The scene: Carolina legend Arthur Smith’s studio in Charlotte, c. 1961. Local teen sensations the Constellations have prepared three songs to record for release on Impel Records: a new version of “I Got a Woman,” “How I Love My Baby,” and “I Need Somebody.”
After a two-month holiday hiatus–Final Thursdays are apparently rife with holidays–the Paradise of Bachelors Soundsystem returned for a winter Paradisession at Fuse on January 28, 2010. We covered a lot of musical ground that night, but rest assured that you will find some ear medicine among the soul, country, and rawk sets, including some recently acquired rare artifacts alongside the classics.
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.
David Lee just sent us this wonderful image, which Benjamin Guest of the Constellations gave him and his wife as a 50th anniversary present a few weeks ago. At the party, Mr. Lee and his wife danced to the heady and deeply moving Constellations ballad “If Everybody,” which will appear on the forthcoming Bachelors comp. These guys look like real pros, albeit teenage ones.
With the holiday season in full swing and snow in today’s forecast for many parts of North Carolina, we thought it high time to break out this mid-1970s country-Christmas record from our neighboring state to the south. From James R. Hall, “The Night Ole Santa Claus Creeps”…
A few weeks back Brownie Guest, lead singer for the Shelby, NC band the Constellations, called me at work, quite a pleasant surprise. Mr. Guest had spoken to David Lee, with whom We Bachelors are working to release a vinyl compilation featuring the finest cuts written by Mr. Lee and issued on his Impel, Washington Sound, and SCOP labels c. 1965-1988.
David Lee lent us some beautiful photos and ephemera related to his career as a songwriter, performer, producer, label owner, and record store proprietor. Some of this material, plus much more, will certainly find its way into the David Lee Legacy LP notes and artwork.
Here, finally, is some imperfect documentation of the inaugural Paradise of Bachelors Soundsystem Party, in the form of live mixed vinyl deejay sets presented as two m4a files, originally broadcast at Fuse in Chapel Hill, in the Old North State, on the balmy night of September 24, 2009.
We’ve been talking with J. Hawkins of Pensacola about reissuing some of the acerbic, whiskey-soused, barefootin’ Flor-Noir honky-tonk on his 1980 debut LP “One Eye Open,” released on his own Partying Fools Productions–in our opinion one of the great label names, which also features one of the great record cover illustrations of the ages (see above.)
Charlotte, North Carolina, August 2, 2009. Ivan Ray Sturdivant and Cecil Roosevelt Sturdivant (February 6, 1925 – September 28, 2009).
