soulpope "Ever Since The World Ended, I Don`t Get Out As Much"
Registriert seit: 02.12.2013
Beiträge: 56,509
ferryGeater Davis – Lost Soul
Erstklassiger Stoff! Seine Stimme erinnert mich an Bobby Bland. :sonne:
Leider sind bei den LPs keine Liner-Notes, muss mir gleich mal ein paar Infos im Netz suchen.
Soulpope to the rescue :teufel: keine Linernotes, aber mglw noch erhellender :
Vernon Davis, nicknamed ‚Geater‚ in the Army (anybody have any clue what Geater, or for that matter, Geator means?) came up in East Texas influenced by folks like T Bone Walker and Bobby Bland. He had settled in Shreveport, Louisiana after his release from the service, and found work with an outfit called Elgie Brown and the Soul Searchers. In 1968, he was recruited by the great Ted Taylor to go out on the road with him. This was where he really ‚cut his teeth‘ as a professional musician. Upon his return, he hooked up with Eddie Giles, whose band (Eddie G and the Jive Five) would take up residency at the Fountain Lounge on the ‚Bossier Strip‘. It was there that he got to know Reuben Bell, whose ‚Beltones‘ were the house band at Kim’s, further down the strip.
In 1970, Allen Orange came to town on a promotional trip to schmooze with local radio personality B.B. (‚Bird Brain‘) Davis (pictured at right). He told Davis that he was thinking about starting up his own record label, and was on the lookout for local talent. It was B.B. that steered him in the direction of the Bossier Strip, Geater, and Reuben. A guitarist in Bell’s band named Jerry Beach had written a song that Davis recorded a demo on at the tail end of a session at Stewart Madison’s fledgling Sound City studio. This demo (which would later go on to be developed into Albert King’s signature song by Mark Lee and the boys at STAX Studio C) of I’ll Play The Blues For You so impressed Orange that he offered them both a contract, and so (as our anonymous commenter pointed out) the House Of Orange label was born.
Allen asked them to try to write some material, and set up a session at the Boutwell Studio in Birmingham, Alabama a couple of weeks down the line. Davis had never written before, but Bell ‚broke him in‘, and when they got there they were ready. Once again, Orange was impressed, telling them „I’ve been fooling around looking for records, and y’all have already got a bagful of hit records!“
HO 2401 A
Sweet Woman’s Love
Produced with somebody named Bill Crump (who, try as I may, I’ve been unable to find any info on), this haunting slow blues was the perfect vehicle for Davis‘ style. Geater told Living Blues „John R told Allen he’d help with the record… spotlighted it on those [mail order] packages they used to run on WLAC, and John played the record, played it for about two weeks… Allen took it to another friend of his [fabled Crescent City dee-jay] Shelley Pope… and the record broke in New Orleans… I’m telling you, I was so excited, I didn’t know what to do.“
Yes, Sweet Woman’s Love was a huge regional hit down south, even breaking into the Billboard R&B top 50 in December of 1970. As often happened with small independent labels, Orange had trouble keeping up with the demand for the record (reportedly selling them out of the trunk of his car), and went looking for a distribution deal. Although the details are a little sketchy, he apparently turned to Johnny Vincent at this point who was operating a company called Santo Records that listed its address as the ‚Hotel King Cotton‘ in Memphis, Tennessee. The photo at right was taken at the King Cotton and shows Allen standing to the left of Vincent with someone named Melvin Cohea on his right. Anybody familiar with him?
HO 2401 B
Don’t Marry A Fool
Here’s the B side of that record. I love the horns on here, and the cool blues guitar. I wonder if that’s Davis playing? I don’t know anything about the Birmingham studio it was recorded in… you think they had their own ‚rhythm section‘?
Flush with the success of Geater’s first single, Allen arranged for him to record material to fill out an album, also called ‚Sweet Woman’s Love‘ (HO LP 6000), at the San American Studio in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1971. Davis‘ next two singles, My Love Is So Strong For You (HO 2402) and For Your Precious Love (HO 2405), would be pulled from the album. That’s our man Orange pictured at right with Joe Lee, the engineer at San American.
In early 1972, Davis returned to his roots at Sound City in Shreveport to record another single:
HO 2407 A
I Know (My Baby Loves Me)
Sounding more like Allen’s Sound Stage 7 work than the rest (dig that Chokin‘ Kind bass line!), I think it’s a great record, although I’m not sure about the ‚Rome‘ bit at the end… Looking at the label, there are a couple of interesting things. If you notice, Bill Crump is now history, and ‚National Dist.‘ is now handled by Jamie/Guyden in Philadelphia. Also, it claims to be ‚Mfg. by Volume Complex Corp., Phila. Pa.‘ If you recall, the Paul Vann SS7 material above was ‚produced by Volume Productions‘. I wonder if there’s a connection…
House Of Orange label Releases :
House Of Orange
Hotel King Cotton
PO Box 439, Memphis, TN
1970
2400 – Kitty Clark – Big Wheel/Funny You Should Ask
2401 – Geater Davis – Sweet Womans Love (sic)/Don’t Marry A Fool
1971
2402 – Geater Davis – My Love Is Strong For You/I Can Hold My Own
2403 – Reuben Bell – I Can’t Feel This Way At Home/What’s Happening To The World
2404 – Don Varner – I Can If You Can/That’s All Right
2405 – Geater Davis – For Your Precious Love/Wrapped Up In You
2406 – Reuben Bell – What’s Happening To The World/Don’t Give No More Than You Can Take
1972
2407 – Geater Davis – Best Of Luck To You/I Know (My Baby Loves Me)
For whatever reason (my guess is that Orange had simply overextended himself, and owed too many people money) at this point „House Of Orange now seemed on the verge of collapse, and Davis feared that his career would collapse with it. ‚By that time I was like a falling bridge,‘ Davis said, ‚but John R stopped me before I got all the way down‘.“
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"Kunst ist schön, macht aber viel Arbeit" (K. Valentin)