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On a recent visit to Las Vegas, I took the opportunity to trap Lou Ragland, produce my tape recorder and quiz him on all the aspects about Cleveland soul that I could recall before he could
escape my clutches. Much to his credit, Lou took the time and effort necessary to help me and I must say although his memory isn't 100% perfect, it's not far off this level of perfection. Since returning home, I
have asked him further questions to fill in some gaps and I hope you will agree that the following data is very illuminating with regard to the happenings on the city's soul scene over a 20 year period…….
JRS: What do you remember about Jessie Fisher
LR: Jessie, he was always around the Way Out Studios. I was the only staff engineer at Way Out from 1965 to 1967, so knew. Way Out was at 1966 E 55th Street and at that time it led everything in
Cleveland. It was 8 track, so Agency and Cleveland Recording lost a lot of business to Way Out. I would unlock the studio and we would work from 8am to 8pm on Way Out stuff. During those times, I trained up Tim
Lockhart as an engineer. Other artists would block book the studio, like Bobby Womack and Bob Davis would book it for his artists, he had 3 groups……...Before they were at 1966 E 55th Street, Way Out had an earlier
studio at 1871 E 55th. That was used as a rehearsal studio and then it was over to Cleveland Recording at 1900 Euclid (Ave. – next to the University) to cut the record. Sometimes Schneider's would be used as it was
the only studio that could cut straight onto an acetate.…. Jessie Fisher really didn't think that he was an artist. People would hear him sing and he had more of a gospel flair than anything. Maybe the church
figured in his background. When he would come into the studio, everyone would say….we got a song for Jessie, let's try it out on him….I think he had a day job so he would come in the evening after we had worked
things out. Tyrone Henry and James McClain of the Springers wrote his track "Why" and Jessie, James Calloway and myself wrote "Little John". We cut that there and then in the studio.
JRS: Was he a young guy
LR: He was a little older than us ( Lou was 24 in 1966 ), maybe a couple of years. He started coming around Way Out in 1965/66, he wouldn't sing backing vocals or any of that. He was
actually a friend of Lester's ( Lester Johnson -- Way Out director ) and he knew the members of the Hornets pretty well. They introduced him to me. William Thompson, who was known as "Red"
because he was a very light skinned black man, was the guy mostly interested in Jessie. With Lester being pals with him, he would always say….go in the back ( to the actual recording studio ) and see what these guys
can pull up (cut) on you. Johnson and (Bill) Branch weren't even in the studio for sessions. They would come along later, listen to the tracks and decide what got issued.
JRS: I guess that if Jessie was always hanging around the studio from the mid 60's, he cut a lot of stuff that wasn't released. If there was nobody around to sing, and he turned up, I guess you
got him to sing ??
LR: For two years he came to the studio solid, but I didn't follow him much after that. ( after 1967, some new guys came on, Tim Lockhart etc. & took Lou's place in the studio as he went out on
the road playing guitar for the Terry Knight Review. Lou had sold all his instruments before taking the studio job at Way Out, so he didn't have a guitar when asked by Tom Baker to go on the road. But he was being
offered good money -- $400 a week – and he remembered that Kim Tolliver had a guitar hanging on her house wall as decoration. So Lou went and explained the situation to her and she gave him the guitar to use ).
I went out on the road with Terry Knight who was originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Now the Sensations (also from Michigan), they were the guys who did a lot of recording.
JRS: So there are a lot of un-issued Sensations tracks !! Now they weren't from Cleveland but were also from upstate Michigan (Battle Creek ?) . Did they play live shows in Cleveland.
LR: They had no performance abilities at all, they could just make records. You had Rico (Roosevelt Simmons), John Washington and the third guy was always moving around. At one time it was Jimmy
Butler (I may have misheard this name ?) and then other guys (Joe Kelly, Chester Florence).
JRS: They were just a trio ??
LR: Yes, just a trio. John Washington played the piano and he wrote songs from the piano. He
passed out his songs to different people.
JRS: Did you engineer or produce their tracks ??
LR: No, I didn't produce them, it might have been Willie Smith (Lou was the engineer on their sessions though). He was the guy down there doing that at the time. He was also the first arranger I knew
of, to work there. He was from Cleveland and had learnt his trade back in the 40's, in the big band era. He had worked with Choker Campbell ( by the mid sixties, Campbell was working in Motown's studio as well as
heading up the Hitsville tour band). Willie Smith's still around Cleveland……… Ace Carter was the arranger producer for Joan Bias recordings, that was my second time singing in a recording session after "Never Let Me
Go".
JRS: So they just came to Cleveland to record.
LR: No, finally they moved. You see, during those days, we thought we were gonna be the next Motown and we prepared for it. Then you had John Wooten and Jim Brown ( Cleveland Brown's football player
after whom the Big Jim label was named ), Judge Lloyd Brown and all these big guys supporting the label. John Wooten and Judge Lloyd Brown were members of the board and directors of Way Out Records.
JRS: They put money in ?
LR: Yea, they threw the money in and would leave us there. We turned out so much material for their money, they left us alone.
JRS: Were the Sensations all young guys ?
LR: Yes, at least 10 years younger than me.
JRS: And they had no stage presence at all ?
LR: No, we didn't get that artist development department started like Motown. We wanted to, but we just activated the production side.
JRS: But you taught yourself stage presence, how come they didn't.
LR: Well, I kinda taught myself it. See Billy Ward and the Dominoes ( who Lou had joined as lead singer for a few months in 1965 ) taught me stage presence. 13 weeks with Billy Ward was like 2 years
in college. He was a hard task master, you couldn't be late, that was inbred in me. Your word had to mean something and you always had to get your specific assignment done. If you were ahead of time, he rewarded
you. If you were late, he would close the door and then you had to learn your part through the door. Several members of new groups also did that or attempted to.
JRS: Do you remember Mike Terry coming to Way Out ?
LR: Mike Terry, I only met him and knew he was from Detroit.
JRS: Norman Whitfield ?
LR: Yes, I knew Norman Whitfield when he was in Cleveland, but he didn't know me.
JRS: Who produced your track " I Travel Alone" and how come this came out on Amy and not Way Out ?
LR: The guy who produced my 45 on Amy was Tom Baker and no one else, however there was an engineer there at Way Out named Tim Brown, but he never did anything on me. I don't know how my
recording got to Amy.
JRS: Did you know Jessie's brother, Richard Fisher ( later of the Jive 5 ) at all ?
LR: I only heard about him later.
JRS: OK, what can you remember about Harvey & the Phenomenals ( Da-wood recording artists).
LR: Man, they were a great band. Harvey was the lead vocalist and lead guitarist and they were around at the same time as I had the Bandmasters ( early / mid 60's ). So we would leave one club and
they would follow us in ( the groups back then would do a week long stint at each club ). His exact name was Harvey Hall.
JRS: Yes, I think he recorded solo for one of Boddie's labels
LR: Yes he did, Luau was one of Mr. Tom Boddie's record labels. Tom-lew was his publishing company but I was not the Lew. That was his wife's name abbreviated, her name is Louise Boddie. Boddie had
his own pressing plant on the side of the garage cum studio. He cut lots of gospel stuff.
JRS: What club were the Bandmasters house band at ?
LR: It was called the Music Box, out on Euclid.
JRS: Were Harvey and his group house band anywhere ?
LR: Yes, they played at a place out on Buckeye, but I can't remember the name right now. Almost every band around then would become house band at some place. We traded places with Don Gregory &
the Monclairs, that's how we became house band. When Don Gregory's "Happy Feet" hit ( a Sunburst 45 in 1965 ), they went on the road and the club had to replace them, so Kim Tolliver maneuvered us into that spot.
JRS: Right, what can you tell me about the Monclairs ? How many in the group ?
LR: I think it was six.
JRS: Did they play their own instruments.
LR: Yes.
JRS: They had 2 or 3 releases on Sunburst, which was Carl Maduri's label thru Atlantic.
LR: Yea, I think Jackie Cooper was their drummer and Don Gregory the base player
JRS: Who was the lead singer ?
LR: They all sang. They didn't have one lead singer, Sam Blackshall was keyboard and organist, that was the sound people would go for. Everybody played instruments, all six. One girl, who would open
up the show for them.
JRS: Was she part of the group ?
LR: No, they started backing her up at the Music Box and she later went on to be a club owner at the Pin Wheel on the corner of E.116th and
Nelson.
JRS: Can you remember her name ?
LR: No……… Let me go back to that record "Happy Feet" ( A side to the current UK favorite " Wait For Me" ), there was a guy name of Sam Knight who actually was the MC at the Music Box. He encouraged
Don Gregory and the Monclairs to record that. It was originally just a riff that they played that filled the floor, the dance floor, all the time. So they developed it and made it into a record. Sam Knight was the
guy that would come out and work with Disc Jockeys and bring unknown acts to the Music Box and give them a start. Now if you were not 21, you couldn't be in this club with alcohol. So they developed a date on Sunday
afternoon, a matinee, from 3 till 5. They would cover up the liquor, no nudity or anything adult and you could bring in teenagers. So you groomed yourself in front of that crowd. Yea, they would take in tea, cool
aid, sodas like that.
JRS: You weren't allowed in till you were 18 ?
LR: No, I was in there. I sneaked in, told em I was 18 but I wasn't. I was the leader of the band but they didn't know how old I was. If they knew I was younger than them, they would have beaten me up
or something. But I just carried myself well, I had my own car.
JRS: What age were you allowed to drive ?
LR: I was allowed to drive at 15. But I learnt at 10. I would always drive my mother's car from the back garage out thru a narrow driveway and have it ready, warmed up in the winter. She liked
that. I proved I could drive, I learnt how to drive in old junk cars in the backyard.
JRS: The Springers, how many in the group ?
LR: Six again, all singers. Yes, so some of the harmony parts were doubles. One of the guys was the guitarist but he also sang but the other five guys just performed. They had the first record that
took a Cleveland group to the Apollo in New York.
JRS: They were more of a throw back, a doo-wop type of group.
LR: Yea, really.
JRS: So when it got to 1966 / 68 and it was all the Motown sound, they seemed to disappear.
LR: Well they didn't treat it like it. After they went on the circuit ( the chittlin club tours ), they were very disillusioned and weren't interested in the business so they kinda split up. James
McClain was in the group and he and I continued to write songs for them.
JRS: Tyrone Henry, what happened to him ?
LR: I don't know, he would just go off of the deep end every now and then. He was a guitarist also. But after they had been on the road, they split up and we put all our attention on the Sensations.
JRS: What about the Exceptional 3 with Ruby Carter.
LR: Floyd Beck was the leader of the Exceptional Three. I just know that they were a pet group of Lester Johnson's, he wanted to make this group into something. I can't remember the full line-up but
Ruby Carter had a great voice, she could sing ( I also have George Hendrix as being a member !).
JRS: Laura Greene, did you know her at all ?
LR: No, I didn't know her at all. She came into Way Out after I went out on the road.
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