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Viva Las Vegas 10 - 16th February 1998
Where else can you get Lou Ragland, Sonny Turner, Sonny Charles, Sweet Louie Carolyn Walden,
Paul Stubblefield, Freddie Empire, Joan Bias, Skip Martin, Ken Gold and others I can't remember, all in one room performing intimately to a group of soulies …. It's got to be Las Vegas, well here's all the gory
details………..
The whole idea of this venture came from a chance remark made by John Smith on an Internet-based mailing list (known as the Soul List) of which John and I are members. John had been to Las Vegas
during the summertime and happened to suggest, "Wouldn't it be a good idea to get all the list members and a group of soulies together and visit Las Vegas? Lou Ragland could do a private show for us!" Well
that was all I needed, a bit of posting led to John taking on the task of arranging it all.
During the following couple of months, various names were put forward by members of the soul list for our planned live
shows which was to be the finale of our week in Vegas.
Another member of the soul list, Nancy Yahiro, based in Los Angeles, who is a collector and promoter of soul nights, planned to hold her next soul 'do' on
Valentine's Day. It made sense for us to plan to be there. So the schedule gradually came together and we were ready to start promoting. Flyers, an article in Echoes, plugs by Richard Searling on his
Jazz FM Soul Show, inclusion of an advert on Voices from the Shadows Soul Record List, details posted to the Internet on various soul home-pages, details posted to music related newsgroups and E-mails to anyone
remotely thought to have an interest. We had more than 80 people in the UK registered with us; people had also committed to come from Australia, Canada, New York, Sacramento and Texas. All in all, we were
well pleased.
Two weeks before we were due to fly, the organisation of the venture was becoming a nightmare. The room we had booked in Las Vegas for our live show hadn't received our deposit in time and had
let the room out to someone else …. Panic! Lou managed to get another venue … Phew! Ronnie McNair phoned Lou to say he couldn't make it frantic phone calls and e-mails and a replacement was found.
So … how did it all go, and what happened? Here's the detail…..
Once we had published a price and asked those who had registered to confirm by ringing the tour operator to book the flights, our numbers
turned out to be just 19 - logistically, nine flying from Manchester, four from Gatwick and five from Birmingham. I flew from Gatwick, meeting John Smith and his wife, Anita, for the first time the night prior
to departure. Our flight was to be Gatwick to Houston, change planes and then onto Vegas.
We landed in Vegas at about 8.30pm (an hour late) and were met at the airport by Lou Ragland and his wife,
Estella. Lou had a people-carrier vehicle and we all managed to clamber aboard for the 15 minute drive to our hotel. Because we were late and Lou was due to be on stage at the Riviera Hotel at 9.00pm, we
dropped him off there and Estella took us to the hotel. Next crew to arrive were the Manchester flight and at this stage, we had no idea what had happened to the Birmingham lot. It turned out that they had
been turned back to Cleveland because of the El Nino hurricane that their plane had encountered, thus delaying their arrival in Vegas until 3.00am.
No amount of travel shows or holiday brochures can prepare you
for Las Vegas. It's big, brash and brassy. You're greeted as you come off the plane by rows and rows of slot machines, displaying jackpots in the millions of dollars. Every building in Vegas is a
gambling joint. I've never seen so many slot machines in my life, there must be more slot machines in Vegas than there are people in the USA. The buildings are a marvel, every hotel on 'The Strip' is a
themed hotel, Caesar's Palace, Treasure Island, The Mirage, Circus Circus, New York New York, - wow! And that was just on the 15 minute drive from the airport. Once checked in at the hotel, I returned
to the airport to meet the Manchester crew.
Wednesday morning and after a good night's kip, we all congregated in the lounge bar for a beer and to hear of arrangements for our first excursion. Meanwhile,
John had been busy on the phone, making sure everything was in place for the rest of the week's events.
We found out that the Isley Brothers were performing their last night that night at the MGM Grand and
everyone thought it a good idea to catch their show. Gathering in John's room, so that we could all pay with our credit cards at the same time, we all booked tickets for that night. We also arranged to
meet at 1.00 for the visit to Freddie Empire's Mighty Plump Recording Studio.
John had explained to everyone that Freddie's studio was small and was located in his house. Freddie arrived in his huge people
carrier, which fitted about six of us in and the rest followed in two taxies. When we all arrived at Freddie's house, we were greeted by his wife and asked to sign Freddie's guest book. Due to the
size of the studio, we went in six or seven at a time. I was in the first batch.
The studio itself was very small, being located in an outbuilding just past the swimming pool, but was crammed full of
expensive looking equipment and computers. Six people in it and it was pretty cramped. Freddie explained that the US market today demanded a lot of rap artistes and those are the type of recordings he's
been making recently (it pays the bills), but that he's been doing other soul stuff as well. He played us the new reworking which he'd done of his 1970's record Baby Let Me Love You, recorded on Coconut
Records and popular on the scene in the 80's, although he's only cut the music, he said, "Ah what the hell, I'll sing it for you." So into the vocal booth (about the size of the average bog) and an impromptu
live performance. Brilliant vocals were met with rapturous applause from all six of us. Freddie also treated us to some of the other soul recordings he's working on, including a brilliant track called 24/7
which he's done with a guy called Boogie, who is the keyboard player with The Dells.
It was time for the others to get a look, so quick change and into the kitchen for refreshments laid on for
us. Freddie and his wife were really brilliant, they laid open their house for us, we sat by the swimming pool chatting, whilst the others went into the studio and the big rabbit (The family pet) pattered about
around us.
After everybody had been in the studio, we were ushered in the Freddie's Den, where his hobby was obvious remote control aeroplanes adorned the ceiling. There must have been twenty up
there. A huge TV was the centrepiece of the room and we were treated to a twenty minute video of Freddie performing live in New York.
Taxies had been booked to take us back to the hotel and Freddie got out
the publicity photos and signed autographs for everyone, and outside on the lawn we all posed for group photos. The taxies didn't show, so Freddie shouted, "Hey, I've got enough cars here, c'mon, I'll drive
one, my wife, can drive another and Ken (Freddie's mate and another recording studio owner) can drive the Merc." Well Ken's face was a sight to see, "Drive the Mercedes? Sure Freddie!" Back to
the hotel and a beer in the lounge before showering and changing for the Isley Brothers show.
I suppose, like everyone else, I was expecting The Isleys to do some of their Motown stuff. Although I thought
they were brilliant, doing all their 70's stuff, That Lady, Summer Breeze, Harvest for the World etc., they didn't include any of their Motown hits. We were, however, treated to a showman's show. Ronnie,
the only original member still performing, dressed immaculately in a red pinstriped suit, complete with hat and cane, changing twice during the show to a green and then yellow pinstripe suit complete with hat and
cane. We were also treated to a solo performance by one of the backing singers, Miss Angela Winbush, (who is married to Ronnie and has recorded in her own right on Malaco Records in the 80's), who managed to
pick on one of our crew, Glen Hunter, to sing intimately to. Glen, of course, shied away from this intimate attention, as his wife, Gillian, didn't seem too keen. The show lasted about 90 minutes, during
which time, Ernie Isley Jnr. Played some mean guitar and threw out plectrums at regular intervals. Norman and John managed to get their grubbies on them as souvenirs.
Back to the hotel and more
beer. You know, this American beer is a lot weaker than ours and it's so gassy. In the lounge of our hotel, there was a regular band, featuring a guy whose name escapes me. He was one of the original
members of Danny & The Juniors. Our gang pestered them for soul stuff and they duly obliged with some Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding.
Thursday, during the daytime was billed as being a
free day. We had agreed to visit the Riviera Hotel that night, where Lou Ragland was performing in the lounge with the band 'Touch of Silk', but me and my room mate, Mick Lee from London, had decided to go and
find the record shop that we had the address of. We walked the length of the Strip (about three miles) up past the Stratosphere Tower (the one with the roller-coaster on top of it) and were getting a bit
knackered, when we decided to ask how far to the shop. "Oh at least another three or four miles," was the reply. Because we had arranged something back at the hotel that afternoon, we decided to abandon
our attempt for the day and do it by taxi tomorrow. Instead, we went into a CD store that we had passed about ten minutes ago, but only had about ten minutes before we needed to be back at our hotel. So a
quick blast around and out into a taxi, back to the hotel.
The afternoon was spent sampling the very gassy American 'Bud' in the Motown Care Bar and consoling Tracy, who with her fella, Gary, had been planning to
get married in Vegas but she had been violently ill since we had arrived, so had had to put it off.
That night, we took taxies to The Riviera and arrived to catch the final song in 'Touch of Velvet's' first
show. John had spoken with Lou about changing their show to include a lot more up-tempo numbers, rather than the normal ballad-led lounge show. As we all arrived, the band came out to sit and talk with
us. Benny, the leader, had a resemblance to David Ruffin and told us that David was one of his heroes. When they do Tempts songs, he takes the role of David and Lou does Eddie (Kendricks).
So to the show Touch of Velvet consists of four vocalists, keyboard and drummer. The vocalists, including Benny and Lou, dressed immaculately in blue suits, treated us to a show featuring Temptations,
Four Tops and Jackie Wilson songs, as well as their new recording, which was due to be released within the next few weeks and just about all of us said we'd buy.
The show was brilliant, the dancing was
good and as a result, Lou told us that they had got an extra week's booking at the venue. The fact that our lot were all up dancing might have helped!
Friday morning and me and Mick went for breakfast at
Circus Circus. I'll explain here that breakfast, as all meals in Vegas, is available as a 'buffet' that is, self-service. Eat as much as you want for one price about $4. Circus must have
been popular 'cause it was a 15 minute wait to get a seat. However, although Mick was well impressed with the corned beef hash, I wasn't really that fussed.
After breakfast, we taxied out to the record shop
and started to dig through the masses of vinyl. Although there didn't appear to be anything particularly rare, I picked up a few records, all for $1.25 each. There was a huge Motown section also, with most
records priced between $1 and $2. Well worth the visit. I wish we'd had the time to go through the LP section though.
Friday night and me, John, Anita, John Phillips and his wife, Carol, Norman and
Cliff, had decided to visit the Boulder Station to catch Bobby Wade in the lounge bar. Bobby was the guy who replaced Little Anthony in the Imperials when he decided to go solo. Little Anthony has since
claimed the Imperials' name back so we were listening to Bobby Wade's Emperors. During the break, John introduced himself to Bobby (who he'd met before) and Bobby came out front to meet us lot. A real nice
bloke, he spoke with all of us and thanked us for visiting him. He even did an accapella version of his early 60's recordings for us. His on stage performance was excellent, as well as featuring Little
Anthony classic tunes, we were also treated to other standards of the time.
Well before we knew it, Saturday was upon us and we were ready for the first of our major 'organised' events. A soul night in Los
Angeles with me, Norman and John all DJ'ing to what was expected to be a packed crowd of soulies (over 250), who were there to hear the 'English DJ's', meet the English soulies, and listen to the live band, The
Inciters, and, of course, to hear Motown legend, Brenda Holloway.
The morning started good, meeting up with Greg Tormo from New Jersey, who'd flown in very late the Friday night. I'd been talking to Greg by
E-mail and on the soul list for the last few months. Greg's a collector extraordinaire of Northern tunes and has a collection to match or beat anyone's. Greg met up with us at breakfast, holdall over the
shoulder, filled with hundreds of records and a Dansette over the other shoulder. Before long, the records littered the breakfast table, much to the annoyance of the staff, who were trying to clear away, and we
were picking out tunes to play on the Dansette. That was a magical breakfast.
The coach to Los Angeles was booked for 12.00 midday. It's a five to six hour journey to LA, so all aboard and meet the 2
girls from Canada, Malc from Florida and and Kymm with the mod crew from Sacramento, who were mad on Northern stuff, which they'd heard of through the Kent albums. Their first question to us, "Do you know this
record?" and began to sing, 'Do you want me to get down on my knees, beg you baby please, cry a million tears.' It was, of course, Judy Street What. They loved it and enthused greatly. It was
really good to see, these guys were 19-21 years old.
The five hour trip was broken by a one hour stop-off at Bairstow shopping village, with one CD shop which was raided by some of us. CD's here were priced
from $3 to $14 and some real good bargains. I spent $160 on a bucketful of CD's, some Kent stuff here too.
Back on the coach, with a takeaway Chinese meal and on to Los Angeles. The scenery
changed as we approached LA from desert virtually all the way. We were travelling through industrial areas and seeing housing. We witnessed first hand the effects of El Nino, rivers were all high, there
was flooding and it rained constantly. We finally arrived at our destination, the Foothill Club in Long Beach, and were greeted by Nancy, who having talked by E-mail with me, Greg and John, had never met
us. So her greeting was, "Hi, I'm Nancy," to everyone in anticipation of us making ourselves known.
Into the club, and it's an ideal venue for a Northern Soul night, rough at the edges, low ceiling, long bar
on one side, pool tables on the other side, large dance floor in the middle with a stage at the top end and DJ booth in a converted serving area at the other end. We'd arrived at just turned 6pm and the band
were rehearsing their backing to Brenda's 'Just Look What You Have Done,' and, 'Starting the Hurt All Over Again.' They sounded really good, there were nine of them, a drummer, bass guitarist, two female
vocalists and the rest were the horn section. Their manager and record label owner, Paul Moshay (yet another member of the soul list) was there, looking after them and hoping to sell a few of their CD's.
Nancy's co-promoter, Cid, was the most laid-back promoter I've ever met. He was so laid back he was almost horizontal. When we arrived, the DJ's amongst us were told to report to Cid, who would allocate
spots to us. However, Cid just said, "The band's on at 11.00, Brenda's on in between the band, and I've got two DJ's from California to go on at The rest is for you lot." So we hastily arranged
timings and spots for everyone. The DJ's on the night were me, John Smith, Greg Tormo, Norman Edwards, Martin Blake, Smithers and Carlos. Martin and Smithers are two other members of our soul list and it
was good to meet them for the first time.
The Inciters were due on at 11.00, which was the time that Brenda was due to arrive. She would come on at about 11.30, half-way through the band's set. However,
Brenda didn't show. Cid (although I later heard was 'mad as hell') seemed completely unperturbed at the fact that Brenda hadn't arrived and asked the band to wait a while before starting. Eventually, with
Brenda still not arrived, we got the band on at 11.45.
We had been told that the band were a 'Northern Soul' band based in California. What would you expect? However, when they did perfect versions of
'Come on Train' and 'Manifesto', we were all convinced and the dance floor was kept busy throughout their performance. They did a solid one hour spot and still Brenda hadn't arrived. We went straight back
into the records and kept the dance floor busy. However, one or two people were beginning to ask, "Where's Brenda Holloway?"
Numerous phone calls couldn't locate her. However, at about 1am, she turned
up. With DAT in hand, she was ready to roll. The sound engineer informed us that he had no DAT machine. The band had rehearsed two numbers but Brenda didn't remember 'Starting the Hurt', so she
decided to only do one song well what do you do? I introduced her to wild applause and she got straight into 'Just Look What You've Done,' with the band really belting it out. It sounded really
good. She finished to yet more applause and said goodnight. We managed to get her back up, doing accapella versions of , 'You Made Me So Very Happy,' 'When I'm Gone,' and, 'Operator, Operator,' and the
crowd were satisfied. By this time, it was 1.30am and time to leave. The coach was waiting so it was all aboard for the six hour journey back to Vegas. We arrived back at 7.30am Sunday morning, just
in time for a New York Breakfast steak and eggs mmm.
The plan was to sleep all day. However, that was difficult, so a long chat about the soul scene in the UK with Greg and a dozen coffees, then at
1.00pm, SLEEP. That evening, ABC TV were screening the Motown 40th Anniversary Show, so it was up to my room for a few of us with a crate of beer. Sleep followed fairly swiftly to prepare us for the
planned mini allnighter and live shows on the Monday night.
Monday night was the highlight of our week. John had gone on ahead of all of us to decorate the room with posters and stuff. We all arrived at
about 7 o'clock. The venue was Chapalas, a Mexican Eatery. We'd hired the back room, Lou had arranged for a PA, disco system and portable dance floor to be installed. The plan was to have a Mexican
buffet with the artistes, to have them perform for us and then go on with a mini allnighter.
The buffet consisted of typical Mexican dishes chilli, etc. and all the artistes were approachable and
talkative. It was a relaxed event, a bit like a family get-together. Several people had come in from LA, including the band, The Inciters, and Carlos. Altogether, there were about 60 of us.
After
the buffet, I was nominated to be the MC for the night, although I had suggested Lou, but he was determined to keep control of the DAT's and the sound system. Lou had organised the running order for the live
acts as he had to arrange the backing tape. First up was Joan Bias. Joan recorded for Way Out Records in the 60's. She did one number. Then came current recording artiste, Carolyn
Walden. She had a track which was featured heavily by Richard Searling in '97, You Can Cry On My Shoulder. However, she started with her new song, the title of which escapes me due out soon on CD
single. Next, Joan returned with her second song. Then we were treated to Carolyn once more and the 97 track.
Lou said to me, "Watch this next guy he's a white black man." I introduced
Ken Gold, this young white guy with peroxide blond, spiky hair came up. I was worried. My concerns were soon dispelled. Never have I heard a white man sing with such SOUL and passion. He was
without doubt, one of the highlights of the show, and everybody else thought so too.
Next up Freddie Empire, who hadn't sung live for a number of years. He sang his re-worked version of Baby Let Me
Love You Tonight. What a mover Freddie is. Again, the audience went wild.
Sonny Charles and Sweet Louie (Checkmates) wanted to talk with everyone. They hadn't brought their DAT's so couldn't
sing. They too were enthusiastically received by everyone.
Finally the man who had organised the live show and had put a load of work into ensuring that everything went smoothly, Mr Lou
Ragland. Lou did three numbers, including his Northern Soul classic, I Aravel Alone and was duly rewarded with the adulation of the crowd.
Finally, finally Skip Martin (Dazz Band) got up to say a
few words of congratulation to everyone. It was then down to group photos and bits of chit chat, marvelling at Sonny Turner's car, buying of CD's and souvenirs, before we got down to some serious dancing.
DJ's on the night were 'Whispering' Bob Storey, John Smith, Bernie O'Brien, Norman Edwards, Greg Tormo, Smithers, Martin Blake, Dave Thomas and Mike from Iowa.
We finished the night at 4am, said our goodbyes to
friends old and new but soulies all together, and it was back to the hotel. I had to be at the airport at 9.00, so it was a couple of hours' sleep and away back to reality work and the real world, but
vowing to go back to Vegas soon.
To all those involved: Thanks.
click here for the pics
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