In 2007, the late Janis Martin recorded her final sessions with Austin based musician Rosie Flores. It was a short four months after the recordings that Janis passed away of cancer.
Since that time, Rosie has attempted to get Record companies interested in the recordings to no avail. It seems they’re afraid to promote an album by a deceased Rockabilly star.
Now, Rosie has decided to take the task into her own hands, but that is a massive undertaking that requires a lot of money. This is where you can help.
Rosie is trying to raise $15,000 at Kickstarter.com. As of now, she is $2,143 dollars short of her goal with less than a week to go.
Here is what Rosie has said about the project:
Rosie Flores
My name is Rosie Flores and I’m an internationally known touring musician, songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer. Not long ago, I had the great fortune of producing the final recording sessions for legendary rockabilly artist Janis Martin who was an inspiration to me musically and personally. Janis passed away in September, 2007 and her dying wish was to see these recordings released. This is a wish I am determined to honor.
Janis Martin was one of the few women working in rock and roll during the 1950s, and she proved to be one of the early innovators, not only of rock, but of country music as well. Nicknamed “The Female Elvis” for her dance moves on stage and her ability to fuse her Hillbilly and R and B roots, Martin’s trailblazing career has influenced countless female artists myself included. After she agreed to sing with me on two duets for my Rockabilly Filly CD (1995/ Hightone Records), Janis and I became close friends. This was Janis’ initial return to the studio after a 30 year hiatus and followed on the heels of a session I’d done with Wanda Jackson. Recording with both of these legends was not only an honor for me, but it was also a dream come true.
Through the years of our friendship I never gave up on trying to get Janis back in the studio to record something new and in 2007 she finally agreed. Drummer Bobby Trimble and I combed through a plethora of material, finally selecting 10 new songs we thought would fit Janis to a tee and then we put together an amazing band and recorded those sides. I have tried numerous times to shop this record to various labels and thus far have had no luck. Sadly, due to the current climate of the recording industry I have not been able to find a label that would be willing to take on this project and unfortunately, we are still in need of funds in order to finish mixing and mastering the record.
Janis Martin and Rosie Flores
Word has gotten out that I have this treasure in my hands and I’ve been contacted by numerous Janis Martin fans, old and new, that are chomping at the bit to hear these recordings and that’s why I’ve decided to bring this project to Kickstarter.com. Not only are Janis’ vocals still strong and rockin’ but her amazing rendition of Sweet Dreams is one of the best performances she ever gave-and at the age of 68, no less!
This valuable project needs your help and any donation, large or small, would go a long way towards getting these gems, mixed, mastered and manufactured! Your pledge has the power to keep Janis Martin’s legacy alive. We hope that sooner than later, you and all of Janis Martin’s thousands of fans can finally own a copy of her very last studio sessions. My wish is to pay tribute to a real cool lady who never stopped rockin’ and rollin’ until the end.
Thanks, in advance, for your help! This project meant the world to her.
Let’s see if we can help out. Just go to Kickstarter.com and pledge any dollar amount you can. And don’t think your generosity will not be rewarded. Pledges of $5 guarantees you a free download of a song from the project. And the more you donate, the greater the reward.
You can learn more about the great Rosie Flores at her website.
The Honeycombs (L to R): Denis D'Ell, Martin Murray, Honey Lantree, John Lantree, and Alan Ward
The Honeycombs were an English beat/pop group, founded in 1963 in North London. The group had one chart-topping hit, the million selling “Have I the Right?”, in 1964. After that song the interest in the group ebbed away, and they split up in late 1966. The group’s most distinguishing mark was their female drummer, Honey Lantree.
The original group members were:
Denis D’Ell (born Denis James Dalziel, October 14, 1943, Whitechapel, East London; died of cancer July 6, 2005) – Lead singer and harmonica player
Martin Murray (born October 7, 1939, The City of London) – Rhythm guitar. He was replaced by Peter Pye (born July 12, 1946, Walthamstow, London) in November 1964
Alan Ward (born December 12, 1945, Nottingham) – Lead guitar
John Lantree (born John David Lantree, August 20, 1940, Newbury, Berkshire) – Bass guitar
Honey Lantree (born Ann Margot Lantree, August 28, 1943, Hayes, Middlesex) – Drums and singe -
The group started in November 1963 as an amateur band founded by Martin Murray. Its members were Murray, a hairdresser, his salon assistant Honey Lantree, her brother John and two friends. Originally they called themselves The Sheratons.The group played dates in the West End of London, and at the Mildmay Tavern, a North London pub. Among those attending an appearance of the band in February 1964 were aspiring songwriters Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley. Howard and Blaikley would become a prolific British songwriting team, writing songs recorded by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, The Herd, Lulu and even Elvis Presley, but in 1964 they had just started their career. They got into conversation with the group, which appeared interested in a few songs the duo had just written. The group had already arranged an audition with indie record producer Joe Meek. The audition resulted in a recording of Howard and Blaikley’s “Have I the Right?”. Meek himself provided the B-side, “Please Don’t Pretend Again”.
Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard
Meek used his apartment at 304 Holloway Road, Islington, as a recording studio. Three UK No. 1 hits were produced there: “Johnny Remember Me” by John Leyton, “Telstar” by The Tornados and “Have I the Right?”.
Conspicuous in “Have I the Right?” is the prominence of the drums, whose effect was enhanced by members of the group stamping their feet on the wooden stairs to the studio. Meek recorded the effect with five microphones he had fixed to the banisters with bicycle clips. For the finishing touch someone beat a tambourine directly onto a microphone. The recording was also somewhat sped up.
“Have I the Right?” was released in June 1964 on the Pye record label. Louis Benjamin (1922–1994), Pye’s later chairman, rechristened the group The Honeycombs, a pun on the drummer’s name and her job as a hairdresser’s assistant. The sales started slowly, but by the end of July the record started to climb in the UK Singles Chart. At the end of August the record reached No. 1. “Have I the Right?” was also a big success outside the UK, hitting No. 1 in Australia and Canada, No. 5 in the US and No. 2 in the Netherlands. Overall sales of the record reached a million. The Honeycombs also recorded a German version of the song: “Hab ich das Recht?” Both the English and the German versions reached No 21 in the German charts: the English one in October, the German one in November 1964.
From then on Howard and Blaikley acted as the group’s managers and also wrote their next singles, “Is It Because” and “Eyes”. These records did not sell well. This also applied to their fourth single, “Something Better Beginning”, written by Ray Davies from The Kinks.
Soon after their first record had become a hit, The Honeycombs went on tour to the Far East and Australia, and were not able to promote their new records at home. The tour gained them a long-lasting popularity in Japan, however. Especially for the Japanese market the group produced a live album and a single, “Love in Tokyo”. The group also made a lasting impression in Sweden, where they scored two No. 1 singles.
In July 1965, British music magazine NME reported that it had been agreed in the London High Court that “Have I The Right?” was the work of Howard and Blaikley. Composer Geoff Goddard agreed to drop allegations that he, not they, had written the song.
In August 1965 the group released, “That’s the Way”, with Honey Lantree sharing vocals with D’Ell (when on tour, Viv Prince of The Pretty Things took over the drumming). This record became their fourth British hit and reached #12. Its successor, “This Year Next Year”, again with Lantree and D’Ell sharing vocals, did not reach the UK chart.
D’Ell sang on all but the last single the group recorded. The last single “That Loving Feeling” was written and sung by the new singer Colin Boyd. In 1967 the group disbanded.
“Who Is Sylvia?” was an adaptation of Franz Schubert’s song “An Sylvia”.
The Honeycombs
The Honeycombs made many appearances on music television shows such as Top of the Pops, Ready Steady Go! (UK), Shindig! (US), and Beat-Club (Germany). The group also appeared in the 1965 film Pop Gear, miming “Have I the Right?” and “Eyes”.
The group went on, with new lead singer, guitarist and keyboardist (This line-up released the last single “That Loving Feeling”):
Colin Boyd (born Colin Nicholas Nicol, June 4, 1946, Combe, outside Bath, Somerset) – Guitar and vocals. Later he formed Honeybus and changed his name to Colin Hare
Rod Butler (born Rodney Butler, May 27, 1944, Mill Hill, London) – Lead guitar and vocals. Later he played with The Lemmings and subsequently The College Boys, formed by ex-Honeycomb Martin Murray. Butler later joined forces with D’Ell and formed Zarabanda and later still played in Violinski, with Mik Kaminski of the ELO
Eddie Spence – Keyboards and vocals
John Lantree – Bass guitar
Honey Lantree – Drums and vocals
-
The Honeycombs' album, "All Systems Go!"
In 1967, The Honeycombs broke up.In the 1990s founding member Martin Murray toured the cabaret circuit with a group called ‘Martin Murray’s Honeycombs’. Another line-up including Honey Lantree, Peter Pye and Denis D’Ell also successfully toured from 1991 onwards. John Lantree later rejoined this line-up. In 1999 record producer Russell C. Brennan asked D’Ell, Honey and John Lantree and Pye to record “Live and Let Die”, on the Future Legend Records compilation, Cult Themes from the 70s Vol. 2. This compilation also featured Glenda Collins, another Joe Meek artist.
In 2004, with the rights to the name now secure, Murray organized a Honeycombs band, though the name “New Honeycombs” was still in use thereafter by a band featuring several other interim members. Presently there are two groups calling themselves the Honeycombs, one led by founder member Martin Murray, the other by later member Tony Harte. In 2011 a “tribute band” lead by Paul Bonner has surfaced billing themselves at the New Honeycombs most recently touring with The Nashville Teens.
Johnny Ace (June 9, 1929 – December 25, 1954), born John Marshall Alexander, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, was one of the stars of American rhythm and blues singing. He scored a string of hit singles in the mid-1950s before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Alexander’s father was a preacher in Tennessee. After serving in the navy during the Korean War, Alexander joined Adolph Duncan’s Band as a pianist. He then joined the B. B. King band. Soon King departed for Los Angeles and Bobby Bland joined the army. Alexander took over vocal duties and renamed the band The Beale Streeters, also taking over King’s WDIA radio show.
Becoming “Johnny Ace”, he signed to Duke Records (originally a Memphis label associated with WDIA) in 1952. Urbane ‘heart-ballad’ “My Song,” his first recording, topped the R&B charts for nine weeks in September. (“My Song” was covered in 1968 by Aretha Franklin, on the flipside of “See Saw”.)
Ace began heavy touring, often with Willa Mae “Big Mama” Thornton. In the next two years, he had eight hits in a row, including “Cross My Heart,” “Please Forgive Me,” “The Clock,” “Yes, Baby,” “Saving My Heart for You,” and “Never Let Me Go.” In December, 1954 he was named the Most Programmed Artist Of 1954 after a national DJ poll organized by U.S. trade weekly Cash Box.
Ace’s recordings sold very well for those times. Early in 1955, Duke Records announced that the three 1954 Johnny Ace recordings, along with Thornton’s “Hound Dog”, had sold more than 1,750,000 records.
Johnny Ace
After touring for a year, Ace had been performing at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas on Christmas 1954. During a break between sets, he was playing with a .32 cal revolver. Members of his band said he did this often, sometimes shooting at roadside signs from their car.
It was widely reported that Ace killed himself playing Russian roulette. Big Mama Thornton’s bass player Curtis Tillman, however, who witnessed the event, said, “I will tell you exactly what happened! Johnny Ace had been drinking and he had this little pistol he was waving around the table and someone said ‘Be careful with that thing…’ and he said ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded…see?’ and pointed it at himself with a smile on his face and ‘Bang!’ – sad, sad thing. Big Mama ran outta that dressing room yelling ‘Johnny Ace just killed himself!”
Thornton said in a written statement (included in the book The Late Great Johnny Ace) that Ace had been playing with the gun, but not playing Russian roulette. According to Thornton, Ace pointed the gun at his girlfriend and another woman who were sitting nearby, but did not fire. He then pointed the gun toward himself. The gun went off, shooting him in the side of the head.
Ace’s funeral was on January 2, 1955, at Memphis’ Clayborn Temple AME church. It was attended by an estimated 5000 people.
“Pledging My Love” became a posthumous R&B #1 hit for ten weeks beginning February 12, 1955. As Billboard bluntly put it, Ace’s death “created one of the biggest demands for a record that has occurred since the death of Hank Williams just over two years ago.” His single sides were compiled and released as The Johnny Ace Memorial Album.
According to Nick Tosches’ book Unsung Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Johnny Ace shot himself only a little more than an hour after he had bought a brand new 1955 Oldsmobile.
Bob Dylan and Joan Baez performed “Never Let Me Go” on the Rolling Thunder Revue Tour late in 1975.
Johnny Ace and Big Mama Thornton concert poster
Elvis Presley covered “Pledging My Love” on his last studio session in 1976. The song appeared on the Moody Blue album in 1977 at the time of his death.
Paul Simon wrote and performed the song “The Late Great Johnny Ace”, in which a boy, upon hearing of the death of Ace, orders a photograph of the deceased singer, describing: “It came all the way from Texas / With a sad and simple face / And they signed it on the bottom / From the Late Great Johnny Ace.”
David Allen Coe covered “Pledging My Love”, introducing the song with his own recollections of hearing the news of Ace’s death.
Johnny Ace is also name checked by Root Boy Slim in “House Band in Hell” as well as by Dash Rip Rock in the song “Johnny Ace”.
Ace’s song “Pledging My Love” appears in the 1973 Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets and John Carpenter’s 1983 movie Christine, based on Stephen King’s novel. The song also appears in the Abel Ferrara film Bad Lieutenant. The Song Also appears in the movie “Back To the Future” It is playing in the background of the scene with Marty and his mother in the yellow car. It is, however not credited.
Johnny Ace
The Teen Queens song “Eddie My Love” was originally titled “Johnny My Love” and was written in Johnny’s memory.
the Swiss Singer Polo Hofer and the Schmetterband wrote the Song “Johnny Ace” in 1985 – it was released on the album Giggerig.
Dave Alvin’s 2011 release, Eleven Eleven, contains a song describing his death, called “Johnny Ace is Dead.”
Robert has been performing
in bands and writing songs
since 1969. He is a former
writer and performer for the
Bob & Tom Show. He lives
in Fort Wayne, IN with his
wife, Sheri and their three
children, Dustin, Harrison
and McCartney.
I've had several requests to do a Pink Floyd post. I'll get around to it soon. For now, enjoy this live video of the band from Knebworth in 1990 with SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND
Every Sunday, Peter Tibbles contributes a column called "Elder Music" at the web site,TIME GOES BY. Check it out. For archives of previous "Elder Music" columns click HERE.
