Everybody's doin' it.....

I don't know about ya'll, but I'm def enjoying the long weekend. I've hardly had a moment to myself for more than a month.

I posted the flip-side of this record a long while back and always wanted to post this side as well, but the stupid record skipped. After some minor surgery, the patient has recovered nicely and now plays all the way through. I'm amazed at how well a little trick of mine works. Send in $5 and I'll cough up the secret.

Anyway, I think this record must have been a regional hit as R.L. Griffin is occasionally referred to as "Mr. Ting-A-Ling". I believe he's still active today, possibly still owns the Blues Palace in Dallas? He's originally from East Texas where he played with a band called the Corvettes until Big Bo Thomas tempted him into heading to the big city.

Now, Bo Thomas was a major regional player. He had the hottest band in Dallas, owned several very profitable clubs, and booked big name acts throughout the region. All of which brought in buckets of money. Thomas once estimated that he made $250,000 to $400,000 a year during the early 60's. Even if those figures represent a bad case of the brags, it's clear he made plenty.......enough that Big Bo and the Arrows were rarely tempted out of Dallas....enough that Thomas was able to retire in the early 70s.

The Gay-Shel label was started in 1960 and is named after Thomas' two children, Gayle and Sheldon. As far as I know there were only something like 10 releases on the label, all of them Big Bo and The Arrows related.

Hope ya'll enjoy....

This clip is super low quality, but ya'll get the idea, right? I seriously need the stripey dress on the second girl to be featured.

[Addendum: I'm shocked to see that someone actually took my joke about sending in $5 seriously. I realize that my sense of humor is very dry, but jeeze.....

Anyway, If anyone really wants to know how I get skips out of records, check the comments of this post on Derek's Daily 45.]