rare records

Heard To Find: Lazarus – “Stay with Me”

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Artist: Lazarus
Track: “Stay With Me”
Release: Stay With Me (7″)
Year: 1965
Duration: 2:30

Steve McNicol is the pen behind this single. This is also the second version of the song he recorded, with the first one laid down by his previous group, The Rugbys. The Rugbys, featuring Glen Howerton on drums (no not that Glenn Howerton), released two singles in 1968, with “Stay With Me”. The B-side to “Stay With Me” ended up being The Rugbys biggest hit ever, “You, I”.

Before we learn about Steve, though, we should go back a bit further to a man named Shelby Sumpter Singleton. According to the Wikipedia page entry for The Rugbys, Shelby is partially (albeit heavily accused of being) responsible for the demise of the group and lack of success due to not conforming to the trending FM radio styles of the late 1960s. Seems like a bit of a stretch, but I get it. Shelby started out at Mercury Records doing promo and production work in the 1950s. By 1960, he had produced his first big hit, Brook Benton’s “The Boll Weevil Song”.

Shelby worked for Smash Records for 9 years, producing more minor hits, and then in 1962 purchased the master recording of “Hey Paula”. Releasing that single provided him even more clout in the music scene. Four years later, in 1966, he would resign from Mercury to form some of his own labels; including Plantation Records and Amazon Records. Plantation would release the smash single “Harper Valley P.T.A.” by Jeannie C. Riley. This move now made Shelby a big player in the industry. In 1969, Shelby bought Sun Records from Sam Phillips and began reissuing many of the old hits from that catalog throughout the 70s.

Elvis Presley was one of the most famous Sun artists and Shelby knew that. Shelby was the guy behind the infamous Orion, the masked Elvis lookalike claiming to be the King-reborn. Well, sort of claiming. People just drew those conclusions themselves and Shelby ran with it.

So now that we know who Shelby is, let’s dig in to “Stay With Me” a bit. This recording is the Lazarus version, which from what I can tell is not quite the same band as The Rugbys but must share some similar personnel. The re-recording is almost identical to the original one, other than the splash of acid that’s been laid over the top of it. The original has that mid-sixties garage band sound, and the later version is a bit more psyched out, which a guitar solo and horns added.

The B-side to “Stay With Me” is…”Stay With Me”. I cannot tell the difference between the two recordings, so I’ll assume they are the same track. According to Discogs, it is the same recording.

In 2007, Garage Hangover did a write up of The Rugbys that talked about their history as a band, starting out as The Oxfords. Rugbys/Lazarus lead guitarist and songwriter Steve McNicol actually dropped into the blog to respond and provide some more info. A handful of people close to him and the Louisville ’60s scene also dropped in to add to the thread. Steve died in 2018, but his niece added her thoughts on the group’s legacy to that same thread afterward.

In honor of McNicols and Shelby Singleton, let’s give “Stay With Me” one more spin. Thanks for reading!

Heard To Find: The Dynettes – “Witness To A Heartbreak”

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Artist: The Dynettes
Track: “Witness To A Heartbreak”
Release: New Guy / Witness To A Heartbreak (7″)
Year: 1965
Duration: 2:30

Maurice Williams scored a huge hit in 1960 when he and The Zodiacs put out the single “Stay”. At just 1:36 in length, the single would become the shortest song to ever reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the United States. After groups like The Hollies and The Four Seasons laid down their own versions of the song and pushed it into an international audience, Maurice & The Zodiacs would reap the benefits. Jackson Browne interpolated it into the finale of his 1978 masterpiece album Running On Empty as “The Load Out / Stay” which again brought the song to new audiences. It wasn’t until the song’s inclusion on the 1987 soundtrack to the film Dirty Dancing, though, that it would sell it’s highest amount of copies.

In 1965, Maurice wrote and arranged a pair of tracks for the girl group The Dynettes to record. I can’t seem to find much on The Dynettes individually, but as the record suggests the song was recorded in Chicago, Illinois around 1964 under the production of Bill “Bunky” Sheppard. According to the comments section of this Nerdtorious.com post, the lead singer’s name was Idella and she was last known to reside in Charlotte, North Carolina. That’s it. That’s all I can find, and that’s assuming the comment is legit.

As for the song itself, it bounces along like a lollipoppy, mid-60s soul jam with a nice, clean guitar chasing the messy drumbeat backed up by an organ and a call and response type vocal setting. It’s a shame this one didn’t make it further up the charts.

I’m sure the saturation of sixties girl groups made for a challenge for anyone to break through to fame, especially with the absolute domination from Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound groups.

The A-side, “New Guy” is another gem, this time with a more up-tempo approach. I love how the deep horns back up the girls’ vocals in start contrast. This song could easily be found on a movie montage or soundtrack. Something Summer-y.

The Constellation Records catalog has all kinds of hidden soul gems from 1964-65 and you can currently find the Constellation of Rhythm & Blues compilation on streaming services. Give it a dig sometime, these songs are the epitome of “lost treasures”. Instead of posting links to just the Dynettes’ music, here’s the full compilation.

Heard To Find: Zap – “Football Stomp”

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Artist: Zap
Track:“Football Stomp”
Release: Don’t Wanna Play / Football Stomp (7″)
Year: 1975
Duration: 3:14

Side B: “Football Stomp”

Back in 1975, Walter Kahn was riding the success of his Grammy-winning production of the single “Love Me Like A Rock” by The Dixie Hummingbirds. The Dixie Hummingbirds had recorded the Paul Simon-penned track with Paul at Muscle Shoals in 1973, but wanted to record their own version. Shortly after recording the original with Paul, they did just that. The Hummingbirds’ version won them a Grammy for Best Gospel Performance in 1974, with Walter getting an award for producing it. In 1975, Walter wrote, arranged, and produced a few singles for Grand Prix Records featuring studio musicians under fake band names like QVRS and Zap. A couple of these singles were sports themed, including the disco dance novelty tune “Phillies Fever” featuring 5 players of the Philadelphia Phillies franchise, Larry Bowa, Mike Schmidt, David Cash, Greg Luzinski and Garry Maddox. Another single, “Don’t Wanna Play”, was backed with the sporty B-side “Football Stomp”. That single flopped, but had very minor success in the Philadelphia area.

Later in Kahn’s career, he hit #1 on the Billboard Top Dance Singles chart with his production of The Movement’s 1992 Jock Jams-destined hit “Jump!“.

Continuing on with the hip-hop/dance inspired work, he would end up earning another Grammy nomination in 1995 for producing rapper Skee-Lo’s single “I Wish“.

Back to the “Stomp”, though. The song is a power pop ode to the NFL and that’s about as much as you can squeeze out of it. Towards the end of the song, Zap sings aloud all of the current NFL teams at the time, many of which sound like made up teams considering all of the expansion and city-hopping the league has done over the years. The Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers would arrive the following year in 1976, along with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers, Baltimore Ravens, and Houston Texans in the years to come, but this 1975 snapshot serves a nostalgic glimpse into the days of yesteryear.

Side A: “Don’t Wanna Play”

The A-side, “Don’t Wanna Play” is a standard mid-70s pop rock song and isn’t nearly as remarkable as “Football Stomp”. There’s pretty much no way to market “Football Stomp” as a single, though, so it’s understandable.

Regardless of my or your opinion of the songs, I’d like to thank Walter and the rest of the production crew for putting this out. It was well worth the listen!