg scene, of which Woodruff was a feeder.
Big Weekend for The Bachelors. We decided on a title for the David Lee compilation of Impel/Washington Sound/SCOP releases: “Said I Had Vision,” a line appropriated from the D. Lee original “Vision,” as performed by Joe Brown and the Melleraires. We also started a Facebook.com page for the tech-savvy out there: search for “Paradise of Bachelors” on the Book of Faces for news, including announcements about upcoming live PA Soundystem events, like our appearance at Fuse in Chapel Hill, NC this Thursday evening, January 28, 2010.
We spent an illuminating and pleasant afternoon in Mooresboro, North Carolina with the Lees; Harold Allen, Don Camp, William “Butch” Mitchell, and Benjamin and Bryan “Brownie” Guest of the Constellations. Hearing these gentlemen’s stories about unflagging brotherhood, camaraderie, and the timelessness of “love ballads”–in the face of physical threats, racist invective, and a Southern and national climate opposed to their very existence–was truly inspiring. The Constellations were the first mixed-race combo in the area, and they did it as mere kids, getting started in 1958 or 1959 as teenagers and only dissolving upon the departure of members to Vietnam in 1964 and 1965.
In that time, they recorded six energetic sides for David Lee, all of which belie their tender ages, plus two unreleased tracks–”Have You Seen My Baby?” and “I Want to Jerk”–which Mr. Lee sent to Benjamin Guest while he was serving in Vietnam. Those tapes may yet emerge for your delectation…
We spent Saturday evening in the warmly reminiscing company of Bobby “Pepperhead” London, onetime lead singer of rival group the Ambassadors and another Shelby legend. He and his brother-in-law and former manager Mack Hardy held forth about the Old Days, the importance of songcraft, and the wealth of local talent native to the NC/SC borderlands west of Charlotte. Mack sold us some terrific 45s, for which we thank him.
The story does not end there, friends. After enjoying a liver mush-enhanced breakfast (a Cleveland County organ meat specialty), we spent a mellow Sunday afternoon with Mr. Joe Brown of the Exciting Singing Mellerairs aka Melloaires, the gospel crux of “Said I Had a Vision” and one of the men who originally brought that title to life through song. Mr. Brown has been singing gospel professionally for over fifty years, and his limpid voice has been a powerful force in testifying and captivating audiences throughout his long career. We still have to scan the early photos of Mr. Brown and Co. that he kindly lent us, but here are a few photos we took on that misty afternoon on his property on the NC/SC border. Much more on Joe Brown forthcoming.
