Even though it began last October, the six volume documentation of George and Ernie Leader’s Chicago-based One-derful! label and its subsidiaries is scheduled to journey deep into 2015; by the point of completion the total will mount to 147 nuggets of Soul, 57 previously unissued, and it will surely be one of the highlights of the year. That’s more than mere speculation, for the second installment is out now on 2LP/CD from the estimable folks at Minneapolis MN’s Secret Stash, and those ordering The One-derful! Collection: The Mar-V-Lus Label sans hesitation will get a bonus 45 from the Du-Ettes.
In 1962 siblings George and Ernie Leader, two important and undersung African-American entrepreneurs based in a true hub of Great Black Music (to employ the term coined by the municipality’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), started One-derful!, a label specializing in the production of soul/R&B.
Lasting for nearly a decade and spawning five sister imprints, One-derful! was a success by any yardstick, and they even had a few national hits, but in regard to genre the enterprise has been largely overshadowed by Stax, Motown, and Atlantic, while in geographical terms it’s taken a back seat to Chess and Vee-Jay.
That’s what’s sweet about history; just when it seems etched in stone, something comes along to shake up the tablets. Y’know, something like the July ‘67 recording of “Big Boy,” a full-bodied original by the Jackson Five documented but unreleased and basically forgotten by One-derful! More famously cut again and issued the following year for Steel Town Records, the unearthed version was issued on 45 last October by Secret Stash for the first 500 buyers of the One-derful! series subscription (and hey, it’s still streaming on the web).
Historically it’s a revelation, and one that assists in rescuing a measure of the Leader’s deserved stature. However, in purely musical terms “Big Boy” is not a mind-blower, though the Five (not yet the 5) do deliver solid instrumentation and vocal harmony as Michael proves strong of voice. It’s a swell kick-start to Secret Stash’s whole shebang, in particular the first volume’s devotion to selections waxed specifically for the One-derful! banner.
And that means southern transplant and future Hi Records high-roller Otis Clay, Chicago mainstay Betty Everett, the underrated McKinley Mitchell, a mess of one (and two) shots by Joe & Mack, Lucky Laws, the Rock Masters, Mary Silvers, Jay Jordan etc, plus an all time killer in the annals of dance singles, the splendiferous keyboard-pounding monster that is The Five Du-Tones’ “Shake a Tail Feather.”
Succinctly, that’s a hard act to follow, and the Mar-V-Lus volume doesn’t dally in undertaking the task, opening with “For You My Love” by sultry, sturdy voiced Josephine Taylor, the band spinning a wicked groove and offering a terrifically springy guitar solo. Evanston, IL resident Taylor is represented by four tracks, three heretofore unissued.
’67’s “Ordinary Guy” appears in a 2nd take, and its fast pace is a bit of a primer in the Leader’s house style, combining guts and heat from down South with a Metropolitan arrangement and not skimping on the reeds. “Your Love Picks Me Up” features even broader execution, though the highpoints are the intensity of the rhythm section and the vocals. And if “I Want a Man” feels slightly scaled back instrumentally, it still possesses ample guitar, bold horn charts, and of course Taylor’s tight grasp on the microphone.
Scorching belter Johnny Sayles turns in dynamic work, the anguish and desperation of his pleadings throughout “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me” registering as serious business. “Whole Lot of Lovin’” is a blues number recovered from the vaults (Sayles later recorded for Alligator with Roy Buchanan), the mood uptown but not too slick and likely to satisfy fans of Otis Rush (that voice) and Albert King (those horns). And “You Told a Lie” retains a fair amount of the bluesy allure through assertive guitar playing as the soulful intensity of Sayles’ performance persists.
Alvin Cash’s “Twine Time” was a #4 R&B hit and pop Top 20 crossover in 1965, and as written and produced by one Andre Williams, it’s a deep-grooved dance floor beast; unsurprisingly, it grew into a Northern Soul biggie. Cash’s “Philly Freeze” is from the next year, and while not as commercially successful (it did chart, though), it’s still a fine discothèque igniter with large bass and lively backup singing. The unreleased “Sweatin’” finds Cash as dance craze maestro, calling out a series of popular routines amidst handclaps and sax honking.
Contrasting with the grit and fervor of Cash and Sayles is the smooth vocal group approach of The Blenders, veterans that shortly prior to dissolution visited Mar-V-Lus to record “Love Got a Good Thing Goin’” and “Your Love Has Got Me Down.” Both fully-developed tunes, the latter’s Motor City-ish vibe (but with a snaky Stax-y horn bit) resonates like a hit that never was.
Which brings us to The Ulti-mations, easily, some would say blatantly, the most Motown-like act included here. “Would I Do It Over,” the a-side to their only single is loaded with sophisto strings and a finesse-laden atmosphere overall; clearly an attempt to coast upon a wave of popularity, it succeeds due to the writing and singing, both above par. With this said, I kinda prefer the unreleased cover of the Four Tops’ “Sad Souvenirs,” especially its vibrant and subtly weird arrangement.
The post-drinking age hard soul of Johnny Sayles aside, Mar-V-Lus was reportedly initiated to tap into a younger market, and the teen twosome of The Du-Ettes, namely cousins Barbara Livesy and Mary Hayes, land much closer to this objective. Their ’64 “I’m Gonna Love You” is a firm mix of Southern roots (they moved from Georgia) and urban compositional motifs, but it’s in the previously unheard “Stop Call the Cop” and “Hello Tommy” that the Du-Ettes’ youth initiative becomes most apparent.
But the cousins are really just the tip of the teen iceberg, and those shouldering miscomprehension over the company’s choice to shelve a nascent Jacksons’ number need look no further than “Joey” by the Young Folk, “I Feel Good All Over” by Baby Miracles, and “Behave Yourself” and “Lonely Girl,” a pair from Miss Madeline.
The Young Folk (who managed one single) and Baby Miracles (who didn’t) each offer well-groomed uplift that if calculated never falters into the triteness of novelty. The common thread between the two groups is Madeline Strickland; her solitary ’67 45 billed as Miss Madeline consisted of the two likeable cuts listed above (“Lonely Girl” had also served as the Young Folk’s b-side).
Long prior to their string of labels the Leaders were involved with Lester Melrose and the legendary Windy City blues imprint Parkway, and from there founded United Record Distributors in 1950, its mission to put black music onto the turntables of black Chicagoans. Amongst other factors, this meant they were privy to a wide spectrum of emerging sounds, and consequently their labels distributed and licensed in addition to recording one floor above United Record Distributors’ offices.
Interestingly, the optioned material rates as the lesser moments herein, though the gospel-tinged thrust of Vicki Carr’s “Oh It’s All Right” does win out over the lush settings of Cicero Blake’s “You’re Going to Be Sorry” and Joseph Moore’s “I Still Can’t Get You.” But these are very minor dips in a well-sequenced program; instead of chronologically annotated or lumped by contributor, everything gets spread across the four sides for maximum listening pleasure.
And when considering the ratio of unissued stuff, The One-derful! Collection: The Mar-V-Lus Label’s impressiveness is considerable, detailing the sort of everyday, non-grandiose brilliance that inspires observers to deem the 1960s as the apex of our recorded history. It’s a line of thinking I normally resist, but as the 25 tracks here unfurl, it does become hard to argue.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
