Music City Soul Brothers
Freddie said; “When the Four Rivers weren’t successful as a quartet we kind of split up and Wylie started singing with Connie and I started with Kenneth and we were the Music City Soul Brothers and they became Wylie & Connie.” Freddie and Ken recorded two 45’s for the Music City label “Looking For My Baby”, “Something In My Eye”, “Every Nite I See Your Face” and “Let Our Love Go On”. While talking about this period he breaks into song singing lines from “Let Our Love Go On” which was a song he had fond memories of singing. He said they gigged regularly around the Bay Area but in 1965 he was drafted into the military.
Drafted!!
Freddie told me about his brief stay in the military; “I was drafted into the armed forces in 1965 when I was 26 and I was a little bit older than most folks on the draft who were mostly 20/21. They had made a mistake – it was a typographical error but I was still drafted. I went through the first phase of it and I was performing and I didn’t really want to go – they cut my “process” off and called me "Goldilocks" and all kind of names. They gave me an honourable discharge because I couldn’t adjust to military life in general. I didn’t want to go to Vietnam because that’s where they wanted to send me because it was in the heat of the conflict. I went AWOL and they put me in the stockade and they court marshalled me and they decided to give me an honourable discharge. The thought of going there was very horrifying to me but somebody had to do it. I regret the way I got out of the military like I did. But not everyone has the disciplinary thing and some people are made for this and some people are made for that.
He briefly hooked up with Ken after his military service as part of the Music City All Stars recording “The Philly”; “When Kenneth stopped singing and had his calling back in to the church me and Wylie hooked up and we became the Casanova Two.”
Music City Soul Brothers Looking For My Baby and Something In My Eye Music City 855; Every Nite I See Your Face and Let Our Love Go On
Lonnie Hewitt and Early Bird Records
Lonnie Hewitt Git It Fantasy
“Lonnie Hewitt was the arranger with Cal Tjader and he was a very accomplished piano player. He played with Cal Tjader for about 12 years. He decided to break from Cal when he didn’t get credits for some of the things he wrote. I met him in Oakland through some people who introduced me to him. I got hooked up with Lonnie Hewitt before I went solo in 1964. He had heard about me and he knew that I had done some things with Music City and he liked it so he thought he could do a better job on the arrangements. He approached me about recording because he had his own label. He asked me would I be interested in recording. It was helluva situation because he was a helluva keyboard player. He had been playing Latin and jazz and when I got hold of him I showed him how to play gospel because of my gospel background. It was a good marriage because of the way we communicated.”
Lonnie Hewitt knew Sol Vance, the President of Fantasy records from his days with Cal Tjader and Fantasy who helped him set up the Early Bird label. “ He used the royalties he was owed by Fantasy to set up the sessions. They must have had money but they moved into movies and they cut loose people. I had a contract with Lonnie but at that time in the 60’s you would get 3% of 98% and I didn’t get anything in the mail!!!.
Casanova 11
Freddie and Wylie had known each other since they were teenagers; “Wylie was with the Holidays one of the groups in Bushrod Recreation Centre were we all used to meet up. He is a little older than I am – 4 or 5 years older and I was on the young kid on the block with all the groups. I was this young kid with this high voice and they all wanted me to sing with them. So I became the youngest person in the groups, which were already established in the Bay Area.
Casanova 11 Love's Philosophy,Maybe They're Right, I Was A Fool, We Got To Keep On Early Bird
Freddie recorded two 45’s with Wylie for Early Bird, “We Got To Keep On”, “I Was A Fool”, “Love’s Philosophy” and “Maybe They’re Right”; “We also recorded “Every Nite I See Your Face” which I wrote and had gone to No 4 on the charts with Music City Soul Brothers but Ray Dobard stopped Fantasy from releasing it because he said that he owned the song. I wrote it but I never got compensation. I never realised how important publishing was at the time. I only recorded 6 six songs with Wylie.” “I changed the lyrics on “Maybe They’re Right” to “I’ll treat you right if you are dynamite”. I changed that around because of my association with Lonnie – it was the only way I was going to get compensated for my work was to change the lyrics and copyright my own stuff because I had let Lonnie copyright my stuff – he never gave me the real deal – I put my life in his hands.”
He continued; “We were really cool for a while until Wylie felt that he should be the one. If he had my voice he wouldn’t need me but I never felt like that. He was just a person who was very good musician and he wasn’t compensated for his words he thought and I was green after coming out of church and I didn’t know about the business things and I just wanted to sing and be happy and be seen. But I eventually wanted to make money but the money part didn’t matter at the beginning. At that time it was only paying $25 a man.
Freddie and Wylie stayed together for about 4 years; “ Our stage act was very exciting – we walked through the audience and we had some very good bands that played behind us – Wylie was short and I was tall and we wore “processes”. We had “Superfly” hairstyles – hair all down my neck. We were very young and energetic. We had beautiful suits and dressed alike. We always bought outfits that matched. If we had suits he would have one colour and I another but the same material. We tried to compliment each other on stage and vocally.“
"Wylie and I travelled around as the Casanova Two we did a whole lot of things. We did things in Oregon, in Seattle and in the Northern States. We travelled for a couple of years before we decided to go solo. He is now working with the Bay Area Blues Society band and he is one of the vocalists with them. We are still good friends and on my latest CD he sings background vocals. We have always been thinking of having a reunion of the Casanova Two but we never got round to doing it.”
We talked about the recording of “We Got To Keep On” which is one of my favourite songs played on the UK Northern Soul Scene; “We recorded it Fantasy in Berkley in 1965/66”; he burst into song. “It was a lot of fun me and Wylie. We went in there and we both had gospel backgrounds so what I didn’t do Wylie would yell here. When he was singing the 2nd verse “If Only I Could Show You How It Felt” and I would do a few little highlights. Most of the high parts are Freddie Hughes and the low parts Wylie. So we did like a Sam and Dave type thing.”
“I knew that it was one of my best known records only when I came there and I found out that it had been played for 25 years. I wrote that song and never got a dime.”
I asked him who played on the Early Bird 45’s besides Lonnie, “We had some of the baddest fellows – Eddie Foster, Cal Valentine who is no longer alive who was one of the baddest guitar player that I ever heard in my life. He did the backing part on “We Got To Keep On” , he sings the backing “Gotta Keep On Loving” – he had the harmony real well.” He told me that Eddie Foster was still alive but he hadn’t seen him in years; "He had a stroke and was kind of down but he is still alive – he also played guitar. Eugene Blacknell played behind me. Johnny Heartsman played on recordings with me when I did the “Send My Baby Back” album. Curtis Moore was the drummer – we just had a good combination of musicians. I knew all these guys on a regular basis and I played in the clubs with them – I would sit in with them."
Posts
