Experience Unlimited - ...Free Yourself ( 1976 ). One of the best jazz-funk,soul albums.Clarence "Oscar" Smith, EXPERIENCE UNLIMITED ( E.U. ), Greylin T. Hunter, Michael Hughes, Philip Harris, WAYNE DAVIS...http://soul51.com/?tag=experience-unlimited Ballou Senior High School student Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliott wanted to be a boxer. Recognizing that he wasn’t all that good he decided to pursue his back up dream of being a rock star instead. A huge Led Zeppelin fan, 15 year-old Elliot taught himself to play bass and formed the band Experience Unlimited with kids from his Southeast DC neighborhood. The young group struggled to get gigs but things finally started to move when they won “Best Rock Group” at a Duke Ellington School of the Arts talent show. As they played around town Elliott became a fan of many of the older bands he saw on stage, especially The Soul Searchers, The Young Senators, Aggression, Mixed Breed, 100 Years Time, and Father’s Children. In 1976 Experience Unlimited—Elliott, Donald Fields, Andre Lucas, Phillip Harris, Clarence Smith, Anthony Easton, Michael Hughes, Greylin T. Hunter, and David Williams along with Melva Adams, Marvin Coward, Wayne Davis, and Bobby Owens recorded “Free Yourself,” an LP of original material on Black Fire Records at Bias Studios in Falls Church, Virginia. Elliott wrote the album’s title track. Even with an album under their belt and Elliott in a new frontman role, Experience Unlimitedstruggled to find a fan base as black artists playing rock and roll. They were just too different. A turning point came when they played with Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers at the Panorama Room and the late “Godfather of Go-Go” convinced Elliott to switch to the emerging genre. Throughout the 20th century until today Experience Unlimited (EU) has been one of DCs most successful go-go bands along with Brown, Trouble Funk, and Rare Essence. EU’s lineup changed over the years, but Elliott remained constant...

Experience Unlimited* ‎– ...Free Yourself ( 1976 )

https://www.discogs.com/Experience-Unlimited-Free-Yourself/release/2939369







Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals – Donald R. Fields
Artwork – Malik Edwards
Bass, Vocals – "Sugar Bear" Gregory Elliott*
Congas, Vocals, Percussion – “Pops” Andre Lucas
Drums – Anthony “Block” Easton
Electric Piano, Organ, Clavinet – “Professeur Funk” Michael Hughes*
Engineer – Robert Dawson
Percussion, Wood Block – "Nivram" Marvin Coward
Photography By – Norva Madden
Producer – Charles C. Stephenson, Jimmy Gray
Tenor Saxophone, Vocals – Clarence "Oscar" Smith
Timbales, Vocals, Percussion – David Williams (49)
Trombone, Vocals, Percussion – Greylin T. Hunter
Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Percussion – Philip Harris (3)
Vocals – Bobby Owens, Donna M. Taylor, Melva "Lady" Adams
Vocals, Arranged By [Vocals] – Wayne Davis (2)






https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:j0-HrVczhmEJ:https://open.spotify.com/artist/7fIfKG7oJGO4p8wvyi6adh+&cd=14&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es






They developed into one of Washington, D.C.'s original and longest lasting go-go acts. Led by bassist and vocalist Gregory "Sugar Bear" Elliott, the band had a primarily local following through performances and albums like Free Yourself (1977) and Future Funk (1982), until they scored an unlikely Top 40 pop hit (and number one R&B hit) in 1988 with "Da'Butt," featured in Spike Lee's School Daze. Later in the year, Salt 'N' Pepa attained a number four R&B chart hit with help from E.U. on "Shake Your Thang," an update ofthe Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing." E.U. signed to Virgin and charted five singles with the label, including the go-go/new jack swing hybrid "Buck Wild" and the ballad "Taste of Your Love," both of which peaked in the Top Ten of the R&B chart. E.U. subsequently returned to independence and recorded only sporadically, but they continued to perform frequently as Sugar Bear & E.U. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi






http://soul51.com/?tag=experience-unlimited










Ballou Senior High School student Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliott wanted to be a boxer. Recognizing that he wasn’t all that good he decided to pursue his back up dream of being a rock star instead. A huge Led Zeppelin fan, 15 year-old Elliot taught himself to play bass and formed the band Experience Unlimited with kids from his Southeast DC neighborhood. The young group struggled to get gigs but things finally started to move when they won “Best Rock Group” at a Duke Ellington School of the Arts talent show. As they played around town Elliott became a fan of many of the older bands he saw on stage, especially The Soul Searchers, The Young Senators, Aggression, Mixed Breed, 100 Years Time, and Father’s Children.


In 1976 Experience Unlimited—Elliott, Donald Fields, Andre Lucas, Phillip Harris, Clarence Smith, Anthony Easton, Michael Hughes, Greylin T. Hunter, and David Williams along with Melva Adams, Marvin Coward, Wayne Davis, and Bobby Owens recorded “Free Yourself,” an LP of original material on Black Fire Records at Bias Studios in Falls Church, Virginia. Elliott wrote the album’s title track.


Even with an album under their belt and Elliott in a new frontman role, Experience Unlimitedstruggled to find a fan base as black artists playing rock and roll. They were just too different. A turning point came when they played with Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers at the Panorama Room and the late “Godfather of Go-Go” convinced Elliott to switch to the emerging genre.


Throughout the 20th century until today Experience Unlimited (EU) has been one of DCs most successful go-go bands along with Brown, Trouble Funk, and Rare Essence. EU’s lineup changed over the years, but Elliott remained constant.


“I kept going because I love to play,” says Elliott. “That’s my high, I don’t care if it’s five people or 5,000, I love to play.” In 1988 EU brought go-go to national attention with the #35 Billboard Hot 100 single “Da Butt,” which was featured in Spike Lee’s 1988 film “School Daze.”


“My mother thought I was making noise and told me to shut that stuff up, but once she finally saw me on TV she was in awe,” says Elliott.


“Da Butt” attracted record companies from Motown to Warner Brothers to Virgin Records, which they eventually signed with, releasing their sixth LP “Livin’ Large” in 1989. EU has shared the stage with Earth Wind & Fire, Whitney Houston, Bob Dylan, James Brown, and New Kids on the Block. The band records and performs constantly but Gregory laments the status of go-go today.


“This is the go-go capital of the world but everything is still neutral. I have to do something to bring it back to national attention.”


You can purchase EU‘s music here and here.

Johnny Harris - Movements (1970). Clasic album. One of the best grooves of all time ( Stepping Stones with incredible Harold McNair and guitars ),Bobby Lamb, Chris Spedding, Derek Healey, Harold Fisher, Harold McNair, Herbie Flowers, John Dean, JOHNNY HARRIS, Roger Coulam, Tony Fisher.Include interview .

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• Johnny Harris ‎– Movements ( 1970 )

  https://www.discogs.com/es/Johnny-Harris-Movements/release/2000483

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Arranged By, Conductor – Johnny Harris
Artwork – Darren Stuart, Mental Block
Bass – Herbie Flowers
Drums – Harold Fisher
Engineer – Bob Auger
Flute – Harold McNair
Guitar – Bill Parkinson, Chris Spedding
Interviewer – Darren Stuart
Liner Notes – Darren Stuart
Organ – Roger Coulam
Percussion – Johnny Dean*
Photography By – Jerry Moran (2)
Piano, Arranged By, Conductor – Johnny Harris
Producer – Daniel Secunda, Johnny Harris
Reissue Producer – Rick Conrad
Remastered By – Giovanni Scatola
Trombone – Bobby Lamb
Trumpet – Derek Healy*, Tony Fisher (2)














http://www.walesartsreview.org/in-conversation-with-johnny-harris/












IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHNNY HARRIS





Johnny Harris is a composer, arranger, conductor and producer whose musical career spans more than 60 years. He trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, specialising in trumpet and piano, and spent his early career in the 1950s playing in dance bands. Towards the end of that decade, he had his first opportunities to arrange as part of Cyril Stapleton’s band. His time at Pye Records in the 1960s saw him work with Petula Clark, Lulu and Françoise Hardy as well as a host of less familiar acts whose recordings have since been rediscovered by fans of Northern Soul and British girl singers.


For two years at the end of the 1960s, Harris was Tom Jones’ musical director. The two men formed a dynamic partnership, with Harris himself attracting a lot of attention as a result of his energetic conducting style. In 1970, he helped turn around the career of Shirley Bassey, with whom he recorded ‘Something’ and an LP of the same name which went on to become Bassey’s biggest selling to that point. The two recorded a total of six albums together, with the singer telling the NME in 1971 that in Johnny Harris she had found her ‘husband in music’. Harris moved to the USA in 1972 where he began a long musical relationship with Paul Anka, as well as working with George Hamilton, Lynda Carter, Diana Ross and many others.


He has released solo work including Movements (1970) and All to Bring You Morning (1973), has scored for film and TV and is sometimes referred to as ‘The Man Who Turned Down Elvis Twice’, an epithet which provided Julie Pearce-Martin with the title of her 2012 biography of her father. His distinctive orchestral arrangements, often with the rhythm section to the fore, gives his work a contemporary sound which continues to find a new audience.


Now in his eighties, he is still working, and his music can currently be heard in the final season of the Palm Springs Follies, a dance and musical review show with a cast of members aged 55 and over, for which he has provided the music since its opening in 1990. It was from his home in Palm Springs that Johnny spoke to me when I interviewed him in October last year.


Graham Tomlinson: I’ve heard you refer to yourself in interviews as Welsh, although I know that you were actually born in Edinburgh. For the benefit of Wales Arts Reviewreaders, could you clarify your Welsh background?


Johnny Harris: My mother was from Newcastle, and my father was Welsh. I was born in Edinburgh in 1932, and I was only there for about six months of my life because my father was a musician and he was working there. My mother got pregnant and had me there at the hospital. So I was born in Scotland and then went back to London where we actually lived. With that in mind, I thought OK, it’s Welsh heritage because my father’s Welsh, so I adopted that. My father also went to the same school as Tom Jones’ father, in Pontypridd.


I understand you also spent some time in Wales as an evacuee?


I was in Pontypridd and Rhydfelen. I had three cousins and I was an only child, so when I was evacuated there, it was a lot of fun. I mean it was better than the bombs dropping, which I’d experienced in London – the Battle of Britain was pretty hairy. So yes, I went out there and it was great – having no brothers and sisters, it was great to be able to play with my cousins and we did all sorts of fun stuff.


After your work in dance bands in the 1950s, it was Tony Hatch who gave you an important break. British TV viewers of a certain age know him as a presenter on New Faces, but of course he has an important body of work in his own right. How did your connection with him come about?


That changed my life. It came about because I decided to quit playing trumpet in bands and concentrate on arranging. I’d been doing that a lot for the bands I was actually playing trumpet in – I was doing most of the arrangements for those orchestras at that time. I was tired of touring and I had two small kids, and I decided I wanted to get off the road. I met an Australian guy, Bill Wellings, and he told me that he wanted to put out a record called Top Six: we were going to try and guess what the six top hits would be the following month. And of course the EP with six tracks on it was sold for the same price as a single, so he thought that would be a good business situation. To cut a long story short, he said, ‘Would you do the arrangements? I’ll pick the songs.’ As it happened at that time there were two or three people whose songs were in the chart parade all the time, so it was usually at least one or two Beatles songs on these Top Six records, and Dave Clark and all that stuff. He said, could you do what we call now ‘covers’? In other words I would copy the arrangement and I would get the singers into Pye studios. The drummer was Jimmie Nicol, who eventually became the fifth Beatle about a year later [he deputised for Ringo Starr when the drummer was ill with tonsillitis in the summer of 1964]. We put the first record out and it got into the charts at about number 30, and so we thought we were onto a winning thing. We proceeded to carry on for about another three or four months and then the sales started to drop off as kids started to realise that they weren’t the originals (laughs). It was towards the ending of the Top Six that I got a call from Tony Hatch and he said, ‘I’ve heard your work. I produce and arrange everything myself, but as the producer I need to be in the control room. I need someone to conduct the orchestra on the floor whilst I’m up there. Would you be interested?’ And of course I said yes and the rest is history.


A number of the artists you recorded and worked with at Pye didn’t have hits at the time, but were rediscovered later by fans of Northern Soul and British girl singers. Some of these performers, like Lorraine Silver (‘Lost Summer Love’) and Tammy St John (‘Dark Shadows and Empty Hallways’) were only about 13 or 14 when they did those sessions. What do you remember of them?


Tammy I remember. She was 14, and she had a powerful voice. I think her Mum was there at the recording studios when we did the tracks. She was very talented, very advanced for her age. That’s what impressed me and why I wanted to record her.


When did you realise – or when did someone tell you – that some of these songs were being picked up in Northern Soul clubs in the 1970s?


I didn’t – in 1972 I’d moved to the States for Paul Anka, so I didn’t know much about that.


You worked with Tom Jones from about late 1966 to 1968/1969. What sort of relationship did you have with him, and what was his relationship like with the musicians?


I had a great time with Tom in that two-and-a-half years. That was my first trip to America, with Tom. That’s when I fell in love with the States and decided that I wanted to move here, which I eventually did. It was great because Tom was so hot at that time – he was probably the hottest thing on the planet. We went to Miami for a week, to run the new show in, because we just needed to make sure the arrangements were right and the right keys and everything, so we did that and everything worked. Then we went to New York and played the Copacabana – we followed Sammy Davis Jr there. That was fun, because it was run by the Mob, so that was my first relationship with the guys with the bent noses and ears – it was interesting, to say the least! (laughs). After that we went to Vegas to work there for a month at the Flamingo. That was amazing. I met so many people. Everyone came to see Tom. Gordon Mills, his manager, had a wonderful idea. He had these little candies in jars and they were called ‘Tom Jones Fever Pills’ and they were given out to the females who came to see him – if you’re feeling you’re going to faint, just take one of these! That was a marvellous idea. As I said, everyone came to see him, and that was the first time I met Elvis, when he came to see him.


Tom was an absolute gent to work with. I was very close to Tom, because I never stayed in a hotel room by myself – I always stayed in his suite. I always travelled with him when we did British tours, in his Rolls Royce, just me and him in the back and his driver in the front. And I always shared his dressing rooms, including in Vegas, and when everybody came back to see him, I was already in there. He loved his musicians. I think three of them were Welsh, except for [guitarist] Bill Parkinson, but Tom was great with his musicians. They were old buddies. They were called The Squires, the rhythm section, and Tom had worked with them, just with them, on many big tours after ‘It’s Not Unusual’ came out. It wasn’t until about a year, 18 months later that his manager decided that he wanted to have a big orchestra behind him on stage, and that’s when I was pulled in by Gordon Mills to do all the arrangements and eventually become his music director for those two-and-a-half years.


There’s a great album from that period, Live! At the Talk of the Town (1967). When the band goes into ‘Land of a Thousand Dances’ at the end, the atmosphere is absolutely electric. . .


The Talk of the Town was the first time I started to move around as a conductor, because Tom was moving around, and I started moving around, and the orchestra would all get excited. After the opening night I went back to the dressing room and all of the press were up there. And they all wanted to talk to me as well, and I thought, ‘What do they want to talk to me for?’ They said, ‘We’ve never seen anyone conduct an orchestra like that – you were jumping all over the stage like Tom!’ I didn’t know, I just got carried away. And ‘Thousand Dances’, when we closed with that every night it was just burning up – the crowds were nuts. And my father was in the orchestra there. We have pictures of Tom, myself and my father. He was a great violin player so I said I wanted him in my orchestra. And Tom said, ‘Let’s get him in then!’ In other words that album means a lot to me too because my father was also in the orchestra. And that’s the first time I conducted on stage live, ever. I was definitely nervous, but Tom put me at ease because he said, ‘We’ll be fine – let’s just go out and rock and roll. Just whip that band up, Johnny!’ And so I did. It was extremely exciting and as I say, the first time he’d worked with the big orchestra, and my first time. So it was like the birth of this new Tom Jones with the big orchestra and this lunatic conductor jumping about.


You worked with Shirley Bassey on the Something LP when her career at the end of the 1960s was a bit in the doldrums. How did you first meet her?


I was contacted to do an arrangement for one of her albums by Norman Newell, who was producing her at that time. So I did that, and we got chatting on the phone to work out the arrangement – the key and everything – and I said my father’s Welsh. And she said, ‘Oh, you have Welsh heritage?’ I said yes, and she started to talk in that accent (laughs). Tom and I used to sometimes talk like that, just for laughs. I did that arrangement and recorded the song and she really loved it. It sounded great. I moved on, doing my other arrangements, and eventually I got a call from Noel Rodgers at United Artists, and he said I want to do an album with Shirley and I’d like you to do the arrangements. I had a manager at that time who will remain nameless, who said I’ll set it up so you can be the producer as well. So Noel was the executive producer, but I was the producer and arranger.


You’re right, her career was a little in the doldrums, after ‘Goldfinger’ it went downhill a little bit, so we decided to do ‘Something’, the George Harrison song. At that time we’d started recording the rhythm section and then sweetening it later – do the tracks, the singers would sing to the rhythm section track, then I would take that all back home to my office and I would write the arrangement around the vocal and the rhythm section. I was probably one of the first out there doing that. So I decided to do that with Shirley’s first album.


Because of tax reasons in the UK, she was living in the Italian Alps, so we decided we’d do it in Milan. I’d worked all the keys out with her, we’d had our meetings and everything in London, and she went home and then I went home and I wrote the rhythm section arrangements for all of the songs on the album. I recorded them with the best guys in London – you know, great musicians. I ended up getting on a plane, going to Milan, with the 8 or 16-track master tape – the first 16-track tapes were just coming in then – and the copy and my luggage.


We set up the first recording session for her to come in and put her voice on these tracks. Everything was fine, and it was just the engineer there and her husband at that time, Sergio Novak – tall, six foot two, Italian. Very nice guy, but she was definitely the boss, you could tell that (laughs). I said, ‘Let’s do “Something”. That’s the main track – let’s do that first’. And she went out into the studio and said, ‘Where’s the orchestra? Where’s all the musicians?’ I said ‘No, we’ve got the musicians on tape – you’re going to sing to tape.’ She said, ‘Is the whole band on there?’ ‘No, it’s just the rhythm section.’ She said, ‘I can’t record like that! I have to have my musicians.’ So I was stuck in Milan, United Artists paying for everything, I’m the one who’s got to figure this out somehow. Because of our friendship – and my Welsh heritage – I started going (puts on Valleys accent) a little bit like this. I said, ‘Shirley, we’ve got to do this. There’s no way around it. Do me a favour. Put your headsets on, let’s get a balance, and just listen to the track.’ So I got her to do that. She listened and said, ‘Yeah, I can hear that.’ And I said, ‘Sing into the mkec just to make sure we can hear you.’ She hummed a few lines. And the engineer said we’re fine, we’re ready to go. So I said, ‘OK. Stop the tape. Let’s go for one.’ She said, ‘I really can’t, Johnny. I love you but I can’t.’ I said ‘What do you mean, you can’t?’ She said, ‘Well, I need all those strings, this is a big ballad.’ I said, ‘I’m going to put those on later,’ and she said, ‘But I need them now!’ ‘Well you can’t have them now!’ (laughs).


So I said to the engineer, ‘Please turn the lights down in the studio. Give me a nightclub atmosphere.’ So he got the lights dimmed nicely. I took a chair and I turned it around and straddled it right in front of her. She was standing by the mike, and I said to her, ‘Shirley, just imagine this is Carnegie Hall. And I’m one of the guys in the front – just perform to them. They love you.’ And I just sat there and looked at her and was going, ‘Yeah, wow, great – great – great!’ And she delivered that take – the one we went with. It was a hole in one, she nailed it. I must have wiped a bunch of sweat beads off my forehead! And from there on she said, ‘I like doing this.’ Because she could take all the time she needed – she didn’t have to get the song done quickly because the guys are going to get paid and they’ve got to have a break and they go home and all that stuff. She eventually loved the whole idea of recording that way and I did another three albums with her, with United Artists, the same way. That was really a friendship that we built up – and we stay in touch. I love her dearly.


I know there’s a very important connection between your album Movements and some of the song choices on Something.


Yes, and the reason for that was that my album Movements preceded my work with Shirley as producer. She heard that, and when we got together at United Artists to start picking songs, she said, ‘I want to do what’s on your album.’ So there was ‘Something’. And then there was ‘Light My Fire’ – that whole lick at the beginning (sings the introduction), she just loved that and wanted to record that, so we did. Movements is still going. A friend of ours was in Tokyo and she saw Movements and they were asking $200 for it or something – the original vinyl. It’s amazing. There’s a wonderful story with Peter Sellers, telling me that he had just been listening to it, I think it had been out a few weeks. I went down to a club called Tramps in London – I don’t know if it’s still there, it was really a nice club, and all the heavyweights went down there. I was down there one night, and Peter Sellers was there. My dear friend Hank Mancini was with them – I think they’d probably just done the first Pink Panther movie. I saw Hank – we’d worked together with Tom – and he said, ‘This is Peter Sellers.’ And Peter said, ‘You’ve just got an album out, haven’t you? Movements, is that you? I just came back from Spike Milligan’s house, because he called me and said you’ve got to come over and listen to this album, and we wore the bloody thing out!’ This is not trying to sound [like] ‘Aren’t I great!’, but it was just a great thrill for me to hear someone like Peter Sellers say something like that about something I’d done. I was absolutely gobsmacked about the whole thing.


You worked with Richard Harris on the football film Bloomfield (1971), and went on to make the LP My Boy (1971) with him. Whenever I’ve read biographies of Richard Harris, his music tends to be rather overlooked. Obviously he had a very successful career as an actor, but what do you think his motivation was for making pop music?


I did two movies with him. We did Bloomfield and then Man in the Wilderness, which is still a classic movie, with John Huston. Richard was a sweetheart if you hadn’t had too much to drink. But underneath all that, he was a natural sweetheart to work with. I’m not quite sure how he decided he wanted to sing, but when Jimmy Webb approached him to sing ‘MacArthur Park’ – and I don’t know really why – he did, and that was a huge hit record. And he had that really pleasant voice, so that’s why he decided to continue, doing albums, and he actually did a lot of live shows with an orchestra, which I didn’t do because I didn’t want to go on the road with him. That was quite a career for him.


He’s a very committed vocal performer on his records – he doesn’t hold back on the emotion or the high notes. But his reputation suggests he perhaps wasn’t the easiest person to work with?


There is a story from when we were recording the My Boy album, I think – I did two or three with him. Again of course, it was all put your voice on after the orchestra’s done and all that, there was no problem with him for that anyway. I was recording one of the songs with him, and he would get to a spot and he would screw up. And he said, ‘You know what’s wrong? It’s these headsets. I don’t like the headsets!’ So I said, ‘OK.’ And this is where my being a producer and a psychologist and a shrink all at the same time comes in – you know, that’s what you have to do. So I said, ‘Oh dear,’ and I went into the engineer. The engineer took some out and put another pair on. ‘OK, roll the tape. Here we go!’ And we got to the same place, and he said, ‘No. These headsets are no good either.’ I knew it wasn’t the headsets, that was his excuse, and I knew I’d got to really play this carefully.


There were about eight pairs of headsets around the studio for the musicians there, so we tried them all, and the same place – he screwed up. He said, ‘I can’t do this, I’m going to go home.’ And I thought the next thing he’s going to do is go out, get drunk, come back and punch everybody. So I thought, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ My engineer, Eddy Offord – who eventually worked with the group Yes, and now lives in Atlanta I think, a brilliant engineer – he said, ‘I’ve got my headsets.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ ‘Richard?’ ‘Yeah?’ – on the talkback. ‘Eddy’s got his own private pair that he only uses when he records Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.’ ‘Ohhh! Well could I try those?’ ‘Well, you know these are his. What do you think, Eddy? Is it alright?’ ‘Oh yeah, that’s alright. He can have them.’ He said, ‘Well let me have them then!’ So I said, ‘You’ve got to be really careful with these, Richard, because they’re Eddy’s, you know? And I mean you don’t want to screw up with Yes and ELP.’ And he said, ‘OK, let me try them on. Roll the tape!’ He got to the spot and we all crossed our fingers and he sailed beautifully across it, sang all the way through the song. And he said, ‘I told you it was the headsets, didn’t I?’ The thing about the story is, the headsets were exactly the same as the other ones he’d been using. They were no different – they weren’t any better or any worse.


I can understand what you mean when you say you’re not just the producer – you’ve got to work out the best way to get someone to sing, whether it’s turning the lights down or playing a little joke.


And with other people I’ve worked with, you know, they can be great singers, or they can be new kids coming up – you’ve got to have a relationship, you’ve got to get to know them like family. Because it’s a very personal thing, to produce somebody’s record. If it doesn’t go, their career’s over, and if it does – the stars are the limit. You need to be able to take them by the hand and get them through. And of course you have to change paths in the style you do that, because the artists are all different. Some people wouldn’t like to be guided by the hand – they want to be told. You’ve got to really feel that one out. The bottom line is that you’ve got to answer to the record company, as the producer, and you’re in charge of all the money – they’re paying for the studio time, and if you start going way over budget, or not getting a good performance or the artist walks out on you, don’t bother to come to my record company again. They won’t want to hire you. It’s a lot of pressure in that regard, but you mustn’t show it to them – just make them as relaxed as possible.


If I watch a clip of you conducting ‘Downtown’ on Lulu’s TV show, or listen to the version of ‘Paint It Black’ from Movements, the music is incredibly exciting and dynamic. When you listen to other people’s work, where do you hear that same kind of passion and excitement? Who are the arrangers you know you can trust to have done a great job when you see their name on a record sleeve, for example?


Nelson Riddle would be one, who I met two or three times, and was a genius. Bill Holman is an American big band jazz arranger. He’s got to be in his late eighties and still going. He’s done arrangements for Bublé, and Natalie Cole’s first album, he did two or three on that – he is a fantastic big band jazz arranger. I first heard his work with the Stan Kenton Orchestra on Contemporary Concepts, when I was about twenty, on the road with the Ken Mackintosh Band. I think it was ’55, ‘56. I had an old Grundig tape recorder which the sax player and I – we were buddies and used to share our digs – would listen to the American bands on. I got a copy of this album, put it on my tape recorder and we started listening to it. They were all Bill Holman arrangements. I’d never heard anything like this in my life before. And I’d love to meet him and just say, ‘Thank you’. That album made me think, I want to do this. I had no idea about arranging at that time, I was still a trumpet player playing in the band, and I’d decided that’s what I wanted to do, and he really changed my life. I’d love to be able to tell him. Claus Ogerman is a great arranger and composer. He did an album, Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra, and it’s absolutely great. An incredible arranger.


Your work rate in the 1960s and 1970s was astonishing, but are there performers who, for whatever reason, you missed out on working with in that period?


It’s hard, because there was Engelbert, Tom, Shirley, Pet. . .I kind of didn’t have any spare time, and those were the top guys. When I first heard Tom sing on the radio and I hadn’t met him or anything, I heard ‘It’s Not Unusual’ and I thought he was black. I didn’t know he was a white Welshman. And then I saw him when he had his rabbit’s foot on a chain around his neck – I think it was on Top of the Pops – and I read in the paper he was Welsh! It was amazing – the Welsh thing all came back around again.


Finally, do you think there is a ‘Johnny Harris sound’?


I don’t know, I wish I could answer that question. Maybe it’s my string lines. Everybody comments on my string writing. Everyone says, ‘I know that’s your arrangement!’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because it sounds like you.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, it sounds like you. . .’ I don’t know what it is. You should ask my wife (laughs). She’d explain it.

Strata East All Stars. 46.Internationale Jazzwoche Burghaussen 2015 ( Charles Tolliver, Stanley Cowell, Cecil McBee, Alvin Quenn, Jean Carn ).Live masterpiece. Video

Strata East All Star
Charles Tolliver, Stanley Cowell, Cecil McBee, Alvin Quenn, Jean Carn

The Swiss Movement ‎– It's Time For The Swiss Movement ( 1973 ). One of the best soul albums.protegees of Temptations ,arranger David Van DePitte

The Swiss Movement* ‎– It's Time For The Swiss Movement ( 1973 )

Arranged By – David Van De Pitte*, Swiss Movement (tracks: 3, 7)

• Engineer – Jim Crotty, Tom Brown, Jr.*
• Mixed By – Jim Crotty
• Producer – Cornelius Grant (tracks: 1, 3, 7, 11), Melvin Franklin (tracks: 1, 3, 7, 11), Otis Williams(tracks: 1, 3, 7, 11), Souren Mozian, Wm. B. Fox

https://www.discogs.com/es/The-Swiss-Movement-Its-Time-For-The-Swiss-Movement/release/4015068

Marco Farì
This vocal band recorded 4 singles between 1971-73, and compiled all A & B sides on this LP in1973.
AllMusic Review by Andrew Hamilton

from the rare soul LP: IT'S TIME FOR" - 1973 - RCA Victor - Staff : Ronald Williams (vocals), Arthur Booker jr (vocals), Herbert Clifton (vocals), John Hodges (vocals), David Van de Pitte (conductor,arranger).


http://www.allmusic.com/album/its-time-for-the-swiss-movement-mw0000956063

Arthur Booker, Herbert Clifton, Ronald Williams, and John Hodges were Swiss Movement, protegees of Temptations Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin, guitarist Cornelius Grant, and their D.O.C. Productions. Along with Eugene Currant, they wrote Swiss Movement's most popular record: "Take a Chance on Me." Three more singles were released from this album but none did anything due to RCA's lackluster promotion. The material ranges from ballads to midtempo numbers, with "Bring Back Your Love," "If You Need," and "Take Some Time" being especially strong. David Van De Pitte's wonderful arrangements mesh well with the quartet's soulful vocals.

The Ascots - Color me soul ( 1978 ).One of the absolute best soul albums ( Talmadge Armstrong )

The Ascots (8) ‎– Color Me Soul ( 1978 )

OLE

https://www.discogs.com/es/Ascots-Color-Me-Soul/release/1901461

• Arranged By – Ken Johnson*, Talmadge Armstrong
• Lyrics By – Ken Johnson*
• Music By – Talmadge Armstrong
• Performer – A. C. Gillory, James Kelly Duhon*, Talmadge Armstrong
• Producer – Huey P. Meaux
• Written-By – James Duhon (tracks: B2)

Notas

Published by Crazy Cajun Music, BMI
℗ 1978 Crazy Cajun Records
© 1978 Music Enterprises, Inc.

Talmadge Armstrong have other album,,the terrific The Tallest Man In Love

Charlie Parker in Sweden

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http://martinwestin.blogspot.com.es/2007/07/charlie-parker-in-sweden.html

Charlie Parker in Sweden
Charlie Parker’s sojourn in Sweden in November 1950 is the source of many stories. Among them is how he used to stay up evenings with manager Topsy Lindblom at Nalen (a dance and jazz venue in Stockholm) and that in spite of the fact that they couldn’t speak with each
other, a fellowship of souls grew. In his book Swedish Jazz History, Professor Erik Kjellberg tells how Parker travelled three weeks in Sweden. In Norway you can hear how norwegian trumpeter Rowland Greenberg travelled several weeks with Parker through Sweden. Many persons have related how they went to the movies with Parker since he could only sleep when there were lots of people around him. And yes, we’ve been told how Parker visited a Scanian farmer and played in the cowshed for his cows. However, so as to bring some order in the story flora, below is an attempt to follow Parker day for day during his time in Sweden.

Nils Hellström owned the Swedish jazz journal Estrad and was also a concert organizer. He had thought about bringing Charlie Parker to Sweden for a long time and had made several tries at co-ordinating a Parker tour with arrangers in other European countries. Still, though interest existed in several places, the co-ordinating dragged and Hellström finally tired of the whole thing, deciding to try to arrange a Sweden tour for Parker on his own.

When he got in touch with Parker’s agent Billy Shaw Artists, he thought the fee was on the high side. Shaw asked $1000 for one week, plus a first-class air ticket New York-Stockholm-New York at $785. Hellström hesitated, but finally chose to go with it, deciding on very short notice that Charlie would come to Sweden for one week at the end of November 1950. The contract was signed on the 3rd, meaning that Hellström did not even manage to get the news about Parker’s visit in the November issue of Estrad.

Parker landed at Bromma Airport in Stockholm on November 19 and was met by Swedish musicians and fans. He was accompanied by Roy Eldridge and checked into the Hotel Plaza close to Stureplan. As there was no program the first evening Parker asked trumpeter Rolf Ericson, who was going to play with him, to join him for a bite to eat. Parker had been given an advance by Nils Hellström and wanted to go to the finest restaurant in town. So Rolf took him to Berns Salonger where, according to Rolf, Charlie spent a lot of money. He spread C-notes like paper as tips to the waiters, bought several rounds for the orchestra and ordered only the most expensive items on the menu.

There is a copy of Hellström’s contract with Parker at the Museum of Jazz in Strömsholm showing what the financial terms were for the tour. At that time the exchange rate was 5.18 kronor to the dollar, meaning that Parker got 5180 kronor. However, half of this had been paid in advance to the New York agent, leaving 2590 kronor for Parker in Stockholm. One third was paid at arrival, another third on November 22 and the rest on November 26. In other words, prior to the evening at Berns with Rolf Ericson, Parker had received 865 kronor from Nils Hellstr_m. Some doubt at the story might be in order here, especially when one remembers that money was valued differently then. A male shop assistant received an average of 507 kronor per month and a female 340. In other words, Parker’s week brought him more than a female
assistant earned in a year...................................................

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