Kent 122 - L.A. Happening Mid-60,s Soul Sides Of Vault, Fat Fish & Autumn (1995) + Booklet - Rare Soul (MP3)

The title is a bit misleading as the Vault & Fat fish labels were L A Based but Autumn was based in San Francisco. Jack Lewerke was a major record distributor in Los Angeles who handled several big
independent labels, including Stax. Business was good and in 1963 he expanded his empire by starting up Vault Publishing and the Vault record label. The first release on Vault was a couple of teen instrumentals by the Challengers. These were successful enough to give the label immediate financial solidity and Vault Records went on to stay in business through to the early 70s, with over seventy releases in total. The Challengers eventually had six releases, while dotted in between were a potpourri of surf, girly, pop and eventually R&B, soul and jazz records. Sonny and Cher cut an early single as Caesar and Cleo and the Chambers Brothers recorded their initial eclectic mix of R&B, folk and gospel before moving on to greater success at Columbia. The first out-and-out soul release came in 1966, when Motown was hot; moving with the times Vault issued the all girl group The Wooden Nickels' "Nobody But You'. It's an appropriate start to this CD beginning with some chunky, almost rock, guitar chords before producer and writer Chester Pipkin brings in the vibes, girly voices and the rest of the paraphernalia of a storming femme soul dancer. Chester is now a preacher and remembers little about the session. He was a prolific writer/producer in Los Angeles at this time, working for Modern Records and writing, along with Frank Wilson, for Jobete's LA office. He also contributed Judy Hughes' poppy girl stomper 'Fine Fine Fine', but didn't even know it had been recorded the previous year by producer Al Capps. Jobete had pushed the song to Al and, as it sold very little, there was no reason why he should find out about it......By 1966 the soul side of the music business was big enough to warrant a wholly R&B subsidiary label and Fat Fish Records was formed, with LA music scene stalwart, Leon Haywood, as its initial, and main, contributor. Leon was born in Houston, Texas in 1942 but didn't start his music career until 1960 when he moved to LA. His first work was with Big Jay McNeely's Band, an excellent starting place for any young musician. Then he was pianist with Sam Cooke's band until Sam's death in 1964. Around this time he had two jazz-based singles out on Fantasy, later to be re-packaged when he had hits with other labels. In 1965, under the auspices of D.J. and wheeler-dealer The Magnificent Montague, he had his first hit, singing as well as playing, with 'She's With Her Other Love"......Autumn Records was started up by two R&B fans who were businessmen Bob Mitchell & Tom Donahue who had no experience in the music business at all,so they wisely bought in Sylvester Stewart(Sly Stone) to handle the production side of things.Sly was only 19 back in 1963 and had made a reputation around the Bay area as a cool,hip,guy on the scene,a local D J & self taught on Guitar,Drums,Keyboards, & horns.Sly worked his socks off to get the label up & running...but why am i harping on ?...read the booklet!...Some of these great CD,s sound better in mp3 than flac!

AMM

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