Re: [bomp] East L.A. and South Central and Arthur Lee

[Michael Snider <lasciviumdei@xxxxxxxxx>]

 --- ItsBoss9@aol.com escribis: 
> 
> > Love managed to encompass L.A.'s black scene,
> Chicano scene
> 
> Huh? What do you mean? 
> 
> Well, Arthur, just prior to his Sunset Strip period,
> was workin' out with 
> Arthur Lee & the L.A.G's at the Montebello
> Ballroom... a very Thee Midniters, 
> Thee Ambertones kind of place.  Of course, your West
> Side Rhino Records people 
> proved ignorant and probably racist when they wrote
> in the liner notes of the 
> Love box set "While Lee's American Four and LAG's
> performed cover gigs in the 
> not-so-hip L.A. suburb of Montebello."  That shit
> was written by Phil Gallo, and 
> it passed through Rhino's vast editorial staff. 
> Yes, the company also did 
> some East Side Sound releases, but what the fuck
> kind of shit is that?
> 
> The Montebello Ballroom was a totally wild place in
> its time.  Earlier this 
> year, we did a video interview with Little Willie G.
> of Thee Midniters in 
> there, and the funniest thing was when he was
> explaining to the young man who 
> worked there, in Spanish, how crazy the "parties"
> were, with "jovenes" all over the 
> place drinking and taking acid... uh, "not-so-hip
> suburb" doesn't come to 
> mind.  The liner notes also say that "I've Been
> Tryin'" was recorded by Ronnie & 
> the Pomona Casuals when in fact it was a big record
> for Li'l Ray.  But Arthur 
> did have two songs on that Ronnie & the Pomona
> Casuals album too.  So if you 
> look at it, Arthur kind of came out of that East
> L.A. scene right into playing 
> with Love.
> 
> Then, of course, Arthur bounced around the South
> Central scene, even trying 
> to work with Sam Cooke's SAR label.  Most people
> don't know much about the 
> music that came out of black L.A., especially
> because Barney Hoskyns did such a 
> horrible job of covering that in his book, while at
> the same time claiming that 
> the L.A. music scene was "racist."  While I'm sure
> there was some racism over 
> the years, that's not what produced Big Jay McNeely,
> the Robins, the Coasters, 
> The Johnnie Otis Show (which encompassed talents
> from Etta James to Leiber & 
> Stoller -- Fairfax Jewish kids working in the black
> circuit),

Not just Leiber and Stoller....
West Hollywood/Fairfax/Hollywood Jewish kids were all
over
the R&B scene....Spector and his whole circle for one,
P.F. Sloan
working at the LA office of Vee Jay, etc. etc. etc. 

 Richard Berry,  
> Jesse Belvin, The Hollywood Flames, Bobby Day, the
> Olympics, Bobby Womack, 
> Round Robin, the Vibrations, the Rivingtons, Dobie
> Gray, Bob & Earl, Jackie Lee, 
> Brenton Wood, BIlly Preston,  the Chambers Brothers,
> Ty Wagner (!), the Watts 
> 103rd Street Rhythm Band,

Johnny Guitar Watson too - the album that he did with 
Larry Williams, "Two For The Price Of One" is some
mighty
fine hard soul....


 plus the guys who became
> War, who in the '60s were 
> the Creators, the Afro-Blues Quintet and Senor Soul.
>  That's just scratching 
> the surface.  Barney Hoskyns whines in his book
> "with all the record companies 
> in L.A., how come L.A. didn't have a Motown?"  Well,
> look at that list... we 
> didn't need a fucking "Motown" with its confined,
> programmed and eventually, 
> genericized sound. But we did have Brenda Holloway,
> a bonafide Motown recording 
> artist who opened for the Beatles at Shea Stadium...
> along with Cannibal & the 
> Headhunters. 

Did Hoskyns ask why LA didn't have a Stax/Volt? We may
not
have had a Motown but we could have had a Stax....
> 
> The black stuff that came out of '50s and '60s L.A.
> was more '50s Rock 'n' 
> Roll style than Motown "Soul".  Those white garage
> band hits so well-loved... 
> "Papa Oom Mow Mow"  and "The Bird's The Word"
> (Trashmen covering Rivingtons), 
> "Louie Louie" (Kingsmen covering Richard Berry)
> "Hang on Sloopy" (McCoys 
> covering Vibrations) "Good Lovin'" (Young Rascals
> covering Olympics)... these were 
> all originally hits out of L.A.'s black scene,
> however un-unified it may have 
> been.  Even the Rolling Stones first U.S. hit "It's
> All Over Now" (covering 
> Bobby Womack)  was a song out of L.A.'s black
> scene... as was Bob & Earl's "Harlem 
> Shuffle," which the Rolling Stones did years later
> to revive their career.  
> (Imagine that, the Rolling Stones recording a song
> in these days based on Round 
> Robin's "Slauson Shuffle".)  Arthur Lee came out of
> all that back in the 
> '60s, dig?

Correct. I read somewhere that Lee did an Ike and Tina
type
act with some gal...anyone remember her name? 

Slightly before Hendrix and long before Prince, Arthur
Lee was
a one man smasher of racial barriers in music  

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