My feeble attempt at documenting my record collection and music obsession.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Thomas Group I've Got No More To Say & Then It Begins
I continue my P.F. Sloan & Steve Barri week with the son of Danny Thomas. Seems like children of actors sure had the connections to get signed to labels. I always thought this was a catchy double sided 45. Has that Dunhill sound.
Thanks to the Internet, I've been listening to their singles one by one. Sloan-Barri re-used a lot of their songs trying to get a hit single. The best versions are often by this group.
Greg Gilford, lead vocalist, Thomas Group: thanks for your take on 'best versions' of Phil Sloan's songs. It was very cool working with him, learned so much from him. He'd arrange the backing vocals right in the vocal session, and he and me and Barri would record them. My favorite vocal session was for No More To Say. Some great vocal parts there. Phil was the most talented guy I ever worked with in the record business. Just so you know, if you haven't heard it, our 45 single released prior to No More To Say/Then It Begins, a song called Autumn, was, as you pointed out, re-used (not by Sloan-Barri themselves, but) by Trousdale Music, Lou Adler/Dunhill Records' publishing co. Lou wanted to get every dollar he could out of every song, plus make more of the songs more popular by whatever group might get a hit with one of them. So, they sent out our 45, "Autumn", to Gary Lewis & The Playboys and the Vogues, among others. And those 2 recorded for their albums, Autumn.
The demo of Autumn that was sent out was performed by Phil Sloan on lead vocal, with him and Barri on harmonies. And, man, if you can find it on Youtube, you'll hear my favorite version of Autumn. Phil's vocal on that is the best, better than the Vogues version because I'll tell ya', imho, I think he had the best lead vocal, in the 1960s, of anyone in the record business, from 1960 through 1966. Farewell, Greg Gilford
Thank you for posting. I love it when artists give some insight to the music I so love. I do as a matter of fact have Autumn as well as Ordinary Girl. Can't believe I posted this one in 2011.
3 comments:
Thanks to the Internet, I've been listening to their singles one by one. Sloan-Barri re-used a lot of their songs trying to get a hit single. The best versions are often by this group.
Greg Gilford, lead vocalist, Thomas Group: thanks for your take on 'best versions' of Phil Sloan's songs. It was very cool working with him, learned so much from him. He'd arrange the backing vocals right in the vocal session, and he and me and Barri would record them. My favorite vocal session was for No More To Say. Some great vocal parts there. Phil was the most talented guy I ever worked with in the record business. Just so you know, if you haven't heard it, our 45 single released prior to No More To Say/Then It Begins, a song called Autumn, was, as you pointed out, re-used (not by Sloan-Barri themselves, but) by Trousdale Music, Lou Adler/Dunhill Records' publishing co. Lou wanted to get every dollar he could out of every song, plus make more of the songs more popular by whatever group might get a hit with one of them. So, they sent out our 45, "Autumn", to Gary Lewis & The Playboys and the Vogues, among others. And those 2 recorded for their albums, Autumn.
The demo of Autumn that was sent out was performed by Phil Sloan on lead vocal, with him and Barri on harmonies. And, man, if you can find it on Youtube, you'll hear my favorite version of Autumn. Phil's vocal on that is the best, better than the Vogues version because I'll tell ya', imho, I think he had the best lead vocal, in the 1960s, of anyone in the record business, from 1960 through 1966. Farewell, Greg Gilford
Thank you for posting. I love it when artists give some insight to the music I so love. I do as a matter of fact have Autumn as well as Ordinary Girl. Can't believe I posted this one in 2011.
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