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Sam Cooke 30 Greatest Hits Rar: The Complete Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964



One of the Miracles biggest hits, written by frontman Smokey Robinson, this song became a success for Smokey and, a few years later, for Diana Ross and the Supremes and the Temptations, who performed it as a group duet. Talk about some Motown star power.




Sam Cooke 30 Greatest Hits Rar



The Supremes' final album to be completely written by the team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland (with a little help on two songs from "Indiana Wants Me" tunesmith R. Dean Taylor!) and produced by Brian and Lamont, Sing H-D-H featured two Pop and R&B chart-topping signature hits ("You Keep Me Hangin' On" and "Love is Here and Now You're Gone") along with original songs and Supreme treatments of H-D-H compositions popularized by other artists within Hitsville (The Four Tops' "It's the Same Old Song" and "I'll Turn to Stone," Martha and the Vandellas' "(Love is Like a) Heat Wave"). This triumph for the original line-up of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard reached the zenith of the Billboard R&B survey and a more than respectable No. 6 placement on the Top LPs chart.


The centerpiece of Disc Two is the first release of the fifteen-track set Live at the Copa, May 1967, one of the group's final performances with Florence Ballard. This dynamic, sultry, sophisticated and soulful live performance finds The Supremes taking on show and film tunes ("Put on a Happy Face" from Bye Bye Birdie, "Somewhere" from West Side Story, "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music and a joyful medley of "Thoroughly Modern Millie," "Second Hand Rose," and "Mame"), covers (Jody Miller's "Queen of the House"), and their own indelible hits including a medley of "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Come See About Me," "My World is Empty Without You," and "Baby Love." The set concludes, appropriately, with "The Happening."


The B.T. Puppy label was an offshoot of Bright Tunes Productions, the Tokens' company. B.T. Puppywas formed by the Tokens after their success of the "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" on RCA Victor. TheTokens were made up of Hank Medress, Jay Siegel and brothers Mitchell and Philip Margo.The group was originally formed in Lincoln High School in Brooklyn NY in 1955. Original membershipwas Hank Medress, Neil Sedaka, Cynthia Zolotin and Eddie Rabkin. Jay Siegel replaced Rabkin in1956. At first the name of the group was Linc-tones (after their high school), but they used "The Tokens"for a record they recorded in 1956 ["I Love My Baby/While I Dream," Melba 104]. In 1960, Medress and Siegel were joined by brothers Phil Margo (18 years old) and Mitch Margo (13years old) to form a group called "Those Guys". They wrote "Tonight I Fell in Love" and took it to MortyCraft at Warwick records. Craft wanted the record but did not like the name "Those Guys". Medress andcompany offered Craft the name they had used years earlier, and Craft agreed and put out the record. "Tonight I Fell in Love" was a hit, going to No. 15 in the charts, but they told Craft they were signing withRCA. When Craft asked them what RCA could give them that Warwick couldn't; they answered inunison, "Being paid!"At RCA the group was produced by Hugo and Luigi, hitmakers who produced Sam Cooke. During anearly recording session they asked the Tokens if they had any songs they would like to record. TheTokens said that they liked "Wimoweh" a South African Zulu folk song written by Solomon Linda, andrecorded in the early 1950s by Pete Seeger and the Weavers. The Tokens sang the song, which isbasically a chant of the word "Wimoweh," which means "lion." Hugo & Luigi liked the song, but wanted avocal melody above the chant, so they had George Weiss write the lyrics to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".Hugo and Luigi also wanted an even higher backing vocal on the record, so they brought in operaticsoprano Anita Darian, who was in demand singing pop backgrounds and doing commercial jingles.When they gave her the score, she said that she couldn't sing it like that, but she could sing it oneoctave higher. The dumbstruck producers said, "That's impossible." But Darian's amazing range isquite evident in "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," as it is in their followup, "B'wa Nina (Pretty Girl).""The Lion Sleeps Tonight" became a No. 1 hit for the Tokens in the US. The Tokens had other hits forRCA and issued four albums, The Lion Sleeps Tonight [RCA LSP-2514], We The TokensSing Folk [RCA LSP-2631], Wheels [RCA LSP-2886], and The Tokens Again [RCALSP-3685], the latter two issued after they had left RCA. Although the first RCA album pictured only thefour singers on the back, starting with the second RCA album, their accompanist, Joe Venneri, was alsopictured with the group. In the photo below right, Venneri is at the center, surrounded by (clockwise fromleft) Hank Medress, Mitch Margo, Phil Margo and Jay Siegel.After leaving RCA in late 1963, they established their own record company called B.T. Puppy. The B.T.comes from the Tokens music publishing company Bright Tunes, the puppy name was a nod to RCAwith their dog mascot Nipper. The company was located at 1700 Broadway in NYC.The company was a 50-50 venture with Jerry Blaine, the owner of Jubilee Records. Jubilee wasresponsible for manufacturing and distributing the records produced by the Tokens. Their first hit was inlate summer 1964, "He's in Town," which reached No. 43 on the Billboard charts (a cover version in theUK by the Rockin' Berries made #3 there). In the spring of 1966 they had a #30 hit with "I Hear TrumpetsBlow."Eventually, the Tokens abandoned recording for their own B.T. Puppy label and began recording albumsfor other labels. In 1967 they signed with Warner Bros and recorded the album It's a HappeningWorld [Warner Bros WS 1685], which produced the top-40 hit "Portrait of My Love." The Tokensoffered a version of their later LP Intercourse to Warner Bros as a followup to It's a HappeningWorld, but Warners rejected it and apparently the group, too. The group then signed with Buddah in1969 with the LP Both Sides Now [Buddah BDS 5059], which contained a stereo overdubversion of "He's In Town," new remakes of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "Tonight I Fell In Love," theoriginal version of "I Hear Trumpets Blow," as well as minor charters "She Lets Her Hair Down (Early InThe Morning)," "Don't Worry Baby," "Both Sides Now," and "Some People Sleep." Hank Medress leftthegroup in the early 1970s to become a producer (e.g., Tony Orlando & Dawn). The remaining trio carriedon, recording as Cross Country in 1973 with the LP Cross Country [Atco SD 7024].In addition to their own career, the Tokens produced other artists, both on the B.T. Puppy label and forother labels. They produced the Chiffons and Randy and the Rainbows for Laurie/Rust. Their biggestsuccess on B.T. Puppy was with a New Jersey group called the Four Graduates, who changed theirname to the Happenings when they signed with B.T. Puppy. The Happenings had the hit "See You InSeptember" which reached No. 3 on the US charts in August 1966. The Happenings did better with "IGot Rhythm" which went to No. 1 in the Cash Box Charts, and they had a couple of additional hits in1967 with "My Mammy" and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love." The Happenings put out two original albumsand a Greatest Hits compilation on the label, and although the first LP and the compilation charted, theirsecond album, Psycle, arguably their best, inexplicably failed to chart. The Happenings left tosign with Jubilee Records, where they released Peace of Mind [Jubilee JGS 8028] in 1969.The first 5 albums on the label did well with one album by the Tokens, three albums by the Happeningsand one with both the Tokens and Happenings. And then the bottom dropped out. At the end of 1968,when the Happenings comp, as well as their last chart single, left the charts, there were no more charthits on B.T. Puppy.This brings us to the enduring mystery concerning B.T. Puppy Records. After those first five albums,what happened?? The twenty one albums on the label after the first five are nearly impossible to find,and if you do find one, it costs big bucks. Twenty-one albums, all pressed in low quantities and notpromoted much at all. Huh?Many people have speculated that B.T. Puppy may have been running a tax dodge, but this didn't seemlike the case. Tax scam labels popped up in the late 1970s and early 1980s (B.T. Puppy was gone bythen), and were operated to provide losses that could be used to shelter profits in a parent company.The classic case is Morris Levy's Roulette label which formed the Tiger Lily label and produced 100poorly- selling albums on the label in just two years. Tiger Lily bought master tapes from defunct recordcompanies or bands, and then issued records of that material. The albums issued were bare-bonesaffairs clearly not finished, with minimal mastering and lousy cover graphics not meant to enticeprospective customers to buy. The companies made no effort to promote the records and quicklydumped the few records produced into the cut-out market. The label would then claim inflated costs inproducing the records and the parent company would use the losses to cover profits of the parentcompany. The albums produced by these labels are selling for big dollars in today's collector market, justbecause they are so rare. These labels operated mainly between 1976 and the early 1980's. In additionto Tiger Lily, there were more than a handful of other labels allegedly operating in this way.B.T Puppy does not easily fit the mold of these tax dodge labels. First off, B.T. Puppy ended in 1972, afew years before the tax scam heyday. Second, B.T. Puppy albums, even though rare, do have firstclass graphics and production values. Third, the material issued on the label was usually recorded in-house, not purchased from other companies. According to an interview with Mitch Margo in the notes forthe CD reissue of the Token's rare Intercourse album, Margo said of the odd behavior of B.T.Puppy that "it was filling a contractual commitment with our distributor, Jubilee.... I wasn't pleased at allabout it. There were very few printed and it is indeed a rarity." Even though Margo was talkingspecifically about the Intercourse album, this is probably the explanation for all of the albums afterthe first five.A look through some of the last twenty-one albums seems to support the idea that the albums werepressed with no anticipation that they would be hits. Most of the albums were by unknowns. The albumby Brute Force certainly was off-color enough to be banned from the radio. Finally, even though the word"Intercourse" means "talk", nobody would suspect it would be a top-200 best seller, if it was stocked inrecord stores at all. Just like Phil Spector's contract-fulfilling Crystals single "(Do) The Screw," onewonders whether B.T. Puppy had a different meaning of the word in mind all the time.Although B.T. Puppy stopped putting out singles in 1970 and albums in 1972, the company stayed in adormant state rather than closing down altogether. In the 1990s, they re-established the label forproduction of CDs, with some reissues and some new material. This discography includes listings forLPs, singles, and known CD issues. The US B.T. Puppy label (far left) was black with silver printing. "B.T. Puppy Records" was in red andwhite above the center hole at the perimeter of the label. Below the name was a drawing of a CockerSpaniel dog's head in brown and white. Along the bottom perimeter of the label is "COPYRIGHT B.T.PUPPY RECORDS INC. 1963." The Canadian version of the B.T. Puppy label is orange with black print(near left). We would appreciate any additions or corrections to this discography. Just send them to us via e-mail. Both Sides Now Publications is an informationweb page. We are not a catalog, nor can we provide the records listed below. We have no associationwith B.T. Puppy Records. Should you be interested in acquiring albums listed in this discography (whichare all out of print), we suggest you see our FrequentlyAsked Questions page and follow the instructions found there. This story and discography arecopyright 1999, 2003, 2018 by Mike Callahan.


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