Weldon McDougal III
Luther Randolph & Johnny Stiles
Listen/Download – Four Larks – Groovin’ at the Go Go
Listen/Download – Cooperettes – Shingaling
Listen/Download – Lee Garrett – I Can’t Break the Habit
Listen/Download – Bernard Williams and the Blue Notes – It’s Needless to Say
Listen/Download – Volcanos – It’s Gotta Be a False Alarm
Listen/Download – Eddie Holman – Stay Mine for Heaven’s Sake
Listen/Download – Eddie Holman – Eddie’s My Name
Listen/Download – Eddie Holman – I’ll Cry 1,000 Tears
Greetings all.
I hope all is well on your end.
Over the weekend I found out via Colin Dilnot of In Dangerous Rhythm that the legendary producer, performer, songwriter and promoter Weldon McDougal III had passed away.
If the name isn’t familiar, the music he helped create in Philadelphia during the 1960s should be.
McDougal was one of the co-founders (with Luther Randolph and Johnny Stiles) of the legendary Harthon production house.
In addition to the Harthon label, home to many brilliant (and rare) soul 45s, they created, and farmed out to a number of other labels, many equally excellent sides.
If memory serves, I first became aware of Harthon via an old comp of their best stuff (issued and unissued) that turned me on to a wide variety of records that I would hunt breathlessly for the next decade.
The tough thing is, for all the undeniable greatness of the records that McDougal made with Harthon, very little has been published about the label’s history.
Randolph (an organist) and Stiles (sometimes listed as ‘Styles’, guitar) had worked in and around Philadelphia before joining together and recording what would be the first Harthon 45s (one being released on Cameo).
They eventually joined up with McDougal, who was performing with his group the Larks (no relation to the Don Julian group on the West Coast) and the Harthon powerhouse was soon up to full speed.
They eventually brought local group Jo-Ann Jackson and the Dreams into the studio and recorded ‘Georgie Porgie’ (no doubt aimed at garnering airplay from local radio giant Georgie Woods), the first 45 on the label that wasn’t a Randolph/Styles instrumental.
In Tony Cummings rare – and indispensable – tome The Sound of Philadelphia (the source for most of what I know about the partnership), Stiles was quoted as to the source of the Harthon sound:
“The sound we were trying to get was that Motown sound. The Detroit thing was what was happening so we just tried to get as near to it as we could. Our things were done in a small time kinda studio but we got the sound we wanted.”
Stiles was basically getting to the root of the Northern Soul equation, i.e. reaching back to the Motor City and trying to recreate/expand on the sound in places like Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
The music that McDougal, Randolph and Stiles would create over the next few years, with the help of the famed Philly rhythm section (Bobby Eli, Norman Harris, Earl Young, Ronnie Baker), writers and producers like Thom Bell, Eddie Holman and many others, created a number of records that are worshiped to this day on the Northern scene, and have also become some of my favorites, making Harthon my all-time favorite soul label.
Over the years I’ve been tracking down Harthon records (It was years before I scored an OG with the famous black and orange logo see above) I ended up following all kinds of leads and discovering a number of things I hadn’t expected.
The tunes I’m featuring today – I’ll be posting Harthon stuff all week – are in many ways the cream of the Harthon crop (at least to my ears) all bearing the marks of the label’s sound, i.e. solid, hook-laden songwriting, sparkling production and most important of all, fantastic singers.
The first of these is what is probably the best known of all Harthon productions, the Four Larks (McDougal’s group with a ‘Four’ added to distinguish them with the LA group) ‘Groovin’ at the Go Go. Written and arranged by Thom Bell, ‘Groovin’ at the Go Go’ is a record that I chased for a long time, often being outbid (when it showed up for auction) and bemoaning my failure to procure it – in this very space – often.
Then, in what must surely be one of the great moments of vinyl related altruism, a reader found a copy and sent it to me, gratis.
Needless to say my mind was good and truly blown (this is not a cheap record) and the 45 has held a place of honor in my record box ever since then.
Leased to the Capitol Records subsidiary Tower, ‘Groovin’ at the Go Go’ is one of those records that in a just world would have been a huge hit.
The record featured Irma Jackson on lead vocals, and has a great repeated riff played on piano and vibes, backed by a throbbing bass and drums, as well as wonderful, atmospheric backing vocals and a horn chart that won’t quit.
I don’t know much about the Cooperettes other than the music I’ve heard on their Brunswick and ABC 45s. They were a Philly-based girl group, and their ‘Shingaling’ is an absolutely stunning Northern-styled pounder. This track would later be recycled as the unreleased (but heavily bootlegged) ‘You Need Love’ by Irma and the Fascinators. I’ll post a recording of my bootleg 45 later this week.
The next two cuts were also lifted from bootleg 45s (there was a brisk trade in bootlegs on the Northern Soul scene in the 70s) , and are among the finest things to come out of Harthon (if only I’d been able to score original copies, but alas…).
The first is by Lee Garrett, who would later move to Detroit, recording his own records as well as co-writing the Spinners hit ‘It’s a Shame’. ‘I Can’t Break the Habit’ is a killer with a great vocal by Garrett and a very cool piano interlude in the second half of the record.
The other bootleg-sourced cut is in my Top 3 Harthon sides, Bernard Williams and the Blue Notes ‘It’s Needless To Say’. I know I’m repeating myself, but this record really, REALLY should have been a hit. It has it all, great songwriting, performance, production and arrangement. This is the group that was formed when the original Blue Notes split up, with Williams forming his group and Harold Melvin forming the other.
The next cut is the A-side from one of the two 45s the mighty Volcanos recorded during their brief sojourn with Harthon. Aside from a typically solid lead vocal by Gene Faith, the record features a pounding instrumental backing, which would later be bootlegged in the UK with the vocals stripped off (credited to the Body Motions). I’ve never been able to nail down the chronology of the Volcanos time with Harthon, but a number of clues (including the funkier b-sides on the 45s) lead me to believe that they were recorded after the group’s Arctic period but before the sides released on Virtue, which are basically Gene Faith solo records (the remainder of the group moving on to record as the Moods and the Trammps).
Eddie Holman
The last three cuts are two of the finest soul sides produced by any label, let alone Harthon.
If you mention the name Eddie Holman to most people, the record that comes to mind is ‘Hey There Lonely Girl’ the Ruby and the Romantics* cover that Holman took into the Top 10 in 1970. However, one of my earliest Philly soul related obsessions was tracking down and reveling in the spectacular nature of the 45s that Holman recorded with Harthon for Cameo/Parkway and Bell during the mid-60s.
Often working with his writing partner James Solomon, Holman, possessor of one of the mightiest singing voices ever committed to vinyl, recorded several remarkable 45s that were largely ignored by radio. Aside from 1966s ‘This Can’t Be True’ (to be posted later this week) Holman was absent from the Top 40 until he hit with ‘Lonely Girl’.
The first of these is ‘Stay Mine for Heaven’s Sake’. Written by Holman and Solomon, and arranged by Luther Randolph, ‘Stay Mine…’ is yet another record that seemingly had every prerequisite for chart success, pop hooks, solid arrangement and above all Holman’s voice.
The second of the Holman sides featured today is the Northern Soul favorite (and a record I’m proud to say I scored digging within the Philadelphia city limits) ‘Eddie’s My Name’. Propelled by a speedy dancers beat, handclaps and sharp snare drum shots, ‘Eddie’s My Name’, with production credited to ‘Randolph, Stiles and McDougal’ is a big fave with the soulies and has been comped a bunch of times.
The final record for today is Holman’s epic ballad performance ‘I’ll Cry 1,000 Tears’. Released on the Bell label, this is the Eddie Holman 45 that eluded me the longest. With a melody that occasionally touches on Jimmy Ruffin’s ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’, ‘I’ll Cry…’ is really Holman’s vocal tour de force. The chorus sees him soaring to almost operatic heights against an amazing arrangement. This was his last 45 with Harthon (in 1968), before moving to ABC.
The end of Holman’s tenure with Harthon coincided with the end of the partnership. McDougal would leave Philadelphia to go work in promotions for Motown, where he stayed until returning to Philly in 1972 to work with Gamble and Huff at Philly International.
The news of McDougal’s unfortunate passing led me back into the crates where I dug out a couple of Harthon rarities, which I’ll be posting later in the week.
I hope you dig the sounds.
Peace
Larry
*Originally recorded as ‘Hey There Lonely Boy’
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