To tide you over until our late summer/early fall release date–which will hopefully feature release parties both in the Triangle area and in Celeveland County, North Carolina–please accept the following recording of a Soundsystem appearance at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Saturday Night Filmmakers’ Party in Durham on April 10.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
We at Paradise of Bachelors have just returned from our first label fieldwork trip, visiting David Lee and Bill Allen in the Shelby, North Carolina area on Saturday and Ivan Sturdivant in Charlotte on Sunday.
