#donharrison

The Richmond OKeh Sessions of 1929.

BY DON HARRISON

"A few months before the Great Depression in 1929, New York's OKeh record label held a multiartist field recording session in Richmond that led to more than two dozen 78-rpm releases by area singers and musicians. We still don't know exactly where this interracial talent show happened — restrictive Virginia laws concerning race mixing ensured that the endeavor was hush-hush — but OKeh's engineers managed to capture a diverse array of sounds: old-time country music (Roanoke Jug Band, pictured, the Buck Mountain Band), white gospel (Bela Lam, Otis and Tom Mote), "hot" jazz (Bubblin' Over 5), black religious quartets (Monarch Jazz Quartet, Sparkling Four), blues (Blues Birdhead), even a Hawaiian string band (Tubize Hawaiians) from Hopewell."

"From gospel-quartet singing to free jazz and doo-wop, the Smith family has influenced not only Richmond's music, but America's."

by Don Harrison for Style Weekly.

       It takes a lot to blow the mind of a musician who specializes in cosmic space jazz.

"Oh man, I can't believe this," Lonnie Liston Smith Jr. says from his home in Short Pump. "I'm looking on the computer and ... I just didn't know."

(And it should blow our minds that the out-there jazz keyboardist who helped to bring the world such albums as "Expansions," the guy who swapped visionary riffs with the likes of Miles Davis, Max Roach and Pharoah Sanders, lives in Short Pump. But let's not digress. We'll get back to that.)

Read the rest of the article at Style Weekly.

Check out more by Don Harrison, one of our wonderful Richmond Music History Tour guides, at his blog here.

“Black Leather Books” by the Colonial Heights-based Morning Disaster is both a shimmering sonic jewel of a song — all mysterious Byrds-y chord changes and apocalyptic Doors-like lyrics — and a fascinating local music history lesson. In Morning Disaster, led by songwriter and organist Stanley Rose and longtime area drummer Bob Antonelli, we hear the first flowering of the Virginia Commonwealth University (then RPI) art school influence that so colors the music of Richmond today. “Nobody wanted to do original music around here. There was no demand for it at all,” Rose says about that period in the late '60s when the edgy Morning Disaster was opening for the likes of Iron Butterfly. The band held court at an adventurous Fan club at the corner of Laurel and Broad called the Asparagus Farm, toured the North Carolina college circuit and played packed shows at Dogwood Dell. Not long after the group recorded a demo tape in 1968 that went nowhere, it disbanded. Stanley Rose quit playing music and the group's recordings — including the sublime “Black Leather Books” — survived only on a homemade eight-track tape, which was rediscovered by archivist Brent Hosier and released on “Aliens Psychos & Wild Things Vol. 3 (Virginia & Outer Space 1965-70).” Clearly, judging from the evidence, the Morning Disaster was the one that both led the way and got away. — Don Harrison (Source: Style Weekly)

Article from Style Weekly written by Don Harrison

"For years she was the mystery lady of rock 'n' roll.

"I've had 55 years of everybody letting me know it's out there," Barbara Gray says, laughing, about the famous image that includes her touching tongues with Elvis Presley — a picture taken in Richmond that's been called one of the most erotic images of all time."

Read the rest of the article at Style Weekly.

Check out more by Don Harrison, one of our wonderful Richmond Music History Tour guides, at his blog here.

Outstanding Richmond Sounds

of the '90s 

by Don Harrison

(Source: Richmond.com)

1. Aaron Binder -- "As Modern as Yesterday" (BCD, 1999) 2. Bio Ritmo -- "Que Siga La Musica! " (Shameless, 1995) 3. Cashmere Jungle Lords -- "Southern Barber Supply" (Little Abner, 1997) 4. Chrome Daddy Disco -- "The Sonic Sounds of Chrome Daddy Disco" (CDD, 1996) 5. D'Angelo -- " Brown Sugar" (Capitol, 1995) 6. Drunk -- "A Derby Spiritual" (Jagjaguwar, 1996) 7. Fulflej -- "Wack-Ass Tuba Riff" (Mercury/Scratchie, 1996) 8. Gutterball -- "Weasel" (Break Out/Enemy, 1995) 9. Honor Role -- "Album" (Merge, 1996) 10. House of Freaks -- "Cakewalk" (Giant/Reprise, 1991) 11. Michael Hurley -- "Wolf Ways" (Koch, 1997) 12. Kepone -- "Ugly Dance" (1/4 Stick/Touch & Go, 1994) 13. LaBradford -- "Mi Media Naranja" (Kranky, 1997) 14. Los 10 Space -- "Newspaper Rock" (Gem St., 1994) 15. One Ring Zero -- "One Ring Zero" (Planetary, 1999) 16. Rah-Bras -- "Let Us Concentrate to Listen to the Rondo that We Christen King Speed" (Lovitt Construction, 1997) 17. The Seymores -- "Treat Her Like a Showcat" (Vernon Yard/Caroline, 1998) 18. Rebby Sharp -- "In One Mouth and Out the Other" (Shimmy Disc, 1990) 19. Sparklehorse -- "Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot" (Capitol, 1996) 20. Trouble With Larry -- "Trouble With Larry" (Good Kitty, 1992) 

Written and sung by Robert Williams and his trio, the Groovers. Recorded in 1959 in the back of Archie Elkin's Broad Street record store as part of a deal with the Sinshimer brothers who owned Richmond's Tip Top Records.