Another Daptone Records imprint, EVER-SOUL Records, extending a careful selection of timeless vintage recordings to our customers. Daptone Records house of soul is musician-owned and run, as much as we see our reflection in the sound of bygone powerhouses like Stax and Motown, we also feel special empathy and affection for the smaller independent soul artist and effort. Daptone owes a special debt and feels a warm kinship to the example and aesthetic of these past artists and their recordings. So, Daptone goes forward, anxious to use this new arm of our company to tell the story of some of Soulful music’s little known sounds that continue to guide us today.
Darrell Banks
Don’t Know What To Do
b/w My Love Is Reserved
Listen:
SIDE A | SIDE B
Click here to Order
When it comes to sixties soul music, Memphis vs. Detroit equals raw vs. smooth, gritty vs. slick,down-home vs. uptown, right? At least that's the received wisdom. So how do you explain these two polished yet gut-wrenching tracks, originally released on the Memphis-based Stax/Volt label, by Detroiter Darrell Banks. You can star t by throwing that tired Detroit-vs.-Memphis cliché right out the window. As it turns out, the 1969 LP on which "Don’t Know What to Do" and "My Love Is Reserved" benefited from a bit of the magic of both cities.
Banks's "Here to Stay" album was, like much other Stax/Volt material of the time, ironically enough, recorded at Detroit's legendary United Sound studios, with a star-studded roster of Detroit talent chipping in: The great producer Don Davis (who’d previously worked with Banks on the hit “Open the Door to Your Hear t ” for Detroit ’s Revilot label), hired many months earlier by Stax to Detroitify its sound, helmed the sessions; bandleader-organist Rudy Robinson contributed arrangements; local board whiz Ed Wolfrum engineered; Steve Mancha and the Brothers of Soul’s Fred Bridges and Richard Knight wrote these two songs; and presumably those are some of the Funk Brothers playing, augmented by what sound like Memphis horns. The results speak for themselves: moody, punchy, relentless, with a fully produced but rough-hewn beauty to the backing that ’s just a perfect match for the deep soulfulness of Banks’s voice.
- Matt "Mr. Fine Wine" Weingarden (WFMU)
Eddie & Ernie
Bullets Don’t Have Eyes
b/w In These Very Tender Moments
PICTURE SLEEVE
Listen:
SIDE A | SIDE B
Click here to Order
 Sometime in the early 1960s Hank Mullen’s friend and fellow Buffalonian Carl LaRue, an organ player, traveled with his group (Carl LaRue and His Crew) all the way to Phoenix, Arizona, where he’d secured a steady gig as the house band at the local Zanzibar club. Soon after starting the job, he would invite a young (16yr & 19yr old) vocal duo to perform some of their original songs in front of his band during shows. Ernest Johnson Jr. and Eddie (Edgar) William Campbell were eager to make it in music and for the next 10 odd years would attempt to do so. They managed to record and release a handful of singles across varied imprints spread throughout the United States, from South Carolina to Chicago, from New York to Phoenix. One of the pairs singles, “Time Waits for No One”, hit #1 on New York’s WWRL, which subsequently landed them on the bill at the Apollo, appearing alongside soul heavyweight’s gene Chandler, Wilson Pickett and the Temptations. Through ups and downs, none of their pair’s recordings ever served to catapult them to greater fame and sadly in the early ‘70s, the partnership disbanded. Eddie Campbell passed on July 10th, 1994
When collectors Chad Weekley and Tony Janda brought Eddie and Ernie’s “Bullets Don’t Have Eyes” to my attention last fall I immediately knew it deserved priority as the next Ever-Soul single. One of the duo’s last recordings, this tremendous cut was never released at the time of its creation in 1972 and was only first issued six years ago within Kent’s excellent survey of their recordings: Lost Friends (Kent CD 214). The late Dave Godin, legendary soul polymath and the fundamental agent in the Kent project, referring to “Bullets Don’t Have Eyes” in the compilation’s notes, said “if this one got the plays it could really go places.” The truly sublime b-side chosen for this Ever-Soul 45, “In These Very Tender Moments,” was issued on the Phoenix imprint Artco in 1967, but remains largely unknown today. Although obscure, undoubtedly their music has moved the souls of countless listeners over generations. It is our hope that this present release will help keep this music moving to new places, new ears and new hearts.
Special thanks to Phoenix Arizona’s John Dixon, Carl Larue and the late Dave Godin, their direction, notes and memories were invaluable in the creation of this release.
- David Griffiths
Eddie & Ernie
Bullets Don’t Have Eyes
b/w with alternate B-side
You Made my Life a Sunny Day
WEBSITE EXCLUSIVE
Listen:
SIDE A | SIDE C
Click here to Order
Hank "Soulman" Mullen
He Upset Your Dreams b/w Listen
Listen:
SIDE A | SIDE B
Click here to order
 Our debut release, Hank Mullen’s ‘He Upset Your Dreams’ b/w ‘Listen’, is a record for which we have special affection . . . The A side is an up-tempo Grover concerning the saddest subject of all; not one, but two broken hearts.
The Avengers formed in Buffalo, NY in the mid ‘60s and toured as a dynamic show with three very different vocalists: Hank Mullen, Moe Jones and Carlena Weaver; they released two singles in fall of 1970 on the homegrown/financed Audel imprint. Through then manager, all around music hustler and Macon, Georgia native James Reese, the Avengers traveled to Capricorn Records Studio (Macon, GA) for a session in October of ’70. “Listen” & “He Upset Your Dreams” were penned by two staff writers: Earl Simms & Alan Osborne for then Walden Artists and Productions, under the publishing Redwal Music (Redwal was formed in 1965 by Otis Redding, Phil & Alan Walden. Earl Simms was first Otis Redding’s, later Arthur Conley’s road manager and wrote Conley’s 1968 hit, ‘Funky Street’.) In the ‘70s the group toured the Midwest and the South as backing band for Eddie Floyd, Arthur Conley, Betty Wright and Betty Swan. Carlena additionally has a lone 45 on William Nunn’s MO-DO imprint and spent time singing with the Ikettes. Sadly, soon after the records release, Hank Mullen, then in his mid twenties, died tragically due to a heart attack.
The Avengers at the time of the recordings were:
Hank Mullen Vocal
Carlena Weaver Vocal
Willie Phillips Guitar
Chester McCloud Bass
Stanley Mayfield Tenor Sax
Moe Jones Trumpet
Stan Lee Tenor Sax
Willie Cooper Drums
Freddie Mayfield Congas
|
