SID GRANT – THE NEWLYWEDS

INTERVIEW WITH SID GRANT- 3/26/96

SG: Hello?
JD: Sid.
SG: Yo.
JD: Yes, hi my name is John Dixon and Roger down at Prickly Pair was kind enough to give me your number?
SG: John.
JD: How are you doing?
SG: Where the hell have you been man?
JD: Well I’ve been trying to track you down until, about every 6 months I hear these rumors of Big Mike in town, running around with you and nobody ever says hey call Johnny D, he wants to talk to you and I finally said well I’ll just talk to Sid, man, I’ll try and track him down and luckily Roger finally remember to talk to you about it. ‘Cause I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for like 4 or 5 years, I’ve been trying to get ahold of Big Mike for years, just to talk to him about his music and so, man, I’m just, I’m glad I finally got a number for you. I looked in the phone book and you weren’t in the phone book anymore.
SG: No, I’m not listed anymore.
JD: And so, I just, I was just hoping somebody, I’d either run into you or someone would call me from a record store and say hey you know Big Mike’s in town and Sid’s with him. So anyway, I got your number Sid. I wanted to talk to you about the great R & B scene that you were involved with.
SG: No problem.
JD: Well, listen, let’s go back to the Newlyweds.
SG: Oh God. OK, let’s go.
JD: That’s probably your most, “The Quarrel” and “Love Walked Out.” Now this is what I got, I had a tape of Big Mike, I did a show with Mike about maybe gosh, it’s about 12 years ago now, early ‘80s when Frank Hill and Ted Singer did a show called what was it called, I think it was called the World Beat, but anyway, it was on KJZZ and one Sunday I came out with my records and Big Mike came out with his records and we kind of sat there and did like a couple hours of Phoenix music and I got this off of his comment at the time, he said that the Newlyweds were a local group that he put together, this song created quite a stir because of its portrayal of domestic violence. According to Big Mike, there was 5 minutes left with no B side, so they cranked out this song “The Quarrel” on the spot. Group members were Sid Grant, Bruce Grant, B.B. Nicholson, John Lewis and Beverly Nicholson, all of Phoenix. It was done in one take and was #1 on KCAC in December of 1964.
SG: You forgot a member of the group.
JD: Who would that be?
SG: Pierre Deck.
JD: I’m sorry?
SG: Pierre Deck.
JD: Deck?
SG: Yeah, Pierre Deck, he lives in Mobile now. We called him Orange Man ‘cause he was real tall, thin guy, very light complexion, he was in the group.
JD: So did you guys, were you, the Newlyweds, did you guys perform around town?
SG: Yeah, we did. In fact, one of my most memorable performances was at Calderon.
JD: At the Calderon Ballroom.
SG: It was Sylvia Calderon’s birthday party.
JD: What year would this have been, Sid?
SG: Oh God.
JD: Well, it would have been in early ‘60s if the record was…
SG: It was the early ‘60s and in fact John Lewis was with the group at the time and all these people you named. We were on stage, like where Ike and Tina Turner performed. Oh man that was a thrill.
JD: Well now how did you and Big Mike hook up?
SG: I was listening to KOOL radio one night; Ray Ford was the DJ.
JD: Wow yeah.
SG: You remember Ray Ford?
JD: Absolutely.
SG: OK, Ray Ford was jamming one night, and he was playing oldies as usual and he played Micky and Silvia, what the cut was that?

JD: “Love Is Strange”?

SG: “Love Is Strange.” And he told me at the time, he goes, I don’t think there’s a copy left in Phoenix. So, I walked to the phone booth, dropped in a dime at the time or a nickel someplace, and I called the station and Big Mike answered and I said tell the DJ I know where he can find “Love Is Strange” tonight. So, 7th Avenue, before they tore it up, it used to have a drug store on one corner, and it was 7th Avenue and Grant. The drug store, a cleaner’s and Baby Raymonds Record Shop.
JD: Baby Raymond’s Record Shop.
SG: Yeah, they called him Baby. Baby Raymond’s Record Shop. And I told him he could find that stuff there, so I met him, he pulled up in a ’59 Buick and that’s the first time I’d ever seen Big Mike. And we spent 3 hours in there with Baby and Ray went through all the records and he got a handful, and Mike got a handful, and they got “Love Is Strange” and he told me, he said go on and get you a couple of them for bringing me the business. I say that’s OK. So, I started adding to my collection there. But that was one night right after he quit broadcasting they drove down; I told him how to get there. Man, they went nuts in there. That’s how I met Big Mike, from then on it was Ray Ford, Sonny Knight, Big Mike, Abel Hall and me. Mike used to sell Cokes and stuff, and I worked the door, you know, stuff like that.
JD: And who would be, who would be the band at Abel Hall, I mean some of the band that would have been playing locally that you remember?
SG: Hold on, it’s coming, Peter Cosey and the Crusaders, Big Boy Pete and the Crusaders.
JD: Big Boy Pete and the Crusaders. (Cosey was a Chess Records session player, “Summertime,” Sitting In The Park” and “Rescue Me,” and went on to play with Miles Davis (1973-1976) and Herbie Hancock, “Future Shock.”)
SG: Yeah, Peter Cosey. Do you remember all this stuff?
JD: Well vaguely man, see I grew up in Tempe, and I was kind of out of the loop you know, I didn’t, I didn’t get down there, about as close as I got was B & B Records at 16th and Broadway, Bo and Betty Stewart.
SG: Oh yeah, Bo and Betty Stewart.
JD: And they took very good care of me, they were very nice. And I would go down there, and they’d let me go behind the counter and just look at records, but I missed, I mean, there was Hardwick’s Wigs and Records, I mean there were all these places that I kind of missed you know.
SG: Rockin’ Robins on 16th and Washington. I mean now these were places were you could go in and say I got a couple of copies of, what did I find in there that, Jimmy McGriff, “The Last Minute”, the B side was an instrumental? He gave me a copy of that, and I still have original copies. All worn to hell and back and I’ve replaced it with a new one, but I still got that original copy. Or we would go up to the distributors and we’d find stuff in the distributor’s box that never got played.
JD: That never got played, yeah.
SG: Oh man, I mean stuff on Peacock. Real good heavy stuff. In fact, Porgy and the Monarchs, “The Space”?.
JD: Wow.
SG: Oh, I know what I meant to tell you, let’s see, Peter Cosey and…we had what were the two guys?
JD: Eddie and Ernie?
SG: Hendrix.
JD: Jimi Hendrix?
SG: No, no, no.
JD: Oh, Bobby Hendrix?
SG: No, I was going to say the Hendrix Brothers with Little Worley and the Drops.
JD: Oh Isaac Worley. Oh wow. That is such a great record.
SG: Have you got a copy?
JD: Yes, I do?
SG: Can I get a tape?
JD: Of course.
SG: Please.
JD: Of course.
SG: Well, you have a “You Better Watch Yourself” by the Worley and the Drops. Oh my God, I’ve been looking for that for years.
JD: That’s right. I’m so sorry, because you know I get together with Bob Corritore once a year and we do like two hours of Arizona rhythm and blues and I call, and I try and call everybody, and this was before I had your phone number, and so I’m calling you know the La Chords and people that were in the Versatiles and oh just anybody that I can think of, Roosevelt Nettles, anybody that was kind of in the scene and we play it, and I play that every, I just loved that song. Little Worley and the Drops…because I’ve seen the tape box and it’s written on there, “Isaac Worley.”
SG: Little Worley and the Drops.
JD: And nobody remembers, you know, who he was, where he was, or….
SG: And we had Small Paul, and we had Ronnie Whitehead with his mother and her sister as background. Some of that stuff was church style in the background, but we had that Latino sound because Mike kept using the band, a little bunch of Latinos and they had that heavy mariachi type bass in it and he used to stand up and walk through the whole records. Oh hell. Richard Casey, we did a record with Richard Casey and somebody.
JD: Well now I have some of the other records and just, these ones, because I collect them. I have a data base in my computer now, and I punched up anything with your name on it and it came out, one was John Lewis, “A Woman 73” which you’re listed as one of the writers.
SG: And also “Soul Skate.”.
JD: Along with Castor, Lewis, Grant and Lenaberg. And then “Soul Skate” was on the other side by the Soulsations.
SG: That’s the other band I couldn’t think of right then and there.
JD: Was that the group that were we just talking about?
SG: Yes, The Soulsations.
JD: And this was from 1967 and the record and is on Outta Sight Records, with the address of 1515 W. Jefferson, where was that, what was that?
SG: OK, let me tell you about the West Jefferson address. We had a really good friend, he ran a guard and detective agency, and he did taxes and he worked out of his home, the address was 1515 W. Jefferson and we used that address. Because we were always hanging around him, in fact, I just talked to him yesterday. He called me and said you’ve been my friend for years and you won’t even come see me and I said, well Mr. Gray I’m sorry, you know, so I got to go up and see him sometimes.
JD: Do you think Mr. Gray’s got any records at his place?
SG: No, he’s, he used to tell us, he goes that man that stuff would never work. Some place around there, Mike’s got a newspaper that we ran, an informant type thing.
JD: Right.
SG: You don’t have a copy of that, do you?
JD: What’s the name of the paper?
SG: The Funky something, Funky Beat.
JD: Wow, it was like a weekly paper you put out?
SG: Yeah, we put out a little newsletter type paper about 4 pages, 5 pages and he had a Top Pick and I had a Top Pick and mine at the time was Albert King’s “I Want To Be Your Personal Manager,” which was a heavy…
JD: “Personal Manager,” yeah.
SG: We had that little record shop on Broadway.
JD: What was the name of it?
SG: It was very simple, it was like the record, the Outta Sight Record Shop.
JD: Oh, the Outta Sight Record Shop. Beause it has a a phone number on it, it’s like 252-9303 that was on the record, Outta Sight Records.
SG: That’s it. We had the record shop at one end, and I had a television repair shop in the other. And what we would do, I’d load up a suitcase of records, I mean, record player, stereo and speakers and get about 5 or 6 of them and on the first of the month, welfare mothers would come in and buy records and then they say my stereo don’t work, and I’d say I got one back there for $40 that was damn good. And I used to sell on the first of the month, we’d be set.
JD: So, you and Big Mike were running this shop then?
SG: Yeah. And then Mr. Gray lost the building, the bank foreclosed on us, and we had to get the hell out of the record shop.
JD: Outta Site Records, man alive!
SG: That’s one of the records that has our name on it. In fact, I just looked through my record collection and found a half a dozen more that you may not even have that we did.
JD: Oh.
SG: Uh-oh.
JD: You’re killing me now Sid. Because I am Johnny D with R & B…LOL.
SG: I know, I know.
JD: The world’s largest soul collection of Arizona music known to man. Well before I get too excited and ask you what I could possibly be missing which I’m always, I always am, I want to talk about the next one I got and that’s Mighty 7001, “Loaded To The Gills Part 1” with Michael Liggins and the Super Souls, written by Lenaberg and Liggins. It said ‘and the “Technical Advisor’ a mysterious Mr. Sid Grant. Now what does a technical advisor do exactly, Sid?
SG: He forgot to put me on the thing, and he decides, he decided right then and there, he says, well I can’t put you down as A&R man, ‘cause I’m already on there…
JD: ‘Cause I’m already on there.
SG: Yeah, he says so I’ll just put you down as technical advisor. And I asked him why and he says because it’s called “Loaded To The Gills” and what you used to tell me in the old days, you used to come in every night loaded to the gills, and I said right. That’s a fine way to portray me, Mike.
JD: That’s terrible Mike. LOL Now the Super Souls were Robert Torres, Rudolph Barns, Bobby Oferro, Popo Ofrerro, Don Smith, Dupa Jack and Manual Rualez.
SG: Correct.
JD: And that was recorded at East Wind. Now in my mind East Wind was in Tempe Arizona on Mill Avenue.
SG: Right, right.
JD: Is that right?
SG: Right, it was in Tempe, right on Mill Avenue.
JD: Right on Mill Avenue, it was 4th Street and Mill, right where the Spaghetti Company is right now.
SG: How’d you guess?
JD: Because I grew up in Tempe and I remember driving down there, well I might have this wrong, ‘cause this is ’70 though, this is a little later, because I graduated from high school in ’64. It must’ve been there awhile, but I remember looking in the window and seeing them, you know they had, they built some like homemade baffles and stuff and somehow, the door was open, I got the drum baffles out of there, they had left them. They had built some baffles to put around the drums and guitars and stuff, and I remember taking them and setting them up in my bedroom. I just remember looking in, and standing on the street, which God…1970, it would have been, man I would have been out of college then. I was in the service in 1970, but it must’ve been before that, it must’ve been there for awhile, but I just remember that little East Wind Studio on Mill.
SG: Yeah, we did two or three things there, in fact, we even tried a country and western thing there with his brother.
JD: With Mike’s brother?
SG: Yeah, I think I got copy of that someplace upstairs. In fact, I got a copy of the other label, Darlene, featuring We The People.
JD: That was a local thing?
SG: Yeah, a Function At The Junction. That was something with Rodney (Brown) that used to play drums for Dyke and the Blazers. We did a cut with him, see I’m trying to figure it out, I think it was on “Function Underground” or we did something with some guy, oh I can’t think of his name now? Oh, I know him by now, I’ve seen him. Hold on a second (side conversation). We did a cut with We The People, “Open Up Your Eyes And See,” it was with a guy that lived up on the hill here, way up. And he was a real good, Melvin, Melvin Jennell.
JD: Melvin Jennell. I’m not familiar with that.
SG: I’ve got that upstairs too. You’re gonna make me dig through all this stuff tomorrow.
JD: I am Sid, and I’m going to have to come and see you just because I mean, obviously anything extra, any dups or anything I’d love to buy them from you, but just to make a list because I want to get the best list of every record that was ever made in Arizona.
SG: OK and then there was one we did with, remember let me think back, what was his name, can’t remember, he had a record shop on South Central and he passed away. Duffy. (Verle “Duffy” Duffins)
JD: Duffy, yeah.
SG: We did something with Duffy too. In fact, we did two things.
JD: Right, well I might, I’ve got a bunch of other Mike’s stuff, but see your name wasn’t listed on them, and I just kind of put it in the data base, and that’s why I’m trying to call around for information and put every name, anything I can find on the label, because I’ve got a lot of other Big Mike things that he did and I’m sure you were involved with all of them.
SG: Oh yeah, hanging out in the studio or whatever it was.
JD: Now did Big Mike, and I remember this, did he do like an after-hours thing at a place called the Jaguar Club or something in South Phoenix?
SG: Yes, yes, he did. That’s a rough mother, too.
JD: That’s what I remember, I mean I never went down there, but somebody said, well that’s what this guy does, man, he does, ‘cause I’d run into Mike in stores or something and you know I was a DJ doing kind of record hops in high school and stuff or maybe it’d be down at MB Krupp Distributors on 16th Street, I might’ve bumped into him down there and he was looking for records and buying stuff and I was this little white kid and I just remember that he had this Caddy, man, but I was always into soul man, I was always into R & B and I thought wow man, this Big Mike, I mean, besides being heavy I mean physically, I just knew that he was heavy spiritually too, I’d think wow. And someone said yeah, he plays like this after hours at this club that opens like at midnight or something and he’d play all night long.
SG: They loved him. And he’d pat you down to the door with the metal detector, no knives, no pistols?
JD: Where was the Jaguar Club, Sid?
SG: Oh God.
JD: Roughly.
SG: On Washington, there was a bar on the corner called Eddy’s.
JD: Eddy’s Bar.
SG: Eddy’s Bar and Grill. Just plain Eddy and you come back up, now see I’m talking on the north side of the street now ‘cause Washington always has been you know, one way. OK, you come back up and then there was a little alley there and the cleaners and there was another little bar, stuck in there.
JD: Street or avenue now?
SG: Now we’re talking streets.
JD: Street OK.
SG: No, across the street was the low down, dirty down that places like they record Jimmy Reed stuff with Ripple caps all in it, it was called Tops. Tops, now wait a minute, was it Tops? Yeah, Tops Bar and Grill and right next door was a liquor store, called Saul Liquor, they moved out and that became the Jaguar. Right across the street from, almost, the cleaners there.
JD: So, it would just open, now would they serve booze, now they didn’t serve booze in there, but you could go out and drink in your car sort of a thing?
SG: No.
JD: You could get booze in there?
SG: Oh, hell yeah.
JD: Oh, after hours, OK.
SG: You know that’s what kept it running because they had a tight reign on the door.
JD: Right.
SG: I mean the place would fill up with pimps and whores and riff raff and all the street people.
JD: Right.
SG: And they’d boogie man, until about 6 in the morning.
JD: Wow.
SG: I was in there one night with him, I had to get up and leave and go home, I said man I got to go work in the morning, he said, you all stay awhile Sid. I mean, they were jamming, he had this, almost like a throne, he sat back there in the corner up on a high platform, cooking.
JD: Two turntables.
SG: Uh-huh. He was cooking.
JD: I’ll be man.
SG: But, he also did DJ on 28th Street and Broadway.
JD: What was that place?
SG: That was a…I’ll tell you what, that was on Parsons right there and that used to be called Iron Man’s. He got a PA and he used to work in there and that place used to boogie, they’d sell hot links outside on the grill you know and make sandwiches and cold beers if you run through the other side. I worked with him there for a couple of nights and you talk about wild! Even the city police used to come in and put their sweaters on, to come in and join the party.
JD: Uh-huh. It was that much of a good party.
SG: Oh man, that place used to boogie.
JD: Well now listen, getting back to this Homogenized Soul, “The Quarrel,” and “Love Walked Out,” now, what interested me is that Big Mike wrote just about everything else or with other people but on those two songs, it was written by a guy named Beasley. And Modern Music, which was Kent and RPM Records out of LA, how did that come about that he would record two songs by an outside writer?

SG: OK, here’s the way it went. Beasley, Jimmy Beasley wrote the music. And the stuff we took from Jimmy Beasley was an instrumental track that Mike picked up in L.A. from Modern. So, we give him songwriter, because this is our first track, so that’s why we put down Beasley. And we got ahold of Modern and everything, ‘cause they said that they didn’t have the masters anymore, but they’d be interested in the royalties and everything you know, so he did a little contract and everything and we wrote Jimmy Beasly as the writer on the label because we were taking the instrumental track, all we used was the instrumental track and then we just put words to it. In fact, “Love Walked Out” took us about 5 minutes to write. Yeah, we were kidding around, and you know, guys had that, and people said hey, that sounds good, man let’s talk about that one, let’s do this one. And it was mono, one take.
JD: Wow, and was that cut at Audio Recorders?
SG: No, that was cut up in Glendale, the little, small studio and I can’t even remember the name of the place. Audio Tones, I think I got the bill upstairs, that…
JD: Magnatone maybe? I’ve never heard of that studio, Audio Tones?
SG: I’ll have to look for it.
JD: OK, oh fabulous, so you’ve got it, it was in Glendale.
SG: Yes, Glendale, Arizona, they came and got me, because I took a half day work and we went in there and paid the man, got down to business, first we cut the A side. (Von Studio)
JD: “Love Walked Out.”
SG: And I had a hard time not to look at my brother’s mouth ‘cause he kind of trembled when he carried the background, so I had to look off and we did that one and we said, what are we going to do on the other side. And he says I don’t know, let’s do the one that we made up the other night. So, we did that one, one take. (“The Quarrel”) Mike was the door knocker.
JD: Was Mike the policeman?
SG: No, I was the policeman.
JD: You were the policeman.
SG: It was a quiet neighborhood; we don’t like that stuff. I’m going to come back, I’m going to kick you in, you understand that boy?

JD: Charles, Charles, don’t hit me, Charles. Oh man. That’s heavy, that just cracked, man when I heard that, I could not believe it. In fact, I was the opening voice. I’m leaving you. So, what. I’m going to walk out the door. Bye. That was me.
JD: Oh Sid, this is great man. This is great. Now were you, were you working, you were driving a bus there for awhile somebody said?
SG: No, John Lewis drove a bus.
JD: John Lewis drove the bus.
SG: Yeah, the one that was fighting with Pheobe on “The Quarrel,” and the one that does the vocal on, “A Woman 73”

JD: Yeah.
SG: He was a bus driver; he worked for the City of Phoenix.
JD: Sid, what were you doing then, when you weren’t messing around with Big Mike?
SG: I was working in the foundry.
JD: In the foundry.
SG: I was making cores and coins from aluminum.
JD: Now the foundry, the one out on Buckeye?
SG: No, the one way up on Clarendon, just below Indian School, way back in, it was called, damn, it’s not even there anymore. I’d have to think about that.
JD: Wow, the foundry wow. That was heavy man.
SG: Presto Casting Company.
JD: Presto Casting. Now, so once you, so you hooked up with Big Mike in around, what about probably 1964?
SG: Let me think, probably about ’62.
JD: Oh, that far back? Because I’ve got the record, and I dated it when it was pressed, and it was pressed in 1966. “The Quarrel.”
SG: Yeah, because we had a couple of years when we was just trying out and doing dances and things like that, and finally he says lets do a record and I told him fine, lets go cut this bad boy. I think the cost was a grand total of $30.
JD: Yep, and then you had to take it down to Wakefield Manufacturing, and they pressed it for you there, two years after you recorded it.
SG: Yes, and they pressed it, in fact I have one of those blue labels here. I got a couple of them, on Homogenized Soul.
JD: Homogenized Soul. Who came up with that name?
SG: I did.
JD: Wow.
SG: Mike sent a copy to L.A., to Vault Records, and they put it out on the Fat Fish label.
JD: Fat Fish. Wow and it’s a Poly-unsaturated production.
SG: That’s me.
JD: That’s you too.
SG: I came up with Homogenized Soul, Poly-unsaturated and he goes yeah that sounds good, we’ll put it down there. We put Beasley on the label, and we went from there.
JD: Wow, that record just blew me away. 601 was the number.
SG: Yeah.
JD: So, what, do you remember some of the other groups, I mean, now the ones that I kind of remember of course, the La Chords, there was a group here called the Vice-Roys, the Versatiles, the Servicemen.
SG: There was a singer with the Servicemen, oh heck can’t think of his name right now.
JD: Ron Johnson was one of them originally, he said.
SG: No.
JD: And they started out at Luke AFB.
SG: Yeah, they were servicemen there.
JD: Yes.
SG: The name of the guy that I used to go see? What was his name? Ron Johnson.
JD: Yeah, Ron Johnson.
SG: Yeah, he was part of the Servicemen. (Actually, Johnson was in The Tridells, also at Luke AFB.)
JD: That’s right.
SG: And I tried like damn to get those masters because the Servicemen records were extremely rare in England and they had a following that wouldn’t quit.
JD: Yes, they did.
SG: And I can’t find them, he can’t find them, he doesn’t remember, he doesn’t know where the other guys are, some of them are in Florida, they may have…
JD: Well Hadley did that, that was Hadley Murrell.
SG: Yeah.
JD: He’s the guy that produced those records.
SG: And he also did…
JD: He did Roy and the Dew Drops.
SG: Roy and the Dew Drops.
JD: Eddie and Ernie, who were the New Bloods also.
SG: One of their hits was “Cecil, The Unwanted French Fry.”
JD: Yeah, “Cecil the Unwanted French Fry.” My name is Cecil and I’m an unwanted French Fry. Yeah, Hadley and I we stay in touch, Hadley’s been a good friend, we’re in touch and have been for quite some time but man, he’s got a load of stuff.
SG: Tell him he probably got the idea from eating at the Artic Circle on South Central, you remember it?
JD: The Artic, sure.
SG: OK, that’s where he got Leroy the Unwanted French Fry, or Cecil.
JD: Yeah, and then the other side was “Outta Sight” which was great which was the James Brown thing. It was Freddy / Henchy and the Soulsetters was the band, and the Soulsetters, they were great, I mean Freddy and Henchy, I remember seeing them at, they were really big around ASU and I think they went up to Colorado, they kind of had a little circuit that they did but that was great, man. My name is “Cecil the Unwanted French Fry.”
SG: Now I’m going to give you something that’s gonna grab you just right. In between Small Paul and Ronnie Whitehead, we cut a record on Ramco with the guys that I used to work with at the car wash. It was called, what, “What Are They Doing Right Now.”
JD: Right, by the Four Dimensions.
SG: Right.
JD: Are you one of the Four Dimensions?
SG: I was, vocally. We used to do it at the car wash all day long. (Wilfred Johnson does not remember Sid being in the group)
JD: “What Are They Doing Now.”
SG: “What Are They Doing Now.”
JD: I’ve got that, that’s a wonderful record.
SG: Oh, you got that?
JD: Oh of course I do, you’re talking to Johnny D, the king of R & B Sid. I’m no lightweight kid, man.
SG: Johnny D. of the R & B.
JD: I’m ready to rock and roll but I’m anxious to see what’s in your box that I may not know about. But yeah, that Four Dimensions, that’s great, that turns up every now and then, that’s a nice little record, somebody else, Maxine Johnson’s brother (Wilfred) was on there, too?
SG: Yes.
JD: Wow, who else, I run into Maxine down at the Rhythm Room every now and then and she, her brother was on there and somebody, two of the Versatiles, there was a guy, Warren Toliver was one of the Versatiles and her brother, his first name escapes me right now (Wilfred), but they became the, a couple of the Four Dimensions.
SG: Do you have any Gene Blue and the Versatiles records?
JD: I’m sorry?
SG: Do you have any of Gene Blue’s records?
JD: No, I’ve got Tyrone Bean and The Versatiles. Gene Blue was in the La Chords.
SG: Yeah, do you have any of his stuff?
JD: Yes, I’ve got them all.
SG: Hot damn.
JD: Yeah, (singing) and then other one (singing)
SG: You got all of them?
JD: I got all of them.
SG: ‘Cause there’s about 4 of them, or 5 of them?
JD: There are, there’s 4. I mean excuse me, there’s 3, there’s one on Gay and there’s two on Take 5, there’s a total of 3 releases.
SG: You know where to lay your hands on them immediately?
JD: Well yeah, they’re right back in my little boxes there in the back room.
SG: I need those 4 on the tape.
JD: You need those 6 songs on the tape.
SG: Oh, one more.
JD: Along with Little Worley and the Drops.
SG: One more.
JD: Yeah.
SG: Ann Cole, “Have Fun,” can’t find it no place.
JD: Which one?
SG: Ann Cole.
JD: Ann Cole?
SG: Yeah.
JD: I don’t have that one.
SG: That’s a rare one, it was on Jubilee or yeah, Jaime and it’s unavailable.
JD: And it was done here?
SG: No, it was done on the West Coast but it’s very hard, in fact you played it once or twice, I think.
JD: I’ve got boxes of stuff and because I still have all my records I used to play, R & B records, but in the last 5 years I’ve just been specializing in Arizona groups. The Tads, do you remember Leroy Fullylove and the Tads?
SG: Of course, I used to work with Leroy Fullylove at Woolworths.
JD: Wow, what year would this have been, Sid?
SG: This is right after he wrote “Bumble Bee” and LaVern Baker covered it. (1960)
JD: That’s right, that came out and I’ll have to show you, it’s out on a CD now that I produced, and we found some beautiful pictures of the Tads, singing, backing up a guy by the name of Tony Castle.
SG: Yeah.
JD: And he did a Fabian show, and the Tads backed him up and I tracked down Leroy who lives in California, Leroy and Emily and they are still doing fine. Emerson Bilton who was one of the Tads, he lives here in Tempe. I tracked him down and there were various others, there’s a guy named Willy Williams who was a Tad for awhile and then Duke Draper was a Tad for awhile and then Charles Fullylove was the other, was the bass singer, he died quite some time ago and so yeah, but “Bumble Bee,” they recorded it at Viv, it never came out officially but it’s out on this CD and it’s great. I mean, LaVern just stole the arrangement and everything and you know, changed the words, changed a couple of the words, but it was basically the same demo tape that they sent to Atlantic man. So, it’s really great.
SG: Do you remember, remember Tony, he was the DJ.
JD: Tony Evans?
SG: Yes, we did something with him with Big Jay McNeely and Little Ray and we did “Honky Tonk” and I don’t where that one is.
JD: That never came out? Wow, ‘cause I’ve seen the tape Sid, I know that tape is at Floyd Ramsey’s, and it’s like a 4-track tape.
SG: No, I’m sorry, it was Joe Houston.
JD: Joe Houston, right.
SG: Joe Houston and Baby Ray and we cut that uptown somewhere, at Audio.
JD: Audio Recorders.
SG: Audio Recorders. Tony Evans put up the money, and he did some arrangement with Baby Ray and you know I don’t have a copy of that one either.
JD: I don’t think, I could be wrong, I’ve never seen it, but it never came out and I know where the tape is, but I’ve never seen a record, but maybe somebody put it out in LA or something ‘cause I’m pretty good about at least knowing if something came out, or I’m sure you’re going to change that when you get into your box of records, Sid and pull out all these things that I don’t know about that were from here.
SG: OK, Ray Ford, Sonny Knight, two DJs at KRIZ.
JD: KRIZ, right.
SG: And Mike and myself, we did something called “Do The Mash Potatoes” with Budd Spud and the Sprouts.
JD: Wow. Sure, I’ve got that on the EM Record label and that was, Little, Otis and he worked at KRIZ, he was the janitor at KRIZ.
SG: Budd Spud and the Sprouts.
JD: Everybody let’s mash, (sings) It was Don Cole on lead guitar and I’ve got it, that’s one of my favorites man, “The Mash.”
SG: I’ve got some Don Cole upstairs and even some Duane Eddy on the Stacy label.
JD: Oh no, it’d be Jaime.
SG: No, I’ve got one with….
JD: Al Casey was on Stacy.
SG: OK, I’m sorry, corrected. Al Casey.
JD: Al Casey’s on Stacy and Al’s still around and I see Al all the time. He’s my buddy man, he’s doing really good. And we’re getting like his “Surfin’ Hootnany” and that stuff, that’s getting re-released now on CD. But listen, what I need to do Sid is just make you a Johnny D monster cassette because I’ve put a bunch of this stuff on CD now, I’ve made copies from tapes of CD so I’ll make you a tape, a 90-minute tape of a bunch of the Phoenix songs, and I’ll make sure Little Worley’s on there and all the La Chord’s stuff.
SG: That would be worth the mint, my brother, I’d have to double dub that and send him a copy and he carries a walkman with him. I need to fix him up with some stuff here that I have upstairs, and I get him weak in the knees fixing I run one side of trilogy of nothing but the Dells and then back it up on the other side with the Manhattans and he goes bananas.
JD: Well, he needs to get some of this Phoenix music, and there was a wonderful group from Tucson called the Mandells that are just awesome.
SG: I remember the Mandells, I got to meet them, but I never did, you know, I never got none of their stuff.
JD: Right, they were on a label called Smart that was out of Sierra Vista and Chess picked it up and they are fabulous man, they’re all harmony, but I think they like came out of Chicago in the Army together and were sent down to Ft. Huachuca and ended up making this, ‘cause it was cut at Audio Recorders, they came up here to record it, but it was on this little label called Smart Records and then there was a gal called Marie Williams and she had a song called “Cat Scratching” and it was in between their two records, and they’re singing background on that also.
SG: You know when Mike’s mother moved away about 5, 6 months ago, she had this box sitting in there and it was full of dubs and tapes and he didn’t want to throw them away, so I took them.
JD: Have you got them?
SG: Yeah.
JD: Thank God.
SG: The original “Love Walked Out” is on the audio tape.
JD: Fabulous. Because I wanted, I’ve been trying to get ahold of Mike so we could get together and get all that music transferred over to DAT so that it doesn’t get any worse, it doesn’t disintegrate and then make a deal, that’s why I’ve been trying to get him to call me so we can fine out what tapes he’s got, so we can get some of this stuff out.
SG: He doesn’t have them, I’ve got them. In fact, I’ve even got one we would, contemplating on doing, B.B. Nicholsen and myself and the group, called ourselves the Newlyweds at the time, now we’re called The Bills, I have a rough, rough draft of it on audio tape. It was nice. In fact, I think I got all this stuff around here Johnny. I’ll just have to go through it and pull it out and I need to look very carefully, but see I got nothing to do in the daytime.
JD: Fabulous.
SG: I’ve retired. I’m retired, so I can do this for you tomorrow if you want or sometime next week.
JD: That would be, boy that would be soon enough, but I’ll definitely get this cassette ready so at least I can get one over for you so you can put it on, and we can compare notes on some of this great stuff. Because I just wondered, I always, I’m trying to track down the tapes and everything and make sure I know at least, I want to do a couple of CDs of just Arizona rhythm and blues groups man and I know it’ll sell everywhere, ‘cause the quality is so wonderful.
SG: I offered this proposal to him two years ago.
JD: To Mike?
SG: I said, why don’t we take the stuff that we got and scrounge for the master’s here and we can put together a CD called “Desert Doo Wop.”
JD: There you go.
SG: And we could put a good cactus scene on front with rich mountains and a coyote sitting there with a set of headphones one. And I said it’d probably cost us about, you know I was trying to feel to his financial sense, it’d probably cost about $4 a piece to make, and we can sell them for $10 as a set. And I said they would go over big in England if you can find a couple of copies, or we can find a couple of the Servicemen to add to it. You know make it a 12-cut CD. And it never bothered him.
JD: Well it bothers me ‘cause we’re going to put like, we’re going to make probably like 18-20 cuts on it, ‘cause you can do that on a CD and charge a little more ‘cause I think, ‘cause that was my idea,” Desert Doo Wops,” that’s the same exact thing that I’ve been thinking, that idea of just getting some of the better stuff on, La Chords and you can make at least 2 volumes to start with and maybe do a couple more if they go well and as you say, you can do them for, maybe even less than $4 if you do a run of a thousand.
SG: I know one that you haven’t got Johnny.
JD: What’s that Sid?
SG: There’s one I wrote in 15 minutes, it’s called “Down To The Nightclub.” Hell, I can’t remember the lyrics after all these years, but anyway, we cut a tape on it, somebody did it.
JD: Well, I remember the “Down To The Nightclub” that was the…Tower of Power.
SG: Yep, it was called “Funky Nightclub,” that’s what it was called.
JD: But it never was pressed? (Released in 2023 on Ramco Records)
SG: No.
JD: That’s what, great.
SG: Down a rough and bumpy streets, it’s smooth (?) where all the cool people meet, etc. etc. They got a smooth bartender that knows all the answers, it took me about 5 minutes to write that with Mike helping me.
JD: So, you’ve got the original master though of the Newlyweds?
SG: I’m hoping very much ‘cause I don’t have a reel to reel.
JD: OK.
SG: I’ve got tape deck, I’ve got cassette deck, I’ve got everything else, but all my reel to reel’s seem to fall apart.
JD: Well what we need to do, I mean, get all your tapes together and we’ll go down to Jack Miller who was the, he’s my buddy and he does all my transfers for me and we’ll put everything on DAT and we’ll take, so that we can have a nice copy and you don’t have to worry about the tapes getting bad or anything.
SG: Yeah, ‘cause I got them locked away where they are nice and cool.
JD: Fabulous.
SG: And they’ve been sitting there for the last, I don’t where he had them, but we were cleaning up his room and he came across these tapes.
JD: I can’t, that’s so wonderful they didn’t get thrown out Sid.
SG: I want them, give me them.
JD: Oh man bless your heart, man, because I always get those stories, well we threw them out a year ago. Hey, another guy, you know Hadley, not Hadley, but Austin, Art Coleman and Austin Barrett, Barrett and Coleman, you know that Dyke and the Blazers?
SG: Yeah, and the Traditions.
JD: And the Traditions, My Heart, man what a beautiful record.
SG: They also did…
JD: They did Eddie, they did Eddie separately, they did Ernie Johnson separately and I think that’s, they had about 4 records and I’ve got… Oh Sid, what time can we get together tomorrow?
SG: I got to get out of here Johnny D. about 5 o’clock in the morning and go down to the dialysis center and get my treatment. And see my cars broke, so my mechanic is fixing on that. And while they are doing that, I can pull this stuff for you.
JD: Oh, that would be wonderful Sid.
SG: See there’s nobody here in the daytime but me and my wife and my grandchildren coming from school. And I can go through my 45s and pull this and get everything with the…
JD: Anything with a Phoenix connection.
SG: Plus, the box of dubs, ‘cause I don’t know what’s really in there, ‘cause I didn’t want to disturb them. These are some of the original shellacs.
JD: The acetates then.
SG: Yeah, these are the ones they cut to hear what it sounds like. I mean it’s just that metal with the shellac on it?
JD: Oh Sid, I’m so glad you got those tapes, I mean, I’ve been for 3 years, I’ve been trying to get Mike man and they call me from Trax In Wax and went oh yeah Big Mike was just here last week man, and I said well tell him to call Johnny D, man.
SG: I don’t like to talk about my partner, see, but I got to tell you what’s going on, so you can understand why he’s hard to come by.
JD: I’m also, just so you know, I called his brother like 4 or 5 years ago who said he would call his mother and leave a message at the mothers to call Johnny D. the next time and this was like 4 years ago and I never heard a thing, so Mike and his brother might not get along.
SG: Oh yeah, they get along.
JD: They do?
SG: Yeah, well see Mike has this young lady and she has taken him to the curb and up over. I mean, it’s pitiful. I mean, I can’t get him to take anything or do anything. He doesn’t even call me when I leave a message for him. In fact, I know where he works but he won’t call me. Him and her are fighting awfully, so he won’t call.
JD: Is he in town?
SG: I don’t know.
JD: Because he comes, I heard he came back and he said he was doing a dance with Rosie and the Originals, twice that was the story at …
SG: OK, that was then…
JD: That was when he came to Prickly Pair a couple of years ago.
SG: Yeah, I was with him less than that, I was with him when I was in a wheelchair last year.
JD: That’s when?
SG: October.
JD: But that’s what they said, yeah, he was in with Sid. And I’m going man, somebody tell him to call Johnny D, man…
SG: You know, and he got the message. I can’t understand, he kept telling me I gotta call Johnny D, I gotta call Johnny and I kept saying, well call Johnny D. Maybe we can get together and do my ideas.
JD: Absolutely, well we’re going to do it Sid.
SG: And then he says, he says, well what am I going to do. I said, well call the man and talk to him. He said I’ll call him, and he never did.
JD: Yeah, OK. Sid’s on the case.
SG: So, when, yeah, when Roy told me that you wanted to speak to me, I said sure. Give him the number, tell him to call me.
JD: Oh great, man, that was so great, I just couldn’t believe it, ‘cause I’m really, I mean I tracked most of the stuff, when you see what I’ve done with the Tads, I’ll bring that thing over and you can see how nice that came out, the Tad stuff and we’re doing something with Floyd Ramsey, I mean, I’ve really tracked down just about every tape that I know about in town, you know rockabilly and country and everything, but I love the R & B and Big Mike was the one guy that I’m missing. I have Hadley nailed down, I mean, he’s ready to go, all of his stuff and there’s just, Mike was the missing, you know the missing man, the main man and I just…we had such a great time together on the radio show. I’ll make you a copy of that show too.
SG: Yeah, he told me about that show, it played in England too, didn’t it?
JD: Well somebody said it did, yeah, somebody said someone took a copy over to England or something and it played, but it’s great, I’ll play 3 or 4 records and blab about what I know, I mean, and I know so much more now than I did then and then Big Mike would play these records and he’d talk about “The Quarrel” and talked about driving the bus for Ike and Tina Turner, and hey about Jimmie Knight, how about Jimmie Playboy Knight?
SG: Jimmie “Playboy” Knight, let me think.
JD: Remember that record, “Little Ann” with Henry Mojo Thompson who was, Henry Thompson who’s another guy I tracked down, Henry was a Tad also.
SG: Yeah.
JD: And Henry’s in town, bless his heart, I made him a bunch of tapes of his stuff.
SG: Boy, you’re digging up old memories that I thought I’d almost forgot.
JD: Oh, you can’t forget them, Sid.
SG: We did a show at the American Legion one night, at 2nd Avenue and Grant. Down there. And we did it with the Newlyweds and we had an appreciative audience, I mean, they were juiced, and we did some things and finally we ran out of routine numbers to do for them because everything we did, they exploded. So, Mike says, do you know any songs? I said yeah. He said tell the band what you’re doing, singing. Me? Me, sing lead? You’re kidding, I’m the bass. So we did, we did Eugene Church, “Pretty Girls Everywhere.”
JD: Pretty Girls.
SG: And I stretched it out.
JD: (singing)
SG: You know she was a pretty girl, that’s how you married her. (singing) Oh man, we kicked that around for 15 minutes, they were stomping and throwing beer cans at the ceilings and I said Jesus let me get home in one piece. Oh, do you remember Celestine? Celestine McGee, she was part of the Newlyweds after Betty left.
JD: No, I don’t know that name.
SG: Celestine McGee.
JD: Did she do “Those Very Tender Moments”? (Qunestine Strong on Raina)
SG: Yes.
JD: That, what’s the other producer guy, Laurence Carroll?
SG: Yeah, have you got any of them?
JD: Yes, I do.
SG: OK, one more question Johnny. Do you have any Galaxy 45s?
JD: Oh, we’re talking Little Johnny Taylor and …
SG: No, no I’m talking, I’m talking the Sevilles.
JD: The Sevilles, “Charlena.”
SG: Oh, I would kill for a copy of that.
JD: Oh, my man, I think we can probably do some stuff, of course I got “Charlena.” Oh Charlena…
SG: Yep.
JD: Oh yeah, I used to play that record all the time. I got a promo, you know down at M.B. Krupps, on that stuff. And the other one was Roger Collins, “She’s Looking Good” was on that label too.
SG: I got a 45 of that upstairs.
JD: And then of course, Little Johnny Taylors stuff. But yeah, “Charlena,” yeah, I’ve got that.
SG: Oh, could you please.
JD: I got that Sid.
SG: You need a Mighty Records tape, I can give it to you.
JD: I have High Bias tapes, I always record on High Bias tapes.
SG: Alright. I hope to see you, my man.
JD: Well listen, we’re just going to have to get together and just chill for awhile man and just really, ‘cause let alone the Phoenix stuff, I know I got a bunch of stuff that maybe I can surely make you tapes or anything I got, any other R & B, because I’ve got boxes and boxes of R & B records that I used to play but sounds like our musical tastes are right down the same line, man.
SG: OK, the radio station that has the towers in Guadalupe?
JD: That’s KUPD.
SG: OK, we did a show one day out there with, hell I can’t think of the guy’s name.
JD: Rick Nune?
SG: No, black dude.
JD: With Captain Jack, Terry Walker?
SG: No, I almost had it for a second. We were out there one day and he’s cutting a promo for “Love Uprising” or something they were doing, him and Mike were talking on the tape and doing something like that, and I threw in a little “Love Uprising.” Oh Johnny Lewis, no Johnny D, no. Oh God I can’t think of his name. He had a little, a little real estate office right there in the 21 Century complex on Washington. And in fact, I’ve got him on video tape introducing some local guys called the Infatuations.
JD: Oh yes, um, well ‘cause Big Mike did that, that was…I’ve got that album, man, what a great song. There were 3 guys…
SG: Charles Baptiste and…
JD: Right. I’ve got that album, and I’ve got that album and a couple of singles.
SG: You want a fresh, sealed factory sealed copy of that?
JD: Oh absolutely.
SG: I’ll get you one that’s never been played.
JD: Oh, fabulous man. That was a wonderful group, because I was still playing and I remember Big Mike was running around ‘cause I was still doing R & B with Johnny D on some station and I remember him bringing that in and that was a beautiful album, that was a great record man.
SG: ‘Cause we cut a video of it, I don’t know if I have it, I don’t know what Mike did with the video but we cut it out to, what is now called Cox, it was way out on the Black Canyon Highway.
JD: Right, Cox Communications sure.
SG: We cut a video, and I think I got it upstairs someplace on one of my old beta tapes but I’m not quite sure. Featuring the DJ introducing each one and then having a conversation in between with people and people that came in you know about how good these guys were. I was the cameraman.
JD: Oh fabulous.
SG: I was all over the place with that damn camera, but you know after two takes, I got it down to a science, I could zoom, switch, back up, turn, pan, no problem. I think I have that video tape upstairs, that would be worth something to somebody.
JD: That would be to me. To you and me.
SG: Charles Baptist, I think his name was.
JD: Yeah, but you’re right, because it was a great song. “Infatuation,” was the song, but that was also the name of the group, The Infatuations, wasn’t it?
SG: Yes, and Lewis, it was by the Electric DJ, guess who?
JD: It must’ve been you?
SG: No, it was Mike.
JD: It was Big Mike, the Electric DJ, yeah, but I just remember that song, ‘cause it was so nice and smooth man, it was just, there wasn’t anything like it in Phoenix at the time. And it just never, I was so disappointed, but like so many, so much great music of all kinds, country, rock, it was great music, but it just never got out of here, you know, it could never break outside of Arizona.
SG: Yeah, I know, we’ve sent a lot of stuff away. Oh, do you remember, Al Reed and the Pipers, they came through they were like running, what we call the Chitlin’ circuit, playing black clubs. (Ramco Records released Al Reed and The Pipers, “Funky, Funky Curfew” in 2023)
JD: Al Reed, no I don’t.
SG: OK, Al Reed and the Pipers, they came out here from Cleveland, along with a group called Eddie O’Jay and his group the O’Jays.
JD: Well, I remember Eddie O’Jay on KCAC.
SG: And the O’Jays are the same O’Jays that are famous
JD: That’s right.
SG: They came through, but they brought a young piano player with them. And he spent most of his time banging away at the piano. He was a big heavy-set dude who liked to wear a beard and a mustache, his name was Barry White.
JD: Wow. That’s amazing.
SG: I talked to Barry White one night.
JD: Well you know, before Art Barrett died, I talked to him and his daughter, she’s got some tapes in the closet and I keep saying, please will you call me sometime I mean because tapes can be destroyed, I mean I’ll make you a great copy just to know because he thought might have some Eddie and Ernie and one of the records he did later on, one was by the TNT Flashers who became DeBarge, they were members of the DeBarge that were over here for awhile here too, I mean, there’s just been amazing, a lot of people have kind of filtered through this town here at one time or another and were involved with people.
SG: Marcy from Earth, Wind and Fire was from here. (I cannot verify this story)
JD: I’m sorry, who?
SG: Marcy that played in Earth, Wind and Fire, she was from here. She lived 3 doors away from my uncle’s house on West Adams. Marcy Jones I think her name was, she always wanted to be big time and her song riff was always, she wanted to do the abstract like, give me a good female singer like, Dakota Staton.
JD: Dakota Staton, right.
SG: (singing) She was into that sort of stuff. When we found out that Marcy was playing with Earth, Wind and Fire we went damn. You know.
JD: Richard Cason was another guy who I know who hung around here, he ended up producing the Whispers and stuff, he was another guy that I know came, played at various functions here. But oh man, that’s so great, that’s so neat to…
SG: OK, it’s stuff like, Richard Casey played in a funky nightclub right at the corner of 2nd Street and Jefferson, a real rough dive. And Rodney Brown…OK, the name of the club was called the El Paso Buffet or something, I mean, it was a dive. The guys used to sit in and I worked at the door and he’d give us all at the door, as long as they came in and drank at the bar. Richard Casey and the two other guys from the Blazers did set. One time Rodney didn’t show up with the drums, my brother volunteered, they sent him home to get his drum set, he’d come back and set in on that. And Casey is playing the organ. And they cooked for about 5 hours and the place was jumping man, drunks every place and we were stomping, the building was rocking, dust was coming out the cracks and stuff, roaches and bugs were running every other place, see I can describe this. We were louder than they were. You don’t need none of my running commentary on that.
JD: I love it all.
SG: And before they tore down that place on Buckeye Road, what was it, Lincoln Liquor?
JD: Lincoln Liquor?
SG: Lincoln Liquor.
JD: Well that was another, wasn’t there a place called Dupa Jacks on 16th, there was a liquor store, because I notice this guy Dupa Jack and I always wondered if that was the same guy.
SG: It was. Until he got involved in a homicide.
JD: There was something, yeah, I do remember that kind of, but I do remember that store.
SG: The cops used to stop him all that time and called him the “Congo Playing Killer.”
JD: Wow.
SG: You know, the Phoenix Police were always on him. Dupa Jack, Harold Jack, Harold Jack was the older brother that I used to run around with.
JD: Didn’t the place burn down or blow up or something goofy.
SG: Yeah, truthfully between you and I, I think that somebody was Dupa and he set fire to it.
JD: Yeah. To get out of the deal.
SG: That’s between you and me. They were after Dupa and burned the place down, somebody told them that he stayed there at night. Burned the damn place down to the ground.
JD: Well listen, I’m going to jump, because I’m just so excited and I got to start working on this tape for you anyway, but I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll, I’d love to just swing by man and take a peak and find out what I’m missing of, that’s just going to just knock me over and I’ll show you the stuff that I’ve been working on and I’d love to just, you know, maybe see what we’ve got in the way of tapes there to see about putting something together here, I think that’d be fabulous.
SG: No problem, Johnny.
JD: Desert Doo- Wop, that’s awesome.
SG: Let me pull them first.
JD: Absolutely.
SG: I know they’re up there because I just went through them the other day, most of them.
JD: Fabulous.
SG: I think I made my brother in Alaska, a tape, I found me some John Lee Hooker that ran for 10 minutes off an LP. And he sits there and it’s typical John Lee Hooker for 7 minutes man, with that… this tape is going to melt the heads in his damn cassette player, ‘cause I put a radiation warning on it, please do not play unless protected. I like doing those things for my brother.
JD: Oh, that’s great.
SG: OK.
JD: Alright Sid, well listen I’ll be in touch man, and I’m so glad I finally got your number, man.
SG: You must’ve just called Roy.
JD: No, no Roger, I’ve had it for about 3 weeks now and I’ve been to Austin, I did a record show in Austin, I kind of do record shows and stuff and I just got back, and you know I call around, I have these numbers and I file them all away and I think well tonight, I’m going to call Sid Grant, man, and I just made a list of everything that I had with your name on it in my computer and it spit it out and I said I got to call Sid here.
SG: That sounds good, anytime you want to call man, I’m here usually from 6 on, I’m here. Unless I’m trying to fix, trying to keep my Ford running. Well, it’s getting night and my age, I usually go to ed with the chickens now. Like 3 in the morning after I get tired, ‘cause I can’t go to sleep you know so I need to exercise.
JD: Alright Sid.
SG: I have the hand waxed Thunderbird you ever seen, man.
JD: That’s beautiful.
SG: OK, Johnny I’ll you want I’ll pull the stuff for you tomorrow when I come in.
JD: Great, we’ll talk tomorrow.
SG: I’ll pull the stuff out for you, and I’ll get the box and see what I got from Mike.
JD: I’ll get this tape together for you.
SG: Ok, my man.
JD: And I’ll put “Charlena” on there as the first one, even though it’s not from Arizona, I’ll put it on first for you.
SG: Oh, wait a minute, don’t go. The Charms.
JD: The Charms?
SG: There was one record that never charted. It was called “Let Your Sweet Love Rain Down All Over Me. Tiny Whitecloud, Let Your Sweet Love Rain Down Over Me.” It’s got raindrops and wind and thunder, and it’s got that typical Otis Redding feeling, it’s a ballad. It’s nice, see if you’ve got it, it was on the flip side of one of them magnificent hits and none of these people have it, oh, it didn’t chart, we don’t put nothing on that don’t chart. OK. Excuse me. That’s what I told them. I knew there was something I was looking for. I need a clean copy of that so I can drive my brother insane in Alaska.
JD: And “Charlena” by the Sevilles.
SG: And Worley and the Drops.
JD: That’s Arizona, that’s covered man, that’s a given.
SG: And you know I haven’t heard that in almost 20 years?
JD: Oh man.
SG: I’m probably going to faint.
JD: Fabulous. And it was a gold paper label, it looked so bad, because Ramco had all these different colored labels, and this one just happened to be gold, and you never see it. I’ve got a copy and I’ve seen one other copy since I’ve been doing this now in the last 6 years, but I know where the master is, it’s coming out this year, it’ll be out on this Floyd Ramsey thing that we’re doing.
SG: I thought Floyd was dead?
JD: Oh no, Floyd is doing very fine. He’s living the good life up on, he’s up on Squaw Peak, he has a nice house up on the side of Squaw Peak. I see him all the time.
SG: Do you remember the engineer for Floyd, Dave Oxman?
JD:  Yes, Dave Oxman.
SG: He did, he engineered all of our stuff, that’s why we got mostly that clean sound.
JD: The Cosmic Water Buffalo.
SG: Huh?
JD: They called him the “Cosmic Water Buffalo.”
SG: Oh man, what an engineer.
JD: Dave Oxman.
SG: He’d funk that stuff up and it came out so beautiful.
JD: Now they had some good engineers, and Jack Miller was great too and Jack has the original 3-track, he’s got the Audio Recorders 3-track machine down at his, Floyd Ramsey gave it to him.
SG: I’ll be damned.
JD: It works, it’s one of the very few 3-tracks that are left in the whole country that work, it’s amazing because everybody bought a 4-track right away and so they kind of threw the 3-tracks away, but the same stuff, you know…

END OF TAPE (1/25)