A Gift From Whom I'd Like To Know!

In 1967, I made a deal as a producer for Capitol Records in Hollywood. I was actually the first producer hired "outside" the Tower (as Capitol was called then).

The first band I produced for Capitol was a band called The Pack. Capitol's first release of a John Rhys Production. The "A" side of the Pack single was a Jimi Hendrix tune ("Next To Your Fire") Jimi had given me personally in London in 1966 on a three inch reel of quarter inch tape. Wish I still had it as on it was a nice note from Jimi. Plus it was Jimi in his room playing an accoustic guitar and singing. Simple but magic. Would I love to hear that version again! I wonder if Mark Farner kept the tape?

In 1967, I was contacted by a band from Ann Arbor, Michigan who would eventually become SRC. A band on which I would eventually produce two albums for Capitol. The first was the band's namesake; SRC. The second was titled, Milestones.

Today, I received a DVD from someone in Jacksonville, Florida. On the DVD are several different sections. The first, a reunion of SRC with Steve Lyman, Gary Quackenbush and his brother Glenn Quackenbush. There is a bass player and drummer; neither of which I know.

The second cut is a video of poor quality in black and white of the original SRC with Scott Richardson singing lead vocals. Nevermind the quality, it was good to hear the band do "I'm So Glad" again. It brought back beautiful memories of a rather scary time.

The third cut is the MC5; the forth, a strange cut featuring Soupy Sales kids in their band and the last cut is Alice Cooper. All people I had the priviledge with which to work during the rockin' 60's.

I would dearly like to know who sent the DVD. I can be reached directly at this address....blupwr@sbcglobal.net.

Please let me know who you are!

Thank you so much for the wonderful thought.

John Rhys-Eddins/BluePower.com

Listen to SRC's famous version of...."In The Hall Of The Mountain King/Bolero"!

The Million Dollar Pen....Otis Blackwell!

From: AMG
By: Bill Dahl

Few 1950s rock & roll tunesmiths were as prolifically talented as Otis Blackwell. His immortal compositions include Little Willie John's "Fever," Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" and "All Shook Up," Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" and "Breathless," and Jimmy Jones' "Handy Man" (just for starters).

Though he often collaborated with various partners on the thriving '50s New York R&B scene (Winfield Scott, Eddie Cooley, and Jack Hammer, to name three), Blackwell's songwriting style is as identifiable as that of Willie Dixon or Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller. He helped formulate the musical vocabulary of rock & roll when the genre was barely breathing on its own.

Befitting a true innovator, Blackwell's early influences were a tad out of the ordinary. As a lad growing up in Brooklyn, he dug the Westerns that his favorite nearby cinema screened. At that point, Tex Ritter was Otis Blackwell's main man. Smooth blues singers Chuck Willis and Larry Darnell also made an impression. By 1952, Blackwell parlayed a victory at an Apollo Theater talent show into a recording deal with veteran producer Joe Davis for RCA, switching to Davis' own Jay-Dee logo the next year. He was fairly prolific at Jay-Dee, enjoying success with the throbbing "Daddy Rollin' Stone" (later covered by the Who). From 1955 on, though, Blackwell concentrated primarily on songwriting (Atlantic, Date, Cub, and MGM later issued scattered Blackwell singles).

"Fever," co-written by Cooley, was Blackwell's first winner (he used the pen name of John Davenport, since he was still contractually obligated to Jay-Dee). Blackwell never met Elvis in person, but his material traveled a direct pipeline to the rock icon; "Return to Sender," "One Broken Heart for Sale," and "Easy Question" also came from his pen. Dee Clark ("Just Keep It Up" and "Hey Little Girl"), Thurston Harris, Wade Flemons, Clyde McPhatter, Brook Benton, Ben E. King, the Drifters, Bobby Darin, Ral Donner, Gene Vincent, and plenty more of rock's primordial royalty benefited from Blackwell's compositional largesse before the British Invasion forever altered the Brill Building scene.

In 1976, Blackwell returned to recording with a Herb Abramson-produced set for Inner City comprised of his own renditions of the songs that made him famous. A 1991 stroke paralyzed the legendary song scribe, but his influence remained so enduring that it inspired Brace Yourself!, an all-star 1994 tribute album that included contributions by Dave Edmunds, Joe Ely, Deborah Harry, Chrissie Hynde, Kris Kristofferson, Graham Parker, and Bluesman Joe Louis Walker. He died on May 6, 2002 in his Nashville home.